Archive for 2021
September 17, 2021
SCIENCE! Brown suspends in-person gatherings despite nearly 98% vaccination rate, no COVID outbreak. “Vaccinated students have also been told to wear masks inside their off-campus residences except when eating alone”
MERKEL’S RIGHT HAS BEEN A DISASTER: Without Merkel, the Right in Germany Prepares for Election Disaster.
SEGREGATION NOW, SEGREGATION TOMORROW, SEGREGATION FOREVER! EXCLUSIVE: Virginia Tech syllabus apologizes for instructor’s White skin.
Seems like it might create a hostile educational environment on account of race.
MEANWHILE BIDEN WANTS TO RUN THE UNITED STATES ON WINDMILLS: Experimental reactor could hand China the holy grail of nuclear energy. “China is due to fire up an experimental nuclear reactor this month that could revolutionise the atomic energy industry. The reactor is fuelled by thorium, a weakly radioactive element, instead of uranium. If successful it could deliver safer and cheaper nuclear energy, helping the country to reduce its carbon footprint. It will use molten salt rather than water as the coolant and its by-products are less suitable for weaponisation.”
SHOCKER: European Energy Prices Set Records.
How can that be? They’ve gone green! Oh, wait: “According to the Wall Street Journal yesterday, due to a rare lack of North Sea wind, already high European energy prices are climbing higher.”
It gets better: “Gas and coal-fired electricity plants were called in to make up the shortfall from wind. Natural-gas prices, already boosted by the pandemic recovery and a lack of fuel in storage caverns and tanks, hit all-time highs. Thermal coal, long shunned for its carbon emissions, has emerged from a long price slump as utilities are forced to turn on backup power sources.”
Funny how “green” power is never a backup for coal and gas, only the other way around.
ANOTHER INSTITUTION OVERRUN BY THE WOKE MOB: Labeling The Founding Documents ‘Offensive’ Is Just The Beginning Of The National Archives’ Spiteful Plans.
In a 105-page report issued by the task force in April 2021, the National Archives suggested it, like the United States, is full of “structural racism,” including “a Rotunda in our flagship building that lauds wealthy White men in the nation’s founding while marginalizing BIPOC [black, indigenous, people of color], women, and other communities.” Since the report’s release in April, Archivist of the United States David Ferriero has “accepted the recommendations in full.”
The report further stated other examples of structural racism at the Archives are “legacy descriptions that use racial slurs and harmful language to describe BIPOC communities.” According to the task force, the Archives must revise these descriptions as part of a long-term program to transform its exhibits, archival information and descriptions, and policies.
Alongside obviously offensive language, the report included many harmless or historically accurate “slurs” to be purged or “recontextualized,” such as “crippled,” “elderly,” “handicapped,” “slave,” and “Eskimo.” Following the recommendations of the report, descriptions will be altered to remove not only overtly racist language but also “information that implies and reinforces damaging stereotypes of BIPOC individuals and communities while valorizing and protecting White people.”
The Archives further says its website and catalog must be changed because their descriptions “over-describe the records and achievements of White men by using more extensive, superlative, and subjective language.”
Read the whole thing.
INDIA’S BIGGEST STATE IS ALL BUT COVID-FREE: That’s the news from the Hindustan Times. As it happens, public health authorities in a state there that has as many people as the entire U.S. do not block use of Invermectin to treat Covid patients. Probably just coincidental, right?
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Chinese astronauts land after historic 3-month mission to new space station. “Shenzhou 12 was in space three times longer than any previous crewed Chinese mission.”
BUMPER STICKER OF THE DAY: This one would be funny if not so true.
DON SURBER ON THE UNRAVELING RUSSIA HOAX: Media, Unindicted Co-Conspirators.
Today, after 2 federal investigations covering 4 years, we finally have someone indicted for something related to Russiagate.
And it turns out to be the fellow who peddled the Russiagate Hoax.
The unindicted co-conspirators are CNN, Jake Tapper, Carl Bernstein, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Pulitzer Committee which honored and vouched for the Post and the Times, and just about every political reporter and columnist in country.
So is anyone in the media going to apologize for lying for more than 4 years about Putin somehow fixing the 2016 election for Donald Trump?
Of course not. I should save my breath. But I breathe for the truth and have known from the get-go that Russiagate was BS.
So did the press, of course. They just didn’t care.
Plus: “Let me be the first to say ‘Sussman did not kill himself.'”
SHUT UP, THEY EXPLAINED: Facebook Blocks Ad For Song Critical of Biden’s Afghanistan Withdrawal. “The social media giant twice prohibited Five For Fighting’s John Ondrasik from purchasing an ad to promote his new single ‘Blood On My Hands.’ Facebook claimed the song, which slams the Biden administration for abandoning hundreds of Americans and thousands of Afghan allies, ‘violated their policy on either politics or social issues.’ The song singles out Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley.”
HACKS: Media coverage of border mayhem drops 94% under Biden.
Evergreen:
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Mask/Vaccine Nazis Are Getting More Unhinged Every Day. “Yes, we are suffering from a plague in this country — a plague of rudeness. This pandemic is causing a lot of people to act out in ways that we shouldn’t be tolerating. The mask/vax types are under the false impression that they are morally superior and can threaten or mistreat anyone they want. There were several different stories on Thursday that got my blood boiling a bit.”
WITHOUT LIES, HE HAS NO CAMPAIGN: Terry McAuliffe Employs Debunked Attacks Against GOP Opponent: Criticism from Washington Post, PolitiFact has not stopped Virginia Dem from repeating false claims.
I mean, when you’re a Virginia Dem who’s being busted by the WaPo and PolitiFact . . . .
IF NOT, IT’S ONLY BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T THINK OF IT YET: Too bad to check: Is Biden punishing red states by restricting COVID treatment supplies? “Maybe not, but as you’ll see, there’s a shortage of rational explanations otherwise — and Joe Biden has only himself to blame for creating that impression. The Biden administration has decided to recalculate the distribution of monoclonal-antibody treatment supplies in order to prioritize equity among the states, rather than the urgency of demand between them. That’s an odd decision for medical supplies in a shortage and public-health crisis anyway. But is it just a coincidence that the immediate impact of that will be felt by Southern states where the seasonal spike in cases is highest?”
WE’RE HAVING A VIP MEMBERSHIP DRIVE AT PJ MEDIA and would truly appreciate your support.
SO HOW ARE THINGS GOING IN CHINA? Enraged Evergrande Investors Go Full Pitchfork, Hold Management Hostage In Company Offices. “As the collapse of Evergrande reverberates throughout the Chinese economy, pissed off retail investors have gone from storming the company’s headquarters to taking management hostage, according to the Straits Times, citing posts ‘making the rounds’ on social media. What we know so far: over 70,000 retail investors forked over vast sums of money, in some cases their entire life savings, after the country’s second largest, ‘too big to fail’ property developer wooed them with promises of 10%+ annual returns. And while the company most likely is TBTF (as you can read in gory detail here, although Beijing has yet to make an official proclamation), these anxious retail investors may be in more of an ‘Alive’ situation than a Sully Sullenberger landing when it comes to resolving this mess.”
Well, America is taking on a lot of Chinese values, so I kind of hope we pick up this one too with regard to leaders who have betrayed us.
September 16, 2021
HE’S NOT WRONG:
THE FBI IS LOOKING EVEN WORSE THAN USUAL TODAY:
POLITICO: The Jennifer Rubin <–> WH symbiosis.
West Wing Playbook first reached out to Rubin on March 31 to see if she’d be willing to participate in an interview about the Biden administration and White House aides’ frequent promotion of her columns. She didn’t respond last spring and then declined to comment in response to an Aug. 22 email.
On Thursday, we reached back out with our reporting. Rubin responded in an email with the subject line “OFF THE RECORD.” Since we never agreed to conduct such an off-the-record conversation, we are publishing it below in full:
How utterly predictable that Politico would run the zillionth hit piece on a prominent woman, especially one candid in her critiques of Politico’s hysterical, clickbait style of coverage. The notion that I am polarizing in a newsroom (as opposed to any of the dozens of other opinion writers) is a “take” only Politico could come up with — by of course running around to ask the question in the first place. I trust the Post’s superb news side folks spend zero time thinking about me (as is entirely appropriate). My only surprise is that Sam [Stein, POLITICO’s White House editor], a very good journalist, would become enmeshed in such an obviously misogynistic publication. Surely there are finer publications that would have him.
And btw, what a low class move to do this on Yom Kippur at the last moment.
Exit quote: “Chief of Staff Ron Klain has retweeted or @ mentioned Rubin more than three dozen times since mid-May. The White House press team, the Democratic National Committee, the State Department, and the vice president’s office have all promoted various columns and tweets from her in recent weeks. That’s because Rubin usually backs up the administration.”
“Come for the incredible love-story of @JRubinBlogger and the Biden White House. Stay for the outrageous crazy lady email she sent attacking Politico for writing about it,” the GOP’s Matt Whitlock tweets.
OPEN THREAD: So for the past couple of weeks these posts have had links to the Roy Scheider/Bob Fosse film All That Jazz. Some colleagues of mine and I were talking about different teaching techniques, inspired by The Paper Chase, and I shared this clip as an example of a tough-love approach to teaching. (In response to this clip from Whiplash, shared by a colleague.) That got me sucked into the whole film, which I hadn’t seen since it was new. Really a terrific piece of work by Fosse, who directed and choreographed, and by Scheider, with great supporting work, and top dancers like Ann Reinking. Plus Jessica Lange as the Angel of Death.
As Reinking and Erszebet Foldi (who played the daughter) note, Bob Fosse was a much nicer man than the semi-autobiographical character of Joe Gideon that he created here. And while he was a real “taskmaster,” as they note, that’s how it should be to get the best work out of people.
Teaching law is pretty different from this, but not entirely. The Whiplash approach, in my opinion, takes it too far — even if you believe in “train hard, fight easy” — but on the other hand, students shouldn’t be too comfortable in the classroom, because if you’re too comfortable it’s because you’re not learning and not being challenged.
On a related note, I remember that my old mentor Charles Black mused late in life that he wished he’d given more attention to dance. I suppose I feel the same way. I knew a few dance majors in college in my honors program (all female, oddly enough), enough to know just how hard they work and how much discipline it takes, but that was all. Martial arts and yoga gave me some appreciation of the physicality involved, but the artistry is something I appreciate only at the most superficial level, unfortunately. And that’s despite spending quite a few years as a Dance Dad while the Insta-Daughter did ballet, jazz, and modern. I was a bit relieved when she bailed and went to fencing instead. (She did spend a summer in college at the Joffrey Ballet School, but as staff, not as a student).
Anyway, long digression, but I’ll find some other theme for the coming Open Threads.