I DUNNO, I CAN IMAGINE AN AWFUL LOT: Conspiracies Too Awful to Imagine?
Author Archive: Glenn Reynolds
January 7, 2025
THIS IS NOT A NEW THEORY: Ancient lead pollution may have lowered IQs across the Roman Empire: ‘To my knowledge, it’s the first large-scale pollution event from industrial activities.’
Nowadays we have smartphones and TikTok.
THE ARTIST AS TYRANT. “Modern art declared war on tradition, on convention, on morality, on historical Western notions about the place of beauty and human dignity in artistic production. Styles were invented or imported from alien cultures, never consciously evolved from the European masters. Modernism, like Leninism, wished to bully rather than seduce the community into a better future.”
I’ve had some thoughts of my own on the tyrant as artist.
BUT HOW WILL DEMOCRATS “FIND” ENOUGH VOTES TO SWING ELECTIONS?
🚨BREAKING: President Trump announces plans to push for all votes to be fully counted by 10:00 PM on future Election Nights.
pic.twitter.com/BqlWbk8Exm— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 7, 2025
IT’S ALL BULLSHIT AND EVERYONE KNOWS IT NOW:
The January 6, 2025 certification of Trump’s election victory is the first time in fifty-two years that no Democrats challenged the certification of a GOP victory in a presidential election. Dems in the House challenged the results in 1981, 1985, 1989, 2001, 2005, & 2017. /1 pic.twitter.com/yQopzN4Hkb
— (((tedfrank))) (@tedfrank) January 7, 2025
When John Lewis, the House member leading several of these challenges, died during the first Trump term, the NY Times celebrated him as the “conscience of the Congress.” His futile election challenges didn’t make the cut for the obituary. /3 pic.twitter.com/QSx3GhtNd6
— (((tedfrank))) (@tedfrank) January 7, 2025
INCENTIVES MATTER: Interest in permanent contraception rises after Roe vs. Wade reversal.
THE DALAI LAMA HAS OFTEN SEEMED SURPRISINGLY BASED:
This is incredible…
A BBC reporter interviewed the Dalai Lama about immigration and the West.
Q: “If people from India or the Middle East want to stay in Europe, shouldn’t they be allowed?”
A: “Limited number… ok. Otherwise Europe becomes Muslim. Better in their own land.” pic.twitter.com/00F5n2EqnR
— Geiger Capital (@Geiger_Capital) January 6, 2025
Update (from Steve): Not so surprising, really. The Dalai Lama comes from an occupied country where the native Tibetans are becoming outnumbered by colonizers from Communist China.
THE ENEMY WITHIN: ‘Free, free Palestine’ chants break out at historian conference as group passes anti-Israel resolution. “The American Historical Association passed a resolution condemning Israel and proceeded to break out in chants of ‘free, free Palestine’ over the weekend.”
Free, free academia.
THOUGHTS ON SPORTS AND PARENTING.
ANARCHY IN THE U.K.
You've probably never heard the story of Kriss Donald, a 15-year-old Scottish boy tortured and murdered by 5 Pakistanis because he was White.
One of the Pakistanis, a gang member Imran Shahid, got in an unrelated bar fight the weekend before and decided to take collective… pic.twitter.com/KGH5XxAXqy
— Keith Woods (@KeithWoodsYT) January 6, 2025
IMAGINE THAT: NYC Needs More Cops But Applications Are Way Down.
ALYSSIA FINLEY IN THE WSJ: No, Moderate Drinking Won’t Give You Cancer: As with his other work, the surgeon general’s report is light on facts, heavy on expanding government.
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has done more to politicize science and erode trust in public-health leaders than anyone other than Anthony Fauci. Dr. Murthy was at it again on Friday with a headline-grabbing report that recommends alcohol be distributed with cancer warnings.
The report warns that, for some cancers, “evidence shows that this risk may start to increase around one or fewer drinks per day.” Note the operative word, may. The link between heavy drinking and throat and mouth cancer is well-established—but not for moderate consumption.
Two weeks earlier the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine released a congressionally mandated review of the recent evidence on the health effects of moderate drinking, or up to one drink a day for women and two for men. Its more than 200 pages of findings run counter to Dr. Murthy’s 22-page report, though they got scant attention in the press.
The academies found insufficient evidence to support a link between moderate drinking and oral, pharyngeal, esophageal, laryngeal and other cancers. It did find a slightly higher risk of breast cancer with moderate drinking but also a lower risk of death generally and from cardiovascular disease specifically compared with never drinking.
No matter. Dr. Murthy claims that “alcohol use,” not only abuse, is a “leading preventable cause of cancer in the United States, contributing to nearly 100,000 cancer cases and about 20,000 cancer deaths each year.” This estimate is based on models of associations from cherry-picked observational studies. But even the report partially attributes only 17% of these estimated deaths to moderate drinking. Of the 609,820 cancer deaths in 2023, this would mean moderate drinking contributed to 3,400, or about 0.6%. Dr. Murthy’s claims about alcohol’s cancer risks are misleading but typical of his reports, which are intended to drive a political agenda.
Let’s review the roll.
He’s continuing in the footsteps of LBJ’s surgeon general, who issued a cholesterol warning about eggs at LBJ’s request, because LBJ was taking a political hit from food price inflation and wanted to push the price of eggs down.
January 6, 2025
OPEN THREAD: Monday, Monday.
#JOURNALISM:
This was already Community Noted and you STILL decided to retweet the lie.
Thre is only one man of low character here, John.
Would you like a mirror, you unemployed hack?
— Grateful Calvin (@shoveitjack) January 6, 2025
It's the same crew, very single time. https://t.co/clK2p76p8P pic.twitter.com/2X8Am5sQ49
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) January 6, 2025
The same usual slew of journalists are going after a disabled man who needs a walking cane and not a single one of them will retract or apologize. What does that make you look like, Sam? https://t.co/clK2p76p8P
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) January 6, 2025
WHEN A COMET AND AN ASTEROID LOVE EACH OTHER VERY MUCH: This Strange Comet-Asteroid Hybrid Is Like Nothing Else in The Solar System.
CDR SALAMANDER: The PRC is Signaling its First Moves. “For the most base of reasons of profit and political convenience, our nations’ governmental and business elite have sleepwalked their nations into a significant disadvantage should the PRC decide in the next decade to go kinetic in the Western Pacific.”
THE E.V. BUBBLE CONTINUES TO DEFLATE: Porsche walks back EVs – people still want gas cars.