Archive for 2021
September 21, 2021
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE:
Yes, it’s creepy and wrong — and it’s Politico and Comcast approved:
And it’s Nation magazine approved as well:
You may not be interested in the Gleichschaltung, but the Gleichschaltung is interested in you (and your kids).
UPDATE: Saving Your Child From The Village. “It used to be that it takes a village to save a child. Now, you have to work hard to save your child from the village.”
(Updated and bumped.)
AND SO IT BEGINS: The Commission on Civil Rights released a report last week that asserts women are 50% more likely to die as a result of childbirth today than they were a generation ago. In my dissent, I explained why that assertion is false. Nevertheless it is being repeated in the press (as this item from the Tampa Bay Times shows). I guess it’s now officially a meme.
Here’s the weird part: At the bottom of the Tampa Bay Times piece, it says, “The Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg provides partial funding for Times stories on equity. It does not select story topics and is not involved in the reporting or editing.” What the heck is that? Are progressive 501(c)(3)s really funding “stories on equity” in supposedly independent newspapers? What would happen if a newspaper announced that a conservative foundation was funding “stories on the plight of working whites”?
AJ KAUFMAN: Biden Claims He’s ‘Prioritized Rebuilding Our Alliances’ at Debut UN Speech. “The unilateral retreat last month from ‘America’s longest war’ and its horrific aftermath gave Beijing an opportunity to produce an unholy alliance with the Taliban.”
PLANTS AS RECHARGEABLE LIGHTS: What will they think of next? I can hear the neighbors complaining about not being able to sleep at night because of the bright plants.
Codevilla, the historian of spycraft and powerful analyst of American political and social trends, has died. It is difficult for many commentators to see beyond the current news cycle. But Codevilla, because he could see America as it is presently, could also see into the future. Here in National Review in 2009, he predicted a populist-type figure, one that could unite the “Country Party,” could eventually come to lead the Republicans.
Far be it from me to suggest that Sarah Palin should be or is likely to be our next president. She has not shown the excellence of cognition or of judgment that would recommend her ahead of other possible candidates, nor does her path to the presidency look easy.
But as the nation celebrates the anniversary of the revolution of 1776, every presidential hopeful should realize that in the next election Sarah Palin — or someone like her — could be the vehicle for another revolution. The distinctions between Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, are being overshadowed by that between what we might call the “Court party” — made up of the well-connected, the people who feel represented by mainstream politicians who argue over how many trillions should be spent on reforming American society, who see themselves as potters of the great American clay — and the “Country party” — the many more who are tired of being treated as clay.
Read the whole thing.
SOME PEOPLE SEE BLUE ORIGIN BEHIND THIS: NASA to split leadership of its human spaceflight program. “As part of the reorganization, the agency’s current leader of all human spaceflight activities, Kathy Lueders, will see her duties pared back. NASA has also brought back a former senior manager, Jim Free, to serve as a program leader. . . . Lueders, by most accounts, has done a commendable job in recent years. Under her leadership, NASA and SpaceX managed to push the commercial crew program safely over the finish line, with Crew Dragon now flying operational missions to the International Space Station. She has also managed to steer the Artemis program forward, selecting SpaceX to build a Human Landing System in April and persisting with that decision despite an uproar in Congress and a lawsuit by another lander bidder, Blue Origin.”
Flashback: NASA’s bold bet on Starship for the Moon may change spaceflight forever. “When NASA astronauts return to the Moon in a few years, they will do so inside a lander that dwarfs that of the Apollo era. SpaceX’s Starship vehicle measures 50 meters from its nose cone to landing legs. By contrast, the cramped Lunar Module that carried Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin down to the Moon in 1969 stood just 7 meters tall. This is but one of many genuinely shocking aspects of NASA’s decision a week ago to award SpaceX—and only SpaceX—a contract to develop, test, and fly two missions to the lunar surface. The second flight, which will carry astronauts to the Moon, could launch as early as 2024.”
I’M DUBIOUS, BUT BETTING AGAINST TESLA IS RISKY: Solar and Battery Companies Rattle Utility Powerhouses. How serious a threat to power companies is Tesla’s sweeping, distributed “Energy Plan”?
On the other hand, betting against solar has been awfully safe for the last several decades.
THE L.A. TIMES KEEPS ROCKIN’! Threats against members of Congress are skyrocketing. It’s changing the job.
Four years of Trump’s divisive and racist rhetoric played a role, they say, emboldening people to say things publicly that they might have grumbled about privately in the past.
It’s also a side effect of growing partisanship and declining civility. Members have contributed to the problem by sometimes encouraging their supporters to harass political rivals. And activists find it more acceptable to confront lawmakers, not just at town halls but at the officials’ homes or as they eat in restaurants.
Some threats have escalated into violent physical attacks.
Before Jan. 6, there was the 2017 shooting of Republican members of Congress and staffers at a practice for the Congressional Baseball Game, and the 2011 shooting of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords at a constituent event.
The surge in threats has grown exponentially in recent years. In 2016, Capitol Police investigated 902 threats, former House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving said in a June 2017 letter to the Federal Election Commission. By 2018, there were 5,206 threats, and by 2020, there were 8,613, according to Capitol Police figures provided to The Times.
Exit quote: “Experts blame much of the increase on social media and cable news, and how easy it has become to threaten members of Congress behind the anonymity of the internet.”
It’s certainly a newsworthy topic, and as the above quoted passage illustrates, the L.A. Times tries to maintain the thinest veneer of objectivity. But it’s tough to take an article on threats to politicians seriously when it comes from a newspaper that just smeared the first black candidate for governor of California as “the Black face of white supremacy. You’ve been warned,” compared him to David Duke and the Klan— and downplayed the physical attack that he received.
THEY SHOULD GO BACK TO BUILDING NUKE PLANTS: Energy Crisis Hits Europe With Natural Gas Prices Rising a Whopping 250 Percent.
DON’T GET COCKY: Democrats’ dwindling 2022 map. “Democrats are trying to unseat only about half as many Republican House members next year as they did in 2020, trimming their target list from 39 to 21.”
RIP: Sarah Dash, of ‘Lady Marmalade’ fame with Patti LaBelle, dead at 76. “Dash, co-founder of the legendary pop and R&B trio Labelle with Patti LaBelle and a respected session vocalist with Keith Richards, died Monday.”
Here’s Dash singing “Gimme Shelter” with Richards in Chicago in 1993:
THE NEW SPACE RACE: NASA plans to send lunar rover to Nobile region of moon’s South Pole.
JUST OUT: THE LARGEST COLLEGE FREE SPEECH POLL IN HISTORY, PLUS CAMPUS-SPECIFIC RANKINGS. Where does your school rank in the 2021 College Free Speech Rankings? #1 or #154?
Some topline bad news: 61% of college students oppose allowing campus speakers who say COVID lockdowns infringed on our personal liberties. 1 in 4 might use violence to stop a speech. But individual campuses can be very different.
ONE SMALL RAY OF HOPE: Liberal Minister who called Taliban her ‘brothers’ loses seat in Peterborough-Kawartha.
READER RECOMMENDATION:3×5 First Navy Jack Sticker 3-Pack Dont Tread on Me Sticker.
CRISIS BY DESIGN:
● Shot: “The Biden administration will require all international travelers coming into the United States to be fully vaccinated and tested for Covid-19 under a new system that will open up air travel to vaccinated foreign nationals from dozens of countries for the first time since the early days of the pandemic.”
—NBC News, yesterday.
● Chaser: Biden sidesteps question on justification for letting unvaccinated migrants into US.
—Fox News, August 3rd.
VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP: Media Drives #WhipGate Fake News About Border Guards Whipping Haitians.
Plus:
- Doctors treating sick people is so passé
- So are colleges that prepare young people for the real world
- Reconciliation madness, however, is the new hotness
So much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.
‘WHAT???!!! NO!!! REALLY?’ Looks like there may have been something to that Hunter Biden laptop story after all: “Oh nothing. Just Politico casually confirming the Hunter Biden laptop story.”
R.I.P. ANGELO CODEVILLA. I’ve now heard from two reliable sources that he died last night after a traffic accident. I don’t know any more at this point. I’ll repeat what I said earlier: His piece on America’s ruling class is the best article on American politics this century.
UPDATE: More here.