Archive for February, 2021
10th February 2021
Scott Alexander.
Klein calls this “the Democratic party more successfully resisting polarization”, and thinks of this as related to structural differences between the two parties. He says that the Republican Party represents the modal American on various characteristics, eg Christian (the most common religion), white (the most common race), straight (the most common sexual orientation), etc, whereas the Democrats represent everyone else (eg Muslims, Jews, atheists, and every minority religion; blacks, Asians, Hispanics, and every minority race; etc). That means the Republicans are more ideologically uniform – Christians are genuinely similar to other Christians, but Jews are only superficially similar to Muslims by virtue of their non-Christianness. That means ideology can’t really capture the Democratic Party in the same way it captures the Republican Party. One point kind of in support of this – ask Democrats their favorite news source, and you get a long tail of stuff (most popular is CNN at 15%, then NPR at 13%, and so on). But ask conservatives and it’s dominated by FOX (47%). Does this lack of news-source diversity reflect a lack of ideological diversity? Could be.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Book Review: Why We’re Polarized, by Ezra Klein
10th February 2021
Freeberg nails it.
Leftists who want to have all the election fraud evidence lined up so they can knock it over item by item by item, are just adorable. It looks like they want to debunk just three to five items — to their own satisfaction, not to anybody else’s — announce their check-mate, and if they don’t get immediate capitulation, announce to everyone in earshot something like “See? Nothing will ever convince this guy.”
They don’t understand. There are five big bundles of evidence.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on What’s Most Convincing
10th February 2021
Read it.
wo professional football teams left New York for another state – but the New York Stock Exchange? That is a possibility if the Empire State imposes a transfer tax on stock sales, according to the exchange’s president.
In a Tuesday op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, NYSE President Stacey Cunningham said she and 25 other representatives of New York’s securities industry sent a letter to state legislative leaders warning against the unintended consequences of imposing such a tax.
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Proposed Stock-Transfer Tax Could Send NYSE Packing
9th February 2021
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Today in Progressive Totalitarianism
9th February 2021
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Today in the Biden-Harris Slow-Motion Train Wreck
9th February 2021
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Today in Global Warming Hysteria
9th February 2021
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Pandemic Panic – It’s Titanic
9th February 2021
Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | Comments Off on Today in Black Privilege
9th February 2021
Read it.
The latest fundraising plea from Democratic congresswoman Cheri Bustos tells potential donors their money is desperately needed to fund struggling post offices—but every dollar raised is going straight to her campaign.
A Sunday email from Bustos, an Illinois lawmaker who was chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee last cycle, painted a dire picture of operations at the USPS, and begged recipients to chip in. “We need EVERYONE reading this email to do their part to help us raise $3,420 TODAY and save USPS,” Bustos wrote in the fundraising email, pointing to an NPR report on mail delivery delays. “Please chip in $5 or whatever you can afford right now.”
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Dem Cheri Bustos Diverts Post Office Aid Cash to Own Campaign
9th February 2021
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Politicians are congenitally susceptible to Magical Thinking: Oh, we’ll just pass a law and everything will turn out better! Well, the Real World has other ideas. And when the Real World comes into conflict with Political Handwavium, the unexpected consequences can be a stone-cold bitch.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on 6 Bleak Consequences from CBO’s Report on the $15 Minimum Wage
9th February 2021
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Why don’t they just day ‘Democrats’ and get it over with?
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Pseudophilosophy Encourages Confused, Self-Indulgent Thinking
9th February 2021
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
9th February 2021
ZMan points a finger.
In the case of the ongoing pogroms against white people, there is not much talk about who is responsible for it. Part of that is due to the prohibitions against white people talking about being white. One of the great ironies of this crisis is that the media is filled with invective about white people, but you will never see a white person start a sentence with “as a white person.” Whiteness is a thing that is only allowed to be a hobgoblin in the minds and mouths of the anti-whites.
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This is why the anti-white pogroms have met so little resistance thus far. On the one hand you have the taboo against white people taking their own side. On the other hand, you have the face of the anti-white program being white or white presenting. If all of the anti-whites were black, then the problem of assigning blame would be simpler, but the leading anti-whites are almost always a pale face. The chief racketeer in the grievance rackets is a white woman named Robin DiAngelo.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Who’s To Blame?
9th February 2021
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s you all know by now, Time magazine recently published an article entitled “The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election”, which basically owns up to all the things that “conspiracy theorists” said the Left did to swing the presidential election to Joe Biden. Yes, it stops short of acknowledging all those hastily manufactured mail-in ballots that were trucked in at the last moment and run through counting machines multiple times. But it describes everything else we deplorables have been saying about what happened — the media manipulation, the alliance between the hard Left and major corporations, etc.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on The Mad Dog Election
9th February 2021
Audacious Epigone runs the numbers.
Apropos a discussion in a recent comment thread regarding political orientation, race, and intelligence, let’s take a look at what the GSS offers us.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Verbal Intelligence by Race and Political Orientation
9th February 2021
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The “resignation” of star New York Times science writer Donald McNeil Jr. has sparked a furious back-and-forth among Times staffers, many of whom are outraged over the Gray Lady’s handling of his departure.
The Washington Free Beacon reviewed a series of postings to a Facebook group for current and former Times staffers, where a tense debate is unfolding over McNeil’s exit. One camp argues that his dismissal was justified and another asserts it set a troubling precedent, which the New York Times union should have done more to prevent.
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on New York Times Meltdown Plays Out in Private Facebook Group
8th February 2021
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Joe Biden is a corrupt politician of the old-fashioned variety. He has no fixed convictions about anything. That’s why he has been on both sides of so many important issues.
Biden has never been in the business of accumulating power in service of a policy agenda. He has always been in the business of accumulating power to feed his ego and enrich the Biden family.
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on The Biden Family Business
8th February 2021
Read it.
Thank you, President Trump.
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on US Celebrates First Full Year Without Combat Death in Afghanistan
8th February 2021
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Today in the Biden-Harris Slow-Motion Train Wreck
8th February 2021
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Today in Global Warming Hysteria
8th February 2021
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Today in Progressive Totalitarianism
8th February 2021
Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | Comments Off on Today in Black Privilege
8th February 2021
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Pandemic Panic – It’s Titanic
8th February 2021
Read it.
The ‘gender reveal’ trend appears to be counter-evolutionary. The kid will discover the challenges of being an orphan.
Posted in You can't make this stuff up. | Comments Off on Baby Shower Cannon Explosion Kills Michigan Man
8th February 2021
The Other McCain points and laughs.
Timothy Wilks had a great idea for a YouTube prank — fake a robbery by charging at people with a giant knife. The result wasn’t funny.
Think of it as evolution in action.
Posted in You can't make this stuff up. | Comments Off on YouTuber Wins Darwin Award
8th February 2021
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I suspect that removing the humans from the process is designed to insulate against charges of racism.
If it has the added benefit of selecting intelligent over unintelligent people, that’s gravy.
Posted in Think about it. | 1 Comment »
8th February 2021
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
8th February 2021
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Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg wants to make the United States the “global leader” in high-speed rail. That’s like wanting to be the world leader in electric typewriters, rotary telephones, or steam locomotives, all technologies that were once revolutionary but are functionally obsolete today.
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | 2 Comments »
7th February 2021
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Today in Progressive Totalitarianism
7th February 2021
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Today in the Biden-Harris Slow-Motion Train Wreck
7th February 2021
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Pandemic Panic – It’s Titanic
7th February 2021
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Today in Global Warming Hysteria
7th February 2021
Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | Comments Off on Today in Black Privilege
7th February 2021
Check it out.
I like it, but I can’t see it handling tomatoes or beans or corn.
For hipster staples like kale or arugula it’s probably just the thing.
Posted in News You Can Use. | 1 Comment »
7th February 2021
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Maybe this is a trend. I’m sure that there are a number of California, Oregon, and Washington counties that would rather be a part of, say, Nevada or Idaho. Indeed, I rather suspect that the non-coastal counties of California would rather be their own state.
UPDATE: Texas Republicans endorse legislation to allow vote on secession from US That didn’t work out so well the last time.
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Governor Mark Gordon Throws Support Behind Colorado County That Wants to Secede, Join Wyoming
7th February 2021
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Rather than leaving your money to your kids (or, God forbid, charity), Democrats will force you to leave it to somebody (anybody) else’s kid. What’s not to like?
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Estate Tax Hike May Help Fund Cory Booker, Ayanna Presley Plan to Give $1,000 to Each Newborn
7th February 2021
Read it.
Works for me.
Roger Scruton liked to say the the core of the contemporary left is a “culture of repudiation,” in which the inheritances of our civilization must be denied and rubbished precisely because it is our civilization, rather than the imaginary one of the left’s making.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Time to Close Public Schools Forever?
7th February 2021
Read it.
“How To” books are a dime a dozen and cover every imaginable topic, or so it seems. But one might think another genre would also be popular, even important: “How Not To” publications. That advice can often prove more valuable. It can at least help one avoid missteps.
Take the role of White House Press Secretary, filled since January 20th by former Obama Administration Communications Director Jennifer Psaki. I’ve never seen so many rookie mistakes in a spokesperson in a relatively short time, even while granting her some grace for being “in the arena” in one of the toughest White House jobs, even while performing before a friendly, even fawning audience.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on How Not To Be a Press Secretary
7th February 2021
ZMan nails it.
There are many things that one can point to in the current age as the cause of what we are experiencing. Social crisis is always the result of many factors. There is never one single cause. Even so, examining the individual causes has some utility. It helps provide a little sanity for those living through it. If nothing else, it is like the band playing on the Titanic in that if provides those who are condemned to live through the crisis with a bit of dignity as they sink into the abyss.
Anyway, one of the things that has made modern life such a mess is the vast chorus of nitwits who fill our lives with their voices. They repeat whatever has been placed in their hymnals by people with agendas. One person says something that gets them some attention and then everyone repeats it. The thing is, these people position themselves as authorities on various topics, so when they repeat what they hear, they inevitably lend authority to it. The fact is, they know not what they say
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Few people in any type of media job have ever worked in the dreaded private sector.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Media Man
7th February 2021
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The coming wave of digital regulation may claim to target “Big Tech” but will inevitably end up harming citizen-innovators most because regulators have forgotten to include them in their process.
No government has yet succeeded in writing a law that manages to hit the assholes and miss the heroes.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on The Missing Stakeholders
7th February 2021
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That’s what you get for putting your new high-tech toy in your shirt pocket.
Think of it as evolution in action.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Henry Ford Cardiologists Find iPhone 12 Deactivates Implantable Cardiac Devices
7th February 2021
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Not to mention vulnerability to any jihadist with an airplane. Yeah, it attracts attention, but the military has a technical term for ‘attracting attention’: It’s called ‘drawing fire’ and that’s not a good thing.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on The Downside to Life in a Supertall Tower: Leaks, Creaks, Breaks
7th February 2021
Scott Alexander.
In most journalistic settings, you can’t just write “here’s what I think”. You have to write “here’s what my source, a recognized expert, said when I interviewed them”. And the experts are pretty sparing with their interviews for contrarian stories.
The way my correspondent described it: sources don’t usually get to approve the way they’re quoted in an article, or to see it before it gets published. So they’re really cagey about saying anything that might get misinterpreted. Maybe their real opinion is that X is a hard question, there are good points on both sides, but overall they think it probably isn’t true. But if a reporter wants to write “X Is Dumb And All Epidemiologists Are Idiots For Believing It”, they can slice and dice your interview until your cautiously-skeptical-of-X statement sounds like you’re backing them up. So experts end up paranoid about saying potentially-controversial-sounding things to reporters. And since reporters can’t write without sources, it’s hard for them to write anything controversial about epidemiology.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Journalism and Legible Expertise
7th February 2021
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
6th February 2021
Scarborough Slams Evangelicals For ‘Bizarre, Bizarre, Bizarre’ Concern About Abortion
NBC Hails 50 Years of Doonesbury Comic’s Left-Wing Hackery
What Ulysses Grant Can Teach Joe Biden About Putting Down Violent Insurrections (Politico)
Crowdfunding hate: How white supremacists and other extremists raise money from legions of online followers (USA Today)
College Scales Back ‘Bias Response’ Teams After Legal Challenge
French President ‘Very Upset’ Big Tech Undemocratically Censored Trump, His Supporters
Man Convicted Of Double-Murder Approved For Parole Eligibility, Prosecutors Barred From Hearing Under LA’s New Laws
Minnesota Governor Signs Executive Order To Activate National Guard A Month Ahead Of Former Minneapolis Officer Derek Chauvin’s Trial
NYT Reporter Originally Given ‘Another Chance’ Forced Out After Co-Workers Express Outrage To Managers When the Mob comes for you, you don’t get another chance.
Fox News Cancels Host Lou Dobbs’ Show
House Republicans Say Pelosi Broke Her Own Rules And Bypassed Metal Detectors, Demand She Be Fined
House Impeachment Brief Against Trump Threatens Freedom Of Speech Of All Americans: Dershowitz
PolitiFact Warps Reality About Left-Wing Activist Inciting Capitol Riot
David Hogg To Release Line Of Extra-Absorbent Pillows For Liberal Tears Babylon Bee.
PolitiFact, AP, WashPost Leap to Defend AOC’s Riot Claims; CNN’s Alone in Flagging Her a Bit
Two House Republicans Introduce Bill Named After Ilhan Omar, Whose Campaign Paid Millions To Her Husband’s Firm
Super Bowl Halftime Show To Feature Robin DiAngelo Reading ‘White Fragility’ Not the Babylon Bee.
Romney’s Child Tax-Credit Plan Hailed as Ambitious, Innovative Romney cements his membership in the vote-buying government-dependent-creating ruling class. Next up: Universal Basic Income.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Today in Progressive Totalitarianism
6th February 2021
Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | Comments Off on Today in Black Privilege
6th February 2021
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Pandemic Panic – It’s Titanic
6th February 2021
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Today in Global Warming Hysteria
6th February 2021
Biden Bars “Erratic” Trump From Receiving Intel Briefings Customary For Former Presidents
US Reversing Iran-Backed Houthi Movement’s Terrorist Group Designation
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Today in the Biden-Harris Slow-Motion Train Wreck
6th February 2021
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One of Facebook’s original Oversight Board members tasked with handing down binding rulings on content moderation is leaving to join the Justice Department. The move marks a growing pattern of Facebook employees adding to the ranks of the Biden administration.
“Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.” Luke 16:9
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Facebook Oversight Board Member Joins Biden DOJ