METEORS: Longest night of 2020 to feature year’s final meteor shower.
(UPDATE: Link was busted. Fixed now, sorry.)
Archive for 2020
December 21, 2020
THE EXODUS IS HERE: New York Lawmaker Begs Goldman Sachs Not to Go to Florida: ‘Please Don’t Leave Us.’
Rep. Thomas Suozzi’s message to the (likely) soon-to-be departing financial firm Goldman Sachs had the sound of an 80s love ballad: don’t go, baby.
“Please don’t leave us,” the New York congressman said on CNBC following news that the multibillion-dollar investment bank is likely to bolt New York City for Florida. “We’re in a desperate time in New York right now. We need you. You’re important to us. We want you to stay.”
There’s no question that New York’s situation is desperate. The state was facing a $13 billion budget deficit and an exodus of people before the coronavirus arrived. The pandemic, and the draconian and bungled response to it from lawmakers, has only made the situation worse.
The 36,000 New Yorkers who died with or of the coronavirus is a higher death toll than 95 percent of the countries in the world, in large part because of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s order that forced nursing homes to admit discharged COVID-19 patients. Meanwhile, government efforts to slow the spread of the virus have ravaged the state’s economy.
New York’s unemployment rate stands at 9.6 percent, higher than all but two US states, and its aggressive enforcement of lockdowns has devastated commerce. The New York Times recently estimated that one-third of small businesses in the state may be gone forever. Many of the perks of being in New York have vanished, which has hastened the exodus from the Big Apple and resulted in a drain on the greatest of all resources: people.
Related: Tom Wolfe once posited that there were many CEOs “who kept their headquarters in New York long after the last rational reason for doing so had vanished . . . because of the ineffable experience of being a CEO and having lunch five days a week in [fancy expense account restaurants] in Manhattan!” So it’s no surprise that, among the myriad other reasons to flee New York, Andrew Cuomo’s war on restaurants is also helping to accelerate the business exodus.
FASTER? PLEASE! Kansas, FAA Agree To Establish Supersonic Test Corridor. The agreement would provide a critical testing site for the emerging group of supersonic aircraft as civil supersonic flight remains banned over land. Flight testing for models such as Aerion’s AS2 and Boom’s Overture is expected this decade, while NASA noise trials with the Lockheed Martin X-59 demonstrator are anticipated by 2024. ‘This year marks 73 years since Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier, and with this supersonic flight corridor Kansas will have a unique role in the next generation of supersonic transportation,’ said Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) in the announcement of the agreement.”
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Researchers set new bounds on the mass of leptoquarks.
THEY HATE YOU, THEY REALLY HATE YOU: This Series Of Fact-Checks On America’s Mission To Defeat COVID Exposes Media Hatred. “Fact checks on the United States’ COVID vaccine timeline expose how outlets like NBC, The New York Times, and The Washington Post are willing to attack American aspirations to score political points.”
DISPATCHES FROM THE MEMORY HOLE: NYC Christmas Concert Shooter Was Immigrant Shielded from Deportation Despite Extensive Criminal Record.
SO MUCH FOR THE SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND, I GUESS:
ANNALS OF OIKOPHOBIA, as spotted by David Thompson: When The Lady On The Checkout Is Your Class Enemy.
Are cashiers working class? I know this sounds like it should be obvious, but think about it. Cashiers do not produce any commodities. Under a non-capitalistic society, nobody would do what they do. In fact, their job is almost more like a cop. They keep commodities away from people and demand that you pay a fee to the bourgeois to access them. And if you refuse, they will use the violence of the state against you by reporting you to the authorities for shoplifting. So how are they, in a Marxist analysis, working class?
Yes, it’s real, or was, until deleted for attracting attention from unclean heathens. And needless to say, earnest rumblings ensued. You do, I think, have to marvel at the thought of someone going through life continually scanning for class enemies, obstructers of the Great Proletarian Revolution, and concluding that checkout assistants have just made the list.
Curious how the people who imagine the Next Great Socialist Revolution always think of themselves as being on the side who gets to pick who goes to the gulag, instead of assuming they’ll end up there as well eventually.
Meanwhile, at America’s Newspaper of Record: Old, Failed Idea Repackaged As New, Progressive Idea. Great photo juxtaposition of Stalin, and Goya’s Employee of the Month, who likely views Stalin as a wild-eyed free market libertarian Reason subscriber:
EVERYTHING IS RACIST: You can’t ‘picnic’ or ‘brown bag’ at UM. “‘Picnic’ and ‘brown bag’ are offensive terms, according to a list compiled by the University of Michigan’s Information and Technology Services’ Words Matter Task Force, writes Charles Hilu on College Fix. And if you think that’s crazy or insane, those words also are blacklisted . . . No, banned.”
PBS COULD REPORT STORIES LIKE THIS PRIOR TO NOVEMBER 3, 2020: An 11-year-old changed election results on a replica Florida state website in under 10 minutes.
Now it would be considered “conspiracy theory,” and probably censored by Facebook for “spreading misinformation.”
COVID VACCINE ONE STEP AWAY FROM ABORTED BABIES: AstraZeneca denies that its Covid vaccine was developed using aborted baby tissue, but acknowledges it did involve the use of “immortalized cells” grown in culture from aborted baby tissue. Is that one step sufficiently separate from directly using a dead baby’s body parts to alleviate the obvious moral concerns?
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Teaching Hate in the Seattle School District.
The trainers acknowledge that this language might meet resistance from white teachers. They explain that any negative emotional reaction to being denounced for “whiteness” is an automatic response from the white teachers’ “lizard-brain,” which makes them “afraid that [they] will have to talk about sensitive issues such as race, racism, classism, sexism, or any kind of ‘ism.’” The trainers insist that the teachers “must commit to the journey,” regardless of their emotional or intellectual hesitations.
In the most disturbing portion of the session, the teachers discussed “spirit murder,” which, according to Bettina Love, is the concept that American schools “murder the souls of Black children every day through systemic, institutionalized, anti-Black, state-sanctioned violence.” Love, who originated the concept, declares that the education system is “invested in murdering the souls of Black children,” even in the most ostensibly progressive institutions.
The goal of these inflammatory “racial equity” programs is to transform Seattle schools into activist organizations. At the conclusion of the training, teachers must explain how they will practice “anti-racist pedagogy,” address the “current social justice movements taking place,” and become “anti-racist outside the classroom.” They are told to divide the world into “enemies, allies, and accomplices,” and work toward the “abolition” of whiteness. They must, in other words, abandon the illusion of neutral teaching standards and get in the trenches of race-based activism.
Unfortunately, this indoctrination is not an aberration—it reflects deep ideological currents within Seattle Public Schools. In recent years, the district has expanded its Department of Racial Equity Advancement and deployed “racial equity teams” in dozens of neighborhood schools. The stated goal is to “advance educational racial equity,” but in practice, these programs often serve to introduce, perpetuate, and enforce a specific ideological agenda.
Read the whole thing.
HER REFUSAL TO ANSWER IS ALL THE ANSWER YOU NEED: Pelosi Repeatedly Refuses To Answer CNN About Why She Rejected Bigger Stimulus Bill Before Election.
PETER JACKSON DROPS SNEAK PEEK OF BEATLES DOC GET BACK:
At long last, Peter Jackson has given Beatles fans a glimpse at his upcoming documentary, The Beatles: Get Back, due out August 27th, 2021.
Paul McCartney dropped a five-minute clip from the doc via his Twitter Monday morning that features Jackson introducing the snippet and sharing the news that the film is just about half done. Jackson stressed that this not a trailer for the doc, but rather a sampling of the 56 hours of never-before-seen footage it will feature. Scored by the titular song, the sneak peek features all manner of studio antics.
Featuring footage shot in early 1969 — including clips from the band’s legendary 1969 rooftop concert in London — the film promises to be “the ultimate ‘fly on the wall’ experience that Beatles fans have long dreamt about — it’s like a time machine transports us back to 1969, and we get to sit in the studio watching these four friends make great music together,” according to Jackson.
Get Back will build on 1970’s Let It Be — also shot during those sessions — but will present a much sunnier vision of the Beatles’ breakup. As Ringo Starr said in a release: “There were hours and hours of us just laughing and playing music, not at all like the version that came out. There was a lot of joy and I think Peter will show that. I think this version will be a lot more peace and loving, like we really were.”
As long as the original Let It Be documentary is restored to the same brilliant standard, I can’t wait; the quality is infinitely better than the footage of Let It Be that’s circulating on the Interwebs. Presumably, there will be a box set containing Blu-Rays of both documentaries, a CD of the album, and CDs with (some of the voluminous amount of) outtakes for next year’s Christmas:
VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: Kamala Harris Says Refusing to Call Fake Doctor Biden ‘Doctor Biden’ Is Un-American.
Insanity Wrap needs to know: When is a pretend doctor a real doctor?
Answer: Whenever Kamala Harris thinks she can get one-tenth of one percent of an extra point in the polls.
Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.
- The new anti-racism looks a lot like the old racism
- Canada goes to war against… hocky?
- Meet the restaurneur crazy enough to fight City Hall
Bonus Sanity: Eric Clapton, Van Morrison release song against coronavirus lockdowns.
And so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.
COME SEE THE ANTISEMITISM INHERENT IN THE LEFTISM: Dem Senate Candidates Appear at Event With Supporter of Farrakhan.
WELL, WHAT ELSE IS THERE LEFT TO DO? Overdose Deaths Far Exceed COVID-19 Deaths In San Francisco. “A record high number of 621 people died from overdoses in 2020 compared to the 173 who have died from COVID-19, according to statistics reported by The Associated Press.”
I THINK DEMOCRATS’ VOTES SHOULD COUNT HALF, SINCE THEY WERE THE PARTY OF SECESSION AND SEGREGATION: Law professor: Black Americans’ votes should count twice – as a form of reparations.
Besides, in some Democrat-run cities, they already get counted twice . . .
ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION: Facebook’s Laughable Campaign Against Apple Is Really Against Users and Small Businesses.
Facebook’s campaign is targeting a new AppTrackingTransparency feature on iPhones that will require apps to request permission from users before tracking them across other apps and websites or sharing their information with and from third parties. Requiring trackers to request your consent before stalking you across the Internet should be an obvious baseline, and we applaud Apple for this change. But Facebook, having built a massive empire around the concept of tracking everything you do by letting applications sell and share your data across a shady set of third-party companies, would like users and policymakers to believe otherwise.
Make no mistake: this latest campaign from Facebook is one more direct attack against our privacy and, despite its slick packaging, it’s also an attack against other businesses, both large and small.
Read the whole thing.