FIRST STUDY OF POST-DOBBS RESULTS ON BIRTH RATES: They’re going up. “Births increased in every state with a ban, an analysis of the data shows. By comparing birth statistics in states before and after the bans passed, researchers estimated that the laws caused around 32,000 annual births, based on the first six months of 2023, a relatively small increase that was in line with overall expectations.” Naturally, this is terrible.
Archive for 2023
November 23, 2023
CURSE THOSE HOARDERS AND WRECKERS, COMRADES! Gavin Newsom Implies Inflation Pains Are A Conservative Lie.
UNEXPECTEDLY: Hamas Is Playing Games With Hostage Release Agreement.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING FROM THE HAMAS WING OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY! Pro-Palestinian protesters glue their hands to 6th Avenue, disrupting Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Late last month, we saw Greta Thunberg, on her 14:59 minute of fame, posing with pro-Hamas protestors and a highly antisemitic octopus toy that—whoops!—just happened to appear in the photo. And here are pro-Hamas protestors taking a page from the Just Stop Oil eco-mentalists, who love to glue themselves (using petroleum-based adhesives) to streets and art exhibits.
Blair’s Law dictates, “the ongoing process by which the world’s multiple idiocies are becoming one giant, useless force,” but I’m surprised at how quickly the anti-Zionist and anti-energy crowds decided to merge into one giant, useless faction. Of course, as always: The Issue is Not the Issue.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL INSTAPUNDITEERS: A day for thanksgiving for all the blessings that have flowed into each of our lives.
SAGE ADVICE: This Thanksgiving, Pass (on) the Microwaved Steak.
HOLIDAY DEAL: AstroAI Tire Inflator Portable Air Compressor Air Pump. #CommissionEarned
THEY’RE NOT UNUSUAL: Ohio State University prioritized DEI over merit in hiring, documents show.
IF YOU DID THAT WITH MOHAMMED YOU’D BE UNEMPLOYABLE ANYWHERE: Prof at public college assigned students ‘The Baby Jesus Butt Plug’ as mandatory reading.
Compare: USC professor banished from campus after anti-Hamas comments go viral.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING! I’m thankful for all of you.
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Trump lead widens to 47%-43%.
I hope his security is good.
UPDATE: Trump poll lead expands with Biden losing black, Hispanic support. What have they got to lose?
BUT PENN IS TRYING TO FIRE AMY WAX FOR INSENSITIVITY: This Islamic Scholar Railed Against Gays. An Anti-Israel Student Group Invited Him to UPenn’s Campus. ‘Prepare to be inspired,’ UPenn’s Muslim Students Association said when announcing Yasir Fahmy as a speaker.
ROGER KIMBALL IN THE LONDON TELEGRAPH: Liberals are realizing that Trump will probably win. And they are terrified.
If this story had sound effects, the primary noise would be what the Gospel According to Matthew called “fletus et stridor dentium”: wailing and gnashing of teeth. Remember Godwin’s law? That’s the contention, named for the writer Mike Godwin, that the longer an internet conversation continues, the greater the chances are that someone will be compared to Adolf Hitler or the Nazis. The Times writers go full Godwin right at the beginning of their desperate handwringing. “During a Veterans Day speech,” they wail, “Mr. Trump used language that echoed authoritarian leaders who rose to power in Germany and Italy in the 1930s . . .”
Wham: three short paragraphs and Donald Trump is already being compared to Hitler and Mussolini. Then come the “experts” to provide cover. We’re not just wacko name callers here. We’re The New York Times. Trump warned that:
“The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within.”
Lincoln actually took a similar line when he noted in his Lyceum Address of 1838 that “If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.” But you are not allowed to mention Lincoln and Trump in the same sentence, except to trash Trump, so the Times calls on “experts” to do the dirty work. This “turn inward,” they write, “has sounded new alarms among experts on autocracy who have long worried about Mr. Trump’s praise for foreign dictators and disdain for democratic ideals. They said the former president’s increasingly intensive focus on perceived internal enemies was a hallmark of dangerous totalitarian leaders.”
Well, if “experts” say it, who are we to disagree?
Later on in the piece, Messrs Bender and Gold allow that “Some experts on authoritarianism said that while Mr Trump’s recent language has begun to more closely resemble that used by leaders like Hitler or Benito Mussolini, he does not quite mirror fascist leaders of the past.” Well, praise the Lord.
But how does Trump compare to Naomi Wolf fever swamp fantasies from September of 2008? Sarah ‘Evita’ Palin to Usher in Rovian Police State.
(That would be the same Evita whom AOC compared herself to in 2019 in a classic self-own. Exit quote: “Look just because she’s favorably comparing herself to the lady that Franco liked a lot who sheltered Mengele doesn’t mean… OK, I forgot where I was doing with this.”)
AT AMAZON, Black Holiday Sale. #CommissionEarned
ADVICE TO THE PEOPLE RUNNING MANY OF AMERICA’S INSTITUTIONS: Your Decision To Cave To Internet Weirdos And/Or Your Youngest And Most Annoying Staffers Is Unlikely To Age Well.
Last night I got drinks with a friend, let’s call him “Jon,” who is pretty well-connected in politics. He’s had a successful career working for a bunch of politicians, several of whom you have heard of. That’s why, in addition to being a very good guy, he is a fun person to get drinks with. These folks always have stories.
Jon and I both felt, circa 2016, that the whole “man, these college students sure are crazy” thing was overblown. Seven years or so later, there we were, catching up and shaking our heads at just how wrong we’d been. The craziness absolutely spread into liberal institutions and caused countless meltdowns, as documented most comprehensively by Ryan Grim in The Intercept. From 2016 or so on, Jon saw things get worse and worse in progressive politics, and I saw things get worse and worse in mainstream (that is, progressive) journalism, and the similarities. . . weren’t subtle.
My friend told me that some politicians (including, again, ones you’ve heard of) are now “extremely frustrated and sick of their mostly younger and more radical staffers feeling entitled to dictate the terms of their policy positions and then slam them on social media if they didn’t capitulate,” as he summed things up in a follow-up text message. These politicians are being less and less shy about expressing their views about these staffers in various ways. This, he thinks, is a sign of a pendulum swinging back toward relative normalcy after a period of major fervor.
But in some places, the pendulum isn’t quite there yet.
We tried to warn you, but you wouldn’t listen.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Jeff Dunetz on Thanksgiving Dinner: How To Deal With a Crazy Anti-Semitic Uncle Who Ruins The Day.
I will tell my uncle it is time to let the cat out of the bag. But first, there is one thing he must first do. Help us convince nut-jobs like him ]much of the world’s” antisemitism is part of the plot to perpetuate the myth that we do not run the world. My uncle never believes that Jews are being honest, so as a person who wants to ruin Thanksgiving by bashing Jews and agreeing with everything the anti-Semitic marchers say. We agree with him, so he can’t argue.
Here’s one that will really shock my uncle: Barack Obama is actually Jewish. He converted 20 years ago because it was the only way to let him run for president). I will inform him I attended his bris. My wife even made a cheesecake.
But there is a downside. What if he doesn’t believe me? What if he doesn’t believe my stories. What if my uncle believes we have little control over world events? What if he thinks that the Jews are ancient people who survived only through their love of God and his Torah? What if he were to look at us not as world dominators but as teachers of how to love God and each other? After all, Christianity and Islam grew out of the Jewish faith.
What am I saying? Teaching people to love God and each other? That is what the chosen people mean, but no one would ever believe that!
Heh, indeed. Happy Thanksgiving!
TRUTHSGIVING: This Thanksgiving, Let’s Put Some ‘Truthsgiving’ on ‘Decolonization.’
Conquest without morality was the rule of all peoples and nations until a couple of hundred years ago. Only in the very recent past has morality become a major consideration in warfare.
And the people most responsible for adding moral considerations to the law of conquest were… Europeans.
People pushing the Victim Narrative pretend that their ancestors were morally superior to their conquerors. In fact, they were not. Their ancestors conquered everyone they could conquer. The Commanche Empire conquered other Indian tribes, which is why Indian tribes allied with American government to fight the Commanches.
Slavery and genocide were pretty much universal until recently. To the extent that they’re not anymore, it’s because of the efforts of Europeans.
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Black Friday: US retailers prospects look gloomy in a forgettable year: Consumers remain choosy and discounts are expected to hit record highs.
Investors in America’s retail sector would probably prefer to forget 2023. The S&P Retail Select Industry Index has climbed about 5 per cent, less than a third of the S&P 500’s gain. The industry trades on just 12 times forward earnings, well below the five-year average of 17 times.
Black Friday — the day after Thanksgiving — traditionally is America’s biggest shopping day of the year. But this time it will not provide much of a boost.
People are skint.
November 22, 2023
OPEN THREAD: Happy Turkey Eve.
THE NEW SPACE RACE (CONT’D): NASA acknowledges possibility of short-term post-ISS gap.