I WANT A NUCLEAR ORION SHIP: Nuclear-Powered Rockets Get a Second Look for Travel to Mars
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FIVE THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT ANTHONY QUINN WARNER, NASHVILLE CHRISTMAS BOMBING SUSPECT.

I MISSED THIS IN AUGUST:  Machiavellians, narcissists, and psychopaths more likely to signal virtuous victimhood.  I guess that’s not a shock, but it’s interesting to see somebody nail it down.  (Popular media mention of study here.)

CHIK-FIL-A GOES BACK FARTHER THAN WE KNEW: Incredibly Preserved Fast Food Stall Reveals What Romans Snacked on in Pompeii.

SPOILER: SHE ALMOST CERTAINLY DIDN’T. Pandering Kamala Harris Makes Dubious Claim She Celebrated Kwanzaa as a Kid.

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS: Professor Neil Ferguson in the London Times on Christmas Day: People don’t agree with lockdown and try to undermine the scientists.

Not least of which, some fellow called Professor Neil Ferguson, during the first half of 2020: What Neil Ferguson’s booty call tells us about modern politics. “It is actually incredibly important news that Ferguson, the Imperial College modeller who said it was possible 500,000 Brits would die if we didn’t lock down, defied the lockdown. It deserves the frontpage treatment it is getting today. For Ferguson’s booty call with his married lover actually reveals a great deal about the 21st-century elites and how they view their relationship with the masses. It’s one rule for them and another for us.”

QED: Dr. Fauci Admits He Has Treated The American People Like Children.

IT’S MOURNING IN AMERICA: Post-Christmas COVID-19 Panic Porn Echoes Joe Biden’s ‘Darkest Days’ Rhetoric.

“MAY.” Fauci: US COVID outbreak may worsen after holidays.

DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERSECTION OF CANCEL CULTURE AND THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: He Was Offended By A Private Video She Sent To A Friend. So He Waited A Year To Post It And Ruin Her Life.

Four years ago, 15-year-old Mimi Groves, then a freshman at Heritage High School in Virginia, was excited to get her learner’s permit. After receiving it, she sent her friend a 3-second Snapchat video in which she said: “I can drive, [n-word]!”

Somehow, the video was circulated among a few students at school. It survived for years, and, last year, Jimmy Galligan, who was a senior along with Groves at Heritage, ended up seeing it. Galligan, whose mother is black and whose father is white, said he was offended by the video. Instead of explaining the issue with a white girl using the slur to Groves herself, Galligan held onto the video and waited until he could use it against Groves to destroy her.

Typically, such an act would be seen as bullying, but in today’s pro-cancel-culture society, Galligan received a New York Times profile and the story presented from his point of view, along with a headline clearly favoring his actions. “A Racial Slur, a Viral Video, and a Reckoning,” reads the Times headline about Galligan’s act.

The “reckoning” refers to what Groves endured at the hands of Galligan. Groves had been accepted to the University of Tennessee and was set to join the school’s cheer team, which at the time was the reigning national champion. When Galligan posted the video of Groves online and it went viral, she lost her position on the cheer team and was forced to withdraw from the university after facing pressure from admissions officials. The officials apparently told her they received “hundreds of emails and phone calls from outraged alumni, students and the public,” the Times reported.

Groves told the Times that she didn’t “understand the severity of the word, or the history and context behind it because” she was so young. She told the outlet the slur was used in “all the songs we listened to, and I’m not using that as an excuse.”

There’s something for everyone to hate in this story: A college freshman gets her life destroyed by being videoed quoting a rap song when she was 15. The crusading New York Times, staffed by journalists who earlier this year exclaimed that a Tom Cotton op-ed somehow endangered them, is thrilled to sic the social media dog pile onto her. And college administrators who take their lead from that mob. A whole lot of people who should know better need to ask themselves:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1VxaMEjRU

GLEICHSCHALTUNG: Woke critic gives Pixar’s ‘Soul’ a poor review …because it contained a white character that wasn’t completely useless.

GOOD: New radiation vest technology protects astronauts, doctors.

UGH: Obesity and Other Problems Barring Teens from Military Service Need National Attention, Leaders Say.

TO BE FAIR, THAT’S SETTING THE BARSTOOL AWFULLY LOW: Barstool Sports is Helping Struggling Small Businesses Far More Efficiently than the Government.

THAT WAS THE YEAR THAT WAS. IT’S OVER, LET IT GO: David Thompson on The Year Reheated.

If you needed further proof, that as Glenn once wrote, “So much of lefty activism is just mental illness acting out,” David’s round-up should finish things off nicely.

RELIGION OF PEACE UPDATE: French Muslim ‘beaten over Christmas lunch photo.’

“PUBLIC HEALTH” PEOPLE SEEM TO LOVE RATIONING CARE: Oregon Hospitals Didn’t Have Shortages. So Why Were Disabled People Denied Care?

GOOD: The small print of Boris’s Brexit deal makes for reassuring reading.

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: Trump Had No Choice But to Sign Corrupt ‘Relief’ Bill.

Insanity Wrap needs to know: What’s worse than signing into a law a “relief” bill that provides little relief while doling out hundreds of billions to those who need it the least?

Answer: Vetoing it, losing the Senate runoffs in Georgia, and having Congress override the veto anyway.

Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.

• The one simple question that proves the FBI’s total corruption
• Kwanzaa founder is just another woman-toruting lefty
• “Ego violence” is a thing now.

Bonus Sanity: Just wait until you see the facts about Trump’s pardons compared to other presidents.

And so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.

ARROGANT BLINDNESS IN ATTACKS ON WHITE EVANGELICALS: Writing for The Federalist, Nathaniel Blake points out that, as has become tiresomely typical in the holiday season, Christmas 2020 occasioned an outpouring of elitist attacks on the quarter of the American population who identify as evangelicals, especially those who are also white.

The only new element in these assaults this time around was inclusion of criticism of white evangelicals for being less than cooperative in the Covid lockdown madness since March.  But Blake, who has a PhD. in political theory (Strauss?), shines an especially illuminating light on former National Review staff writer David French.

French, like Nicolas Kristof at the New York Times and Michael Luo at the New Yorker, based his analysis, according to Blake, on two flawed assumptions. First, that denominational and other differences within evangelicalism are of no importance.

“Lumping Pentecostals, Presbyterians, and prosperity-gospel preachers together is sloppy, as is neglecting to distinguish between those who are committed churchgoers and those who are only nominally evangelical,” Blake writes.

Second is the common assumption among Never-Trumpers and the Left that voting for Orange Man Bad is evidence of an irretrievably immoral character.

“It is easy to pick out Trumpian words and deeds that are not compatible with the gospel. It is also easy to do the same with his Democratic opponents and their policies. Asserting that voting for Trump is a moral stain on evangelicals, without weighing the alternatives, presumes what is in question,” Blake contends.

How long before French’s name appears on a masthead somewhere in the progressive media?

CHINA IS ASSHOLE (CONT’D): This Brave Woman Reported on COVID-19 in Wuhan. China Will Lock Her Up for Years.

COMMUNIST FRONT CORPORATION: How Zoom violated its own terms of service for access to China’s market. “Like global tech companies before it, Zoom caved to the Chinese government, even when it meant overlooking basic human rights.”

Caved?

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: NYU prof: What if White Americans’ taxes were investigated for ties to slavery?

FROM 2019, WHEN MAINSTREAM MEDIA WERE ALLOWED TO EXPRESS CONCERN ABOUT THIS: NBC: Chinese parts, hidden ownership, growing scrutiny: Inside America’s biggest maker of voting machines.

THE LONG MARCH THROUGH THE INSTITUTIONS IS COMPLETE–THE LEFT CONTROLS TEEN VOGUE: Teen Vogue publishes a column entitled “No Class” written by a leftist union organizer. The most recent installment is “What the Labor Movement Wants from Joe Biden.” Of particular interest to me was its demand for the repeal of the so-called “subminimum wage” for severely disabled workers.

There’s one thing you can count on:  Eliminating the “subminimum wage” will almost certainly eliminate jobs for Down Syndrome workers. I can only assume that’s what unions want.  They’re just not allowed to say it.

A couple of months ago, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a report that sided with the labor movement on this issue. (As usual, I dissented.)  It received almost 10,000 public comments on this topic—more than we have ever received on any topic. About 98% of those who submitted comments—most of them parents or other relatives of severely disabled workers—urged the Commission NOT to eliminate the sub minimum wage option.    Apparently, we are supposed to believe that Teen Vogue and the labor movement care more about the welfare of Down Syndrome workers than their own parents do.