SCHOOLS SHOULD THINK TWICE BEFORE PUNISHING FACULTY FOR THEIR SPEECH. Though it’s increasingly important that they stop being able to stick taxpayers with the bill for their expensive virtue-signaling (at Auburn, to the tune of $645,837).
Archive for 2023
January 27, 2023
READER FAVORITE: Coofandy Men’s Hawaiian Floral Shirts. #CommissionEarned
KEEP ON TRUCKIN’: Go Inside the New Tesla Semi: Features, Screens, Seats, and More.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Blue Origin plans to fly an all-FEMALE crew into space next year – led by Jeff Bezos’ girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez.
It’s a cute stunt, but when is Blue Origin going to get serious about launching payloads into orbit for money?
FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: Get the Real Poop on His Late-Night Deposit at Joe’s Crab Shack. “This week we have the pooping perp, the sheriffs deputies who made Disney World a little too magical, and one of the worst places to hide your crack pipe. Plus, Florida Man has nothin’ on Washington Man.”
Don’t forget that VODKAPUNDIT promo code if you’ve been thinking of joining us.
HMM: Antibiotic resistance induced by the widespread use of. . . antidepressants? “Specific antidepressants—SSRIs and SNRIs—promote resistance to different classes of antibiotics. This resistance is heritable over 33 bacterial generations, even once the antidepressant is removed. Antidepressants are among the most prescribed and ingested drugs there are.”
DEVELOPMENTS IN PLANETARY DEFENSE: Planetary Defense: Asteroid Findings From Specks of Space Dust Could Save Earth.
AFTER MONTHS OF DELAY: Paul Pelosi Video Released. But the NBC reporting looks bad: “Here’s the NBC report that started a lot of this speculation. The claim that Pelosi ‘walked several feet back into the foyer toward the assailant and away from police’ was dead wrong. It just didn’t happen.” Video at the link.
GIVING: Colorado’s most famous nature photographer donates life work to public domain.
For the past eight months at his home in the Summit County hills, John Fielder spent most every morning and afternoon sifting through photographs tucked away for decades.
They were transparencies from his years of hauling heavy film equipment deep into Colorado’s backcountry. The transparencies needed paring down — duplicates in which the exposure and/or contrast wasn’t quite right. Fielder estimated copies to number around 150,000, with another 50,000 or so from his digital days after 2008.
The countless hours spent sifting, editing and scanning were “enough to whack me,” said Fielder, 72.
It was all for the sake of others.
The state’s most famous nature photographer has arranged the gift of a lifetime: his lifetime of work.
Have two of Fielder’s coffee table books and they’re stunning. This is a helluva gift.
MY TAKE ON THE PELOSI VIDEO: As some of you know, I was a photojournalist in Miami’s “Cocaine Cowboy” days, and later a war correspondent. So I’ve seen my share of weirdness. Here’s the relevant clip of the Pelosi tape:
It’s weird, but doesn’t explain much:
1) It looks like the two men are not struggling but jointly holding the hammer.
2) Why is Paul in his underwear?
3) When the cops ask Pelosi what’s going on, he replies with an awfully spaced-out “hi” and a really dopey grin common to someone high a.f.
Thankfully, you can’t see it, (I mean, “c’mon man”) but judging from the swing of the hammer, if it landed on Pelosi’s head…well, *that*’s gonna leave a mark. This video certainly doesn’t prove anything one way or another IMHO, but I have to say in my considerable experience it doesn’t rule out a dope-fueled homosexual assignation that went terribly wrong…
One last question to our LEO pals out there: A hammer is unquestionably a deadly weapon. Not that I’m in favor of trigger happy cops, but I have to say if this happened in Dade County, Fla., the cops would have drawn down on the guy and lit him up. Am I wrong?
TANKS, ANYWAY: Western Tanks for Ukraine Might Be Too Little, Too Late. “When we send so few tanks and on such a long timeline, Moscow is given the opportunity to adjust and adapt. Worse, the longer this war goes on, the more negative consequences develop.”
#JOURNALISM:
1.THREAD: Twitter Files #15
MOVE OVER, JAYSON BLAIR: TWITTER FILES EXPOSE NEXT GREAT MEDIA FRAUD pic.twitter.com/bLRpDpuWql— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023
UNEXPECTED ACCOUNTABILITY: Frank Yiannas, FDA official involved in response to baby food shortage, resigns.
FALLOUT: ‘In trying to make Ukraine a colony, Russia made itself very dependent on China.’
I’m sure China didn’t expect the war to go on like this. It didn’t expect the Ukrainians to fight back so hard. Nor did most Western observers. You know, when Mao opened up to Nixon in the 1970s, he did that because he was afraid that China would become too vulnerable to Russia.
Clearly, things have moved in the other direction. Russia may become so dependent on China that China would hold a lot of power over Russia. They’re going to depend on China for technology, for buying their oil, for many kinds of goods. Russia has become very, very dependent on China.
There’s a bit of an irony, frankly, that Putin claimed to be so concerned about NATO that he’s made himself almost entirely dependent on China.
Making itself a vassal of Communist China is not a good look for a country that purports to defend Christendom.
JIM TREACHER: Hunter Biden: “Stop at Top Flop Bop.” “The meaning of ‘Stop at top flop bop’ is simple, of course: Hunter was flying a zillion miles an hour on rock cocaine, and those were the words that came out when he tried to respond to his cousin’s heartfelt lament. It made perfect sense to him at the time, and it’s not as if that evening’s Russian hooker was proofreading his texts between naked selfies…The Bidens are serious scumbags, even for a political family. They’re everything the libs tell us the Trumps are, and worse. And I’ll say it again: As a libertarian, I respect Hunter’s right to party. As a small-government conservative, I demand to know how the hell he paid for it all.”
YES. NEXT QUESTION? Has Everything Become Racist?
I wanted to try to get an understanding of the breadth of this trend. Google didn’t have a list of recent items or events being labeled racist, nor did any of the other search engines.
So there was only one source left—mine, The Lid.
The 25 post titles below link to most of the “newly racist” items posted on Lidblog since January 2022. Why January 2022? Damned, If I know—it felt right. There were more than 25 on the site. It was limited to 25 to ensure the post would not be too long. Each of the titles links to the original post. Therefore, if you want an additional explanation, feel free; Some titles are followed by snark in black and white).
ONE IMPORTANT NOTE: As you read through these titles, you may wonder, are these people, idiots? Based on their racism labels, they must be?
When all you’ve got is a hammer, everything looks racist.
LIGHTNING DEAL: Computer Reading Glasses Blue Light Blocking Readers. #CommissionEarned
IN THE FUTURE, EVERYONE WILL BE HITLER FOR 15 MINUTES — AND THE FUTURE IS NOW: Ron DeSantis’ press secretary shares insane email from CNN reporter soliciting comment for hit piece.
Flashback: As far as the left is concerned, with the exception of Ike, every Republican president or presidential candidate has been Hitler since Calvin Coolidge.
“PLAGUED WITH ERRORS?” HOW COULD THEY TELL THEM FROM THE REGULAR STORIES THEY DO? Plagued with errors: A news outlet’s decision to write stories with AI backfires.
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Another Wave of Joe Biden J-O-B-S Losses.
CRISIS BY DESIGN: Texas Sues Biden Administration Over Border. “Texas isn’t alone in this fight. The lawsuit filing itself shows that Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming have all signed onto the lawsuit.”
AS IF YOU DIDN’T KNOW, NOW OUT: In Defense of the Second Amendment. #CommissionEarned
THE NEW SPACE RACE: DARPA and NASA plan orbital nuclear rocket test. “By using a nuclear thermal engine to heat a propellant to extremely high temperatures to generate thrust, a rocket could have over three times the efficiency of a conventional chemical-fueled one, which would reduce transit times and increase payload potential. For a crewed Mars mission, this would mean less radiation exposure, fewer detrimental effects from weightlessness, and less of a need for supplies or overly robust flight systems.”
Seventy years late is still better than never.