SKYNET SMILES, REALISTICALLY: Motion picture cameras to help androids make realistic facial expressions.
Archive for 2021
March 23, 2021
LIVING THE SMUG LIFE. Shameless: Gov. Cuomo Tells Adoring Fan “I’m Not Going Anywhere, Darling.”
Joe Biden, Ralph Northam, Justin Fairfax, and the amnesiac DNC-MSM all agree that Cuomo will likely ride this one out.
GOOD QUESTION: Can We Add States to the Union Without Starting a Civil War?
GRANNYGATE: Why Someone Hid Accurate Death Count for New York Nursing Homes.
When the attorney general’s report came out and we saw that even the attorney general couldn’t pry these data out of the Department of Health’s hand, we followed up with a letter to the judge that had been assigned to the case and said, “Come on. What is it going to take? Even the attorney general can’t get access to these data that the Department of Health is collecting on behalf of taxpayers. You need to rule. You need to rule right now.”
And then within a matter of days, the ruling came out, ruled totally in the Empire Center’s favor. In fact, had found that we had prevailed so significantly that we were awarded costs and fees from the Department of Health. That’s significant insomuch as it means that we prevailed in a way that was unimpeachable, right?
… The case was so strong in our favor that the Department of Health had acted so poorly in this case that they were required to pay us for our time and for our costs leading up to a lawsuit and all the way through it.
Plus: “There is a political culture in Albany and in New York state government that whether it’s the governor or whether it’s the administration or whether it’s some of these entities that we’ve been talking about, the culture is sort of to withdraw and protect.”
Much more at the link.
COVID ONE YEAR AGO: Oklahoma RN claims he was fired for wearing a protective mask. “According to Readel, his supervisor approached him and allegedly told him he needed to take it off, stating that it could cause fear and panic among the patients and staff. ‘I questioned that,’ Readel said. Readel said his supervisor then sent him home. Later, Readel’s supervisor called him and told him to come to the human resources office Wednesday. Readel said he gave them a written statement voicing his concern about being asked to take the mask off. That’s when Readel said he was fired. ‘I was told that also, by the way, kind of like a caveat to the thing was that your health insurance will be terminated by midnight that same day,’ he said.”
(Via the grimly fascinating Covid One Year Ago twitter feed.)
NEWS SOME OF YOU CAN USE: To live independently longer, look to inexpensive home hacks.
ONE FLU OUT OF THE WUHAN NEST: “A funny thing happened on the flight home from Alaska. The lab leak hypothesis is a conspiracy no more.”
WHAT ARE THE HEALTH CONSEQUENCES OF THAT? Study: Adults gained 1 1/2 pounds per month during COVID-19 lockdowns.
NEVER LET A CRISIS GO TO WASTE: ‘We’ve seen through the pandemic that we can make radical changes that seemed unthinkable before.’
Be careful what you ask for. Stringing busybodies up from lampposts is also a radical change. Just saying.
ONLY NOW? ONLY STARTING? Europe is starting to freak out about the launch dominance of SpaceX. “A little more than a week ago, the European Space Agency announced an initiative to study ‘future space transportation solutions.’ Basically, the agency provided about $600,000, each, to three companies—ArianeGroup, Avio, and Rocket Factory Augsburg—to study competitive launch systems from 2030 onward.”
Read the whole thing.
I’d just add that if ESA is going to spend a paltry $600,000 looking into catching up no sooner than 2030 to where SpaceX was in 2015, then they’ve already lost.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Jim Bennett emails:
From the article Stephen Green linked about Europeans sponsoring launch competitiveness research:
“Germany, with no history of its own rockets during the European Union era,”
I love the carefully-written qualifier. Don’t mention the war!
Heh. I wondered what Basil Fawlty was doing these days. Writing EU press releases, I guess.
UPDATE (From Ed) Was it over when Germany’s rocket program bombed Pearl Harbor during what the EU retroconned into the “European Civil War?”
OUT ON A LIMB: Maybe public confidence in the military would go up if its leaders shut up. In the Arizona Republic, Jon Gabriel writes:
Pentagon ‘smites’ Tucker Carlson? Really?
* * * * * * * *
It is not the military’s job to “smite” American civilians, especially those exercising freedom of the press. If I had stayed in long enough to make admiral, all civilians would still outrank me. Even cable news hosts.
Just imagine the Pentagon attacking CNN’s Chris Cuomo in March 2019. The Columbia School of Journalism would offer a seminar titled “The Day Trump Killed Democracy” for the next decade.
The military holds high esteem because it’s stayed above the grubby world of partisan politics and click-bait headlines. If it wanders into that muck, taxpayers will soon lose that hard-won respect. Then they’ll wonder what they’re getting from the Pentagon’s nearly trillion-dollar budget.
That’s one question the military doesn’t want asked.
The coffers are broke, the military is woke. Our enemies think it’s a joke. What could go wrong?
VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: The Trouble With Harry.
Insanity Wrap needs to know: What do you do with a kinda-sorta former prince whose civilian skillset consists mostly of being himself for the cameras?
Answer: Hire him as a kinda-sorta former price to be himself for the cameras.
Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.
- Antifa showed up at a truly peaceful protest… you know the rest
- Another Biden rube self-reveals
- Spring Break is canceled For The Children™
Bonus Sanity: Finding microbes of unknown origin on board the space station will have to pass for sanity today.
And so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.
MEGAN FOX: Missouri Family Court Corruption: The Fathers Tell All. “Most of the criticism the commenters here at PJ Media and some on the KMOV post have had is that the stories of those affected seem to only be women. That’s about to change. Many men have come forward but have been afraid to speak out. PJ Media has been receiving their emails since the story first broke and investigators have been putting together links between the cases. On Monday afternoon, several of the fathers who say they were bled dry by the Missouri family court system came forward on a live stream to tell me their side of the story.”
MSNBC: HEY, NO BIGGIE, JUST AN ARMED REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT THAT WANTS A BLACK ETHNOSTATE. They keep saying it’s for “defense,” but the leader literally says the end goal is an ethnostate with “our own government, our own country.” I have lots of questions, such as: what happens to any non-black people who happen to live inside the ethnostate’s borders? If MSNBC asked, they sure didn’t show the response. Puts the events of January 6 in some real perspective, doesn’t it?
JOANNE JACOBS: Liberal arts colleges add career credentials. “Fighting for survival, liberal arts colleges are adding career credentials, reports Hechinger’s Jon Marcus. Debt-averse students want to know they’ll be able to earn a living. Colleges need to compete for students.”
JIM TREACHER: If You Want a Free Krispy Kreme Donut, You Just Need a Vaccination Card and Zero Self-Respect.
In the end though, it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. Treacher learned to love Big Donut: “Update: Never mind, I take it all back. Now I definitely want my free vaccination donut.”
DISPATCHES FROM THE MEMORY HOLE: Boulder, CO shooting suspect identified as 21-year-old Ahmad Al-Issa.
NOT IF WE’RE FOLLOWING THE REAL SCIENCE: Do We Need Mask Mandates? Connor Harris takes a deep dive into the research on masks and epidemics, from the 1910 Manchurian Plague and 1918 Spanish flu through Covid-19. After surveying the reported benefits and harms – including the possibility that some face masks make fatal infections more likely — he concludes that Dr. Fauci’s version of “the science” bears little resemblance to the scientific literature.
It would be an overstatement to say that cloth and surgical masks are unambiguously ineffective or harmful. But neither is there a firm case that they provide any meaningful benefit. Limited mask mandates may be justified in circumstances with unavoidable face-to-face contact within the range of droplet spread, such as public transport, and private businesses should be free to require masks if they like. Citizens at high risk should be free to wear effective N95 masks for their own protection, and federal regulators should clear away barriers to domestic production.
But mandates of cloth and surgical masks impose major inconveniences and potentially serious health risks on citizens, for no clear benefit either to themselves or to others. Leaders who pride themselves on following the science should consider ending them and letting citizens protect their health as they see fit.
But then what would that leave for our leaders to do?
NON-ESSENTIAL WORKERS: Teachers’ Unions Still Pushing Back on School Openings, Say 3-Foot Rule Is Not Proven.
At this point, the “workers” part is at best questionable.
The Biden Administration last week set a new historical record by threatening sanctions against Germany, India, Russia and China in the space of 72 hours. Germany and India are, or at least were, American allies.
Washington is angry at Germany for building a natural gas pipeline with Russia, at India for purchasing a Russian air defense system, at Russia for mistreatment of President Putin’s opponents and at China for treatment of its Uighur Muslim minority.
None of Washington’s recent threats is consistent with identifiable policy objectives. On the contrary, recent outbursts from Biden and his cabinet will cement a Sino-Russian alliance against the US, undermine US efforts to rebuild relations with European allies and damage US efforts to create a “Quad” alliance against China in the Pacific.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that no one is in charge at the White House, and that senior officials are jockeying for position in a power vacuum by signaling to domestic constituencies. But the net effect recalls the old joke about the firing squad that stands in a circle.
It’s really sad to see this after four years of diplomatic success.
“KIDS IN CAGES” IS ONLY A STORY WHEN A REPUBLICAN IS PRESIDENT: Nearly 1,000 Child Migrants Held More Than 10 Days In Border Detention Facilities.
LEARNING FROM HISTORY: How to Defend Free Speech. The 1980s and 1990s battles against campus political correctness offer lessons for pushing back against cancel culture today. While cancel culture is indeed broader and more worrisome than campus PC was, Tevi Troy writes, the earlier effort was successful in four major ways: by unifying conservatives in the effort against PC; by enlisting some prominent non-conservatives to join the cause; by gaining broad attention outside the think tank and university world; and by using humor to highlight PC’s excesses. All of these tactics could be useful in the anti-cancel culture fight of today.
YOU CAN’T HAVE FACTS HERE, THIS IS A UNIVERSITY: Duke launches investigation after George Floyd’s toxicology report posted on bulletin board.
“A printout of George Floyd’s toxicology report was hung beside a photo of his face on a Black History Month-themed bulletin board on the third floor of Brown dorm” on March 20, the student newspaper The Chronicle said.
“We are completely aligned with the idea that a person who causes harm to others in this community and elsewhere should be held accountable,” Dean of Students John Blackshear said at a meeting with residents of the Brown Residence Hall. The dean said information had been turned over to the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards.
Floyd died at the hands of Minneapolis police officers in May 2020 and the trial of one of the officers, Derek Chauvin, has started with jury selection.
The student newspaper did not include photos of the posted report in its article, but it did describe what it looked like.
“Each compound listed on the toxicology report was underlined with a pink pen, and the person wrote notes across the top of the page insinuating that Floyd was responsible for his own death,” the paper said.
Floyd’s autopsy report showed he had methamphetamines, cannabinoids and fentanyl in his system when he died.
Students and administrators are up in arms, because sharing facts that undermine The Narrative is badthink and “hurtful.”
I remember when higher education was defended on the grounds that it promoted critical thinking and good citizenship.