DUMP THEM NEXT TO THE OLD WINDMILLS: Cars Are Going Electric. What Happens to the Used Batteries?
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Archive for 2021
November 6, 2021
FLASHBACK: I’m not saying that it’s aliens, but it’s aliens. There are even reports that the Pentagon has obtained vehicles or parts of vehicles “not made on this Earth.”
THE NEW SPACE RACE: China’s Weaponization of Space.
REPORT FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Businesses Leave and Crime Increases While Massachusetts Legislators Pass More Gun Control Laws.
TOP SELLER: Let’s Go Brandon Decal Vinyl Sticker Auto Car Truck Wall Laptop | White | 8″ Wide. #CommissionEarned
WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: General Atomics and Boeing will Build a Giant Laser for the U.S. Military.
TO ASK THE QUESTION IS TO ANSWER IT: Why Are the Media Treating ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Like Criminal Hate Speech?
Progressive political strategist and commentator Chris Hahn accused the pilot of “sympathizing with terrorist[s].” CNN’s Joe Lockhart attacked Southwest for not immediately firing the pilot. The airline is investigating the incident.
Keep in mind that what touched off this public freakout was an Associated Press story asserting that a pilot had uttered the statement. We don’t have audio footage of it, though I did listen to audio from another incident involving a pilot allegedly saying “let’s go Brandon,” and guess what? It really sounded like he was saying “let’s go Braves,” as in the sports team. I don’t know if that’s what happened here, but I would bet it was a simple misunderstanding. Even if it wasn’t, it would be wrong to treat the utterance of “let’s go Brandon” as a crime, or terrorist behavior.
Make no mistake: The chant is clearly First Amendment–protected speech, even if some would consider it hate speech. Contrary to what many progressive activists naively assume, hate speech is free speech. There is no hate speech exception to the First Amendment, because there is no mutually agreed-upon definition of hate speech, and there are no Supreme Court decisions supporting such an exception. The Supreme Court has carved out some categories of speech that don’t qualify for protection—threats of imminent violence, for instance—but hate speech isn’t one of them. On the contrary, the right to insult political leaders and government officials is perhaps the most important and obvious component of the First Amendment.
Ken Dilanian of NBC News said he called to ask the Secret Service whether “let’s go Brandon” emblazoned on an assault rifle represented a security threat to the president, which he thinks “is a reasonable question.”
* * * * * * * *That isn’t a reasonable question at all. Here’s a reasonable question: Why do mainstream media figures think their main job is to police speech that offends Democrats?
Just think of the media as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, and it all makes sense.
Related: NASCAR president denounces ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ chant that originated at NASCAR race.
Why? As a member of the Institute for Sport and Social Justice, NASCAR president Steve Phelps surely understands that politicizing sports is all the rage these days.
ASTROTURF: There’s no way these prepubescent girls think Johnny Depp or Leo DiCaprio are the hotties of choice. Some Gen-X type wrote these signs.
UNSETTLED SCIENCE: Letting babies eat eggs could help avoid allergy later, study says.
DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Bill Maher, liberal professor clash on CRT in schools: It’s ‘disingenuous’ to say parents oppose Black history.
Another guest, Brown University Professor Glenn Loury, knocked the “activists on the left” who he claimed deny “what I see with my lying eyes” regarding what’s going on in the classroom.
[Frequent MSNBC guest Michael Eric Dyson, a Vanderbilt University professor] continued to argue, however, that the debate in school districts was solely focused on how Black history is taught to children rather than the CRT ideology itself.
“But that’s not all we’re talking about,” Maher pushed back. “We’re talking about kids who seem to be too young sometimes to fully appreciate all this. I think if kids watched you, they wouldn’t know a lot of those words. So to ask them as opposed to letting kids be kids, maybe, where usually kids are pretty nice to each other if they’re instructed not to be.”
Loury told Maher “we need to be getting beyond race,” saying “we’re in the 21st century, not the 19th century” and that young people shouldn’t be “put into boxes” but allowed to do “what comes naturally, which is cross the lines.”
Dyson doubled down, calling that a “failed experiment” and denying there’s been a “race-neutral approach.”
“Failed in the sense that there’s been no progress? That things aren’t different?” a puzzled Maher asked.
“That’s a strawman argument. Of course, there’s been progress,” Dyson said.
“Well, you said ‘failed,’” Maher pushed back.
The liberal professor explained that it wasn’t Black people who were “putting people into boxes” and that they didn’t want to be “segregated” the way they are.
Maher then complained about the “self-segregation” that has taken place on college campuses when it comes to separate dorms or graduation ceremonies based on race, something Dyson didn’t deny.
Earlier this week on MSNBC, Dyson referred to Virginia’s newly elected GOP Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears as “white supremacy by ventriloquist effect. There is a black mouth moving but a white idea running on the runway of the tongue of a figure who justifies and legitimates the white supremacist practices.”
UPDATE: Leftists Slam Bill Maher For Saying The Pandemic Is Over. “The pandemic is done! That was the declaration by Bill Maher on his HBO program Real Time this weekend. This did not make leftists happy. Perhaps because they didn’t want to spend time searching for a new way to control the lives of Americans.”
ROGER SIMON: Republican Jews Meet in Vegas Amidst Rising Antisemitism and a Clueless Administration.
LAS VEGAS, Nevada—The Republican Jewish Coalition begins its annual conference in Las Vegas Nov. 5—postponed a year due to COVID—under a dark cloud with a hint of light.
The dark cloud—it should not surprise readers to know, but it will some anyway—is the ominous rise of antisemitism in our country. It’s not exactly Germany 1938, but, according to a 2021 survey by the American Jewish Committee:
“Approximately one in four (24 percent) American Jews has been the target of antisemitism over the past 12 months: 17 percent said they had been the targets of antisemitic remarks in person, 12 percent said they had been the targets of antisemitism online or on social media, and 3 percent said they had been the victims of physical attacks.
“Consequently, approximately four out of every ten American Jews (39 percent) have changed their behavior out of fear of antisemitism.”
Despite what some nostalgic liberal groups would like us to believe, the vast majority of this bigotry, soft or hard, comes not from the remnants of the KKK, but from the supposedly “woke” left, as well as the obvious Islamic extremists.
Much of this has been fueled by anti-Israel causes such as the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, especially after the recent Gaza War, but, more ominously, it has leaked into the United States Congress and the Biden Administration.
The left, “progressive” wing of the Democratic Party, led by AOC and her “Squad”— if you take the Progressive Caucus in its entirety that is nearly a hundred congressmen and women—has taken such previously outlandish stands as refusing to fund replenishing the Iron Dome system.
This even though the Iron Dome is a defensive weapon that prevents people being killed or maimed by missiles aimed willy-nilly at civilians, large numbers of whom, ironically, are Palestinians themselves.
If these “progressives” actually know the Arab population of Israel is rapidly approaching two million, that by defunding the Iron Dome they would be murdering Arabs as well as Jews (not to mention Christians, Bahais, Hindus and others who inhabit the diverse—to co-opt their language—state of Israel), they certainly don’t give any indication of it.
What they give indication of is something approaching a bloodlust toward the Jewish state—and it comes straight out of the leftwing of the Democratic Party.
Related: Donald Trump among Republican Jewish Coalition conference attendees. Presidential contenders appearing at the conference include Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo, Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, and the former president, Donald Trump.
OH, THAT’S A SHAME: Massachusetts liberals could lose clout as panicky Democrats move to middle. “Panicked Democrats stampeding to the center in the wake of this week’s election disaster could further isolate and marginalize Massachusetts’ ultra-progressive political brigade — including new Boston Mayor-elect Michelle Wu. . . . Their influence and clout could wane as the party moves to more moderate positions on issues like policing, schools and social spending.”
UGH: At Least 8 Dead After Travis Scott Astroworld Festival Mass Casualty Incident in Texas, Houston Fire Department Confirms. “We had at least eight confirmed fatalities tonight. Eight confirmed fatalities and we had scores of individuals that were injured here at this event. We had an attendance of approximately 50,000 to the Travis Scott Astroworld Festival event. What we do know is that at approximately 9 o’clock, 9:15, the crowd began to compress towards the front of the stage and that caused some panic and it started causing some injuries. People began to fall out, become unconscious, and it created additional panic.”
READER BOOK PLUG: Christmas in Idaho: Illustrated Christmas Gift Book. #CommissionEarned The hard cover edition of this book is beautiful and comes with an audio CD. It would make a lovely Christmas gift.
JIM TREACHER: Yes, Kyle Rittenhouse Acted in Self-Defense. Facts don’t care about your feelings:
I’m no Perry Mason, but if somebody tells you he’s going to kill you, and then he starts chasing you and tries to grab your weapon, he’s not interested in a calm and rational exchange of ideas. It’s safe to assume he intends to do what he just told you he’s going to do.
Kyle Rittenhouse is neither a hero nor a murderer. He’s a kid who got in over his head and defended his own life when things went wrong. If he hadn’t shot those guys, they would’ve killed him. And all the people screaming at him right now would’ve just shrugged, because they only care about human life when it serves their political ends.
I’m sorry those guys are dead, but they shouldn’t have chased down a heavily armed man they had just threatened to kill. If you don’t like it, send your complaints to the Darwin Awards.
Related: Rittenhouse Trial Day 3: State’s Own Witnesses Damage Prosecution, Reinforce Self-Defense Narrative.
Perhaps the highlight of the [Richard] McGinnis [a Daily Caller videographer] testimony, however, occurred during Binger’s re-direct questioning of him.
Binger had been very unhappy when McGinnis was allowed to suggest during cross-examination that it had been the intent of Rosenbaum to seize Kyle’s rifle. Binger objected at the time, but Judge Schroeder overruled the objection.
Now on re-direct, Binger rather heatedly challenged his own witness: You can’t read Rosenbaum’s mind, right? You can’t know what he was actually thinking, right? Your interpretation of his intent is nothing but complete guesswork, isn’t that right?
McGinnis paused a moment, and replied: “Well, he said “F-you, and then he reached for the weapon.” So, maybe not entirely guesswork.
Video here:
FASTER, PLEASE: The future of space travel according to Branson, Musk, and Bezos.
As billionaires Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, and Elon Musk use their private space exploration companies to shoot for the stars, they have been dogged by persistent, progressive criticism that this is all a highly combustible vanity project. “Billionaire Space Race: Shameless Vanity Projects in a World of Want” read one representative headline on the website Socialist Alternative.
But is it more than that? The Washington Examiner asked a rocket scientist for thoughts on what, if anything, these titans of industry are contributing to the future of space exploration.
“We are on the cusp of transition in space transportation comparable to the introduction of the DC-3 in aviation, or perhaps the transition from reciprocating engines to jets in commercial aviation,” said James Bennett, the chief regulatory officer for Immortal Data Inc. “The maritime analogy would be from sailing ships to steam in ocean navigation — perhaps the best analogy because steam changed the way everything was done in ocean transport.”
The man he pointed to as most responsible for this possibility is Musk.
I hope the next DC-3 is more reliable than the last one. As Arthur C. Clarke said of the Space Shuttle when asked by Discover magazine in 1999, “What was the most important development during the past 30 years of space exploration?“, he replied, “For want of anything else, I might as well say the space shuttle–although it’s only the DC-1-and-a-half, and not the DC-3, that NASA had hoped for.
I SHOUTED OUT WHO KILLED THE KENNEDYS, WHEN AFTER ALL IT WAS YOU AND ME: QAnon supporters speculate Rolling Stones’s Keith Richards is JFK after Dallas disappointment.
Though the dead Kennedys didn’t make an appearance in Dallas on Tuesday, that didn’t deter a faction of QAnon supporters expecting the return of the political dynasty, who now have a new target for their affection, Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards.
When the Kennedys failed to appear during the Tuesday gathering, some started to posit that the reveal might still happen at a Rolling Stones concert coincidentally happening in the city that evening. When this also didn’t happen, QAnon accounts on Telegram and Twitter started to speculate that Richards was actually the 35th president, and if 1993 movie Wayne’s World 2 taught the world anything, it’s that “Keith Richards cannot be killed by conventional weapons.”
* * * * * * * *
QAnon supporters gathered by the hundreds in downtown Dallas in Dealey Plaza, where John F. Kennedy was assassinated, expecting to see the emergence of the former president as well as his son, John F. Kennedy Jr., who died in a plane crash in 1999, from witness protection. The theory posited that Kennedy Sr., upon resuming his role as president, would institute Donald Trump as the rightful president, with Kennedy Jr. as his vice president. The whole thing would be ordained by God because the Kennedy family is the bloodline of Jesus Christ, QAnon supporters contend.
I skipped the QAnon rally and headed straight to the Stones’ concert. It was much more fun — even if getting out of the Cotton Bowl felt a bit like leaving Altamont.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): I don’t know why people are making fun of a few hundred people in Dallas. After all, millions of people still believe in socialism.
HIS COVERAGE OF THIS TRIAL IS TERRIFIC: Andrew Branca: Rittenhouse Trial Day 4: Two State Blunders Create Opportunity for the Defense. State witness Lackowski: “If Rosenbaum had done that to me, would be a threat to my life.” And the state’s witnesses don’t seem to be helping its case.
MORE WOKE NONSENSE: Microsoft Hosts Open MSIgnite Show Declaring Race, Corporate Guilt.
Microsoft opened an event by apologizing to indigenous tribes of America on whose land their offices are built. No word on whether Bill Gates wants to actually return them.
Microsoft hosted Microsoft Ignite 2021 in a Nov. 2 broadcast and couldn’t wait more than 30 seconds to start spewing woke gibberish. After an initially cheerful greeting, Senior Program Manager Allison Weins declared, “First, we want to acknowledge that the land where the Microsoft campus is situated was traditionally occupied by the Sammamish, the Duwamish, the Snoqualmie, the Suquamish, the Muckleshoot, the Snohomish, the Tulalip, and coast Salish peoples since time immemorial.” She noted further those peoples are “still here, continuing to honor and bring to light their ancient heritage.” It appears that the secret to having Big Tech companies actually respect ancient traditions and culture is being born into a group liberals care about.
Weins continued by explaining she is “an Asian, white female with dark brown hair, wearing a red sleeveless top.” Her co-host AI Platform Program Manager Seth Juarez responded in kind: “I am a tall Hispanic male wearing a blue shirt, khaki pants. Today we kick off two days of learning more about the latest solutions, exploring how these key innovations can empower you to do great things and connecting with peers from around the world.”
Atheist liberal podcaster and author Sam Harris commented via Twitter that “It seems like part of the rationale for this must be to help the visually impaired. But, whatever the intentions, this makes Microsoft look like the Cirque du Soleil of wokeness. Quillette Founding Editor Clarie Lehmann made a similar remark, asking, “Will wokeness contribute to the unwinding of globalisation? The rest of the world does not want these bizarre sectarian mind viruses exported to them.”
Exit question: “When will Microsoft be returning the land it occupies to Native Americans? There’s more to these declarations of cultural sensitivity than empty virtue-signaling, I hope.”