GET RICH QUICK (AND ALSO TEMPORARILY): A crypto kid had a $23,000-a-month condo. Then the feds came. “Federal prosecutors said, the operation was a lie, essentially a Ponzi scheme that stole about $90 million from more than 100 investors to help pay for Qin’s lavish lifestyle and personal investments in such high-risk bets as initial coin offerings. At one point, facing client demands for their money, he variously blamed ‘poor cash flow management’ and ‘loan sharks in China’ for his troubles. Last week, Qin, now 24 and expressing remorse, pleaded guilty in federal court in Manhattan to a single count of securities fraud.”

VIDEO: Students willing to politically discriminate when it comes to dating.

Given the higher birthrates among conservatives, this might just be the best thing, long-term, for the country’s political health.

STANDING UP AGAINST INSTITUTIONAL RACISM: New Hampshire state representative introduces bill to ban critical race theory trainings.

KURT SCHLICHTER: The Cons Are Alright. “We cons will be fine and we’ll win in the end, but it’ll take time and hard fighting (Am I allowed to say ‘fighting’ in the political struggle context anymore, or will stupid people wet themselves? Let’s find out!). Sure, I may be in the minority among conservatives by saying that. There’s a lot of fear out there, a lot of pessimism, and a lot of muttering about how we’re all doomed. We’re not.”

CANCEL CULTURE IS ALL IN YOUR MIND: ‘Bachelor’ Host Chris Harrison Steps Aside Over Accusations Of ‘Perpetuating Racism’ For Speaking Out Against Cancel Culture.

COLLUSION: Did a Huawei employee ghostwrite this MIT professor’s pro-China op-ed?

BIDEN’S RETURN TO NORMALCY: Biden Makes History: First President in 40 Years to Punt on Contacting Israel “Congressional foreign policy leaders slammed Biden’s Netanyahu snub, prompting a flurry of questions for White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who has declined to disclose when or if Biden will call the Israeli leader. Psaki also said on Friday the White House would not list Israel as a U.S. ally when asked about the relationship during her daily press briefing.”

DESTROYING LIVES IS A FOIBLE OF THE OVERCLASS:

As we see the beginnings of a Greenwald/Schlichter convergence, can the end times be far away?

As I’ve said before, in America, class war is disguised as cultural war, and cultural war pretends to be about race.

BRUCE CARROLL: UK’s ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ Orders Drawing Anger. “In many cases, according to the Care Quality Commission (CQC), family members were unaware of these orders being placed on their relatives in the nursing homes.”

21st CENTURY HEADLINES: GameStop frenzy mastermind Roaring Kitty will testify in Congress on Thursday alongside the Reddit and Robinhood CEOs and two hedge fund managers after amateur traders pushed shares up 1,800% and cost Wall Street $19 billion.

The witness list was announced on Friday by Representative Maxine Waters and includes Keith Gill, who also goes by Roaring Kitty, Robinhood Chief Executive Vlad Tenev, Citadel CEO Kenneth Griffin, Melvin CEO Gabriel Plotkin and Reddit CEO Steve Huffman.

The virtual hearing, entitled ‘Game Stopped? Who Wins and Loses When Short Sellers, Social Media, and Retail Investors Collide,’ will take place on Thursday at 12 p.m, according to the press release and will be livestreamed.

As the “Wu-Tang Financial” account tweeted last month,“The congressional hearings on this GameStop activity gonna be even more boomer cringe than the social media ‘grillings’ where it was so clear our Great Leaders have no clue how most of society functions on the internet.”

THE OMINOUS PARALLELS: Decades Before The Civil War, Lincoln Saw An Approaching Storm.

As he looked around him, at both slave states and their northern neighbors, he saw and feared the evil of swelling mobs not merely for their unfortunate victims, but for our national tolerance of their violence and misrule — and the effect this shrugging of shoulders and murmuring of approval or disapproval would have on patriotic and unpatriotic men alike.

The incidents weren’t always seemingly connected by cause. A group of gamblers hanged; a mixed-race murderer burned alive; black men suspected of planning insurrection, and then white men suspected of sympathizing, and then simply out-of-state strangers caught in the middle of swelling hate. But beyond their brutality, the young lawyer feared these mobs were connected for the lawlessness they embodied — and the idle familiarity with which his fellow Americans seemed to accept these incidents.

While the 1830s mobs “hang gamblers, or burn murders,” he cautioned, tomorrow’s mobs would hang and burn the innocent — “and thus it goes on, step by step, till all the walls erected for the defense of the persons and property of individuals, are trodden down, and disregarded.”

Read the whole thing.

WHEN THE REVOLVING DOOR Harms National Security.

TWO YEARS AGO, A PARODY ARTICLE: The conceptual penis as a social construct.

Now, in Scientific (Ha!) American: It’s Time to Take the Penis off Its Pedestal: A culture of phallus worship has slanted the science in crucial and sometimes unexpected ways.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Post Apocalypse GOP 2021—Graham’s In, McConnell’s Out. “An unintended consequence of this latest impeachment charade was to make it very clear which Republicans can’t be trusted. Sure, we knew about Romney and Murkowski, but the trial flushed a couple more out of the squish bushes. So, thank you Democrats, for being unable to control your toddler urges. You’ve done your opponents a great service.”

AND THE DOUBLE REVERSE!  WHO backtracks on its earlier dismissal of potential Chinese laboratory leak of coronavirus.

Dear Lord, we know we asked you to make our enemies both stupid and ridiculous, but would it be too much to ask you to make them also not quite so dangerous?

IT’S EASY TO TELL WHO’S ON THE PAYROLL, OR AT LEAST ON THE TEAM: ‘Economist’ Rejects Uighur Genocide Determination. “A series of Washington Free Beacon reports revealed ties between the Economist and the Chinese Communist Party. Last year, the magazine published several advertorials from the CCP-backed Beijing Review, which contained highly favorable coverage of Xi Jinping’s coronavirus response. The outlet failed to disclose its agreement with the CCP-funded entity, a potential violation of federal disclosure laws.”

NORMALIZING ANTI-ASIAN BIGOTRY: Ad sought ‘non Asian’ applicants for tech job in California. Company blames mixup.

I’M FINDING THE NEW, RED-PILLED MATT YGLESIAS VERY INTERESTING: In defense of interesting writing on controversial topics.

In other words, this is an intellectual movement that’s somewhat influential in highbrow circles broadly, and that deserves to be situated as such. Well-known books like Toby Ord’s “The Precipice” and Philip Tetlock’s “Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction” are important parts of the rationalist firmament. There’s also Julia Galef’s excellent podcast “Rationally Speaking” on which you can hear me yacking.

There’s a lot more going on than “some tech executives read this blog,” in other words.

But Metz does not seem interested in actually exploring rationalist ideas or understanding their content or the scope of their influence. Instead, the article is structured as a kind of syllogism:

Scott Alexander’s blog is popular with some influential Silicon Valley people.

Scott Alexander has done posts that espouse views on race or gender that progressives disapprove of.

Therefore, Silicon Valley is a hotbed of racism and sexism.

One time years ago, I went to Silicon Valley for a few days. As a white guy, I would not be well-situated to assess the extent to which it’s a hotbed of racism and sexism anyway, so I won’t comment on the conclusion. But the logic is specious, and the whole thing is an incredible missed opportunity to help people understand some valuable and interesting ideas.

Conclusion first, reasoning (if any) afterwards. It’s the NYT way! But it’s nice that people are noticing.

DEMOCRATS DON’T CARE: Biden shutting Dakota Access pipeline would cause food prices to spike. They think food should be more expensive already.

BIDEN’S RETURN TO NORMALCY: Student Loan Debtors Refusing to Pay Off Debt in Anticipation of Biden Forgiveness.

To be fair, delinquency might just be the new normal.

ON SUNDAYS I HAVE A POST TO PROMOTE MOSTLY INDIE WRITERS:  Book Promo And Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

Oh, yeah, and there’s also a vignette writing thing.

JOEL KOTKIN & HUGO KRUGER: COVID-19 and the Ongoing Global Workplace Revolution.

CORRUPT MARKETS:  Those Whom The Gods Would Destroy.

FROM ROBERT BIDINOTTO:  THE DYLAN HUNTER THRILLERS BOX SET: Books 1 – 3 (Dylan Hunter Vigilante Justice Series).

THE BESTSELLING THRILLER TRILOGY — NOW IN ONE VOLUME!

To the world, he’s crusading reporter Dylan Hunter.
But that’s not his real name…or his real mission.
He’s a man with a mysterious past and an untraceable identity.
A man of special talents and deadly skills.
He’s a modern Zorro, secretly waging a violent, one-man vigilante war.
His targets:
The corrupt, powerful, untouchable political predators of Washington, D.C.
His mission:
To bring justice down upon them — if they don’t kill him first…

And he doesn’t know his most dangerous foe is the woman who loves him…

NO! WHY, YOU COULD DROP ME WITH A FEATHER!  Shocker: Biden Wants Restrictions on Gun Ownership.

I’d show you my shocked face, but it’s Sunday night and it’s cold. It went to bed early.