ATTENTION CALIFORNIANS!! If you oppose the effort to repeal Proposition 209, please voice your opposition directly to your California legislators. Some talented tech guys have made it a bit easier to send messages via email to those legislators. If you use this link, I am told your zip code will cause your message to be directed to the correct member of each house.  If for any reason that link fails, this link goes to all members of the Assembly Appropriations Committee, which needs to deal with the bill next.

If you’re in a hurry, the software contains a pre-programmed message that you can send. But it’s even better if you have time to write your own message. Short messages (such as “Vote NO on ACA-5.”) are just fine.

If you don’t know what the heck I’m talking about, here’s the background: In 1996, California voters adopted Proposition 209. It amended the state constitution to read: “The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.”  In other words, Prop 209 is a matter of simple justice: The state should not decide who gets a job, who gets contract, or who gets into the most competitive university based on the applicant’s race, sex or ethnicity.

The California Legislature wants to engineer a repeal of 209. To get rid of it, however, they need 2/3 majorities in both houses and a vote by the people. We’re trying to prevent any of that from coming to pass.

(Not a Californian? These days, that means lucky you. But if you have friends or relatives here who are likely to want to oppose ACA-5, please alert them. Also we are working on a way for ex-Californians as well as people have never been within 100 miles of California to email our legislators. The more the merrier.)

GOOD: Injected electrode could offer pain relief without medications.

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Plus, deals in Car Care.

OPEN BACK UP: Covid-19 is battering independent physician practices. They need help now. Hospitals and medical practices never should have been shut down for “nonessential” services. That’s possibly the biggest mistake of many in this pandemic — and especially continuing the shutdown for months after it was obvious hospitals weren’t going to be flooded.

WE NEED A COMPLETE AND TOTAL SHUTDOWN OF 2020 UNTIL WE CAN FIGURE OUT JUST WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON: Planet of the Apes? Monkeys Steal Coronavirus Samples After Attacking Lab Assistant.

FIGHT THE POWER: Black barbers and stylists have to make a living.

YEP: COVID-19: China says Wuhan wet market was site of ‘superspreader’ event, not ground zero. Yeah, it leaked from the lab, didn’t it?

So here’s a thought: What elevated this in my mind from “oh, the annual rumors of a new disease outbreak in China” to “holy crap, better pay attention” was the Chinese government’s own rather dramatic response. Hypothesis: They knew it had leaked from the lab, but weren’t sure yet which infectious agent had leaked from the lab, hence the dramatic response, more appropriate to a much deadlier disease. Second hypothesis: From this, we can assume that there is a worse infectious agent in that lab. Or at least that there was.

SO NOT “NONDESTRUCTIVE TESTING,” THEN: So Much For SN4. “It appears to be an earth-shattering kaboom.”

SpaceX is willing to test to failure. The important thing is that they keep learning.

CHINA BOUGHT IT, LET THEM PAY FOR IT: Trump cuts ties to World Health Organization.

BREAKING: Trump TORCHES China Over Coronavirus: ‘Incalculable Death and Destruction.’

IT MAY BE IDIOSYNCRATIC, BUT I’VE ALWAYS HATE, HATE, HATED THE ACURA “BEAK” FRONT END. But it’s gotten better, and the cars were always good.

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WHY NOT TAKE A BREAK FROM THE SERIOUS NEWS FOR A FEW MINUTES? Florida Man Friday Goes Seriously Awesome: Surfin’ I-75.

MINNESOTA POLICE OFFICER DEREK CHAUVIN WHO KNELT ON GEORGE FLOYD ARRESTED.

Related: Amy Klobuchar’s VP prospects are over. “Chauvin was one of six officers who fired on and killed Wayne Reyes in 2006 after Reyes reportedly aimed a shotgun at police after stabbing his friend and girlfriend. While the death happened during Klobuchar’s tenure at the helm of the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, the case did not go to a grand jury until after she left the office and became a senator.”

VIRGINIA POSTREL: Banning Chinese STEM Students Would Backfire on US. She says the net flow of brains and talent is away from China.

MINNEAPOLIS MAYOR GIVES MASKS TO CROWDING RIOTERS AFTER WARNING IN-PERSON WORSHIP WOULD BE ‘PUBLIC HEALTH DISASTER.’

Minneapolis’ last Republican mayor left office at the beginning of 1974.

SO YOU’RE SAYING YOU JUST . . . SPRAY THIS . . . DISINFECTANT . . . INTO YOUR BODY TO KILL THE CORONAVIRUS? In Vitro Efficacy of Povidone-Iodine Nasal And Oral Antiseptic Preparations Against Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).

If only someone had told us about something like that sooner.

WOODY ALLEN’S DISAPPOINTMENTS: Although elite liberalism suddenly hates him very publicly, Allen had no idea the knives would come out for him.

Liberal piety requires sentimentality about victims and Allen is only too aware he’s lived one of those stories of miscarried justice that, as a liberal, he loves. He’s finally the victim-hero so central to liberal storytelling, but it turns out he’d much rather have avoided this story, as his fellow liberals all think he’s the villain. To him, it’s some kind of cosmic accident, or the revenge of love—had he not loved Farrow, he’d have seen what he calls the red warning flags miles away. But even in his memoir, he fails to contemplate how his liberalism made him arrogant and eventually the resentment and hatred he aroused caught up with him, however unjustly. To hear him tell it, although elite liberalism suddenly hates him very publicly, it all came as a surprise, he had no idea the knives would come out for him!

Nor should we blame him for his lack of self-reflection. Like a tyrant, liberalism elevated him to a position of American nobility, but then capriciously humiliated him. He’s upset that The New York Times calls him a monster, since he has always appreciated their rational journalism. Well, what can a lifelong believer in their polished mediocrity do? Were he to give up liberalism, he’d have nothing left. Despite his vaunted nihilism, he dare not face life without those delusions. This would seem ultimately to be the problem with the liberal as comic—he lacks prudence, both politically and artistically, being too sure of quick and easy victories, of Progress, of universal approval, or at least providential protection from malice and misfortune. And had they lacked prudence, Aristophanes in his day or Shakespeare in his would have been forgotten. We must look forward to some comic talent that can rise to comparable heights, but perhaps it will be useful to understand the hopes and disappointments of Allen’s mid-century liberalism before we make a new attempt.

In December of 2017, Mark Hemingway explored  “Why Liberals Have Such A Hard Time With ‘Monstrous Men’ And Their Art:”

Frankly acknowledging this might suggest that the liberals have endorsed ideas — e.g. oxymoronic notions of “sexual liberation” — that have been deeply harmful to women, all for the sake of knocking down obstacles to political power. I wonder how much betrayal [Woody] Allen must feel now. He did his part to push a liberal sexual and political agenda, was celebrated for it, and now he’s being drummed out of polite society for enjoying the fruits of these efforts?

As Steve wrote linking to Hemingway’s piece, “I’d just add that perhaps the saddest part about Woody Allen et al. is that they never understood they’d become disposable once they were no longer useful to the cause.” Or that having starred in the 1976 anti-Blacklist film The Front (one of his few films strictly as an actor, not a writer-director), the new Blacklist would come from the crybully left.

ANTISOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter censors Trump tweet about Minneapolis protests for “glorifying violence.”

IT’S COME TO THIS: DC Will Lower Its Default Speed Limit to 20 MPH. “Some streets, where more space is needed for social distancing, will be lowered to 15 MPH.”

VIDEO: Minneapolis Rioters Burn Arby’s, AutoZone, Affordable Housing Amid George Floyd Protests.