Archive for 2024

September 2, 2024

METAPHOR ALERT: Press vans following Tim Walz’s motorcade were involved in a crash in Milwaukee.

Press vans following Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz’s motorcade were involved in a crash on Monday afternoon while en route to a campaign stop at Henry Maier Festival Park.

Walz’s vehicle was not affected and continued on toward the Summerfest grounds where he is scheduled to speak at LaborFest. Vans carrying members of the press, and Rep. Gwen Moore, near the back of the motorcade pulled over and various people were evaluated at the scene for injuries.

To be far, Walz ignoring the destruction going on around him is pretty much par for the course at this point. No word yet if his wife opened the car window to smell any potential burning tires, gasoline, and oil from the crash.

Posted at 4:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Sep 2nd, 2024

WHOSE SIDE IS HE ON?

Never mind, we know.

UPDATE:

ANOTHER UPDATE: They’re not “weak,” they’re on the other side.

Posted at 2:45 pm by Glenn Reynolds on Sep 2nd, 2024

THE ORIGINAL TDS RETURNS: Why is Starmer ‘unsettled’ by a painting of Thatcher?

Speaking at Glasgow’s Aye Write book festival this week, Baldwin said that he and Starmer were recently having a chat in Thatcher’s former study in No10 – presumably about what Starmer’s parents did for a living – when Baldwin’s eyes alighted on the big 2009 portrait of the former Tory leader hanging on the wall:

‘We sat there, and I go: “It’s a bit unsettling with her staring down at you like that, isn’t it?” Starmer replied yes and, when asked whether he would “get rid of it”, the prime minister nodded… And he has.’

So Britain’s new leader found himself so freaked out by a painting of a former, long-since deceased prime minister that he has ordered his minions to take it down.

This is more than a little weird, no? Granted, Robert Stone’s rendering of Maggie does look a little smug. But that hardly explains Starmer’s almost childish, hysterical reaction against it – albeit a reaction that was apparently prompted by Baldwin.

What’s going on? Why is Starmer, a man otherwise totally devoid of political passion and principle, seemingly so unnerved by a mere painting of an ex-PM?

The answer lies in the central role anti-Toryism plays on today’s establishment left. It is certainly the closest thing Starmer’s Labour has to an ideological core. After all, today’s Labour Party may not be for very much beyond technocratic authoritarianism, but it clings obsessively to what it believes itself to be against – namely, the ‘hateful’, ‘evil’ Tories. And there is no Tory more hated than the supposedly demonic figure of Margaret Thatcher herself.

Some 30-odd years after she left office, the former Tory PM is still viewed by many in Labour as the dark architect of Britain’s current moral and economic malaise. This is why Labour’s Deputy PM, Angela Rayner, feels licensed to call Tory ministers ‘scum’. Why middle-class lefties boast that they’ve ‘never kissed a Tory‘. Because in their eyes, the Tories are no mere political party, and Thatcher no mere politician. To Labour, they are forces of evil.

Every BBC historical retrospective, on any topic, invariably devolves into rote Thatcher-bashing once the ‘80s is brought up. Or as Peter Hitchens wrote in The Abolition of Britain:

Since the 1960s, when the Left began its conquest of the cultural battlements, it has always been surprised and annoyed by Tory election victories. The 1970 Tory triumph, though entirely predictable, took the cultural establishment by surprise. The 1979 Tory win, though even more predictable, infuriated them. They had won control of broadcasting, of the schools, of the universities, the church, the artistic, musical and architectural establishment? How was it possible that they could not also be the government? Their rage was enormous, and increased with each successive Labour defeat. It was an injustice. How could the people be so foolish? Now, instead of aristocratic snobs misgoverning the country, the establishment was portrayed as a sort of fascistic semi-dictatorship, hacking at the NHS and the welfare state, waging aggressive wars abroad and enriching itself while the poor lived in misery.

See also: American left’s reaction whenever a president with an (R) after his name takes office.

Posted at 2:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Sep 2nd, 2024

SECURITY: Harmful “nudify” websites used Google, Apple, and Discord sign-on systems. “Major technology companies, including Google, Apple, and Discord, have been enabling people to quickly sign up to harmful ‘undress’ websites, which use AI to remove clothes from real photos to make victims appear to be ‘nude’ without their consent. More than a dozen of these deepfake websites have been using login buttons from the tech companies for months.”

Posted at 1:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds on Sep 2nd, 2024

LOL:

What you do when you can’t speak coherently.

Posted at 12:44 pm by Glenn Reynolds on Sep 2nd, 2024

WENN ES NICHT NAH DRAN IST, KÖNNEN SIE NICHT SCHUMMELN: AfD loses seat in Saxony — this has major consequences.

The electoral officer has corrected the provisional results of the Saxon state election. Due to a software error, an incorrect distribution of seats had been published, the state electoral administration announced.

As a result of the recalculation, the AfD has lost the blocking minority in the state that it would have had in the coming legislature according to the first published election results.

“Software errors” – they’re not just for American socialists anymore!

(Classical reference in der headline.)

 

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Sep 2nd, 2024

I’VE SEEN THIS MOVIE. IT DIDN’T END WELL: Boeing’s Starliner started making a repeating ‘pulsing’ sound yesterday. “In the recording, Wilmore asks NASA crew in Houston to configure their call so that he could show them the noise, which he says is coming from the speaker inside Starliner. Then, a repetitive clanging sound with slight there’s-something-on-the-wing vibes can be heard. The Earthside crew member describes it as sounding ‘almost like a sonar ping.'”

You can listen to the audio of the call here:

It’s probably nothing but it’s always something with Starliner.

Posted at 10:38 am by Stephen Green on Sep 2nd, 2024
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