WHY NOT, NOW THAT THEY’VE STOPPED HIGHLIGHTING FABULOUSLY FIT BIKINI MODELS? Sports Illustrated Thinks Its Swimsuit Issue Is the Perfect Place to Highlight ‘Social Justice Issues.’
Archive for 2022
May 10, 2022
GREEN POWER BLUES: EV Automaker Hailed As The ‘Next Tesla’ Is Hemorrhaging Cash And Investors.
STILL POPULAR: Merrell Men’s Moab 2 Vent Hiking Shoes. #CommissionEarned
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: A deeper look at Boulder’s gun control measures. “Boulder’s proposed ordinances were released Thursday evening. Very little changed from council’s February discussion. The assault weapons ban is there, along with a 10-day waiting period to purchase firearms, a ban on open carry in public places and restrictions on concealed carry in ‘sensitive places’ such as city facilities, protests, churches, preschools, etc.”
DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERSECTION OF MALIGNANT NARCISSISM, ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY, AND THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS BAD P.R.: James Cromwell superglues hand to Starbucks counter in PETA protest.
James Cromwell took a dramatic stand for PETA Tuesday morning by supergluing his hand to a Starbucks counter in protest of the coffee chain’s up-charge for vegan milks.
Appearing on a Facebook livestream, the “Succession” star, 82, rattled off facts about the cons of producing dairy milk from cows as he remained stuck to the Midtown Manhattan shop’s counter alongside other PETA members.
Despite advocating for inclusivity, Starbucks “still discriminates against those who can’t have dairy” by making customers “pay more” for vegan options such as almond milk and oat milk, Cromwell claimed.
“My friends at PETA and I are calling on Starbucks to stop punishing kind and environmentally conscious customers for choosing plant milks,” the “L.A. Confidential” star and longtime vegan said in a statement.
“We all have a stake in the life-and-death matter of the climate catastrophe, and Starbucks should do its part by ending its vegan up-charge.”
While we “all have a stake in the life-and-death matter of the climate catastrophe,” curiously, according to IMDB, Cromwell is appearing or producing multiple films in various stages of production this year.
Flashback: Bill Maher: Liberals Are the Fun Suckers Now. “Look, here’s my libertarian side: I don’t really care about any of partying, drugs, and consenting adults doing whatever. Yet, Maher noticed something odd happening between the parties with this story. They’ve switched roles. The GOP is doing having fun, while the Democrats are acting like the Public Morals Bureau. As Maher noted, which is true, conservatives were the ones whose backsides were clenched so tight that you could grind diamonds to dust. Maher’s build-up rips the 1980s conservative establishment but it actually tees him up to go after the woke Left, who he says are millennials who embodied all the bad characteristics Southern Baptist. The Left is the ones for speech codes, blacklists, and cancel culture now. They’re the ‘fun-suckers.’”
THE VIEW OF THE WORLD FROM PINCH AVENUE: The New York Times’ Editorial Board Is Apparently Extremely Stupid.
Over the weekend, the New York Times’ editorial board submitted this paragraph for public consumption:
Imagine that every state were free to choose whether to allow Black people and white people to marry. Some states would permit such marriages; others probably wouldn’t. The laws would be a mishmash, and interracial couples would suffer, legally consigned to second-class status depending on where they lived.
The people who wrote these words are stupid — yes, stupid — and they should all be unsurpassingly ashamed of themselves.
* * * * * * * *
There isn’t even a racial gap [according to a 2021 Gallup Poll]:
Today, the three percentage points that separate approval [of interracial marriage] among White (93%) and Non-White adults (96%) is within the poll’s margin of error.
From where, exactly, does the New York Times’ editorial board believe that the impetus would come for “some states” to ban interracial marriage? And who would send the signals from on high? Would Mitch McConnell, the husband of of Elaine Chao, who was born in Taiwan? Would Justice Clarence Thomas, the formerly segregated black man who is married to Ginni Thomas, who is white? Perhaps JD Vance and Usha Chilukuri are gearing up for the role?
Sometimes, I wonder if the editors of the New York Times have actually been to the United States. Now, I must conclude that they have not.
The Times really does want to live up to all of the stereotypes about the New York left’s myopia regarding the rest of America famously satirized in Saul Steinberg’s classic “View of the World from Ninth Avenue” cover, don’t they?
And given the Times’ role as the house organ of the Democratic Party, as the subhead of Dana Loesch’s 2016 book noted: You Can’t Run a Country You’ve Never Been To.
BATTLESWARM BLOG: Russia’s Decline And Existential Crisis. “Pro-natalist policies like tax and welfare incentives seem a much better way to deal with their looming population crash than a risky invasion. But Putin makes all sorts of stupid calculations.”
MILTON FRIEDMAN ISN’T RUNNING THE SHOW ANYMORE: Biden Press Secretary Caught in Two More Big Lies on Inflation.
Today’s a day that ends in y, so White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki is gaslighting the public again. This time, President Biden’s top spokesperson was attempting to explain away surging 8.5% inflation—a major political liability for this administration—when she made the dishonest mishaps.
“Depending which data you look at, two-thirds to 70% of inflation data is the result of energy prices,” Psaki claimed during a Monday briefing. “A large part of that is the result of… President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the impact on the global energy markets.”
This part of Psaki’s speech is just straight-up false.
For one thing, inflation remains at 6.5% even when gas prices are factored out entirely. So, the 70% number she keeps parroting is simply not accurate. And while Putin’s horrific invasion of Ukraine has indeed disrupted global energy markets and led to higher gas prices over the last few months, gas prices were already rising over the last year—and inflation more broadly began all the way back in May 2021.
The press secretary went on to conclude that because today’s inflation is supposedly driven by Putin’s invasion, “I don’t think anybody could have predicted it a year ago.”
This is the most ridiculous part of Psaki’s entire remarks.
Meanwhile, the Big Guy, whose party controls all three branches of the Federal Government, is blaming the out-of-power party for inflation: Biden calls inflation his top domestic priority, blaming Republicans for lacking a plan.
President Joe Biden sought Tuesday to ease fears over inflation, arguing that tackling rising prices is his top domestic priority and accusing Republicans of having no plan to offer Americans relief.
“They don’t want to solve inflation by lowering your costs,” Biden said in remarks at the White House. “They want to solve it by raising your taxes and lowering your income.”
Yes, modern-day Republicans are notorious middle class tax-raisers. But I’m so old, I can remember a pre-Trunalimunumaprzure Biden declaring to his supporters that paying higher taxes is “patriotic.”
(Classical reference in headline.)
DEAL OF THE DAY: Digital Meat Thermometer. #CommissionEarned
CHANGE: Top Navy Admiral Quietly Removes ‘Woke’ Books From CNO Reading List.
The US Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Mike Gilday released an update to the CNO Professional Reading Program. Gone from the list are socially progressive books that ignited conservative anger last year. Books like Ibram X. Kendi bestseller How to Be an Antiracist and Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.
The CNO-Professional Reading Program consists of 12 books and is a mix of writing genres including fiction, non-fiction, military, strategy, management, and technology, among others.
“A learning mindset is essential to accelerating our warfighting advantage,” said Gilday. “A Navy that learns, adapts, and improves the fastest will be the most successful. Knowledge sharing is essential to creating a learning culture.”
Last year Gilday received praise from Democrats and scorn from several Republicans for choosing books that leaned into the question of race in America.
“If you want to understand a country’s military, take a look at what its officer corps is reading,” said Tucker Carlson on Fox News. “So with that in mind, what are American military officers reading these days? Well, let’s see, a sub-literate pamphlet on how the United States is a disgusting immoral country that must be changed immediately and forever.”
“I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people,” Milton Friedman once said. “The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. Unless it is politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either, or if they try, they will shortly be out of office.”
It appears that the education reforms spearheaded by Governors Youngkin and DeSantis are putting pressure on a New York Times-approved bureaucrat like Gilday — the wrong man at the wrong time — to attempt to do the right thing.
BECAUSE OF COURSE: Looks Like Facebook Is Fact-Checking Pro-Life Memes Now.
In 1971, facing tax problems and an uncertain future, the Rolling Stones decamped to Villa Nellcôte on the Côte d’Azur, where they partied with various celebrities, musicians, girlfriends, wives, kids, animals, drug-dealers and hangers-on for several hedonistic months. Recording in the damp, labyrinthine basement with a mobile studio parked outside and musicians seemingly turning up at random, they somehow produced Exile on Main St, a rough-hewn, sprawling, eclectic, 18-song double album that is widely regarded as their creative peak. Here, as it turns 50, stars salute its enduring greatness.
‘Among the grit and dirt, there’s a Rimbaud-like romance’
—Chris Robinson, the Black CrowesWe were American hardcore punk kids, but when we discovered Exile we called it the Bible. In our infancy, we wanted to capture that magic and mystery. It’s English guys looking at American blues, country rock, soul and gospel through their own aesthetic of drugs, satin shirts and sparkly shoes. The Stones had the guts to remove themselves from society and live outside the law, but among the grit and dirt, the overdoses and arrests, there’s a romanticism that goes back to Baudelaire and Rimbaud. We recently covered Rocks Off. I love its romantic decadence: “I was making love this time with a dancer friend of mine. / I couldn’t seem to stay in step, but she comes every time that she pirouettes on me.” It’s a holy relic, so playing it felt like walking with John the Baptist.
Photographs and more details of the Villa Nellcôte here: Then & Now: The Rolling Stones’ French Villa of Debauchery.
LUFTHANSA PARTYING LIKE IT’S 1939: Passengers say Lufthansa threw all visible Jews off NYC-Budapest flight because some weren’t wearing masks. A Lufthansa airline supervisor said on video that it was “the Jewish people who were the mess, who made the problems.”
A group of Orthodox Jews are demanding an apology from Lufthansa airlines after they were expelled from a flight from New York to Budapest last Tuesday.
The travelers say all of the identifiably Orthodox Jews were prevented from boarding a connecting flight in Frankfurt, Germany because a group of passengers had allegedly not complied with the German national carrier’s mask regulations on the first leg of the flight.
In a video taken by a passenger, a Lufthansa supervisor is seen saying that “everyone has to pay for a couple,” adding, “It’s Jews coming from JFK. Jewish people who were the mess, who made the problems.”
The video, first reported and shared by the discount travel website Dan’s Deals, was posted to YouTube and Instagram where it sparked angry comparisons to the treatment of Jews during the Holocaust.
The video, blurred because it is illegal to record someone without their consent in Germany, was taken down for violating YouTube and Instagram’s hate speech policies. It is still available on Twitter.
More at the New York Post: Over 100 NYC Orthodox Jews get kicked off German flight over mask dispute.
This appears to be the clip referenced above:
VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP: Pizza Hut Is Everything Wrong with America Today.
Plus:
- Green energy means brown outs
- “In Florida, we tell the truth about Communism.”
- China is deathly afraid of Elon Musk’s Starlink
So much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.
BECAUSE THEY HAVE TO: Why Democrats Cheat. “Democrats have to cheat because their message has become more toxic than the gift shop at Chernobyl.”
ADVICE, NOT REGULATION: Beleaguered Parents Get Some Help From U.S. Senator on How to Keep Kids Safe Online. “Blackburn’s office has released a helpful guide for those of you who need to set better boundaries with your kids. Blackburn says she’s worked closely with industry professionals to alert parents to solid steps they can take to make their kids safer this summer.”
BE PREPARED: Augason Farms Breakfast and Dinner Emergency Food Supply. #CommissionEarned
BUT EVERYTHING HAS A DISPARATE IMPACT ON SOME PROTECTED GROUP: A New Jersey lawyer argues that an employer who rejects a job applicant on the ground that she is a prostitute is violating of Title VII’s ban on sex discrimination, since such a policy would have a disparate impact on women..
For background on disparate impact liability and why it doesn’t make a lick of sense, read this article—Title VII Disparate Impact Liability Makes Almost Everything Presumptively Illegal.
CBS COP SHOW: ‘White Domestic Terrorists’ Angry at Taxes, Gas Prices & Property Rights.
Meanwhile, in the real world: Pro-Abortion Domestic Terrorists Firebomb Wisconsin Pro-Life Non-Profit.
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:
Shot: Chicago Mayor Blames Other States With ‘No Gun Control’ for City’s Increasing Violence.
—Newsweek, July 26th, 2020.
I’m sure the Pink Pistols appreciate this unintended, but well-deserved endorsement!
WHY WE SUFFER SUCH OIKOPHOBIA: If you aren’t familiar with the term, it has Greek roots in Oikos — your household — and phobia, a thing to be feared, avoided. The Left has saturated this country in Oikophobia with increasingly dire consequences. For more, I highly recommend this primer from USA VERSION 2.
ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS THE NARRATIVE: Antifa Activist Arrested for ‘Racist’ Attacks on Portland Synagogues and Mosque – and Media Erase His Connections.