18th July 2023
Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | Comments Off on Today in BIPOC Privilege
18th July 2023
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Today in the Biden-Harris Slow-Motion Train Wreck
18th July 2023
Posted in The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | Comments Off on Today in Witch-Hunt Culture
18th July 2023
Rand Paul lambasts Fauci for getting ‘treated like a president’ with taxpayer-funded security (Fox)
Ex-CDC director says unredacted Fauci gain-of-function email reveals ‘aggressive attempt’ to change narrative (Fox)
Life is about to get much more expensive for millions of families (Axios)
Affordable Diabetes Drug Reduces Long-COVID Risk By 41 Percent: Study
In the Asian Flu of 1957-58, they rejected lockdowns
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Pandemic Panic – It’s Titanic
18th July 2023
The American Mind.
As part of its “celebration of Pride Month,” the Biden-Harris Administration announced that the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) will “appoint a new coordinator to address the growing threat that book bans pose.” The White House alleges that “book bans” can “create a hostile school environment [that] may violate federal civil rights laws.”
The creative new strategy has already been tested in Forsyth County, Georgia, where a federal government investigation found that district-level discussions about not including certain books in school libraries can create a hostile environment for students who associate with the identities portrayed in the materials being challenged. The Biden Administration’s new book czar is likely to launch similar investigations around the country. This will lead to a new level of federal micromanagement of K–12 education, undermining local school districts’ ability to curate educational resources that align with local priorities and sensibilities.
What activists deceptively characterize as “book bans” amount to routine decisions about what to teach or what books to include in school libraries. Asking whether materials are age-inappropriate is the basic, commonsense place to start when curating a library collection or developing a curriculum. Those decisions inevitably lead to including some materials and excluding others. Just as we do not teach calculus to third graders, materials that are pervasively vulgar or developmentally inappropriate for young children should not be acquired in the first place. The limited space on school shelves should be filled with materials that area families believe convey maximum educational benefit to students.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Czar Wars
18th July 2023
Steven Hayward at Power Line.
Every summer we are now treated to “Shark Week” on one of the cable channels, just in time for our beach vacations. And we’re also now treated to “Thermageddon Week” by the climatistas.
Every summer it seems someone discovers that it gets hot. “How hot is it?” (as the crowd would ask Johnny Carson). Always the same answer: Record heat! Climate change. Thermageddon is upon us!
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Thermageddon Week
18th July 2023
The Spectator.
A few years ago, I came across a delightful bit of Americana in Hobart Book Village in the Catskills: Naomi’s Home Companion, a 1997 cookbook/ scrapbook from Naomi Judd, the late matriarch of the famous country music family. Because I’m not a country listener and I don’t eat a lot of meatloaf, I didn’t buy the book, its kitsch appeal notwithstanding. Nineties fashion may be back, but its nutritional standards are permanently out of style. Right?
I thought of that old Naomi Judd book when a new cookbook landed on the New York Times bestseller list: Y’all Eat Yet? Welcome to the Pretty B*tchin’ Kitchen by country music star Miranda Lambert. The book purports to share recipes from Lambert’s downhome roots and humble upbringing in East Texas. Though I was unfamiliar with Lambert’s music, I am a Texas transplant. It’s only right that I honor those who lived in this great state before me. So I queued up a Lambert playlist on Spotify, starting with the title track “Pretty Bitchin’,” and cracked the book.
The premise of Y’all Eat Yet? is similar to the old Judd book’s, though the hairstyles are lower and the tablescapes less gilded. Recipes for humble country food like chili and cornbread, with Tex-Mex additions like enchiladas and migas, mix with photos, memories and tips for entertaining. Lambert frames the book around her grandmother, “Nonny,” her mother, Bev, and her mother’s three best friends. Because Lambert herself “love[s] eating way more than cooking,” she lets her elders shine through fond anecdotes and featured recipes.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Cooking With a Country Music Star
18th July 2023
Dennis Prager.
In February, I was invited along with Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA (TPUSA), and Robert Kiyosaki, author of the bestseller, “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” to speak at Arizona State University at a conference titled “Health, Wealth and Happiness.”
The invitation came from the T.W. Lewis Center for Personal Development, an independent center affiliated with Barrett College, the honors college of ASU.
About a week before the scheduled event, 34 (Ann Atkinson — see below — counted 39) of Barrett College’s 47 faculty members signed a letter to the dean of ASU condemning the event on grounds that Charlie Kirk and I are “white nationalist provocateurs … purveyors of hate who have publicly attacked women, people of color, the LGBTQ community, [and] institutions of our democracy.”
Posted in The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | Comments Off on Meet Some of the 34 Professors Who Protested My Speaking at Arizona State University
18th July 2023
Tom Veal.
The House of Representatives has passed a Defense authorization bill that, if enacted, would end the Pentagon’s policy of free abortions for service members and their families. In response, a spokesman for the National Security Council has declared that access to abortion is “a foundational sacred obligation”.
So much for separation of Church and State.
Posted in Democrats: Party of Plundering and Blundering | Comments Off on Abortion, the Sacrament of the Left
18th July 2023
Erick Erickson.
Inflation numbers are out. Living costs are decreasing, but that does not mean things are cheaper. It just means things are not getting more expensive as quickly as they were. The cost of living is still high, and rental and mortgage prices continue to rise. During these times, the Biden administration has found a new target for their ire: airplane bathrooms.
Over the past few years, morbidly obese and mentally ill TikTok “influencers” have raised a ruckus on airplanes because the aisles are not wide enough, the seats are not big enough, and the bathrooms are not expansive enough for them. In the past few years, airlines have made bathrooms uncomfortably small. But they did so for a specific reason: They needed more seats.
Every seat added to a plane is a reduction in price for travelers. In the ‘70s and early ‘80s, only the rich and business travelers could afford to fly. People dressed up. Meals were served. It was an experience and one that cost a pretty penny. Today, thanks to former President Ronald Reagan’s deregulation plans, air travel has been democratized. It is more cramped. It is more crowded. It has few amenities. But a family of four can now take a trip without taking out a second mortgage. The trade-offs have reduced ticket prices.
The Biden administration, with Vice President Kamala Harris as the frontwoman, wants to mandate larger bathrooms for the small contingent of inconvenienced TikTok influencers of America. Doing so will price the middle class out of air travel. It is all part of the plan. The Biden administration and the Left, in general, are at war with the middle class.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on At War With the Middle Class
18th July 2023
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
17th July 2023
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Pandemic Panic – It’s Titanic
17th July 2023
Posted in The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | Comments Off on Today in Trump Derangement Syndrome
17th July 2023
Minn AG Keith Ellison compares Justice Clarence Thomas to house slave character in blockbuster hit
WATCH: Far-Left Minnesota AG Compares Clarence Thomas to House Slave From ‘Django’
Posted in Dystopia Watch, Whose turn is it to be the victim? | Comments Off on Today in BIPOC Privilege
17th July 2023
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Today in Progressive Totalitarianism
17th July 2023
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Today in the Biden-Harris Slow-Motion Train Wreck
17th July 2023
Posted in The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | Comments Off on Today in Witch-Hunt Culture
17th July 2023
Steven Hayward at Power Line.
John noted yesterday Jen Rubin’s astonishing faceplant in the Washington Post about net migration to Florida, and this is a subject we keep up with closely, so let’s see the latest about California, which may just supply the next Democratic candidate for president.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on The Daily Chart: About Those Interstate Migration Trends
17th July 2023
Read it.
And you know their names.
The U.S. Supreme Court is finished for the term, but questions about accuracy should follow some justices into the next session in October. For example: Was Justice Sonia Sotomayor correct in her description of a key historical event in a recent dissenting opinion—or did she obscure details to suit her purposes? And with the revelation that her colleague, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, incorrectly cited research findings in a dissent, Americans are right to ask whether the justices bend facts to fit their arguments.
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Some Supreme Court Justices Have a Slippery Handle on Facts
17th July 2023
Steve Sailer.
Our society still deems it important that our bridges don’t fall down, but nobody cares anymore about whether are sociologists are any good, unlike a couple of generations ago when Edward Banfield and Father Andrew Greeley helped make sociology cool.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on What if Non-STEM Courses Had to Grade as Hard as STEM Courses?
17th July 2023
ZMan does some analysis.
One of the oddities of the Obama administration was that it seemed as if they were working from a list of wrongs they were determined to right. Those wrongs were what the Left counted as their failures over the decades. A part of Obama being viewed as Black Jesus was his ability to heal the past. This was necessary as those old harms were what tied us to the present. It was only by righting those past wrongs that we could break free and enter the glorious future.
The most obvious example was the health care stuff. This proved to be a disaster for the Clinton administration, but that is not how the Left saw it. They viewed it as a betrayal and a defeat that had to be addressed. This is why the eventual policy was nothing like they promised or anything anyone would call reform. That was never the point of the exercise. The point was to have a redo of that old defeat and this time the good guys would win and erase that loss from memory.
This active revisionism turned up in all sorts of places. They had Hillary Clinton pose with Sergey Lavrov holding a red button. This was part of the Russian reset initiative designed to restart relations with Russia. In reality it was about soothing the wounds from the Reagan years when the Left lost the Cold War debate. The same vibe permeated their Iran initiative. Like the Russian reset, the Iran reproachment had no utility in the present. It was all about the past.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Anemoia and Hauntology
17th July 2023
How many of these have non-trivial numbers of People of Color is left as an exercise for the readoer.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
17th July 2023
Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | Comments Off on Today in BIPOC Privilege
17th July 2023
Gates of Vienna.
An expatriate German blogger is being hunted by the Woke Stasi for daring to describe the creature of size who co-leads the Green Party as “fat”.
I feel compelled to note that the German word for “fat” is “dick”. It always makes me think of the (now archaic) Australian colloquialism “to crack a fat”. I wonder if the deep structure of our respective languages somehow understands this congruence of meaning.
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Whale Tale
17th July 2023
John Hinderaker at Power Line.
Jennifer Rubin is a left-wing columnist for the Washington Post. So, naturally, she hates Ron DeSantis. On Friday, she published a column arguing that DeSantis’s conservative policies endanger Florida’s economy. The headline was, “Florida might pay for MAGA cruelty and know-nothingism.” Just another objective day at the office at WaPo! Unfortunately, her entire column was based on a grotesque factual error.
Sadly, that’s her job description.
Posted in The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | Comments Off on At WaPo, an Epic Blunder
16th July 2023
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Today in the Biden-Harris Slow-Motion Train Wreck
16th July 2023
Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | Comments Off on Today in BIPOC Privilege
16th July 2023
Posted in The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | Comments Off on Today in Trump Derangement Syndrome
16th July 2023
Ex-State Dept COVID investigator calls newly-unredacted Fauci communications ‘an extensive cover-up’ (N.Y. Post)
CDC Used Journal To Promote Masks Despite ‘Unreliable’ And ‘Unsupported Data’: New Analysis
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Pandemic Panic – It’s Titanic
16th July 2023
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Today in Global Warming Hysteria
16th July 2023
NewsMax.
A Palestinian gunman opened fire on a car in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, wounding three Israelis, including two girls, Israeli authorities said. The suspect fled the scene of the shooting, but he was later captured.
Wherever you go,
Whatever you do,
A Muslim waits there
To try to kill you;
Especially if
You might be a Jew.
Posted in Living with Islam: The world's most intolerant—and intolerable—religion | Comments Off on Palestinian Gunman Wounds 3 in Occupied West Bank
16th July 2023
Read it.
How can you not love America? It is possibly the only country where someone can find a bag of cocaine inside the president’s office, where the world’s most technologically skilled police services can find no way to trace the perpetrator who left it there, and where the country’s political leadership does not get ridiculed by the media over this.
Let us not even begin with all the questions about White House security (anthrax anyone?) and simply note that nobody has been blamed, nobody has resigned, and nobody is forced to answer any questions about the incident.
Posted in You can't make this stuff up. | Comments Off on The America Report: In Search of New Leadership
16th July 2023
Read it.
Over 2,300 people have been arrested in connection with the multiple-day riots that shook France earlier this month following the fatal shooting of a teen named Nahel in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.
Many have speculated about a connection between immigration and the rioting, with former presidential candidate Éric Zemmour explicitly blaming French immigration policy during an interview published last Sunday.
“No one can ignore reality anymore,” Zemmour said and added, “in spite of everything, most of the political class wants to believe that it is a social crisis when the root cause is obvious: immigration.”
Wherever you go,
Whatever you do,
A Muslim waits there
To try to kill you.
Posted in Living with Islam: The world's most intolerant—and intolerable—religion | Comments Off on Mohammed Tops the Name List of Arrested French Rioters
16th July 2023
The Spectator.
Mao Zedong had a big thing about contradictions. They were the basis of life, driving it forward, the old despot once mused. But even he might have struggled to understand today’s Communist Party — which is desperately trying to drum up foreign investment while simultaneously hounding foreign companies out of the country.
The latest figures on inward investment will have made grim reading for the elderly leaders in Zhongnanhai, their compound in Beijing. Foreign investment fell to $20 billion in the first quarter of 2023, compared with $100 billion over the same time last year, according to the research firm Rhodium Group. This comes as the economic recovery following China’s reopening after Covid-19 is rapidly running out of steam. June exports fell 12.4 percent year on year, youth unemployment at more than 20 percent is at its highest level since China began publishing data in 2018, and analysts are scrambling to cut their growth forecasts.
The terrible logic of reality is that you can have prosperity or you can have socialism, but not both.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on China’s Wanton Economic Self-Destruction
16th July 2023
John Hinderaker at Power Line.
It pays to be a minority, especially a Native American. That is the only possible explanation why so many people, especially academics, adopt fake Indian identities. There is even a word for it: Pretendian. And it seems as though the more militant the academic, the more likely he actually isn’t Native at all.
Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | Comments Off on Another Pretendian
16th July 2023
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
16th July 2023
Washington Free Beacon.
I know some people blame “liberalism” for the triumph of consumerism and the rise of a supposed woke international economic order, but if you are going to blame anything, blame the metric system.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Conversion Therapy
15th July 2023
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Today in Progressive Totalitarianism
15th July 2023
Posted in Whose turn is it to be the victim? | Comments Off on Today in BIPOC Privilege
15th July 2023
Posted in The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | Comments Off on Today in Trump Derangement Syndrome
15th July 2023
Posted in The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | Comments Off on Today in Witch-Hunt Culture
15th July 2023
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Today in Global Warming Hysteria
15th July 2023
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
14th July 2023
Posted in The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | Comments Off on Today in Trump Derangement Syndrome
14th July 2023
Posted in The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | Comments Off on Today in Witch-Hunt Culture
14th July 2023
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Today in War
