I BLAME OUR TOXIC MEDIA: Study: Suicide Rates Decline Globally While U.S. Rate Rises.
Archive for 2019
February 8, 2019
AT AMAZON, on sale, Men’s Leather Oxford Dress Shoes Formal Lace Up Modern Shoes.
UNEXPECTED HEADLINES: Clown-masked robbers armed with machete get beaten down by scooter-wielding grandma.
ANOTHER “PRESENTED WITHOUT COMMENT”: Except to add that nobody outheadlines the New York Post.
DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: David Thompson’s blog, where David does a fantastic job of finding and pushing back against all sorts of PC madness, particularly in academia, turns 12 tomorrow.
YOU ALREADY RUINED SUDAFED TO NO EFFECT, DRUG WARRIORS, DON’T MESS WITH IMODIUM: Study finds steady rise in opioid abusers overdosing on diarrhea drug.
JOSH KRAUSHAAR: Democrats Are Boosting Trump’s Re-election Prospects.
When you look at the polls breaking down the actual Democratic electorate, you’ll find limited support for such socialist-minded schemes. Broaden out to the overall electorate, and it’s easy to see how Democrats could be giving President Trump a lifeline to a second term despite his widespread unpopularity.
“We are on an out-of-control roller coaster going 100 miles-per-hour, and we have no functioning brake,” said one liberal Democratic strategist who is alarmed by the rising tide of socialism within the party. “No one is leading and that void could not be more clear.”
What’s so remarkable about this rapid leftward shift is that it’s working against the party’s best interests—both for the individual candidates and their chances of defeating Trump next year.
All the Democrats had to do was not act crazy, but instead they’ve become the party of Florida Man on Bath Salts Running Naked Down the Interstate Chewing Off His Own Face.
YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: The 10 Most Insane Requirements Of The Green New Deal.
NOPE, FOR THAT YOU NEED SOCIALISM: “A society based on economic contraction cannot exist under capitalism.” And there are a bunch of “Green New Deal” types calling for just that in the name of “degrowthing.”
Related: Starving Venezuelans’ Warnings To The US: “Socialism Is A Big Lie!”
LISTEN TO THEM, THE CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT. WHAT MUSIC THEY MAKE! Liberal activist groups howl over ‘Monster Markup’ of Trump judicial nominees. “Lindsey Graham wields the hammer as the new Senate Judiciary Committee Chair to move through 44 renominated nominees.”
RANKINGS: These are the 50 worst cities to live in America.
About one in nine Americans live in California, but one in five cities on this list are in California.
CNN special correspondent and far-left climate activist Bill “ignorant f***sticks” Weir joined afternoon CNN Newsroom host Brooke Baldwin Thursday for a criticism-free lovefest in honor of the Green New Deal. All told, the pair determined it was akin to NASA and a necessary step to save Earth without offering any questions or answers about how this move toward communism would be paid for.
If those things didn’t convince you that this four-minute-plus segment was a trainwreck, Baldwin sat in awe as Weir quipped that the Green New Deal was a love story for Earth, like A Star Is Born where Bradley Cooper could play Senator Ed Markey (D-NY) and Lady Gaga would be Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
Before her Website 404ed the specifics of her “Green New Deal” page yesterday afternoon, as Reason’s Joe Setyon wrote, “Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal Aims to Eliminate Air Travel:”
Democratic socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.) today introduced a House resolution outlining her long-awaited Green New Deal. The resolution, as Reason‘s Ron Bailey reported earlier today, cites climate change concerns as justification for a plan that would remake the U.S. economy over the next 10 years.
The resolution’s aims include “overhauling transportation systems in the United States to eliminate pollution and 19 greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector as much as is technologically feasible.” According to an overview of the resolution, this will be accomplished, in part, by “build[ing] out highspeed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary.”
In other words, the Green New Deal wants to make commercial air travel obsolete. Is this in any way feasible? The short answer is no. “It’s actually probably even dumber than it seems,” says Baruch Feigenbaum, assistant director of transportation policy at the Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes this website.
But in the meantime, if CNN’s correspondents, like virtually all 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, are behind Ocasio-Cortez’s proposals, shouldn’t they help ratchet them forward by insisting upon the removal of CNN from all American airports? Perhaps spend a month reminding viewers throughout each day, via a combination of on-air announcements, and in the “ticker tape” graphic that runs under most CNN segments, that CNN will be departing the departure lounges shortly. It will reduce CNN’s own carbon footprint by that much, and remind travelers that they’ll soon be going “back to the future,” back to the trains. Let Fox News have the monopoly on those reactionaries who cling bitterly to their guns, their religion, and/or their Boeing 767s.
The establishment left moves “forward” through a combination of dramatic forceful moments (such as FDR’s New Deal and Great Society) and ceaseless, seemingly minor ongoing change. C’mon Time-Warner-CNN-HBO, show AOC you’re onboard with the GND.
JOHN HAWKINS: The Six Most Bizarre Proposals from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal.
1. It calls for getting rid of airplanes
In Cortez’s FAQ, she specifically notes that she’s not sure that they will be able to get rid of airplanes in 10 years’ time. Of course, that idea, near and dear to the hearts of environmental extremists, is insane. Outside of China, where the government can do and take whatever it wants, there’s not a single nation on the planet that has built enough high-speed rail to even go from one side of the country to the other. Furthermore, high-speed rail works much better in areas with a dense population — which doesn’t describe most of the United States. Then there’s Hawaii. What, are we just supposed to take boats back and forth to the Aloha State? If you travel from San Diego to D.C., are you good with spending days on a bus going each way rather than just taking an 8-hour flight? Because if Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gets her way, that is exactly what you’ll be doing. I guess we’re lucky that Cortez hasn’t demanded that the buses play Al Gore’s monotone voice on an endless loop, lecturing us about global warming while we take our cross-country bus trips.
2. It calls for getting rid of cows
Why cows? Because environmentalist wackos are upset that they fart too much methane into the air. Yes, really. So enjoy those burgers and steaks while you can, because if Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gets her way, you’ll be eating tofu and potatoes to break up the monotony of kale burgers.
AOC has already caused fellow far leftist, Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii to have second thoughts, for obvious reasons. Can’t wait to hear PETA’s thoughts on eliminating the world’s cow population.
WHERE ARE THE FUNNY MOVIES AT? ‘Blazing Saddles’ at 45: The Movie That Couldn’t Get Made Today.
Blazing Saddles seems to send up almost everything. And it does it brilliantly. The humor employed if filled with what today would be known as triggers for the emotionally weak, politically correct, Social Justice Warrior crowd.
Ethnic jokes abound. There is enough juvenile sexual humor to keep a thousand generations of pubescent boys entertained. The movie also has the most memorable fart joke scene ever.
Throughout, the what would now be taboo humor is used to lampoon racism, politicians, entertainers, and too many more things to remember offhand. It is brilliantly done, but only if one is from an era when the majority of the population wasn’t perpetually seeking to be aggrieved.
If you had told me in the early ’80s that one day we’d look back fondly on the ’70s, I’d have glared at you though knock-off Wayfarers then turned my Walkman up to 11 just to drown out the silliness.
HOW MUCH HAVE YOU GOT? How Much Will the Green New Deal Cost?
As it happens, a team of Stanford engineers led by Mark Jacobson outlined just such a plan back in 2015. Jacobson’s repowering plan would involve installing 335,000 onshore wind turbines; 154,000 offshore wind turbines; 75 million residential photovoltaic systems; 2.75 million commercial photovoltaic systems; 46,000 utility-scale photovoltaic facilities; 3,600 concentrated solar power facilities with onsite heat storage; and an extensive array of underground thermal storage facilities.
Assuming steep declines in the costs of each form of renewable electric power generation, just running the electrical grid using only renewable power would still cost roughly $7 trillion by 2030. The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation calculated that the total cost of an earlier version of Jacobson’s scheme would amount to $13 trillion. And based on how fast it has taken to install energy generation infrastructure in the past, Jacobson’s repowering plan would require a sustained installation rate that is more than 14 times the U.S. average over the last 55 years and more than six times the peak rate.
Where is the money to pay for this massive transformation going to come from? The headline over at The Week sums it up pretty well: “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants to pay for her Green New Deal by essentially printing more money.”
What could go wrong?
A WIN FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM: Judge blocks University of Iowa from selectively applying nondiscrimination policy to Christian group.
BUSINESS: Amazon just quietly confirmed it is competing with UPS and FedEx.
Amazon’s annual reports usually first highlight the “intense competition” the retail juggernaut faces. In 2017, that predictably included “retail, e-commerce services, digital content and electronic devices, and web and infrastructure computing services.”
This year, Amazon added another industry in which they’re facing competition — “transportation and logistics services,” as CNBC’s Eugene Kim reported on Feb. 5.
That’s a clear warning shot to UPS and FedEx. Both transportation companies have long claimed Amazon is just a good customer.
I’d grown frustrated with Amazon Prime, due to increasing reliance on USPS delivery, which is my town ranges from “merely unreliable” to “reliably awful.” But they’re doing a lot less of that, and delivering more often with their own vehicles — and often earlier in the day, too.
HARSH, BUT FAIR:
There’s a whole, taking-him-to-school thread that follows.
Plus this response:
Also harsh but fair.
