Archive for 2022
November 5, 2022
OPEN THREAD: Party like it’s Saturday night. Oh, right.
THE BUREAUCRATS ARE GETTING MORE INTERESTED: FCC proposes new bureau for space activities.
FINALLY! We May Finally Know How Many Nerve Endings Are in The Human Clitoris. “The clitoris is often said to house 8,000 nerve endings – ‘double’ that of the penis – but new findings, presented at a scientific meeting in October, suggest that’s a serious underestimation of both sex organs. . . . The numbers most often cited for the innervation of the glans penis and glans clitoris derive from old studies on – wait for it – cows; the results were simply co-opted for human anatomy. And so those numbers have persisted for decades.”
So much settled “medical science” consists of a decades-old estimate that just gets repeated despite not having much of a foundation.
ONLY TRAINED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS SHOULD BE ENTRUSTED WITH FIREARMS: Sansom Park officer shot during active shooter training at elementary school, police say. “The session was put on by a third party training provider at David K Sellars Elementary in Forest Hill, Spencer said. Several other agencies, including the Sansom Park Police Department, also participated in the training. Spencer said the third party provider supplied the equipment used and that there was no plan for there to be any live fire training.”
Since they don’t name the “third party training provider,” I’m going to assume it was Alec Baldwin.
InstaPundit readers, of course, are already prepared.
THE RETURN OF “FAKE BUT ACCURATE:” The NYT’s weird DeSantis hit piece.
There’s a video, the New York Times helpfully informs us. Except that it’s not a video of DeSantis, but — I kid you not — it’s a fake video by an unhappy student that was meant to satirize DeSantis:
Another student who requested anonymity because he feared repercussions for his job said Mr. DeSantis’s takes on the Civil War were the subject of so much talk that students made a satirical video about him at the time for the video yearbook.
The video, which was reviewed by The Times, includes a short snippet in which a voice purporting to be Mr. DeSantis is heard saying: “The Civil War was not about slavery! It was about two competing economic systems. One was in the North. …” while a student dozes in class. (A student voiced the role of Mr. DeSantis, because students did not have any actual footage of him, according to a student who helped put it together.)
I’m not sure which is more damning — the fact that the NYT reporter thought that this faked video was worth “reviewing,” or that the editor of the news section decided to keep it in the article. It’s not a recording of DeSantis. We have no idea whether it’s even an accurate recollection of what DeSantis argued, and neither does the Times. It’s a literal example of “fake but accurate.” It would be as if 60 Minutes II had admitted up front that they faked the Killian memos but presented them anyway as evidence of what George W. Bush was really like decades earlier. (As veterans of Rathergate will remember, that ended up being Dan Rather’s fallback position.)
As America’s Newspaper of Record reports: Following Through On Commitment To Address Twitter Disinformation, Elon Suspends New York Times.
(C’mon, do it, Elon!)
ON MONDAY, THE SUPREME COURT WILL HEAR ARGUMENT IN THE NCLA’S CASE, Michelle Cochran v. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. A reminder that I’m on the advisory board of NCLA.
ALCOHOL-RELATED DEATHS SURGED AMONG MIDDLE-AGED AMERICAN WOMEN DURING PANDEMIC, STUDY FINDS: “There’s been a lot of talk of amnesty lately for those who got it wrong throughout the pandemic, and we just got yet another reason to say, resoundingly, absolutely not. According to the CDC, alcohol-related deaths soared in the US between 2019 and 2020. In fact the number of these deaths increased by 26%. Historically, that percentage-change year over year has never been greater than 7%.”
BE PREPARED FOR THE HOLIDAYS: Narcissus Electric Knife Sharpener. #CommissionEarned
MARK JUDGE: Surrender: Or Why I Will Always Love Bono.
So yes, I will always love Bono, and love U2. As an addendum, it’s worth noting that Bono may have politically seen the light himself. In a recent interview he praised capitalism. “I ended up as an activist in a very different place from where I started,” he said. “I thought that if we just redistributed resources, then we could solve every problem. I now know that’s not true. There’s a funny moment when you realize that as an activist: The off-ramp out of extreme poverty is, ugh, commerce, it’s entrepreneurial capitalism.”
Then this: “I didn’t grow up to like the idea that we’ve made heroes out of businesspeople, but if you’re bringing jobs to a community and treating people well, then you are a hero.”
You might say that our two hearts now beat as one.
Read the whole thing.
UPDATE: In 2006, U2 Abandoned Ireland in the Name of Taxes.
It is not too often that a business moves out of Ireland for tax reasons, but tax policy can move in mysterious ways as seen by U2 leader Bono’s decision that his band can leave behind Ireland. The Irish native has decided to move his business out of the Republic as a result of its changing tax treatment of royalty income, which is typically large for those in the entertainment business. Seeking a lower tax jurisdiction, Bono has found what he is looking for courtesy of the Netherlands[.]
As Conquest’s First Law of Politics states, “Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.”
(Updated and bumped.)
JOE MANCHIN DISCOVERS JOE BIDEN IS A DEMOCRAT, PROCEEDS TO WHINE INCESSANTLY:
On Friday, with the mid-term election just days away, Joe Biden decided it’d be a great idea to rant about closing down coal plants. As RedState reported, the president proclaimed that “we’re going to be shutting down these plants all across America” in favor of inefficient, unsustainable wind and solar projects.
Naturally, his statement drew a lot of perplexed looks. Why would Biden, even if he believes it, be so stupid as to shout from the rooftops about crushing jobs right before voters in key battleground states head to the polls?
Sen. Joe Manchin, whose state relies heavily on the coal industry, was none too pleased. He ripped Biden in a statement Saturday morning, calling the president’s comments “outrageous and divorced from reality.”
As I read Manchin’s statement, I can’t find anything wrong in it. The senator is correct that Biden’s positions change “depending on the audience and the politics of the day.” He’s also right that the White House’s anti-energy policies will only bring about more “pain” for Americans.
But sometimes you can be right and still be worthy of mockery, and this is one of those times. Joe Manchin is not new to Washington, DC. He’s personally known and served with Joe Biden for decades. Given that, absolutely nothing Biden said in his remarks should come as a shock. In fact, the president has advertised his desire to shut down coal plants for years.
Flashback to 2019: Joe Biden to Coal Miners: Learn to Code!
Indeed it was. In March of 2016, Harold Stassen, Hillary Clinton bragged if elected, ‘We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.’
Then there was Joe’s old boss telling the San Francisco Chronicle in 2008: “Under my plan, energy costs will necessarily skyrocket…”
Is Manchin sure he’s in the right party?
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Celestial second fiddle no more, China completes its space station.
NO CONVERSION NEEDED: Ford Will Now Sell You a VanLife-Ready Transit Straight From the Factory.
However, last time I perused the VanLife stuf on InstaGram it seemed like you needed to be a 20-something chick in yoga clothes, gazing pensively across a western desert scene with a cup of coffee and a laptop, to properly engage in VanLife.
THE EARLY WORM, HOWEVER, SHOULD HAVE STAYED IN BED: The early bird may just get the worm.
CAN’T A REPTILE GET SOME PRIVACY ANYWHERE? Woman finds two pythons mating behind her microwave.
I HAD A FORTRESS ONCE IN PARADISE: Gerard Van Der Leun’s encomium to his brother Tom, who died in November of 2020:
We hauled the box of dynamite back up the lava flow to the foot of “X.” By the time we got there we were both into a shared dream of killing waves of Heil screaming Nazis in World War 2 as we had seen in a hundred movies. I reached into the box and took out a half stick of sodden TNT and heaved it a good thirty feet at the ghost Nazis until it went splat on a boulder.
Tom said, “Isn’t that a little scary?”
“It’s fine,” I said and added (betraying my limited child’s understanding of the nature and potential of Trinitrotoluene), “It’s all wet. It can’t explode.”
Since I was the eldest Tom just nodded his head and threw his half-stick of dynamite even further than mine until it went splat on the stones.
And so we passed a fine afternoon defending “X” from the Wehrmacht zombies until the evening fell and we went home to supper. We’d been dressed in those Levi jeans you bought two sizes too large and washed separately and Western-style Levi denim jackets. We tossed these war-stained togs into the hamper and dressed for dinner. I don’t remember what I thought but I’m sure I was excited that the brothers now had two secrets that the parents would never know; “X” and TNT.
The next day was a school day and, after breakfast, we walked down the short dirt road to the bus stop on the paved road that, over hills and through forests and orchards, would deposit us at Paradise Elementary School and Mr. Roberts’ classroom.
It must have been a bit before noon when there was a knock on the classroom door. It opened and my father walked into the room accompanied by the Paradise Sheriff sporting hat, badge, gun, and the whole tool kit. My father gestured to me and I was whisked off to the Principle’s office where we were soon joined by my brother Tom, my mother, and a deputy sheriff sporting hat, badge, gun, and the whole tool kit.
I wish I had some memory of what my 9-year-old self thought at that moment but I do not. I ascribe this to the fact that under those circumstances, my child’s mind would be nothing but a vast tsunami of unremitting white noise radiating through an ocean of fear.
It would seem that, upon leaving “X” the evening before, my brother Tom had neglected to empty his pockets of one of his half-stick TNT “grenades” that had been polishing off the Nazi zombies all afternoon. No, it would seem that one-half stick was still in the pocket of his jean jacket the next morning when my mother turned them out for the laundry.
Read the whole thing.
NOW SOMEONE SHOULD BAN THE ORWELLIAN TERM, “GENDER-AFFIRMING CARE.” Florida medical boards vote to prohibit gender-affirming care for minors.
GREAT MOMENTS IN PROJECTION: Biden slams Republicans ‘rooting for a recession’ after last jobs report before election.
The White House has downplayed concern of a recession on the horizon despite high inflation, slowing labor force participation, and wage growth year-over-year.
On Friday, Biden said that the “comments by Republican leadership sure seem to indicate they are rooting for a recession.”
“As long as I’m president, I’m not going to accept an argument that the problem is that too many Americans are finding good jobs,” Biden said. The president has attempted to draw a contrast with Republicans as polls indicate that key groups of voters are unhappy with the White House’s handling of the economy.
Yet Biden acknowledged rising prices Friday as the country’s “top economic challenge,” vowing “to do what it takes” to bring these down.
“I know that American families are feeling squeezed,” he said.
So Team Brandon will stop endlessly printing money to reduce inflation? As Milton Friedman has said, “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.”
We technically are in a recession, but Biden and many in the DNC-MSM have been holding off on actually calling it that so that they can wait until there’s a GOP majority to blame. But Biden’s crankery is the mirror image version of what Virginia Postrel dubbed in December of 2008, “Depression Lust, and Depression Porn,” when Obama-worshipping Democratic Party operatives with bylines wanted American to get it good and hard, so that Obama could enter into office as the next FDR conquering the Depression. (I know, I know. But that was their mindset.)
The pandemic lockdowns served a similar function for the American left in 2020, but dialed up to 11. Or as Kurt Schlichter wrote in April of 2020: The Democrats Totally Want A Depression.
Democrats are never ones to let a good crisis go to waste, and this Wuhan Flu is a very good crisis indeed if your goal is leftist hegemony. The Trump economy was booming after the near-decade of the Obama doldrums, and people were getting a taste of prosperity. But a happy, prosperous America is something the Democrat dudes can’t abide. All the Democrats had to sell were recycled cries of “RACISM!” and “RUSSIA!” and their standard-bearer was that sinewy weirdo Grandpa Badfinger, who was promising to drag us all back into the nightmare of globalist failure. The future looked grim, which means it actually looked bright for the rest of us.
So, the Chinese coronavirus was a dream come true, a deus ex pangolin that finally, after an endless series of leaks, impeachments, investigations, and media meltdowns, might be the magic bullet that actually takes Trump down.
Am I saying that the Democrats are exploiting the pandemic for their own cheesy advantage? Well, yeah. Everything they are doing is consistent with that. Everything. No, in the abstract, many of them would probably not prefer that tens of thousands of Americans die (I get enough Twitter death wishes to know, from their own filthy mouths, that some absolutely do want us to die), but their attitude seems to be that if life gives you tens of thousands of dead Americans, make political lemonade.
And right on cue from Time magazine in October of 2020: How Joe Biden Is Positioning Himself as a Modern FDR.
Well yes, in one sense: Why Team Biden might be purposefully grinding down the middle class.
HMM: Antibiotics may prevent stomach bleeding from long-term aspirin use. I don’t usually think of antibiotics as stomach-friendly.
THE LAB LEAK DECEPTION: New video from Reason TV.
THAT’S WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT:
