UTAH? IT’S TIME TO CLEAN HOUSE. TIME TO REMEMBER GOOD IS NOT THE SAME AS NICE: Students Who Blew Whistle On BYU ‘Revealing Whiteness’ Assignment Threatened With Discipline.
Archive for 2022
March 23, 2022
THE LAST THING WE NEED IS A JUSTICE WHO DEFERS TO “EXPERTS”: Ketanji Brown Jackson Can’t Define What A Woman Is: “I’m Not A Biologist”.
Yes, I know she thought she was being clever, but I’m actually serious. Our system of government requires that the common man be allowed to rule himself. (The common woman too.) It is sort of anathema to rule by experts. The only system that depends on the rule of experts is the old Soviet system that fancied itself “scientific socialism.”
I MEAN, HE’S NOT WRONG:
THE “FACT-CHECKERS” ONLY APPEARED WHEN THE FACTS WERE GOING AGAINST THE LEFT EVERYWHERE: This Tablet takedown of fact-checkers is worth a look.
March 22, 2022
MAYBE SHE KNOWS SOMETHING: Mystery as Tilly the sea turtle who predicted volcano eruption in Tonga disappears.
ANYTHING THAT CONTRADICTS TODAY’S NARRATIVE. DUH. What Counts as ‘Russian Disinformation’?
A REMINDER OF AN EARLIER RUSSIAN INVASION THAT MET LESS RESISTANCE.
The opening sample is from Radio Moscow in 1968. Then it’s subversively re-edited. Funny story — the Soviet advance into Czechoslovakia was held up for hours when some American tanks were sighted and everyone panicked until it was determined that they were prop tanks for a World War II movie that was being filmed.
PEOPLE NEED TO BE HELD RESPONSIBLE, IN PAINFUL AND PUBLIC FASHION: “As mainstream outlets signal that it is acceptable and even funny to criticize Covid policies, the question arises: Why is there no public reckoning over the astounding failure and massive harms of these measures? The answer is that these policies had little to do with the virus in the first place.”
“AND THERE YOU HAVE IT: Neff seriously makes the point that Instapundit put in a quip.”
OPEN THREAD: Neither loose nor tight, neither black nor white.
TWITTER: THAT’S A BANNING. Ron DeSantis recognizes Emma Weyant as winner of NCAA swimming championship, not biological male Lia Thomas.
That’s really not fair. Nobody knows how to clean up a city like Lightfoot:
SOHRAB AMARI WAS MY EDITOR AT THE NEW YORK POST UNTIL HE LEFT TO START THIS: Compact: A Radical American Journal.
JUDGE JACKSON EXPLAINS HER SENTENCING PROCESS FOR CHILD PORNOGRAPHY OFFENDERS: “The argument that we should be more lenient on child pornographers because modern technology makes it easier to distribute child porn is….not great.”
More: Hawley Presses Jackson on Three-Month Sentence in Child-Porn Case.
“You say this does not signal a heinous or egregious child pornography offense. Help me understand that. What word would you use if it’s not heinous or egregious?” [Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.)] asked Judge Jackson.
“It is heinous. It is egregious,” she responded. But she said, “it’s not just about how much time a person spends in prison. It’s about understanding the harm of this behavior,” and noted other restraints that sex offenders have to abide by, including registration requirements and computer bans.
She also defended her broader sentencing record. “If you were to look at the greater body” of her sentences, and those of other judges, she said, ”you would see a very similar exercise of attempting to do what it is that judges do – attempting to take into account all of the relevant factors and do justice individually in each case.”
Mr. Hawley then retorted: “I am questioning your discretion and your judgment. … I’m not questioning you as a person. I’m not questioning your excellence as a judge.” He added: “I’m questioning how you used your discretion in these cases.”
Naturally, the Onion smears Hawley for having raised this issue: Josh Hawley Slams Ketanji Brown Jackson For Letting Pedophiles Like Himself Walk Free.
As Treacher likes to say:
Ketanji Brown Jackson says Critical Race Theory “doesn’t come up in the work that I do as a judge.”
Senator @tedcruz then reads a quote from her saying that Critical Race Theory is part of her work as judge. pic.twitter.com/MKtNjGeZw6
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 22, 2022
NOBODY’S TRYING TO PUSH GAYNESS ON YOUNG CHILDREN, AND TO PROVE IT WE’RE PUTTING A SAME-SEX KISS INTO OUR KIDS’ MOVIE: Same-Sex Kiss Added Back to ‘Lightyear’ After ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill Controversy.
I feel like this is a case of the urge for virtue-signaling overriding all traces of political judgment. Think this will affect the movement of Hispanics to the GOP?
THEY SHOULD BE GIVING THANKS THAT THEY’RE NOT A FORMER SPANISH COLONY: Jamaica Moves to Drop Queen Elizabeth as Head of State: Report.
What this really means is that they don’t want any outside oversight, however nominal, of whatever they’re planning to do next.
I DON’T KNOW. WHAT’S THE AGE FOR “GENDER CONFIRMING” TREATMENTS? Bella Hadid regrets getting a nose job at 14. How young is too young for plastic surgery?. “Some teens are more psychologically mature than others, but it’s important to note that their brain development is not at a point where they can really think through long term implications and they aren’t able to fully appreciate what the consequences might be.”
Plus: “In addition, research shows that teens between the ages of 13 and 19 are especially vulnerable to peer pressure.”
Related: ‘We are just guinea pigs’: Women describe trauma of transitioning as teenagers.
YOUR TERMS ARE ACCEPTABLE: Stormy Daniels: I’ll go to prison before paying Trump a penny of the $293,000 he won.
I’VE SEEN THE LOCKDOWNS AND THE DAMAGE DONE: Alcohol Killed More Under-65 Americans Than COVID in 2020.
Flashback: Johns Hopkins Analysis: ‘Lockdowns Should be Rejected Out of Hand.’
THIS IS TRUE: CPR Heroes Need More Support.
When she arrived at her neighbor’s house and found him unconscious and turning blue, Brianna Colquitt knew what to do.
While someone called 911, Colquitt, then a high school senior in Carrollton, Georgia, started CPR. She kept it up until emergency responders arrived. Her training, which she’d received in a high school health class the year before, had prepared her to act, she said. “Everything just clicked.”
But it didn’t prepare her for everything that followed. First came the news that her neighbor didn’t make it. Then came the wondering: Had she done all she could? Even now, more than three years later, “the memories are very vivid, because it was a traumatic experience,” Colquitt said.
The need to understand such experiences is part of what inspired a new report from the American Heart Association about lay responders and CPR.
“We’ve trained people for decades to do bystander CPR, but we’ve never actually gone back and paid attention to supporting them after we call them to action,” said Katie Dainty, who led the writing committee for the scientific statement published Monday in the AHA journal Circulation.
When we came upon that awful head-on collision on Interstate 81 a few years back, I ran up to the overturned pickup with my bleed-control/trauma kit and was super-relieved to see an obviously more qualified person (he turned out to be a former military medic) with a friend already looking after the guy. He didn’t make it — it was a 100 mph head-on, at least that’s how fast they said he was going — and the medic told me later he knew as soon as he got there the guy wasn’t going to make it, but he had to try. If it had just been me, I would have tried, too, but I would have wondered if my lack of experience made a difference.
And the sad fact is that when you’re trying to save someone with CPR or a tourniquet, there’s a really good chance they won’t make it, so lots of people will feel that way. In the last refresher class Helen and I did, they spent a couple of minutes saying it’s better to try and fail than not to try at all, but still.
More on that car crash here.
TOP BUZZFEED EDITORS QUIT AS CEO ‘PRESSURED TO CLOSE ENTIRE NEWS DIVISION:’
Investors at BuzzFeed are reportedly pressuring CEO Jonah Peretti to close down its entire money-losing news operation as senior journalists announced their resignations on Tuesday.
Mark Schoffs, the editor in chief of BuzzFeed News, and two of his top deputies quit in the latest sign of turmoil at the cash-strapped company.
Schoofs informed staffers at the online publication that he would be stepping down on Tuesday, according to The Information.
Tom Namako, Schoofs’ deputy news editor, and Ariel Kaminer, the executive editor of investigations, also announced that they planned on leaving their posts, according to the report.
Journalists working for the site have been told that more job cuts are in the offing, The Information reported.
—BuzzFeed News, February 10th, 2014.
TWITTER SUSPENDS THE BABYLON BEE FOR TELLING THE TRUTH:
The Babylon Bee has been accused of “punching down” with their satire of Levine, but Levine is one of the most powerful health officials in the country. Similar criticisms have been lodged against those speaking out against collegiate swimmer Lia Thomas, a trans woman who has been winning against biological females. Yet Lia Thomas has the power of an entire mainstream media complex on her side and Levine has the backing of the most powerful man on earth.
Twitter suspended the Babylon Bee under their policy against “violence and harassment on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability or serious disease.” They also banned right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk (and it aggrieves me to defend him) over another factual tweet concerning Levine.
Neither the Bee nor Kirk threatened violence against Levine or committed harassment. Twitter suspended the Bee simply because it disagrees with their joke and was encouraged to do so by a left-wing base increasingly hostile to anyone who presents an argument they disapprove of.
Meanwhile, at America’s Newspaper of Record itself: Taliban Spokesman Finally Banned From Twitter After Sharing Babylon Bee Headline.
HEADLINES FROM DAYS ENDING IN “Y:” 1619 Project Founder Nikole Hannah-Jones Finds Something New to Call Racist.
It all started on Monday night when Hannah-Jones tweeted (and later deleted): “Tipping is a legacy of slavery and if it’s not optional then it shouldn’t be a tip but simply included in the bill. Have you ever stopped to think why we tip, like why tipping is a practice in the US and almost nowhere else?”
Well, no, actually, I haven’t. There are all sorts of customs and cultural habits that have their roots in long-forgotten beliefs and practices. But Hannah-Jones’ claim that “tipping is a legacy of slavery” strains credulity. Did slave owners tip their slaves?
After getting some pushback for her nonsense, Hannah-Jones hastened to assure the world that she was a big tipper: “Are y’all reading what I am writing or nah? I said I tip. I tip well. I tip almost always. But I object to the idea that I am obligated to tip no matter how I am treated. Nope. And you can’t get more offended at me than employers that pay less-than-minimum wage.” As the firestorm continued, she grew weary of the topic, concluding with: “I’ve said what I have to say about this. I have been utterly disrespected at restaurants. Ignored. Rudeness. Nope.”
But it wasn’t just because Hannah-Jones has unfortunately stumbled upon racist restaurants where she was “utterly disrespected” that she is against tipping. It is also because she is a Marxist. During the controversy her initial tipping tweet created, she asked Touré, who had rejected the idea that one should tip based on the quality of service: “What do you think is the purpose of tipping, Toure? Why does it exist?” Another Twitter user answered: “to transfer labor costs from the business to the consumer.” To that, Hannah-Jones replied: “Bingo.”
Earlier: “Tipping is racist. That’s the argument being forwarded by some liberal activists and politicians as a way of stigmatizing laws that exempt certain professions, mainly restaurant workers, from the federal minimum wage. However, there is little historical evidence for the argument.”
Why would that stop Hannah-Jones now?
UPDATE: Right on cue, the “botched joke” defense:
Flashback: “Ah, well. Let’s just chalk it all up to nuance. Lefties want a free reign to speak in absurdities, but also want us to go along with their calling verbal mulligans when their absurdities become punchlines.”
(Updated and bumped.)