USEFUL, THOUGH A WASTE OF DELICIOUSNESS: This harpoon-throwing robot is designed to hunt destructive lionfish. This goes as deep as 1,000 feet, far below the range where scuba divers can do the job.
Archive for 2020
January 20, 2020
AMERICA’S PAPER OF RECORD: Media Offers Thoughts And Prayers That Someone Would Start Some Violence At Gun Rights Rally.
BECAUSE OF COURSE THEY DID: YouTube Removes Livestreams of Richmond Gun-Rights Rally.
WHEN YOU WANT YOUR SANDWICH KETO AND GLUTEN-FREE: This Restaurant Uses Huge Pickles Instead of Bread for Its Sandwiches. I do like pickles, though I wouldn’t recommend this for a Knoxville-style steamed sandwich.
YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for January 20, 2020. “Cory Booker drops Out, Warren and Sanders fued, Steyer money-bombs his way to contention, Bennet idles at 500 milliMondales, and Patrick hits a new high of 1%. Plus a gratuitous shot at Franklin Pierce.”
STARTUP STATISTIC: A 60-year-old startup founder is three times more likely to succeed than a 30-year-old founder. Wow, I can’t wait to be 60 now!
NEVER LET A MANUFACTURED NON-CRISIS GO TO WASTE: Virginia Gov. Northam Smears Gun Control Opponents to Frighten His Base.
21st CENTURY HEADLINES: Amazon is selling entire houses for less than $20,000 — with free shipping.
BUT NOT FOR LACK OF INCLINATION AMONG THE VIRGINIA DEMOCRATS: Cam Edwards: No, Virginia Hasn’t Descended Into Tyranny.
And if it doesn’t you can thank the protesters who showed up today, as in this shot from the Pocahontas building, from a Virginia friend on Facebook.
UPDATE: VA Sheriffs show up and join VA gun rights rally (Photos).
VIRGINIA 2A: Black Guy Waving Trump Flag, ‘I am Gov. Ralph Northam and I am in blackface today.’
Great little video at the link.
HUG-A-HERO DOLLS: This is really quite charming. Children can get huggable dolls imprinted with a photo of their deployed parent.
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Progressive Petards.
Since at least 2016, CNN has mostly ceased being a news agency, but that hasn’t stopped it from being an active participant in #TheResistance. The network is so caught up in the fervor of this movement that many of its guests and regular hosts have been fired, reprimanded, or apologized for threats to the president or general obscene references (e.g., Reza Aslan, the late Anthony Bourdain, Kathy Griffin).
Many of its marquee reporters have resigned, were fired, or reassigned for fake-news bias (e.g., Thomas Frank, Eric Lichtblau, and Lex Haris), or came under fire for false reporting (Jim Sciutto, Marshall Cohen, and Carl Bernstein) or have had to offer retractions and/or apologies (Gloria Borger, Eric Lichtblau, Jake Tapper, and Brian Rokus.)
Its anchors have apologized for obscenity (Anderson Cooper) or simply making up false statements (Chris Cuomo), while analysts have been caught in a number of contradictions about their own role in on-going scandals (James Clapper).
The common denominator has been the new journalistic ethos that aborting the Trump presidency justifies any means necessary to achieve such noble ends. Throughout CNN’s descent into parody, progressives still smiled at the usefulness of CNN for the larger project of delegitimizing the Trump presidency. Few understood the Thucydidean concept that once nihilists destroy norms and protocols of ethical behavior for perceived short-term advantage, they usually rue the loss when they themselves become victims of their own biased zealotry and are in dire need of the civilizational help they recently ruined.
So it was last week, when CNN moderator Abby Phillip warped the recent Democratic presidential primary debate by not asking, so much as accusing, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) about a claim that he said a woman such as Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) could not be elected president—in the fashion of a “When did you stop beating your wife?” question: “Senator Sanders, CNN reported yesterday, and Senator Warren confirmed in a statement, that in 2018 you told her that you did not believe that a woman could win the election. Why did you say that?” . . . Of all the strange symptoms of Trump Derangement Syndrome, progressive self-immolation is the strangest.
Sadly, popcorn isn’t on my low-carb diet.
THE 1619 PROJECT ON MLK DAY: “One of the many odd things about the New York Times‘s ‘1619 Project’ on slavery is that Martin Luther King Jr is barely mentioned (ditto Frederick Douglass). This omission may not be accidental, since both Douglass and King found sources for the remedy of slavery inside the American founding that today’s left wishes to repudiate completely. It will be a curious thing to see whether and how the 1619 Project appears in any of today’s observances of MLK’s birthday (or whether, in the fullness of time, there will be a push to rename MLK Day for someone or something else).”
Read the whole thing.
ROGER SIMON: Not Impeachment, a Nervous Breakdown.
It’s just the Dems’ 19th nervous breakdown…
IN THE MAIL: Kidnapped on Safari: A Thriller.
THEY’LL TURN US ALL INTO BEGGARS ‘CAUSE THEY’RE EASIER TO PLEASE: There is a Federal Version of California’s Gig Economy Killer Sitting in Congress Right Now.
JUST NBC THE GASLIGHTING: Triggered NBC News correspondent Gabe Gutierrez tries to pass off the Pledge of Allegiance at Virginia gun rights rally as something very different (video).
“You know we can hear them, right?”, Jim Treacher tweets in response.
I HAD BEEN ASSURED BY ALL THE SMARTEST PEOPLE THAT TRUMP WAS ALIENATING OUR ALLIES: Japanese PM Abe Vows to Boost Nation’s Role in U.S. Alliance.
TRUST, BUT VERIFY. ME TOO: The Misleading Math of Climate Activism (Updated)
In the course of doing a back-of-the-envelope on the “five Hiroshimas a second” I made a couple of mistakes. This has a revision including the spreadsheet. Once I was done, it came out that instead of this implying 0.7°C per century, it’s actually 0.04°C per century.
Oh, and this is a VIP article. Sign up for VIP and you’ll get to see me admit to a mistake. Use promo code CHARLIE and you’ll get a discount.
TAKING DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION SERIOUSLY: Yale profs speak out, call on university to strive for ideological diversity. “Yale talks a lot of diversity, but basically all that diversity means here is skin color…there’s definitely no diversity here when it comes to politics. The liberal point of view is taken to be objective-not an opinion, not a set of beliefs.”
IT’S AS IF ALL THIS WOKE RACIAL TALK IS JUST BULLSHIT: Oscars? White Guys. Democratic Candidates? White Guys. And These Are the Liberal Organizations. “The Motion Picture Academy and the Democratic Party are supposed to be our diverse institutions. What’s going on here?” I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure it’s Trump’s fault.
WOW: Massive Crowds, Lots of Guns, and Alex Jones in a Tank Descend on Richmond for 2A Rally.
Lots of pics at the link.