FAR OUT, MAN: The struggle to define psychedelics.
Archive for 2022
February 7, 2022
HMM: A strategy to unseat Rep. Lauren Boebert? “Democrats registered in the 3rd Congressional District are being asked to change their voter registration to ‘unaffiliated’ in a growing campaign to unseat U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert in the Republican primaries in June.”
CONGRATS TO JAMES LILEKS ON 25 YEARS OF “THE BLEAT:” “A quarter of a century has elapsed. Children have been raised and sent into the world; dogs and houses have come and gone. But the Bleat not only abides, it talks about the same damned thing it did twenty-five years ago. I have no idea what I thought this would all become, but if you’d told me 25 years ago I’d still be doing it, and I’d still be going to the tech store to look at things and judge them with the Swede, and enjoy some French fries afterwards, then go home to wife and dog (same wife, different dog) I’d have been . . . grateful. Happy. Perhaps: relieved.”
YOU DON’T WIN FRIENDS WITH SALAD: CDC investigating Listeria outbreak in packaged Dole brand salads tied to 2 deaths.
ROGER SIMON: GoFundMe and How the Left Came to Despise the Working Class.
To understand it, you have to go back to the man who started it all, Karl Marx, who expected his communist revolution to begin in heavily industrialized Germany.
He was wrong, of course. It began in the much less developed and largely agrarian Russia. In Germany, the working class was not nearly as attracted to his theories as he had hoped. The majority rejected them.
This trend continued as communism did better in poorer countries (China, Cambodia) than it did in the industrialized West, where it was supposed to take hold.
This failure was not lost on a group of intellectuals known as the Frankfurt School, who brought their revised Marxian theories designed to succeed where the working class approach had failed—notably via the so-called march through the institutions (media, entertainment, education)—to the United States at the end of World War II.
This indeed was an intellectuals-first revolution, and it has succeeded almost completely in our university system, where their “critical theory” dominates. They also succeeded, to lesser but still powerful degrees, in turning the media and entertainment, pretty much destroying Hollywood in the process. Why would the Chinese object?
This was clearly a top-down revolution, with elites dictating to hoi polloi what they should think and how to behave. In the way of the world, those elites also became increasingly rich, richer than anyone else in the history of the human race (the likes of Bezos, Zuckberg, Gates, et al.). They knew best. (Someone should write a book about that.)
In the process, the working class, what Amity Shlaes earlier called “The Forgotten Man,” was forgotten.
Which brings us to the truckers. This time—I think, hope, and pray—these elites have gone too far. The yawning gap between them and the people they lord over has become too great. People are sickened, as they should be, by the arrogance.
Thank you, GoFundMe, for blowing it. This is a teaching moment. Let’s use it.
As Glenn wrote last week in his New York Post column, “Truckers are starting a working-class revolution — and the left hates it,” “For more than a century, lefties have talked about such a revolt. But if you really paid attention, the actual role of the working class in their working-class revolution was not to call the shots — it was to do what it was told by the ‘intellectual vanguard’ of the left. A working-class revolution led by the working class is the left’s worst nightmare because the working class doesn’t want what the left wants.”
Related: Ted Cruz Calls For FTC Probe Into GoFundMe For Shutting Down Convoy Fundraiser. “Cruz’s comments follow announcements from several Republican state attorneys general that they plan to investigate GoFundMe for potentially violating state consumer protections laws. Other prominent Republican lawmakers, including Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, have signaled their intent to scrutinize the crowdfunding site.”
EVERYTHING IS RACIST: Stacey Abrams’ Campaign: Racism Behind Criticism of Her Maskless Photo.
TOP SELLER: LifeStraw Personal Water Filter for Hiking, Camping, Travel, and Emergency Preparedness, 1 Pack, Blue. #CommissionEarned
FASTER, PLEASE: T-cell immunotherapy tied to 10-year remission in two leukemia patients, study finds. Early research, but worth following up.
“FREE SPEECH MAKES FREE PEOPLE.” PRIMETIME OLYMPICS TV AD WITH CELTICS STAR ENES KANTOR FREEDOM. FIRE shares the story of the Turkish (now American) NBA star, barred from his native land for speaking out.
Watch it before it somehow gets canceled!
DON’T TRUST CHINA. CHINA IS ASSHOLE: Missing Chinese Tennis Star Peng Shuai ‘Allowed’ to Give CCP-Friendly Interview. “Now, with the cameras rolling and a Party official keeping a close eye on her, Shuai claims, ‘I never said that anyone made me submit to a sexual assault.'”
WOW, ALL OF A SUDDEN MY FRIDAY NEW YORK POST COLUMN IS GENERATING LEFTY HATEMAIL. So here it is again, in case you missed it.
I THOUGHT VOTER FRAUD WAS JUST A RIGHT-WING FANTASY: Memphis BLM founder sentenced for voter fraud. On the other hand: “My immediate response whenever I see another of these headlines about someone being convicted of voter fraud is to remember all of the times we have been assured that this never happens. But in the case of Pamela Moses, the founder of the Memphis, Tennessee Black Lives Matter chapter, there seem to at least potentially be some questions about her recent conviction and sentencing for illegally registering to vote. Last week, Moses was sentenced to six years in prison for registering to vote while she was on probation for a previous felony conviction and was ineligible to vote. The judge in the case accused her of ‘deceiving the probation department.’ But Moses claims that she was led to believe that she was eligible. To put it mildly, the case is rather complicated.”
DAVID DEAVEL: Georgetown’s Ivory Tower Becomes a Leftist Citadel.
Those commenting have noted that Georgetown seems to have extraordinarily flexible standards about such things. During confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, Georgetown professor Christine Fair tweeted about her desire for “terrible deaths” for Kavanaugh’s supporters, whose corpses she wished to castrate and feed to swine. In 2020 Professor Heidi Li Feldman tweeted that the Law School should not support any applications of Georgetown Law students to clerk for judges appointed by Donald Trump and that law firms should not hire anyone who did so.
Fair was briefly suspended for her violent comments but was then vindicated and praised. Feldman apparently faced no scrutiny despite university and city non-discrimination rules forbidding discrimination based on political affiliation.
In short, it’s not “free speech” that’s in danger. It’s simply speech that purportedly offends—I say purportedly because the meaning of Shapiro’s tweet, though “inartful,” in his words, is pretty easily understood—the left.
Read the whole thing.
NEXT OBVIOUS MOVE: THE TRUCKERS TELL THE OTTAWA GOVERNMENT THAT IF THEY’RE FORCED TO LEAVE, THEY WON’T BE COMING BACK TO MAKE DELIVERIES:
STATE of EMERGENCY in Ottawa, no fuel, no gaz!https://t.co/VfgKKYKzKr#TruckerforFreedom #TruckersConvoy2022 https://t.co/DbumbM4tqD
— Alexandra Lavoie (@ThevoiceAlexa) February 7, 2022
PROBABLY INSPIRED BY JUSTIN TRUDEAU’S FAR-LEFT HATE SPEECH: BREAKING: Man charged in Winnipeg car attack on convoy protest is radical far-left anarchist.
KEVIN DOWNEY JR: A Tough Week of Gut Punches for the Left. “Watching BLM crash and burn is HILARIOUS. What I find tragic is Speaker of the House and head lizard person Nancy Pelosi telling American Olympians to mind their beeswax and not speak negatively about the Chinese, despite their Nazi-like camps and that pesky little virus they released on the world.”
JOE CONCHA: CNN’s collapse is now complete.
In the spring of 2020, the country was in a horrific place. Businesses shut completely; people were scared. There were no COVID therapeutics, no vaccines. Hospitals were overwhelmed, thousands were dying each day. If ever there was a time for news organizations to educate and inform the public, this was it.
Instead, Zucker apparently believed it was the perfect time to exploit the situation for political gain and to help the network’s ratings.
Andrew Cuomo benefitted from briefings that made him appear to be the adult in the room regarding COVID and Trump appear to be the villain. Cuomo got a $5.1 million book deal as a result.
Chris Cuomo and Zucker/Gollust/CNN benefitted from marathon interviews with Cuomo’s governor/brother, which didn’t touch the governor’s alleged nursing home scandal. Ratings soared.
So, was Zucker’s departure simply about a consensual relationship with a co-worker? One might be forgiven for questioning that.
Moving forward, what’s next for CNN when the company falls under the Discovery Channel umbrella later this year? Let’s hear from its soon-to-be largest shareholder, John Malone of Liberty Media.
ADVERTISEMENT
“I would like to see CNN evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists, which would be unique and refreshing,” Malone said in an interview that recently aired on CNBC.The collapse of CNN is now complete: Nine-out-of-ten viewers, gone. Its top-rated anchor, Chris Cuomo, gone. Its network president, gone. Its integrity in shambles.
Zucker was always an entertainment guy, not a news guy — and he wasn’t all that successful producing entertainment.
I’ve never understood why he was brought in to run CNN, but I can’t argue with the results.
HARVARD DOESN’T WANT TOO MANY ASIANS: Lobbying to keep affirmative action alive at Harvard in full swing.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Canada Trucks Along to Freedom. It’s been different watching the drama going on with our neighbors to the north. Here in the United States, we don’t often look to Canada as a beacon of freedom but this is where we are in Joe Biden’s commie America.”
HIGHER EDUCATION SPEAKING FEES ARE JUST A LEFTY MONEY LAUNDRY: Public university paid Soledad O’Brien $40k for two-hour speaking engagement.
YEP: CNN’s Collapse Is Now Complete:
In the spring of 2020… [i]f ever there was a time for news organizations to educate and inform the public, this was it. Instead, Zucker apparently believed it was the perfect time to exploit the situation for political gain and to help the network’s ratings. Andrew Cuomo benefited from briefings that made him appear to be the adult in the room regarding COVID-19 and Trump appear to be the villain. Cuomo got a $5.1 million book deal as a result. Chris Cuomo and Zucker/Gollust/CNN benefited from marathon interviews with Cuomo’s governor/brother, which didn’t touch the governor’s alleged nursing home scandal. Ratings soared. So, was Zucker’s departure simply about a consensual relationship with a co-worker?… Moving forward, what’s next for CNN when the company falls under the Discovery Channel umbrella later this year? Let’s hear from its soon-to-be largest shareholder, John Malone of Liberty Media. ‘I would like to see CNN evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists, which would be unique and refreshing,’ Malone said.
It would certainly represent a change.
SOROS SPEAKS: ‘Omicron Threatens To Be Xi Jinping’s Undoing.’
“Omicron entered China mainly through the port city of Tianjin, which is 30 minutes by high-speed rail to Beijing,” Soros said.
“City-wide lockdowns are unlikely to work against a variant as infectious as Omicron. This is evident in Hong Kong where the Omicron outbreak looks increasingly serious.”
“Given the strong opposition within the CCP, Xi Jinping’s carefully choreographed elevation to the level of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping may never occur,” Soros said. “It is to be hoped that Xi Jinping may be replaced by someone less repressive at home and more peaceful abroad. This would remove the greatest threat that open societies face today and they should do everything within their power to encourage China to move in the desired direction.”
If Xi were to be removed by a Party clique, Khrushchev-style, it could lead to a period of Beijing focusing inward again. Whether or not that would turn out to be a benefit to the Chinese people is something entirely else.
Also: Don’t trust anything George Soros has to say about the advantages of open societies.