Archive for 2022
July 26, 2022
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Bryan Caplan: School Choice, Sorry I Underrated You. “School choice, please consider this a formal apology. I neglected you for years, but now I see how wrong I was.”
PJ MEDIA VIP ROUNDUP: Don’t forget that VODKAPUNDIT promo code if you’ve been thinking of joining us.
Matt Margolis: The White House Isn’t Grooming Kamala Harris for the Presidency. “Biden’s contracting of COVID-19 has given us plenty of reason to be concerned — at least more concerned than usual — about a different vacancy that could put Kamala Harris in the Oval Office.”
Chris Queen: Here’s How We Know That This Summer’s Heatwaves Are Weather Events, Not Proof of Climate Change. “We don’t just have to look at a decade ago to see that heatwaves are largely isolated phenomena.”
Yours Truly: UKRAINE WAR: Kyiv on the Counterattack (Maybe). “There hasn’t been much offensive action by Russian forces in over three weeks, but there might be something big brewing under the surface that glossy TV news reports can’t show you.”
REMINDER: No, science isn’t a “social construct.”
TRUMP IS OUR INSTRUMENT, AND OCCASIONALLY OUR FLAG BEARER: Completely misunderstanding Trump’s influence in the Republican Party.
If he falls, we’ll find another. If he’s taken down, we’ll find someone bigger and meaner. They won’t like us when we’re angry.*
*Spoiler: we’re already angry.
FOR THE TIMES THEY ARE ACHANGING: Out Of All Patience.
IT’S BEEN LIKE THIS FOR AT LEAST 20 YEARS: The corruption of medical science is surges on.
JUST IN CASE YOU’VE BEEN SLEEPING TOO WELL, YOU KNOW: Ukraine/Russia Tidbit.
HUMANITY IS OKAY AT CHANGING COURSES WHEN THE ALTERNATIVE IS ANNIHILATION: The times, they are a-changing: Former 0bama DOE official Steven Koonin: “climate is a problem, but not an existential crisis”; surprisingly fair article in Saudi papers about Israeli Arabs serving in the IDF.
AT THIS POINT, REALLY, WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE? Report: British Communist Academic Appointed to Chair WHO’s Behavioral Health Board.
THEY CAN TRY… Trump’s ‘Think Tank’ Prepares to Betray Him .
I DON’T EVEN MIND THIS RIDICULOUS SORT OF FACT-JUGGLING. I MIND THAT THEY THEN DRINK THEIR OWN INK: White House Changing the Definition of Recession Ahead of Possible Dismal Economic Report.
DO THEY REALLY THINK SRI LANKA IS A SUCCESS STORY? Canada’s Trudeau Wants To Impose Drastic ‘Climate Change’ Restrictions On Farmers Just Like The Netherlands.
SAY IT: DeSantis: ‘Gender-Affirming Care’ is a Euphemism for Castration, Mastectomy, Sterilization.
Adults can do whatever they wish to themselves, but we should “caring mutilation” of kids is not a thing. It is in fact appalling.
AND ALL THIS WHILE NOT LETTING KIDS BE ADOPTED BY OTHER RACES OR “CULTURES”: Saving Sophia.
OTHER SLAVERY WASN’T EASIER. IN AFRICA THERE WAS A HIGH CHANCE YOU’D BE SACRIFICED. SOUTH AMERICA ALSO: Uniquely Bad—But Not Uniquely American.
So it wasn’t even worse here than anywhere else. These are arguments from stupidity and rancor.
July 25, 2022
FIGHT THE POWER: NCLA Asks Full Fifth Circuit to Toss ATF’s Bump Stock Ban and Reject Deference to the Government.
Reminder: I’m on the NCLA Board of Advisors.
OPEN THREAD: It’s there, it’s there for you, it’s what you want.
OH, THAT LIBERAL FASCISM: Anthony Fauci Says If We Could Do It Again, COVID-19 Restrictions Would Be ‘Much, Much More Stringent.’
In contrast though: Monkeypox is Spreading Through the Gay and Bisexual Communities — But the CDC Can’t Recommend a Lockdown for Orgies. “Gee, maybe a strongly worded CDC advisory telling anyone with monkeypox symptoms to refrain from sex, especially from orgies, would be helpful, no? But no, the left’s constituent groups are never told not to do the things they like doing. If there’s a forbiddance needed, then all of society is told to lock down.”
With some exceptions, though:
…And the more recent pivot by the DNC-MSM, such at the Atlantic. The change is subtle, but see if you can spot the difference in tone between the first two and last two headlines:
● Parents Are Losing Their Minds Over Masks in Schools.
—Atlantic headline, August 18th, 2021.
● Mask Mandates Don’t Need to Make Sense.
—Atlantic headline, February 20, 2022.
● Now Is as Good a Time as There’ll Ever Be to Leave Your Pandemic Bubble.
—Atlantic headline, March 3rd, 2022.
● Speech Therapy Shows the Difficult Tradeoffs of Wearing Masks.
—Atlantic headline, March 2, 2022.
As Ace of Spades wrote, at the start of a lengthy post on that last headline, “The masking mandates that the corrupt US and state and local governments forced on children, under pressure from the corrupt teachers unions have imposed developmental disorders on children that they may never recover from. The early years of development are critical ones. You don’t get those back. These are critical years of development in which children’s brains are wired to rewire themselves like crazy. Their brains will reconfigure themselves during these years like in no other point in their lives, ever. There is no ‘Do Over’ switch on a child’s formative years.”
ICONIC PHOTOS OF BANDS AND MUSICIANS RESHOT IN THEIR ORIGINAL LOCATIONS: “Photographer Steve Birnbaum has been recreating music history by photographing images of musicians and bands in the exact location where they were originally photographed. The project started in 2010, and since then, he has covered 500 to 600 locations shooting from 100 to 150 days in a year. Birnbaum starts with an existing photo of musicians. Next, he tracks down the exact location where it was shot, positions the photo in his hand so that the site in the picture and the background line up to make one seamless composition, and then captures another photo.”
ROGER KIMBALL: Thoughts on the Swamp.
There’s something to be said for repetition.
In 146 BC, Rome besieged and then sacked Carthage. According to some accounts, the only thing left standing was a funerary monument.
The European Union is still moldering along, but at least the proximate goal of Hannan’s campaign, Britain’s exit from that soul-sucking Leviathan, has been accomplished.
With those victories in mind, I’m thinking of concluding all of my speeches with the phrase “palus delenda est”: “the swamp must be destroyed.”
What is the swamp?
The word has a long history, aided by the serendipitous contingency that Washington, D.C. was actually built on a literal swamp.
But the term, like a Chinese virus, underwent a “gain of function” makeover in 2015 when Donald Trump first strode onto the center stage of American political life.
“The Swamp”: that is the bureaucratic Washington establishment, the alphabet soup of agencies whose personnel, though unelected and largely unaccountable, run our lives right down to the latest permit, regulation, tax, fee, impost, and woke government requirement or interdiction.
But it’s also something more.
“The Swamp” names an attitude, an assumption, about power, about politics, but also about certain basic human realities.
Above all, perhaps, “the Swamp” rests and feeds upon the progressive assumption that the mass of citizens is incapable of self-government.
I call that assumption “progressive” because from the time of Woodrow Wilson on down to the latest Davos mandarin, the neofeudal bifurcation of humanity into elect and (ever the majority) subservient has been the guiding if unspoken nutrient.
The litany of Donald Trump’s policy achievements is long and distinguished.
It begins with his judicial appointments, some fruits of which we saw last month with the Supreme Court decisions on Roe v. Wade, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Second Amendment, and includes his attention to our Southern border, energy, taxes, the Middle East, and a host of other issues.
But more than any particular achievement, Donald Trump was the tocsin that awakened millions of people—those whom Hillary Clinton dismissed as “deplorable”—to the two-tier reality of political life in the United States.
Exit quote: A reckoning, that is to say, is coming. It cannot come too soon. In the meantime, join me in chanting palus delenda est.“
UNEXPECTEDLY: Biden Team Goes into Recession Denial. Welcome to ‘It’s Not a Recession, We Swear!’ Week
Politico’s Ben White characterizes this week as a “Category 5 economic storm,” but I think the dominant theme will be, “It’s not a recession, we swear!”
As much as economy-watchers will be studying the Consumer Confidence Index numbers on Tuesday and the Federal Reserve meeting and decision on interest rates Wednesday, the biggest deal will be the numbers for second-quarter economic growth, announced at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Thursday morning. We don’t know what the second-quarter economic numbers are going to be, but they’re probably not going to be good. The Atlanta Fed thinks it will show that the U.S. GDP shrank 1.6 percent in the last quarter. The previous quarter was a decline of 1.6 percent as well — so if the Atlanta Fed projection is correct, Thursday will bring news that the U.S. is now in a recession, at least by the traditional definition. (Even if it doesn’t, and it shows GDP growth at 0.0 or slightly higher, the U.S. is still in lousy near-recessionary conditions.)
Biden and his team will argue that, despite the numbers, the U.S. isn’t really in a recession. In fact, White writes that if Republicans declare we’re in recession, “It will not be true. At least not yet. But President Joe Biden and Democratic candidates across the country will face a daunting and possibly impossible challenge explaining to people why it’s not true.”
Jimmy Carter’s late economics advisor, Alfred “Bananas” Kahn, could not be reached for comment.
Related: New marker laid down:
“The Taliban won’t take over Afghanistan.”
“Inflation won’t be a problem.” https://t.co/LgJUfSIwKj
— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) July 25, 2022
I DUNNO, BUT I DO KNOW THERE’S NOTHING THEY CAN’T REDEFINE TO SUIT THEIR IMMEDIATE NEEDS:
The left can't define a woman.
They can't define a recession.
Is there anything they can define??? https://t.co/iYy7CsFHUc
— Megan Marzzacco (@MeganMarzzacco) July 25, 2022
RIP, PAULIE CICERO: ‘Goodfellas,’ ‘Law & Order’ Actor Paul Sorvino Dies At 83.