IT’S COME TO THIS: “A scene like this could have come from the trailer for a cowboy movie set during a ranch war, or perhaps for a film set in a future propertarian dystopia. I wouldn’t have guessed Cambridgeshire, 2022.”

BECAUSE IT’S HIS FAULT? Yes, you can blame Biden for crazy gas prices—here’s why.

OPEN THREAD: Pardon me, boy.

LIVING UP TO ITS NAME: Perseverance Mars rover wind sensor damaged by pebbles, but still operational.

NEW HARVARD-HARRIS POLL: TRUMP IS THE MOST POPULAR POLITICAL FIGURE IN AMERICA. The key to understanding this is that all of the other political characters are more unpopular than Trump.

Plus, Trump’s well ahead of both Biden and Harris in 2024 voting preference. Despite all the media efforts to tear him down, and build them up.

THE SOLUTION TO, AND CAUSE OF, ALL LIFE’S PROBLEMS: The Largest Alcohol Molecule Found in Space Yet May Be The Key to Star Formation.

HILARIOUS ROAD RAGE EVENT:  Scroll down slightly from the headline (which is for a story a little further down).

MAKE THEM PAY: Fascist officials of Aspen threaten to cancel a newspaper because its new owners are unwoke.

NOW OUT FROM ANDREW WAREHAM: A Victorian World.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, DIVERSITY EDITION: Reach For Your Culture: A new university provides intellectual nourishment—and hope for the future.

UATX’s forbidden courses program, which brought together undergraduates from leading colleges and universities, lived up to its name. Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s course analyzed “key foundations of critical thinking, argumentation, reasoned debate, and freedom of expression, as these pertain to some of the most controversial issues of our day.” Students studied logical argumentation and read John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty in preparation for exploring theses like “Islam is a religion of peace” and “transgender women are women” from opposing perspectives. Kathleen Stock’s course on varieties of feminism examined “what kind of metaphysical and political subject is being implicitly conjured in the background under the heading ‘woman,’ and whether it is a coherent one.” Writer Thomas Chatterton Williams introduced his class to the “pain, rage, and hope of America’s most loyal critics,” including Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Dubois, Booker T. Washington, Richard Wright, and James Baldwin. McCloskey’s course asked whether capitalism has been a tragedy or a triumph. Historian Niall Ferguson led an examination of free and unfree societies in the twentieth century.

Energized by these and other courses, students uniformly expressed their eagerness to obtain more intellectual nourishment. The discussions sparked during the morning seminars continued as casual but deep conversations through lunch and even dinner. One student noted that, during bowling one evening, “it was a running joke that we were all missing our turns because we were so engaged in conversation.”

The disarming power of culture was palpable. Students who had learned to hold their tongues in college classrooms poured forth their souls once the cork of wariness was unstopped. They attended workshops and discussions with Nadine Strossen, Bari Weiss, Peter Boghossian, David Mamet, Edward Luttwak, and Arthur Brooks, among others. Stock, a lesbian feminist with teenage children who was hounded out of the University of Sussex for her belief that “we should be free to debate the trans lobby’s growing demands that we recognize a person’s ‘gender identity’ rather than their biological sex,” and McCloskey, a world-class economist whose 1999 book Crossing details her social and surgical transition from male to female, engaged in a riveting public debate about sex, gender, and identity that modeled vigorous but respectful disagreement. (Stock said that this was the first time any transgender individual had been willing to debate her in public.) The benefits of this event were immediately apparent. During the discussion period, students followed the example of the speakers in posing hard questions and frankly sharing their opinions.

Well, that’s got to be nipped in the bud.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: More Than 12% of New Car Payments Top $1000 a Month.

PRINTED AND PACKAGED IN THE USA: Military Army Men’s T-Shirt. #CommissionEarned

ISN’T EVERYTHING THESE DAYS? Oregon Health Officials Delayed a Meeting Because ‘Urgency Is a White Supremacy Value.’

I’d roll my eyes over this headline, but: Eye-rolling is a harmful practice rooted in white supremacy.

SKYNET SMILES: A model that allows robots to follow and guide humans in crowded environments.

SPACE: SpaceX launches first C-band television broadcast satellite into space for SES.

CITY OF ORLANDO ‘REGRETS’ IMPACT OF FIREWORKS PROMO SAYING PEOPLE ‘PROBABLY DON’T WANT TO CELEBRATE’ USA AND ‘CAN’T BLAME THEM:’

The City of Orlando issued a statement Saturday after sending out a promotion for the city’s fireworks display which claimed that people “probably” don’t want to celebrate because America is full of “hate,” and adding “we can’t blame them.”

The municipality’s City News email on Friday opened with a downer premise, an appeal to come on out to see fireworks for their own sake, despite there being nothing good to like about the United States.

The official email’s entire pitch was focused on the idea of not wanting to celebrate the United States, which is what the backlash was focused on despite the Orlando Sentinel inexplicably downplaying it as merely being about “mentioning division.”

“A lot of people probably don’t want to celebrate our nation right now, and we can’t blame them. When there is so much division, hate and unrest, why on earth would you want to have a party celebrating any of it?” the email began.

The party affiliation of the city’s mayor isn’t listed, but it isn’t hard to guess.

Meanwhile, Colorado socialists decided to up the stakes…

…for a time:

And if you missed it earlier: Official Arizona Democrat account promotes ‘F*ck the Fourth’ event.

I’m not sure if going full Weimar is a winning message for the left with the midterms approaching, but then, there’s a reason why the late Roger Scruton dubbed it “the Culture of Repudiation.” “In all of his political writings, Scruton takes on the Left for scorning existing norms and customs, and for promoting a ‘culture of repudiation.’ The Left is ‘negative.’ It dismisses ‘every aspect of our cultural capital’ with the language of brutal invective: accusing every defender of human nature and sound tradition of ‘racism,’ ‘xenophobia,’ ‘homophobia,’ and ‘sexism.’ Like 1984’s ‘two minutes of hate,’ this language tears down, intimidates, and can never build anything humane or constructive—it is nihilistic to the core. At the same time, Scruton wants to reach out to reasonable liberals who eschew ideology and who still believe in civility and the promise of national belonging. His conservatism can discern the truth in liberalism (another Aristotelian trait) while the partisans of repudiation see half the human race as enemies.”

THAT SOUNDS USEFUL: Methane converted into methanol at room temperature – just add light.

JIM TREACHER: Why Should I Use Ezra Miller’s Preferred Pronouns?

And what’s even worse, this bizarre phenomenon renders news stories [such as this Variety article] about “nonbinary” people almost indecipherable. Just look at this latest story about the ex-Flash actor going around the world being a violent lunatic:

The actor — best known for playing the DC superhero the Flash in several films for Warner Bros. — was set to start filming the studio’s latest entry in the ‘Harry Potter’ franchise, ‘Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore,’ in London when the shoot was halted on March 15, 2020, due to COVID. In the weeks after, Miller, who identifies as nonbinary and uses ‘they/them’ pronouns, became a regular at bars in Iceland’s capital, Reykjavík, where locals came to know and even befriend them. Many recognized Miller from their earliest breakout movies, 2012’s ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower’ and 2011’s ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin,’ where they played a troubled teen who brought a bow and arrow to school and murdered his classmates.

It’s a grammatical nightmare. “Many recognized Miller from their earliest breakout movies.” Oh, so those Icelanders worked with Miller on those movies? No, you see, “their” is supposed to refer to him.

And this part is just madness: “They played a troubled teen who brought a bow and arrow to school and murdered his classmates.” So it’s not “They murdered their classmates,” because the character he was playing wasn’t nonbinary? What is this gibberish?

Tom Hanks recently said he regrets playing a gay man in Philadelphia because he’s not gay. I always thought that was just called “acting,” but what do I know. If that’s the case, though, why should a nonbinary person be allowed to play a normal person?

And if I’m expected to use a criminal’s preferred pronouns, why can’t Rachel Dolezal call herself black? There’s less genetic difference between a white woman and a black woman than between any man and any woman.

How bad is the Variety article that Treacher quotes above? This bad:

When journalism crosses the line to activism.

UPDATE: Variety More Concerned Over Misgendering Ezra Miller Than His Assaulting Victims.

(Updated and bumped.)

HMM: Monkeypox symptoms in patients attending London clinics differ from previous outbreaks. “The findings suggest that patients in this cohort had a higher prevalence of skin lesions in the genital and anal area and lower prevalence of tiredness and fever than in cases from previously studied outbreaks of monkeypox. The authors also predict that the high prevalence of genital skin lesions in patients and the high rate of co-occurring sexually transmitted infections means that sexual health clinics are likely to see additional monkeypox cases in the future. . . . All except two of the patients in the cohort were not aware of having been in contact with a known case and none reported travel to sub-Saharan Africa, however many had recently visited other European countries. All patients identified as men who have sex with men and there was a median age of 41. 90% of the patients who responded to the questions on sexual activity (47/52) reported at least one new sexual partner during the three weeks prior to symptoms, and almost all (49/52) reported inconsistent condom use in this same time period. Over half of the patients (29/52) had more than five sexual partners in the 12 weeks prior to their monkeypox diagnosis.”

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE:

Shouldn’t Biden’s message be applied to a wide variety of products? Such as the price of Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and other luxury items:

But we’re we just told by a Biden advisor on Thursday: Americans Need To Pay More for Gas To Defend ‘Liberal World Order.’

And by Biden himself: High gas prices to last ‘as long as it takes’ for Ukraine victory.

But then, two weeks ago, Biden was back to blaming oil companies: Reuters: Biden demands oil companies explain lack of gasoline as prices rise.

U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday demanded oil companies explain why they aren’t putting more gasoline on the market, sharply escalating his rhetoric against industry as he faces pressure over rising prices.

Biden wrote to executives from Marathon Petroleum Corp, Valero Energy Corp, and Exxon Mobil Corp and complained they had cut back on oil refining to pad their profits, according to a copy of the letter seen by Reuters.

“At a time of war, refinery profit margins well above normal being passed directly onto American families are not acceptable,” Biden wrote, adding the lack of refining was driving gas prices up faster than oil prices.

“The lack of refining capacity – and resulting unprecedented refinery profit margins – are blunting the impact of the historic actions my Administration has taken to address Vladimir Putin’s Price Hike and are driving up costs for consumers.”

The letter is also being sent to Phillips 66, Chevron Corp, BP and Shell, a White House official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters.

Joe Biden, it’s time to meet Joe Biden!

● Biden’s plan to cancel Keystone pipeline signals a rocky start with Canada.

—The Washington Post, January 19th, 2021.

● Success: Biden Gets the High Gas Prices He Promised.

—The Pipeline, June 17th.

● Biden pulls 3 offshore oil lease sales, curbing new drilling this year.

—The Washington Post, May 12th.

● Biden administration won’t appeal judge’s ruling revoking Gulf of Mexico drilling leases.

—The Washington Post, February 28th.

Flashbacks: Why Aren’t Democrats Dancing for Joy About Sky-High Gas Prices?

In the service of reducing carbon emissions, Democrats have long openly worked to raise the price of fossil fuel energy. They have done so by proposing carbon taxes, cap-and-trade schemes, higher leasing fees, and other measures to jack up costs so people burn less of it. This is why Barack Obama said, in answer to a related question about electricity, that his energy plan would make prices “necessarily skyrocket.” This is why Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna praised BP’s CEO less than six months ago for pledging to reduce oil and gas production by 40% by 2030. Reductions in oil production and rising gasoline prices are part of the Democrats’ agenda and the Paris climate agenda.

There’s even more to it than that. Over the past decade, the Democrats’ overt hostility toward fossil fuels has even driven companies in the industry to sideline production, purely for public relations purposes, while prioritizing meaningless, politically correct carbon emissions goals. How can Democrats suddenly feign outrage at their incredible success in influencing the industry?

Is it a mystery why Democrats aren’t doing a sack dance and celebrating the salvation of planet earth?

There’s the small matter of their political survival, of course. It would be unseemly — like doing a jig at an Irish funeral — to celebrate other people’s pain. And it would cost many Democrats who are secretly jubilant about high gas prices their political careers.

Instead, Democrats are pretending to look for a way to “ease consumers’ pain.”

In September of 2019, after CNN’s seven hour “climate change town hall,” Bryan Preston wrote, “Seriously, if you see all of the above — which is just a sample — and vote for any of these people for any office at any level, it’s on you. If you like Venezuela, voting for any of them will bring you a whole lot of Venezuela.”

And as Kate of Small Dead Animals wrote after the CNN horror show, “Don’t make the mistake of thinking they don’t mean it.”

● Aren’t California’s High Gas Prices What The Left Have Wanted?

● NBC, the Washington Post, and the New York Times in lockstep call for higher gas taxes.

● 2008 L.A. Times headline: “The joy of $8 gas.”

● “Under my plan, energy costs will necessarily skyrocket…”

In other words, Obama administration retreads are following the same playbook as the original Obama administration: “We’re going to keep at it to ensure the American people are paying their fair share for gas,” is the perfect Kinsley Gaffe for an Obama administration retread like Biden:  As Steven Chu, Obama’s then-incoming energy secretary, told the Wall Street Journal in the fall of 2008: “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”

So despite Biden claiming today that high gas prices are Putin’s fault, is it fair to ask if Biden is on the payroll of Putin? As Walter Russell Mead wrote in 2017:

If Trump were the Manchurian candidate that people keep wanting to believe that he is, here are some of the things he’d be doing:

Limiting fracking as much as he possibly could
Blocking oil and gas pipelines
Opening negotiations for major nuclear arms reductions
Cutting U.S. military spending
Trying to tamp down tensions with Russia’s ally Iran.

“Yep,” Glenn added in late 2019. “You know who did do these things? Obama. You know who supports these things now? Democrats.”

● Biden praises high gas prices as part of ‘incredible transition’ of the US economy away from fossil fuels.

● Team Biden might be purposefully grinding down the middle class.

● The ‘cabal’ that bragged of foisting Joe Biden on us must answer for his failed presidency.

Related: Biden tormented by Republican guerrilla campaign and ‘I did it’ stickers.

Also: 100Pcs I Did That Biden Funny Car Stickers. #Resist #CommissionEarned

UPDATE: Biden tweets demand for gas stations to ‘bring down’ prices, gets praised by Chinese state media.

His tweet also garnered support from Chinese state media, with Chen Weihua, China Daily EU Bureau Chief, responding that Biden “finally realized that capitalism is all about exploitation.”

Biden’s tweet comes as gas prices are averaging at $4.822 nationwide, which is up over 20 cents from just one month ago.

Who could have seen praise from the CCP coming for Biden?

(Bumped.)

I DUNNO, BANKING CRYPTO HASN’T TURNED OUT THAT WELL FOR ME: Banking stool samples may improve healthy aging.

‘ECONOMICALLY ILLITERATE:’ Bezos and others bash Biden for blaming gas stations for high gas prices, Chinese state media applauds the president.

READER FAVORITE: Jeacitory 12×50 Binoculars with Clear Low Night Version. #CommissionEarned

TRUTH AND TRANSPARENCY AREN’T WHAT COLLEGES ARE ABOUT: Hoax? College won’t provide race of employee fired for swastikas, racial threats.