Archive for 2021
June 6, 2021
IT WOULD MAKE A GREAT VRBO HOME FOR A WEEKEND, BUT I’M NOT SURE I’D WANT TO LIVE THERE: Meet the San Antonio family living inside a rare geodesic dome home.
ROGER KIMBALL: Remember Tiananmen Square. The Chinese are keen to brush the historical reality of what happened in 1989 under the rug. Don’t let them.
Second, the facts of Tiananmen underscore not just the brutality of the Chinese but the surprising potency of individual action. You cannot find many discussions of those haunting images of the Tank Man without encountering the word “iconic.” A solitary man versus a column of tanks. Who won that exchange?
No doubt Stalin thought he was being cynically clever when he asked “How many divisions has the Pope?” The answer, of course, was “zero” and the implication was that the pontiff, a solitary man, would be no match for Stalin with his millions of troops.
It did not turn out that way, however. On this unhappy anniversary of Tiananmen Square, as the Chinese grind the denizens of Hong Kong under the thumb of their vast surveillance apparatus and the world wakes up to the true origin of COVID-19 in a Chinese bioweapons laboratory, the fate of Stalin’s sarcastic question should give us both pause and resolution.
As should this: Xi Jinping’s Tiananmen Vision Is Coming for Us All.
UPDATE: ‘Do We Need to Be in Hong Kong?’ Global Companies Are Eying the Exits. Buffeted by political upheaval, a crackdown by mainland China and the pandemic, global companies are heading for rival cities such as Singapore and Shanghai.
DEAR WHITE VEGANS, STOP APPROPRIATING FOOD: Nathan’s Famous is adding vegan hot dogs to its menu.
(Classical reference in headline.)
UNEXPECTEDLY: Governor Newsom Reneges on Promise to Surrender His Emergency COVID-19 Powers.
Related: ‘Absolutely None:’ Gavin Newsom denies conflicts of interest in donations to wife’s nonprofit. “A Sacramento Bee investigation published online Thursday found more than $800,000 in donations to the nonprofit Representation Project from companies that have lobbied the governor, including PG&E, AT&T and Kaiser Permanente. Those donations have helped fund Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s six-figure salary at The Representation Project, which she founded to finance her documentary films and promote feminism.”
No word yet if Newsom’s rebuttal was issued from a table at the French Laundry.
THE ENEMY WITHIN: Bing Censors Image Search for ‘Tank Man’ Even in US.
Also Yahoo, and, most disappointingly, Duck Duck Go. Our tech companies have been colonized by the Chinese Communist Party. Microsoft blames “an accidental human error,” and I don’t believe them.
I’D RESIST A SUBPOENA FOR INSTAPUNDIT READERS IP INFO: Justice Department withdraws FBI subpoena for USA TODAY records ID’ing readers. If I trusted the FBI I might cooperate under some circumstances, but that ship has sailed.
I mean, even the DIA doesn’t trust the FBI.
LET’S DO THIS! GOP’s victory in Hispanic-majority city in blue county spells big trouble for Dems and it’s a glorious thing. “Republicans just flipped a city in a county Biden won by 17% and Hillary won by 41% 85% of the city is Hispanic.”
RESEARCHERS FIND EVIDENCE OF HOURSLONG STONE AGE RAVES:
Maybe this is what it means to have a “Yabba-dabba-do time.”
Stone Age ancestors danced for hours in a sort of psychedelic trance, researchers have found, citing evidence from necklaces and clothing made using elk teeth 8,000 years ago.
The teeth were sewn into clothes or suspended in a way that they made loud rattling noises when the wearers moved, according to auditory archaeologist Riitta Rainio from the University of Helsinki.
“Wearing such rattlers while dancing makes it easier to immerse yourself in the soundscape, eventually letting the sound and rhythm take control of your movements,” Rainio said, according to a report published by the school. “It is as if the dancer is led in the dance by someone.”
And Joe Biden was around back then to bust them all: Flashback: RAVING LUNACY: With talk of a Joe Biden run for the White House, it’s worth remembering his horrible anti-rave law.
I REMEMBER WHEN THIS WAS A CRAZY CONSPIRACY THEORY, AND YET IT NEVER WAS: Two med school professors warned Fauci about COVID lab-leak possibility in February 2020: emails.
AS A LEGENDARY COMMUNITY ORGANIZER ADVISES, GET IN THEIR FACES, AND PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Worldcon Ordered to Apologize and Pay Conservative Author Jon Del Arroz for Banning Him and Calling Him ‘Racist.’
HOW THIS SOCIAL MEDIA STAR LEVERAGED SUPPORTING SOCIALISM INTO A MULTIMILLION-DOLLAR LIFESTYLE: “This persistent theme of hypocrisy is more than just inconsistency. It’s revealing of a profound truth that [Bernie] Sanders, [Nicole] Sanchez, and others of their ideology refuse to admit. Nobody really wants to live in a world where they can’t enjoy the fruits of their success and others lay claim to the product of their labor. Not even the loudest and proudest socialists — and that tells you everything you need to know.”
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Roosevelt University professors admit on hot mic to teaching social justice ‘all day, every day.’ “Both scholars have ties to public unions and secondary education.”
THE LACK OF TRUST IN THE FBI IS THE BURIED LEDE HERE: Chinese biowar defector spills beans, kind of beans unknown. “FBI Director Christopher Wray was ‘ambushed’ with the information, they say, and Langley was also unaware. Sources say DIA leadership kept the defector within their Clandestine Services network to prevent Langley and the State Department from accessing the person, whose existence was kept from other agencies because DIA leadership believes there are Chinese spies or sources inside the FBI, CIA, and several other federal agencies.”
PLEASE SUPPORT HELEN’S PAGE ADVERTISERS: Korving & Company, author of Before I Go and Before I Go Workbook; The Hard Man Novels, Greek Biblical T-shirts (now with water bottles!), Old Post Road Oils and King Harv’s Coffee.
You can also just browse at Helen’s Page and support any of the listings there.
NEWS FROM THE AMERICA THAT WORKS: SpaceX rocket launches Sirius XM digital radio satellite, nails nighttime landing at sea.
And it’s not just a YouTube clip: Oil and gas industry trolls North Face with new billboard campaign. “Chris Wright, the CEO of Denver-based Liberty Oilfield Services, is spearheading the campaign by putting up billboards around North Face’s Denver offices and launching a website and social media campaign, dubbed ‘Thank you, North Face.'”
More like this, please.
NIGERIA BANS TWITTER AFTER IT DELETES PRESIDENT’S TWEET:
[Nigeria’s minister of information and culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed,] compared Twitter’s actions in Nigeria to those the company took after the riot at the U.S. Capitol in January, including banning the account of former President Donald J. Trump, he said during a news conference after the tweet was removed.
“When people were burning police stations and killing policemen in Nigeria during EndSARS, for Twitter it was about the right to protest,” he said. “But when a similar thing happened on the Capitol, it became insurrection.”
Twitter said Buhari’s post threatening to punish groups blamed for attacks on government buildings had violated Twitter’s “abusive behavior” policy.
When asked about the details of the social media suspension, a ministerial aide told Reuters that they will “wait and see how things will turn out.”
Reuters tested the social media platform in Lagos and Abuja and found that Twitter’s website was inaccessible in Nigeria on some mobile carriers, while its app and website worked on others.
Twitter told Reuters it is investigating its “deeply concerning” suspension of operations by the Nigerian government, and “will provide updates when we know more.”
Considering the number of people Twitter has banned without a second thought and its election-time suppression of the New York Post, it’s tough to work up much sympathy for the platform. QED:
UPDATE: “If Twitter doesn’t like it they can build their own Nigeria.”
Heh, indeed.™
JOANNE JACOBS: Remote ed failed most students with disabilities.
‘PUBLIC VIRTUE SIGNALING:’ Chris Wallace, Sen. Josh Hawley’s office add to the Jake Tapper pile-on.
Just to follow up on this post from few minutes ago where Rep. Elise Stefanik posted emails from Jake Tapper’s staff requesting an interview despite the CNN host telling the New York Times that he was “not asking for” interviews from Republicans who had issues with the 2020 election… Sen. Josh Hawley’s office also posted emails it received from Tapper’s staff requesting interviews:
* * * * * * * *
Tapper responded, saying he wouldn’t have allowed Hawley to come on the show if he had actually agreed to the interview and that he “only started explaining to [his staff] last month the reasons behind my saying no to every Big Liar”:
As Richard Grenell adds, “Jake Tapper throws his staffers under the bus while trying to spin his way out of a lie.”
But no word yet on when Jake Tapper will be asked by Jake Tapper not to appear on Jake Tapper’s program:
Elsewhere at CNN: Anderson Cooper Makes Insane Claim About Capitol Riot, but Guess Where He Got It From. “Is it at all surprising that CNN and other liberal media just parrot the Biden line? No, it’s just one more example of how they are essentially Democrat stenographers, not objective journalists or anywhere close to being grounded in reality. Trump’s no longer in office, but he’s still all they talk about.”
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Fed. judge rules California’s AR-15 ‘assault weapons’ ban unconstitutional.