16th August 2023
Posted in The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | Comments Off on Today in Trump Derangement Syndrome
16th August 2023
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Today in Progressive Totalitarianism
16th August 2023
Posted in The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | Comments Off on Today in Witch-Hunt Culture
16th August 2023
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Pandemic Panic – It’s Titanic
16th August 2023
Reuters.
A Muslim crowd attacked a Christian community in eastern Pakistan on Wednesday, vandalising several churches and setting scores of houses on fire after accusing two of its members of desecrating the Koran, police and community leaders said.
The attack took place in Jaranwala in the industrial district of Faisalabad, police spokesman Naveed Ahmad said. The two Christians were accused of blasphemy, he said, adding they and family members had fled their homes.
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 Pakistan Crowd Vandalises Churches, Torches Homes After Two Accused of Blasphemy
16th August 2023
Posted in Think about it. | 1 Comment »
16th August 2023
ZMan is not impressed.
The latest indictments of Donald Trump are a good example of how narrative is a controlling feature of the managerial state. This is the fourth batch of indictments and arguably the most ridiculous. The players on the side of the regime are like characters from a racial satire. The fact that they accidentally posted the results before the grand jury vote is what we have come to expect in the crisis of competency. It is as if the regime is trying to prove the critics are right.
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on A Surprise Ending
16th August 2023
John Stossel.
It’s August, when many young people head off to college.
This year, fortunately, fewer will go.
I say “fortunately” because college is now an overpriced scam.
Overpriced, because normal incentives to be frugal and make smart judgments about who should go to college were thrown out when the federal government took over granting student loans.
Why?
Because our government basically vomits money at everyone who applies.
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on College Rip-Off
16th August 2023
Definition: To edit a video or audio clip (typically by removing context) such that it appears to suggest the opposite of the actual case.
Examples:
- The Charlottesville Fine People Hoax: Deliberately truncated to remove Trump’s explicit disavowal of the Nazis in the march and to exclude them from the previous remark that the people marching included ‘fine people’.
- The Drinking Bleach Hoax: Deliberately truncated to remove Trump’s beginning and ending comments making clear that he was talking about the use of light as a disinfectant.
- The Covington Kids Hoax: Deliberately truncate to make it seem that one of the kids had confronted the Old Indian Agitator when it was the other way around.
Named for Democrat ‘journalist’ Aaron Rupar, who makes this sort of thing a regular practice.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on RUPAR (verb)
16th August 2023
Mary Rose Cook.
I used to believe that every book has an objective value. And I used to believe that this value is fixed and universal.
Now, I believe it’s much more useful to say something in this form: this book has this value to this person in this context.
This is one of those metanoia experiences where you encounter something that completely changes how you think about the world. Read The Whole Thing.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Is This a Good Book for Me, Now?
16th August 2023
Read it.
table of contents
Don’t use VPN services. §
Why not? §
But my provider doesn’t log! §
But a provider would lose business if they did that! §
But I pay anonymously, using Bitcoin/PaysafeCard/Cash/drugs! §
But I want more security! §
But I want more privacy! §
But I want more encryption! §
But I want to confuse trackers by sharing an IP address! §
So when should I use a VPN? §
So, then… what? §
But how is that any better than a VPN service? §
So why do VPN services exist? Surely they must serve some purpose? §
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Don’t Use VPN Services
16th August 2023
Welcome to my world.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
16th August 2023
Read it.
Indeed, monarchy itself is not so easy to define. Mention the word, and the modern mind—fresh from being ordered to its room in masks by our freely elected masters, whilst the same impose their racial, gender, and hormonal views on a more or less unwilling society—immediately exclaims “tyranny.” Images of Nero, Henry VIII, and a wildly distorted George III are summoned up before said mind, subjected to an obligatory two minutes of hatred, and then once again sent triumphantly back to the mental recesses from whence they came. That task accomplished, one is able to return to the weary world one actually inhabits, feeling that at least one is ‘free.’
And yet, and yet, there are still people who openly call themselves monarchists. If the ‘M’ word is uttered, the malefactor’s hearers often reply: “So, you want to be a lord or something? If we had a monarchy again, you’d be nothing!” My favourite response to this was made by an American lady living in Germany, who answered “What makes you think I’m something now? Do you think the chancellor cares if you or I live or die?” There was no answer to that. At any rate, let us put that argument aside, as well as those who do indeed look for titles or orders of knighthood as social accessories, and concentrate on those who are serious about holding this unpopular view.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Monarchism—The Only Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name
16th August 2023
Quilette.
To hear almost anyone tell it, racial preferences in university admissions are dead. But this pervasive sense of finality belies a curious silence in the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions. The Court never expressly overrules the line of precedent that has allowed universities to discriminate for the last 50 years. Without a direct overruling, how can we know whether the Supreme Court has ended racial preferences or simply renovated the existing case law?
A careful reading of the Chief Justice’s opinion and an understanding of his judicial philosophy indicates that the Court has left universities with no realistic means to rely on racial preferences in admissions, even if the case law stating otherwise lingers in a vegetative state. Four key cases have formed the foundation for racial preferences in student admissions, with a case called Grutter v. Bollinger as the cornerstone. The Students for Fair Admissions case presented the Court with a choice: either apply the existing test under Grutter and friends or uproot the whole line of precedent.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on The Peculiar Silence in the Students for Fair Admissions Decision
16th August 2023
Read it.
The New York Fire Department recently reported that so far this year there have been 108 lithium-ion battery fires in New York City, which have injured 66 people and killed 13. According to FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh, “There is not a small amount of fire, it (the vehicle) literally explodes.” The resulting fire is “very difficult to extinguish and so it is particularly dangerous.”
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Is It Time To Ban Electric Vehicles?
15th August 2023
Georgia charges Trump, former advisers in 2020 election case (Reuters)
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis speaks after Trump election case indictment is unsealed (CNN)
Georgia lieutenant governor describes testimony to Fulton County grand jury as ‘very serious’ (The Hill)
Donald Trump among 19 charged in Georgia election interference case (WHAS 11)
Trump ‘like a toddler’ who needs consequences for speaking about cases: former White House press secretary (The Hill)
‘He’s going to be very surprised’: Georgia DA Fani Willis prepares to face off with Trump (The Guardian)
Georgia Grand Jury Delivers Indictment Hours After Court Claims Trump RICO Document “Fictitious”
‘Daring the judge’: Donald Trump attacks judge in 2020 election case, despite her warnings (USA Today)
Two Months in Georgia: How Trump Tried to Overturn the Vote (N.Y. Times)
Trump ups the ante on going after judges and witnesses. Where’s the line? (Washington Post) How about the First Amendment?
Ga. Judge to Allow Cameras in Courtroom if Trump Indicted Admitting, after all, that it really is a show-trial. Beria would be proud.
Trump Attorneys on Georgia Charges Leak: Not a ‘Mistake’
Trump Spent The Weekend Publicly Attacking His Judge (Talking Points Memo)
Finger-pointing begins inside Trump team over Jan. 6 indictment (Washington Post) When ‘journalists’ don’t have anything to write about, they just make shit up.
Age Of Rage: UChicago Report Finds 30 Million American View Violence As Justified To Keep Trump From Power
How a law associated with mobsters is central to charges against Trump (Associated Press)
Trump has no plans to stop posting about 2020 election conspiracy case despite stern warnings from judge (CNN)
Hillary & Maddow Cry About Election Deniers, Dream About Trump Moving to Belarus
Trump’s 4 criminal cases, ranked in order of how screwed he is (Insider)
Trump is indicted in Georgia on charges of racketeering. What it means, what happens next (Washington Post)
Trump Indictment, Part IV: A Spectacle That Has Become Surreally Routine (N.Y. Times)
The Georgia Indictment Offers the Whole Picture (The Atlantic) All of the Narrative witch-hunt in one comprehensive package.
Meet the 18 people charged with Trump in Georgia indictment (The Hill)
Georgia DA Indicts 18 Trump Attorneys and Allies (NewsMax) Apparently it’s illegal for Trump to talk to a lawyer. Who knew?
Dershowitz slams GA indictment, says Trump used same tactics as Al Gore in 2000: not a ‘crime’
Awkward: Rachel Maddow Calls Out ‘Election Deniers’ As Hillary Clinton Offers Blank Stare
Biden Admin Coaches Colleges on How to Use Race in Admissions After Supreme Court Ruling
Posted in The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | Comments Off on Today in Trump Derangement Syndrome
15th August 2023
Posted in The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | Comments Off on Today in Witch-Hunt Culture
15th August 2023
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Today in Progressive Totalitarianism
15th August 2023
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Pandemic Panic – It’s Titanic
15th August 2023
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15th August 2023
John Hinderaker at Power Line.
The Georgia indictment relates to his (and 18 other defendants’) post-election efforts to reverse the apparent result of the 2020 election, in Georgia and elsewhere. That Trump made such attempts is not disputed. The question is, what did he do that was illegal?
The indictment alleges a vast conspiracy, supported by 161 “overt acts,” that ultimately comprises Count I, a violation of Georgia’s RICO statute. The problem is that, with two exceptions, the “overt acts” are all legal. You can’t aggregate a series of legal acts and make them a crime by calling them a conspiracy.
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on I Read the Georgia Indictment, So You Don’t Have To
15th August 2023
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
15th August 2023
The Antiplanner.
First, planners identify a solution they want to implement. It might be light rail or high-speed rail, it might be urban densification, or it might be something like complete streets or vision zero.
Second, planners cast around for problems that they think they might be able to persuade people their proposal will solve. These can include childhood obesity, global warming, traffic congestion, or housing affordability.
Third, they use public involvement techniques designed to generate support for their plans. One such technique is the charente, a meeting in which planners strictly control the agenda to make sure that people only consider questions the planners want to answer. At the charities, planners might ask, “Do you want more congestion or less?” or “Do you want higher housing costs or lower?” Since they assume their proposals will reduce congestion or housing costs, if you answer less congestion or lower housing costs, they will claim that you support their plans.
Another technique is a survey with a limited number of questions. The San Francisco Metropolitan Transportation Commission wants to increase taxes to subsidize transit, so it is asking residents to fill out a survey. The survey never asks if people want to pay more taxes; instead the higher tax is a given. Instead, it asks how people want to spend the money. There are five possible answers: transit, transit, bike lanes, transit, and transit.
Actually, this is a good description of any Democrat-dominated political regime devoted to increasing government power and government employee paychecks.
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on The Irrational Planning Process
15th August 2023
NewsMax.
The juvenile allegedly contacted the group through an Instagram account in March and April and had contact with the Chechnya-based terrorist group Riyad-us-Saliheen Martyrs’ Brigade through WhatsApp, the agency said.
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 Philly DA: Juvenile Charged as Adult in Joint FBI Terrorism Investigation
15th August 2023
Washington Post.
In the first ruling of its kind nationwide, a Montana state court decided Monday in favor of young people who alleged the state violated their right to a “clean and healthful environment” by promoting the use of fossil fuels.
This is horseshit.
First of all, there is no such right that can be enforced by a court without a degree of judicial authoritarianism foreign to the entire history of the United States. If people don’t feel that they have a sufficiently ‘clean and healthful environment’, the remedy is through the political process and the legislature; that’s what they’re for.
Secondly, a state of the United States has sovereign immunity unless what they do violates some provision of the U.S. or State constitution, neither of which is either alleged or demonstrated here.
This is a result of rampant Wokery in the educational system wreaking its havoc on the judicial system like a smallpox pustule erupting on a body. There is serious sickness here, and even if it is caught and corrected, it will leave scars.
Scott Adams claims that the COVID authoritarianism was merely a dress rehearsal for the upcoming more serious Climate Change authoritarianism. I hope he’s wrong, but I’m afraid he might be right.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Judge Rules in Favor of Montana Youths in Landmark Climate Decision
14th August 2023
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Today in Global Warming Hysteria
14th August 2023
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Today in the Biden-Harris Slow-Motion Train Wreck
14th August 2023
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Today in War
14th August 2023
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Pandemic Panic – It’s Titanic
14th August 2023
Posted in The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | Comments Off on Today in Witch-Hunt Culture
14th August 2023
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Today in Progressive Totalitarianism
14th August 2023
Posted in The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | Comments Off on Today in Trump Derangement Syndrome
14th August 2023
Off-Guardian.
And I am so very sorry that I have to type this.
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on No, Putin Did Not Ban 5G.
14th August 2023
Rod Dreher.
Confession time! I did something last weekend that I’ve never done before: I read a business book.
It’s called Truth To Power, and it’s the memoir of André de Ruyter, who led the troubled South African power monopoly Eskom for three years, before resigning in early 2023. Over his short, fraught tenure, he uncovered criminal networks stealing from the company, allegedly with the collusion of partners high in the ruling African National Congress. On his way out the door, someone in his office tried to poison him with cyanide. Quite a business climate South Africa has these days.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Why the Lights Are Going Out in South Africa
14th August 2023
The Antiplanner.
At the latest count, 93 people died in the Maui fire that also burned most of the town of Lahaina. The blame for this fire can be traced directly to Hawaii’s 62-year-old land-use law, which was written to protect Hawaii’s agricultural industry but had the opposite result.
The land-use law divided the state into urban and rural zones and heavily restricted development of the rural areas. As the state’s population grew, Maui’s median home prices rose from about 3 times median family incomes in 1969 to 7.9 times median family incomes in 2021. Any prices above 5 times median incomes are unaffordable since banks won’t approve a mortgage for a home that costs that much more than a family’s income.
The stated goal of the land-use law was to protect Hawaii’s agricultural industry from urban sprawl. But high housing prices made it impossible for Hawaiian farmers to hire the help they needed as people earning farmworker pay couldn’t afford to live in Hawaii. As a result, most Hawaiian farms went out of business. Between 1982 and 2017, according to USDA’s 2017 Natural Resources Inventory, the number of acres in Hawaiian crop production declined by 72 percent as sugar cane, pineapple, and other crops moved to other tropical countries that didn’t have self-inflicted housing crises.
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Land-Use Law Kills Nearly 100 People in Maui
14th August 2023
NewsMax.
Al-Qaida has called for targeted assassinations of Swedish and Danish diplomats at embassies worldwide after several copies of the Quran were burned in the two Scandinavian countries in recent months, U.K. news outlet Express reported.
Copies of the Islamic holy book were burned during a recent spate of public desecrations in both Sweden and Denmark, sparking angry protests in Muslim countries.
A reminder that freedom of speech is not a Muslim value.
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 Al-Qaeda Calls for Attacks on Swedish, Danish Embassies
14th August 2023
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
14th August 2023
Fox Business.
The U.S. manufacturing sector is in the midst of revitalization as global supply chains reshuffle in response to changing economic conditions and geopolitical shocks, reversing a decades-long trend of American industrial capacity moving overseas.
Manufacturing firms began to offshore their operations from the U.S. to countries with lower labor costs several decades ago. But the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and concerns over China potentially looking to compel Taiwan’s unification with the mainland by force have driven efforts to reshore manufacturing – in addition to government incentives and rising labor costs overseas.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on US Manufacturing Sector Reaping Benefits of Reshoring
13th August 2023
Posted in The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | Comments Off on Today in Trump Derangement Syndrome
13th August 2023
Posted in The Hunt for Heretics and Sinners | Comments Off on Today in Witch-Hunt Culture
13th August 2023
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Today in the Biden-Harris Slow-Motion Train Wreck
13th August 2023
Posted in Your tax dollars at work - and play. | Comments Off on Today in War
13th August 2023
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Today in Progressive Totalitarianism
13th August 2023
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on Today in Global Warming Hysteria
13th August 2023
Read it.
Imagine a politician who is so hated by the political establishment that people form or fund entire parties to stop him.
That is where Donald Trump is today. At present, he looks like the safe-bet Republican presidential candidate for next year, despite obviously coordinated efforts from the political establishment to stop him.
Now a third party is getting ready to run its own candidate for president, with one and only one goal: to stop Trump from getting elected.
Posted in Axis of Drivel -- Adventures in Narrative Media | Comments Off on The Anti-Trump Third Party
13th August 2023
Washington Free Beacon.
Postliberals are on the march. Whether it is decrying modern American conservatism, cheerfully embracing the administrative state, or insisting that tyranny is the natural fulfilment of Anglo-American classical liberalism, a slew of books written by postliberal intellectuals seeking to save us from the delusions of liberal order—political, legal, and economic—continue to appear.
Posted in Dystopia Watch | Comments Off on Postliberal Manifesto
13th August 2023
They’re everywhere, the bastards.
Posted in Think about it. | Comments Off on Thought for the Day
