Archive for 2021
February 25, 2021
PRIORITIES: While Republican Voters Care About Issues, Democratic Voters’ Top Concern Is Absolutely Ridiculous. “Democrat voters are more concerned about ‘Donald Trump’s supporters’ than anything else.”
PARTY OF SCIENCE! UPDATE: In the Middle of a Pandemic, San Francisco NIMBYs Sue To Stop a New Hospital From Being Built.
DIVIDE AND CONQUER: Internal Divisions Are America’s Greatest Vulnerability.
Domestic political and cultural divisiveness has become the United States’ greatest strategic weakness. This grim vulnerability, exploited by international rivals and authentic domestic enemies who despise the U.S. Constitution, puts the U.S. republic in peril.
Check it out.
(Bumped, by Glenn).
ALWAYS INTERESTING WHEN SOMEONE GETS RED-PILLED BY REALITY:
It’s maddening to watch the liberals who insisted for months that we should ‘follow the science’ reject the overwhelming scientific evidence that schools can reopen safely. Conservatives have argued for years that liberals don’t actually care about science and only pretend to when it’s convenient for the advancement of their political agenda. It appears that they had a point.
Ya think?
BRYAN PRESTON: Fry’s Is Gone, and Another Old Friend Passes Into the Night.
ONE YEAR AGO, YESTERDAY: Nancy Pelosi Visits San Francisco’s Chinatown Amid Coronavirus Concerns. “’[W]hat we’re trying to do today is to say everything is fine here,’ Pelosi said. ‘Come because precautions have been taken. The city is on top of the situation.’”
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Why Would Iowa Want To Kill Tenure?
PRIVACY: This browser extension shows what the Internet would look like without Big Tech. “The Economic Security Project is trying to make a point about big tech monopolies by releasing a browser plugin that will block any sites that reach out to IP addresses owned by Google, Facebook, Microsoft, or Amazon. The extension is called Big Tech Detective, and after using the internet with it for a day (or, more accurately, trying and failing to use), I’d say it drives home the point that it’s almost impossible to avoid these companies on the modern web, even if you try.”
HOTEL GOOGLEFORNIA: You can check out any time you like but you can never leave.
If you use the internet, it’s basically impossible not to serve as a tiny profit center for any of these companies — no matter how much you might dislike their products or services, or how much you might disagree with their management or business practices.
As an economic libertarian, I’m always wary of government “solutions,” which generally prove to be worse than the problem. But when a company has grown so large and powerful that consumer choice holds no veto power over them, it’s time to swing the antitrust hammer.
DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERSECTION OF THE CHOOM GANG AND THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE:
MEDDLING: New Bill Would Eliminate Single-Sex Spaces on College Campuses.
But postmodern racial segregation is still cool.
TACTICAL SWIM: Marines in Hawaii swim ashore during reconnaissance scout swimmer training. Photo taken February 8.
TYRANNY IN HIGHER EDUCATION: University suspends professor for tweets criticizing slavery reparations, racial bias training.
Slavery reparations and racial bias training are both stupid and unAmerican. They’re punishing the critics because they can’t defend them in rational argument.
St. Josephs University President Mark Reed needs to put an end to this political witch hunt.
DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERSECTION OF 21st CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS, AND “WHERE’S HUNTER, FAT?” Hunter Biden was living with his brother Beau’s widow Hallie while sending raunchy texts and FaceTiming in the shower with her married sister as they declared their love and she called him her ‘prince.’
GOOD LUCK, WANNABE TYRANTS: UW profs attempt to explain away devastating free speech survey results. The truth is, our K-12 and higher ed systems, both of whose exorbitant expense is justified in terms of making better citizens, have instead made things worse.
CUTE: Mars rover’s giant parachute carried secret message. “Systems engineer Ian Clark used a binary code to spell out ‘Dare Mighty Things’ in the orange and white strips of the 21-metre parachute.”
WHEN WILL THE WOKE GO FULL CALIGULA?
The other day, I was scrolling through Twitter when I happened upon this particular tweet, directed against the former New York Times opinion editor Bari Weiss:
“Imagine if @bariweiss offered 10% of the defense she gives white supremacy to all the antifascist, Jewish-allied, Black and brown women of color she has made a career putting in danger,” it said. “NYT staff of color felt so unsafe around her that she had to resign.”
Something about this tweet struck me instantly: it was completely insane.
Remember: If you interpret “woke” as a synonym for “crazy and stupid” — or, increasingly, “crazy, stupid, and vicious” — you’ll seldom go far wrong.
Plus:
It is worth inquiring into the nature of this madness. When I read that attack on Bari Weiss, what sprang to mind was Albert Camus’ play Caligula, a retelling of the well-known tale of the deranged third emperor of Rome. In the play, the initially benign ruler suffers an existential crisis. Realizing that he alone wields absolute power, he decides to follow the logic of that power to its ultimate conclusion. “It’s just because no one dares to follow up his ideas to the end that nothing is achieved,” he says. “All that’s needed is to be logical right through, at all costs.”
This logic leads Caligula to believe that he is beyond good and evil. Thus, he is free to choose evil. So he does; nothing, after all, can stop him. He initiates a reign of terror over his subjects, rapes the women of the nobility, randomly orders executions, declares himself a god, kills his wife, and in the end invites his own assassination.
Rereading Caligula while writing this piece, I was shocked by the extent to which Camus had anticipated the Woke phenomenon.
Like I said, crazy, stupid, and vicious.
FASTER, PLEASE: It’s Time to Start Being Optimistic. Vaccinations are up, cases are down, and the economy is primed to boom.