CAN SATIRE BE TOO BELIEVABLE TO BE FUNNY?
New York Times Warns That Involved, Loving Cartoon Dads Could Lead To Involved, Loving Real Dads https://t.co/9vjxdtLznO pic.twitter.com/WMRdncpiVx
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) December 21, 2023
Archive for 2023
December 22, 2023
OVERSIGHT PROJECT SUES DOD ON ‘SOUND OF FREEDOM:’ The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project is suing the Biden administration and the Department of Defense (DOD) in federal court for all documentation on the abrupt decision by SOUTHCOM to cancel a screening of the moviementary “The Sound of Freedom.”
The litigation was prompted by DOD’s refusal to supply the documentation that was first sought by the Heritage group via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Speaking of the FOIA, somebody should do the research on the huge importance of that 1966 law that was mostly ignored by the Right for decades after its passage.
I USED TO DISMISS CONSPIRACY THEORIES LIKE THESE OUT OF HAND, BUT…: Are Dems and Republicans Working Together to Clear the Presidential Slate for the Young Turks?
READER FAVORITE: DMoose Forearm Exerciser – Hand, Wrist, and Forearm Strengthener. #CommissionEarned
GEORGE MF WASHINGTON: When Hollywood Did It Right: THE FIRM turns 30.
Unlike so much modern “content”, what we used to call “movies” before we decided to deconstruct an entire creative industry and turn it into just another tech business controlled by the almighty algorithm, THE FIRM does not have a “message”… at least, not in the current Year Zero political sense of the word. The movie’s only “message” is an entirely uncontroversial one… that corruption and murder are bad and we should avoid them both.
In that sense, THE FIRM is an “old fashioned” movie, one composed of black hats and white hats, good guys and bad guys, and the innocents caught between them. It has not had its story twisted and pretzled into some kind of allegory meant to evoke the Emmanuel Goldstein villains of our current moment… Donald Trump, perhaps, or the Murdoch family. To create movies that are morality plays meant to overtly deconstruct our own political current events is an unfortunate modern habit which, I believe, fatally anchors a movie in the time in which it was made and mortally wounds its chances of ever becoming a timeless classic.
THE FIRM exists in defiance of this unfortunate modern cliche. It is not about the specific problems or the politics of the early 1990’s, but about human nature and the eternal battle between good and evil. It was made, not to teach us a lesson, but to entertain us… to tell us a story… to thrill us… to surprise us… to make us laugh in a darkened theater on a Friday night, and to send us home smiling.
This is how it used to be, both in Hollywood and in movie theaters across the fruited plain… it is, perhaps, the way things ought to be.
And here are related thoughts from The Critical Drinker on the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
THE ENEMY WITHIN: Top business schools push CRT and other progressive ideas, report finds.
DEMS: Don’t Let Grampa Joe Near the Senate Negotiations. “This is where things get completely Byzantine. Democrat sabotage against Biden is also coming from inside the house — the White House, that is.”
FRUITS OF THE WORLD’S MOST EXPENSIVE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM: POLL: 50% of young Americans think the Holocaust may be a ‘myth.’
Putting the enemies of civilization in charge of educating our kids may have been a mistake.
You think I exaggerate?
"The goal is to dismantle the settler project that is the United States.”
University of Minnesota professor Melanie Yazzie spells out the Left's global war against the West. pic.twitter.com/vsrjtXTU62
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) December 21, 2023
CHANGE: Angola Leaves OPEC in Blow to Oil Producer Group. “Angola’s Oil Minister Diamantino Azevedo said the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries no longer served the country’s interests. It joins other mid-sized producers Ecuador and Qatar that have left OPEC in the last decade.”
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Signs From the Far Left That the Colorado Supremes Stepped in It. “There were a couple of interesting developments in the skeptic camp yesterday, and they didn’t come from where one might expect.”
REMINDER THAT OUR RULING CLASS SEES CHINA AS A ROLE MODEL: Jimmy Lai ‘Sedition’ charge upheld after three days of “deliberation.”
LOL:
This nimrod. https://t.co/lSyMInpMoF
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) December 21, 2023
BLUE STATE BLUES: California faces a record $68 billion deficit — here’s what is eating away at the Golden State’s coffers.
California has also lost residents and businesses — and therefore, tax revenue — in recent years.
The Golden State’s population declined for the first time in 2021, as it lost around 281,000 residents, according to the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC). In 2022, the population dropped again by around 211,000 residents — with many moving to other states like Texas, Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona.
“Housing costs loom large in this dynamic,” according to the PPIC, which found through a survey that 34% of Californians are considering moving out of the state due to housing costs.
Other factors such as the post-pandemic remote work trend — which has resulted in empty office towers in California’s downtown cores — have also played a role in migration out of the state.
There’s also this: “Total income tax collections were down 25% in 2022-23, according to the LAO — a decline compared to those seen during the Great Recession and dot-com bust.”
Losing 200,000 or so residents wouldn’t hit income tax revenues that hard — so either a lot of Sacramento’s taxpaying whales left the state, the state’s economy is in much worse shape than it appears, or some combination of the two.
Whatever the case, Californians will continue to get it good and hard.
BIDEN IS A POTEMKIN PUPPET: Hard not to reach such a conclusion from reading The Hill this morning. The headline says “Biden Kept At Distance from McConnell in Border Talks.” But the lede of the story puts it differently, suggesting that Biden himself avoided the talks: “President Biden has kept a distance …”
Deep into the story, an unnamed Democratic senator gives away the game – they don’t know what Biden might agree to, it might even mean moving back to Trump’s border policies, which would send the Left Crazies into, well, even more Crazy:
“And some Democratic senators are worried that if Biden got into a room with McConnell or other Senate GOP negotiators, he might end up cutting a deal on border and asylum policy that will enrage their party’s base.
“’A totally legitimate concern is if you’re not reasonably close [to a deal], there’s no reason to put him in a room … He could be dragged anywhere,’ said one Democratic senator who requested anonymity to talk about the leeriness fellow Democrats feel about making Biden the point person in the talks.”
Imagine that, a chief executive who could be dragged anywhere! Sounds like maybe somebody is tiring of maintaining the Potemkin Village Presidency they created using Biden.
HOW TO CONVINCE YOUR RELATIVE WHO BELIEVES CANCEL CULTURE IS A HOAX: “Our book helps explain how it got so bad and what can be done about it, and will provide you with all the data and examples you need to prove that cancel culture is not just real, but happening at a historic scale. And for those who still refuse to believe that cancel culture is anything but a hoax, here’s a humble suggestion, ‘Canceling of the American Mind” will look just great under their Christmas tree.'”
SOME PARTS OF AMERICA STILL WORK:
Eight years ago today, SpaceX successfully landed an orbital class rocket for the first time. Since that time, SpaceX has landed Falcon rockets more than 250 times and counting pic.twitter.com/r8pAfMQxiU
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 21, 2023
Related: Don Surber: Musk is Winning. “The deep state’s problem with him is that he is right and he has the power to change minds.”
I CERTAINLY HOPE NOT: Economist: 2024 Will See ‘Biggest Single Crash’ of Our Lifetime.
CHRISTMAS IS A PAGAN HOLIDAY? REALLY? A good case can be made that Jesus was actually born in October, but, as the latest “What Would You Say” video from the Colson Center on Hillfaith makes clear, the precise date isn’t the point of the celebration.
STALINGRAD WOULD LIKE A WORD: Israel’s military campaign in Gaza seen as among the most destructive in history, experts say.
I’m all in favor of the IDF making the rubble bounce and then bounce some more but I’m not in favor of scare stories that quote Hamas casualty figures.
AT AMAZON, Shop Holiday Deals. #CommissionEarned