NEVER THAT GOOD:  Being the people our pets think we are.

THAT’S NOTHING – US OFFICIALS DENY THE PRESIDENT IS A POTTED PLANT IN A HUMAN COSTUME:  Chinese zoo forced to deny bear is a human in costume.

A COORDINATED TSUNAMI OF LIES:  Coordinated storm of crap.

THIS! THIS! THIS:  Hacks and Henchmen: ‘Disinformation’ Means You’re Over the Target.

AWWW, NOW HE’S JUST TROLLING THEM:  Musk says X won’t leave San Francisco despite city facing ‘doom spiral’.

IN FAIRNESS, THEY DON’T ‘SELL’ THEMSELVES – THEIR BUSINESS MODEL IS STRICTLY RENTAL:  Residents, merchants fume as prostitutes continue to openly sell themselves in NYC’s seedy red-light district.

BIDEN WOULDN’T KNOW THE TRUTH IF IT BIT HIM IN HIS DIAPERED ASS:  Joe Biden Needs To Stop Lying To Gold Star Families That His Son Died In Iraq.

THERE SEEM TO BE SEVERAL EFFORTS AFOOT TO ELIMINATE DRUG ADDICTS:  Flesh-rotting tranq infects cocaine supply, takes aim at new, unsuspecting victims.

I’LL BELIEVE IT WHEN I SEE IT:  Rand Paul announces ‘official criminal referral,’ says email shows Fauci COVID testimony ‘absolutely a lie’.

AFTER WHAT WE’VE SEEN OF THE GOVERNMENT’S HIDDEN HAND IN SOCIAL MEDIA CENSORSHIP I’M NOT ACCEPTING THAT BANKS ARE ‘TAKING THE LEAD” RATHER THAN BEING USED AS FRONTS:  IN DEPTH: Banks Take the Lead in Establishing Personal Social Credit System, Critics Charge.

OH YOU BLOODY OPTIMIST!  YOU SWEET SUMMER CHILD!  DOJ can’t sink any lower after attempted jailing of Hunter Biden’s ex-partner Devon Archer before his testimony.

AI IS NOT NEARLY AS DANGEROUS AS A SENATOR ON A CRUSADE:  Senator Calls for Artificial Intelligence ‘Regulatory Agency,’ Citing ‘Scary’ Dangers of AI Tech.

Control government. AI tech will sort itself.

IT WAS ALIENS …  China’s AI War Games ‘Pioneer’ Reportedly Dies in Mysterious Traffic Accident.

ARE GALLIUM AND GERMANIUM USED IN ANYTHING IMPORTANT? China’s Export Controls on 2 Metals Signal Warning to West: Experts.

On the serious side, what kind of madness overtook the west to let a hostile power control essential resources?

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ANNALS OF RESEARCH FRAUD: Florida State University fires professor whose retracted work was about racism.

JOHN HINDERAKER: PROOF THAT LAW ENFORCEMENT DOES NOT DISCRIMINATE AGAINST BLACKS.

But was the narrative of racial discrimination true? Liberals supported it by comparing the percentage of blacks in the general population of states like Minnesota against the percentage who are caught up in the criminal justice system through arrest, prosecution, conviction and ultimately incarceration. The fact that blacks are over-represented in the system–indisputably true–was taken as irrefutable evidence that our criminal justice system is racist.

There is, of course, another obvious possibility–that blacks are over-represented as criminal defendants and prison inmates precisely because they are over-represented as perpetrators of serious crimes. Over the years, Heather Mac Donald has been especially prominent in pointing out this inconvenient truth.

Here in Minnesota, ground zero when it comes to anti-law enforcement propaganda, there was a breakthrough when the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension began publishing data on offenders in each criminal category by race. When we look at the percentage of blacks (or any other group) who are arrested, prosecuted, convicted, etc., the relevant comparison is not between those individuals and the percentage of that group in the general population, the vast majority of whom are law-abiding. Rather, the relevant comparison is the percentage who become involved in the criminal justice system vs. the percentage in the offender population. The BCA’s new data set allowed us to make this comparison.

Enter David Zimmer. David is a veteran of 33 years in the Hennepin County Sheriff’s office, from which he retired as a Captain. He now works for American Experiment as a Policy Fellow in Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice. David went through the painstaking work of analyzing the BCA’s offender data and comparing it with arrest, prosecution, conviction, sentencing and incarceration data, which come from various sources. What he found should put to rest forever the theory that law enforcement in states like Minnesota is biased against blacks.

The BCA offender data show that blacks commit serious crimes at a per capita rate ten times that of whites. That proportion is followed from arrests through incarceration, except that David’s analysis finds that Minnesota’s criminal justice system discriminates–in a statistical sense–against whites, as compared with blacks.

The report is here. Some might find it boring, as it consists largely of statistical analysis and charts and graphs. But if you enjoy seeing a liberal narrative dismantled brick by brick, David’s report is for you.

Follow the science.

SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF: Experts and the Power of Self-Deception.

NOW OUT FROM ANDREW WAREHAM: Adrift in the World.

It’s the sequel to Birth of the Raj.

OPEN THREAD: Be here now.

BUD LIGHT UPDATE: I almost feel bad for the poor social media intern.

Since the controversy broke Budweiser and Bud Light have been absolutely hammered in the marketplace, and unlike most similar controversies there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Tylenol recovered quickly because they moved heaven and earth to reassure their customers that the company had their best interests at heart.

Budweiser/Bud Light made the mistake of making clear to everybody that they thought their customers were too downscale to serve, and that they wanted to find a better class of customer.

It was the insult, not the Dylan Mulvaney hiring, that sealed Bud Light’s fate. The Mulvaney mistake was survivable; the insults, not so much.

Watch: Bud Light VP stresses need to get beer 'brand in decline' away from 'out of touch' frat boy image to one of 'inclusivity' https://t.co/xG6kftJNZD

— TheBlaze (@theblaze) April 10, 2023

Heinerscheid wanted “inclusivity” — and based on the size of the boycott, she certainly succeeded!

THE NEW SPACE RACE: ULA has concerns about a third competitor in national security space launch.

THANKS, JOE! Now a Disease from Biblical Times Is Likely Coming Over Our Unsecured Border.

That led researchers to suspect “that international migration of persons with leprosy is a potential source of autochthonous transmission.” They noted that “The number of international migrants in North America increased from 27.6 million persons in 1990 to 58.7 million in 2020, so a link to migration may account for the increase in incidence of leprosy in historically nonendemic areas.”

According to the World Health Organization, “As per data of 2019, Brazil, India and Indonesia reported more than 10,000 new cases, while 13 other countries (Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Nigeria, Philippines, Somalia, South Sudan, Sri Lanka and the United Republic of Tanzania) each reported 1,000–10,000 new cases.”

So, not only are migrants bringing communicable diseases like COVID-19 and tuberculosis across the Southern border, but they’re also likely bringing leprosy. It’s been added to the Department of Health and Human Service’s (HHS) list of diseases with “public health significance,” according to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP):

* * * * * * * *

HIV was removed from the list in 2009 at the behest of Barack Obama’s HHS. CBP notes that “an individual who is HIV-positive should not indicate that he or she has a communicable disease of public health significance when applying for an ESTA [Electronic System for Travel Authorization] based on his or her HIV status alone.” I’m sure that will comfort the young women and children infected with HIV and other STDs as they’re trafficked over the southern border.

Read the whole thing.

THEY TOLD ME IF TRUMP WERE PRESIDENT, OUR INSTITUTIONS WOULD BE TAKEN OVER BY PEOPLE PEDDLING RACIST GARBAGE. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! Supreme Court Justice Jackson’s second error reveals another industry gone woke. “The AAMC brief refers to four studies in support of this claim. Yet none of them examine whether Black doctors are better at treating the pain of Black patients. All four document Black patients’ problems with pain management, but crucially, not one examines the efficacy of doctors of different races. The AAMC either failed to read the research or deliberately created this claim out of whole cloth.”

RELIGION OF PEACE UPDATE: At least 45 killed in Pakistan after explosion at Islamist political rally.

THE GUYS AT THE DELTA HOUSE SMILE: Starbucks Hired Eric Holder To Conduct a ‘Civil Rights Audit.’ The Policies He Blessed Got the Coffee Maker Sued.

It was 2018, two years before the tidal wave of diversity initiatives unleashed by George Floyd’s death, and Starbucks needed a public relations win. The coffee giant was under fire after an employee at one of its stores mistakenly called the police on two black men, prompting the company to announce a “multiphase effort” to become “more diverse, equitable, and inclusive.”

Part of that effort was a series of “civil rights assessments” conducted by Covington & Burling, one of the top white shoe law firms in Washington, D.C., under the leadership of former attorney general Eric Holder, a senior counsel at the firm.

Holder—who has charged as much as $2,295 an hour for such work—issued a final report in 2021 that outlined the steps Starbucks had taken to promote “equity.” They included tying executive pay to diversity targets, setting spending goals for “diverse suppliers,” and launching a mentorship program for “BIPOC” employees, which Holder pressed the company to expand. Each initiative, he wrote, demonstrated the coffee maker’s “commitment to civil rights and equal treatment.”

But one year later, Starbucks was fending off a civil rights lawsuit over precisely the programs Holder had blessed. The lawsuit, which is still ongoing and was filed last August by the National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative nonprofit that is also a Starbucks shareholder, argued that the programs violate non-discrimination laws as well as the company’s fiduciary duties. Such claims may have come as a surprise to Starbucks executives: At no point did Holder’s report address the legality of the policies at issue.

C’mon, say it with me: