CALLING THIS BOOK INTELLECTUAL HORSESH*T IS BEING UNKIND TO EQUINE EXCRETA:  White Fragility.

MAY HE LIVE LONG, AND KEEP ALL HIS FACULTIES TO THE LAST DAY OF HIS LIFE:  Happy 90th Birthday Thomas Sowell – our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

THERE IT IS. THE LEFT’S MODUS OPERANDI IS ALWAYS PROJECT, PROJECT, PROJECT: Sawant: Teen Dead Because “Capitialism’s Brutality

RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA!  The Insufferable and Political Media Stupidity Around “The Russian Bounty” Narrative…

There it is. I’d say that it was impossible to be bored in 2020. Turns out I was wrong.

THE PRESENTIST OBSESSION OF THOSE WHO INSIST ON JUDGING EVERYTHING BY PRESENT OPINIONS IS SECOND ONLY IN DESTRUCTIVE POWER TO THOSE WHO INSIST NO HUMAN, PREY TO THE FLAWS THAT ARE COMMON IN HUMANITY CAN BE HELD GREAT OR REVERED IN ANY FIELD:  Finding a connection between Agatha Christie (good) and the mob (bad).

What these people are actually doing is destroying cultural pedestals, not just statues. What they are doing is saying no one is worth unless they are automatons or saints.

WRITING (AND LIVING) IN THE YEAR OF THE JACKPOT:  A Bonfire of Vanities.

OH YEAH? PROVE IT!  Gen-Z: We’re the greatest generation.

WHO IS AUTHORITARIAN AND CORRUPT:  WHO: Countries complaining about contact tracing are ‘lame’.

Also, I don’t complain about contact tracing. I go Professor Bernardo de la Paz on them. Our normal hangout is not making us sign in, but if they were…  Well…. Mr. Manuel Garcia O’Kelly and his wife Wyoming Knott would have enjoyed some Mexican tonight. And the best way to contact them would be the governor’s mansion.

Look, yeah, sure, if this were the Black Death contact tracing would have been essential. Five months ago. Now? it’s in the population, pretty much everywhere as study after study shows.  And if you’re going to contact trace you’d have to do it everywhere, including grocery stores, people talking in parking lots, etc.
This is just health theater. I have no patience for kabuki. And I’ve made it a point not to give my schedule away to all and sundry, due to some truly unpleasant experiences. Much less making our daft governor and his zany circle a present of my preferences in restaurants.

NOT MUCH IS BEING MADE OF THIS, BECAUSE THEY WANT TO BLAME THE SPIKE IN CASES/DEATHS ON THE FACT YOU — YOU EVIL PERSON, YOU — REFUSED TO COWER UNDER THE BED UNTIL THE ELECTIONS. BUT THEY SLIPPED UP AND REPORTED IT, A WHILE BACK:   Coronavirus Jumps the Border, Overwhelming Hospitals in California.

Mr. President! Build that d*mn wall.

AT AMAZON, Braun Thermometer 2 in 1 No-Touch + Front.

THIS IS WHY CHINA WANTS THE UNITED STATES DESTABILIZED:

Follow the money and the networks. I’m actually pretty sure somebody already is.

SEEN ON FACEBOOK:

WSJ: Mississippi Furls Its Divisive Flag. “The country could take a lesson from Mississippi. Unlike in cities across America in recent weeks, Mississippians weren’t looting, rioting or destroying property. There were no rage-filled mobs toppling statues and desecrating buildings. Instead, church leaders, business owners, elected officials and private citizens peacefully marched and debated.”

But that’s not how the Left likes to roll, because it enjoys destruction and division. It’s not about actually helping people.

GETTING BACK FOR HER REMARKS ABOUT HIS STINKY FEET: Barack Obama Can’t Stop Trashing His Wife’s Writing Ability.

QUEENS WOMAN CONFRONTS BILL DE BLASIO, HE TURNS AND RUNS AWAY:

“He simply fled, and took refuge in his SUV.”

THIS MIGHT MEAN SOMETHING, IF MAJOR CENTERS OF INFECTION LIKE NEW YORK WEREN’T TELLING CONTACT TRACERS NOT TO ASK ABOUT PROTEST ATTENDANCE: COVID Outbreaks Are Being Traced Back To Parties — Not Protests. But since that’s the case, this sounds more like ass-covering than epidemiology. Though lately I wonder if there’s a difference . . . .

MAY IT BE LIKE EATING A BAD SHRIMP FOR THEM: China Swallows Hong Kong.

DISPATCHES FROM THE SUMMER OF LOVE: ‘Break This Up:’ Father of CHOP Shooting Victim Wants the National Guard to Restore Order.

OPEN THREAD: We make a pretty good team.

WHERE’S HUNTER, FAT? Joe Biden rips Trump over coronavirus, calls reporter ‘lying dog face.’ “The former veep infamously called a college student a ‘lying dog-faced pony soldier’ at a campaign event in New Hampshire in February, an experience she described as ‘humiliating.’”

(Classical reference in headline.)

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: What ties together Carl Reiner, Sid Caesar, Charlton Heston, Beef Stroganoff, and Sauerbraten?

ASTEROID DAY: Celebrate Asteroid Day 2020 with live talks about planetary defense.

Related thoughts here.

CHANGE: “Last year, the question What law-abiding person needs an assault weapon? was asked as if it were self-answering and the answer was Obviously, no one. Last year.”

Flashback: “It is impossible to understand the politics of the Left without grasping that it is all about deniable intimidation.”

That’s why they don’t want you to own guns. And that’s why the Ken-and-Karen case has the left and its media enablers so upset. They want you cowering in your home, calling for police protection that their political action has made sure won’t come. Or worrying that that might happen so that you yield to their demands. If you’re out on the steps with guns in your hands, suddenly the script has flipped. Either they’re intimidated, which is bad for morale when you’re running a mob, or they escalate and become so violent that the “deniable” part of the intimidation is gone, because they can’t pretend even to themselves that this was a “parade” of “peaceful protesters,” and a more violent response to the mob becomes certain in the future. And while mobs can dish out violence, they usually don’t take it very well, lacking discipline and cohesion. That’s why the goal is to keep the violence ongoing, but at a low enough level that it seems easier to go along than fight. Open resistance interferes with that, and sets an example for others.

UPDATE: Seen on Facebook:

ANTIFA AND BLM FORGET MARX WAS A RACIST:

Marx thought of everything! Well, most stuff. Marx saw history as coming in three waves. The first two were feudalism and capitalism. The third phase is Communism – so do not worry your pretty little mind, it is coming no matter what you do. This inevitability is comforting to Marxists and is often convincing to those who do not question (or, read good). The Marxist theory, story, or narrative is just too darn comforting. So the masses who do not think critically (American college students in particular) resign themselves to it.

However, one detail often overlooked is Marx was a racist – a fact I will ask you to ignore since I know many readers will want to tear down statues of Marx and abandon the Marxist followers who lead Marxist Antifa (MANTIFA) and Marxist Black Lives Matter (MBLM).* In fact, since the inconvenient truth of Marx’s racial profiling emerged in the 1970s, the world Comintern of Marxist followers has endeavored to kill the history, or rewrite it. These dedicated followers are racism enablers.

Flashback: Berkeley students angry that they have to read Marx, not because he was, well, a Marxist, but because he was yet another dead white European male: “The course syllabus employed a standardized canon of theory that began with Plato and Aristotle, then jumped to modern philosophers: Hobbes, Locke, Hegel, Marx, Weber and Foucault, all of whom are white men. The syllabus did not include a single woman or person of color.”

As James Lileks wrote in response, “Marx is in foul order in Berkeley not for his ideas, or the heaps of corpses accumulated in his name, but because he had a prostate. By the way, Foucault died of AIDS, so you can dismiss everything the students wrote. Homophobes and haters. No, kids, don’t bother defending yourselves. As your heroes would no doubt say: If it wasn’t true, we wouldn’t have accused you.”

UPDATE: Karl Marx Calls Mexicans Lazy. Will Social Justice Warriors Demand Noted Racist Karl Marx Be Banned From Study on Campus ?

YOU MEAN “INSUFFICIENT BRUTALITY” SINCE ANY AMERICAN GOVERNMENT OF THE PREVIOUS TWO CENTURIES WOULD HAVE SHUT THIS DOWN LONG AGO: Seattle Council Member Blames ‘Capitalism’s Brutality’ for Deadly CHOP Shooting.