VICTORY GIRLS: To The Republicans Who Are “Tired,” Suck It Up, Buttercup.
Archive for 2019
October 2, 2019
FAIL, BRITANNIA: Woman billboard removed after transphobia row.
Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull told the BBC she paid £700 to have “woman, wʊmən, noun, adult human female” put up.
But it was removed after an LGBT activist complained Ms Keen-Minshull’s campaign represented a “hate group”.
Ms Keen-Minshull denied the allegation, but said the idea that trans women were women was “preposterous”.
When asked why the poster was erected in Liverpool, where the Labour Party’s annual conference is taking place, Ms Keen-Minshull said it was in response to the city’s mayor, Joe Anderson, who recently voiced his support for the trans community.
Dr Adrian Harrop, whose complaint led to the poster’s removal, said the billboard was a “symbol that makes transgender people feel unsafe”.
If dictionary definitions make you anxious, you might have other mental health issues.
RICHARD FERNANDEZ IN THE WSJ: Secular humanism was full of promise. Now it’s having an existential crisis.
The 20th-century left tended to define progress in terms of material goods, and that was true of liberals and Communists alike. Lyndon B. Johnson waged “war on poverty,” and in 1920 Lenin confidently declared that “communism is Soviet government plus the electrification of the whole country.”
That optimism is gone. Americans live in a world of mass air travel, endless entertainment options, food delivery, constant connectivity and air-conditioning, and the left insists we have to renounce it all. “Every one of the world’s major polluting countries,” writes novelist Jonathan Franzen in the New Yorker, must “institute draconian conservation measures, shut down much of its energy and transportation infrastructure, and completely retool its economy. . . . Human beings, including millions of government-hating Americans, need to accept high taxes and severe curtailment of their familiar life styles without revolting. They must accept the reality of climate change and have faith in the extreme measures taken to combat it. . . . Every day, instead of thinking about breakfast, they have to think about death.”
Children shouldn’t even think about schoolwork, according to 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, organizer of the Global Climate Strike: “Why should we study for a future that is being taken away from us?” This atmosphere promotes an antipathy to religious optimism. “Thinking of sending your ‘thoughts and prayers’?” asks a CNN report. Don’t bother: “Some atheists and agnostics would pay money to avoid them, according to a study.” A co-author of the study told the network that the “result is surprising because one might expect that atheists/agnostics would be indifferent to people praying for them—why care, if you don’t believe in the gesture?”
Personally, I don’t believe in the left. And I actually think that electricity does light up the soul. At least, I was moved when Senator Jellison said “give my children the lightning!”
OLD AND BUSTED: Bush Derangement Syndrome.
The New Hotness? Brexit Derangement Syndrome. “A case of a man who appears to have experienced acute psychosis triggered by the UK’s 2016 European Union referendum has been described in the journal BMJ Case Reports. The man, in his forties, is the first reported case of an acute psychotic disorder to have been brought on by the referendum.”
DEEP STATE UPDATE: “If, in the end, the House votes to impeach President Trump, the executive branch will have in effect impeached its titular head. The bureaucracies, especially the security services, will have revealed themselves as active players in determining their own leadership.” Time to go back to the spoils system? At least then people were loyal, and you knew who they worked for when they did good or ill.
Related: Phil Hamburger: The History and Danger of Administrative Law.
This is expanded on in his The Administrative Threat.
HE MUST BE NEW THERE: Councilman “mind-boggled” by Baltimore City IT department ineptitude. “In a report to a committee of the Baltimore City Council last week, City Auditor Josh Pasch said that the city’s Information Technology department could not provide any documentation of its work toward meeting agency performance goals because the only copies of that data were kept on local hard drives and never backed up to a server or the cloud.”
But you can trust the government with a backdoor to your data, honest.
IN DEFENSE OF THE PEOPLE.
When I began to study democracy over a dozen years ago, few of the so-called cultural elite were in a rush to argue against it as a form of government. After all, practising democracy was what made them the ‘goodies’. Yes, they may have made a lot of mistakes, they may have lied once or twice, but when the other options were dictatorship and Communism, all they had to say was the magic word ‘democracy’ and the grumbling over these indiscretions would quickly subside. Not only did the elite at this time not question the value of democracy — they actively promoted it as the self-evident, one, true path. It was seen as the end of history. The very word possessed such talismanic power that you could even get away with attacking whole countries and killing all kinds of people just so the ones who survived could have democracy.
Then these gatekeepers of good manners lost a referendum (Brexit) and an election (Trump) and decided that democracy was totally passé. The volte-face they performed was rather breathtaking in its coordination, like a little shoal of well-disciplined fish avoiding troubled waters with mindless accuracy.
Well, they’re not exactly against democracy. They simply want to dissolve the people and elect another.
RICHARD FERNANDEZ ON OUR FECKLESS POLITICAL CLASS: Meeting Engagement.
It’s been more than 2 years since the Belmont Club article predicting a political showdown after the election of Donald Trump was written. Since then its scenario of top rival American politicians trying to jail each other has become an actual possibility. “Will impeaching Trump lead to indictments of Obama and Biden over Ukraine?” says an article in the Spectator. Rudy Giuliani asks. ‘Shouldn’t Biden be investigated over Ukraine if Trump can be impeached over it?’ Hillary’s in the mix too. . . .
Politicians could be psyching themselves into the very thing they purport to abhor. If they sincerely want to step back from the brink now’s the time. Otherwise their actions may at some point unleash a runaway train. As a Harvard symposium noted WW1 started by miscalculation. . . . Perhaps the worst illusion of politicians is that they are in control.
Yes.
Related: Nation’s Civil War Reenactors Have Been Preparing For This Moment Their Entire Lives.
‘TIS A PITY THEY CAN’T BOTH LOSE: Zuckerberg Calls Warren’s Plan an ‘Existential’ Threat to Facebook. But Is It Really?
Or maybe they both can…
POPE CHE, THE MAL-EDUCATED: Countries that make weapons of war foment migration but refuse refugees, Pope Francis says.
IMPEACHMENT AS REGIME SUICIDE: The ruling class still believes in a consensus that doesn’t exist. Their legitimacy is vanishing.
DILUTING IT WITH BOURBON REALLY HELPS, TOO: Drinking enough water could be the key to feeling ‘very happy’.
THE ACTIVIST GOT OFF EASY! Vegan activist gets punched in face inside pizza joint.
UNEXPECTEDLY! MUST BE BAD LUCK! $15-minimum wage hike is hitting, hurting NYC restaurants.
WHO DO THOSE NETWORKS THINK THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO BE SERVING? Joe Biden campaign asks networks to stop booking Rudy Giuliani.
OH, AND SPEAKING OF SWEDEN AND LIES. KEEP THIS TIMELINE HANDY, PARTICULARLY GOING INTO THE HOLIDAYS. IT MIGHT SAVE YOU ACCIDENTALLY BEATING SOME FAMILY MEMBER TO DEATH WITH A PHYSICS WORKBOOK: The “climate doom” timeline. Mind you, the physics workbook might hurt them less…
WOULDN’T IT BE QUICKER, EASIER, AND SAVE EVERYONE INK/PIXELS TO DISCUSS LEFTIST BELIEFS THAT AREN’T LIES? The left’s belief in a Swedish ‘utopia’ is based on lies.
SHE WANTED AUDIO PUBLISHING RIGHTS AND NO “ESTABLISHED” PUBLISHER WOULD RELINQUISH THOSE: Dolly Parton inks book deal with indie publisher.
WHAT? THEY HAD CREDIBILITY AFTER DECLARING MICHELLE OBAMA THE BEST DRESSED WOMAN EVAH? How fashion mags treat the Trump women is destroying their credibility.
TURNS OUT MEN CAN’T DO ANYTHING RIGHT IN DISNEY’S MIND NOW: Not even be evil.
SURE. BUT THEY LIVE IN A PARALLEL WORLD: Some Dare Call It Treason.