HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, BAIT-AND-SWITCH EDITION: Georgia college changes class theme to ‘gender and sexuality’ AFTER students enroll.
Archive for 2021
February 1, 2021
IT’S DIFFERENT NOW BECAUSE SHUT UP, FAT: Critics Who Called Trump ‘Authoritarian’ Are Silent On Biden’s Executive Order Spree. “This lack of reaction by the left comes after journalists, pundits, politicians, and other notable Trump critics spent years condemning Trump for using his federal authority to sign executive orders and execute his agenda. Beginning even before his time in office, Trump critics claimed democracy and the United States were threatened by the potential for him to pen executive orders.”
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Pathetic Republican Squishes Are Learning It’s Still Trump’s Party. “The moderate/left/LincolnProjectPedo wing (all 35 of them) of the GOP is insistent that the Republican hoi polloi reject all things Trump and do whatever they can to make The New York Times say nice things about them on occasion. Their dream GOP is a grandstanding bunch of mush that never really accomplishes anything or directly addresses the concerns of the people who elect them.”
DEATH OF A CITY: The Portland Story?
AND LATELY IT SEEMS THAT THEY ALWAYS DO: David Mamet Explains What Happens When the Experts Fail.
UH-HUH: WhatsApp says new biometric features are nothing to worry about.
A Facebook account is not required to use WhatsApp, but whenever the update goes live, users must agree to grant Facebook access to metadata including IP addresses, user location, battery level, and IMEI numbers, or the permanent identifier associated with a smartphone.
“Trust us” — WhatsApp has gone on the defensive, trying to emphasize that Facebook cannot read users’ communications, nor does it keep logs of location data or private messages. But Facebook hasn’t been clear what it intends to use the collected metadata for. It could potentially be used to target users in advertisements. User data collected by Facebook has been misused in the past, such as to hide housing advertisements from users in poorer locales or target political ads discouraging certain demographics from voting.
Facebook hasn’t earned a whole lot of trust (cough, cough), and WhatsApp’s privacy-minded co-founders left shortly after selling to Facebook.
WHY DO YOU THINK THEY’RE RINGING THE CAPITOL WITH FENCES AND TROOPS? H.R. 127 – A Catalog of Gun Control Awfulness. Those hiding behind armed soldiers want to disarm the rest of us because reasons.
HA. NOT ME. Why Some Men Are Still Wearing Suits to Work from Home.
LAST YEAR was all about shlumpy sweatpants, plush house slippers and mundane Zoom shirts. As many Americans shifted to working from home—and later trickled back into offices—our wardrobes took a hard left turn into the world of casual wear. But even as elastic waists and jersey became de rigueur for a chunk of the corporate class, a smaller portion of WFH men—let’s call them tailoring holdouts—continue to cling to their blazers, suits and neckties like life rafts in a tumultuous year. These men found comfort in their sartorial formality, even if they never want to be labeled “the tie guy” on Zoom calls ever again.
What’s behind this tailoring commitment? For starters, many of these suit stalwarts are nagged by a feeling that they must maintain some level of decorum even from home. Last summer, months after the pandemic’s onset, Shawn Sukumar, 37, a trial lawyer in Washington, D.C., had his court hearings moved to video call. Though none of his superiors or others on-high specified a dress code, he felt it best to toe the line and wear his suit and tie on the calls. He believes you should look polished when speaking before a court—even digitally. And if you’re wondering: No, he never wore anything but full trousers with his sport coat even though he was only shown from the waist up. No shorts. Certainly no boxers. “I don’t trust the video on that. I wear pants every time.”
But for online teaching, I wear the same thing I do for in-person teaching — a nice sportcoat and a dress or polo shirt. I decided early on to do that out of respect for the students.
JOSH KRAUSHAAR: Biden Isn’t Living Up To His Bipartisan Promises.
Do tell.
Related: Senator Cassidy: No, The White House Never Reached Out To Republicans On COVID Relief Bill.
GOT AN HOUR?: This documentary on Thomas Sowell, hosted by Jason Riley, was definitely worth my time. Maybe yours too.
PREJUDICE UNDER THE MICROSCOPE: Does the popular race Implicit Association Test stand up to careful scrutiny?
THE ALIENS AREN’T GOING TO BE TOO HAPPY WHEN THEY LEARN THE NAVY IS PATENTING THEIR INVENTIONS: The Navy Just Filed Patents for New Unbelievable Superweapons. “In 2019, the U.S. Navy’s Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) filed a number of seemingly out of this world patents that could, in theory, revolutionize not only military aviation, but just about everything. Chief among these strange new inventions is a High Energy Electromagnetic Field Generator, which if functional, could produce massive amounts of power with far reaching military and commercial implications. Interestingly, the patent also closely resembles longstanding theories posited by UFO researchers about the means of propulsion seemingly employed by alien visitors to our world.”
THE CRUSHING OF DISSENT WILL CONTINUE UNTIL MORALE IMPROVES: Colorado Relieves John Eastman Of His Duties, Chapman Bars Him From Speaking At Law Review Symposium He Organized; Eastman Speaks At Arizona State Federalist Society Event Despite Opposition From Students And Dean.
DO OUMUAMUANS DO EVERYTHING IN THREES? Harvard’s Avi Loeb more sure than ever we were visited by alien spacecraft. “The renowned scientist made waves claiming the interstellar object Oumuamua might be extraterrestrial. Now he’s doubling down.”
SHOCKER: Biden brood already cashing in on Joe’s presidency.
They can’t quit the grift. No sooner had Joe Biden won the White House than his family went back to trying to make a buck off his name.
The latest sordid example involves one of Joe’s younger brothers, Frank Biden, appearing in a Florida law firm’s ad — on Inauguration Day no less. The ad used the president’s name to draw attention to the Berman Law Group’s class-action suit against sugar cane growers.
“The two Biden brothers have long held a commitment to pushing environmental issues to the forefront,” says the ad. “The president-elect has vowed to rejoin the Paris Agreement and wants to set ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets.”
The ad, first reported by CNBC, appeared in the Daily Business Review and carried a picture of Frank Biden and quotes him saying, “My brother is a model for how to go about doing this work.”
How touching. And shameless.
After the enormous political trouble Hunter Biden’s shady business ties caused during the campaign, Frank’s bid to piggy-back on Joe’s election sounds especially reckless. But here’s another way to look at it.
Biden family members are oblivious to conflicts and criticism because they’ve been swimming in swamp corruption for decades. The two brothers, Frank and Jim, and Hunter have made millions and millions based on selling the perception of access to Joe’s power.
Having gotten rich and gotten away with it, why quit now? Joe is no longer one of 100 senators or just the vice president. Now he’s the “big guy.” Ka-ching!
Yep.
THEY’RE RIGHT, OF COURSE: Asian-American Activists Blast Biden’s ‘Pandering’ Anti-Racism Order.
THE CANCELLATIONS WILL CONTINUE UNTIL MORALE IMPROVES: Professor fired for “racism.”
THE TECHNOCRACY HAS BEEN A SHAMBLES IN ACTION: Jim Meigs: Why the Vaccine Distribution Went Badly.
I predicted last year that even if we had a vaccine developed in record time, the logistics of actually getting it in people’s arms would mean it would be spring before enough people were vaccinated. Some of that is because it’s hard. Some of it is because the people in charge are incompetents.
WELL, YES: Biden is failing on COVID by the standards he set as a candidate.
President Biden contends that there is “nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the pandemic in the next several months” — which is the exact opposite of what presidential candidate Joe Biden promised voters during the 2020 campaign. Candidate Biden’s plan said that “the trajectory of COVID-19 in America is headed in the wrong direction,” and only he could fix it.
The Biden “plan” amounted to a slew of nebulous promises that would be implemented to correct the “Trump fiasco,” such as accelerating the development of a vaccine, producing more masks and pressuring governors to sign mask mandates. Biden repeatedly promised to alter the trajectory of COVID-19. In a platitudinous Oct. 23 speech, Biden pledged to “immediately put in place a national strategy that will position our country to finally get ahead of this virus and get back our lives.”
“Immediately” is an adverb meaning at once, instantly. It doesn’t mean waiting around to take credit for when the Trump-era vaccines kick in.
Biden continually underestimated the speed with which medical technology would move. Every time former President Donald Trump promised that a vaccine would be available by the end of the year, “fact-checkers” were deployed to claim this was a lie. By Dec. 23, the United States led the world in vaccinations, with more than a million people vaccinated.
Well, the press is even worse at its job than Biden is at his.
Just think of the media as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, and it all makes sense.
Evergreen:
I DO THE SUNDAY THING TO PROMOTE INDIE AUTHORS: Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike and Book Promo.
Although, honestly, I don’t require they be indie. On the other hand the fact they’re willing to associate with my blog means most of them aren’t brain-dead-left.
THE MEDIA ARE FOR THE BODY POLITIC WHAT THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY IS FOR THE BODY PHYSICAL: How media monetized polarization.