WELL, GOOD: Far-UVC light can virtually eliminate airborne virus in an occupied room, study shows.

JIM TREACHER: Sorry, Beyoncé — Charley Pride Got There First.

Dang. And I thought Taylor Swift fans were nuts!

“Record-breaker and history-maker”? [Michelle Obama] has left the White House behind forever(?), but she still likes making $#!+ up.

Contrary to the former First Lady, Beyoncé isn’t the first African-American to hit #1 on the country chart. Do you know who is?

Of course you know. I just told you in the headline. It’s this guy:

That’s right, Charley Pride. That was his first #1 Billboard country single, all the way back in 1969. It came out a few months before the moon landing. For all we know, Neil Armstrong was listening to it on his way to work.

Okay, maybe not. But he sure wasn’t listening to Beyoncé.

Pride went on to rack up an incredible 29 #1 hits in his career. That’s more than Dolly freakin’ Parton!

Hell, he had his first #1 album on the country chart when MLK Jr. was still alive. At a time of violent racial strife, barely a century after the abolition of slavery, Charley Pride sold 70 million records to the whitest people in America.

That’s something to be proud of, isn’t it? So why are all the headlines lately about the first black woman to make such an achievement?

Why are we erasing this man’s legacy? Doesn’t ol’ Charley count anymore?

See also: Erasure of the accomplishments of Sigourney Weaver, Linda Hamilton, Carrie Fisher, and Scarlett Johansson in sci-fi and comic book movies, not to mention the behind the scenes talents of women like Marcia Lucas and Gale Anne Hurd to pretend today’s crop of female stars are revolutionary feminist breakthroughs.

On the other hand, let’s praise Beyoncé for what she did accomplish! Page Six: Beyoncé Saved Dying Genre Known As Country Music.

The genre was dying so much that she wanted to cash in on it.

— The Hanford Institute 🐶 (@ThiccInstitute) March 29, 2024

EVERYTHING THAT “WORKED” FOR DEMOCRATS IN 2020 WILL BE USED AGAIN: ‘Autonomous Zone for Palestine’ Set Up in New York City Park.

FLASHBACK:

Quincy, Illinois, 2009.

THERE IS LITERALLY NOTHING NANNYSTATERS CAN’T MAKE WORSE: Dating apps are awful; a Colorado bill will make them worse.

On the Hinge dating app, the basic text prompts where users share information about themselves are an unmitigated hellscape.

“All sex is choke sex when you’re being strangled by the invisible hand of capitalism,” read one profile I came across. The app offers a surprisingly large number of men who like to do yoga in the nude. A different man holds up a picture of himself with a “world’s smallest cock” mug and yet didn’t bother to post a picture of the adorable rooster. Things aren’t much better once you open a chat: I recently asked a man in his 40s what he liked about Spain and he replied simply, “Chicas.”

These are relatively tame examples. Unfortunately, some people deal with dangerous and aggressive users on dating apps, and lawmakers are taking note. But however terrible online dating may be, government intervention isn’t the answer: The problem is the users, not the apps.

A bill recently introduced in Colorado aims to make dating apps such as Hinge and Bumble safer for users. The first section of Senate Bill 24-011 would force all dating services with any users in Colorado to submit an annual report to Colorado’s attorney general about misconduct reports from users in the state or about users in the state. If that isn’t available, the app must report all misconduct reports from the entire United States. These reports would all become public.

While the bill leaves some of the details up to the state’s attorney general, this would probably mean that when people file false reports about each other on dating apps, the reports would all become public record.

On the plus side, maybe people will go back to picking up one another in bars.

WELL, SURE, MOST THINGS THRIVE BETTER IN THE U.S. THAN IN CANADA: Historical study finds Canada lynx might thrive better in U.S.

THE SUICIDE OF EXPERTISE:

Shot: Grief and COVID-19: Mourning our bygone lives.

The COVID-19 pandemic is an epidemiological crisis, but also a psychological one. While the situation provokes anxiety, stress and sadness, it is also a time of collective sorrow, says Sherry Cormier, PhD, a psychologist who specializes in grief and grief mentoring. “It’s important that we start recognizing that we’re in the middle of this collective grief. We are all losing something now.”

Many people are reckoning with individual losses, including illness and death due to the novel coronavirus, or loss of employment as a result of economic upheaval. But even people who haven’t lost anything so concrete as a job or a loved one are affected, Cormier says. “There is a communal grief as we watch our work, health-care, education and economic systems — all of these systems we depend on — destabilize,” she says.

—The American Psychological Association, April 1^st, 2020.

Chaser: APA’s action plan for addressing inequality.

Dear Colleagues,

We are writing to you while still reeling from the tragic murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and the ongoing protests, which are reverberating in a shockwave throughout our nation and around the world.

These recent events present us with an urgent challenge—as an association, discipline and profession, and individual psychologists—to bring our expertise to bear to address the range of underlying problems these events represent from discrimination to racism, which have resulted in long-standing social, economic, and political inequalities, from police brutality, to the disproportionate spread of the coronavirus among black and brown people, to the soaring unemployment rates among communities of color.

APA is urging psychologists to share their thoughts and recommendations for using the power of psychology to address the “pandemic of racism,” both in the short and long term. As part of that process, we must also examine our role as a field and as an association in perpetuating these ills.

—The American Psychological Association, June 2^nd, 2020.

Note the photos atop those Webpages. The April 1^st post is illustrated by photos of an elderly white woman looking frustrated in her apartment, and a young black woman staring wistfully into the distance outside the window of her apartment, with the photos separated by a white dividing line to emphasize both persons’ isolation from the world. Contrast that with the photo of the massed protestors carrying “Black Lives Matter” placards atop the June 2^nd post.

June of 2020 was the apex of the pivot:

As Greenwald writes in his follow-up tweet, “That episode single-handedly destroyed trust in public health officials, proving they’d politicize their expertise when convenient. Corporate media celebrated a douchebag-lawyer shaming families at deserted beaches, then — overnight! — cheered densely packed street protests.”

Flashbacks:

● After telling GOP to downsize convention due to COVID-19, N.C. governor marches in crowded protest.

● NJ governor admits COVID-19 double standard, says recent protests are different from business owners’ complaints.

● De Blasio: Large Group Protests Are Acceptable, Religious Observances Are Not.

● NPR: Dozens of public health and disease experts have signed an open letter in support of the nationwide anti-racism protests. “White supremacy is a lethal public health issue that predates and contributes to COVID-19,” they wrote.

● ‘Did I miss the memo?’: Hospital workers in full PPE applaud George Floyd protesters as they march past.

Flashback: The Suicide of Expertise.

JOEL KOTKIN: The coming revolt against woke capitalism.

The ultra-rich have been particularly drawn to draconian climate positions. Leading billionaires like Tom Steyer have collectively sent hundreds of millions to leading environmental groups. The Rockefellers, heirs to the Standard Oil fortune, have become some of the fiercest advocates of radical climate policies. They even favour punishing corporations that make money from fossil fuels like their own forebears once did.

Environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, have received huge donations, often as high as $100million, from wealthy moguls like Ted Turner and Michael Bloomberg. Jeff Bezos announced $10 billion in gifts, mostly to green nonprofits, in 2020 alone. The oligarchs’ philanthropic efforts are also now paying the salaries of ‘climate reporters’ at Associated Press and National Public Radio (NPR) to encourage the media to toe the party line.

This all constitutes what analyst Robert Bryce has labelled the ‘anti-industry industry’. Indeed, green lobbyists outspend so-called Big Oil by more than four to one. The recent drives to ban new natural gas stoves and liquefied natural gas (LNG) come directly from these billionaire-funded campaign groups.

The clear hypocrisy of the greens does not go unnoticed by the masses. Those same elites who demand climate austerity for the many are widely known to enjoy the use of private jets, build $500 million yachts and own numerous, often enormous mansions. The fact that the most recent climate confab, COP28, had a session on ‘responsible yachting’ tells people all they need to know about the hypocrisy of the super-rich.

QED: Bezos pays US$90M for third mansion in Florida buying spree.

When Al Gore emerged from his energy-guzzling mansion to address the Senate in 2007 only to refuse to take his own energy reduction pledge from An Inconvenient Truth when presented to him by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Ann Coulter quipped, “I kind of respect him more, it shows he is not stupid enough to believe all this global warming nonsense. He’s trying to get us to believe. Okay, fine, he may be a hypocrite but at least he’s not a moron.”

DON’T GET COCKY: Is a Key Biden Narrative About 2024 Going Down in Flames?

GROOMING, STRAIGHT UP: A to Z Insanity: Kids’ Alphabet Book Has a Gender for Every Letter.

WE WON’T HAVE ACHIEVED EQUITY UNTIL MEN ARE TREATED FOR PREGNANCY RELATED ISSUES AT THE SAME RATE: Women more likely to get treated for mental health issues around pregnancy.

SUSTAINABILITY:

U.S. Treasury has now paid an all-time high of $1.1 Trillion in interest payments over the last year, almost double the previous all-time high during the onset of COVID pic.twitter.com/aG69ndeLNv

— Barchart (@Barchart) April 2, 2024

Entirely predictable, entirely ignored.

21st CENTURY HEADLINES: Space debris smashes through Florida man’s roof, narrowly missing son’s head.

THE 21^st CENTURY ISN’T TURNING OUT THE WAY I HAD HOPED: This 28-year-old Dutch woman is scheduled to be euthanized in May because she is depressed and it’s sad how happy she seems about it.

Ter Beek, who lives in a little Dutch town near the German border, once had ambitions to become a psychiatrist, but she was never able to muster the will to finish school or start a career. She said she was hobbled by her depression and autism and borderline personality disorder. Now she was tired of living — despite, she said, being in love with her boyfriend, a 40-year-old IT programmer, and living in a nice house with their two cats.

She recalled her psychiatrist telling her that they had tried everything, that “there’s nothing more we can do for you. It’s never gonna get any better.”

At that point, she said, she decided to die. “I was always very clear that if it doesn’t get better, I can’t do this anymore” …

Her liberation, as it were, will take place at her home. “No music,” she said. “I will be going on the couch in the living room” …

Then the doctor will administer a sedative, followed by a drug that will stop ter Beek’s heart.

When she’s dead, a euthanasia review committee will evaluate her death to ensure the doctor adhered to “due care criteria,” and the Dutch government will (almost certainly) declare that the life of Zoraya ter Beek was lawfully ended.

Can you believe that? The doctor must pass a euthanasia review to make sure he/she killed the patient in a lawful fashion.

We live in such strange times. They’re turning death into a fantasy. Is this the next cult they’ll have kids following? First it was sterilization and mutilation, next, is it death? I mean, it’s not far off, and the way they’re making kids these days, I bet a lot of them would rather die than have to work a mundane job.

I’m pretty sure that Charlton Heston and Edward G. Robinson intended Soylent Green to be a warning, not a how-to guide for euthanasia.

MATT TAIBBI: On “The View,” A Crack Finally Shows in the Propaganda Facade.

Something interesting did happen, however, and it wasn’t the ferocious conflict-laden exchange that went viral and tickled conservative pundits like Dave Rubin and Megyn Kelly so much, The Root wrote an article complaining. The surprise came in the first moments when the studio audience burst into spontaneous applause after Hughes suggested, “We should try our very best to treat people without regard for race both in our personal lives and our public policy.”

It would be the first of several outbursts speaking less to a race issue than an informational one. Here was evidence that ideas dismissed in elite circles as radical and “dangerous” may be popular and widely accepted, even among fans of the most aggressive idea-policing show on TV.

“This was the audience of The View,” Hughes says, adding that the crowd’s reaction suggested the antiracist ideas they were confronting “do not have deep subscription in the Democratic party base even.”

It’s just woke white people seeking meaning in their sad lives, and the grifters who feed of their neuroses.

IT’S AN INDUSTRY IN CRISIS AND IN DENIAL: It’s Official: Everybody Hates the Media (and Sage Steele Shows You Why).

CRISIS BY DESIGN: Migrants found hiding in southern New Mexico middle school.

The latest incident happened last week.

According to the Gadsden Independent School District, there was another incident that occurred on March 20.

“Being that those schools are so close to the border. The proximity of the border, these types of events happen weekly,” said Refugio Socorro, a spokesperson with U.S. Border Patrol.

KOAT headed to the border wall and discovered an area called “The Anarpa Gap” an opening in the border wall about 5 miles from the school.

“A lot of people in that area that try to evade arrest from our apprehensions do have a criminal history or have immigration issues. So that’s the reason why they just take off running and go through locations they’re not even familiar with,” said Corrales.

A Santa Teresa Middle School mom who did not want to be identified told KOAT she gets nervous for her child’s safety.

She’s clearly nervous about more than her child’s safety.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Biden’s Holy Week Antics Demonstrated the Left’s Elitism.

READER FAVORITE: Timex Men’s TW5M03400 Ironman Classic 100 Full-Size. #CommissionEarned

SKYNET SMILES: F-16s arrive at Eglin to be modified with self-flying tech. “The arrival of the F-16s marks the service’s biggest step forward yet in standing up the program known as Venom, which stands for Viper Experimentation and Next-gen Operations Model-Autonomy Flying Testbed and aims to speed up the testing of autonomous technology on both crewed and uncrewed aircraft.”

If nothing else, they’re certainly pushing the performance envelope for acronyms.

LET’S SEE SOME DEMOCRACY SHUTTING DOWN PRO-PALESTINE SPEAKERS, THEN: Pro-Palestine protesters shut down Dem congressman’s speech, University of Maryland president calls it ‘democracy’ in action.

On the other hand, seeing this happen to lefty mouthpiece Jamie Raskin is kinda sweet, to be honest.

AND NOW, A FREE-WHEELING DISCUSSION OF CURRENT EVENTS WITH JOHN GILL: Former ESPN host Sage Steele says her Biden interview was entirely ‘scripted’ by network execs: ‘Every single question.’

In an interview with Fox News Digital, Steele recalled the “structured” nature of the pre-taped interview, so much so that her ESPN bosses handed her a “script” to go off of.

“That was an interesting experience in its own right because it was so structured,” Steele said. “And I was told, ‘You will say every word that we write out, you will not deviate from the script and go.’”

Many of the questions Steele asked Biden in the March 2021 interview pertained to sports leagues attempting to restore normalcy during the COVID pandemic and vaccine hesitancy among athletes and fans. Her interview made headlines at the time when Biden supported the MLB’s All-Star game boycott of Atlanta following the passage of Georgia’s election reform law.

But everything Steele said to the president ultimately came from ESPN’s c-suite.

“To the word. Every single question was scripted, gone over dozens of times by many editors and executives. Absolutely. I was on script and was told not to deviate,” Steele told Fox News Digital. “It was very much ‘This is what you will ask. This is how you will say it. No follow-ups, no follow-ups. Next.’ … This went up to the fourth floor, as we said, where all the bosses, the top executives, the decision makers are, the president of our company, the CEO, where they all worked.”

Every word was scripted, huh? Next you’ll be telling me that there’s gambling going on in Rick’s Café:

THE FEELING IS MUTUAL: Pete Buttigieg Hates Your Car, but Mostly He Thinks You’re an Idiot.

MAKE THEM PAY: UT Austin Administrators Tried to Punish Professor over Anti-DEI Crusade. He’s Fighting Back.

University of Texas at Austin finance professor Richard Lowery has annoyed the university’s administration by publicly criticizing its embrace of diversity, equity, and inclusion and suggesting that administrators exploit their positions for their children’s admission.

Lowery’s crusade did not go unnoticed: Several university administrators — and the university president, Jay Hartzell — responded with a “campaign to silence” the professor, which included threatening his job, salary, professional affiliations, and research opportunities, according to a lawsuit Lowery filed against the administrators.

Lowery embraces the fact that his views are unpopular on campus. His bio on his now-private Twitter account reads: “All opinions are mine and almost certainly diametrically opposed to those of my employer.”

Lowery became unpopular on campus by criticizing the UT Austin’s sprawling DEI bureaucracy, which costs $13 million annually in salaries alone. The UT Austin “Faculty Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Strategic Plan” requires that “all members of faculty search committees must participate in diverse hiring training” and invests $3 million over four years to support “recruitment and hiring of faculty contributing to diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

The focus on DEI is exemplified by a UT Austin research program that offers a voluntary four-week study for white four- and five-year-old children and their white caregivers to learn about “anti-Black racism.” Lowery criticized the project in an op-ed for the College Fix, writing, “Imagine if such training were to be focused only on black preschool-aged children, a subset the researchers deemed deficient in patriotism.”

In response to Lowery’s public criticism of the university, Hartzell and several senior administrators pressured his supervisor at the Salem Center — a research center at the business school of UT Austin — to discipline him, according to the lawsuit. (While he likely couldn’t be fired from his tenured position as a professor, Lowery’s role at the Salem Center came with a $20,000-a-year stipend and is renewed annually.)

Possibly related: Sources: At least 20 UT employees linked to DEI to lose their jobs.

Add a zero to this and we’ll get somewhere.