FAIL, BRITANNIA: UK Still Won’t Accelerate Re-Opening Despite COVID Deaths Dropping Below Road Accident Fatalities. “The average number of daily deaths now stands at 25 a day with COVID cases dropping 94 per cent from the peak. On Monday, the UK recorded just four total deaths.”
YOU’RE GONNA NEED A SMALLER BLOG: The 1619 Project Summarized in One Single Sentence.
THIS IS A FIGHT WE HAVE TO WIN: “Biden Administration Offers Grants to Teach Children ‘1619 Project,’ Inherent Racism Central to U.S.“
RUSSIAN AND CHINESE SHOWS OF FORCE CONFRONT THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION: Russia and China are conducting multiple probing operations intended to test President Biden’s administration and, frankly, Slow Joe himself.
Without strong leadership by democratic nations, primarily from the powerful U.S., our weaknesses, especially our self-inflicted weaknesses, could quickly become debilitating wounds the authoritarians will leverage, to our great loss.
Credit French President Emmanuel Macron with recognizing that, at least regarding Russia. He told CBS News the democracies must continue discussions with Russia but “define clear red lines” with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime. He added, “sanctions are not sufficient in themselves, but … are part of the package.”
Macron criticized “a failure of our collective credibility” to respond effectively to Russia’s 2014 Ukraine invasion. The “international community” also failed to enforce the Obama-Biden administration’s now-infamous August 2012 “red line” forbidding use of chemical weapons by Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad. During the interview, he made this strong statement: “We will never accept new military operations on Ukrainian soil.”
Bravo. But Macron knows that making that stick in the Kremlin craw requires U.S. diplomatic, economic and military power.
It’s my latest Creators Syndicate column.
A GOOD REVIEW FOR MEN’S SHAVING SOAP AT HELEN’S PAGE:
A reviewer says: “So, I’m cheap. Not thrifty, but full-blown cheap. However, I decided to try supporting someone listing their products on this site, and I was unhappy with my recent shaving products (and shaving product companies, but that’s a different story).
So, I decided to order – but being cheap, I didn’t take advantage of a bundle and only got the men’s shaving soap in the bay rum. ….
Give it a shot – take it from someone as cheap as me it was worth every penny!”
UPDATE: The website to buy the soap is here.
GUILTY ON ALL CHARGES: The Sports World Reacts To The Derek Chauvin Verdict.
Related: Las Vegas Raiders owner Mark Davis ‘meant no disrespect’ with widely criticized tweet:
“Davis told The Associated Press and The Athletic that he also didn’t know that the phrase ‘I can breathe’ was used by supporters of police in New York after the death of Eric Garner in 2014 and that he wouldn’t have used that phrase if he knew the history. ‘It’s a tough situation,’ Davis told the AP. ‘I feel bad it was taken in a way it wasn’t meant to be done. That can only be my fault for not explaining it.’”
It’s an even more thoughtless tweet considering the vicious history of the Raiders. Two words: Darryl Stingley.
25 35S: 25 USAF F-35A Lightnings prepare to takeoff from Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska. They are participating in Exercise Arctic Gold 21-2.
FREETHINKERS WHO DETEST THINKING FREELY: Atheist Group Excommunicates Richard Dawkins for Transgender Heresy.
2,000,000,000,000 OPPORTUNITIES FOR FRAUD AND GRIFT: ‘Green Infrastructure’ Backers Stand to Profit From Gov’t Spending Boost.
VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: Did Jury Intimidation Play a Part in the Chauvin Verdict?
Insanity Wrap needs to know: When a big city newspaper comes this close to fully doxxing every juror in a very public trial, did they get the message?
Answer: We’ll only know for sure if a juror speaks up, which would seem… unwise.
Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.
- California (!) is not happy with BLM founder’s financial reports
- Teenagers get stabby, big deal
- When you find yourself on the side of the attacker…
Bonus Sanity: Did we mention California wants a better look at Patrisse Cullor’s finances?
And so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.
ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Atheist Group Excommunicates Richard Dawkins for Transgender Heresy.
PACKING THE COURT, THEN AND NOW: FDR’s court-packing efforts didn’t fail. He won by intimidating the sitting justices. But today’s Democrats are unlikely to have the same success.
That won’t stop them trying, though.
Related: Morning Consult: Opposition to court-packing near 2:1 … and growing. “The months-long campaign to pack the court has been an utter flop, even with the party base. Democrats’ support for the idea doesn’t even get to a majority.”
But do Democrats care what voters want?
GREAT MOMENTS IN KABUKI THEATER: AG Merrick Garland Opens Probe into ‘Unconstitutional’ Practices at Minneapolis Police Department.
With the exception of a GOP mayor who served for a day in 1973, Minneapolis’ last Republican mayor left office in 1961.
THAT’S BECAUSE TEXAS FOLLOWED THE SCIENCE: The COVID-19 Disaster That Did Not Happen in Texas: Cases are rising mainly in states with stricter disease control policies.
ANOTHER REASON TO ABOLISH THE FDA: The FDA’s War on Nicotine Will Encourage Americans to Smoke More Cigarettes. Having done its best to discourage smokers from from switching to vaping, the FDA’s new policy will directly promote more cigarette sales.
ANALYSIS: TRUE. Chauvin Verdict Won’t End Left’s Race-Hatred Crusade. “Unless all of his convictions are overturned, Chauvin is going to jail for what he did that day. But the left-wing race hatred and the racialized destruction of institutions is going to be with us for a long time — especially because power-holders like George Davison refuse to defend what’s right. So, while I am grateful for what looks like closure in the Chauvin case, the leftists in this country who have taken over the institutions, and who have the media’s hot air in their sails, are going to continue pushing a narrative that is going to make people of all races fearful of and loathsome to each other. Guaranteed.”
What’s bad for the country is good for the Democrats, so they’ll continue hurting the country.
THEY GIVE THEIR CONSTITUENTS WHAT THEY VOTE FOR, GOOD AND HARD: Joe Biden Reacts to Chauvin Verdict and Describes a World That Doesn’t Exist – Except Where Democrats Rule.
YESTERDAY NORTH DAKOTA BECAME THE LATEST “STAND YOUR GROUND STATE”: Only 12 states remain “duty to retreat states.” The history of all this is pretty interesting.
JAMES LILEKS: This morning on the Op-Ed page:
A well-deserved Fisking follows. Read the whole thing.
EPIC POETRY AT MEDIA MATTERS: J. Christian Adams utilizes the Lefty outfit to illustrate the yawning gulf between fable and fact. This one is brutal and deservedly so. And, since we’re on the subject of media criticism today, you should also check out my case over at PJ Media for why the Old Grey Lady owes America an apology.
SEGREGATION NOW, SEGREGATION TOMORROW, SEGREGATION FOREVER! ‘Student success’ conference at Michigan State to segregate participants by skin color.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Berkeley is looking for an employee to run ‘climate healing circles’ with ‘BIPOC’ activists.
NO ENEMIES TO THE LEFT: Democrats Nuke Censure Of Maxine Waters For Incitement Of Violence In Minnesota.
TWO ‘MONSTROUS LIES’ FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES: Issues & Insights has some, uh, questions. The I&I gang also has a “PAC” of concerns about the political contributions of James and Kathryn Murdoch.
“NEVER UNDERESTIMATE JOE’S ABILITY TO F*** THINGS UP”: White House on Damage Control After Biden Calls Border Situation a ‘Crisis.’
HELEN TRIED IT: There is a book listed at Helen’s Page that I read a while back called Before I Go: Preparing Your Affairs for Your Heirs. I have it sitting on one of my bookshelves and have used it from time to time to help me update a list of important information in case someone in my family needs it. It is not a very uplifting topic but the book is really good at helping you organize your financial and important documents to help your family in case you become sick or die. Though I don’t recommend the topic, I do think the book is worth a read if you ever wondered what kinds of things like bills, insurance, finances etc. your family needs to know about if something does happen to you. (Bumped)
BLUE STATE BLUES: Illinois’ Pension Bomb Has a Short Fuse.
Those government retirement systems are sitting on mountains of debt. There’s $144 billion in debt just in the five statewide systems, by the state’s conservative estimate, or $261 billion by a more realistic, independent estimate. They average only 40% of the funds needed to pay out retiree benefits long-term.
If you add in local pension debt, Illinois’ unfunded pension liability totals more than $200 billion by the state’s measure, and that amount grows every year. Another shock such as the Great Recession could cause the first pension fund to run out of money by 2039, according to actuarial analysis.
That amounts to a broken promise not only to retirees who are banking on having their pensions to support them, but also to the taxpayers who continue getting hit with higher taxes just to keep things from tanking.
Illinois politicians have enhanced benefits without funding them and pushed off the financial reckoning for decades. As a result, pension costs, which took up just 4% of the state’s budget in the 1990s, have increased by more than 500% during the past 20 years, growing to consume more than 25% of budgets in recent years – rapidly approaching 30%.
Stein’s Law: “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.”
HUGO GURDON: John Kerry in Earth Day wonderland. “It is not encouraging to see John Kerry returning from talks in China and suggesting he’s achieved some sort of climate change breakthrough. The last time he trumpeted success on an allied diplomatic mission, he was touting the 2016 Paris Agreement, in which he weakly acquiesced in hobbling United States interests in favor of our main global rival while doing nothing real to deal with the hyped problem with which the world was supposedly grappling.”
To be fair, that’s pretty much his signature approach.
MICHAEL YON: Immigration Intelligence from Panama.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Chauvin Guilty but Unhinged Leftists Still Complain. “Another chapter closed in the tragic George Floyd saga yesterday but I think we all know that it won’t be the final chapter. This is going to be an American societal horror version of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time and we’re only about one-third of the way through the first of the seven books.”
EMBRACE THE SPAM: Progressive Groups Fight AT&T and T-Mobile’s New Texting Rules.
Mobile carriers like T-Mobile and AT&T are unhappy with the number of spam text messages — including political ones — that their customers receive. In the next few months, they’re rolling out major changes affecting who can send texts and how many they can send. The changes — named “10DLC” for the 10-digit long codes that high-volume businesses and apps use to text local numbers — will require high-volume text purveyors to register with the Campaign Registry, a subsidiary of the Milan-based communications firm Kaleyra. Carriers will impose higher messaging fees on any businesses, campaigns, and other mass texting efforts that don’t file with the Registry, and in some cases block them from delivering messages altogether.
In recent weeks, a coalition of liberal and progressive advocacy groups have mounted a campaign to put the brakes on 10DLC, rejecting the characterization of their messages as spam and raising concerns that the blunt 10DLC rules will hamper one of their most effective organizing tools.
A modest 25¢ fee to send a text, fully refundable on acceptance by the receiver, would do wonders for peace and quiet.
But honestly, I’d rather bring back the pillory for anyone who acts as though my device is their organizing tool.
MANCHIN GOES WITH THE UNION BOSSES: Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), the sole remaining trace of what was once a strong pack of moderate Senate Democrats — think Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson of Washington — has mightily disappointed those who hoped he would buck the unions.
THIS IS ONE OF THE WEIRDEST PROJECTS I’VE WORKED FOR: And it’s now in audiobook.
It is 2185 CE. Humans now live throughout the Solar System, but their most ambitious adventure is about to begin. The starship Victoria will carry over 10,000 colonists to a new world outside the Solar System. The larger-than-life exploits of those colonists will become legendary. The colonists will build a new civilization, and the actions of a few individuals will become famous – and infamous – forever marking their new colony with the Founder Effect.
“Foreword: Legends” copyright 2020 by Larry Correia; “Descent” copyright 2020 by Mark H. Wandrey; “Confession” copyright 2020 by Les Johnson; “Somnum Exterreri” copyright 2020 by Christopher L. Smith; “Kamekura” copyright 2020 by Words of Weber, Inc.; “Sonny Stirs” copyright 2020 by Daniel M. Hoyt; “Stowaway” copyright 2020 by Brad R. Torgersen; “Cerberus Project” copyright 2020 by Monalisa Foster; “Alas Roanoke” copyright 2020 by Sarah A. Hoyt; “The Legend of Jimmy Vee” copyright 2020 by Chris Kennedy; “On the Trail of the Sügenhound” copyright 2020 by Vivienne Raper; “No Word for Princes” copyright 2020 by Jody Lynn Nye; “The Loss of Beaver Flight” copyright 2020 by Brent M. Roeder; “Jack Daw Days” copyright 2020 by Catherine L. Smith; “Redemption” copyright 2020 by Philip Wohlrab; “Looneytunes” copyright 2020 by D.J. Butler; “Fire from Heaven” copyright 2020 by Words of Weber, Inc. and Mark H. Wandrey
SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER: Burgess Owens Eviscerates Democrats’ ‘Jim Crow’ Narrative on Election Integrity. “True racism is this: It’s a projection of the Democratic Party on my proud race. It’s called the soft bigotry of low expectations.”
SPOILER: NO. Are outdoor mask mandates still necessary? They never were.
REMEMBER THOSE SUPERBOWL COMMERCIALS THAT MADE IT WORTH TO WATCH MEH GAMES: Forbidden Coffee (A guest post by King Harv Coffees).
This is like that, only super-geeky and even more awesome. I haven’t giggled so much since the herding cats commercial.
FROM THE STOMPING GROUNDS OF CRAZY KARENS? Nextdoor to alert users before they post something racist.
Say it ain’t so. This is my shocked face.
DEMOCRAT DOMINATED STATE TELLS CITIZENS WHERE THEY CAN STICK RELIGIOUS LIBERTY: Connecticut lawmakers pass bill ending religious vaccine exemption.
… And ALL for a slightly severe common cold.
SIGNS OF COMING TO THEIR SENSES FROM GREAT BRITAIN: Pub Owner Throws Lockdown Leader Out.
HOLD THEIR FEET TO THE FIRE: Pratt chamber won’t answer questions about social justice survey.
WELL, ARRESTS ARE GOOD. IF THEY DON’T WALTZ OUT THE BACK DOOR: Antifa Mole Leads To Multiple Arrests.
THIS CUTE IDEA OF MAKING BEING ABLE TO TAN IMMUNITY FROM CRIMES: Columbus Ohio Release Body Cam Footage of Police Officer Shooting 15-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant Just Before She Stabbed a Woman.
Is going to rebound very badly. Both in encouraging the crazy and criminal element, and in the firestorm it will cause, in which real racism will come out to play.
If you’re a believer, pray for America. Things are about to get very dicey.
I’D FEEL SORRY FOR THIS WRECK OF A MAN: Floyd Family Gets Phone Call from Grandpa Joe.
But he secured his place in the annals of the most corrupt politicians ever while still in control of his faculties. Now? Well, whatever remains of him has Caligula and Nero going “Dude!” Sure Nero made his horse a senator. But Biden made a dishonest brainless whore* his VP with fresh-stolen votes. Arguably the horse’s ass is worse than the horse.
*my apologies to honest, brainless whores. I don’t mean to impugn them by that comparison.
AS USUAL DEMOCRATS IGNORE ANY RESULTS OF THEIR ACTIONS BUT THE MOST IMMEDIATE: Trial By Mob: Chauvin Jury Punts So They Can Leave.
DEAR NANCY, THANK YOU FOR GETTING DRUNK: Pelosi: Dear George Floyd, Thank You For Getting Killed.
And revealing to the entire world the moral bankruptcy of your side of the isle.
IF THIS COUNTRY HAD BEEN TAKEN OVER BY A CABAL OF ITS WORST ENEMIES, WHAT WOULD BE DIFFERENT? Israel Believes Biden Just Weeks Away From Signing New Iran Nuclear Deal.
IT’S TIME AND PAST TIME TO REVEAL THE REPORTERS’ NAMES AND ADDRESSES: Hackers Reveal Donors to Kyle Rittenhouse Defense Fund, Media Starts Knocking on Donors’ Doors.
Oh, you like mob justice? Well, how about a mob coming for you? (Does Utah even get mobs?)
HEY, NANCY, WE HAVE MANY MANY JUNKIES “SACRIFICING” THEIR LIVES: Pelosi: ‘Thank you George Floyd for Sacrificing Your Life’.
And your covidiocy lockdowns are creating many more. Drink another bottle of Grey Goose and shut up.
VOTE THEFT IS THEIR RELIGION: Georgia Black Religious Leaders Demand Home Depot Boycott Over Silence on Voting Laws.
I already have a religion. It says vote theft is a sin.
DON’T WORRY, IT’S PROBABLY NOTHING:
Of course no one can say our military isn’t keeping its eye on the ball, in response: The US Navy falls to virtue signaling. “They put a mask on the eagle. A f**king mask on the Eagle of the United States.”
”Listen, Sug, don’t forget to say your prayers,” to coin a phrase.
April 20, 2021
MARK JUDGE: The Bad News Bears and Our 1980s Bacchanals. “The Bad News Bears is one of the most hilarious and politically incorrect films ever made. It came out in 1976, when America was a more freewheeling place, for better and worse, and was a huge hit. It portrayed kids realistically. The little-league Bears cussed, used stereotypes, thought their alcoholic manager Morris Buttermaker (Walter Mauthau) was useless, and got into fights. They were real kids. That include the girl pitcher Amanda Whurlitzer, brilliantly played by Tatum O’Neal. Amanda fired right back when the boys razzed her, and mowed them down with her fastball. She was tough, smart, and independent. Those are things we used to hope girls would be.”
Turns out it’s more useful to the powers that be to keep them insecure, anxious, and full of free-floating hostility.
WE COULD USE A THOUSAND SPOTLIGHTS ON THIS STUFF (AND NOT JUST IN NEW YORK): Shining a Spotlight on Critical Race Theory in New York High Schools.
FINALLY! U.S. Army approves plans for a future ‘tactical space layer.’ Oh, never mind — for a second I thought it said “tactical space lawyer.” Now that would be cool.
21ST CENTURY QUESTIONS: Do Brain Implants Change Your Identity?
BYRON YORK: Finally, the facts about Officer Sicknick’s death.
But we still don’t know who shot Ashli Babbitt.
NANCY PELOSI: Pelosi: ‘Thank you George Floyd for Sacrificing Your Life.’ So she’s saying the goal was convicting Derek Chauvin; Floyd just provided the excuse?
Best response: “Considering that this is the same woman who thought wearing kente cloth imported from China was tantamount to reparations, this is completely on brand.”
Plus: “Powerful should stop pretending to empathize, it always comes across psychotic.”
Speaker Pelosi: "Thank you George Floyd for sacrificing your life for justice … Because of you and because of thousands, millions of people around the world who came out for justice, your name will always be synonymous with justice."pic.twitter.com/JfapSsKdtX
— The Recount (@therecount) April 20, 2021
I’M NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS.
ST. GRETA ALREADY PAYING DIVIDENDS: So Far Germany Seeing Coldest April In 104 Years, Second Coldest Since 1881, Snowiest Since 1986.
(Via Kate of Small Dead Animals, who quips, “They Have Their Shadenfraud To Keep Them Warm.”)
A PLAGUE OF CHILD ABUSE: Masking Children Is Unnecessary—and Harmful. The pandemic has turned American adults into selfish neurotics who have been punishing innocent children for over a year, and still can’t restrain themselves. Social distancing and masks hinder learning while harming children emotionally, socially, and physically, all for no purpose other than providing false comfort to adults who ought to know better. In my City Journal article, I present the evidence that these restrictions are both pointless and damaging.
TL;DR. Why Americans Are Suckers for Quick Fixes From Psychologists:
“The goal of this book is to explain why we keep falling for the ideas that psychologists tell us about the ways they’re going to help fix society,” says Jesse Singal, author of The Quick Fix: Why Fad Psychology Can’t Cure Our Social Ills. “They’ll offer some incredible new way to fight racism or to improve education or to improve gender equity in the workplace. There’s a rush of attention and often a rush of research dollars. Everyone gets really into them. There’s the NPR, New York Times coverage. And then a few years later, more research comes out. We realize the idea was barely true, if that, and it ends up having wasted a lot of time.”
Singal shows how the underlying research that propelled phenomena such as “power posing” (which promised to empower women by changing their posture), the self-esteem movement (which tried to reform poorly performing students and even criminals through enthusiastic, unearned praise), and the Implicit Association Test (which purports to measure “unconscious bias” against blacks and other marginalized groups) often can’t be replicated and sometimes doesn’t even measure what it purports to address.
New video from Reason TV:
THE NEW LEFTY LINE IS THAT EXPANDING THE COURT TO ACCOMMODATE IDEOLOGICAL ALLIES IS THE OPPOSITE OF “COURT PACKING” BECAUSE REASONS: Biden’s court packing committee contains an army of profs open to altering Supreme Court.
IMMINENT: Jury Delivers Verdict in Derek Chauvin Case.
Update: Guilty on all counts. More to come.
OH, THAT PUNITIVE LIBERALISM: Biden’s Withdrawal From Afghanistan Timed to Humiliate US.
(Classical reference in headline.)
PJ MEDIA VIP ROUNDUP: Facebook Gives ‘Far, Far More’ Than $3M to NYT Each Year. What Does It Get in Return?
And: Kruiser’s (Almost) Daily Distraction: Might Be Time to Go Full Ron Swanson.
Finally: Progressive California Couple Flees from… Low Taxes?
That VODKAPUNDIT promo code is still good for a nice little discount, if you’ve been thinking of becoming a VIP supporter.
DISPATCHES FROM THE NEWSPEAK DICTIONARY: Biden Bans ‘Illegal Aliens’ (Not the Activity, Just That Term For It).
The great thing about being a Democrat is that you can screw up as much as you want, you can lie about whatever you want, you can be as much of a scumbag as you want, and then you can just redefine the terms of the debate to favor you.
For example, do you know what the word “infrastructure” means? If you answered anything except “Whatever the Dems want to spend other people’s money on,” you’re wrong. Or how about “bipartisan”? You probably thought a bill in Congress is only bipartisan if both Democrats and Republicans vote for it. Wrong again! In 2021, “bipartisan” now means “Even if no Republicans vote for it, there are probably other Republicans in America who would have voted for it if they were in Congress.”If a word doesn’t mean what you need it to mean at the moment you need it to mean that thing, just redefine it on-the-fly. If it doesn’t work, you can always just pretend you never said it and none of your fellow Democrats in the press will give you a hard time about it.
George Orwell didn’t write “Politics and the English Language” as a how-to guide.
GOOD: Asian Americans Create Gun Group as Ownership, Hate Crimes Rise.
This is from Stephen Gutowski’s new firearm-news site, The Reload. Looks good.
THUG LIFE: Who Killed Adam Toledo? “The immediate cause of Toledo’s death was the bullet fired by Officer Stillman. But it’s worth examining how a 13-year-old boy ended up in a full sprint through a dark alley at 2:30 AM with a gun in his hand and a police officer on his tail.”
Read the whole thing.
FASTER, PLEASE: The Coming Bipartisan Backlash to Public School Wokeness.
THE CITY OF BROTHERLY LOOTING: Storm Warning in Philadelphia. While hapless city officials try appeasing activists, residents and business owners brace for the Chauvin verdict.
GLENN GREENWALD ON WHAT THE TRUTH ABOUT OFFICER SICKNICK’S DEATH SAYS ABOUT THE MEDIA:
They never cared in the slightest about Officer Brian Sicknick. They had just spent months glorifying a protest movement whose core view is that police officers are inherently racist and abusive. He had just become their toy, to be played with and exploited in order to depict the January 6 protest as a murderous orgy carried out by savages so primitive and inhuman that they were willing to fatally bash in the skull of a helpless person or spray them with deadly gases until they choked to death on their own lung fluids.
He’s right of course. If you support BLM then you necessarily support the routine verbal abuse of police officers as racists akin to the Klan. So it was very curious that a police officer would suddenly become the hero of this same group of progressives apart from the politics of doing so. In fact, you may recall people were simultaneously claiming Sicknick was a victim of the mob and that the same Capitol Hill police had treated BLM protesters unfairly. He was both a victim (where needed) and a perpetrator.
QED: Guess what Maxine Waters requested before going to Minneapolis.
YES ANOTHER “DOG BITES MAN” EXAMPLE OF DEMOCRAT HYPOCRISY: AOC’s ‘Squad’ Wants to Defund the Police But Pays Thousands for Personal Security.
MUCH TO THE DISMAY OF THE PUBLIC-HEALTH ESTABLISHMENT: There Will Be No Third Wave of Covid Deaths. There may be a lot more infections in the UK, but few severe cases, according to a professor at Bristol University with a strong track record for predicting trends in Covid and other viruses.
SNOWFALLS ARE NOW JUST A THING OF THE PAST: Let’s Return Earth Day To Its Roots.
The first Earth Day celebration was conceived by then-U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson and held in 1970 as a “symbol of environmental responsibility and stewardship.” In the spirit of the time, it was a touchy-feely, consciousness-raising, New Age experience, and most activities were organized at the grassroots level*.
Sadly, today’s Earth Day shares something with the current political environment: It reeks of divisiveness.
Earth Day has devolved into an occasion for environmental Cassandras to prophesy apocalypse, dish antitechnology dirt, and proselytize for a “woke” agenda. Passion and zeal routinely trump science, and provability takes a back seat to plausibility.
It shouldn’t be too difficult to return “Earth Day” to its roots, considering that for the radical enviro-left, nothing has changed since 1970: Earth Day predictions of 1970. The reason you shouldn’t believe Earth Day predictions of [2021].
Also 51 years on, to paraphrase the late Kathy Shaidle on Trump as Hitler, I’m already on (at least) my fourth apocalypse:
* Though it was thoroughly endorsed and promoted by that Jurassic Democratic Party operative with a byline, Walter Cronkite.
(Classical reference in headline.)
COMPETITION IS GOOD: Jeff Bezos’ Amazon signs rocket deal to launch network to rival SpaceX.
That said, Elon’s fixing to ship me my equipment, while Bezos has just signed a deal. So Bezos has some catching-up to do.
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Private School Head Admits ‘Anti-racist’ Curriculum Is ‘Demonizing White People for Being Born.’
The head of a New York City private school that has been accused of indoctrinating students with progressive politics and “anti-racist” orthodoxy privately acknowledged that the school is guilty of “demonizing white people for being born,” according to audio from a conversation he had with a whistleblower teacher.
George Davison, the head of Grace Church School in Manhattan, told embattled teacher Paul Rossi in a March 2 recorded conversation that the school uses language that makes white students “feel less than, for nothing that they are personally responsible for.” He also said that “one of the things that’s going on a little too much” is the “attempt to link anybody who’s white to the perpetuation of white supremacy,” according to the recordings posted online.
Why is the left such a cesspit of racism?
WEIRDLY, ALL BLUE STATES: Final 6 states open COVID-19 vaccine access to all adults to meet Biden’s deadline.
WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING? Hormone treatments may raise blood pressure in transgender people. To be honest, though, the effect seems pretty minor: “Within two to four months of beginning hormone therapy, transgender women saw an average drop of 4.0 mm Hg in their systolic blood pressure. Transgender men saw an average increase of 2.6 mm Hg.”
HAPPENS ALL THE TIME: Lawyer says teen with AK-47 in Times Square subway confused about NYC gun laws.
SIR BIDEN BRAVELY TURNED AND FLED: Hunter Biden Hides From Journalist Asking About ‘The Big Guy.’
VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: Who Hates America More, Protestors in Iran or Minnesota?
Insanity Wrap needs to know: When you see “Death to Amerika” graffiti, what city, anywhere in the world, do you assume you’re in?
Answer: If you said, “Somewhere in America run by Democrats,” so did we.
Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.
- We followed the COVID-19 science so you don’t have to (but should anyway)
- In-app purchases coming to sexbots
- There’s nothing funny about Kamala Harris, especially her jokes
Bonus Sanity: Parents revolt against woke “education.”
And so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.
YES. NEXT QUESTION? Did Wrecking Ball Maxine Waters Give Derek Chauvin Grounds for an Appeal?
Minor Internet history note: The old Monkeyfishing blog, set up to mock Shafer and Slate for that scandal, was my first encounter with Blogger/Blogspot and led directly to my setting up InstaPundit shortly thereafter.
ROGER SIMON: The Democrats — and Their New UN Ambassador — Bitterly Cling to Racism.
Barack Obama famously accused red state conservatives—Republicans in general, I suppose—of “clinging to their guns and religion.”
Condescending and nasty as that was, to some extent he had a point. But another way to say the exact same thing and give it a more positive overtone is “clinging to the Bill of Rights.”
Nothing wrong with that, in fact it’s laudable, unless you’re a Marxist, another kind of totalitarian or, apparently these days, the United States ambassador to the United Nations.
The Democrats, however, “cling” to something far more pejorative and pernicious—racism.
You could say they can’t live with it, can’t live without it, but the emphasis should really be on the latter. They can’t live without it.
We have seen that virtually everywhere since Obama’s election that many of us hoped would put an end to racism. It did the reverse. It brought it back, or more accurately, talked it back, as we hadn’t seen it in decades, reversing a very positive trend the left found threatening, possibly fatal to their interests.
It was as if the Democrats and the rest of what we might eye-rollingly call the “liberal intelligentsia” (media, entertainment, academia, ad nauseam, ad tedium) suddenly panicked.
Who were they without the accusation of racism to hang around their opponent’s necks? In what way could they demonstrate their undeniable superiority?
This attitude reached its apotheosis in the Biden Administration with all the endless talk (that word again) of “systemic racism.”
But what is “systemic racism”? What is the ”system” exactly to which they refer? Racist actions have been against the law for decades, as they should be.
That is not enough for our “liberal” and “progressive” friends. There’s a system behind the whole thing, they say. Everyone’s a racist, no matter what they do or say. It’s systematized; they’re sure of it. Critical Race Theory tells us so.
And now they want the whole world, at the United Nations no less, to know just how bad our country is, how infected by racism from the start. (Maybe that’s what they mean by “The System.”)
From The Hill:
“Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that white supremacy is ‘weaved’ into America’s ‘founding documents’ during a speechWednesday to the National Action Network.”
Weaved into the founding documents? Sounds pretty bad, except…
What’s really woven into the founding documents, if you read them, is the ability to self-correct, to “amend” the propositions themselves—and those amendments have been used to do such things as eliminate slavery, give blacks and women the vote, limit the number of times someone can be elected president, and so forth.
What the Founders were smart enough to know is that they weren’t perfect (who is?) and that they should structure into their documents a manner through which they could be improved as time went on and conditions changed. And that is what has happened, obviously, as in all history, by fits and starts.
Ms. Thomas-Greenfield may have virtue signaled her pompous nonsense to a particularly receptive activist audience (National Action Network) but her words were not whispered in secret. You can be sure they were noted with pleasure by Iran, Russia, China, North Korea and others of a similar ilk who will be delighted to exploit them.
Under Biden, the United States has reversed Trump and rejoined the infamous U.N. Human Rights Council, an Orwellian group dominated by the above mentioned nations that have given us such institutions of unremitting present day horror as Tehran’s Evin Prison and the concentration camps of Xinjiang Province.
These near Nazi-like fellow “progressives” are now Ms. Thomas-Greenfield’s colleagues on the UNHRC, but she urges us to approach them with “humility” because we once had slavery.
Never mind that we long ago worked our way through this and Iran, under the mullahs, and China, under Xi Jinping, are headed in the opposite direction—toward more oppression on a global scale.
But who are we to criticize? We, after all, are racists. It’s systemic. (Can you imagine what the average Tibetan, Uyghur, or Taiwanese must think when he or she hears her?)
Thomas-Greenfield is far from the only racialist in the Harris-Biden administration: There Is Absolutely No Evidence That Kristen Clarke’s Racist Letter Was Satire.
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