USC: USC Faculty Reaction to the Great USC Chinese Homonym Panic. “‘Scathing comments’ from an anonymous faculty survey (reported by the Chronicle of Higher Education), plus an article in the Atlantic. You can’t buy publicity like that, as they say, or faculty morale like that.”
Archive for 2020
September 23, 2020
FRANK FLEMING, OF IMAO.US, AND OF THE BABYLON BEE HAS A BOOK OUT IN MANY FORMATS, INCLUDING ON AUDIBLE. YOU MIGHT WANT TO CHECK IT OUT: Superego: Fathom.
There are two ways to be a hero.
One is more violent than the other. And the universe needs a hero, because a mysterious entity known as the Fathom is terrorizing the known universe and seizing control. But they’ve made one mistake: They woke Rico, the universe’s greatest killer, from a coma. And he’s decided he might be the good guy this time.
But being a hero isn’t easy. Rico has to work with others (not his favorite), and the impossible odds means it’s going to take an insane scheme or two (more to his liking). Still, Rico won’t let anything get in his way on his mission to destroy the Fathom…even though there are like a ton of things in his way – militaries, trained killers, a planet-devastating weapon or two.
Once again, it looks like Rico is going to destroy a lot of things and kill a lot of people.
But hopefully this time in a good way.
LAURENCE JARVIK: Scientific American‘s Scientifically Indefensible Biden Endorsement. “An editorial that begins and ends with lies is, by definition, not credible and unworthy of a purportedly ‘scientific’ journal …”
One hallmark of the Trump era is the unmasking of allegedly nonpartisan institutions as cesspits of partisan hackery.
WHAT KIND OF PERVERSE PLACE IS AUSTRALIA, WHERE A JUDGE CAN TELL A WOMAN, “SHE COULD NOT KEEP BLAMING OTHERS FOR HER BAD DECISIONS”. IT’S LIKE THEY’RE NOT AS OBSESSED WITH FIGHTING PATRIARCHY AS OUR ESTABLISHMENT: Instagram model who poses as Catwoman jailed for masked robberies.
Good on you Australia.
SHE WAS JUST SINGING ALONG WITH SCREAMIN’ JAY HAWKINS: Man to be executed for murdering woman he believed cast spell on him.
AND WEIRDLY IT’S NOT 2020: The Year That Everything Happened.
SHE’S NOT IMAGINING IT. AND CHILDREN’S CARTOONS ARE THE SAME. OR THEY WERE 20 YEARS AGO, WHEN I BANNED A LOT OF THEM FROM MY HOUSE: Am I imagining a change in children’s books?
I think that parents who review that stuff can be like the little train that could and stop the infection of their children’s minds. Remember, leftists like cuckoos don’t build their own nest. They steal other people’s.
AND IT’S TIME TO SEND HIM TO THE RIGHT ABOUT: Larry the Liquidator is on the Line.
Vote as though the life of the Republic depended on it. Vote against the (every day less) crypto commies. The life you save might be your own.
HEY, CUPCAKES, CONTINUE CALLING IN SICK, AND YOU’LL SOON GET TO CALL IN UNEMPLOYED, BROKE AND HOMELESS: Virtual Learning for Kenosha Schools As Teachers Call In “Sick”.
Most parents are discovering not only are you non-essential, you and your entire corrupt indoctrination machine are counterproductive.
HE ALSO PREDICTS THE SUN WILL RISE IN THE EAST & SET IN THE WEST: Mitch McConnell expects brutal Supreme Court fight to replace RBG.
I didn’t even know that Captain Obvious had taken up a career in politics, much less changed his name to McConnell.
OH, COME ON. IN THESE TROUBLED TIMES MANY OF US CARRY A COUPLE PISTOLS, A FEW HUNDRED ROUNDS OF AMMO, TOURNIQUETS AND SHOVELS WHILE GOING FOR A WALK. OF COURSE THOSE IN MY CIRCLES MIGHT OR MIGHT NOT ALSO TAKE THEIR BACKHOE AND THEIR NOT-MINI-PIGS ON A LEASH FOR A WALK. TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN, AND ALL THAT: Couple busted with gun, 200 rounds of ammunition ahead of Trump rally in Ohio.
And I think people like that couple should be very concerned.
THE LEFT ONLY COSPLAYS REVOLUTION WHERE THE POWER IS ON THEIR SIDE. IT’S SPEAKING POWER TO TRUTH ALL THE WAY DOWN: EPA boss blames Cuomo, de Blasio for ‘Occupy City Hall’ protests.
SHE HAD BEEN DEPORTED IN THE LAST YEAR SO CLEARLY SOME PORTIONS OF OUR IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT ARE WORKING. THOUGH PROBABLY NOT ENOUGH: Who is Pascale Ferrier, the woman accused of sending ricin to Trump?
FOR ONE THING, THEY WEREN’T PUTTING THEIR SICK INTO ELDERCARE FACILITIES: As rich nations struggle, Africa’s coronavirus response is praised.
GOOD, BECAUSE THESE BEING THE FRENCH YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT INSANITY THEY MIGHT HAVE COME UP WITH. AND NONE OF US — NOT EVEN ATHEISTS — WANTS TO SEE NOTRE DAME REBUILT AS A BRUTALIST MASTERPIECE: Notre Dame cathedral update: Carpenters wow public with medieval techniques.
September 22, 2020
OPEN THREAD: Share your thoughts and feelings.
The long-rising blue tide that has colored American politics and values may have crested, but it could still have enough momentum to make it through the election year. Even if Trump is somehow reelected, the wielders of power and influence — academia, media, Wall Street, Hollywood, the big-tech oligarchs, the dominant nonprofits, and the governmental apparat — will remain deep blue for the foreseeable future.
The prospect of untrammeled progressive power, particularly with a malleable Joe Biden in the White House, may seem depressing for conservatives or even old-style liberals, who are concerned by the Left’s increasingly censorious and authoritarian bent. But there is also a silver lining of sorts. Everywhere blue policies — generally now referred to as “progressive” — have prevailed, they have failed miserably, particularly for those parts of the population, such as the working class and minorities, that they purport to serve.
Well, okay, there’s this: “Over time, these failures will open up an opportunity perhaps not for a resurgence of traditional conservatism but for a reshuffling of political loyalties away from those whose policies don’t work. Many core constituencies associated with blue politics may become aware that their interests, prominent on the progressive menu, will never in reality be served. Ultimately, results, not memes, matter most.”
Well, maybe. Places can stay messed up for a long time, and a lot of people suffer, before you can un-stick a political system whose fixers want it to stay stuck. With Democrats currently talking about packing the Supreme Court and adding new states to stack the Senate, it doesn’t sound like ordinary political change will be very feasible. Best to be sure that Biden doesn’t win.
DON’T TRUST CHINA. CHINA IS ASSHOLE. New study looks at space power competition through China’s lens. “China views the U.S. commercial space industry as a major advantage for the United States. The report says China’s private commercial sector faces many challenges, including a lack of a supportive policy environment, and the central government’s favoritism toward the state owned sector.”
HEATHER MAC DONALD: Blue Truth Matters.
The Black Lives Matter movement trades on Americans’ ignorance about the demographics of criminal offending. As long as that ignorance prevails, BLM’s anti-cop narrative will continue destroying the institutions of law and order.
Activists and their media enablers present racial disparities in police activity—be it stops, arrests, or officer use of force—as prima facie evidence of police bias. They generate those racial disparities by comparing policing data to population ratios.
In New York City, for example, a little over 50% of all pedestrian stops conducted by the New York Police Department have a black subject. But blacks are slightly less than a quarter of the city’s population. Voilà! Proof of racism, declare the mainstream media, Democratic politicians, and virtually the entirety of academia.
Census data is the wrong benchmark for evaluating police behavior, however. The proper benchmark is crime rates, because policing today is data-driven, deploying officers to where criminals prey on their victims.
Blacks in New York City commit over 70% of all drive-by shootings, according to the victims of, and witnesses to, those shootings, who are overwhelmingly minority themselves. Add Hispanic shootings to black shootings and you account for nearly 100% of all shootings in New York City. These numbers mean that virtually every time an officer gets a “shots fired” call over his radio, he is being called to a minority neighborhood, on behalf of a minority victim, and being given the description of a minority suspect, if anyone is cooperating with the police for once. The cops don’t wish this reality into being. It is forced upon them by the facts of crime.
Such disparities exist in every American city. In Chicago, blacks commit about 80% of all shootings and murders, and whites less than 2%, though both blacks and whites are each a little less than a third of the population. In St. Louis, blacks commit up to 100% of all homicides, though they are less than 50% of the population.
Officers cannot use their lawful powers of enforcement, in other words, without having a disparate impact on blacks, since blacks commit the lion’s share of violent street crime.
You’re not supposed to talk about this, though. But the data are what the data are. Believe in science.
I THOUGHT THE CORONAVIRUS WENT AWAY ONCE RUTH BADER GINSBURG DIED. I SAW CROWDED RALLIES AND EVERYTHING, AND THE PRESS BARELY MENTIONS THE VIRUS ANYMORE. Lockdown failed. We must follow the Swedish model and learn to live with Covid.
BELIEVE IN SCIENCE. SCIENCE IS REAL. Forest Fires Aren’t at Historic Highs in the United States. Not Even Close.
SWEDEN TOOK THE VIRTUOUS PATH: The Moral Case for Reopening Schools — Without Masks. If you’re a public-minded citizen committed to reducing the death toll from Covid-19, what is the morally correct way to behave? Start by ignoring the advice from the media and the scientific and political establishments. Unless you’re elderly or otherwise at high risk, you shouldn’t be wearing a mask all day — or shaming others for going unmasked. You should be careful not to endanger the vulnerable, but otherwise you can best promote the common good by exposing yourself to the slight risk from the virus in order to promote herd immunity.
That strategy is working in Sweden, and it would work elsewhere if we heeded sensible epidemiologists like Sunetra Gupta instead of the fearmongering and destructive advice from most public officials and school administrators. Unmasked students deserve to be praised, not expelled.