THE NEW SPACE RACE: DARPA picks 14 companies for lunar architecture study.
Archive for 2023
December 7, 2023
YEP: Father’s “straight pride” flag lawsuit against Denver Public Schools could succeed in court. “CBS News Colorado has been following this lawsuit closely, which was first filed back on Nov. 10 by two Washington D.C. lawyers, Mike Yoder and ChadLaVeglia. The lawsuit argues Nathan Feldman, a father of two children attending the K-8 Slavens School in Denver, was denied being able to put up a cisgendered, heterosexual flag at school. He says a ‘straight pride’ flag represents his children’s beliefs and should be allowed on campus in the same way LGBTQ+ flags are allowed.”
I REMEMBER WHEN THE PRESS PRETENDED CAIR WAS A CIVIL RIGHTS GROUP: CAIR Applauds Massacre of Jews.
Who am I kidding, they’ll keep pretending.
GOOD QUESTION: Why Aren’t We Attacking the Houthis?
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Sex With My Partner Is Good. So Good I Can’t Orgasm.
CBP AGENTS PLEAD WITH CONGRESS FOR HELP: Nine supervisory front-line Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents told House Homeland Security Committee investigators the flood of illegal immigrants that reached record levels this week began when Biden took office. My exclusive for The Epoch Times.
FLASHBACK: A Syllabus For The Occupy Movement.
MON DIEU! [VIP] Paris Can’t Get Enough of This Distinctly American Treat.
FUN GIFT: 80×100 HD Telescope, High Power Monocular for Adults. #CommissionEarned
THOUGHTS ON THE LATEST REPUBLICAN DEBATE: After Last Night. Powerline’s Scott Johnson’s on the scene report and assessments. His daughter Eliana Johnson, Editor-in-Chief of Washington Free Beacon, was one of the debate moderators.
NOT A GREAT PAGE: Vivek Took a Page Out of the Democrats’ Playbook.
PRESIDENT MAGILL: GIVING ADMINS EVEN MORE POWER OVER FREE SPEECH AT PENN IS A TERRIBLE IDEA: For 50 years a segment of the higher ed community has wanted colleges to ditch free speech. Don’t let them win
WELL, GOOD — BUT LET’S SEE WHAT HAPPENS IN THE SENATE: Some Democrats join Republicans in voting to strike down Biden’s EV mandate.
HMM: Kia’s EV9 can power an average home and then some. It’s cool, but its output equals three or four hours of my home generator’s.
In a statement, CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said:
“CAIR congratulates President-Elect Joe Biden on his electoral victory, and for building an inclusive election campaign focused on the unity of our nation.
“President-elect Biden has pledged to end the Muslim Ban on his first day in office, include Muslims at every level of his administration and address issues of racial and religious discrimination.
“We plan to join other American Muslim leaders and organizations in ensuring that the Biden administration fulfills these promises. We also plan to continue holding our government accountable when it errs.”
—PR Newswire, November 7th, 2020.
How it’s going: CAIR executive director ‘happy to see’ Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack.
The co-founder and executive director of a major American Muslim civil rights organization characterized Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attacks in Israel in which more than 1,200 were killed as Gazans “break[ing] the siege, the walls of the concentration camp.”
“Yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land and walk free into their land that they were not allowed to walk in,” Council on American-Islamic Relations Executive Director Nihad Awad said at a November conference hosted by American Muslims for Palestine. Audience members cheered Awad’s remarks.
Awad characterized the Oct. 7 attack as “self-defense,” which he said Palestinians have a right to — while Israelis do not.
“Yes, the people of Gaza have the right to self-defense, had the right to defend themselves,” said Awad. “Yes, Israel as an occupying power does not have that right to self-defense.” Awad did not mention Hamas in his speech; he did not differentiate between “the people of Gaza” and the perpetrators of the Oct. 7 attack.
“Gaza became the liberation source, the inspiration for so many people,” said Awad. “The Gazans were victorious.”
—Jewish Insider, today.
As Guy Benson adds, “Notice that this is not a ‘hot mic’ or hidden camera admission caught on tape. This is a declarative statement, enthusiastically made in public, at a Muslim-American conference. It drew applause in the room. Open, brazen, fearless support for terrorism and violent anti-Semitism.”
A SOUTH AMERICAN DISRUPTION FRONT: Oil War in South America: Venezuela’s Maduro Threatens Guyana
I wrote this Creators SYndicate column Tuesday afternoon. Since then Maduro has mobilized military forces. In retrospect I should have elaborated on the third sentence in this paragraph:
Britain still supports Guyana. Yes, Britain and NATO are focused on supporting Ukraine. Yes, Chavistas have made verbal common cause with fellow oil producer ayatollah Iran — a rhetorical proxy. Yes, the Biden administration is reprehensibly slow to react to crises — and a reptile like Maduro may see an opportunity.
Maduro is acting as an Iranian proxy of a type — a turmoil proxy. There are also Falklands War echoes.
Various Venezuelan governments have claimed Guyana’s Essequibo region, but Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, got serious about it. In 2010 Chavez was threatening to invade Curacao as well as supporting Colombian rebels. He actually toyed with invading Curacao in 2007. This column from 2018 discusses Chavez’ “Bolivarian state” and the the jaw-dropping exodus of Venezuelan refugees fleeing the Chavistas’ hell.
VERY RELATED: This popped up on a news feed. Venezuela-Guyana tensions soar, US mounts military exercises According to the wire service, the exercises are “joint military flight drills” over Guyana. This report emphasizes Brazil’s tough political response and military deployment.
HOW’S THAT SPACE PROGRAM COMING ALONG: Making the case for the location of the Bolaven extraterrestrial impact crater.
DISPATCHES FROM POST-WEIMAR AMERICA: College presidents expose the moral rot within their institutions.
Presidents Claudine Gay of Harvard, Elizabeth Magill of the University of Pennsylvania, and Sally Kornbluth of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology basically stuck to giving name, rank, and serial number. They repeated carefully rehearsed phrases obviously pre-cleared by lawyers and comms teams.
Gay particularly kept restating the same phrases, not even bothering to find different variations. One formulation she clung on to, as though it were a talisman that would save her from the bad men and women that had her pinned on the stand, was, “We are deeply committed to free expression, but not when it violates our policies against bullying, and intimidation, and harassment. Then we have strong disciplinary processes in place.”
Gay invoked “processes” in other contexts, too, despite diminishing returns that, by the end of the ordeal, had turned the term into an object of derision.
“I didn’t ask about your processes,” an obviously exasperated Texas Rep. Nathaniel Moran spat out at one point. “I am asking for action. How many students have been disciplined? How many have been held to account?”
Crickets.
On questions about expelling foreign students, who have obviously been a substantial part of the anti-Jewish demonstrations, Gay’s magic words were, “Our international students are an enormous source of pride for Harvard and part of our strength as an institution. But we hold those students accountable to the same set of disciplinary processes that we hold all of our students accountable to.” This was repeated again and again, only demonstrating that someone had sat with her and worked out messaging.
“Antisemitism has no place at Harvard” was another incantation Gay hurled over and over, despite the enormous evidence showing Jewish students being harassed at Harvard and the school’s long and shameful history of Jew hatred.
But her robotic answers notwithstanding, Gay did not have the most horrific answers of the day. That dubious distinction goes to either Magill or Kornbluth. It’s a tossup, so I’ll let the reader decide.
Magill’s came in an answer to Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York. Stefanik asked, “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn’s code of conduct or rules regarding bullying and harassment?” To which the smiling Magill eagerly affirmed, “It is a context-dependent decision.”
“That’s your testimony today? Calling for the genocide of Jews is dependent upon the context?” said an incredulous Stefanik. “That’s the easiest yes, Ms. Magill!”
Or as America’s Newspaper of Record reported:
IT’S THE FEEL-GOOD HIT OF THE SEASON: Watch This Old Gaza Woman Fact-Check a Biased Reporter.