Archive for 2022
January 17, 2022
HALLUCINOGENIC BEER, IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T PINEAPPLE? Archaeologists Suspect Hallucinogenic Beer Helped Bolster a Peruvian Empire.
PAST PERFORMANCE IS…PRETTY CONSISTENT, ACTUALLY: This MLK Day, Remember How The FBI Targeted Him.
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: New on this season of Veep: Harris comms director has comms problems with Hispanics. “Kamala Harris brought in Jamal Simmons as her new communications director in order to reverse the public perception of a stumbling, bumbling, fumbling Vice President. Instead, Simmons’ hiring might end up confirming that assessment. Apparently no one bothered to check Simmons’ social-media history before he joined Harris’ team.”
OCEANIA HAS NEVER BEEN AT WAR WITH EAST COLLEYVILLE: AP Deletes and Corrects Tweet Saying Texas Synagogue Standoff Issue Was ‘Not Connected to Jewish Community.’
Related: Why Were Authorities So Evasive About the Synagogue Gunman’s Motive? “Is it that authorities are now so afraid of being accused of inciting anti-Muslim hate crimes that they are reluctant to acknowledge the obvious? The quickest and easiest way to convince people that the threat of jihadism is much, much worse than they thought is for law enforcement authorities to appear like they’re hiding something or afraid to speak the truth.”
WE MAY NEVER KNOW HIS TRUE MOTIVE: Biden Called Kyle Rittenhouse a White Supremacist, but Won’t Speculate on Motive of Malik Faisal Akram.
FLASHBACK: Grim Tidings. I quit serving as class secretary over this. I was starting to have to report a death at least every other time.
IT’S FUNNY HOW THE PRESS, SUPPOSED SENTINEL OF LIBERTY, CONSISTENTLY SIDES WITH THE RULERS AGAINST THE PUBLIC, but the AJC’s portrayal of parents as crazed, knife-wielding stalkers is pretty low even for, well, the AJC.
It’s also funny how they never worry about politics and the classroom until people start organizing politically against lefty politics in the classroom.
COLD WAR II: China Denies ‘Remarkable’ Expansion of its Nuclear Arsenal, Which Is Laughable. “Last summer, the Pentagon’s annual report on China warned that the country was aiming to build a total of 700 deployable thermonuclear warheads by 2027, and 1,000 warheads by 2030. The report states that China’s pace of warhead construction is so rapid that its previous estimate from 2020 had become obsolete in just one year.”
MARK JUDGE: Macbeth as Film Noir Thriller.
ANALYSIS: TRUE. “It seems sort of silly to pick a fight over the administration’s position on Mexico when there doesn’t always seem to be one.”
As part of a discussion of how Biden and Harris are failing generally, by two NYT columnists. When you’ve been president for less than a year, and you’re a Democrat, and the NYT is running stories titled “Welcome to the ‘Well, Now What?’ Stage of the Story,” it’s not a good sign.
Plus, from the comments:
Her ‘silly’ comment was a perfect illustration of why serious problems, really priority problems, we’re staring at here in America should not be left to news and opinion writers in Manhattan, or lifelong bureaucrats in Washington D.C. Neither of them are the kind of people who make things happen. These are not action people. These are cocktail party attendees, where they can harumph and chuckle at those with actual actionable ideas that may not have come from a Princeton, Harvard, or Columbia grad.
We have somehow allowed ourselves to be led, for years, by this cocktail party club. The results are in. It’s not good.
Analysis: Also true.
Plus: “In other words, it means admitting Trump was right. But Bret Stephens isn’t willing to do that any more than Biden is.”
UPDATE: From the comments below:
OLD AND BUSTED: We Are All Socialist Now.
—The Washington Post, through then-subsidiary publication Newsweek, February 16th, 2009.
The New Hotness? The left dreamed of remaking America. Now, it stares into the abyss as Biden’s plans wither.
The uncertainty has become ever more urgent as Democrats weigh their campaign message in the 2022 midterm elections. Leading Democratic campaign officials have called for the party to revamp its message to avoid a wipeout in the midterms, forcing the party grapple with whether it will jettison the far-reaching ideas that helped define it now that Republicans appear in the ascendancy.
Long gone are the days when Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) sparred across Iowa and New Hampshire over whose policy platform was most transformative, motivated by a sense that they had a chance to usher in a new era of American politics.
Instead, Warren, Sanders and the rest of Washington’s liberal policy apparatus sit by without recourse as Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) decide the fate of Biden’s Build Back Better Act — either by paring it back dramatically or defeating it altogether. Manchin and Sinema have final say over the Build Back Better legislation because Democrats have only a one-vote margin in a Senate evenly divided between the parties, which allows them to dream of change while having little room to actually achieve it.
The ossification of Biden’s legislative agenda underscores the long-term structural challenges facing the party’s left-flank, highlighting how difficult it will be to enact liberal policy change even with Democratic control of Congress.
Compounding liberal disillusionment is conservatives’ grip on the Supreme Court, which acts as a backstop against left policy change even if the obstacles to legislation are eventually overcome. The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the Biden administration’s vaccination-or-testing requirement for the country’s biggest firms, a devastating blow to the White House’s efforts to fight covid.
The federal government’s uneven response to the pandemic has also exposed the lack of U.S. administrative capacity to implement new programs. And the reemergence of inflation this year as a defining economic threat — a policy challenge that liberals had not been preparing to confront — appears at odds with the left’s vision to usher in a new paradigm with transformational spending programs.
—The Washington Post, today.
THE ONLY THING WE HAVE TO FEAR IS RANDOM CRAZY HOMELESS EX-CONS THEMSELVES: NYC Mayor Eric Adams Bemoans ‘Perception of Fear’ After Another Subway Murder.
THAT’S WHAT XI SAID! Golden State Warriors Owner Chamath Palihapitiya Says He Doesn’t Care About China Oppressing The Uyghurs.
Golden State Warriors owner Chamath Palihapitiya wants fans to know he doesn’t care about China trampling on human rights.
During an appearance on the “All-In,” the oppression of the Uyghurs came up, and the part-owner of the Warriors made it crystal clear he doesn’t really care at all about the atrocities being done to them.
“Nobody cares about what’s happening to the Uyghurs, okay. You bring it up because you care and I think it’s nice that you care. The rest of us don’t care. I’m just telling you a very hard, ugly truth. Of all the things that I care about, yes, it is below my line,” Palihapitiya explained.
Moments later, the part-owner of the Warriors noted that he cares about climate change, the potential economic ramifications of China invading Taiwan and our stores not having stocked shelves. He did add that if America is able to solve all of our own issues, he might then prioritize the oppression of the Uyghurs.
Earlier: A Slow Kowtow to China.
Demanding obeisance has a rich history in Chinese culture. In 1793, British envoy Lord George Macartney was charged with opening permanent trade relations with China. The Chinese still clung to the old feudal demand of the kowtow. In the old days, the Chinese believed that the emperor literally ruled the world, which meant foreign rulers were more like vassals. And all vassals must acknowledge the supremacy of the emperor, the Son of Heaven. The problem was that Macartney was essentially a stand-in for the British crown, and he couldn’t in good conscience recognize the emperor as his sovereign.
Kowtowing requires three kneelings and nine prostrations—meaning the supplicant actually lies face down on the floor—in order to demonstrate total inferiority. Macartney agreed to kneel out of respect, but he wouldn’t put his head to the ground nine times.
The Chinese were offended and Britain and China didn’t get the trade deal. I bring up this anecdote for three reasons. First, it’s worth recognizing that the trade deal was in the interests of both countries. Lots of “realists” think that countries do things solely out of raw self-interest. That’s arguably true. But the definition realists use for self-interest is way too narrow. Notions of national pride and honor are also forms of self-interest.
Which brings me to the second reason. America should have some notion of honor. We don’t have a crown, but we do have certain ideas and ideals that we like to claim similar loyalty to. We also like to claim that these ideas and ideals are universal. When we figuratively kowtow to China, we are openly admitting to China that both claims are untrue—or at least negotiable. You can’t claim to believe human rights are universal and inviolable while simultaneously excusing or ignoring the mass violation of human rights that defines China under CCP rule.
Last, none of this is in our interest. It’s not like the Chinese respect us for our groveling. They enjoy watching us bend to their demands and mock our obsequious desire to gain favor as proof of their superior system. They use our self-flagellation over race as a cudgel in their propaganda and diplomacy. Such appeasement only buys greater demands and worse moral and strategic compromises.
* * * * * * * *
I whiggishly believe that one day China will be a free country. And when it is, the Chinese will not look back on America today as a spiritual ally the way those who were slaughtered at Tiananmen Square did. They will see us as a country that sought approval from the regime that persecuted their ancestors for the cheap at any price of Fast and Furious 9 ticket sales.
As Jim Geraghty wrote in October of 2019, when the CCP-NBA connection exposed for millions of Americans to see: We’re Not Exporting Our Values to China — We’re Importing Theirs.
UPDATE: “Chamath was a founder of Zuckerberg’s pro-immigration group FWDus. His family also emigrated to Canada to escape civil war in Sri Lanka. Talk about pulling up the ladder behind you!“, Chuck Ross tweets.
I HOPE THEY TAKE HIM UP ON IT: Air Force F-35 pilot Hasard Lee challenges AI firm to a fighter fly-off. “Here at Sandboxx News, we’re known to play favorites when it comes to pilots, so when our friend and contributing writer Hasard Lee reached out to tell us that he recently issued a public challenge to pit him and his F-35 against any fully autonomous aircraft in a complex real–world simulated battlefield environment, we certainly took notice.”
IT’S COME TO THIS: CNN Skewers Biden’s Voter Suppression Lies. Yes, CNN. “New York is one of the most reliably Democratic states in the United States and New York requires people to request absentee ballots, just like the new Georgia law does.”
BRINGING AMERICANS TOGETHER: Americans Are Deeply Divided on Covid—But Distrust Biden, His Experts, and the Media.
TOP SELLER: H&R Block Tax Software Deluxe + State 2021 with 3% Refund Bonus Offer (Amazon Exclusive) | [PC Download]. #CommissionEarned
FIRST-YEAR LAME DUCK: CBS/YouGov Poll Sweeps the Legs out From Under Biden.
The poll found that a huge majority of Americans believed he wasn’t sufficiently focused on the economy (58 percent) and inflation (65 percent). Only 38 percent approved of his handling of the economy, while a whopping 62 percent disapproved. It’s even worse when it comes to inflation — 30 percent approval, 70 percent disapproval. He’s about to dip into the twenties on the approval of his handling of inflation.
If he thinks their opinion is going to go up if he was able to raise the Build Back Better bill back up from the dead, the answer is no, it wouldn’t. The poll showed that that wouldn’t help him at all: 76 percent said no, their opinion of him wouldn’t improve if he was able to pass the BBB bill. The poll indicated that what they want is a change in inflation, and their opinion of him might improve if he were to do that.
But the problem is inflation is made worse by government spending, which is all Biden has been focused upon. So, what he needs to do to change Americans’ opinion of him is contrary to the Democrats’ massive spending dreams and what they want him to do.
At this point it will almost certainly require a Fed-engineered recession to tame inflation, something Biden doesn’t have the stomach for — even if he did still have the political clout to back the Fed.
And I’m not sure the Fed has the stomach to raise rates, given that overall employment is still down millions of jobs from its pre-lockdown high.
ONE AND DONE IN THE PLAYOFFS; CYCLE THE MOBIUS LOOP: Cowboys shriveling again shows why they are perpetually Next Year’s Team.
UPDATE: You stay classy, Dak: Dak Prescott on fans throwing debris at officials: “Credit to them.”
DOES THAT MEAN BREATHING IS AN “INSTITUTION?” Gender professor says biological sex is a ‘social construct.’ “There will be no gender liberation without abolishing the institution of heterosexuality.”
JAMES LILEKS ON BUILDING BACK BRANDON:
I was getting my weekly hot dog from Walkin’ Dog, and took a few napkins out of the dispenser. They seemed thin. I waved them at the owner, and said Hey! How long have you been doing one-ply? I thought this was a two-ply kind of joint.
He laughed and admitted that yes, they were one-ply; he couldn’t get any two-ply tissues. He explained how he couldn’t get the straws he used to provide, either; the only ones available were too thin for the milkshakes he sold. He picked up a cup and said he couldn’t get the ones that were legal (I’m not sure what this means – some city reg, no doubt) and had to beg Coke for some supplies.
“We’re living in a one-ply world now,” I said. He agreed: one-ply world, all right.
Plus photos of plenty of empty supermarket shelves.”This could be a lack of people available to stock, I know. Could be a lot of things. What it isn’t is what we hoped the future would look like during the bare-shelves era of March 2020.”
RICHARD FERNANDEZ: The Post-Pandemic World. “This may expose the bureaucrats who’ve spent the last three years building ’empires of fear’ to a widespread political backlash. What will make it worse is that the bureaucrats cannot even claim victory over the virus for their policies. It just seemed to have run its course, with omicron representing the final stage of the viral evolution to an endemic disease.”
GOOD: Settlement: California agrees to ditch ‘Aztec chant’ from curriculum.
The state of California has agreed to remove an “Aztec chant” from its ethnic studies curriculum following a legal settlement with several plaintiffs
The new curriculum would have had students praying to the Aztec dieties Tezkatlipoka, Quetzalcoatl, Huizilopochtli and Xipe Totec.
Part of the chant read “Xipe Totek, Xipe Totek, transformation, liberation, education, emancipation. imagination revitalization, liberation, transformation, decolonization, liberation, education, emancipation, changin’ our situation in this human transformation.”
The co-chair of the California Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, Tolteka Cuauhtin (left), had said the chants were to “regenerate indigenous spiritual traditions” as Christians had committed “theocide” to “oppress marginalized groups.”
The Thomas More Society filed a lawsuit in September challenging the chants on behalf of Californians for Equal Rights Foundation and three parents. Special Counsel Paul Jonna said “The Aztecs regularly performed gruesome and horrific acts for the sole purpose of pacifying and appeasing the very beings that the prayers from the curriculum invoke.”
Jonna added “Any form of prayer and glorification of these bloodthirsty beings in whose name horrible atrocities were performed is repulsive to any reasonably informed observer.” He also noted the California and U.S. constitutions “prohibit prayer in public schools – particularly prayers drafted by public officials.”
I don’t know why Hernando Cortes isn’t a lefty hero: He organized an alliance of oppressed indigenous peoples to overthrow a tyrannical empire.