Archive for 2023

October 29, 2023

WHO DIDN’T KNOW THIS WAS COMING? The Hill reports Democrats have wasted no time in making new Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) their “boogeyman” for the 2024 campaign.

Posted at 10:14 am by Mark Tapscott on Oct 29th, 2023

CLAUDINE GAY: As Harvard president, I am committed to tackling the pernicious antisemitism on our campus.

The past few weeks have been full of darkness. First came the horrific terrorist attacks of Oct. 7, in which over 1,400 Jewish people were murdered by Hamas, and more than 200 others were taken hostage. Then came the escalating humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Here in the U.S., we are witnessing a surge in anti-Jewish incidents and rhetoric across the nation — and on our own campus. The ancient specter of antisemitism, that persistent and corrosive hatred, has returned with renewed force.

A recent ADL report found that incidents of antisemitism had almost tripled over the past six years nationally. Here at Harvard, I’ve heard story after story of Jewish students feeling increasingly uneasy or even threatened on campus.

As we grapple with this resurgence of bigotry, I want to make one thing absolutely clear: Antisemitism has no place at Harvard.

For years, this university has done too little to confront its continuing presence. No longer.

I am committed to tackling this pernicious hatred with the urgency it demands.

Harvard’s mission, and legacy, is the pursuit and dissemination of truth. And the core of antisemitism is a lie This lie has taken many forms, including Holocaust denial, blood libels, conspiracy theories and the denial of the Jewish peoples’ historical ties to the land of Israel.

Harvard is a place for inquiry and vigorous debate about our world’s greatest challenges. A place to reveal truth, not to deny facts.

That would be a delightful change.

Posted at 9:46 am by Glenn Reynolds on Oct 29th, 2023

MAYBE HIGHER EDUCATION HAS ALWAYS BEEN TOXIC:

Posted at 8:30 am by Glenn Reynolds on Oct 29th, 2023

AMAZON’S ALEXA: The 2020 Election Was Stolen.

Amid concerns the rise of artificial intelligence will supercharge the spread of misinformation comes a wild fabrication from a more prosaic source: Amazon’s Alexa, which declared that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

Asked about fraud in the race — in which Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump with 306 electoral college votes — the popular voice assistant said it was “stolen by a massive amount of election fraud,” citing Rumble, a video-streaming service favored by conservatives.

The 2020 races were “notorious for many incidents of irregularities and indications pointing to electoral fraud taking place in major metro centers,” according to Alexa, referencing Substack, a subscription newsletter service. Alexa contended that Trump won Pennsylvania, citing “an Alexa answers contributor.”

Multiple investigations into the 2020 election have revealed no evidence of fraud, and Trump faces federal criminal charges connected to his efforts to overturn the election. Yet Alexa disseminates misinformation about the race, even as parent company Amazon promotes the tool as a reliable election news source to more than 70 million estimated users.

* * * * * * * *

After The Washington Post contacted Amazon for comment, Alexa’s responses changed.

FLASHBACK: The ‘cabal’ that bragged of foisting Joe Biden on us must answer for his failed presidency.

Posted at 8:14 am by Ed Driscoll on Oct 29th, 2023

BIDEN MUST ABANDON OBAMA’S FAILED POLICIES:

When a long-silent former president finally speaks out, the public listens. So do foreign leaders, especially when the former president is closely tied to the current one. That’s why Barack Obama’s comments on the war in Gaza attracted attention.

Anyone who remembers President Obama’s foreign policy knew what to expect: criticism of Israel and a delicate dance around Iran’s malign behavior. In fact, he did not mention Iran at all. He totally ignored their role. His audience expected him to add a few words of moral self-righteousness, warning Israel about future civilian casualties, as if Israeli Defense Forces hadn’t taken enormous and costly steps to avoid them. He should have praised the IDF and contrasted their behavior with that of Hamas, which deliberately hides behind civilians and then lies about innocent deaths. He didn’t. Obama’s speech recapitulates his administration’s policies. Unfortunately, those policies didn’t work.

The former president’s comments are important because his aides populate the Biden administration and have continued his policies in the Middle East. The failure of those policies hasn’t prompted any self-reflection or significant policy changes. It’s time they do.

It’s possible, of course, that Biden will eventually reconsider as the full horror of Hamas’s attack and Iran’s backing for it sinks in. So far, however, there’s been no change. To quote an old English comedy routine, “We have learned from our mistakes and can repeat them exactly.”

I doubt Biden in his current state will reconsider anything, particularly when his old boss is pulling the strings, “serving as a third-term president in all but name.”

Posted at 7:45 am by Ed Driscoll on Oct 29th, 2023

QUESTION ASKED: Did the Entire Media Industry Misquote a Hamas Spokesperson?

I clicked the “Translate post” tab, which uses Google Translate, to see what text was in the tweet. This is what it showed:

This is the moment where your eyebrows should arch. Notice that the text refers to more than 500 victims. A victim can mean a death, but it, of course, can also mean someone injured in any capacity. Had the spokesperson not said that more than 500 were killed, but merely said more than 500 were victims?

Obviously, either of these outcomes are horrific. And, as noted earlier, any number cited so early after the incident was suspect. But if a news outlet is going to report a statement by Hamas, the specifics matter a lot when a claim made about deaths, initially attributed to Israel’s actions, was shared with and influenced the reactions of tens or perhaps hundreds-of-millions of people around the world.

The word “victim” was curious, but it was also text in a tweet, not the actual interview. And it was a translation from Google. How reliable was that? I was skeptical about the tweet text’s veracity.

I didn’t want to fall prey to the same secondhand sourcing error I suspected everyone else had done. So I hired two different Arabic translators to listen to the interview, then translate it and transcribe it into English.

One of the translators seconded the use of the word “victim,” and he made it clear to me that in this context it was different from “killed.” The other translator, in referencing Al-Qidra’s comments, translated the word as “casualties.” I pressed the translator: sometimes words in one language do not have a direct translation into a different language. Was it possible that the word Al-Qidra used could be translated as “deaths”? No, she said.

Bolstering confidence in the translations is that right before the sentence in question, Al-Qidra had referred to dead bodies and casualties or victims being brought to the hospital by paramedics. He differentiated between the two. The correct translation had to be that he said more than 500 were “victims” or “casualties”—not killed.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 7:14 am by Ed Driscoll on Oct 29th, 2023

October 28, 2023

OPEN THREAD: Enjoy!

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds on Oct 28th, 2023

WATCH: Turkish Pro-Hamas Protesters Get a Brutal Lesson in Not Playing With Fireworks.

“Looks like that guy’s new nickname is going to be ‘Stubby’ because I’m pretty sure he just lost every single one of his fingers. If I believed in Karma, I’d say that was a pretty clear case of it.”

Posted at 5:50 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 28th, 2023

SOUTH PARK GOES THERE:

As Conquest’s Third Law of Politics states, “The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.”

Posted at 5:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 28th, 2023
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