VIDEO: Arthur Brooks on corporations going woke. “We need to tell CEOs…3% of your employees are activists…blowing up your Slack demanding that you get involved in a culture war and make political statements. Don’t do it. The rest of your employees are feeling bullied as well…”
THE WAPO WISHES ITS STAFFERS MERRY CHRISTMAS: The Washington Post will end its Sunday magazine, eliminate positions.
“We will end the print Sunday Magazine in its current form as we continue to undergo our global and digital transformation,” Buzbee said in a subsequent email to staff early Wednesday afternoon. She noted that “we will be shifting some of the most popular content, and adding more, in a revitalized Style section that will launch in the coming months.”
“We deeply appreciate the contributions this staff has made to our print readers over the years,” she wrote in conclusion.
Related: Biden tells coal miners to “learn to code.” “According to Dave Weigel of the Washington Post, Biden said, ‘Anybody who can go down 3,000 feet in a mine can sure as hell learn to program as well… Anybody who can throw coal into a furnace can learn how to program, for God’s sake!’ According to Weigel, the comment was met with silence from the audience.”
NOBODY CARES: EU throws gala party for ‘global gateway’ metaverse — and only a handful of people show up. “By ‘handful,’ they mean 6. The EU spent £332,500. So that’s £55,417 per person.”
So new is Plonkerdump that the rules are yet to be codified. By examining a few demonstration events, however, we may begin to develop a simple scoring system.
I propose that points be awarded on a scale of how many vehicles are able to pass relative to how many stupid climate protesters have been removed.
One point may be awarded, for example, if vehicular progress is achieved after four or more protesters are dragged away by understandably hostile motorists or onlookers:
Quand un écologiste rencontre un Lopez, ça donne un joli spectacle ! pic.twitter.com/1ds51igTVk
— Alexandre Benalla (@benallaoff) November 28, 2022
More like this, please.
MAYBE, BUT WHAT DOES DOCTOR JILL HAVE TO SAY ABOUT IT? Did Joe Biden Just Hint That He Won’t Run For Reelection?
WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Elon Musk expects Neuralink’s brain chip to begin human trials in 6 months. “The company is developing brain chip interfaces that it says could enable disabled patients to move and communicate again, with Musk adding on Wednesday that it will also target restoring vision.”
DON’T WORRY, IT’S PROBABLY NOTHING: ‘Wild ride:’ Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson predicts double-digit percentage drop will hit stocks in early 2023.
SHE FIGHTS: Kari Lake Talks Arizona Lawsuit Timeline and Plans. “Let me repeat that: They ran an election with my name on the ballot, and their number one political goal was to see to it that I was not elected. Can you say, ‘conflict of interest’?”
DISPATCHES FROM THE REHAB TOUR: FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried denies ‘improper use’ of customer funds amid scrutiny of crypto giant.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the embattled former CEO of cryptocurrency giant FTX and trading firm Alameda Research, told ABC News he was ultimately responsible for the downfall of both companies, but denied that he knew “that there was any improper use of customer funds.”
“I really, deeply wish that I had taken a lot more responsibility for understanding what the details were of what was going on,” Bankman-Fried said. “I should have been on top of this, and I feel really, really bad and regretful that I wasn’t. A lot of people got hurt. And that’s on me.”
Bankman-Fried spoke to George Stephanopoulos and ABC News for his first network interview since both companies in his cryptocurrency empire filed for bankruptcy this month. He addressed rumors that have swirled since the collapse and discussed his uncertain path forward. The interview took place in the Bahamas island of Nassau where FTX was headquartered.
LIFE IN THE BLUE ZONES:
A crazed attorney from Austin, Texas was caught on camera allegedly trying to shoot his ex-girlfriend at the bar she worked at on Saturday, police said.
Gavin Rush, 41, is out on bond after he allegedly stormed into the Anderson Mill Pub with a gun around 11:30 a.m. on Saturday morning and approached his ex, who was behind the bar, according to arrest records obtained by KVUE.
He put a small leather satchel on the table and asked if he could speak with her. When she said “no,” he drew the gun and pointed it at her, with the laser sight aimed at her chest, according to the affidavit and dramatic surveillance footage of the incident shared by Austin City Councilwoman Mackenzie Kelly.
Video of the incident shows two customers at the bar leap into action and tackle Rush, who reportedly fired off multiple shots in the struggle, and held him until police arrived. . . .
Rush was charged with a second-degree felony, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon family violence. An emergency protection order was issued against him, and was soon back on the streets after making a $40,000 bond, KVUE reported.
“For $4,000, you can get out, go home, watch Netflix after trying to murder your ex-girlfriend – are you kidding me?” one of the customers said.
Local leaders have also spoke out against how quickly and easily Rush was released from custody
“This particular case seems to be one where the courts have failed this victim,” Thomas Villarreal, head of the Austin Police Association, told Fox 7.
I don’t know why they’re surprised, this is the new trend in blue zones, even blue zones within red states.
UNSURPRISINGLY, HE TALKS LIKE A VALLEY GIRL: AOC discusses tips on ‘combating racism as a white person’ with boyfriend.
MEGAN FOX: Police Release Confusing Information About University of Idaho Murders. “The latest information to come out of the Moscow Police Department leaves more questions than answers about the brutal stabbing deaths of four college students at the University of Idaho that happened before Thanksgiving. Press and investigators have been asking for confirmation of a report of a male on campus in September who was reported to have been brandishing a knife.”
GET READY FOR THE HOLIDAYS: Riedel O Wine Tumbler Happy, Set of 4. #CommissionEarned
TWITTER IS FUN AGAIN: Twitter has grown under Elon Musk — mainly in the U.S., data shows. “Data from two independent research firms, Apptopia and Sensor Tower, indicate that downloads and activity on Twitter are on the upswing in the weeks since Musk bought it and in comparison to last year, appearing to confirm recent boasting from the tech billionaire that he has reinvigorated the social media app. “
I REMEMBER WHEN HIGHER ED WAS JUSTIFIED AS PROMOTING GOOD CITIZENSHIP: Yale student paper blames free speech for gay club shooting.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: How to Spot Democrat Scott Wiener’s Fake Hate Crime with This 1 Weird Trick. “When violence against Wiener failed to materialize, he seems to have jumped into action himself.”
DECOUPLING: Apple’s Chinese dream is over.
Apple’s relationship with China was one of the biggest bets in the history of the technology business, and it turned Apple into one of the largest and most-admired companies in the world. Its end will threaten Apple’s decade-plus dominance.
Under the leadership of Tim Cook, Apple has added nearly $2 trillion to its revenues by taking advantage of China’s invitation. Credit for Apple’s growth also goes to Terry Gou, founder of its most important contract manufacturer, the Taiwan-based Hon Hai Precision Industry, better known as Foxconn. And there are countless other Taiwanese firms that have helped build out the supply chain for Apple and other companies in China.
The consumer products that Apple made in China it changed the way we all live. But both Chinese and American tech figures have been thinking for years about what to do when the party’s over.
Apple’s biggest problems might lie right here at home. The company has managed to alienate developers, free speech enthusiasts, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
Getting out of that mess might make getting out of China look comparatively simple.
NEW YORK BANS NEW BITCOIN MINING, CITING “CLIMATE CHANGE.” Not explored: the “climate change” implications of building billions of dollars in microwave relays to New York so that traders there can pull a never-ending Office Space-style heist on you and me by front-running the market by 2.5 milliseconds. (This is a literal selling point.)
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Why Gavin Newsom Said ‘No’ to 2024…for Now. “It is not normal for the party that has a first-term incumbent in the White House to have a lot of speculation about who might run for the nomination in the next presidential election. The Democrats find themselves in this position because they elected a doddering husk who requires an extra Secret Service agent just to keep him from choking on one of his Legos.”
REALCLEARINVESTIGATIONS: Europe Shows a Clear Link Between Immigration and Crime — Like the One the U.S. Seriously Downplays.
HOW THE NEXT CIVIL WAR BEGINS: “According to recent polling, more than 50% of Americans expect a new civil war in the “next couple of years.” It’s a pathetic scenario more fitting for a semi-authoritarian backwater than the world’s beacon of democracy. National breakup efforts will be coming and, if we’re being honest, they’re behind schedule.”
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Shortages of Antibiotics, Antivirals Are Making a Tough Illness Season Worse.
IT’S LIKE THEY’RE ON STRIKE OR SOMETHING: Men need to be working — and fewer and fewer of them are.
I WAS TOLD VOTING FRAUD WAS UNKNOWN: LaFayette Man Must Serve 15 Years In Prison For Trying To Vote Twice In Same Election. “The evidence presented at trial showed that a Walker County resident’s absentee ballot for the January 2021 runoff election was sent by mistake to an old address, a PO box in LaFayette, Ga. When the resident’s ballot never arrived but her husband’s did, the resident called the Elections Office in Walker County to inquire about her ballot. The Elections Office discovered that they had already accepted, but had not yet counted, an absentee ballot for the resident, and the ballot appeared to have the resident’s signature on the Oath of Elector section. The resident went to the Election Office to view the ballot with the signature on it and immediately noticed it was not her signature. The Elections Office immediately cancelled the forged ballot and had a new ballot sent to the resident’s current address.”
The big story, as a friend writes, is that this would never have been detected if the actual voter hadn’t complained. He comments:
The real story here is that this ballot wouldn’t have been rejected without the intended ballot recipient complaining about it. Otherwise, the absentee ballot would have been counted like any other, despite not having her signature.
Which is weird, because all the best people have assured me that “signature verification” prevents this sort of thing from happening.
Now imagine 10,000 voters willing to give/sell their blank ballot to a third party/activist/harvester and never complain about it. No one would notice. That’s how elections are bought with absentee voting.
Bought, stolen, whatever.
WHEN YOU’VE LOST THE UNITED NATIONS…: UN says Scotland’s proposal for gender self-ID poses risk to women and girls.
The UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls has called on Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to reconsider proposed changes to Scotland’s Gender Recognition Act that would make it easier for males to self-ID as women and gain access to women’s spaces, a change the UN expert says could be taken advantage of by violent males.
In an interview with BBC Scotland, Reem Alsalem said the concern is “that it makes it easier for violent males to take advantage of the process and therefore also have access to spaces that are really designed…for women in all their diversity, but also single sex spaces, and including shelters, prisons.”
You don’t say.
NEVER, FOR NOW: Gavin Newsom Finally Answers the Question About 2024.
LAW FIRM HOGAN LOVELLS: “We want our female lawyers to be able to talk about the Dobbs decision and abortion.”
Female Lawyer: “I like the Dobbs decision.”
Law Firm Hogan Lovells: You’re fired. “Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece by attorney Robin Keller describing how she lost her job at a large law firm after daring to speak up in favor of the Dobbs decision. This didn’t happen at a general staff meeting but on a conference call explicitly held to allow staffers to discuss the decision.”
Also, the female lawyers who “lost their ability to breathe” upon hearing a contrary view aren’t fit to practice law, which requires that one breathe while engaging in argument with people who disagree.
CHINA’S BITE OF THE APPLE: Ever wonder why the Apple logo is missing a bite? Multiple possibilities have been tossed into the public forums over the years, but a recent discovery, according to Issues & Insights, just might explain it.
YOU F***** UP, YOU TRUSTED HIM: Biden’s Controversial Move Infuriates Rail Unions As Catastrophic Strike Looms: ‘Joe Biden Blew It.’
A SMALL VICTORY FOR FREE SPEECH: UK ditches plan to censor legal speech.
EPIC HOLIDAY DEAL: EcoNour 27″ Aluminum Car Snow Scraper. #CommissionEarned
STRANGER THINGS HAVE HAPPENED: Wait… Is China Actually Doing the Smart Thing I Just Told Them to Do?
FOR THE WORSE, BASICALLY: How Magazines’ Advice to Parents Has Changed Over a Century.
A 1966 article in Good Housekeeping proposed a set of guidelines for children’s public autonomy as follows: “A six- to eight-year-old can be expected to follow simple routes to school, be able to find a telephone or report to a policeman if he is lost, and to know he must call home if he is going to be late. A nine- to eleven-year-old should be able to travel on public buses and streetcars, apply some simple first aid, and exercise reasonable judgment in many unfamiliar situations.”
In contrast, Rutherford notes that after about 1980, articles stopped focusing on the value of children’s independence and started focusing on the need to guard and monitor them. A prototypical example is a 2006 article in Good Housekeeping with the scary title, “Are You a Good Mother?” The article made it clear that the answer is “yes” if you closely watch and supervise your child pretty much all of the time.
Producing a generation of incompetent, insecure adults.
November 30, 2022
DISPATCHES FROM THE “IT’S DIFFERENT WHEN WE DO IT” PARTY: Hypocrisy alert: Democrats just chose an election denier as Pelosi’s successor.
AND OUR ELITES DO, TOO: Tyrants in Iran, China and Russia tremble at the power of the people.
And in Canada, we get this hypocrisy:
THE NEW SPACE RACE (CONT’D): China tests reusable rocket engine for the 1st time.
JIANG ZEMIN HAS DIED.
Related: Hu Jintao: The mysterious exit of China’s former leader from party congress.
BECAUSE COOK REGARDS THE CHINESE AS FRIENDS AND ELON MUSK AS AN ENEMY:
Related: Tim Cook Says He’s Ready To Pull Twitter From App Store Once President Xi Gives The Order. It’s satire. Or is it?
UPDATE: Apple’s cowardice on China reveals app store Twitter ban as pure hypocrisy. “Apple is willing to defend its market value by co-operating with, quite literally, the world’s most brutal regime in its efforts to crush a grassroots movement of protestors pushed to the breaking point. But allowing people to tweet things offensive to liberal pieties is worthy of its action?”
ANOTHER UPDATE: Tim Cook denies Twitter threat.
FTX’S COLLAPSE WAS A CRIME, NOT AN ACCIDENT:
Executives at FTX reportedly received a total of $4.1 billion in loans from Alameda Research, including massive personal loans that were likely unsecured. As revealed by bankruptcy proceedings, Bankman-Fried received an incredible $1 billion in personal loans, as well as a $2.3 billion loan to an entity called Paper Bird in which he had 75% control. Director of Engineering Nishad Singh was given a loan of $543 million, while FTX Digital Markets co-CEO Ryan Salame received a $55 million personal loan.
The FTX situation has more smoking guns than a shooting range in Texas, but you might call this one the smoking bazooka – a glaringly obvious sign of criminal intent. It’s still unclear how the bulk of those personal loans were used, but clawing the expenditures back will likely be a major task for liquidators.
The loans to Paper Bird were arguably even more worrying because they appear to have fueled more structural fraud by creating yet another related third party to shuffle assets between. Forbes has posited that some of the Paper Bird funds may have gone to buy part of Binance’s stake in FTX, and Paper Bird also committed hundreds of millions of dollars to various outside investments.
That included many of the same venture capital funds that backed FTX. It will take time to sort out whether this financial incest constituted criminal fraud. But it certainly matches the broader pattern by which Bankman-Fried used secretive flows, leverage and funny money to deceptively prop up the value of various assets.
Meanwhile, Bankman-Fried Zooms into the New York Times‘ DealBook Summit, twitching away and telling the audience, “I’ve had a bad month,” much to their amusement:
Sam Bankman-Fried:
"I've had a bad month" pic.twitter.com/VMIza684uZ
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) November 30, 2022
On to Good Morning America and fellow Democrat George Stephanopoulos tomorrow!
TOMORROW: Collapse of a crypto empire — @GStephanopoulos sits down with former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried to talk about what went wrong at the company in a one-on-one interview on @GMA. pic.twitter.com/M1svJISIwZ
— Good Morning America (@GMA) November 30, 2022
ROGER SIMON: Trapped by Apple—a Tale of the ‘Great Reset.’
Apparently, they are more upset with Elon Musk for trying to bring a modicum of transparency to Twitter, pulling their ads from his newly purchased platform and, according to Musk, threatening to remove the Twitter app from their app store.
Yet worse, in China, Apple has restricted AirDrop file sharing, the very method the demonstrators have been using to communicate privately out of earshot of their totalitarian masters. Was this on advice from the communist regime or did Apple just figure out for themselves what was in their best interest to do? It wouldn’t have been hard.
Meanwhile, Apple stock has lost some ground because these protests may be interfering with their iPhone production. Poor things. Further, according to Bloomberg, violent protests have erupted at Apple’s main iPhone plant in China. (Wasn’t Apple supposed to be leaving China for production? I guess not.)
Sadly, what’s going on isn’t surprising. Apple is acting in tandem with our administration, which also, not surprisingly, has stayed mostly mum about what’s going on in China and Iran. Freedom is of no interest to them.
Behind the Iran silence is, obviously, the three-letter word oil, for which President Joe Biden has only himself to blame for having seriously restricted our domestic supply for the most dubious of reasons.
As for China, Biden, we recall, is the man who insisted the Chinese—meaning the regime—were our friends, before he recanted that for electoral purposes. The true story of the Biden family and the Chinese communists, some of which must reside on Hunter’s laptop, is yet to be fully exposed.
What all this adds up to is Apple and the rest of Big Tech cooperating with the administration in the big lie that domestic terrorists (Trump, et al.) are the threat to democracy when they themselves are.
True democracy, whether manifest as a democratic republic or otherwise, has become an inconvenience for them in the march to globalism and the “Great Reset.”
When its guru Klaus Schwab said, “You will have nothing and you will be happy,” it’s not hard to imagine that he would exclude the iPhone or its equivalent implanted under our skin—“the better to track you with, my dear,” they might say in a modern version of a Disney classic.
Whatever their disagreements with Musk, “Elon Musk meets Tim Cook, says Apple never considered removing Twitter app,” according to CNBC.
THE ABOLITION OF BRITAIN: ‘War on Christian Culture:’ UK Prosecutors Won’t Say If They Stand by Attack on Bible.
A Christian street preacher faced charges of violating the Public Order Act by engaging in “threatening,” “abusive,” and “insulting” speech in telling a lesbian couple that homosexuals will not “inherit the kingdom of heaven,” citing the Bible. In defending the case against him, a prosecutor wrote that “there are references in the bible [sic] which are simply no longer appropriate in modern society and which would be offensive if stated in public” (emphasis original).
The court dismissed the case against the preacher, John Dunn, because the lesbian couple declined to testify, but a prosecutor with the Crown Prosecution Service, the office of England’s government prosecutors, claimed before the trial that some Bible passages are “no longer appropriate in modern society.”
The next edition of Peter Hitchens’ book continues to write itself.
OUT ON A LIMB: Musk Confirms: Yes, Twitter Has Interfered in Elections.
Most infamously, Twitter banned any mention of Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell” in the lead up to the 2020 presidential election. By default, they also censored Joe Biden’s deep involvement and shady business dealings with foreign adversaries.
At the time platform executives, including then CEO Jack Dorsey, justified the multi-month banning of the account belonging to the New York Post — the nation’s oldest paper — whose reporters broke the laptop story in October 2020. They also banned White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany after she shared the story, along with countless others who did the same.
During testimony on Capitol Hill in 2021, Dorsey admitted the social media platform had no factual basis for censoring the story.
Flashback: The ‘cabal’ that bragged of foisting Joe Biden on us must answer for his failed presidency.
I DON’T KNOW ABOUT ELON, BUT I’M GETTING $44 BILLION WORTH OF ENTERTAINMENT OUT OF THIS: Everyone seems to be all a-Twitter.
Most certainly, none of these organizations or individuals of a Leftist persuasion had ever expressed any of those same objections in all the previous years of Twitter’s outrageously heavy-handed, one-sided censorship/out-right election interference. This sudden concern is so confounding. As David wrote about this morning, the EU is SO incensed, they are threatening to ban the app. I can’t imagine why. John and Jazz have both recently told us about Musk’s efforts to clean the site of AntiFa accounts – I know he’s wiped a ton of child traffickers, as well – and begin the era of transparency he promised.
What’s not to love?
Oh, the Left. It’s had the opposite effect on their little pointy heads, and they seem to be in a frenzied panic.
Anything that threatens their power is treated as an affront to decency.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX Is Preparing to Launch The World’s First Private Lunar Lander.
LOOKING FOR AN ARMISTICE: Yale law dean wants amends with conservative judges: report.
“POTENTIALLY 2022’s MOST CONSEQUENTIAL AMERICAN BOOK”: Okay, this counts as shameless self-promotion, but how often do relatively obscure academics like myself get praise like that from someone as prominent as George Will, in a column devoted to said obscure academic’s book, no less? Money quote:
This story-beyond-satire of government is recounted in Bernstein’s slender (185 pages) Classified: The Untold Story of Racial Classifications in America, potentially 2022’s most consequential American book. It reveals the rickety foundations of today’s identity politics. And because it is distilled in an amicus brief he filed for the Supreme Court as it considers racial preferences in college admissions. The brief demonstrates that such preferences depend on irrational classifications that mock their users’ intellectual and moral pretenses.
LAYOFFS UNDERWAY AT CNN: ‘a gut punch.’
All of that is true but the NY Times is bit more blunt about the reasons these layoffs are necessary.
“It is incredibly hard to say goodbye to any one member of the CNN team, much less many,” Mr. Licht wrote in the memo, which was seen by The New York Times. “I recently described this process as a gut punch, because I know that is how it feels for all of us.”
The cuts come as CNN lags behind its chief competitors, Fox News and MSNBC, in total viewership this year, according to Nielsen data. It has notched some wins over MSNBC with viewers in the coveted advertiser demographic of 25- to 54-year-olds, but the sagging ratings overall have affected CNN’s profitability this year.
What I haven’t seen anywhere is any indication which contributors are part of this round of layoffs. Maybe that’s the news that will come tomorrow?
I’m not generally a fan of CNN’s approach and think they’ve been involved in some egregious myth-making over the past several years. That said, a month before Christmas is a tough time for anyone to lose a job. That doesn’t mean I won’t dance a little jig if Jim Acosta finally gets kicked to the curb but so far that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Related: Coal miners become computer coders.
—CNN.com, April 22, 2016.
In response to a positive review in The New York Times of the recent revival of David Mamet’s American Buffalo, one young theater maker, @harharharbour wrote, “F*ck Mamet, there’s nothing he has to say worth hearing. Stop giving racist transphobic playwrights platforms. This show is shit.”
This tweet epitomizes what is now an entirely mainstream, and in some circles mandatory, view of David Alan Mamet, 74, of Chicago, the great American writer of Glengarry Glen Ross, The Verdict, The Untouchables, Hoffa, Wag the Dog, Oleanna, and a mountain of other novels, books, essays, plays, and even cartoons. Mamet must be canceled. The “trash”—as Tony-winning actor and writer Colman Domingo writes—must be taken out. But as we Jews have learned all too often the hard way, silencing our prophets is usually a mistake.
* * * * * * * * *
On the cost of speaking out against the hegemonic view:
“Well, what’s the alternative? … The big question of my generation and of show business, was how could these guys, during the McCarthy era, have sold their friends out, how could they do that? So when all of us here were shown the rack and asked how would you like to behave? That question reappeared and ‘Oh, I get it they had a choice, I guess I have a choice too.’ Now certainly I’m in a privileged position right? Because I’m in the final boarding process and I got a couple bucks in a sock under my mattress and there are people who aren’t in that privileged position and they may have to make a different choice.”
On whether the Jews should decamp to the Republican party:
* * * * * * * * *
“Dennis Prager said the only thing that the Left has been successful at is in demonizing the Right and they demonized the hell out of the Jews so bad they can’t think clearly. My great aunt lives in Chicago and she’s 91 years old and she said you know ‘things have gotten so bad over here, the taxes are so bad, the homelessness is so bad, these kids are killing each other every week on the south side of Chicago and my friends had to move from a wonderful apartment because when they took over Michigan Avenue they got into the lobby of her building and things just couldn’t be worse’ and I said you know ‘Well keep voting [D]emocratic!’ and there was this long long long long pause and any of us who are Conservative know that pause and that look on the face of the Liberal and it’s a look of aphasia.”
Read the whole f*cking thing.
HISTORY: When the New Generation of Olds Killed Your Father’s Oldsmobile. “Instead of bridging generations, the ‘Not Your Father’s Oldsmobile’ effort alienated people of all ages, and has been be blamed for hastening Oldsmobile’s irrelevance and eventual death a decade down the road from the marketing campaign’s kickoff. Before that happened, however, things got weird. How weird? Like, ‘Leonard Nimoy’s daughter’ weird.”
UM: Corvette to Launch as a Brand in 2025 with a Four-Door and an SUV. Well, there’s this: “At a point in time when Ferrari and Maserati and Porsche are all offering one or more SUVs—the antithesis to the hard-core sports cars that put them on the map in the first place—why shouldn’t Corvette also consider building sedans, crossovers or, heaven forbid, even pickups?”
‘STUDENTS FIRST‘: New book on higher ed reform (and from a liberal college president, no less) has some suggestions that might help, like replacing credit-hour inputs with competency outputs.
CAN THE U-HAUL REVOLUTION SAVE AMERICA? New data from the latest Trafalgar Group shows increasing momentum of Independent and GOP voters pulling up stakes and moving to more hospitable climes.
READER FAVORITE: EFAYCRR Steampunk Table Lamp. #CommissionEarned I just ordered one of these for my desk, it looks kind of fun.
TAMARA KEEL: Are Double Stack 1911s Making A Comeback? “All of a sudden, the tacticool corners of the internet—a place where you couldn’t mention anything hammer-fired or with a manual safety for the last dozen years without getting hounded out of the room as a ‘Fudd’—are alive with, well, let’s call it big 2011 energy. For those of us who’ve nonetheless been keeping our thumb-safety skills sharp for the last decade, just in case, this feels like vindication.”
STAY WARM: Lasko 5586 Digital Ceramic Tower Heater with Remote. #CommissionEarned
“NOTHING BLEW UP, WHICH IS ALWAYS A WIN.” SpaceX fires up 11 engines as it prepares massive rocket for orbital test. “On Tuesday, SpaceX test-fired its Super Heavy rocket for about 12 seconds, making it the longest duration firing of the massive booster so far. The test, which ignited 11 of the 33 Raptor rocket engines, came as SpaceX continues working toward an orbital launch attempt of this Super Heavy first stage and its Starship upper stage. Earlier this month, SpaceX fired 14 Raptor engines on this booster for a few seconds, so Tuesday’s test did not set a new record regarding the number of engines tested. However, this “long duration” firing is the longest period of time that so many Raptor engines have been fired at once.”
Hey, blowups happen. And you can learn from them. That’s part of rocket science, too.
ON A LONG ENOUGH TIMELINE, THE LEFT CANCELS EVERYONE: Will The Left Cancel Mr. Rogers Now?
NOT MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE: “DE-POLICING.” New study finds deaths from firearms are reaching unprecedented levels. But it does mention something that’s usually not prominently mentioned:
Maximum rates of fatalities by homicide among Black non-Hispanic men (141.8 fatalities/100,000 persons) significantly outpaced rates of fatalities among white non-Hispanic men (6.3 fatalities/100,000) and Hispanic men of the same age (22.8 fatalities/100,000 persons). The data does show there are also differences in fatalities by intent. Suicides were most common among white non-Hispanic men 80-84 years (45.2 fatalities/100,000 persons).
“Firearm fatalities accelerated dramatically during the COVID pandemic. Multiple potential factors have likely contributed to this including severe economic distress, an erupting mental health crisis, and a significant uptick in the sale of firearms,” says Eric Fleegler, MD, MPH, associate professor of pediatrics and emergency medicine at Harvard Medical School and emergency medicine physician at Boston Children’s Hospital.
Again, not mentioned: De-policing.
XI JINPING UNMASKED: The Tiananmen Tiger Stalks the Chinese Communist Government.
Throughout the country protesters — some wearing surgical masks– stand before cellphone cameras and raise blank sheets of white paper.
Right — white empty space. To paraphrase Cool Hand Luke, sometimes nothing is a real cool message. The blank sheets simultaneously satirize and defy the CCP’s malignant state censorship.
My translation of the blank: “We Chinese citizens say nothing yet you CCP tyrants fear our thoughts.” The empty page attacks the CCP’s systemic truth denial.
Check it out.
UPDATE: A death in the family took me away for awhile. Here’s a column from last week I should have blogged. Rubio and Roy Challenge the Woke Pentagon.
EUROPE’S GREEN POLICIES AS OUROBOROS: ‘Practically Unviable’ for Volkswagen to Build EV Batteries in High-Cost Europe. “It takes a lot of energy to produce a lithium-ion battery large enough to power a car or truck, and Europe’s high energy prices drive up the cost of making the batteries that were supposed to reduce costs.”
FIRST YALE, NOW THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS FACING JUDICIAL PUSHBACK OVER FREE SPEECH: Kansas Supreme Court Justice Caleb Stegall resigns KU Law teaching position over free speech issues.
On Oct. 19, the KU student chapter of the Federalist Society invited Jordan Lorence, the senior counsel and director of strategic engagement at the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), to speak to KU Law students about the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.
Associate Dean Dean for Academic and Student Affairs Leah Terranova fired off an email to the entire staff and student body of the law school, decrying the talk as “hate speech” 90 minutes before the start of Lorence’s talk.
On November 25, Kansas Supreme Court Justice Caleb Stegall, who has been teaching appellate advocacy at KU Law as a member of the adjunct faculty, submitted a scathing, six-page resignation letter to Dean Stephen Mazza, head of the law school.
Stegall wrote that he had sensed “a dampening of the spirit of open inquiry I have so loved and benefited from at KU Law. A spirit that — going all the way back to my days as a law student — always existed within Green Hall. But events this fall have brought an unwelcome clarity to what before was only a vague and foreboding feeling. So I write to let you know that, as a result, I will not be renewing my teaching relationship with KU Law next fall.” . . . Stegall said he was concerned about a “closed and fearful environment, brimming with hidden hostilities and carefully nursed grievances.”
Directly referencing the controversy over Lorence, Stegall said he was “disappointed to hear from KU Law students who recently came to me to express concern over administration actions surrounding a lunch-hour event sponsored by the student chapter of the Federalist Society.”
According to Stegall’s letter, after the announcement of the Lorence event, there was a “significant uproar” among students and faculty.
Stegall wrote that when members of the KU FedSoc expressed concern about what might happen at the event and asked the administration to provide security, the students were instead told they should cancel.
Good for him. Educrats have no business launching personal attacks on student organizations that they oversee, and Dean Mazza needs to discipline the Associate Dean.
Much more at the link.
REMEMBER THE ABRAHAM ACCORDS? President Joe Biden clearly doesn’t, considering he wasted no time upon being sworn into the Oval Office in shutting down his predecessor’s historic diplomatic initiative. The Lid’s Jeff Dunetz explains why that initiative was historic:
“The peace deals that team Trump moderated took a totally different approach. Unlike previous administrations (both Democratic and Republican), the deals did not involve ‘land for peace,’ only ‘peace for peace.’
“The supposed peace experts of previous administrations had always bloviated that no Arab country would ever formalize ties with Israel before a Palestinian state was created, but the Trump team proved them wrong.”
Instead of pursuing what worked, Biden has returned to the old discredited formula. Not coincidentally, that formula includes U.S. energy dependence and the U.S. pouring millions of tax dollar down the fetid sinkhole that is the Palestinian Authority. We should hope whoever is Biden’s successor will have this Dunetz analysis at hand as a guide to how to restore hope in the Middle East.
GUN BLOG SILENCED: Blogger Censors Borepatch. “What Google hopes to accomplish by censoring a 14-year old post to gun cleaning solvents is unclear.”
SKYNET SMILES: San Francisco police ‘killer robots’ would have explosives, not guns: SFPD.
Sleep tight, San Fran citizens!
EPIC DEAL: Calvin Klein Men’s Dress Shirt Slim Fit Non Iron. #CommissionEarned
XI’S GOTTA HAVE IT! China is censoring the World Cup in a uniquely stupid way. “China blurred out faces in the World Cup so that their citizens wouldn’t know the world is maskless.”
PRESSURE WORKS: Chinese Cities Ease COVID Restrictions After Protesters Clash With Police.
Protests in Knoxville had a similar result a couple of years ago.
MARK JUDGE: Hey Hollywood, maybe make a #MeToo film in which the men are innocent? “The new #MeToo movie She Said has bombed. The prestige picture, based on the crimes of disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein, only made $2 million — ‘one of the worst results of a major studio in history,’ as Variety put it. Here’s an idea, Hollywood: Make a #MeToo movie in which the accused actually turn out to be innocent.”
JOHN NOLTE: How Woke Hollywood Killed the ‘Oscar Movie.’
Here is the domestic box office for this year’s titles enjoying the most Oscar talk.
• Till – $8.7 million
• The Banshees of Inisherin – $7.9 million
• TÁR – $5.1 million
• She Said – $4.3 million
• Triangle of Sadness – $4 million
• Bones and All – $3.8 million
• The Fabelmans – $3.5 million
• Armageddon Time – $1.9 million
• Aftersun – $756,000Top Gun: Maverick and Everything Everywhere All at Once might be nominated, but their status as box office successes had nothing to do with Oscar talk. If anything, it’s the other way around: their box office success won them some Oscar heat.
The most shocking title on that list is The Fabelmans. Those of us of a certain age can remember when Oscar talk around a Steven Spielberg movie would have had people flocking to theaters, especially over Thanksgiving weekend (when Fabelmans opened). Spielberg guaranteed that magic cinematic experience we all crave.
There are only two movies on that list I’m interested in seeing: TAR, for sure, and The Banshees of Inisherin. Other than that? Nope, nope, nope… Life’s too short, and I have too many Blurays sitting around.
So why are these movies flopping?
Short version: They aren’t entertaining.
Hollywood has gone from “Let us entertain you” to “Sit down and eat your peas.”
And the peas are spoiled.
ABRAMS’ NON-PROFIT BOUGHT ESTATE, THEN FIRED HALF OF ITS STAFF; Haven’t we heard this song before, the one about left-wing activist group using funds given for political activities to buy real estate instead?
IT’S ONLY FOOD: Dutch Government Demands ‘Compulsory Purchase’ of 3,000 Farms to Comply With EU Environmental Rules.
Previously: How The Netherlands Has Become The World’s Second Largest Food Exporter.
An awful lot of food exports are going to be withdrawn from a very hungry world.
BOOK I AM READING: Inner Engineering: A Yogi’s Guide to Joy. #CommissionEarned
DIVERSITY PROBLEM: Zero Republican professors found across 33 departments at seven universities.
We need a higher ed industry that looks more like America.
WHY WHAT HAPPENS ON CAMPUSES MATTERS: Booklet describes the need for universities to be ‘drivers of equity and inclusion in American society.’
THIS IS A DIRECT RESPONSE TO TWITTER RE-EMBRACING FREE SPEECH: Google, YouTube spend MILLIONS to launch Global Fact Check Fund.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Government COVID Fascists Can’t Grasp That We’ve All Moved On. “The people tasked with doing everything they could to protect the public health did almost anything but that and most of the public is now aware of that. We aren’t in a state of early COVID panic and now have a lot of experience with them getting things very, very wrong.”
THE NEW SPACE RACE: What’s Next for China’s Lunar Exploration Plans?
IF RANKINGS WEREN’T IMPORTANT, PEOPLE MIGHT FOCUS ON LOCATION AND COST: More Commentary On The U.S. News Law School Rankings Boycott. “The ire directed at U.S. News and other purveyors of rankings is understandable but can mask a deeper and more troubling reality: In the world of colleges and universities, reputation, brand strength, prestige — call it what you will — is now and has long been more important than anything else, including the nature and quality of the actual education provided. In fact it would be difficult to find another industry in which reputations are so fixed, so valuable, and based on so little hard evidence.”
The truth is, there’s much less difference between law schools than the rankings suggest. Faculty pretty much all come from the same handful of top schools, curricula are more alike than different, everybody has a nice building and library now (and nobody uses the library for research much, that’s nearly all online anyway). The students around you are on average smarter at top schools, but not that much smarter and often more deficient in other ways. The chief appeal of “top” schools is just prestige.
IT’S A WEIRD ADMINISTRATION: Theft case against Biden nonbinary aide Sam Brinton is admittedly ‘weirder.’
UPDATE:
WHY, INDEED? Why can’t Karine Jean-Pierre pronounce Nobel Prize?
SO MUCH WRONG WITH ‘RESPECT FOR MARRIAGE ACT:’ With Senate passage Tuesday of the purposely mis-named same-sex marriage bill supported by all 50 Democrats and 12 Republicans, the deeply Orwellian character of American political rhetoric has become so obvious as to be undeniable.
That’s according to Dr. Al Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and author of the incisive analyst behind “The Briefing.” Don’t let his title mislead you because Mohler’s razor-edged analysis exposes the utter lack of logic behind the bill and the deceptive reasoning of advocates like Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin. It’s lengthy at 25+ minutes, but well worth every second.
MEGAN FOX: 4 Reasons Police Haven’t Arrested or Named a Suspect in the Idaho 4 Murders. “For the sake of the families who just lost four beloved children on the cusp of their adult lives, this is a developing story that should be handled with extreme care. Already, just nineteen days into the investigation, the parents are starting to question the forthrightness of the police and their emotions are raw going into the first holiday season without their children. It would be helpful for them if the true crime die-hards didn’t fan the flames of upset for clicks and views. I’ve spent the day going over the facts of this case and to me, it’s looking like very good police work in a very difficult situation.”
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