DON’T UNDERESTIMATE JOE’S ABILITY TO F*** THINGS UP: Report: Joe Biden Realized His Mistake With Kamala Harris Very Early On.
Archive for 2022
December 21, 2022
KEEP THOSE MICRO-AGGRESSIONS OUT OF SIGHT: Washington Free Beacon’s Phillip Caldwell reports Biden is devoting more than $550,000 to an effort to develop Artificial Intelligence (AI) that detects micro-aggressions in social media. Imagine what fun Don Rickles would have had with such software.
THANKS, WE WILL! Jon Meacham: Mock Me, But Biden Has Handled Ukraine Crisis With ‘Immense Skill.’ “Note also that in introducing Meacham at the top of the show, Mika failed to mention Meacham’s role as an occasional Biden speechwriter. She described him only as a ‘presidential historian.’ Shouldn’t that be disclosed when he’s lauding Biden’s ‘immense skill?’”
CHARMING: Woke Nike Was a Playground for Drunken Sexual Predators, According to Just-Released Documents. “The allegations include the company acting as a “boys club” where women are told to ‘dress sexier’ and ‘show some skin.’ Another woman claims to have walked ‘into a campus gym to find a senior staffer receiving oral sex from a female subordinate.'”
HOLIDAY DEAL: 40X60 Monocular Telescope High Power Monocular for Adults. #CommissionEarned
I’M STILL SENDING OUT THANK-YOUS, but thanks to everyone who’s donated. If you’d still like to, you can use PayPal for a bit longer — the InstaWife doesn’t want me taking it down until year’s end for taxes — or you can mail a check, (made out to me, Glenn Reynolds, not to InstaPundit) at 118 N. Peters Rd. #12-230, Knoxville TN 37923. Thanks! (Bumped).
UPDATE: The PayPal donation is the silver “Make a Donation” button on the upper right.
WHY, INDEED? Why are we still funding the Wuhan lab? Hush money, maybe?
RIGHT UP UNTIL THE END OF COLD AND FLU SEASON! CDC says respiratory viruses may continue to spread for weeks, ‘possibly even months’: report.
I wonder why they call it that?
From the abstract:
Results Among 51011 employees, 20689 (41%) had had a previous documented episode of COVID-19, and 42064 (83%) had received at least two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. COVID-19 occurred in 2452 (5%) during the study. Risk of COVID-19 increased with time since the most recent prior COVID-19 episode and with the number of vaccine doses previously received. In multivariable analysis, the bivalent vaccinated state was independently associated with lower risk of COVID-19 (HR, .70; 95% C.I., .61-.80), leading to an estimated vaccine effectiveness (VE) of 30% (95% CI, 20-39%). Compared to last exposure to SARS-CoV-2 within 90 days, last exposure 6-9 months previously was associated with twice the risk of COVID-19, and last exposure 9-12 months previously with 3.5 times the risk.
Conclusions The bivalent COVID-19 vaccine given to working-aged adults afforded modest protection overall against COVID-19, while the virus strains dominant in the community were those represented in the vaccine.
You can read the full study here.
IN THE MAIL: Tales From the Fermi Resolution: Vol. 1: Shadow of the Tower (Tom Vargas Mysteries), by Moe Lane.
LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON AND OUR CULTURE OF CORRUPTION:
What separates Johnson’s story from other tales of political venality is the vast impact of his legacy. The average US citizen’s trust in government peaked at 77% during Johnson’s time as President and has drifted lower ever since, sitting at just 20% today. He also uncorked an orgy of government spending, both in support of the war in Vietnam and in pursuit of his ambitious domestic agenda. Bigger government means bigger opportunities for grift, and Washington DC’s insatiable and bipartisan appetite for both was irreversibly accelerated by Johnson. Measured as a percentage of gross domestic product, US Federal Government spending has nearly doubled since the 1960s.
Normalization of behavior like Johnson’s has led to a continuing debasement of US politics to the point where scandals that would have previously ended careers are now routinely blown off as standard operating procedure. Today, members of Congress openly and flagrantly trade stocks based on inside information, having gone so far as to carve out an exception that legalizes an activity that is still a crime for the rest of us. Government regulators routinely end up as well-compensated employees of the very companies they are meant to oversee, creating giant and obvious conflicts of interest in the process, and selective use of the powers of government against political opponents is now commonplace. An entire cottage industry of rent-seeking enablers – lobbyists, attorneys, and consultants – dot the interface between the private and public sectors, making it impossible for entrepreneurs to thrive without paying a healthy vig to this state-sponsored mafia.
Sadly accurate.
CRUZ MARQUIS: Why ‘Economics in One Lesson’ Is as Readable Today as It Was in 1946.
Even though the “Sophisms” of many contemporary economists denigrated liberty, Hazlitt went against the stream by writing a book with the express purpose of knocking down the most persistent and pernicious fallacies in the field. He had the foresight to avoid making very particular arguments with the statistics, headlines, and quotations of the day, which may have disappointed readers decades ago, but is to the benefit of readers today. By not being bogged down with verbatims and numbers, he crafted flowing arguments which rebut the wider form of falsehood as opposed to specific instances. Did Hercules defeat the Hydra by attacking each head as it regenerated (specific economic falsehoods), or by attacking their source (generalized falsehoods)?
His premise was that economics contains everything needed to obliterate the generalized falsehoods, and from there all the specified ones: “The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate, but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy, not merely for one group, but for all groups.”
This is the lesson, no more and no less.
I read Hazlitt in my 20s and now want to see just how well he holds up in my 50s. Very well, I’m betting.
PAULA BOLYARD, FOR OUR VIP SUPPORTERS: You Knew the Deep State Was Bad. Did You Know It Was This Bad? “The number of federal agents is now in excess of 200,000, according to an OpentheBooks oversight report — a force larger than the U.S. Marine Corps. The investigation found that ‘One hundred three executive agencies outside of the Department of Defense spent $2.7 billion on guns, ammunition, and military-style equipment between fiscal years 2006 and 2019 (inflation adjusted). Nearly $1 billion ($944.9 million) was spent between fiscal years 2015 and 2019 alone.'”
Posted by user @foodiemunster, the video shows a new McDonald’s location that uses automated food ordering and a cashless payment system, with employees in the kitchen cooking the orders. According to The Street, the location is about half the size of a regular McDonald’s location and has no area for indoor dining.
Some viewers love the idea, with many complaining about the attitude of employees when they do go to order at the counter.
“Finally, my order will be quick and accurate,” one commenter wrote.
“Awesome,” another commenter wrote. “No more attitude at the counter.”
“Well the people that work there act like they don’t wanna be there,” a commenter wrote. “This solves that problem!”
Others wrote that they would much rather keep their McDonald’s locations the same, noting that they enjoy seeing people behind the counter and talking with them to place their orders.
I never get rude service but that might just be one of the perks of small-town life.
FOLLOW THE SCIENCE! NIH denies scientists access to genetic databases if research deemed stigmatizing.
This is an easy First Amendment case. But it’s also indicative of what politicized losers our science and health bureaucrats are.
ALWAYS JUST ONE MORE SURGERY AWAY FROM FINDING HAPPINESS: ‘Shoulder Width Reduction Surgery’: The Latest ‘Transgender’ Aesthetic Mutilation Fad.
BY DESIGN: Biden’s welfare ‘handouts’ keep Americans ‘trapped’ on the ‘government dole forever,’ researcher warns. “According to the co-author of a New York Post analysis, a family of four from New Jersey can receive benefits equal to an annual income of more than $108,000 with no one working. In Connecticut, families making up to $300,000 per year are eligible to receive ObamaCare subsidies.”
YES, MALES CAN HAVE BABIES: If they are Seahorses (or Sea Dragons) , that is. But that’s actually not the most interesting thing about them, according to Eric Lyons of the Apologetics Press.
They also use a gas bladder to swim vertically, not unlike submarines that change their depth of submersion in a similar manner. That bladder always has exactly the right amount of gas to move as the Seahorse chooses. If the bladder didn’t, the Seahorse would die. Hmmm, what about evolutionary prototyping?
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Democrats’ Latest Border Narrative Is Clinically Insane. “Here on Planet Earth, there is no way that Republicans can be blamed for the overwhelming crisis at the Mexican border. I’m actually running out of eye rolls at this point.”
Delivering another harsh public critique of China’s trade policies, Tai said the loss of American jobs, income and manufacturing capabilities that accompanied a surge in low-priced imports from China had been “real and devastating”.
“For too long, the PRC’s unfair policies and practices undercut American prosperity, suppressed labour rights, and weakened environmental standards.”
Tai warned that Washington’s traditional trade tools to confront China, like anti-dumping countervailing duties, had not been able to prevent the “hollowing out” of many American industries critical for national security in view of Beijing’s ability to affect the global market.
“We need a new playbook on China that serves our interests,” she said.
This isn’t exactly the administration anyone should trust to stand up to Beijing. Still, I marvel at the good thing Communist China had going, and how determined they seem to piss it all away on aggressive behavior against us in virtually all spheres.
THEY’RE NOT WRONG: Voters: Biden has ‘made America worse.’
And check out his new book, The Devil’s Triangle.
HUMANS NOT WANTED: The UK and Ireland to Crack Down on Citizens in the Name of Climate Change.