ANALYSIS: TRUE. Government-run science does not, unfortunately, float majestically in the shimmering ether, far above mendacity and bullshit. “Try working with NASA, the EPA, the NIH, or any other government science agency to understand why.”
Author Archive: Glenn Reynolds
May 27, 2024
BBC led with “Donald Trump was booed repeatedly during an appearance at the Libertarian Party’s national convention on Saturday as he asked members for their support,” because that was the news.
The Biden campaign tweeted, “A seething and unpopular Trump lashes out and belittles the audience as they boo him.”
There’s your left-wing media spin.
Angela Elise McArdle, chairwoman of the Libertarian National Committee, tweeted back, “You didn’t even show up. You have zero credibility.”
There’s your story.
Biden can’t talk to a kindergarten class without embarrassment. And everyone knows it.
THE OLD GRAY LADY IN DISTRESS: “To be clear, I am referring to the New York Times.” “When Jodi Kantor of the New York Times published her story about the Alitos’ flag flap from 2021, I wondered why it took more than three years for the story to surface. Turns out a reputable journalist, Bob Barnes of the Washington Post, investigated the issue at the time, and realized there was no story there. And Barnes was right. . . . Why did the Post have enough sense sit on the story in 2021, but the Times ran it in 2024? I think the Times had a serious lapse in judgment. Indeed, there was wall-to-wall coverage about a non-story. Here Kantor was so, so eager to make a story happen that she stitched together random tweets and social media posts about the upside down flag, in order to disregard the most likely and natural meaning of Mrs. Alito’s acts. To this day, I’ve not seen a single conservative who had any idea that the upside down flag had anything to do with ‘Stop the Steal.’ Even Ann Coulter had no clue!”
Plus: “There is no story here. There never was a story here. How much time have we all wasted on this non-story.”
The point isn’t whether there’s a story here, the point is to convince low information voters that there’s so much smoke there must be a fire somewhere, when it’s really just the Democratic Party’s disinformation apparatus — that is to say, the New York Times — operating a smudge-pot. This is all in service of delegitimizing the Supreme Court so that Democratic policy initiatives won’t be constrained by the Constitution.
STACY MCCAIN: Why Memory Matters.
IT’S A PURGE. NOW WE NEED A COUNTER-PURGE. Cornell’s use of DEI statements indicates weeding out of overqualified, older, white STEM professor applicants, group alleges.
The weeding of “overqualified” candidates appears to be well underway.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: My Decision to Leave Academia: Their reality is so different from the rest of the world’s, and it has been for a long time.
YEAH, PRETTY MUCH:
Europe's 🇪🇺 strategy for dealing with Jihadist immigrants:
1. Nothing is going to happen
2. Maybe something is going to happen, but there's nothing we should do
3. We should do something, but there's nothing we can do
4. Maybe we could have done something, but it's too late now pic.twitter.com/WasdvFibaG— Dr. Eli David (@DrEliDavid) May 26, 2024
NOBODY TRUSTS THESE BOZOS ANYMORE, AND WITH GOOD REASON: Nope: WHO Global Pandemic Treaty Rejected.
MOST PEOPLE GO ALONG TO GET ALONG:
For reasons of morale it is important the activists and true believers banish all possibility of error from their minds when advancing their causes or else they might hesitate when calling for extreme measures that alone can save the world.
— wretchardthecat (@wretchardthecat) May 26, 2024
Those who fail to go along, even in minor ways, are often reviled. And then, if they’re later proven to have been right all along, the revilers blithely pretend it never happened.
FLASHBACK:
My favorite Memorial Day cartoon, from Cox & Forkum in their heyday.
Consider reposting, if you find it as affecting as I do. pic.twitter.com/HfNCJgtRrx
— TheHistoryOfTheAmericans (@TheHistoryOfTh2) May 26, 2024
I miss Cox & Forkum.
THE MORE HIS BRAIN DAMAGE RECEDES, THE MORE HE DISAGREES WITH FELLOW DEMOCRATS: Fetterman, Flashing a Sharper Edge, Keeps Picking Fights With the Left: The first-term Pennsylvanian has battled with progressives on Israel, immigration and energy, adopting a more caustic political persona and alienating some supporters.
May 26, 2024
THE ENEMY WITHIN:
Shameful Princeton students rush to stop a MEMORIAL DAY parade after spotting American flags coming towards them.
Hundreds of activists charged onto the road and sat down while shouting “Free Palestine” at the parade marchers who were honoring fallen service members & veterans. pic.twitter.com/dSQWK0J4YD
— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) May 26, 2024
Related:
Israeli mother Ayelet Samerano addresses UN Security Council after a UN employee kidnapped her son.
“An UNRWA worker kidnapped my son. A social worker employed by a so-called humanitarian organization under the umbrella of the UN….
A man who dragged my son’s body on the… pic.twitter.com/UZD3NF9aCg
— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) May 26, 2024
Plus:
1) Israel finds the bodies of hostages in UN buildings.
2) UN's top courts orders Israel to stop looking and go home.
That's where we are.
— Sunny (@sunnyright) May 24, 2024
WELL, THAT’S THE USUAL STYLE OF DEMOCRATIC MESSAGING: So, the “better way to talk about” climate change to black voters — instead of talking about “a planet free of climate crisis” — is to let them know there are billions of dollars “waiting to be doled out” to their specific communities. And that’s “how much black Americans care” — they care about the money that might be doled out to them. That’s what it says in the article.
Plus, from the comments: “Sorry, but the NYT overestimates how much anyone cares about about climate change.”
Like open borders and trans rights, these are priorities of the elites, and actually anti-priorities with voters.
OPEN THREAD: How was your weekend?
THE NEW SPACE RACE: China’s secretive spaceplane releases object into orbit.
I HAD MISSED THIS: ICE confirms Jordanians who attempted to breach Marine Corps Base Quantico were both in US illegally. “A spokesperson for the base said two people in a box truck were stopped at a gate, with the driver allegedly telling military police officers they were making a delivery to the post office and worked for a company subcontracted by Amazon. . . . Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is now facing scrutiny over the incident.” One of them overstayed a student visa. The other was an illegal border crosser who was caught and released on his own recognizance.
Possibly related: Mysterious shooting outside Army Special Forces residence in North Carolina raises questions. “Two Chechen men who spoke broken English were found near the soldier’s home. The family alleges the suspected intruder, 35-year-old Ramzan Daraev of Chicago was taking photos of their children. When confronted near a power line in a wooded part of the property, an altercation ensued and Daraev was shot several times at close range. A second man, Dzhankutov Adsalan, was in a vehicle some distance from the incident and was questioned by authorities and then released.” Released, huh? Plus: “U.S. Special Operations soldiers around the country have experienced strange interactions in recent years that they say involve suspicious surveillance of them and their families. Many believe that U.S. military bases have become an increasing target of foreign probes. . . . The two Chechens had no personal identification. They did have two cell phones with Russian language contacts and camera equipment. They were not wearing any uniforms for the power company that reportedly employed them.”
Okay, these are probably weird but unrelated, but if you were probing vulnerabilities in advance of a Kurt Schlichter-like attack, wouldn’t you be doing stuff like this? I think you would.
Plus: “Members of the Special Operations community are asking why two Russian-speaking Chechens were taking photos near an elite Army special forces residence at 8:15 pm on a Friday night some 10 minutes after sunset and why the FBI is not the lead in the investigation.” Why, indeed?
It was like this before 9/11 too. As I noted some time ago: “FBI investigators misunderstood the law, and were thus too slow to search Moussaoui even though the evidence in their possession was more than sufficient. The bureaucratic resistance to searching Moussaoui was so great that field agents in Minnesota wondered — before Sept. 11 — if Usama bin Laden had a mole in Bureau headquarters.”
There’s a quiet scandal at the heart of Sept. 11; one that for different reasons neither the government nor the privacy lobby really wants to talk about. It’s this: For two and a half weeks before the attacks, the U.S. government knew the names of two hijackers. It knew they were al-Qaida killers and that they were already in the United States. In fact, the two were living openly under their own names, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi. They used those names for financial transactions, flight school, to earn frequent flier miles, and to procure a California identity card.
Despite this paper trail, and despite having two and a half weeks to follow the scent, the FBI couldn’t locate either man—at least not until Sept. 11, when they flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon.
Too busy playing politics, then and probably now.
NASA SHOULD BE DOING THIS KIND OF THING, NOT BUILDING ITS OWN ROCKETS: Straight Out of Sci-Fi: NASA Advances Six Pioneering Space Technologies for Tomorrow.
I PREDICT THAT THIS WILL END BADLY: Cracker Barrel CEO says brand isn’t relevant and needs a new plan.
Much like the failed plan to turn McDonald’s into a “progressive burger company.”
LOTS OF THINGS ARE THAT WAY IN HOLLYWOOD: Hollywood at a Crossroads: “Everyone Is Using AI, But They Are Scared to Admit It.”