NEAR MISS: Bus-size asteroid to zoom by Earth, ducking below satellites.
DON’T GET COCKY: WaPo/ABC polls: Trump edging Biden in Florida and Arizona now.
SKYNET SMILES… ON REDMOND? Microsoft gets exclusive access to AI deemed ‘too dangerous to release.’
The reason that OpenAI’s program was deemed so dangerous was because it is capable of being fed a piece of text and predict the words that come next to such a high degree of accuracy that it would be difficult to distinguish between it and a human.
As such, it would be able to be abused by extremist groups to create “synthetic propaganda” for white supremacists or jihadist Islamis, for example.
“Due to our concerns about malicious applications of the technology, we are not releasing the trained model,” wrote OpenAI in February 2019.
Good lord, with that kind of talent it could take over anchor duties from George Stephanopoulos or Jake Tapper.
SURVEY FINDS MILLENNIALS THE MOST INTOLERANT GENERATION: They are also most likely to seek revenge against those they believe harmed them, according to the 2020 edition of Dr. George Barna, research director for the Center for Cultural Resources at Arizona Christian University.
But here’s a question for us: Should we Baby Boomers put a hold on our tut-tutting, since we raised the Millennials and allowed the public school system and the media-driven culture to inculcate values like intolerance of contrary opinions?
I THOUGHT I WAS UTTERLY RID OF THIS WORLD. IT’S BEEN TWENTY EIGHT YEARS. BUT LIKE CATS THE DANG THINGS TURN UP WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT THEM TO: In The Beginning.
JUST CALL IT “JUDICIAL REPARATIONS:” In Lieu Of New Justice, Trump Announces He Will Simply Grant Clarence Thomas Two Votes. “I checked the Constitution, and nowhere in there does it say I can’t do that.”
The Constitution is a living, breathing document that must grow and change with the times, so I’m good with this.
MAYBE A SHOCK FOR YOU, TOVARISH, BUT SOME OF US HAVE STAYED AWAKE THE LAST TWO YEARS: Shock Senate Report Finds Hunter Biden Financially Tied to Chinese Government, Rich Russian Widow, Human Trafficking.
Shocked, shocked, shocked. Behold my shocked face. Look how shocked it is!
IN OTHER NEWS: NY CITY REAL ESTATE PRICES DROP AGAIN. UNEXPECTEDLY: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez urges city, state tax hikes to fund NYC schools.
IS THAT BECAUSE THE RUSSIANS WILL BE FIRST TO LAND OR BECAUSE THE PLANET IS “LIKE HELL OVER THERE”? EITHER WAY, WHEN WE GO THERE WE AIN’T PAYING RUSSIA NO LANDING FEES: Venus was made of lava and was not ‘Earth-like’ after all, stunning study says.
POSSIBLY THE WORLD’S LONGEST BLOG POST. I DIDN’T HAVE THE TIME TO MAKE IT SHORTER OR I WOULD HAVE: NEKULTURNY.
NO. NO. JUST NO. YOU DON’T GET TO SAY “NEVERMIND.” I WANT YOU TO MAKE A FULL AND PUBLIC CONFESSION OF YOUR INSANE LIES AND THEIR MOTIVES. AND SPECTATORS WILL BE ABLE TO PELT YOU WITH ROTTEN FRUIT AND FISH ENTRAILS WHILE YOU DO IT: NY Times and Nikole Hannah-Jones Quietly Dropping Central Claims of 1619 Project.
Making kids and idiots hate their own country with a farrago of hateful lies should come at a cost.
DEAR LORD. I SUPPOSE WE SHOULD BE GLAD THEY READ AT ALL, BUT COULD THEY PLEASE READ A DECENT AND COHERENT BOOK NEXT TIME? Media Outlets Forced to Backtrack After Trying ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Smear on Judge Amy Coney Barrett.
Let alone all the other things that make no sense Atwood was writing about a fundamentalist society after being inspired by the trauma of living in that enclave of religious orthodoxy and oppression in…. New England?
THE GLORIOUS PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF THE (MASKED) BEAR FLAG HAS BANNED ANYTHING NOT POWERED BY UNICORN FARTS. EMBRACE THE GLORIOUS PEOPLE’S GREEN FUTURE: CA Gov. Newsom signs executive order banning sale of new gas and diesel vehicles by 2035.
Where were you going anyway? Governor Noisome will lock you up forever given a choice.
YES. YES THEY ARE. NEXT? Are Liberals Responsible For the Consequences of Their Death Threats?
BUT BUT BUT ONLY THE RIGHT IS CORRUPT! I KNOW! THE MEDIA TELLS ME SO: Hunter Biden: Burisma, And Bribery, And Human Trafficking.
YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE IS BEAUTIFUL? RAISING YOUR KIDS WITH CONSEQUENCES AND BOUNDARIES. SOMETHING MOST OF THE PSEUDO ANARCHISTS’ PARENTS FAILED TO DO: Anarchy is Beautiful, Says Teen Vogue.
AND YET HAMMER AND SICKLE FLAGS ARE EVERYWHERE. BUT THEY CAN DESTROY EVERYONE ELSE’S SYMBOLS: Thin Blue Line Flag Goes the Way of Confederate Statues.
And if it were just confederate statues, it would be crazy enough. But they’re going after ever statue, even statues of saints on church property.
NO. SERIOUSLY. I MEAN IT. IT’S TIME TO END THE CHARADE: Survival rates for COVID-19.
LET MY PEOPLE GO. NO, REALLY. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. LET MY PEOPLE GO: Four graphs prove the utter failure of lockdowns and masks.
September 23, 2020
ROGER SIMON: Bullets Over Louisville.
I was about to write about why Michael Bloomberg could have seen fit to spend millions paying the fines of Florida felons so they can vote, thus courting a possible indictment of his own for bribery (short form: terminal envy of fellow billionaire Trump augmented by fear POTUS might turn off the China spigot that so enriches the former NYC mayor), when it was announced yet another cop was shot, this time in Louisville.
I had been watching the violence and destruction in that city—about two and a half hour’s drive from where I am sitting—out of the corner of my eye on my office TV.
There went my plans for next year’s Kentucky Derby, I thought selfishly, then felt sick to my stomach. How much more of this could any of us take? How many more police need be shot?
I thought back to my days as a sixties anti-war protestor, being caught up in the crowds yelling “Off the pig!” The joke then was what we would do if someone broke into our apartments with no cops available. “Call a hippie!” was the supposedly jocular response.
In truth, in those days few of us thought badly of the police (with the exception, of course, of the extremist Kathy Boudin/Weather Underground-types who killed them). It was all kind of a game to us, stupid, juvenile and pointless as it was, not to mention politically reactionary. The police were and are the working class, not the privileged college kids then attacking them.
Today, things are very different and multiple times worse, making the sixties indeed seem like child’s play.
As I type this, yet another cop is reported as being shot in Louisville, making two, the same number as were shot just the other day in L.A., with no one apprehended.
All this after it was made clear that in the Breonna Taylor case, the one all the Louisville madness is supposed to be about, the police did not break in on her apartment with a “no-knock” entry, and her drug-dealer boyfriend they were seeking admittedly opened fire first. And yet a cop, who was defending an already wounded buddy, got indicted. Go figure.
Basta.
The time has come to say clearly what many of us have muttered for a long time:
BLM… the Marxist-led Black Lives Matter… is the modern version of the KKK. The skin colors may be different but the murderous instincts and racist loathing are the same.
The veneer of social justice is less than paper thin. “No justice, no peace,” is the hollowest slogan imaginable. It’s all about acting out like a bunch of crazies in a Hieronymus Bosch painting, except now they’re drugged out on fentanyl, meth or whatever. Evil is on the march in this country.
The question is who is putting the rioters, looters, and destroyers up to their mayhem? Who, for example, rented the U-Haul from which, video shows, all sorts of ad hoc weaponry was disgorged to the supposedly peaceful protestors before the Taylor decision came down? And who paid that person and so on?
The Department of Justice knows. But will it act?
AT AMAZON, Leupold LTO Tracker 2 HD Thermal Viewer.
PEACEFUL PROTEST INTENSIFIES: “At least two police officers were shot in Louisville, Kentucky, MetroSafe confirmed to NewsNation. Both were taken to the hospital. Their conditions are currently unknown.”
UPDATE: “Both officers who were shot are stable Louisville PD announces at press conference,” Breitbart.com’s Charlie Spiering tweets.
WHAT COULD GO WRONG? The Almighty Gavin Newsom Orders New Gas-Powered Cars Banned by 2035.
Well, besides this: “Genius. Weeks ago there were rolling brownouts, and we were ordered to turn off our electricity. Given that Newsom has no plans to build zero-emission nuke plants, where’s all the juice going to come from? California: the state of magical thinking,” Joel Engel tweets.
“SHE CAN’T PULL THIS OFF:” “Democrats worry Feinstein can’t handle Supreme Court battle/Colleagues fear the oldest senator may struggle to lead Democrats on the Judiciary Committee.”
Plus: “Another Democratic senator said party leaders were ‘in an impossible position,’ pointing out that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y) and other senior Democrats can’t replace a female senator for hearings on an expected female nominee to replace a deceased female Supreme Court justice….”
Well, she doesn’t have her longtime Chinese spy/driver to tell her what to do now.
SOMEONE — BY WHICH I MEAN THE PRESS — HAS DECIDED THAT VIOLENCE AND DEATH THREATS FROM THE LEFT ARE JUST FINE: Dear Berggruen Institute: Renounce Death Threats Now.
As you may by now be aware, on Monday, September 21, 2020, your employee, Nils Gilman, tweeted what is tantamount to a death threat against Michael Anton, a Senior Fellow at the Claremont Institute. Specifically, Mr. Gilman compared Mr. Anton to Robert Brasillach, a Frenchman who was executed by firing squad in 1945 for what have been characterized as “intellectual crimes.” Still more specifically, Mr. Gilman wrote that “Michael Anton is the Robert Brasillach of our times and deserves the same fate,” which can only be interpreted to mean that Mr. Gilman is approving of, if not calling for, Mr. Anton to be shot to death.
This is incitement to political violence. Mr. Gilman has yet to retract his inflammatory words.
Is the official position of the Berggruen Institute that its political opponents should be killed?
You really don’t want political violence to become widespread.
Rioting to influence jury decisions was a lesson easily transferred to elections. If elections were a form of silent riot, then, in the simple-minded analysis of race-baiters, open riots have an equal claim to be elections. Elections, in their perfervid imaginations, are thus taking place in cities nationwide today, directed by BLM and Antifa with the complicity of the Democratic Party.
These riots can disrupt or cancel previous forms of election by intimidating voters and candidates, to say nothing of canceling elections. In fact we may no longer need elections. The logic of “no justice, no peace” has been extended to elections. Michelle Obama practically said as much at the Democratic National Convention: “if you think things cannot possibly get worse,” she warned, “trust me, they can; and they will if we don’t make a change in this election. If we have any hope of ending this chaos, we have got to vote for Joe Biden like our lives depend on it.”
As Michael Anton explained on this website recently, Democratic operatives are now speaking openly of rejecting the results of the election. A recent article in the Daily Beast states that “the larger game plan is to apply pressure through mass mobilization.” Within the Democrat Party today “there is dispute over whether Biden should even concede if he wins the popular vote but loses the Electoral College.” What I warned of in the ’90s is now playing out in real time: Riots are fast on their way to becoming elections by other means. If leftists have their way, they will decide all electoral questions from here on out with mob rule. Many of them have been aiming at this target since the ’90s, and probably before. It all makes sense now.
Read the whole thing.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN):
“One thing in which the right has been tremendously successful is getting media to frame stories in their language and through their lens,” wrote Hannah-Jones in a subsequently deleted tweet. “The #1619Project does not argue that 1619 is our true founding. We know this nation marks its founding at 1776.”
* * * * * * * *
In an interview with Tomiko Brown-Nagin, dean of Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute, Hannah-Jones stated explicitly that the 1619 Project makes evocative arguments such as, “What would it mean to consider 1619 our founding and not 1776?” Here is video of the conversation, which took place not a year ago, or even several months ago, but just last week: September 15, 2020.
* * * * * * * *
But the claim is inarguably part of the 1619 Project, and it’s absurd for Hannah-Jones to pretend it isn’t—especially while she continues to describe the project in exactly these terms. To say that conservatives imagined or manufactured this is ridiculous. It’s gaslighting—and it undercuts the credibility of the author and her work.
It’s a good thing the Times doesn’t have a history of Pulitzer-approved leftist gaslighting dating back to the 1930s that would have caused more cynical readers to believe this is but the latest example.
THE MISTAKES ALL GO ONE DIRECTION: A Biased Reuters Makes It Personal—and Gets Election Fraud Completely Wrong.
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR’S REPORTING ON BLACK LIVES MATTER HASN’T BEEN UP TO ITS USUAL STANDARDS, AND THIS STORY IS ANOTHER EXAMPLE: Armed protesters in America create stress test for police. Take this bit:
For instance, police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, gave armed white teenager Kyle Rittenhouse a water bottle and chatted amiably with him before he allegedly killed two people and injured a third during a night of protests. Days later Kenosha police arrested at gunpoint at a gas station a crew of Seattle cooks, known as the Riot Kitchen, who said they traveled to the city to feed protesters. Officers believed the cooks’ jerry cans might be bombs.
Earlier this month, police in Olympia, Washington, shot and killed a left-wing extremist, Michael Forest Reinoehl. Mr. Reinoehl was wanted by Oregon authorities on suspicion of targeting and killing a right-wing Patriot Prayer counter-protester in Portland.
Okay, Rittenhouse hadn’t shot anybody, and was acting legally and expressing support for the police. They were friendly to him. Reinoehl killed someone in cold blood. The Riot Kitchen people said they were just there to feed people, and I suppose some journalists believe that. Frankly, the whole thing reads like it was inspired by a SPLC press briefing. Disappointing.
DEMOCRATIC PARTY OPERATIVES WITH BYLINES NOT HAPPY: Fed up Reporters Blow Lid off Kamala’s Limited Availability, One Says It ‘Has a Foul Stench of Insecurity.’
AT AMAZON, BK Cookware Skillet Black Carbon Steel, 10′.
HOW ARE YOU GOING TO POWER THE ELECTRIC ONES? California governor signs executive order to ban gas-powered cars and trucks. Post-election, I hope we’ll see some federal supervision here.
NOT THE BABYLON BEE: Local Anarchists Miffed By Trump’s Designation Of NYC As Anarchist Jurisdiction.
The Metropolitan Anarchist Coordinating Council, an active NYC-based anarchist group, condemned the move in a statement released Tuesday.
“We denounce Trump’s attempt to scapegoat anarchists, distract from his disastrous regime in the run-up to the election, and pit other leftists and progressives against us so that we fight each other rather than building the world we want to see,” it read.
The group, whose organizing principles are “horizontalism, anti-oppression, mutual aid, direct democracy, and direct action,” said NYC had a long way to go before it could claim the mantel of full anarchism.
In Anarchist NYC, all New Yorkers will be as involved in building and caring for our city as they want to be, from block associations to councils for local food production or promoting racial justice. NYC will be free from hierarchies based on race, class, gender, or anything else. Our city will run on cooperative economics based on mutual aid and solidarity, not capitalism based on profit or competition. All New Yorkers will get our needs met and our desires nurtured simply because we exist, regardless of our identities, immigration statuses, bank accounts, or disabilities. We will embrace transformative justice and collectively determined community agreements over punishment, policing, or locking people in cages. The land of the five boroughs will be collectively nurtured and called upon to restore our health and our communities instead of sold, owned, rented, or polluted upon.
Bane could not be reached for comment.
SYR-ACCUSE UNIVERSITY IS A DISASTER: Joke about “Wuhan Flu” and get suspended from teaching. Seriously, Syracuse is just so very bad on free speech that its School of Communications has to be the most ironic piece of architecture in the known world.
A PLAN SO CRAZY IT MIGHT JUST WORK: Governor DeSantis Has an Amazing Plan to Deal With Rioters and Mostly Peaceful Protesters™: Prosecute Them.
DON’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ: A Trump-supporting App State prof describes how an inadvertently warped story about an “anti-conservative survey” in his class went viral.
How much better off would we be, as a society, if people DIDN’T just immediately believe everything they read? Geez.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: The How of Happiness. At 5 pm Eastern time today, in a Zoom symposium at the Aspen Institute, I’ll be interviewing the social psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky about her research into what makes people happier (and what doesn’t). Any suggestions for what I should ask her? You can post them here, or click on the link to join the symposium and ask her yourself.
BLACK BEAR LIVES MATTER: Real bear skin draped over Foothills Parkway entrance sign, vandals still not found. Sounds like it was meant to be a warning for bears to stay in the park.
LIVE AT 3:30PM EASTERN: VIP Gold Live Chat with VodkaPundit, Kruiser, and Preston.
Hot takes, cold drinks.
IT’S AN IDEA SO CRAZY, IT JUST MIGHT WORK: Governor DeSantis Has an Amazing Plan to Deal With Rioters and Mostly Peaceful Protesters™: Prosecute Them.
WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: New 3-D printing method could jump-start creation of tiny medical devices for the body.
EX-COP BRETT HANKISON INDICTED BY KENTUCKY GRAND JURY IN SHOOTING DEATH OF BREONNA TAYLOR.
UPDATE: And here we go:
Rioters in Louisville had a U-Haul on standby loaded up with supplies, and immediately geared up as soon as the Breonna Taylor decision was announced.
People pretend these riots happen out of nowhere. They don't. They're well-coordinated and prepared. pic.twitter.com/AuTZp1Z57D
— David Hookstead (@dhookstead) September 23, 2020
Earlier: Louisville mayor puts curfew in place, says National Guard is coming.
(Updated and bumped.)
WHERE’S HUNTER, FAT? Senate Report Details Hunter Biden’s Extensive Foreign Business Dealings — and Obama Officials’ Efforts to Ignore Them.
(Classical reference in headline; updated and bumped.)
ANOTHER REASON TO GET OFF MY LAWN: The CDC Doesn’t Want Kids Trick-or-Treating for Halloween. “The very safest activities, according to the CDC, are carving pumpkins with members of your own household, having scary-movie night, or throwing a ‘virtual Halloween costume contest.’ (How fun.)”
VERNON JONES: Trump Did More for Blacks in 4 Years Than Biden Has in 40.
Analysis: True.
SHOCKING NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE: Once exposed to humans, animals start to lose their fear of predators.
TROLL LEVEL: POTUS DJT. Snopes: Trump Campaign Falsely Suggests Biden Promoted ‘White Power’ Symbol.
In reality, Biden used the hand gesture to illustrate his assertion that massive corporations and U.S. President Donald Trump himself have in the past paid “zero” in taxes.
So evidently, using the “Okay” hand gesture to indicate zero is not racist, but using the “Okay” hand gesture to indicate, err, “Okay” is?
As Glenn noted in December when Rolling Stone got the vapors because someone at the Army-Navy game flashed the OK sign, “The 4Chan trollers have scored again. I remember when ’culture jamming’ was a lefty thing, but the lefty culture jammers never scored at this level.”
I AGREE. ALL THE #ORANGEMANBAD STUFF HAS REALLY HURT OUR RESPONSE. Dr. Fauci says ‘divisive’ society hurting COVID-19 fight.
TRUMP’S GET-OUT-THE-VOTE EFFORT ENTERS A NEW PHASE: Some Protests Against Police Brutality Take a More Confrontational Approach: The protests are moving into white residential neighborhoods, where activists demand that people choose a side.
“It went from a peaceful march, calling out the names, to all of a sudden, bang, ‘How dare you fly the American flag?’” said Mr. Moses, who is Black and runs a nonprofit group in the Portland, Ore., area. “They said take it down. They wouldn’t leave. They said they’re going to come back and burn the house down.”
Mr. Moses and others blocked the demonstrators and told them to leave.
“We don’t go around terrorizing folks to try and force them to do something they don’t want to do,” said Mr. Moses, whose nonprofit group provides support for local homeless people. “I’m a veteran. I’m for these liberties.”
Nearly four months after the killing of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police, some protesters against police brutality are taking a more confrontational — and personal — approach. The marches in Portland are increasingly moving to residential and largely white neighborhoods, where demonstrators with bullhorns shout for people to come “out of your house and into the street” and demonstrate their support.
These more aggressive protests target ordinary people going about their lives, especially those who decline to demonstrate allegiance to the cause. That includes a diner in Washington who refused to raise her fist to show support for Black Lives Matter, or, in several cities, confused drivers who happened upon the protests. . . .
A small free literature selection was set up on the grass and overseen by three people in ski masks. It was a popular offering, and people crowded around, craning to see the pamphlets.
Titles included “Why Break Windows”; “I Want To Kill Cops Until I’m Dead”; “Piece Now, Peace Later: An Anarchist Introduction to Firearms”; “In Defense of Smashing Cameras”; and “Three-Way Fight: Revolutionary Anti-Fascism and Armed Self Defense.” . . .
Neighbors in impressive Craftsman-style homes pulled down their shades and turned off their lights, though many could be seen peering out of dark windows. One woman stepped out of an expansive home looking angry; upon seeing the crowd, she quickly retreated indoors. A few young couples stood in their doorways. A Black woman driving past honked and cheered.
One white man stepped onto his patio clapping and hollering in support of the passing march. The group called for him to join. He smiled and waved them on, still clapping. They began to chant that he was spineless. He looked worried. But the march moved along, and he went back into his house.
“You’ll never sleep tight, we do this every night,” the protesters chanted.
This isn’t protest, this is domestic terrorism.
Related: Louisville mayor puts curfew in place, says National Guard is coming. “Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron will announce at 1:30 p.m. whether the three officers who fired their weapons the night Taylor was killed will face charges.”
JOANNE JACOBS: Not indoctrinated, just ignorant. “Most students learn little or no history, pro-American or anti-American, in elementary school, writes Wexler. They may not learn much in middle school either. They’re not indoctrinated, just ignorant.”
YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: China Perfidy Roundup. “Time to zig while everyone else is zagging over the Supreme Court nomination fight, and once again offer up a roundup of Communist China’s ongoing perfidy.”
TRUMP: A UNITER, NOT A DIVIDER! Lisa Murkowski Reverses Position on Filling SCOTUS Vacancy, Won’t Rule Out Vote to Confirm.
Related: Joy Behar concedes Democrats’ SCOTUS loss: ‘We’ve lost that battle.’
It’s always good to hear the lamentations of the Behars, but don’t get cocky.
STEAMROLLER: Lisa Murkowski Reverses Position on Filling SCOTUS Vacancy, Won’t Rule Out Vote to Confirm.
For what it’s worth, I’d guess that vulnerable GOP senators are hearing from their constituents just how much they’d like to see another conservative sitting on SCOTUS.
VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: Explosive Report on Biden Family Corruption Syndicate.
Insanity Wrap needs to know: What does Hunter Biden do for a living?
Answer: Seriously, we read all the reports and we still can’t tell what he does, aside from bend his father’s ear.
Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.
- Seattle voters get what they asked for, good and hard.
- Meet the Psycho Rage Girls.
- Bill Clinton’s grisly dinner date.
And so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.
TEACH THE CHILDREN WELL: My generation is being raised to hate America — it’s time to stand up for our history.
OH: Just 1% of US Counties Have Had Nearly Half of All COVID-19 Deaths. “The five counties with the most COVID-19 deaths represent just 0.2% of all counties, but they account for 16% of all COVID-19 deaths in the U.S., nearly three times their population share of 6.5%.”
CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: NY Times: Law Firms Pay Supreme Court Clerks $400,000 Bonuses; New Study Confirms Their Influence With Their Justice. If we abolished law clerks, Supreme Court opinions would be shorter, clearer, and better.
BUT THEY’LL STILL GET THEIR BALLOTS, RIGHT? Election Watchdog Finds 350,000 Dead Registrants on Voter Rolls In 42 States.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Kamala Harris Will Remind Everyone How Awful She Is During Confirmation Hearing. “The optics of Harris teeing off on a Roman Catholic mother with a shrieking progressive ‘Gender traitor’ rant won’t really help Team Harris-Biden win over any hearts and minds in swing states where the polls are tight.”
ON THE UN’S 75TH ANNIVERSARY: Peacekeeping institution? What peace? Time to commemorate the UN war fighters.
Somewhere in a storage room, I’ve a World War II submarine recognition pamphlet framed to display its intriguing title.
Published circa 1943, the pamphlet is no frills — black ink submarine silhouettes and captions on white paper. The silhouettes depict U.S., British Commonwealth, Free French and Soviet Union subs, and, as I recall, a Dutch and a Greek sub as well. The Netherlands, Greece and France had been defeated, but some ships escaped to fight for their “free governments in exile.”
The document’s title: “United Nations Submarines.”
They were U.N. subs, not U.S and Allied subs, and it had a 1943/44 pub date, not 1945, the year the U.N. organization was established, according to those now commemorating its 75th anniversary.
Contemporary question: In 1945 did the UN really move from war-making to peacekeeping?
BONE SORTIE: A B-1B Lancer departs Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, on its way to Europe in support of a Bomber Task Force mission. Photo taken Sept. 14, 2020. A Murphy’s Law update from January 2020 discusses why the B-1B will be retired before the B-52.
DAVID BARON, CALL YOUR OFFICE: Bear spotted in South Knoxville neighborhood.
TELL CANADA TO STOP MEDDLING IN OUR ELECTION: Court papers: Woman wrote ‘give up’ in ricin note to Trump.
NOPE: More than 1200 sign petition to change UT grading scale to pass/fail. We didn’t do that for either World War, for the 1918 Flu, or for the Civil War or the War of 1812. Why now?
YEAH, THEY JUMP SHIP AT THE FIRST LITTLE SIGN OF ARSON, LOOTING, AND RAPE: White women just ‘fair-weather’ fans of Black Lives Matter.
MEDIA MYTH ALERT: Woodward’s latest Trump book prompts myth-telling about Watergate. “‘[T]o explain Watergate through the lens of the heroic journalist,’ I wrote, ‘is to abridge and misunderstand the scandal and to indulge in a particularly beguiling media-driven myth’ — one that even Woodward has disputed. He told an interviewer in 2004: ‘To say that the press brought down Nixon, that’s horseshit.’”
The DNC-MSM’s self-serving mythopoeic narratives don’t write themselves, you know.
PROGRESS: Blue Origin targets this Thursday for New Shepard reusable rocket launch with NASA landing system test. “The launch of Blue Origin’s New Shepard vehicle will be its thirteenth overall for that category of launch craft, and the seventh in a row for this particular rocket. The payload will include an even dozen commercial cargo items, including a Deorbit, Descent and Landing Sensor Demonstration done in partnership with NASA — basically a highly precise automated landing system that will help NASA land on the moon and eventually Mars.”
A SINGLE RAY OF HOPE IN THE FETID, DARK BIZARRO-WORLD OF ACADEMIA: Converse College Associate Professor of Politics Joel Poelvoorde still has his job despite refusing to take mandatory “diversity” training.
FIGHT THE POWER: US House passes forced labour bill that would bar Xinjiang imports.
U.S. SANCTIONS FORCE RUSSIA TO CUT DEFENSE SPENDING: Let me get this straight —OrangeManBad is a tool of the Russkies, so OrangeManBad imposed sanctions on the Russkies that are so tough they had to reduce military spending? Uh, what am I missing here?
QUESTION ASKED: Who’s afraid of Amy Coney Barrett?
Pretty much the entire left, and the news media (but I repeat myself).
WE’VE DESCENDED INTO SOME SORT OF BIZARRE HELL-WORLD IN WHICH – hang on, checking notes – THE WORLD SOCIALIST WEBSITE IS A VOICE OF SANITY: The New York Times and Nikole Hannah-Jones abandon key claims of the 1619 Project.
It is not entirely clear when the Times deleted its “true founding” claim, but an examination of old cached versions of the 1619 Project text indicates that it probably took place on December 18, 2019.
These deletions are not mere wording changes. The “true founding” claim was the core element of the Project’s assertion that all of American history is rooted in and defined by white racial hatred of blacks. According to this narrative, trumpeted by Project creator Nikole Hannah-Jones, the American Revolution was a preemptive racial counterrevolution waged by white people in North America to defend slavery against British plans to abolish it. The fact that there is no historical evidence to support this claim did not deter the Times and Hannah-Jones from declaring that the historical identification of 1776 with the creation of a new nation is a myth, as is the claim that the Civil War was a progressive struggle aimed at the destruction of slavery. According to the New York Times and Hannah-Jones, the fight against slavery and all forms of oppression were struggles that black Americans always waged alone.
The Times’ “disappearing,” with a few secret keystrokes, of its central argument, without any explanation or announcement, is a stunning act of intellectual dishonesty and outright fraud. When it launched the 1619 Project in August 2019, the Times proclaimed that its aim was to radically change what and how students were taught about American history. With the aim of creating a new syllabus based on the 1619 Project, hundreds of thousands of copies of the original version of the narrative, as published in the New York Times Magazine, were printed and distributed to schools, museums and libraries all across the United States. A very large number of schools declared that they would align their curricula in accordance with the narrative supplied by the Times.
I agree with the conclusion, but it’s awfully rich coming from the source.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): A friend on Facebook comments: “In a way this is a good day for serious historians. A bunch of charlatans have been forced to back down. There are lessons to be learned more widely about pushing back against dishonesty and bad faith in academia. In years to come this might be seen as one of those turning points. And actually Trump deserves credit here too: he’s made a stink about this.”
Yes, don’t give the left a pass on its lies just because it’s easier to go along. As a famous man said, get in their face and punch back twice as hard.
USC: USC Faculty Reaction to the Great USC Chinese Homonym Panic. “‘Scathing comments’ from an anonymous faculty survey (reported by the Chronicle of Higher Education), plus an article in the Atlantic. You can’t buy publicity like that, as they say, or faculty morale like that.”
FRANK FLEMING, OF IMAO.US, AND OF THE BABYLON BEE HAS A BOOK OUT IN MANY FORMATS, INCLUDING ON AUDIBLE. YOU MIGHT WANT TO CHECK IT OUT: Superego: Fathom.
There are two ways to be a hero.
One is more violent than the other. And the universe needs a hero, because a mysterious entity known as the Fathom is terrorizing the known universe and seizing control. But they’ve made one mistake: They woke Rico, the universe’s greatest killer, from a coma. And he’s decided he might be the good guy this time.
But being a hero isn’t easy. Rico has to work with others (not his favorite), and the impossible odds means it’s going to take an insane scheme or two (more to his liking). Still, Rico won’t let anything get in his way on his mission to destroy the Fathom…even though there are like a ton of things in his way – militaries, trained killers, a planet-devastating weapon or two.
Once again, it looks like Rico is going to destroy a lot of things and kill a lot of people.
But hopefully this time in a good way.
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