New York Post.

A daunting list, set forth in black and white.

L.A. Times.

The ironic thing about Democrats is that they hate democracy when it doesn’t give them power.

Read it.

I guess they really don’t want electric cars after all.

New York Times.

As you might expect from a Voice of the Crust like the Times, the answer is ‘really bad’. And they focus on ‘how are they bad?’ rather than the more interesting question of ‘why are they bad?’.

Let’s start from scratch (no pun intended)(well, maybe a little bit….):

1. People buy processed food because it gives them something to eat that takes less effort than ‘making it from scratch’–the same reason they drive cars rather than walk, the same reason they use washing machines and dishwashers rather than doing their laundry and their washing-up by hand. If I’m hungry, a Big Mac takes me ten minutes at the drive-through as opposed to an hour shopping at a grocery store and cooking it on a stove I might not even have (assuming that I even know how to cook, as most people today don’t). My mother learned how to cook at Home Ec in High School. When I was in High School, they didn’t even offer Home Ec, because obviously everybody was going to go to college and so we had no time for that working-class shit.
2. ‘Prepared’ foods don’t last as long in storage as bulk food ingredients. Uncooked rice, flour, and pasta will last a loooooong time. Already-made-up dishes need to survive weeks or months traveling from the ‘factory’ to the store and from the store to the home and in the home until people sit down to eat them. To create these ‘shelf-stable’ comestibles, manufacturers load them up with ‘preservatives’ that keep them from going bad but give woke nutritionists the galloping never-get-overs. (Compare how long home-made bread lasts before going stale with the loaf you buy at Kroger.) Chemically-faked ‘artificial flavors’ also stay potent longer than those extracted from nature.
3. People, when buying ‘prepared’ foods, prefer stuff that tastes good. (Surprise, surprise, surprise….) That’s why kids would rather eat Frosted Flakes than Grape Nuts. Modern parents want kids that are quiet rather than healthy. Hence the prevalence of taste-enhancers like high-fructose corn syrup and artificial flavors.

So there is it. People have preferences (the swine). Sellers of food pander to those preferences (the swine). The only reason Cola-Cola no longer contains cocaine is that it’s against the law. In a world in which none of the Common Folk have any agency, in which everything that is wrong is wrong because ‘the devil/corporation made me do it’, in which the reason a black teen shot his girlfriend is obviously the fault of Smith & Wesson, we need comprehensive regulation by the Cloud People so that the unenlightened will be saved from themselves.

Read it.

A 13-year-old Christian girl, Sania Amin, went missing on April 4 after she left home to buy groceries in Anjotar, a village in Pakistan’s Punjab province. Local eyewitnesses reported that three Muslims took her by force and dragged her through the streets. Pakistani police refused to register a “First Information Report” (FIR) for Sania’s abduction.

…

This is not an isolated case. Pakistan has an endemic of abductions, rapes, forced conversions, and forced marriages of minority children and women. The Associated Press reported in 2020 that, each year, nearly 1,000 non-Muslim girls are forcibly converted to Islam in Pakistan, largely to pave the way for underage marriages that are non-consensual.

Further evidence that Islam is an oppressive totalitarian ideology, in the Clever Plastic Disguise of a religion, with which no co-existence is possible.

Read it.

Safety concerns around electric vehicles continue to mount with Australian fire and rescue services in New South Wales stating they might have to make a “tactical disengagement” of a trapped car accident victim if the battery is likely to explode.

Read it.

Despite comprising roughly 14.6 per cent of the population, foreign migrants were responsible for 58.5 per cent of all violent crimes.

Foreigners without a German passport make up 111,517 suspects alleged of violent crimes out of the total 190,605 suspects for the country as a whole.

The statistics were released by the Federal Criminal Police Office and reported by broadcaster NTV.

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In what appears to be a desperate attempt to shield President Joe Biden from the fallout of his decision to block munitions shipments to Israel, ABC Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce has crafted a strange new “antisemitic trope” with which to smear former President Donald Trump. Watch as Bruce uncorks this so-called trope during her coverage of Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza: MARY BRUCE: Tonight, many Republicans now accusing Biden of abandoning a critical ally, including Donald Trump, who today repeated an anti-semitic trope questioning Jewish voters who stand by the president.

Apparently ‘questioning’ Jews who support Biden is ‘antisemitic’.

Read it.

Public confidence in the military has slipped. One major reason is the politicization of senior military officers, who show an increasing propensity to compromise their integrity to gain influence and achieve both budgetary and policy goals. Their willingness to spin carefully parsed and knowingly misleading testimony and advice compromises civilian control of the military. Simply stated, these generals and admirals are not providing full and complete representations of plans, concepts, and assessments to senior civilians in the executive and legislative branches, thereby depriving them of the unbiased information they require to make decisions required by the Constitution.

Generals are required by their positions to be political, since a lot of their job is dealing with civilian politicians both at home and abroad.  Some, like Norman Schwarzkopf, rise above it. Some, like Wesley Clark, don’t.

Read it.

A postdoctoral scholar at Arizona State University finds himself embroiled in controversy after a video capturing a heated confrontation with a woman wearing a hijab went viral, prompting the university to place him on leave pending investigation, The Hill reported.

Read it.

More than two years later, the Community Reparations Commission in Asheville, North Carolina, has released a list of recommendations, calling for a guaranteed income program for people with “low-incomes and assets,” as well as a reparations accountability council.

And socialism enters on little cat feet…. (with apologies to Carl Sandburg)

Read it.

An illegal immigrant mother arrested on charges of attempting to pay a hit man to kill witnesses involved in her son’s murder trial was previously detained by federal authorities, but later released, immigration officials confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Josefina Cardona-Cardona, an illegal migrant from Guatemala, was arrested on Monday after allegedly agreeing to pay an undercover agent to kill two cooperating witnesses in her son’s fatal stabbing case in Palm Beach County, Florida. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation that Cardona-Cardona entered the U.S. unlawfully and was taken into the agency’s custody in 2019, but was later released and referred to a program intended to monitor migrants waiting for their court dates.

Read it.

I guess he’s really a Democrat after all.

Armstrong Williams.

American college campuses are permeated with corrupted professors who themselves corrupt students. Without a doubt, college professors are the most dangerous people in America.

They’re not dangerous because they challenge the status quo or encourage their students to think critically. On the contrary, they are dangerous because they encourage impressionable young college students to adhere to the doctrines of the professors they choose without giving them the chance to meaningfully challenge those doctrines.

During the recent pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas protests on elite college campuses, thousands of students put up tents on private property, commandeered university-owned buildings, defaced private property, and chanted disturbing, antisemitic rhetoric. But while we constantly talk about the actions of the students, we fail to recognize that these students aren’t alone but instead are educated and cheered on by their college professors.

Read it.

The Biden administration is stealthily preparing to surrender our sovereign, constitutional republic and the freedoms it guarantees to the World Health Organization’s unaccountable, Marxist director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Ph.D.

Huffington Post.

Dunh dunh DUNH….

Buried on page 554 of the plan is a directive to execute every remaining person on federal death row — and dramatically expand the use of the death penalty.

Think of it as evolution in action.

BBC.

The Shenandoah County School Board voted 5-1 to reinstate the names of Stonewall Jackson High and Ashby-Lee Elementary in Quicksburg.

Community members had been pushing for a reversal, arguing the 2020 name change was unpopular.

The vote marked the first such U-turn anywhere in the US.

Ars Technica.

Most current heat pumps rely on materials that exhibit large changes in temperature in response to changing pressures, but the energy required to pressurize them gets lost when they’re cycled back to a low-pressure state, absorbing heat from their surroundings. That has gotten people interested in electrocaloric devices, where changes in temperature are driven by storing charges in a material. Since it essentially acts as a big capacitor, much of the electrical energy involved can be pulled back out as the system cycles.

“Being a parent is always standing on the bridge, watching the water flow.” — James Lileks

“You have to do what others won’t so that you can eventually do what others can’t.” — Rollo Tomassi.

Power Line.

I still argue that the only good thing that happened during the Obama years was all-day breakfast at McDonalds, and COVID took that away from us. Which is when I started saying that COVID won’t be truly over until we get all-day breakfast at McDonalds back again. And it looks like that isn’t going to happen.

One reason might be that consumers can’t afford it.

Read it.

The Transport Workers Union said it’s considering suing Columbia University, saying the school failed to keep employees safe during anti-Israel protests in the past month.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Read it.

Earlier this week, on Tuesday, a Canadian Jewish businessman was murdered in the city of Alexandria, Egypt when an unknown gunman approached his car and shot him at point-blank range.

A shadowy terrorist organization has claimed responsibility as ‘retaliation’ for Israel’s military operation in the Gaza Strip. Further the group calling itself “Vanguard of Liberation Group for Martyr Mohamed Salah” (after the Egyptian police officer who killed three IDF troops in a mid-2023 border shooting) is claiming that the victim, identified as Ziv Kipper, was a “Mossad agent”.

“Wait for the next,” the unknown organization posted in an internet message. “Shalom from the children of Gaza.” The group also reportedly posted a video and image of the killing [warning: graphic]. However Egypt’s Interior Ministry has been quick to downplay the incident, and instead of ‘terrorism’ Egyptian security sources have chosen to initially call the killing a robbery.

Islam is an oppressive totalitarian ideology, in the Clever Plastic Disguise of a religion, with which no co-existence is possible.

Read it.

Whom do you think is more likely to lie about cannabis use: A PhD in neuroscience and associate professor of neurobiology at Stanford Medical School, or Rolling Stone magazine?

The question pretty much answers itself.

Read it.

Gotta laugh!

Read it.

Indore: A summer storm on Tuesday damaged a floating solar plant at Madhya Pradesh’s Omkareshwar dam. The floating solar plant, situated in the backwater of the dam, is the biggest of its kind in the world. A joint venture between Madhya Pradesh Govt and National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC), the project was nearly completed and ready for its launch. A part of the project became operational last week.

The project near the village of Kelwa Khurd, aimed at generating 100 MW of electricity, with additional capacities of 88MW at Indawadi and 90 MW at Ekhand village. However, on Tuesday, summer storms with the speed of 50kmph hit the project and threw the solar panels all around the place. No employee was fortunately injured.

Read it.

Two California teens booted from their elite Catholic school for wearing blackface have been awarded more than $1 million after proving the viral selfie was a green acne face mask.

Read it.

There’s obviously no brain activity; what more to they need to know?

Read it.

The public schools in the state of New York doled out $29,284 per pupil in “current expenditures” in fiscal year 2022, according to a report published this week by the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics.

“Current expenditures comprise expenditures for the day-to-day operation of schools and school districts for public elementary and secondary education, including expenditures for staff salaries and benefits, supplies, and purchased services,” the National Center for Education Statistics says.

“General administration expenditures and school administration expenditures are also included in current expenditures,” it says.

The $29,284 that New York spent per pupil on these items was more than any other state. So, what did taxpayers get in return for this investment?

Not much.

That’s about what it cost me for a year at Yale back in the ’70s.

Read it.

The United States government is not appropriately addressing the threat posed by growing Chinese ownership of American land, according to a report released by The Heritage Foundation Thursday.

The federal government is woefully ill-equipped to track Chinese-owned real estate in the country, despite the serious threat these Chinese Communist Party-affiliated entities can pose to critical U.S. infrastructure, according to the report. The report calls on federal and state leaders to take action, such as increasing transparency and conducting more critical reviews of land purchases.

Read it.

Americans consistently voice their disapproval on the state of the economy in recent polls, largely because of the stratospheric cost of living. But apologists for the Biden administration point to the low unemployment rate of 3.9% in April as proof of the economy’s strength.

Yet this is a hollow talking point, since the real unemployment rate is likely between 6.5% and 7.7%.

The unemployment rate is the percentage of people in the labor force who don’t have a job. That means the unemployment rate can change if either the number of people unemployed or the total size of the labor force changes.

The shocking reality is that somewhere between 4.7 million and 7 million people who aren’t working today are not included when calculating the unemployment rate. That artificially reduces the figure.

The reason these millions of Americans are uncounted began with the events of 2020.

Read it.

It’s not just the gaffes that keep coming, it’s also the lies! President Joe Biden can barely open his mouth without a blatant falsehood falling out.

He dropped multiple fibs in just one Howard Stern Show appearance late last month.

Did ABC, CBS or NBC fact check any of them? Of course not!

Read it.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner (D-VA) broke the news during a press briefing at the tech-tied RSA Conference, according to tech outlet Nextgov/FCW. At the event, the senator reportedly conceded that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) are back to their old work of coordinating censorship of free speech ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

An FBI representative admitted the resumed Big Tech communications to The Federalist’s Shawn Fleetwood. CISA would not confirm the report, however.

“The FBI remains committed to combating foreign malign influence operations, including in connection with our elections,” the bureau’s representative claimed, as reported by The Federalist. “That effort includes sharing specific foreign threat information with state and local election officials and private sector companies when appropriate and rigorously consistent with the law.”

Read it.

Illegal immigrants at a Denver, Colorado encampment that is set to be removed are refusing to leave until the city meets a list of 13 demands, which include access to “fresh, culturally appropriate ingredients” for food, unlimited showers, “the same housing support that has been offered to others,” legal services, and fair warning before kicking them out.

Read it.

With an April 9, 2024, ruling against Switzerland for its failure to meet climate change targets, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has opened up a vast new market for the human rights law industry: potential climate change lawsuits against 46 member states of the Council of Europe. But by pulling climate-change activism deeper into the abstract and toothless realm of international human rights legislation, the ECHR ruling further removes it from domestic politics, where actual policy change can be effected. Moreover, it further confuses the meaning and efficacy of human rights legislation itself.

The case, Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland, was brought by a group of women, all over 64 years of age, who claim that their health is threatened by heat waves. Switzerland only reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 11% between 2013 and 2020, missing its 20% pledge. Swiss authorities argued that climate policies lie outside the scope of international human rights law. But according to an official document, the Court found that under Article 2, protecting the right to life, the European Convention on Human Rights “encompasses a right to effective protection by the State authorities from the serious adverse effects of climate change on lives, health, well-being and quality of life. … The Court found that the Swiss Confederation had failed to comply with its duties (“positive obligations”) under the Convention concerning climate change.”

Climate change’s putative threat to human rights has long been a prominent topic in international organizations, and is often a vehicle for demands for compensation from groups claiming to be victims of pollution from the developed world. Leading Swiss and other European media commentators praised the European Court ruling for “elevating climate protection to the status of a human right,” thus setting a precedent for other international courts. Not surprisingly, the decision has been applauded by activists as the first affirmation by an international court that “a climate crisis is a human rights crisis,” according to a lawyer for the Center for International Environmental Law.

The Guardian.

Vermont is poised to pass a groundbreaking measure forcing major polluting companies to help pay for damages caused by the climate crisis, in a move being closely watched by other states including New York and California.

Modeled after the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund program, which forces companies to pay for toxic waste cleanup, the climate superfund bill would charge major fossil fuel companies doing business within the state billions of dollars for their past emissions.

“If you contributed to a mess, you should play a role in cleaning it up,” Elena Mihaly, vice-president of the Conservation Law Foundation’s Vermont chapter, which is campaigning for the bill, said in an interview.

Zman goes on a journey.

When was the last time you changed your mind? Most likely the answer takes some time as humans tend not to change their opinion on things that much and when they do, it happens over a slow period. Most people on this side of the great divide did not wake up one day and decided to abandon their old worldview. People slowly came to realize that the old way of looking at things was not working and then all of a sudden, they noticed lots of other people noticing the same thing.

That has always been the reality of the red pill experience. It is not so much that the person getting red pilled is going through a sudden transformation but that they are suddenly noticing lots of other people who are on the same road. Almost everyone in the dissident space came here by first running into a writer, YouTuber or social media character that articulated what they were thinking. Then it was another and another until the person was firmly in the dissident camp.

Read it.

The European Broadcasting Union, which organizes the global competition held in the Swedish city of Malmö this year, has tirelessly pushed one slogan: “United by Music.” But the group’s decision to keep Israel among 37 nations vying for a trophy has instead divided Malmö, triggered global petitions, caused artists to boycott and generated plans for a flood of street protests.

Eurovision launched with its first semifinal on Tuesday. Eden Golan, the 20-year-old singer representing Israel with her song “Hurricane,” drew both cheers and boos during a dress rehearsal on Wednesday in advance of the second semifinal on Thursday. Bookmakers have ranked Israel in the top 10 likely victors, which would land Golan among 26 contestants in the final on Saturday.

Locals in Malmö, which has a longstanding reputation for antisemitism and a record of attacks on Jews by both neo-Nazis and members of the substantial Muslim immigrant minority, unsuccessfully petitioned the city to bar Israel from competing. (The last time the city hosted the contest, in 2013, Jews and non-Jews held a rally after Israeli fans reported harassment.)

Read it.

The source of biblical theology comes from the biblical languages. So imperative is the study of the Bible’s original languages, that I will make this declaration: as soon as a Christian university or seminary gives up the necessary study of Hebrew and Greek, its theology will move from its foundations. The reason? If there is no original word from which our words come, then biblical theology can easily become a man-made theology.

Amen to that.

Brief example: Consider Ephesians 5:22, translated by the Authorized Version as “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as to the Lord.” Except that it doesn’t actually say that–Greek has a perfectly good word for ‘submit’, hupoballein, which is not used in this passage.

Greek doesn’t have separate specific words for ‘husband’ or ‘wife’; the term for ‘spouse’ is suzugos, and one adds ‘male’ or ‘female’ to specify which one. But suzugos isn’t used in this passage either. The actual words used are anEr (‘man’) and gunE (‘woman’), so it would apply to boyfriend/girlfriend (or ‘partner’) as readily as to a married couple.

The verb almost always translated as something like ‘submit’ is actually hupotassein, which is a technical military term used (for example) in indicating that soldiers are lining up in formation for battle behind their commander. So a better translation would be ‘Women, fall in behind your own men.’ Makes a bit of a difference, does it not?

But if you’re just reading a translation by people with a theological axe to grind, you lose any significant chance of truly understanding what is going on. Nuance matters. And if you don’t make an effort to understand the original language, you’ll miss it.

Translators lie as readily as politicians, and from the same motivation, an attitude of patronizing moral superiority. Resist them, steadfast in the faith.

Read it.

The myocardial injury seen in these postvaccine hearts is different from typical myocarditis and has an appearance most closely resembling a catecholamine-mediated stress (toxic) cardiomyopathy. Understanding that these instances are different from typical myocarditis and that cytokine storm has a known feedback loop with catecholamines may help guide screening and therapy.

Read it.

If you are like most Americans, the cost of living has been going up much faster than your income has been. Right now, millions of Americans that were once prospering are now deeply struggling. When I was growing up, most of the population could afford to live “the American Dream”, but now that is no longer true. At this point, the basics of a middle class lifestyle are out of reach for most Americans. Poverty and homelessness are steadily rising, and the economy has become the number one issue during this election cycle. Most of us just want things to go back to the way that they once were, but thanks to the very foolish decisions of our leaders that simply is not possible.

Read it.

The Financial Times headlines: “The violent gang crisis shaking Sweden.” Spoiler alert: it all has to do with immigration.

Read it.

They wanted combustion engine cars out but forgot that these cars bring in billions in tax income. They wanted a fully electrified transport but forgot it wouldn’t bring in money unless they make it more expensive. They wanted a revolution but forgot rule #1 for revolutions: the successful ones never start from the top. They start from the bottom.

Read it.

Just over one year following Bud Light’s terrible decision to hire transgender influencer and professional toddler Dylan Mulvaney to promote its once pro-America beer, the company’s sales are plummeting.

Again.

Read it.

Republican members of the US House of Representatives are preparing a sanctions package targeting International Criminal Court (ICC) officials as a “precaution” against potential arrest warrants of Israeli officials for war crimes committed in Gaza, according to Axios.

“We want to emphasize to [ICC prosecutor Karim Khan] that going down this road of arrest warrants is a really bad idea, and it’s going to blow up the relationship,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul told the US news outlet.

Read it.

Britain is refusing to sign the World Health Organization’s (WHO) pandemic accord because the country says it would have to give away a fifth of its vaccines, the Telegraph reported Wednesday.

Read it.

Fascism became a swear word in the US and UK during the Second World War. It has been ever since, to the point that the content of the term has been drained away completely. It is not a system of political economy but an insult.

If we go back a decade before the war, you find a completely different situation. Read any writings from polite society from 1932 to 1940 or so, and you find a consensus that freedom and democracy, along with Enlightenment-style liberalism of the 18th century, were completely doomed. They should be replaced by some version of what was called the planned society, of which fascism was one option.

A book by that name appeared in 1937 as published by the prestigious Prentice-Hall, and it included contributions by top academics and high-profile influencers. It was highly praised by all respectable outlets at the time.