Archive for 2021
February 7, 2021
ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Students Call On University Of Wisconsin To Ban Women’s Liberation Front From Law School Job Fair.
FOUR SUPER BOWL BACK STORIES: These four guys want to win, of course, but there is one something that is vastly more important to each one of them.
February 6, 2021
OPEN THREAD: It’s almost Saturday night.
ANOTHER DATAPOINT IN FAVOR OF REOPENING SCHOOLS: COVID-19 transmission extremely low at group of North Carolina day camps.
Though to be honest, I’m not sure that either kids or society are being harmed, on net, by public schools’ closure.
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, WANNABE TYRANT: This Draconian Bill Would Turn Millions of Peaceful Gun Owners Into Felons. Turning millions into felons is unwise. Many of them may decide to roll with it and start acting the part. Even to threaten this sort of thing is destabilizing — almost, one might say, a kind of incitement.
“WOKE” IS JUST A SYNONYM FOR STUPID AND CRAZY, SO IT’S NOT SURPRISING WHEN PLACES THAT HAVE GONE WOKE ARE STUPID AND CRAZY: It’s Official: Linguistic Intent No Longer Matters at The New York Times.
Sensible — i.e., not stupid and crazy — management would fire the agitators in cases like this, as an example to the others, instead of caving to their ridiculous and childish behavior.
But not even the unions are willing to do anything, I guess because their members are mostly stupid and crazy, too:
On the one hand, watching far-left institutions eat themselves should be amusing, but it bodes poorly for the rest of society, especially now that we have an administration that supports this kind of thing, unless it affects the nomenklatura.
And remember, as the powers that be attempt to force a “Great Reset” in which institutional authority is re-established, this is what those institutions are like: Stupid and crazy. And vicious.
IF THE NEW WAR ON TERROR IS FOUGHT LIKE THE LAST ONE… “Every time a radical Trump supporter commits a terrorist attack, the airwaves and social media will be full of stories about how moderate Trump supporters are the real victims, how they face so much unjust suspicion, how they’ve asked for extra police protection in the wake of the attack, for fear of an anti-Trump backlash, and how they’re doctors, lawyers, schoolteachers – the pillars of the community. As a Trump supporter myself, I think this all sounds like a great idea. Mr. Carroll, you’re on: Let’s fight this new war on terror the way we fought the last one. Where do I sign up for my government grant?”
A NEW PUBLICATION: Space Force Journal. Looks pretty interesting.
MOSTLY PEACEFUL RIOTS AND ARSON COMING BACK TO HAUNT LEFT: Trump impeachment lawyer says he’ll use video of Dems’ own remarks at trial.
WE LIVE IN A GOLDEN AGE OF MUSCLE, THOUGH THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION WILL PROBABLY FIX THAT: SpeedKore’s Hellephant-Powered 1970 Dodge Charger Is Bonkers.
BUSINESS INSIDER ONE YEAR AGO TODAY: Whistleblower doctor Li Wenliang, who was censored after sounding the alarm about the coronavirus, has died in Wuhan.
YEAH, BUT A MA DEUCE DOESN’T FIT UNDER MY SPORTCOAT: Why You Should Always Use Enough Gun.
WHY IS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY SUCH A CESSPIT OF HARASSMENT? Lincoln Project Co-Founder Departs as Weaver Accusations Rock It to Its Foundations.
FROM THE STANDPOINT OF THE RULING CLASS, THE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE WORKED AS INTENDED: The Sordid History of the Fairness Doctrine. “Despite its evocative name, the Fairness Doctrine was primarily a tool wielded by established political interests to suppress unwelcome speech. . . . By limiting the number of stations, the agency protected powerful media companies from competition, as when it delayed regulatory approval for FM radio because of lobbying by businesses heavily invested in AM broadcasting. Nevertheless, the courts bought the scarcity rationale excuse until the 1990s. Thus, a readily corruptible government agency with a sweeping but ambiguous mandate had authority over the airwaves. Politicians quickly discerned an opportunity to manipulate the regulators for political advantage.”
AND THEY LIKE IT THAT WAY.
HOW MUCH OF THIS IS THE PANDEMIC, AND HOW MUCH IS THE RESPONSE TO THE PANDEMIC? Gap between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ widened by the COVID pandemic: study.
YOU’RE GONNA NEED A MUCH BIGGER BLOG: Is AOC the most dangerous politician in America?
In yesterday’s chat AOC also said that she has experienced a sexual assault in the past, which is terrible. However, her use of that experience to try to shame and silence some of her political critics is out of order. In relation to Chip Roy, a Texas congressman who has called on AOC to apologise to Ted Cruz, she said: ‘These are the tactics of abusers… And so when I see this happen, how I feel, how I felt was: “Not again.” I’m not going to let this happen again.’
This is a very morally questionable tactic. We should not use past experiences, however awful they may have been, as trump cards in political discussions in the here and now. If AOC feels she doesn’t have to apologise to Cruz for essentially accusing him of attempted murder, she should say so; she shouldn’t liken those who do think she should apologise to sexual abusers.* Again, this is highly loaded commentary, cynically designed to shrink the space for political pushback.
Right now, AOC might just be the most authoritarian politician in the US. Her hyperbole about the Capitol riot, her fearmongering about the threat of ‘domestic terrorism’, her animosity towards the free press, and her demonisation of her critics as being pro-murder or similar to sexual abusers, in the full knowledge that her army of devoted online followers will amplify these shrill, censorious accusations – this all points to how determined AOC is to crush anything that she considers too right-wing or too offensive.
To be fair, she’s got a tough act to live up to, having launched her Congressional career by demanding that everything from cars to airplanes be banned, as the DNC-MSM struggled mightily to clean up after her rhetorical messes.
* As Tiana Lowe of the Washington Examiner spotted on Thursday: AOC attacks GOP rape survivor Nancy Mace for silencing rape survivors.
HOW MUCH OF THIS IS THE PANDEMIC, AND HOW MUCH IS THE RESPONSE TO THE PANDEMIC? Pandemic caused ‘staggering’ economic, human impact in developing counties, research says.
The study was launched in spring 2020, as China, Europe and the U.S. led global efforts to check spread of the virus through ambitious lockdowns of business, schools and transit. Three independent research teams, including CEGA, joined to conduct surveys in the countries where they already worked. . . .
Reports early in the pandemic suggested that developing countries might be less vulnerable because their populations are so much younger than those in Europe and North America.
But the research teams found that, within weeks after governments imposed lockdowns and other measures to control the virus’s spread, the pandemic was having a pervasive economic impact:
Income fell broadly. In Colombia, 87% of respondents nationwide reported lost income in the early phase of the pandemic. Such losses were reported by more than 80% of people nationwide in Rwanda and Ghana.
People struggled to find food. In the Philippines, 77% of respondents nationwide said they faced difficulty purchasing food because stores were closed, transport was shut down or food supplies were inadequate. Similar reports came from 68% of Colombians and 64% of respondents in Sierra Leone; rates were similar for some communities within other countries.
Food insecurity rose sharply. While the impact was worst in rural Sierra Leone, other communities were hard hit: In Bangladesh, 69% of landless agricultural households reported that they were forced to eat less, along with 48% of households in rural Kenya.
I think we’re going to find that most of the impact of this disaster stemmed from government action.
Plus: “In both rich and poor nations, he said, governments have used the pandemic as a reason to crack down on political opponents.”
Ya think?
ROD DREHER: Times Pushes Don McN-Word Out.
This is one of the most shocking examples yet of cancel culture: The New York Times has parted ways with science correspondent Donald G. McNeil, Jr., over his use of the N-word on a student trip sponsored by the Times:
Nearly a half-century of work for the Times, gone. And on the way out, McNeil abased himself before his colleagues:
As Dreher writes:
You watch: the Times is okay for now, because it’s got a deep bench. But what happens when it starts driving other talented journalists out because they feel they can no longer work under conditions in which any little thing they might say could attract the attention of the mob, and Nikole Hannah-Jones gets to go to Dean Baquet’s office to threaten him about the journalist? If you don’t think things like this affect the kinds of stories that get proposed and written at the Times, you don’t know how newsrooms work. You might think that the impact of this will be for Times reporters in the future not to use the N-word on field trips with students. Well, yes, that is one result, and a good one. But the deeper fallout is that it reveals no one is safe from cancel culture at that newspaper, not even one of its most valuable reporter assets, not even a reporter who has loyally served there for decades, and not even if he apologizes for having said a word.
Andrew Sullivan responds thusly:
And Andrew (at least in one of his earlier incarnations) definitely knows ridiculous and terrifying.
(Via Stacy McCain.)
THIS JUDGMENT IS SHORT AT LEAST TWO ZEROES: Judge orders UConn to pay $63,000 to victim of Title IX kangaroo court.