VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: How Many Really Died from COVID? California County Reduces Toll by 25%.
Plus:
Bonus Sanity: Normal is the new normal.
THIS REALLY IS THE BIG QUESTION OF 2020/2021: Why Are All The Experts Such Dopes?
Related: The Suicide of Expertise.
WHO’S TROLLING WHO? GoFundMe tells Matt Walsh ‘family’ of AOC’s abuela won’t accept money after he raised $100,000 to repair home.
And of course there’s a parody Twitter account:
CHINESE SPYWARE MASQUERADING AS A SOCIAL MEDIA APP: TikTok new privacy update allows collection of faceprint and voiceprints in the U.S.
LESLIE EASTMAN ON THE COVID REVELATIONS: Each new addition to the revised timeline is more troubling than the last.
THIS HEADLINE IN THE NYT SEEMS KIND OF HOPEFUL: The South may see a Covid surge this summer as vaccination rates lag. But the NYT has been gleefully predicting mass death for flyover yahoos since the beginning of Covid, even as NYC and New York State remained among the worst places in the country for the disease. Also, the discussion of herd immunity here acts as if the only way you can achieve it is through vaccination.
BREAKING: Unanimous Supreme Court Upholds the Law Against Illegal Immigrants. “Kagan’s opinion represents a blunt refutation of [Liz Warren and the Biden Administration’s] sleight-of-hand attempt to undermine immigration law.”
A GOOD REVIEW at Helen’s Page for Professor Carol’s book Why Freshmen Fail: and How to Avoid It.
ROUTINE BUT NEVER BORING: A SpaceX rocket launched, released a satellite, and landed perfectly overnight.
I’ve lost the exact count, but I believe that’s the 102nd consecutive successful Falcon 9 launch.
HOW’S THAT WELCOME WAGON PROGRAM COMING ALONG? Taxpayers Fleeing California Take $8.8 Billion In Gross Income to Other States.
HEH: New Internal Report Dissects the 2020 Democratic Party Disaster But Learns the Wrong Lessons. “All they had to do was ask any Republican who didn’t live in New York or Los Angeles.”
WEIRD HOW THE ERRORS ALL GO IN BEIJING’S FAVOR: Microsoft says it blocked Tiananmen Square searches outside China due to ‘error.’
SHOWING FAITH IN HIS TECHNOLOGY: Jeff Bezos will be flying to space on the first crewed flight of the New Shepard, the rocket ship made by his space company, Blue Origin. The flight is scheduled for July 20th, just 15 days after he is set to resign as CEO of Amazon. “I’m pursuing this work because I believe if we don’t, we will eventually end up with a civilization of stasis, which I find very demoralizing.”
“I DON’T THINK THIS IS GONNA BE FOOLPROOF: THINGS ARE GOING TO SLIP THROUGH:” In 2018, Anthony Fauci talks about NIH Gain of Function Research involving potential pandemic agents. Discussion begins at about 43:40 in the video.
WELL, THE PRESS CERTAINLY WON’T COOPERATE: Was mask-wearing pointless, after all? Fauci must be forced to answer.
A GREAT FATHER’S DAY GIFT: Mark Trapp’s book A Destiny of Undying Greatness: Kiffin Rockwell and the Boys Who Remembered Lafayette.
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: California Assault Weapons Ban Struck Down. “Good for both home and battle, the AR-15 is the kind of versatile gun that lies at the intersection of the kinds of firearms protected under District of Columbia v. Heller and United States v. Miller.”
NOT BY ACCIDENT, BUT BY DESIGN: ACLU Attorney who Argued Skokie Nazi Case: “Liberals are leaving the First Amendment behind.”
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Must See TV — Speaker of the House Donald J.Trump. “There is precedent for this. John Quincy Adams spent 17 years in the House of Representatives after serving one term as president. Trump could probably win a seat rather easily. It would be endless fun watching him shake things up on Capitol Hill. The Never Trump surrender monkey Republicans would drown in tears.”
GRIFTERS ABOUND IN THE SOCIAL JUSTICE WORLD: Professor allegedly misused $120K of funds raised in Philando Castile’s name. “Pamela Fergus, a former professor at Metropolitan State University, did not properly spend $120,000 of the $200,000 she raised in Philando Castile’s name to pay off student lunch debts for Saint Paul Public Schools students, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said Thursday.”
WHEN HE’S RIGHT, HE’S RIGHT: Leiter Questions ABA’s Proposed Accreditation Standards Relating To Racism, Bias Training. “As a threshold matter, the ABA should have to explain why the existing standards were not more than adequate, especially since some of the proposed changes will impose substantial costs on schools and seem ill-supported by evidence.”
Until law schools do a better job of graduating competent lawyers who can pass the bar, the ABA has no business adding ancillary matters to the accreditation process in order to satisfy a political fad.
ANDREW MCCARTHY: The Lab-Leak Theory: Evidence Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. “What NR’s Jim Geraghty has chronicled for months is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the coronavirus pandemic was generated by an accident — a lab leak, a not-uncommon mishap in medical research conducted by fallible human beings — at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Ditto the important work of Nicholas Wade, Vanity Fair’s Katherine Eban, our own Michael Brendan Dougherty, and a few intrepid others. Lab accidents are common, and have been known to spawn infectious diseases (including the escape of SARS1 from the Chinese National Virology Institute in Beijing ‘no less than four times,’ according to Wade).”
Plus: “China and its abettors have much to account for. Unless and until China comes forward with convincing evidence that the lab-leak theory is wrong, the position of the United States and the world must be that China is culpable.”
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