GIVEN ITS TRACK RECORD, COLOR ME UNIMPRESSED: CDC layoffs strike deeply at its ability to respond to current flu, norovirus and measles outbreaks.
Archive for 2025
February 21, 2025
WHAT’S THE NEW YORK TIMES’ PROBLEM WITH JEWS? Did you hear about the violent night-time riot against Jewish residents in a Brooklyn neighborhood earlier this week? Not if you depend upon The New York Times for your news. It happened but the editors of the NYT simply ignored the latest eruption of anti-semitic extremism of pro-Hamas/pro-Palestinian radicals.
Richard Pollock explains in his latest Substack column why it should come as no surprise that a calculated mob attack one of America’s neighborhoods with a high concentration of Orthodox Jews was ignored by the NYT. After all, the NYT had some major problems with the Holocaust.
PLUG-IN HYBRIDS ARE BETTER THAN EVs: Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid Yearlong Verdict: Not Electric. Better for It?
HEH:
Not my idea but someone suggested DOGE should be renamed Federal Agency for Financial Oversight.
😆
— Jason Coursey (@JasonCoursey) February 17, 2025
READER FAVORITE: Airmoto Tire Inflator Portable Air Compressor – 2pack. #CommissionEarned
POPCORN, CHECK. BUTTER, CHECK: AG Pam Bondi: The Epstein Client List Will Be Released Soon.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Round-Up: Rapid Access Safes for Long Guns.
MAYBE NO EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM? [VIP] Sky Candy — What a Relief.
Still, how’s that space program coming along?
WHY AREN’T COLLEGE PRESIDENTS SAYING MORE ABOUT TRUMP? There are reasons, good and bad, but the article overlooks the fact that many of them know their power is built on a throne of unlawful discrimination and censorship.
READER FAVORITE: TurboTax Deluxe 2024 Tax Software, Federal & State Tax Return. #CommissionEarned
JUDENHAß VS ACADEMIC FREEDOM? First Professor Fired for Antisemitism Gets New Role at the APA.
I don’t know the right answer. Do you?
HMM: Elon Musk recommends that the International Space Station be deorbited ASAP.
“It is time to begin preparations for deorbiting the @Space_Station. It has served its purpose. There is very little incremental utility. Let’s go to Mars,” Musk wrote at midday on Thursday.
This original statement was somewhat ambiguous. Last July, NASA awarded Space X an $843 million contract to modify a Dragon spacecraft to serve as a propulsive vehicle to safely guide the aging space station into the Pacific Ocean in 2030. So in some sense, preparations are already underway to shut down the laboratory.
I asked Musk if he meant that NASA and the US government should commit to the 2030 end-of-life date, or if he wanted to accelerate the timeline for the station’s demise.
“The decision is up to the President, but my recommendation is as soon as possible. I recommend 2 years from now,” Musk replied.
Is it a good idea? Maybe. But it could certainly get complicated:
President Trump could propose shutting down the space station, but the budget for the deorbit vehicle (which is necessary, otherwise the station might make an uncontrolled reentry over land) must be funded by Congress.
The space station has key supporters in Congress, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), in whose state the orbiting laboratory is managed. Cruz has long been an advocate of the space station. Ars reached out to Cruz for a comment on Thursday, but the senator did not immediately respond.
However, a key source said Cruz was “furious” with the sentiment from Musk. The timing of Musk’s tweet could make the confirmation of private astronaut Jared Isaacman to become NASA administrator more difficult. As part of the confirmation process, Isaacman is due to begin meetings with US senators in the coming week.
Having to answer questions about the end-of-life for the space station will make some of these meetings uncomfortable.
Whether ISS is deorbited in 2027 or in 2030 as planned, I just hope somebody finally brings Butch and Suni home first.
LIBRARY MUSIC: How An Obscure 70s Genre Has Defined Modern Music (Vide0).
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE BUTTIGIEG: Pete Buttigieg, Whose Mayoral Admin Held Diversity Trainings Lecturing Cops on ‘Sizeism,’ Now Takes Aim at ‘Portlandia’ Diversity Trainings.
AN IMPORTANT CALL TO ARMS: Many of the contributors and readers here are well aware (some with personal experience) that, according to Ars Technica:
The FTC issued a Request for Information (RFI) seeking public comment until May 21. “Tech platform users who have been banned, shadow banned, demonetized, or otherwise censored are encouraged to share their comments in response to the RFI,” the FTC said. “The FTC is interested in understanding how consumers—including by potentially unfair or deceptive acts or practices, or potentially unfair methods of competition—have been harmed by the policies of tech firms.”
Now, there’s a lot I disagree with in the TA report at the link, but they do a prtty good job of showing names of “the usual suspects” who want to keep demonitizing un-approved viewpoints. Thus, it is imperative that this community take advantage of the opportunity to directly tell the FTC about the acts done by Big Tech and why they don’t want any review.
And, IMHO, this particular vein is not “pro-censorship” or even touching the First Amendment. It’s economics, pure and simple, and newspapers have long been held to anti-trust law. In fact, the SCOTUS said in a famous case:
[…] A law of general applicability does not target or single out the press […] the doctrine is generally applicable to the daily transactions of all […] citizens and the First Amendment does not forbid its application to the press.
C’mon, people. Put up or shut up.
WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Genetic therapy gives infants life-changing improvements in sight.
#1 AT AMAZON: The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can’t Stop Talking About. #CommissionEarned Has anyone read this? If so, any thoughts on why it is so popular?
NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: By Blocking Federal Funding Freeze, Judge Kept Millions Flowing to a Non-Profit He Headed.
I missed this one on Monday, but it’s still worth reposting:
A judge who blocked President Trump’s federal spending freeze is Chairman Emeritus of a nonprofit that will continue to receive millions in government funding as a result of his ruling, in an apparent conflict of interest seen as a second cause for the judge’s impeachment.
On Wednesday, Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) announced articles of impeachment against federal Judge John McConnell on the grounds that he overreached his authority and engaged in partisan activism by blocking Trump’s executive order freezing federal funding while Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) searches for wasteful spending.
“Impeach this pseudo-jurist!!,” Musk responded to Rep. Clyde’s post.
Then, on Sunday, America First Legal Foundation (AFL) reported that Judge McConnell appears to have had a conflict of interest, which he did not disclose, when he ruled on the lawsuit petitioning him to block the spending freeze.
Exit quote: “In the 18 years Judge McConnell has been on the board of Crossroads Rhode Island, it has received over $128 million in government funding.”
Data Republican’s database shows that last year, Crossroads Rhode Island received $18,616,874 in taxpayer dollars. That’s just shy of two-thirds of all money it recieved.
NEW: Animal rights activists protest outside of a San Diego bar for holding goldfish races, tells the bar goers to “Stop Blowing Fish.”
They’ll literally protest anything lmao.
The protesters were stationed outside a local bar which is known in the area for holding the fish… pic.twitter.com/p76sRZfaZk
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) February 20, 2025
Whew — the headline led me to believe that this might something that Troy McClure would be into:
AT THIS POINT, I’M UNCONCERNED: Do you have high-quality sperm? What it can tell you about your health — and why it’s key to a healthy pregnancy and kid.
DE-GLEICHSCHALTUNG* HAS BEGUN: And as David Marcus asks: Detransitioning is actual ‘gender-affirming care,’ so why won’t insurance cover it?
In North Carolina, Prisha Mosley is suing the doctors who performed procedures to make her appear male. According to the lawsuit: “These individuals whom Prisha trusted to care for her lied to and misled her into these treatments and procedures for the purpose of making money off of her and bolstering their credentials in the emerging field of so-called ‘gender-affirming care.”
Instead of taking these tragic and ever-growing cases of detransition seriously, the medical establishment and the media are often dismissive, if not outright hostile to them. Take a 2023 New York Times headline that read, “How a few stories of regret fuel the push to restrict gender transition care.”
The attitude of the Gray Lady here, and of most of the Democratic Party, seems to be something along the lines of, ‘Sure, a few people might change their minds after it’s too late, but we can’t let that stop us from chemically and surgically altering the bodies of confused minors.’
At best, this attitude is insane. At worst, it is evil.
Congress should act with all due expediency to pass legislation that compels any insurance company that pays for gender transition to also pay for detransition. It is honestly just plain common sense.
Trump is big on 80/20 issues. And this has to qualify as a perfect example.
* As Ace warned a year ago and likely even more so in the Trump 2.0 era, the establishment left will likely be breaking out the airbrushes on a Stalinist level: The Trans-Children Era is About to Be Memory-Holed and the Perpetrators Will Be Disavowing Involvement. Particularly since, as Rich Lowry wrote in November, “Trans Moralism Is Killing the Democrats.” “This is what happened on trans issues in the election. Donald Trump’s ‘she’s for they/them’ attack ad was the most effective and consequential political spot of this century.”
Earlier: Report: Corporate Executives Sit on Boards of Hospitals That Perform Child Sex Changes.
AMERICANS: “Do you think Democrats learned anything from their historic loss last November?”
Democrats: Princeton course applies ‘queer’ and ‘trans* theory’ to ‘architectural histories.’
The asterisk is actually part of the class description because of course it is.