Archive for August, 2021
28th August 2021
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Today in Progressive Totalitarianism
28th August 2021
Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | Comments Off on Today in Black Privilege
28th August 2021
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Today in Global Warming Hysteria
28th August 2021
Posted in The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | Comments Off on Today in Witch-Hunt Culture
28th August 2021
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Today in the Biden-Harris Slow-Motion Train Wreck
28th August 2021
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This is from New York Magazine, pillar of the Narrative Media, so bear that in mind. But even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then, and this appears to be one of those.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Glenn Greenwald Speaks Truth to Reply Guys
28th August 2021
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Electric Vehicle Fire Catastrophe: It Is Not a Matter of If, but When
28th August 2021
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The pandemic was supposed to prove the value of public health institutions like the CDC; instead, it exposed their inability to deal with a serious pandemic without serious errors. Tyler Cowen, a professor of economics at George Mason University, worries that these failures have a deeper cause: as the citizens of countries like the United States come to trust each other less and less, they are increasingly incapable of meeting the big challenges that await them.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Why Governments Fail
28th August 2021
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Elwartowski is dressed, per his trademark style, in a Hawaiian shirt, a look that seems to convert his every setting into cheerful paradise. Affable, clean-shaven, and still boyish at 47, he is one of the most devoted members of a strange global tribe: seasteaders, as they call themselves, believe the answer to some of life’s most pressing problems is to build new cities on the ocean. Global poverty, health crises, environmental challenges: these issues might all be fixed out there, along Earth’s last (mostly) unclaimed frontier. According to seasteading logic, the current crop of land-based governments is not serving the world—and by breaking away and starting afresh, we might build a better society.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on The Quest for a Floating Utopia
28th August 2021
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The FBI released documents sought related to the death of former Democrat National Committee voter expansion data director Seth Rich, and a lawyer says it shows no signs of what has been considered a robbery murder.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Lawyer: FBI’s Seth Rich Docs Show Robbery Narrative ‘Failing Apart’
28th August 2021
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Gerard Araud, the outspoken former French ambassador recently tweeted that “Afghanistan will go back to its geopolitical destiny, being a buffer state and a marginal backwater. Any country which forgets it is doomed to fail.” That is almost certainly true; in foreign policy and military grand-strategy, geography is often destiny.
But this most recent Afghanistan war may also go down in history as one of the consequential ones. Quite possibly one of the most paradigm-shifting events this century. Because Afghanistan throws open many more questions about contemporary social science than it provides answers for. It is the graveyard not just of empires – a rhetorical cliché even a neoconservative should grasp – but rather the place and the idea of the place is the graveyard of ideologies.
Afghanistan stands as a living refutation of the Progressive dogma that people are infinitely malleable and can be lathed into whatever sort of Model Citizen one wants merely by applying money and propaganda.
Posted in Living with Islam: The world's most intolerant—and intolerable—religion | Comments Off on Liberalism’s Graveyard
28th August 2021
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Convenience sometimes comes with risks that are not always apparent.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Scanning QR Codes in Restaurants: Why a Meal May Cost You Your Privacy
28th August 2021
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Kudos to ABC News for reporting true news that hurts their party. A group of volunteers, retired and active duty special operators and intelligence field officers, has apparently launched a successful covert mission that rescued 500 Afghans who had helped the American special operations community over the past 20 years. Men and their wives and children were quietly moved through the streets and then entered the Kabul airport perimeter through sewer culverts. These American heroes were not in uniform and apparently were not carrying weapons as they bluffed their way past Taliban checkpoints with their protectees. The mission name: “Pineapple Express.”
Posted in Is this a great country, or what? | Comments Off on Real American Heroes
28th August 2021
Joel Kotkin.
For years progressives, neo-conservatives, libertarians and business “visionaries” embraced the notion of inexorable progress leading humanity to more enlightened times. Optimistic notions about an “arc of history” bending toward greater prosperity and social justice were embraced by both President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama. But these days, the arc of progress seems to have done an about face and become something of a circle, bending all the way back to autocracy and intolerance, while the optimism of the Bush or Obama years appears more naïve in retrospect with every passing day.
Indeed, “the notion of inexorable progress leading humanity to more enlightened times” is the very foundation of the progressive ideology; to the extent that ‘neo-conservatives’, ‘libertarians’, or ‘business visionaries’ embrace it, they signal that they are neither conservative, libertarian, nor visionary. The progessive icon of ‘the Right Side of History’ has become the new Golden Calf toward which all are expected to bow, and in whose honor all are expected to dance.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on It’s Not Just the Taliban: We in the West Are Embracing Medievalism, Too
28th August 2021
John Hinderaker at Power Line.
As the Afghanistan debacle has unfolded, I have been following the coverage in various foreign newspapers. The coverage I have seen has been harshly critical of the Biden administration, to a degree that more or less equals what we see in the conservative press here in the U.S.
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on How Others See Us
28th August 2021
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The NYT is much less enthusiastic about RFK assassination conspiracy theorizing than the Washington Post.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Parole Board Votes to Spring Sirhan Sirhan
28th August 2021
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Nothing to see here! Move along, move along….
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Report: Wisconsin Lost Track of 82,000 Ballots in State Biden Won by 20,000
28th August 2021
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The US drone strike in Afghanistan targeted a mid-level “planner” from the Islamic State’s local affiliate who was travelling in a car with one other person near the eastern city of Jalalabad, US official sources said on Saturday.
The strike came two days after Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP) claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing outside Kabul airport, as western forces running the airlift braced for more attacks.
Posted in Living with Islam: The world's most intolerant—and intolerable—religion | Comments Off on Afghanistan Drone Strike Targeted Islamic State ‘Planner’ in Car, US Says
28th August 2021
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
27th August 2021
Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | Comments Off on Today in Black Privilege
27th August 2021
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Today in the Biden-Harris Slow-Motion Train Wreck
27th August 2021
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Today in Progressive Totalitarianism
27th August 2021
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Today in Global Warming Hysteria
27th August 2021
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2021 Chicago Council Survey data show a majority of Americans support a range of US policies towards Taiwan: recognition as an independent country, inclusion in international organizations, and a US-Taiwan free trade agreement.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on For First Time, Half of Americans Favor Defending Taiwan If China Invades
27th August 2021
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I frequently listen to Scott Adams’s daily blog — Coffee with Scott Adams. He presents an interesting take on the news of the day and analyzes how persuasive (or not) are certain techniques employed in news outlet propaganda. His audience skews conservative but Adams (provocatively) claims to “be left of Bernie”. In reality, all Adams is doing is promoting critical thinking whether you agree with his particular take on current events. Mrs Rodin, when she listens with me, treats Adam’s coffee klatch as a melodrama. Adams is capable of (frequently) sharing viewpoints with which Mrs Rodin (and others in his audience) do not agree and to which she voices her displeasure.
All this is by way of introduction: Adams’ view on “the Big Lie” (reformulated by Adams a la Trump as “that Biden won”) is that election fraud was not only probable but inevitable. Quoting Adams from memory, “Any system designed to be un-auditable will be used to cheat.” Or words to that effect. Adams does not direct this charge solely to the 2020 general election — it is a general observation true of everything.
I watch Coffee With Scott Adams every day. $7 a month to Locals will allow you to access the recorded videocasts asynchronously. Highly recommended.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Corruption Conundrum
27th August 2021
“Instapundit” Glenn Harlan Reynolds.
In recent years, there have been a lot of catchphrases around science: “Follow the science!” “We believe in science!” Even “The science is settled!”
Well, sometimes it’s not settled. Sometimes it’s not even really science. But lots of people believe in it or follow it anyway. It’s a global problem.
Most recently, we learned that a widely noticed 2012 study co-authored by Dan Ariely — whom the journal Science refers to as a “superstar honesty researcher” — was based on fake data.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on We’re told to ‘follow the science’ — yet some of it is just plain wrong
27th August 2021
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When it opened 2 1/2 years ago near the Hudson River, the 150-foot-tall (46-meter-tall) piece of public art known as the Vessel looked like another surefire Manhattan tourist draw. It’s a strange honeycomb of platforms and staircases, partially ringed by skyscrapers, offered striking views of the waterfront and quickly became an Instagram favorite.
But these days it stands closed and empty, its entrances blocked off with chains or metal barricades, after a 14-year-old boy last month became the fourth person to fatally leap from the sculpture.
The death on July 29, a mere two months after the sculpture had reopened following previous suicides, has reinvigorated a call for real estate developer Related Companies to raise the height of the waist-high railings on the sides of the stairs and platforms.
Think of it as evolution in action.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on A Struggle to Prevent Suicides at Soaring NYC Sculpture
27th August 2021
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
27th August 2021
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The long-term consequences of the collapse of Afghanistan will naturally take time to come into focus. But it seems unlikely that they will be associated with “success”. Already it seems inevitable that America’s enemies — in particular China — will have noted how easy it is to push around the world’s superpower. Meanwhile, America’s allies now face challenges of their own; the EU and UK now surely know that they need to be more operationally adept, capable of doing basic things like holding an airport without requiring the support of the US.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Will Europe Survive Another Migrant Crisis?
27th August 2021
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WaterPod is a sustainable floating pod that turns seawater into drinking water through a natural desalination process.
I’m curious as to what exactly ‘sustainable’ means in this context. Won’t ever sink? Will hold you up if you’re drowning? Provides emergency cash when you need it?
UPDATE: Can Desalination Save Us from Water Scarcity?
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on WaterPod
27th August 2021
Steve Sailer.
Back in 2019, Michelle Obama’s old chief of staff Tina Tchen was a regular iSteve newsmaker for being involved in various sordid Democrat inside baseball goings-on. For example, when legendary SPLC co-founder Morris Dees got fired, presumably for being an elderly horndog, the SPLC board promised that the saintly Ms. Tchen would do a thorough investigation and then publish a full investigation. It’s been two and a half years but still no report.
And then Tchen helped get Jussie Smollett of with a slap on the wrist.
But now she’s in bad odor with the media for trying to help out Andrew Cuomo when ex. Gov. Moe Syzslak got Me-Tooed for what seemed to be at a quick scan to be mostly Al Franken-level offenses.
Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | Comments Off on The Fall of Tina Tchen
27th August 2021
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Pakistan publicized the recent delivery of a list of Pakistan Taliban leaders to the Afghan Taliban leaders and requested that the Afghan Taliban “persuade” those Pakistan Taliban leaders to surrender. Demanding that the Afghan Taliban attack the Pakistan Taliban is a more difficult ask. The Pakistan Taliban, locally known as TTP (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan) are about a third the size of the Afghan Taliban and are opposed to the drug cartels that finance the Afghan Taliban. TTP also contains a lot of al Qaeda groups that joined because that appears to be the best way to overthrow the Pakistan government.
Posted in Living with Islam: The world's most intolerant—and intolerable—religion | Comments Off on India-Pakistan: Desperate for a Victory
27th August 2021
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If I were a Marxist, I might be tempted to say that the obligatory switch to electric cars is a conspiracy of the rich against the poor to enslave them yet further. (By the poor, I mean of course the relatively poor, not the absolutely destitute.)
Many of the relatively poor have old, cheap, and no doubt polluting vehicles. Many of these poor need such vehicles to go wherever they need to go. Tradesmen and craftsmen in a small way of business often have old diesel vans that will soon be prohibited; they will have to replace them with far more expensive electric types. This will have the great advantage of forcing them either to indebt themselves in order to buy them, or to go out of business altogether, thus leaving the field to larger businesses. This would be but a small step in the march to monopoly that the Marxists predict.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Auto Focus
27th August 2021
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I’m working on a theory of the case that somehow the COVID fiasco and the Afghanistan fiasco are clearly linked at some metaphysical level. And why didn’t we just have the wit to threaten the Taliban with unleashing COVID on them if they didn’t cooperate? Funny how we don’t hear anything about the COVID risks of the evacuation. Are people being tested at the airport?
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on The Geek in Pictures: COVID-Stan Edition
26th August 2021
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Today in Global Warming Hysteria
26th August 2021
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Today in Progressive Totalitarianism
26th August 2021
Posted in The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | Comments Off on Today in Witch-Hunt Culture
26th August 2021
Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | Comments Off on Today in Black Privilege
26th August 2021
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Pandemic Panic – It’s Titanic
26th August 2021
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Today in the Biden-Harris Slow-Motion Train Wreck
26th August 2021
Victor Davis Hanson.
For nearly two years, Americans have engaged in a great woke experiment of cannibalizing themselves. American civilization has invested massive labor, capital, and time in an effort to constantly flagellate itself for not being perfect.
Yet America’s resilience and its resources are not infinite. We are now beginning to see the consequences of what happens when premodern tribalism absorbs Americans.
There are repercussions when ideology governs policy or when we take for granted the basics of life to pursue its trappings.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Does America Still Work?
26th August 2021
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How long before this is what, say, California looks like? Or New York City?
(American solution: “Don Vincenzo, I have a stone in my shoe.”)
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on The Hard Men Removing Squatters in Spain
26th August 2021
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Three months after the end of its May conflict with Israel, Hamas has returned to its familiar ways of constant attrition, violent extortion, and “controlled escalation” tactics. Hamas has launched violent border disturbances again and authorized the release of arson balloons designed to harass and damage southern Israeli communities located close to the Strip. Recent years have shown that these measures, designed to ‘pressure’ Israel into concessions, can quickly spiral out of control and result in war.
Hamas’s escalation ostensibly stems from its objective of forcing Israel into a broader post-conflict arrangement, which would include allowing greater quantities of goods into the Strip, reconstruction of damaged areas in Gaza, and additional measures.
Posted in Living with Islam: The world's most intolerant—and intolerable—religion | Comments Off on Hamas Escalates Again as it Plays the Long, Radical Game
26th August 2021
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At the University of Texas at Austin, where professors have repeatedly and unsuccessfully pushed for an indoor mask mandate, vaccine requirement and regular testing, one policy adds insult to injury: the university says that faculty members and programs may offer nonacademic incentives of up to $50 each to students to get them to wear masks in class, but it’s not footing the bill for any of these rewards.
OF COURSE the Professors want to put the burden of keeping themselves safe on the students. Don’ they know who we are?
Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | Comments Off on Paying for Their Own Safety
26th August 2021
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
26th August 2021
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New research from the Boston Fed argues that the racial wealth gap may be smaller and more stable than thought.
Posted in The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | Comments Off on Do the Rich Always Get Richer?
26th August 2021
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“The distinction between the past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion,” Albert Einstein wrote. Perhaps this is nowhere more evident than in protein evolution, where past and present versions of the same enzyme exist in different species today, with implications for future enzyme design. Now, researchers have used evolutionary “time travel” to learn how an enzyme evolved over time, from one of Earth’s most ancient organisms to modern-day humans.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Evolutionary “Time Travel” Reveals Enzyme’s Origins, From One of Earth’s Most Ancient Organisms
26th August 2021
CNN.
Apparently they skipped the mandatory Diversity & Inclusion classes that the Taliban, like all Right Thinking People, mandate for their personnel.
Posted in Living with Islam: The world's most intolerant—and intolerable—religion | Comments Off on Taliban Tell Afghan Women to Stay Home From Work Because Soldiers Are ‘not trained’ to Respect Them
25th August 2021
Joel Kotkin.
The very idea of a recall vote seemed absurd at first in California, this bluest of US states. Yet Californians’ surprisingly strong support for the removal of Democratic governor Gavin Newsom has resulted in precisely that, with the vote scheduled for 14 September. This reflects a stunning rejection of modern progressivism in a state thought to epitomise its promise.
Some, like the University of California’s Laura Tyson and former Newsom adviser Lenny Mendonca, may see California as creating ‘the way forward’ for a more enlightened ‘market capitalism’, but that reality is hard to see on the ground. Even before the pandemic, California already had the highest poverty rate and the widest gap between middle and upper-middle income earners of any state in the US. It now suffers from the second-highest unemployment rate in the US after Nevada.
Today, class drives Californian politics, and Newsom is peculiarly ill-suited to deal with it. He is financed by what the Los Angeles Times describes as ‘a coterie of San Francisco’s wealthiest families’. Newsom’s backers have aided his business ventures and helped him live in luxury – first in his native Marin, where he just sold his estate for over $6million, and now in Sacramento.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Progressives Have Ruined California
25th August 2021
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Today in Progressive Totalitarianism