Archive for 2021

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE. Kiersten Hening: I was forced off college soccer team after refusing to kneel.

Hening, 21, was a midfielder/defender for the Hokies from 2018 to 2020. In a federal lawsuit filed last month, Hening said her former coach, Charles Adair, wasn’t a fan of her political views. According to the documents obtained by TMZ Sports, Hening said that during the peak of the Black Lives Matter movement last summer, she often disagreed with her teammates on social justice topics.

In the lawsuit, Hening said she “supports social justice and believes that black lives matter” but she said she “does not support BLM the organization.” Hening added that she disagrees with Black Lives Matter’s “tactics and core tenets of its mission statement, including defunding the police.”

Hening said during the pregame reading of a “unity statement” on Sept. 12, 2020, many of her teammates knelt before their game against Virginia, but she remained standing and she was “verbally attacked” by Adair at halftime.

Adair allegedly pointed a finger “directly in her face” and said that she was “b–tching and moaning.” Hening added that Adair said she was being selfish and individualistic for “doing her own thing.”

Sometimes, “doing your own thing” is vitally important:

LONGEVITY UPDATE: Anti-aging compound improves muscle glucose metabolism in people. “NMN is involved in producing an important compound in all cells, called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD). NAD plays a vital role in keeping animals healthy. Levels of NAD decline with age in a broad range of animals, including humans, and the compound has been shown to contribute to a variety of aging-associated problems, including insulin resistance in studies conducted in mice. Supplementing animals with NMN slows and ameliorates age-related decline in the function of many tissues in the body.”

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: Greta Thunberg Is a Cautionary Tale, Not a Parenting Guide.

Insanity Wrap needs to know: Katie Porter, you’ve just traumatized your young daughter with climate scare stories — what are you going to do next?

Answer: “I’m going to Congress!”

Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.

  • Australia goes cockoo for two COVID cases
  • WaPo sics three white men on one black senator
  • Virginia public education goes full Harrison Bergeron

Bonus Sanity: We have video evidence of 16 world leaders with more brains than Joe Biden, but only because that’s all they could fit on one screen.

And so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.

FBI KEEPS STONEWALLING OVER BERNIE SUPPORTER ATTACK ON GOP CONGRESSMEN: “So a leftist who spent all his time ranting about conservatives, had a list of names of Republican House members whom he tried to kill, came to the baseball field, asked if it was the Republican team, and opened fire, but the FBI insisted that he had no plan and was just struggling in his life…Considering that there is no pending trial and that the victims, who are members of Congress, want it discussed, why does the FBI keep stonewalling?”

BLUE STATE BLUES: New Jersey’s Self-Inflicted Fiscal Woes May Bring Statewide Property Tax.

Under a bill introduced by that state’s Senate President Martin Looney (D-New Haven), a new statewide tax would be placed on commercial and residential property, with the first $300,000 of assessed value exempt from the tax. For a home with a market value of $500,000, for example, that would mean an extra $50 assessment, while a homeowner with a $1 million house would pay about $400.

While the first year of this tax is expected to raise $73.5 million, a small fraction of that state’s $22 billion budget, Connecticut has opened the door for a statewide property tax that has no upper limit. It offers a “new” tax revenue source for states like New Jersey that have failed to address their structural deficits and continue to live beyond their means. Many New Jersey homeowners refer to their local property tax bills as a second mortgage, since the burden often rivals or exceeds the monthly payments on their home purchase.

Easy call: The new taxes won’t generate the expected revenue, as more and more people choose to leave New Jersey — further compounding the state’s debt woes and death spiral.

NEWS YOU CAN USE? In Defense of Teenage Knife Fighting.

Who among us hasn’t come within a second or two of murdering someone else with a steak knife? My best friend in school, Bobby “The Blade” Simpson, used to throw shivs at the smaller kids in the music room. Did we need the authorities to step in when that happened? No, we did not. As MSNBC’s Joy Reid argued smartly on her show last night, pranks such as these were dealt with by our teachers — just as we all expected they would be. And if something went wrong? Well, that’s why we had substitutes.

In all honesty, I worry that this sort of helicopter policing is making us weak. Back in my day, the people who survived a good stabbing came out stronger for it. I learned a lot of lessons from my time in the ring: self-reliance, how to overcome fear, the importance of agility, the basics of military field dressing. And, given the turnover, I also learned how to make new friends.

Today, the free-range generation to which I belong is dying out — and, this time, it is not from the wounds inflicted by everyday teenage knife fights but because our politicians and activists simply cannot leave us be. From the time of the Colosseum, our civilization has had a tradition of lightly regulated, highly entertaining combat. Who are we, exactly, to think we know better?

Note to the left who are eager this week to defend teenage knife fighting: This is satire.

BRAD TEMPLETON: Fatal Tesla Crash In Texas: What We Know And What We Don’t.

I came on a horrible accident once in which the driver — who had been belted behind the wheel before — was hanging out of the passenger side of his upside down truck. So I’m not convinced that the final position of the driver or passenger in a severe crash is indicative of where they were before the crash.

WE MIGHT TO HAVE TO GET OUR ASSES WHOOPED IN A MAJOR CONFLICT TO END THIS WOKE AND GREEN NONSENSE: The Pentagon Can’t Afford to Go Green at the Warfighters’ Expense.

The Biden administration faces a clear choice: Accept a less capable military by diverting scarce funds to green innovation endeavors or remain focused on modernizing the U.S. military for the future.

Recent actions give rise to worries the Biden administration may return to the failed experiments of the Obama administration in trying to pursue a greener Department of Defense faster than what current technologies and costs allow.

First, President Joe Biden’s team is committed to replacing the entire federal government’s fleet of vehicles, some 645,000 cars, with electric vehicles. The down payment on such an acquisition will cost upwards of $20 billion.

Of the 645,000, the Department of Defense alone operates approximately 170,000 non-combat vehicles.

More important, however, will be how the Biden administration’s environmental policies affect the Pentagon’s actual military capabilities. After all, past attempts to be environmentally conscious in defense operations have been incredibly costly, without much to show for them.

This woke and green nonsense, needless to say, invites a major conflict.