AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Biden Says The Economy Is As Vibrant And Healthy As He Is.
Archive for 2022
June 14, 2022
SINCE 1838? THAT’S 184 YEARS. KIND OF A WEAK ARGUMENT AGAINST FRATERNITIES: There have been 281 hazing-related deaths since 1838 across America.
And this is meaningless without comparisons to other widespread societal institutions, comparisons that are never made. It’s almost as if journalists and academics resent fraternities and want to make them look bad. I mean, giving lots of space to something that happened in 1905?
VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP: California Is Officially a S***hole Country.
Plus:
- TikToker feeling that Stalinist pride
- Paul Pelosi is looking pretty lit
- AOC is almost right about gun control being racist
So much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.
A TRILLION HERE AND A TRILLION THERE…: China’s High Speed Rail Network Is A Trillion Dollar Debt Sinkhole. “China’s high speed rail network is a giant, unprofitable sinkhole of $1.8 TRILLION worth of debt.”
MISSED IT BY THAT MUCH: Here’s What the Biden Admin Claimed Gas Prices Would Be This Year.
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Coinbase lays off 18% of workforce as executives prepare for recession and ‘crypto winter’.
WELL, YOU KNOW, THAT’S WHO ALL BIDEN POLICY FLOPS HIT HARDEST: Baby formula shortage hits low-income women, moms of color hardest. Can we fix things?
We could fix things by fixing the FDA.
ROGER SIMON: The Electric Car Is Biden’s ‘Golden Calf.’
President Joe Biden, a man who frequently touts “the science”—but, it’s rather evident, would be unlikely to do better than a “D” on a high school chemistry or physics test—has placed a civilizational-level bet on the electric car.
(Pop Quiz, Joe Biden: What’s the second law of thermodynamics? Biden: Thermodynamics? I love that company! Are we in Philadelphia? Great city!)
It’s almost as if the current occupant of the White House worships the electric car in a fashion bordering on idolatrous. Without the slightest apparent thought, he destroyed U.S. energy independence and is threatening worldwide economic collapse on its behalf.
Indeed, the electric car is Biden’s “Golden Calf.”
He should get down on his knees and pray to a Tesla. With inflation at 8.6 percent, the highest in 40 years, he’s going to need some divine help.
But someone might want to explain to Biden the reality of electric cars, if indeed he’s capable of comprehending it. For that someone, I would nominate Bjorn Lomborg—the Danish author and president of the think tank Copenhagen Consensus Center—who has been perhaps the world’s most esteemed climate journalist for decades.
As recently as February, Lomborg wrote a lengthy article for the Daily Mail with the equally lengthy title, “Are electric cars the new ‘diesel scandal’ waiting to happen? They generate polluting particles just like petrol vehicles, are not even that cost-effective and, as one expert finds, will not save the planet.”
That’s a bit complicated for Joe, I know. Better for him to continue to worship the Golden Tesla (embarrassing as that might be since Elon Musk has switched to a Republican). But let’s hear from Lomborg himself. I have excerpted for brevity:
“Do you remember Britain’s ‘dash for diesel’? It began more than 20 years ago when the then-chancellor, Gordon Brown, announced a new car tax system favouring vehicles with lower emissions of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. …
“What didn’t emerge until much later—although it was no secret in the motor industry or among government officials—was that diesel cars also emitted greater quantities of other pollutants, nitrogen oxides, and particulates that damage air quality and human health. …
Similarly: Is it ethical to purchase a lithium battery powered EV? “The extraordinary amounts of mining needed to produce electric vehicles are not only environmentally disastrous, they also carry large human costs. The cobalt that is needed for every electric vehicle comes mostly from the Congo and is produced largely by child labor.”
GEORGETOWN IS JUST SAD: Ilya Shapiro shares his top takeaways from Georgetown cancel culture experience.
WELCOME BACK, CARTER: We Shouldn’t Expect Relief From Inflation Anytime Soon. “Under a normal presidential administration, this would prompt hand-wringing and action to lower gas prices. But we’re in the Biden years, which means that all we get are lectures about how we need to buy expensive electric vehicles.”
In his defense, Carter was only pushy enough to ask people to adjust their thermostats or put on a sweater.
IS THAT EVEN ALLOWED NOWADAYS? FL college is helping ‘students think for themselves.’
An idea so crazy it just might pay off!
CRISIS BY DESIGN: Rash wolf policy already wrecking ranches.
Range riders are present overnight but it’s an expense he won’t be able to continue indefinitely. Right now, they’re on the dime of wolf-advocate groups but he doesn’t expect that to last and with five of the six damage claims unpaid and $5 diesel fuel, it doesn’t pencil. The most recent kill, he said, was while range riders were in the area. The wild burros that were gifted to Gittleson in the hopes that they would serve as guardians are, he said, able to noisily signal danger but certainly don’t fight off wolves.
The bottom line, he said, is that non-lethal hazing methods are ineffective if the wolves don’t have a fear of the use of lethal methods. The wolf pack is emboldened and unafraid. Without lethal methods, the next generation will learn to kill livestock and on and on until there is a large number of problem wolves across a large area. All of this, of course, playing out prior to the first released wolf ever hitting the ground.
The misguided ballot initiative, one that left the hands of actual experts tied, flung wide open the door to out-of-state activist groups and their cash. The state-level protection of wolves has taken more tools out of the management toolbox. It has become, and will continue to be, urban and suburban voters drowning out the votes of the rural areas that actually have to deal with the fallout.
The prevailing urban attitude is: “What do those dumb hicks know about anything important?”
We know where your food comes from, for starters.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Dear J6 Kangaroo Court — When You’ve Lost Rachel Maddow… “There is so much wrong with this charade that it seems almost impossible that anyone would be buying it, yet there are some people out there who are gullible enough to believe that a drunk dude in a fur cap and a few of his chubby friends almost overthrew the United States government.”
THE BUREAUCRACY STRIKES: FAA requires SpaceX to make environmental changes to Starbase in Texas. “The Federal Aviation Administration on Monday said SpaceX will be required to make more than 75 changes to the orbital launch program at its Starbase launch site in Texas after determining there would be some environmental impacts to the surrounding area. Elon Musk’s SpaceX must obtain either an experimental permit or a vehicle operator license from the FAA for Starship and Super Heavy launch operations from the Boca Chica facility. . . . The FAA decision Monday was made as part of a required environmental review as a part of that process and the agency noted that fulfilling the environmental changes necessary as described by the review would not guarantee that it would issue the permit.”
FREDDIE DE BOER: The Good White Man Roster: a database of progressive white men who are thirsty for credit.
You could be forgiven for thinking that we’re witnessing the end of the era of the white man. Headlines saying such are not hard to come by, after all, and media and academia are captivated by the notion that we white men must soon give way to women and people of color and, like, gray ace demisexuals or some such. So funny, then, and so profoundly American, that some of the most successful self-marketers of the 21st century are white men. They are, in fact, Good White Men.
These are the guys who have carefully crafted personas as ALLIES, as the good ones, as the right kind of white guy. These are the dudes whose every engagement on social media functions to let you know how very sorry they are, but always seem to come out on top in doing so. These are the guys who always stand behind women, ready to catch them when they fall, which they will inevitably do because of fucking patriarchy, man, and if people would just read their bell hooks maybe we’d be getting somewhere!, please like share and subscribe. These are the guys who think all complaints about identity politics, political correctness, and cancel culture are just the dying gasp of reactionary old men, which is why they lie awake at night praying to god that they never get canceled. These are the guys who put their pronouns in their bios in hopes that doing so might get them a little pussy. These are the guys who will harangue you about how white dudes do this and white dudes do that, speaking to you from their blameless white dude mouths in their righteous white dude faces. These are the guys who look at the discourse about white supremacy and patriarchy and see market opportunity. . . .
Second, standing up and demanding that everyone pay attention to someone else sure is a good way to monopolize attention for yourself. If you go on your podcast, blog, cable news show, or social network as a white man and tell other white men they need to shut up and listen, you are definitionally not shutting up and listening – and, of course, doing so in such a way as to receive credit for doing it. Put another way, Good White Men constantly tell other men and white people to step back and listen but absolutely never shut the fuck up themselves. Each of these guys could walk the talk by just unplugging and no longer filling the airwaves with their opinions, and in so doing cede space to POC and women and whoever else. That they don’t is the most damning indictment of their project.
Plus: “Now Chris flatters people who have a favorite ‘podcatcher’ app for a living, telling the world’s Sarah Lawrence graduates that when they feel better than everyone else, they’re right. He’s a living, breathing laundromat for the post-collegiate elite’s ugly feelings of superiority, reassuring them every day on his show that their snobbery and self-obsession are justified thanks to their superior moral virtue. (Politics, for Good White Men, is always assumed to be perfectly coterminous with moral hygiene.) This is the basic financial transaction of the Good White Man, selling back to his audience their own feelings of smug righteousness through the unconvincing application of desultory political framing. . . . I genuinely cannot remember the last time this man made an argument on his show that risked offending subscribers to the New York Times. He has tweeted 160,000 times; I challenge you to find one that dares to be anything less than perfectly anodyne to the median suburban liberal Democrat.”
Also: “This man is the basic bitch of Good White Men, a computer-generated NPC of a Noble Ally. Everything about his performance (and, if you’ll forgive me, his face) is so perfectly in the center of Good White Manness, I half suspect he’s been created by a creepy machine learning algorithm designed to mimic embittered social studies teachers who always told themselves they were destined for more.”
And: “I’m sure he’s cooking up an endless jeremiad about how most dudes just don’t know how it feels to be a woman, man. He would almost be charming if he didn’t use’“white dude’ as an insult so habitually. Doctor, heal thyself – I have never seen a whiter man than you.”
Many more biographical sketches at the link.
HOLDING THE SUPREME COURT HOSTAGE, MORE OR LESS LITERALLY: Pelosi again declines to pass SCOTUS safety bill.
On the one hand, this is despicable. On the other, as the Court ponders Second Amendment rights, it’s an illustration of how the authorities withhold police protection from unpopular groups, using the threat of tolerated “private” violence to serve their own ends. A good reason to be able to defend yourself.
SO ALL THE BLM AND TRANS PROGRAMMING ISN’T WINNING THEM OVER? Hispanic Americans Turn To Homeschooling in Record Numbers. “According to recent Census Bureau data, about a quarter of homeschoolers in America are Hispanic, and about 18.2 percent of Hispanic families homeschool their children.” This is huge.
THEY HAVE SEEN NEITHER THE LOCKDOWNS NOR THE DAMAGE DONE: No learning loss in Sweden.
HYSTERIA FROM OUR PSYCHOLOGICALLY DISTURBED MEDIA: Liberal Media Scream: Indict Trump or else, says NBC expert.
ON MY POST ABOUT CHINESE BANK RUNS FROM LAST NIGHT, a friend writes: “The PRC bank runs might explain that order a few weeks back for top party officials to keep all their money in China. That probably would be multiple billions. One way of propping up the banks. Plus the side benefit of keeping them on a leash.”
Yes, and if they started moving more money abroad word would spread and make things worse. But the leash effect probably predominates.
JUSTICE: Virginia Judge Kicks Soros Prosecutor Off Case for Concealing Criminal Records.
A Virginia judge has kicked a George Soros-funded prosecutor off a case involving potentially a dozen burglaries in multiple counties, saying the prosecutor’s office had concealed criminal records to “sell” a plea bargain.
Loudoun County circuit court judge James Plowman said the office of Commonwealth’s Attorney Buta Biberaj (D.) was “deliberately misleading the Court and the public” about “a possible 12 burglary crime spree spanning 4 counties over 10 days.” In a plea agreement, Biberaj’s office failed to note the offender had recently pleaded guilty to felonies and had pending charges and prior convictions as a minor, according to Plowman. Fox 5 on Saturday first reported on the judge’s order to remove Biberaj from the case.
“The Commonwealth is deliberately misleading the Court, and the public, in an effort to ‘sell’ the plea agreement for some reason that has yet to be explained,” Plowman wrote in his order.
The unprecedented move highlights the lengths to which so-called justice reform prosecutors will go to reduce bail, lighten sentencing, and avoid felony convictions—as well as the growing backlash to their approach. The Washington Free Beacon reported how other Soros-funded prosecutors in Virginia such as Arlington County commonwealth’s attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti (D.) and Fairfax County commonwealth’s attorney Steve Descano (D.) dismissed or declined to prosecute a serial looter on nearly a dozen charges related to larceny.
The soft-on-crime approach can sometimes prove deadly. Descano’s office last year refused to bring felony charges against a man who attempted to abduct and rape a hotel housekeeper, preferring to plead him out on misdemeanors of assault and battery. Less than a year later, the same man was charged with killing two homeless men and wounding three others during a nine-day shooting spree that spanned New York City and Washington, D.C. Biberaj in 2021 released a man charged with domestic violence on a $5,000 bond. He was charged two months later for brutally murdering his wife with a hammer.
The judge should refer this matter to the bar for disciplinary proceedings.