Archive for 2022
October 1, 2022
FALL CLEANING: eufy BoostIQ RoboVac 11S MAX, Robot Vacuum Cleaner. #CommissionEarned
EXPOSED: New Orleans Mayor spent obscene amount of taxpayer dollars to fly 1st class. “‘My travel accommodations are a matter of safety, not of luxury,’ The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate reported. ‘As all women know, our health and safety are often disregarded and we are left to navigate alone. As the mother of a young child whom I live for, I am going to protect myself by any reasonable means in order to ensure I am there to see her grow into the strong woman I am raising her to be. Anyone who wants to question how I protect myself just doesn’t understand the world Black women walk in.’”
HOW’S THAT SPACE PROGRAM COMING ALONG? What NASA’s successful DART mission means for the future of planetary defense.
DOES THIS MEAN IT’S BEEN DONE BEFORE? Scottish man lifts barbell while unicycling to break world record.
The Guinness records have become silly.
THE BOOK ‘DE-EMPHASIZERS’ ARE HORRIFIED THAT BOOKS ARE BEING ‘DE-EMPHASIZED:’
While clumsily written in the pursuit of overbroad objectives outside the remit of constitutionally constrained government, Florida’s legislative command that the cultural tides recede isn’t the Reichstag fire its critics imagine it to be. Nor is this campaign something that conservative cultural revanchists imagined into existence on their own. Rather, the state is reacting to similar maneuvers by cultural forces aligned with the left.
In some Florida school districts, titles that cover themes involving race, sexuality, and LGBTQ identity are not banned—they are still accessible in libraries and online—but they have been labeled with an “advisory notice to parents.” Call it a “trigger warning.” Teachers have been drafted into auditing books for their identitarian content, but the “policy does not apply to textbooks or books in schoolwide libraries.” Indeed, the discretionary nature of this campaign has sincere advocates of literary censorship on the right up in arms. They don’t believe the state’s efforts to cordon off books with sexual and racial thematic elements have gone far enough.
Introducing parental oversight to what books students at various age levels check out of scholastic libraries may strike bibliophiles as obscene. Literary experiences, titillating or otherwise, are a discouragingly rare occurrence among younger adults these days. There is a movement afoot across red states to intervene in young people’s journeys of intellectual exploration, but it only mirrors what the cultural left has busied itself with for years.
“What to do with ‘classic’ books that are also racist and hurtful to students?” School Library Journal’s Marva Hinton asked in 2020. The question was occasioned by the decision from Caldwell-Stone’s organization, the American Library Association, to drop Laura Ingalls Wilder’s name from a literary award. Hinton cited the “dated cultural attitudes” in her Little House books. While being careful to avoid the appearance that that anyone sought to “censor, limit, or deter access” to Wilder’s books, the move and others like it nonetheless branded her books offensive to modern sensibilities.
The same could be said of classics such as To Kill a Mockingbird and Huckleberry Finn. It was said, in fact, in Hinton’s piece when the librarians with whom she spoke confessed that “deemphasizing” these books advances modern progressive social objectives. “We do harm if we don’t teach that text in ways that are antiracist,” said one Massachusetts-based Teacher Training Center director. Indeed, according to the “intellectual freedom chair” of the Oregon Association of School Libraries, Miranda Doyle, it is a teacher’s job to make sure “we are choosing books that are not problematic.”
Flashback: Atticus Finch: American literature’s most celebrated rape apologist.
ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE: Juno probe takes detailed photo of Jupiter’s moon, Europa.
WHY IS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY SUCH A CESSPIT OF RACISM? Kamala Harris ripped for claiming government’s Hurricane Ian relief will prioritize ‘communities of color.’
LISTEN, SUG, DON’T FORGET TO SAY YOUR PRAYERS: James Lileks asks, “Can you recall any time in which the use of nuclear weapons was described with such . . . I’m trying to find the right word. It’s not indifference. Unconcern? Remoteness? Calmness? I can’t figure out the proper word. Theoretical. Speculative.”
The annexation seems like a bonehead move to us, but it’s one way of declaring victory, I suppose. See, we did it. We denazified them and now the parts we have drained of life and turned into Russian satrapies are reunited. Russia has gained territory for the first time in a long while, hence they are Great. But it also means that the fighting in the area will now be considered an attack on Russia territory, which hasn’t happened since . . . well, you know. So now it’s Great Patriotic War 2: Nuclear Boogaloo, unless of course Putin wants to let an attack on New Russia Although It Was Always Russia You Know go without a devastating response – in which case what are those nukes for, anyway? Wasn’t that always the promise? Don’t worry, Russia is stronk, no one can invade, we have nukes.
And if things really get pear-shaped, Americans, don’t forget to wear your mask when you’re in the fallout shelter:
Here’s a link to the referenced document if you want to see it for yourself.
Flashback: The Unexpected Return of Duck and Cover.
(Classical allusion in headline.)
WHAT HAPPENED IN 2021? U.S. suicide rates climb in 2021 after declining for two years.
SO, MORE ON THAT NORDSTREAM THING: Nordstream II (ELectric Instapundit).
Consider that he might be right.
OK, GROOMERS: Newsom Signs Bill To Let California Strip Gender-Confused Teens From Parents — Even When They Live In Other States.
California Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a new law Thursday night to strip rights away from parents who protest their children’s blind pursuit of destructive surgeries sold to confused minors as “gender affirmation.”
Under Senate Bill 107 introduced by San Francisco-area State Sen. Scott Wiener, California will now become a “refuge” for trans-identifying minors who seek irreversible medical treatment for gender dysphoria. The legislation was supposedly aimed at blocking red states from enforcing laws barring extreme treatments for underage victims, and instead invited those minors to seek surgeries in California.
“In California we believe in equality and acceptance. We believe that no one should be prosecuted or persecuted for getting the care they need — including gender-affirming care,” Newsom said upon signing the bill into law. “Parents know what’s best for their kids, and they should be able to make decisions around the health of their children without fear. We must take a stand for parental choice.”
Except the bill undermines parental choice by empowering the state to strip custody from those who refuse to support their children’s demand for “gender-affirming care,” a euphemism used to describe something that is neither gender-affirming nor caring. Such procedures could range from puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to surgeries leaving a child’s genitals permanently altered. The bill extends California’s reach beyond its borders, enabling minors in other states to pursue treatment on the West Coast away from parental oversight.
What could go wrong?
DEAL OF THE DAY: WD 4TB Elements Portable External Hard Drive. #CommissionEarned
ROGER SIMON: Are Tennessee (and Many Other) Public Libraries ‘Grooming’ Our Children?
Twenty-four books were put on display at the library’s front desk, the very first thing anyone would see should they enter, whether they are age 5 or 55. In other words, they were clearly the library’s featured books.
Some of the titles were “This Book Is Gay,” “Beyond the Gender Binary,” “Out!,” “Rainbow Revolutionaries,” “Were I Not a Girl,” and so forth. Others hid behind the completely overt, with titles such as “And Tango Makes Three,” although the essence was the same.
As the author of 13 books—and working on my 14th—I am quite aware of the value of library and bookstore placement. Indeed, publishers pay bookstores to have their books out front for a reason.
Unfortunately, in the case of the Maury County main branch, every one of the 24 books on prominent display was a children’s book—at a height that would easily attract a child—replete with “friendly” hearts, and containing highly sexualized content tilting strongly gay.
The sexualization of many of these children’s books was extreme. Some gave actual Kinsey-type advice on erogenous zones, evidently for young teenagers or even 12-year-olds—almost all of that boy-on-boy or girl-on-girl.
“Grooming” anyone?
Flashback: Whether We Say It or Not, Our Culture Provides Cover for Groomers.
GERARD VAN DER LEUN: Okay, Okay! Enough Ian Already! Unleash the Marias!
Already being front-loaded at near hurricane strength into the barrels of media bluster and blather will be the endless “Maria” stories aimed at denigrating and damaging Governor DeSantis. Within the next three days, the flood-sodden Maria stories will be pumped out of a hundred media outlets to be immediately replicated by ten thousand Twitterbots in an intense round of retweeting autofellatio. The aptly named headlines will all be a variation of “Papertowel DeSantis! Worse Than Trump!” Marias will come swarming out of the low-lying poor Florida neighborhoods like Bill Burr’s “epidemic of gold-digging whores.”
Once upon a time I had an intimate relationship in which I learned in pillow talk what went on in story conferences at the New York clone of NPR. In these Sancta Sanctorum meetings, one was often asked if the morning story line-up could be juiced up with a “Maria Story.”
The “Maria Story” was a handcrafted piece of journalistic lying through dramaturgy. The assigned journalist –who knew what was expected of him– visited one of his minority harems of (mostly) women who excelled at projecting a quiet dignity shining through their grave situation. These “assets” as it were had mastered the art of faking sincerity so the rest came easy; especially the standard “Maria Story” situation. This situation could be of the every suffering Maria who was turned back at the Rio Grande after attempting to swim across while pushing her paraplegic autistic daughter on a reed raft. Handmaid.
Since this was news from the days of morning NPR radio throbbing in the background of liberal kitchens across the land the only limit to the imagery was that of the “reporter’s” imagination and the sound engineer’s library of effects. And you didn’t have to look your best, as those who have met Terry Gross will attest.
Time to dust off the Katrina playbook, which the DNC-MSM can easily update to the catastrophe du jour:
● Chuck Todd: Coronavirus Can Be to Trump Like Iran Hostages Were to Carter.
Which dovetails nicely with this quote from Mickey Kaus in 2005: “In short, Katrina gives them a way to talk about Iraq without talking about Iraq. No wonder Gwen Ifill smiles the ‘inner smile.’”
Just think of the media as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, and it all makes sense.
BOUGHT AND PAID FOR: Shock report: Universities get $3 million from feds after helping government censor election integrity stories.
The National Science Foundation awarded Stanford University and University of Washington scholars $3 million in grants in August 2021 after the school’s programs helped various federal agencies remove, throttle or slap warning labels on content that raised questions about election integrity issues, Just the News reported Friday.
The programs reportedly include the Stanford Internet Observatory and the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, as well as the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab and social media analytics firm Graphika.
They effectively facilitated a way in which government agencies can evade the First Amendment’s ban on government censorship with the help of Big Tech.
The consortium of tech scholars and consultants “set up a concierge-like service” in 2020 that allowed federal agencies like Homeland’s Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency to file trouble tickets requesting online story links and social media posts be censored or flagged, Just the News reported, adding the group was successful at flagging more than 4,800 URLs.
Among items targeted were blogs and individual social media users’ content as well as news and opinion pieces from organizations such as New York Post, Fox News, Just the News and SeanHannity.com, according to the report.
“Their staff worked 12-20 hour shifts from September through mid-November 2020, with ‘monitoring intensif[ying] significantly’ the week before and after Election Day,” the outlet reported, noting much of the censorship was focused on election integrity issues of concern to conservatives.
A disgrace, but not a surprise. I hope the lawsuits will be numerous.
FASTER, PLEASE: Alzheimer’s progression slowed by drug in major trial. “Eisai and partner Biogen said their drug significantly slowed Alzheimer’s disease, making it the first medicine to blunt progression of the most common type of dementia in a definitive, large-scale trial. Lecanemab reduced the pace of cognitive decline in people with early Alzheimer’s by 27% over 18 months when compared with a placebo, meeting the main goal of the trial, the companies said in a statement. The benefits came with side effects, including brain swelling and bleeding, though severe cases were rare. The result marks a major milestone for researchers who have been trying in vain for decades to stop the inexorable decline tied to the disease.”
27% is nice, but hardly dramatic.
MATTHEW CONTINETTI: The GOP Cavalry Arrives: Republicans recover after summer stumbles.
NOT ONLY IS THE PAST STRANGER THAN WE THINK, IT IS STRANGER THAN WE CAN THINK: The Swastika in Cowtown: Before a Good Symbol Went Bad.
MY NEW YORK POST COLUMN: Why the left keeps smearing its political rivals as Hitlers or Mussolinis. “Want to be Hitler? You don’t have to hate Jews, invade Poland or grow a silly mustache. There’s only one thing you have to do: Win an election against the left, or even look like you might.”