Archive for 2021
July 22, 2021
SPACE: New Shepard astronauts rave about suborbital spaceflight experience as Bezos faces backlash from idiots. Okay, I added that last bit, but it’s true.
NFL TO TEAMS: If your unvaxxed players cause a game to be canceled and it can’t be rescheduled, you forfeit. “Do the Bills still want Cole Beasley on their roster after seeing that? Beasley tweeted last month that he won’t get vaccinated, saying ‘I may die of covid, but I’d rather die actually living.’ If I’m forced to retire because the league won’t let me suit up until I’m vaxxed then so be it, he added. Turns out they’ll let him suit up; they’re just going to make him a massive potential liability to his team if he causes an outbreak that infects a bunch of Buffalo players shortly before game day.”
GOOD LUCK WITH THAT: Researchers call for urgent action to boost physical activity levels globally. Maybe end all the Covid limitations on activity?
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Would-be teachers fail licensing tests.
Only 45 percent of would-be elementary teachers pass state licensing tests on the first try in states with strong testing systems concludes a new report by the National Council on Teacher Quality. Twenty-two percent of those who fail — 30 percent of test takers of color — never try again, reports Driven by Data: Using Licensure Tests to Build a Strong, Diverse Teacher Workforce.
Exam takers have the hardest time with tests of content knowledge, such as English language arts, mathematics, science and social studies.
The nation’s students are the best of hands, to coin an Insta-paraphrase.
A (PARTIAL) WIN FOR THE GOOD GUYS: DC Court Grants Summary Judgment for CEI In Michael Mann Defamation Suit.
HMM: Antibiotics may help to treat melanoma. “The antibiotics quickly killed many cancer cells and could thus be used to buy the precious time needed for immunotherapy to kick in. In tumors that were no longer responding to targeted therapies, the antibiotics extended the lifespan of—and in some cases even cured—the mice.”
In the early days of antibiotics, when enthusiasm was running high, they were used to treat all sorts of things, like ulcers, with apparent success. Then that faded and, in the case of ulcers, took 40 years to rediscover.
MY COUNTRY, RIGHT OR LEFT: Today, the Democratic version of patriotism seems to be an endless stream of resentment and self-loathing.
The woman leaned in and said under her breath, ‘Are you…’ — her voice lowered to a whisper — ‘… a Republican?’
I burst out laughing. We had said nothing political, not even anything political-adjacent, so I had no idea what made her draw that conclusion. I asked, ‘What made you think I’m a Republican?’
‘Shhhh…don’t say that so loud,’ she said. She gestured to my pants and headband and, again under her breath, said, ‘I just don’t see people your age, or any young people for that matter, expressing any patriotism, so I assumed…you know…’. She trailed off. ‘It makes me sad. My late husband came from Israel. He loved this country. So…are you?’
I did — I always do — my best to explain where on the political spectrum I exist now. Independent. Politically homeless. Not captured by either dominant party and not represented by them either. But I was raised by extremely patriotic Yankee liberals. Until recently, I voted blue-no-matter-who. My grandfather fought in World War Two and I thank God every day that he died the Christmas before 9/11 — it would have killed him to see America attacked.
Today, the Democratic version of patriotism seems to be an endless stream of resentment and self-loathing. I don’t believe this is representative of most moderate left-wing Americans. It’s fashionable among angsty, gender-refusing teens, journalists, the activist class and Robin DiAngelo liberals to hate America. But America, even ‘liberal’ America, is much bigger than all of them combined.
Flashback: “Hypothesis: We are under memetic attack, and our elites have been compromised as a result. Crazy idea? Not as crazy as the ones infesting our ruling class.”
WELL, THAT’S JUST SAD: Flip Flop: Liz Cheney Defends Pelosi’s Rejection Of Committee Assignments After Denouncing It Months Ago. “It is unclear why exactly Congresswoman Cheney has decided to take the side of Speaker Pelosi rather than that of Leader McCarthy or other members of her own party after previously denouncing Pelosi’s efforts to control which Republicans sat on committees.”
Even more than the Trump presidency, the Biden presidency has revealed whose loyalty to the establishment exceeds all other loyalties.
I GOT MY GAMES last week, hope you will order yours.
The Virtue Signal game is still in stock but the Deplorables game is now out. So if you want the Virtue Signal game, order now before it runs out.
THIS SHOULD SOLVE SAN FRANCISCO’S WOES: $20,000 trash cans. No kidding. S.F. looks to roll out prototypes on street corners.
SHOULDN’T WE BE BUILDING MORE ELECTRIC PLANTS TO POWER THESE? GMC Confirms Second Electric Pickup to Accompany Hummer EV.
HE’S OBJECTIVELY PRO-PUTIN: Biden’s Pipeline To Nowhere: It’ll Build Back Russia Better. “The argument that Mr. Biden is going to improve relations with our European allies is just false. Outside Germany, they’re against approving the pipeline. This creates severe doubts about the diplomatic wisdom of the current State Department and national security adviser competency. Of course, this decision leaves the Ukraine in the lurch.”
AT HELEN’S PAGE: Indian Summer (Earl Town Book 1) and Killing Influence (Earl Town Book 2).
LIVE AT 3:30PM EASTERN: ‘Five O’Clock Somewhere’ with Kruiser, Preston, VodkaPundit.
CNN’S GROUPTHINK CAN’T PROCESS A CONTRARY OPINION: Mary Katharine Ham Stuns CNN Panel With Fauci Criticism, Mocks Media ‘Fangirling.’
MARK JUDGE IS ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: What Journalists Can Learn from The Night Stalker.
Carl Kolchak might seem crazy, but as Lucas observes in the audio commentary, “pause to consider what historians now tell us about what was really going on between the White House and journalists at this particular time.” It was a paranoid time in the United States, but people were afraid for good reason. Lucas cites Poisoning the Press, Mark Feldstein’s book about Richard Nixon and the media. Nixon planted stories and letters in the press to try and undermine the reporting of Jack Anderson. The President even considered plans to poison Anderson. “Ratf**king,” the precursor to today’s opposition research, was destroying lives.
America in the early-1970s was the time of Vietnam, Watergate and Robert Altman’s Nashville. Like Nashville, The Night Stalker is both “anti-establishment and pro American Dream.” It fits into the “shadow cinema” of the 1970s, movies that were countercultural while also celebrating the values of more traditional and patriotic Middle America. Authority everywhere was eroding, but people still loved the country.
Kolchak is a perfect character to represent both sides. As Tim Lucas notes, the reporter “appeals to both sides of what was then called the generation gap.” In Kolchak, “there is something of the countercultural reporter. He’s not just filing his stories, he’s finding the stories of coverups approved by the local police and government.”
Yet Kolchak also has a conservative cynicism: “He’s not just doing this to tell the truth, he’s doing this for reasons of self-interest.” Like Glenn Greenwald or Tucker Carlson, Kolchak has been fired from several places, “all presumably for trying to get the truth past his editors.” Kolchak, who is “hell bent on getting the last laugh and coming back in style,” is “a charismatic grab bag full of contradictions, panache, [and] bad taste.” He doesn’t like authority but has “an all-American love for the goddam capital-T Truth.”
Read the whole thing.