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Monday, January 30, 2023

Great Moments in American History, Revised According to AP's Inclusive Style Guide

 What happened: The Associated Press issued new style recommendations that aim to promote diversity and inclusion by discouraging the use of "general and often dehumanizing 'the' labels such as the poor, the mentally ill, the French, the disabled, the college-educated."

Read the whole thing

Saturday, January 28, 2023

Twitter knew Hamilton 68, a media source for Russian online activity, was 'bulls**t'

 


These conspirators were so anxious to destroy Trump that they poisoned the well for any understanding between Russia and the US. They may well be the ultimate reason for the current danger of a nuclear war.

The Hamilton 68 story shows how the illusion of ongoing “Russian interference” worked. The magic trick was generated via a confluence of interests, between think-tanks, media, and government. Before, we could only speculate. Now we know: the “Russian threat” was, in this case at least, just a bunch of ordinary Americans, dressed up to look like a Red Menace.

Read the whole thing 


 



You will eat it and you will like it. It grows on you when you're starving.

 


How to steal an election

In honor of Mozart's birthday

Thursday, January 26, 2023

The 2024 Presidential race will take a radical turn

 Between now and the 2024 presidential election, we will see several issues emerge that will make today’s candidates handicapping worthless.  For starters, there’s a war in Europe that’s rapidly escalating.  It was mere weeks ago that Abrams tanks were off the table, and today several dozen are on their way.  As night follows day, this will end with tactical nukes.  

And then, we find that Pfizer is developing ever more toxic viruses, so it can sell us more shots to cure whatever diseases the viruses cause.  To be followed by a drug for the medical problems caused by the vaccine.  Meanwhile, athletes and young people in perfect health are toppling over with heart attacks.

Meanwhile, the WFP is predicting a shortage of wheat and corn, increasing food prices, and a new global recession.

The next American President may be chosen to repair the damage caused by war, pestilence, famine, and death. 


The Apocalypse, anyone?


Wednesday, January 25, 2023

German declares war on Russia ... again

Friday, January 20, 2023

Wednesday, January 18, 2023

This level of hubris is never found in the wild. It is in Davos.

Monday, January 16, 2023

The big problem with the Joe Biden documents story

 THE BIG PROBLEM WITH THE JOE BIDEN DOCUMENTS STORY. This could be the shortest newsletter ever. The biggest problem with the Joe Biden documents story is this: We know only what Joe Biden's lawyers have told us. And the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the case will make the problem worse.

Now, some elaboration. The initial fact that Biden, after his term as vice president ended, kept some classified documents in his possession was revealed by a team of Biden lawyers. In making a public statement, they noted that the discovery of the classified documents, on Nov. 2, 2022, in Biden's old office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, D.C., was made by...a team of Biden lawyers.

That alone raises some questions. Biden's vice presidency ended on Jan. 20, 2017. He began using the Penn Biden office in mid-2017. He became president on Jan. 20, 2021. With the Oval Office and plenty of workspace right downstairs, he no longer needed the Penn Biden office. So why was it not until Nov. 2, 2022, that his lawyers were emptying the old office? And by the way, why does it take a team of lawyers to clear out an office? Many people use movers.

Sunday, January 15, 2023

JOHN STOSSEL: COVID: Who was Right?

Saturday, January 14, 2023

The Associated Press' Chris Megerian: Biden Secret Documents: Nothing to see here -It's all Trump's fault

According to the AP, it all started with Trump making a big deal about Hillary's emails.  

 Hillary Clinton’s presidential dreams were undermined by her use of a private email server that included classified information.

You see, it was all about a server, not a word about destroying the evidence by wiping the server to Bleach Bit" 30,000 emails.

Donald Trump has risked criminal charges by refusing to return top-secret records to the government after leaving the White House.

Notice that "Trump's" a "criminal" and his records are "Top Secret"

And now misplaced files with classified markings has led to another investigation that’s causing a political and legal headache for President Joe Biden.

Now Biden just "misplaced" some "classified" files (how classified?), causing poor Joe a "headache."

But nothing to see here because this happens all the time.  Mergerian trots out a Michael Hayden acolyte.  The same Michael Hayden who thinks that Trump should be executed for his crimes.  This Michael Hayden:

Forget al Qaeda, ISIS, Iran, Russia or China — former CIA Director Michael Hayden thinks the most dangerous people he’s ever seen are … Republicans.

The retired Air Force four-star general wholeheartedly concurred Wednesday night with an Aug. 12 Twitter post by Financial Times associate editor Edward Luce that read: “I’ve covered extremism and violent ideologies around the world over my career. Have never come across a political force more nihilistic, dangerous & contemptible than today’s Republicans. Nothing close.”

But I digress.  

Larry Pfeiffer, a former intelligence official, said the situation with Trump’s documents is far different than ones he encountered while working in government.

During the time that Pfeiffer was CIA chief of staff, classified files turned up in the wrong place in presidential libraries a handful of times, he said.

“It just happens,” said Pfeiffer, now director of the Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy and International Security at George Mason University. “Mistakes get made, and stuff gets found.”

He said that seems more likely to be the case regarding the documents with classified markings that were found at an office used by Biden at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement after his term as vice president ended.

Biden’s personal lawyers discovered the documents and contacted the White House counsel’s office, and the National Archives picked up the records the next day.

The situation appears like “an average, run-of-the-mill mistake” that’s “being handled in a by-the-book, textbook fashion,” Pfeiffer said.

"Mistakes get made and stuff gets found." What a change of tone when the top Democrat is found stuffing government secrets in his office closet and this garage.

We can only conclude that Biden's headache is all Trump's fault.

Friday, January 13, 2023

Gettign Rid of Joe Biden for 2024

Thursday, January 12, 2023

Twelve lies of COVID

PARSING WORDS - Sarah Hoyt

 The recent trend of dictionaries changing meanings according to the howling of the crazy people is wrong, but frankly, so is the howling which gets in sane people’s heads and replaces the meaning of some words with a howling sound of outrage and the sense of “DON’T”. After that the howling-word starts getting applied to everything vaguely adjacent whether benign, malign, indifferent, or simply something a political side wishes to suppress.

Take racism for instance.

I was never racist, until “race-blind” became racist. 

...

 some crazy people, undoubtedly back East have a head-belief that all criminals are black (Sounds racist to me) and therefore took away a useful tool people used when buying houses at a distance. (Hey, maybe they didn’t want us to flee.)

That there is harmful racism, because it affects people of every race when going about their lawful business of real-estate purchase.

But we let them do it, because they hide behind that awful “racism” slur.

Which is why it’s important to tear the cover away and see the thing for what it is.

Racism as a thought-crime doesn’t hurt anyone. The crazy things racists do while claiming OTHER PEOPLE are the racists? That hurts everyone and tears society apart.

Looking around, “one rule for thee, another rule for me” edition: Biden classified documents; Stanford has one admin per student; Cringe Jean-Pierre; Biden confuses Salvation Army with Secret Service?!; Fed chair says “we will not be a climate policymaker”; even Ahmadinejad thinks the mad mullahs are losing it

 So much insanity, so little time. A few highlights/lowlights in US politics:

(a) It has been revealed that Abu Hunter, when he stopped being 0bama’s VP, took classified documents home — the very same offense for which Mar-A-Lago was raided. (More here. Via Instapundit:)


Read the whole thing.

Wednesday, January 11, 2023

Ineffective Maltruism

 

Important essay.  Read the whole thing.  Excerpt.

A key aspect of this “maltruism” is its ability to extend control through soft-sounding enterprises – how can something with “open” and “democracy” and “save” in its name – and be a “nonpartisan – nonprofit” entity to boot – be anything but good?  

Happy squishy-sounding NGOs and “philanthropic LLCs” then extend their actual real hard power as funders and networkers and “third party validators” in ways that mere mortals cannot. We have yet to see an organization intended to create a global hive zombie mind call itself “Wicker Basket Full of Yawning Golden Retriever Puppies,” though the very fuzzy term “philanthrocapitalism” – also used to describe this approach – comes close. ...

The politics of this putative philanthropy are brazen. If one looks at those who have taken the “Giving Pledge,” one sees a list that one could easily mistake for the list of the owners of the private planes that jet to Davos for the annual World Economic Forum meeting.

Tuesday, January 10, 2023

The Media and the Speaker Fight

What is the pattern? It holds that regardless of the year or the circumstance, Republicans fall into two camps: The Reasonables vs. The Far Right Wing Nuts and Crazies. In the current fight to be the next Republican Speaker of the House, like clockwork the media pattern has kicked in. House Republican Leader McCarthy is The Reasonable guy, his opponents The Far Right Wing Nuts and Crazies.

Thursday, January 05, 2023

Head Girls

 

Once More on Renowned Fool Emily Oster, and the Malign Influence of Head Girls More Generally

Our governing elite are increasingly selected not for intelligence or ability, but for conscientiousness, agreeability and conformity. The consequence is a new kind of midwit tyranny.

 Modern society is run by Head Girls, of both sexes ... Modern colleges aim at recruiting Head Girls, so do universities, so does science, so do the arts, so does the mass media, so does the legal profession, so does medicine, so does the military...

The Head Girl can never be a creative genius because she does what other people want by the standards they most value. She will worker harder and at a higher standard in doing whatever it is that social pressure tells her to do - and she will do this by whatever social standards prevail, only more thoroughly.…

We live in a Head Girl’s world - which is also a world where creative genius is marginalized and disempowered to the point of near-complete invisibility.

Ideological capture - Joe Rogan

Wednesday, January 04, 2023

Monday, January 02, 2023

Coming to terms: The COVID lockdowns were all for naught

 Guess which developed country had the lowest excess mortality between 2020 and 2022. Go on, have a guess. That’s right. Sweden, which refused to close shops or schools or to impose a mask mandate, saw cumulative excess deaths rise by 6.8%, the lowest figure in the OECD. By way of comparison, the equivalent figures were 18% in Australia, 24.5% in the U.K., and 54.1% in the U.S.

At this stage, various authoritarians, hypochondriacs and mask fetishists trot out bizarre arguments about Sweden having a low population density, as if Swedes were evenly spaced across their birch forests rather than living mainly in cities comparable to ours. What is striking about this argument is not so much its dishonesty (in March 2020, lockdowners claimed that Sweden faced total catastrophe, not that it might end up with a slightly higher mortality rate than Finland ) as its desperation. Across the world, we are in denial. We simply can’t bring ourselves to admit that everything we went through — the disrupted education, the spike in mental health problems, the ruined careers, the debts — was for nothing. Like the countries that emerged maimed from World War One, we tell ourselves that the sacrifice must have had some purpose. Perhaps, now as then, decades will pass before we can bring ourselves to face the hideous truth.

 


Sunday, January 01, 2023

Don Surber - The year of the fascists

 In 2022, we learned the government runs social media

...

The best I can say about 2022 is that it was not a leap year. After 9 months of this year, Queen Elizabeth had all she could take. She was out of here. She had been through the London Blitz, the dismantling of the British Empire and the death of her husband of of 69 years. She always kept calm and kept rolling. But 2022 was just too much for her.

...

Time magazine Man of the Year was Volodymyr Zelensky, the kleptocratic president of Ukraine. The only worse choice would have been Vladimir Putin, who tried to trigger a world war. The two thieves need one another to survive. It is symbiotic Satanism. When Russia invaded Zelensky’s country on February 24, he remembered the words of Rahm Emanuel, who said, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”

Within days, Zelensky was using the war to raise money from gullible NATO nations and their Bidenesque leaders. He rolled NATO as if it were the town drunk. Zelensky knew to give 10% to the various big guys. Think of Kyiv as Chicago on the Dnieper River.

...

Inflation ravaged the world as governments that shut countries down in the Pandemic Panic printed money to give away and appease the peasants. Bread is now $4 a loaf — at Dollar General. The news media called 7.1% inflation a decline when the reality is 2022 was the worst year for inflation in four decades — and up from the previous worst-in-40-years inflation of 4.7% in 2021.

...

Lefties also have the Republican Party.

Despite beating Democrats by 3 million votes in the House elections, Republicans gained only 9 seats in the House and lost another seat in the Senate as Republican congressional leaders refused to support Republicans who had the support of Donald Trump. Then these same Republicans branded Trump a loser. It’s amazing. These clowns would rather serve in hell than rule in heaven.

...

There was hope in 2022. ..topping the list was Jennifer Sey, who spoke out against covid protocols and had to resign as chief marketing officer of Levis....

“Democrats shriek fascist! at anyone challenging the edicts of the Party — anti-lockdown protesters, the unvaccinated, Trump supporters. Meanwhile, corporations are doing the bidding of Democratic Party elites as they ruthlessly censor and sideline dissenters. In fact, this is what real fascism looks like.”

And that, my friends, is what bugs me no end about this (string of naughty bad words) year. I learned I could not speak out on Google and Twitter against (another string of naughty bad words) the mindless support of the war in Ukraine. Putin started it and Zelensky is milking it for hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign aid. Handing him an unlimited credit card is bad policy. Silencing critics is immoral. In 2022, we the people allowed the government get away with it just as we the people allowed the government to shut us down in the name of stopping covid, which never even paused.

We need more Jennifer Seys and fewer Volodymyr Zelenskys and Vladimir Putins.

Virginian Pilot Letter Writer

At dinner with friends last night, we briefly touched on the subject of what's wrong with the country.  Why do so many people hate it?  The Virginian Pilot's Letters to the editor" section could not have provided a better answer.

‘Do better’

Those who oppose the immigration at the southern border need to look at the history of this country. The explorers who “discovered” America were immigrants who slaughtered the indigenous population. Their descendants imported people against their will, enslaving them for more than two centuries. During World War II, Japanese Americans were imprisoned by the descendants of the original immigrants for the sole reason that they had family who had emigrated from the then-American enemy, Japan.

During the 1930s and ’40s, virulent antisemites, including such vaunted Americans as Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh who influenced those in government, promoted the lies of the German government, preventing hundreds of thousands of European Jews from entering our country and thus saving their lives. While we have a country that we can be proud of for our many accomplishments, we have much to atone for and be ashamed of: Native Americans, Africans, Japanese Americans, European Jews, Hispanics. We must do better.

— Marge Schechner, Virginia Beach

And there you have it. According to Marge Schechner of Virginia Beach, America was founded by genocidal murderers, slavers, and antisemitic racists who exhibit special hatred for Japanese and Hispanics.  Marge may have overlooked other faults because she then mentions that we "have a country we can be proud of for our many accomplishments."   She fails to mention those accomplishments so we're left in the dark about what those are.  

Marge is not an outlier.  This is the Liberal view of America: a country of vile people descended from vile people.  But if we want to return to Marge's good graces, we are told to "do better."

Do you have the feeling that Marge represents a lot of the educational establishment that is teaching our children and creating their "standards of learning?"