SUMMER READING: The Mini Farming Bible: The Complete Guide to Self-Sufficiency on ¼ Acre.
USA DOWN: The meltdown of the U.S. federal government occurring before our eyes is so mind-bending it’s hard to find words to talk about it. “A major crisis, one of the biggest in decades, is ongoing in Afghanistan. Thousands of Americans are stranded in the country, unable to get to the international airport where the U.S. military is efficiently pushing out half-full flights because that’s what it can do with the tools it’s been given. Americans are nauseated to hear Pentagon officials claim that we don’t have the ability to go out and collect the imperiled Americans. Why not, if the French and British can do it?”
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:
Shot:
Chaser: “Blind faith in your leaders, or in anything, will get you killed.”
—Bruce Springsteen, in the monologue proceeding his 1985 cover of Edwin Starr’s 1970 Motown hit “War.”
Today, many on the right view Springsteen as an aging corporatist tool fully owned by the Democratic Party for election year benefit concerts, who occasionally releases albums on the side. But back in 1973 through 1975, on his second and third albums, The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle and Born to Run, Springsteen was making remarkably supple and innovative music. And then he changed managers, and became, as Slate(!) dubbed him 15 years ago, “Bruce Springsteen, bullshitter:” “Thirty years later, and largely thanks to Landau, Springsteen is no longer a musician. He’s a belief system. And, like any belief system worth its salt, he brooks no in-between. You’re either in or you’re out.” Reluctantly, I’m out, but I do love — and miss — his mid-‘70s work.
DON SURBER: Taliban May Take Down Biden. “I get that none of this will matter in the 2024 election. The question is whether Biden survives till Labor Day.”
August 20, 2021
THE ESTABLISHMENT TURNS ON BIDEN: The fiasco in Afghanistan is a grave blow to America’s standing: And much of the blame lies squarely with Joe Biden. “If the propagandists of the Taliban had scripted the collapse of America’s 20-year mission to reshape Afghanistan, they could not have come up with more harrowing images.”
OPEN THREAD: I see you, baby.
What’s Gramma Funk doing these days, anyway?
FLASHBACK: Fox reporter asks Biden about his cognitive ability. “A Fox News reporter asked former Vice President Joe Biden about his cognitive ability, an attack that President Trump and his allies have seized on.” In 2020, the press ran interference for Biden on this. We are now living with the results.
SHOCKER: ABC accused of cutting unflattering portions of Biden’s interview.
They need to broadcast the whole thing uncut. The people have a right to know!
THE NEW SPACE RACE: NASA awards $500,000 to develop moon-mining tech.
ISOMETRIC RESISTANCE TRAINING TO REDUCE HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE: “IRT is a time-efficient means of reducing blood pressure, needing only 12 minutes a day, two to three days per week to produce the effects we found in our review.”
RICHARD FERNANDEZ: The Sad Record of the Elites.
FROM A FRIEND WITH MILITARY EXPERIENCE AND CONNECTIONS:
Biden’s statement that he has seen ‘no question of our credibility from our allies’ has said allies furious. Every NATO country has people trapped in Afghanistan and they tend to be trust fund babies or friends of trust fund babies. Every prime minister’s phone is blowing up with VERY IMPORTANT PEOPLE asking how they’re going to get their kids or their kids’ friends out of Afghanistan and every ally is blowing up the phones of the White House and State Department and getting jack shit from them.
And they’re all blaming ‘America’ but they also know it’s on Biden.
Somebody can probably get an at least ‘off the record’ statement on this from just about any embassy in NATO.
Furious doesn’t cover it.
You’d think that this administration would know all about the management of trust fund babies.
UPDATE: Another friend writes:
Reporters are only calling BS re the airport because their own ox is being gored. I call BS on their belated, situational flailing at accountability. Now they’re indignant, how many lies later?
Pathetic hacks.
That said, he’s making fools of them. Dragging them down with him. Could be a positive development. A corrective sense of embarrassment at long last.
(But I doubt it).
So do I.
NUMBERS: Israeli data: How can efficacy vs. severe disease be strong when 60% of hospitalized are vaccinated?
However, while these numbers are true, to quote them as evidence for low vaccine efficacy is wrong and misleading. Sometimes, with observational data there is confounding of multiple factors that can make it easy to misinterpret simple percentages like this, and the current vaccination situation in Israel brings a perfect storm of confounding factors that lead to confusion if not thought through carefully.
In particular, the key factors here that contribute to this confusion are:
High vaccination rates in the country (nearly 80% of all residents >12yr)Age disparity in vaccinations, including
Nearly all older people being vaccinated (>90% of residents >50yr) andThe vast majority of unvaccinated being younger people (>85% of unvaccinated <50yr) Older people are orders of magnitude more likely to be hospitalized with a respiratory virus than young people (residents >50yr are >20x more likely to have hospitalized serious infections than residents <50yr, and residents 90+ are >1600x more likely to have hospitalized serious infections than residents 12-15yr)
After accounting for the vaccination rates and stratifying by age groups, from these same data we can see that the vaccines retain high efficacy (85-95%) vs. severe disease, showing that when it comes to preventing severe disease, the Pfizer vaccine is still performing very well vs. Delta, even in Israel from whence the most concerning data have arisen.
When the people who are much more likely to be hospitalized if they get sick are also much more likely to be vaccinated, it’s not surprising that they’re a majority of the hospitalized, even with a 95% effective vaccine.
THIS WOULD WORK BETTER IF HE WEREN’T SCREWING UP SO ROYALLY THAT IT’S MAKING NEWS: Biden Afghanistan policy counts on war weary Americans to lose interest.
Jim Bennett writes: Biggest Losers of the Afghanistan Debacle:
1. The Afghan people, of course.
2. Never-Trump Republicans and conservatives. They sold Biden as a competent moderate who would right the ship while the RINOs recaptured the party. Disastrously wrong on all counts.
It was always simple for me. This is a two-party system. You support the one or get the other. Not a single bad consequence of a Biden victory was unforeseen or forewarned.
Is anybody going to listen to these people ever again?
Probably a few but not many.
I certainly hope not.
FLASHBACK: Who? Who doesn’t want to wear the ribbon? I always instinctively want to head-butt the “tough street guy” character. He wouldn’t last 15 minutes in real life, he’s too obnoxious.
YOUR KINDER, GENTLER TALIBAN: Taliban are rounding up Afghans on blacklist – private intel report.
The Taliban know exactly what they want (a Sharia state) and how to get it (violently).
REUTERS: FBI FINDING “SCANT EVIDENCE” OF ANY COORDINATION BEHIND JANUARY 6 RIOT. “Exit question, of sorts: What impact would this finding have on Nancy Pelosi’s partisan commission on the riot? Presumably Pelosi will want to push forward, but if House Democrats try pushing findings unsupported by evidence from the FBI, that’ll make it look like a kangaroo court. Normally Pelosi might not care, but Biden’s utter incompetence in the Afghanistan crisis isn’t going to give them much room to use this as a distraction. Will people see the Pelosi panel as the House Select Committee on the Beating of Dead Horses?”
WHEN THE PRESS IS CALLING OUT A DEMOCRAT, IT’S A BAD SIGN: Multiple reporters call BS on Biden for saying Americans are able to get to the Kabul airport.
IT’S A DIRTY JOB AND I HAD TO DO IT: Fact-Checking Biden’s Address: Lies, Damned Lies, and the White House Teleprompter.
SKILLS CHECK: The Debbie Drill. I think I did that one in Dallas back in the ’80s.
MATT WELCH: You Staying at Home Is the Future Unvaccinated-Punishers Want. “Few people will ever go broke overestimating the desire among Americans to inflict punishment on their perceived political enemies. But not only will blue-state vax requirements end up disproportionately impacting Democratic-voting minority populations, they will also discourage basic human activity among populations that have already long since been nudged into vaccination.”
NEW BOOK ON MEN: From Stephen Baskerville, A Gentleman’s Guide to Manners, Sex, and Ruling the World: How to Survive as a Man in the Age of Misandry– and Do So with Grace.
WHEN YOU’RE A DEMOCRAT PRESIDENT WHO’S LOST MADDOW…: Rachel Maddow Cries While Telling Story of Afghan Translator Fleeing Kabul.
SORRY FOR THE ABSENCE; WE’RE IN MOVING HELL*. BUT THIS MATTERS: What Is The Nazarene Fund?
Apparently Glenn Beck has started an effort to get five thousand Christians out of Afghanistan before they’re killed or worse. Remember the “young Turks” crucified Armenian Christian women. If you can, please help.
*And I’ll show up intermittently amid bouts of painting and cleaning, and be back on the regular by the middle of September, when we should be full time in new place.
HONESTY IS SUCH A LONELY WORD: Psaki admits Biden’s ‘infrastructure’ bill is not about infrastructure.
GENERALS OF THE CLOWN WORLD: “I hope you’re sitting down when you watch this:”
This is the most senior military officer in the United Kingdom speaking. This is the British equivalent of Gen. Mark Milley, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And he’s talking about the Taliban being “inclusive.” I wonder if he thinks they are deep down committed to diversity and equity too?
A friend who is a veteran of the Afghan war and who saw a lot from the inside says that this podcast episode from Tom Joscelyn and Bill Roggio is the thing to listen to for understanding how everything went wrong in Afghanistan. He urged me to have my son, who is considering the military, listen to it. I listened to it myself. The hosts are unsparing in their evisceration of senior military leadership, as well as the Obama and Trump administrations. They both say at the outset that they do not blame our troops for what happened, but rather the commanders who sent them in to do impossible things. They also say that they both know men who have died in Afghanistan, so this is personal to them. Joscelyn and Roggio recount the lies upon lies upon lies that US military and civilian officials have told over the years.
Around the 41 minute mark, as they’re wrapping up, co-host Joscelyn says, “You should be angry about this war for a lot of reasons, but it speaks to a broader incompetence in the American elite. It’s total incompetence across the board.”
Related: Did ‘gender studies’ lose Afghanistan?
Our elites’ wokeness certainly was a factor. So: yes. Next question?
Earlier: The suicide of expertise.
NO NEED TO BE SLOW, JOE: There Must Be 50 Five Ways to Leave Your Office.
This one is just for our VIP supporters, so don’t forget to use that VODKAPUNDIT promo code if you were thinking of joining us.
WELL, YOUR VISION GETS WORSE BUT YOU CAN SEE THROUGH PEOPLE BETTER: Key mental abilities can actually improve during aging.
WATCH: Joe Biden Delivers Remarks on Afghanistan.
Update: Biden was scheduled to speak more than 30 minutes ago but remains AWOL.
(Bumped, but at this point, what difference does it make?)
Everything is going swimmingly.
Update: Finally, he’s speaking.
(Bumped again.)
JUSTICE: Justice Department Moves to Dismiss Bowe Bergdahl’s Case to Overturn His Conviction. “Bergdahl has been back in the headlines since the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan. One of the leaders allegedly responsible for orchestrating the takeover, Khairullah Khairkhwa, was one of five prisoners freed from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and exchanged for Bergdahl’s release in 2014, various media outlets have reported.”
IN BOTH CASES, YOU WILL NEVER FIND A MORE WRETCHED HIVE OF SCUM AND VILLAINY: Shocking ‘Kabul Airport’ video is actually from 2019 Dallas Cowboys game.
WORD IS, OUR TROOPS ARE PISSED AT THIS: British and French troops are going out into Kabul to rescue their citizens while the US sticks to the airport.
THAT’S BECAUSE IT WASN’T. THE DEMOCRATS JUST NEEDED TO PRETEND IT WAS FOR POLITICAL REASONS. FBI finds scant evidence U.S. Capitol attack was coordinated – sources.
Flashback: The Coming ‘January 6’ Train Wreck.
James Bovard, author of the second piece above, comments: “I predicted last month that the January 6 Capitol Clash court cases would become a train wreck. Biden administration prosecutors are pretending that ‘trespassing plus thought crimes equals terrorism.’ But a new story today reveals that the FBI recognizes that claiming that that ruckus was an ‘insurrection’ is BS & that it was not an ‘organized plot to overturn the presidential election result.'”
THIS IS CNN: CNN Analyst Argues Against Rescuing Americans Outside Kabul Airport.
First come, first serve. You snooze, you lose. Let ‘em rot. That was essentially the message CNN counterterrorism analyst and former CIA operative, Phil Mudd was sending the American citizens and Afghan allies that couldn’t make it to the Kabul airport because they’re too scared to risk going outside or live in other parts of the country. His comments were so shocking that they even took Prime Time host Chris Cuomo by surprise during Wednesday’s show.
CNN morphed so quickly into the Point/Counterpoint guy from Airplane! I hardly even noticed:
THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT SITUATION, FROM A FRIEND:
The instructive thing about the rising gas prices and rampant inflation, the shocking Afghanistan debacle, the never-ending state of pandemic crisis, etc., for today’s neophyte and myopic older voters, is that elections have consequences. Much as the Palestinians learned after they voted in Hamas in the mid-2000s. An election doesn’t end with that feel-good vote that everyone was exhorting everyone else to cast. (Or with the stuffing of ballot boxes, I have to add in this case).
All of this was not only foreseeable, but foreseen — though I will confess things are going to Hell faster than even I expected.
OLD AND BUSTED: The 3:00 AM Phone Call to the White House.
The New Hotness? The 3:00 PM Phone Call to the White House!
THIS IS LIKE DAIRY QUEEN BANNING ICE CREAM: OnlyFans to ban sexually explicit content. (Above comment stolen from a friend.)
GRAND THEFT ENTENDRE: All you need to know about the new Pfister Growler in Grand Theft Auto 5 (New DLC Car).
The Pfister Growler is the second drip-feed vehicle added as a part of the fourth event week of the Los Santos Tuners DLC. It was available to drive in the LS Car Meet test track a week before as a test ride.
The Pfister Growler is a Sport Class Car and can be purchased from the Legendary Motorsports website for a price of $1,627,000. A trade price can be unlocked by earning reputation and levelling up in the LS Car Meet. The trade price reduces the price of the car to $1,220,050.
The Pfister Growler features a minimalistic roadster design. It is based on the real-life Porsche 718 Cayman. It features a top speed of 121.67 MPH (193.75 KMPH). It drives very smooth and even features great acceleration stats. It features a 2 door design.
That’s quite a quadruple entendre in the car’s name:
AND THIS TIME THEY MEAN IT! UK’s Boris Johnson Joins State Dept. in Saying Taliban Could Gain Recognition if It Respects ‘Inclusivity.’
DAVID SOLWAY: Cutting to the Chase: Why Trump Was Driven from Office. “He was hated for not sinking to the indescribable ineptitude of Joe Biden and for not being on the take. He was hated for his efforts to clean up the political swamp. He was hated for his endorsement of the free market and for championing a prosperous citizenry. He was hated for his opposition to crony socialism and bureaucratic bloat. He was hated for all the wrong reasons.”
BUT NATION-BUILDING WON’T WIN THE FOREVER WAR, EITHER: Thus contends Sean Davis, who takes us back to an infamous David Frum essay in 2001 that remains to this day a catalogue of globalist mythology.
HOW LONG TILL WE’RE BACK IN AFGHANISTAN? Washington Free Beacon founder Matthew Continetti explains why His Fraudulency’s Kabul debacle does not represent the end of “The Forever War.”
BETTER THAN A WOKE THERAPIST: Albert Ellis’s books How to Stubbornly Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable About Anything–Yes, Anything! and How To Control Your Anxiety Before It Controls You.
A WAKEUP CALL COMING FOR POLITICO? There are still a few voices of sanity scattered about on the Left, including Jamie Kirchick, whose lengthy Tablet piece today describes the approach taken by a German media executive to a bullying attempt by radicals on his staff:
“Consider what happened two months ago, when Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner ordered the Israeli flag to be flown, alongside those of Germany and the European Union, outside the company’s Berlin headquarters. The order came after a spate of antisemitic attacks in Germany following the outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Hamas in May.
“Döpfner’s expression of solidarity with the Jewish state (and with the European Jews who invariably become targets whenever violence erupts in the Middle East) upset some of his 15,000 employees, a small number of whom complained that Springer—which owns several Israeli websites, and whose jewels include the sober broadsheet Die Welt and the lively tabloid Bild, the bestselling paper in Europe—was taking sides in a contentious geopolitical conflict.
“Were such a dispute to unfold at an elite institution in the United States, it’s not difficult to envisage what would follow. Seeking to mollify his staffers, students, or some other group ostensibly subordinate to him, Döpfner’s American counterpart would bend over backwards to rectify his grave offense.
“He would issue a groveling apology, replete with woke buzzwords and catchphrases, promising to ‘do the work’ necessary to educate himself about the ‘literal violence’ he had inflicted on ‘people of color.’ He would confess his ‘white privilege.’ He would ask his Muslim colleagues, so traumatized by his invidious endorsement of ‘Zionist imperialism’ and ‘settler colonialism,’ for forgiveness. And finally, when this litany of self-abnegation failed to appease the people he hired and had the ability to fire, he would resign.
“Döpfner took a different tack. ‘I think, and I’m being very frank with you,’ he said on a companywide conference call, ‘a person who has an issue with an Israeli flag being raised for one week here, after antisemitic demonstrations, should look for a new job.’ And with that, the minor uprising at Axel Springer was kaput.”
Here’s the good news: Dopner is in talks about the future ownership of Politico.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Professor condemned as ‘racist’ by her department after supporting colorblind research.
BRAVE SIR BIDEN BRAVELY TURNED AND FLED: Joe Biden Calls Off Public Appearances and Remarks Indefinitely.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Something Is Wrong With The President. “You’re not supposed to talk about it. If you do, and you’re a Democrat, you’re scolded for aiding and abetting the enemy. If you do, and you’re a Republican or (God forbid) a MAGA voter, you’re a horrible hate-mongerer, trying to overturn the results of a free and fair election (and you probably watch Fox News to boot). The problem is that it’s there for all to see. Pretending not to see it is untenable.”
IF THEY WERE EDUCATED, THEY’D KNOW ABOUT AFGHANISTAN ALREADY: WATCH: Students think America oppresses women… Then they hear about Afghanistan.
THEY ALWAYS SHOW YOU WHO THEY’RE AFRAID OF: Another DeSantis ‘Scandal’ Implodes.
State Department spokesman Ned Price told the Daily Caller News Foundation and other news outlets late Thursday afternoon that the Biden administration has “no intention of seeking any reimbursement from those fleeing Afghanistan.”
However, the online form American citizens are directed to fill out to secure their evacuation from Afghanistan continued to state well into Thursday evening that they travelers will have to pay their own way out of the country.
“Repatriation flights are not free,” Question 14 of the form stated when accessed by the DCNF around 10 p.m. Thursday, over two-and-a-half hours after Price issued his statement.
“All passengers will need to reimburse the U.S. Government for the flight. A promissory note for the full cost of the flight, which may exceed $2000 per person, must be signed by each adult passenger before boarding,” the form stated.
Ouch.
MAYBE THIS IS WHAT BIDEN MEANT BY “AMERICA’S BACK”: Special Relationship? Biden Ghosted Johnson Over Bungled Bugout.
IT’S SO NICE HAVING THE GROWNUPS BACK IN CHARGE: The Biden Pentagon Doesn’t Know How Many Americans Are Stuck in Kabul and Has No Plan to Rescue Any.
C-17 BRINGING A CHINOOK TO AFGHANISTAN: Photo taken June 16.
USEFUL BOOK FOR THESE TIMES: The Prepper’s Medical Handbook. (Bumped)
REMEMBER WHEN TURKISH ARMY TROOPS WERE SUPPOSED TO GUARD THE KABUL AIRPORT?: That was under discussion just three weeks ago. Turkey is still interested in guarding the airport. But — no surprise– tt’s a complicated mess.
WAIT UNTIL YOU TRY GETTING OUT: CNN’s Ward: Getting inside the Kabul airport “one of the more harrowing things I have experienced.”
The professorship at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law was the subject of a legislative hearing after questions from two professors. Now known as the Distinguished Professorship in Constitutional Law, it was funded by a 1999 donation from the school’s namesake, according to a letter to legislators from UALR Chancellor Christina Drale. . . .
John DiPippa, dean emeritus of the law school, started using Clinton’s name on his position in the summer of 2020, under the guidance of current Dean Terri Beiner. Beiner gave that guidance based on a staff member’s discovery of the 1999 letter giving permission for the professorship to be named for Clinton, having assumed that was “the final word on the matter and that the omission of the Clinton name on the professorship was an oversight,” Drale wrote.
DiPippa retired in January.
In May, one of the law school professors, Tom Sullivan, raised an issue about the substance of the Clinton professorship, and another, Robert Steinbuch, asked how the professorship came about, Beiner told the committee.
Beiner and Steinbuch both testified before the House and Senate Committees on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs. Steinbuch had applied for the professorship, which ultimately went to another faculty member.
The Senate committee chairman, Sen. Jason Rapert, R-Conway, said the rollout of the professorship’s name seemed odd. The name was the subject of several opinion columns by Mike Masterson in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette this summer.“We do have an interest in making sure that things are done appropriately, that fairness is reigning true, and that we don’t overpoliticize things,” he said, adding that he was “just wondering about the timing of it.”
Beiner said it took time for the administrators to go through the relevant documents and didn’t scour all the law school records until receiving an Arkansas Freedom of Information Act request from Masterson.
She said it was “absolutely nothing political” and had to do with making sure the intent of the donor was carried out. Neither Bowen nor Smith are still living.Steinbuch said the name issue was part of a pattern of politicization at the law school, which had he said become an environment of “cryptoleftism wokeism.” He said no other professorships at the school are named for politicians.
After about 45 minutes of discussion, Rapert said the school needed to make a better effort of handling those types of issues in-house.
Who names a professorship for a disbarred, sex-harassing, politician? Well, now we know.
PUTIN TELLS BIDEN WHERE HE CAN GO: Putin Rejected Role for U.S. Forces Near Afghanistan at Summit With Biden.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, during a June 16 summit meeting with President Biden, objected to any role for American forces in Central Asian countries, senior U.S. and Russian officials said, undercutting the U.S. military’s efforts to act against new terrorist dangers after its Afghanistan withdrawal.
The previously unreported exchange between the U.S. and Russian leaders has complicated the U.S. military’s options for basing drones and other counterterrorism forces in countries bordering landlocked Afghanistan. That challenge has deepened with the collapse over the weekend of the Afghan government and armed forces.
The exchange also indicates that Moscow is more determined to try to maintain Central Asia as a sphere of influence than to expand cooperation with a new American president over the turmoil in Afghanistan, former and current U.S. officials said.
Being held in contempt by Britain and bossed around by Russia does not say “America is back.”
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: ‘Team Optics Fail’ Is Sending Kamala Harris to Vietnam. “It’s been a rough week for the administration and their relationship with their beloveds in the MSM. I mean, they made Rachel Maddow cry. Given that, one might assume that they’d be a little more aware of how they want themselves to appear to the public.”
WHY DOES OBAMA WANT AMERICANS TO DIE? ‘Obama Variant’ Strikes Martha’s Vineyard: Super-Spreader Birthday Bash Overwhelms Island’s Only Emergency Room.
GOOD: Apple photo-scanning plan faces global backlash from 90 rights groups.
“The undersigned organizations committed to civil rights, human rights, and digital rights around the world are writing to urge Apple to abandon the plans it announced on 5 August 2021 to build surveillance capabilities into iPhones, iPads, and other Apple products,” the letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook said today. “Though these capabilities are intended to protect children and to reduce the spread of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), we are concerned that they will be used to censor protected speech, threaten the privacy and security of people around the world, and have disastrous consequences for many children.”
The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) announced the letter, with CDT Security & Surveillance Project Co-Director Sharon Bradford Franklin saying, “We can expect governments will take advantage of the surveillance capability Apple is building into iPhones, iPads, and computers. They will demand that Apple scan for and block images of human rights abuses, political protests, and other content that should be protected as free expression, which forms the backbone of a free and democratic society.”
Background here: Apple Will Soon Begin Scanning Your iPhone for Child Porn.
THEY HAVE SOMETHING TO HIDE, AND IT SEEMS PRETTY CLEAR WHAT IT IS: How Chinese pressure on coronavirus origins probe shocked the WHO.
One might even say that the CCP’s multiyear plan to secure control of the WHO is itself damning evidence.
GET USED TO THESE: Taliban Humiliates Joe Biden Again With Symbolic Troop Removal Demand.
NEWS FROM THE AMERICA THAT WORKS: SpaceX adding capabilities to Starlink internet satellites, plans to launch them with Starship.
OPEN THREAD: Change my pitch up.
THE SOLAR WIND CRIES MARY: BepiColombo spacecraft records the sound of solar wind at Venus.
IT’S BECAUSE THEY’RE EATING HUMAN FOOD: Many Mammal Species Are Unexpectedly Growing Bigger, And It’s All Because of Us. So whatever’s making people fat is making them fat, too.
I SUSPECT BIDEN HAS HAD A BREAKDOWN IN THE FACE OF THIS MASSIVE FAILURE:
HMM. I’VE BEEN DONATING CONVALESCENT PLASMA, BUT POSSIBLY TO NO GREAT BENEFIT. Study shows no significant benefit of convalescent plasma for COVID-19 outpatients with early symptoms. “We were hoping that the use of COVID-19 convalescent plasma would achieve at least a 10% reduction in disease progression in this group, but instead the reduction we observed was less than 2%.”
That said, this is different from the usual use, which is in people who are already quite sick. Plus: “Additional studies of COVID-19 convalescent plasma are ongoing or planned in different populations. These included the Pass It On trial, a nationwide, NIH-funded randomized clinical trial using convalescent plasma to treat hospitalized adult patients with COVID-19 infection to see if the treatment can help them recover faster. Other trials include one in outpatients who are recovering at home and one in individuals with high risk of exposure to COVID-19 to see if COVID-19 convalescent plasma can prevent infection.”
OUR TROOPS ARE LIONS LED BY JACKASSES JACKALS:
HMM: U.S. plans booster for Pfizer, Moderna COVID-19 shots starting in September. “The booster will be available only to those who have received the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. Officials said, however, that they also expect to make available a booster for the Johnson & Johnson shot.”
So for the past year or so we’ve been warned that you need a vaccine because natural immunity may only last a few months. But I just had an antibody test and my levels are high, while people who got the vaccine need a booster.
THE KINDER, GENTLER TALIBAN: Taliban Militants Have Burnt Down An Amusement Park A Day After They Were Enjoying Rides.
No, they know exactly what they’re doing — unlike anyone in the Biden Administration.
LINCOLN BROWN: Dear Leftists, I Hope You Can’t Live With Yourselves. “By now you have seen the photos of people falling off of planes trying to escape the Taliban. You have seen the photos of women being shot for not wearing a burka. And no matter how strenuously the legacy media tries to spin it, your alternative to Donald Trump has shattered lives beyond measure. But an idiot in a buffalo hat or a buffoon packing off Nancy Pelosi’s lectern is in no way comparable to what is taking place, and what will take place in Afghanistan.”
WINKEN, BLINKEN AND NOD: Mike Pompeo, predecessor to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, established a swift reaction evacuation capability known as the Crisis and Contingency Response (CCR) Bureau. Can you guess who “paused” — that is spelled k-i-l-l-e-d — the program only weeks before going forward with the Afghanistan debacle now playing out?
As for the poetic reference, Blinken is Secretary of State, Nod is in the Oval Office. Nominees for Winken? I’m thinking Hunter, but am open to other possibilities.
IT’S KINDA UGLY: First Look: Smith & Wesson M&P12 Shotgun.
WHERE’S KAMALA? Afghan Women And Girls Are Being Handed To The Taliban And The First Female VP Is MIA.
Harris is visiting Vietnam, where in 1975 Joe Biden voted to cut off all aid as the North swamped our allies in the South.
Update: Link was wrong before — sorry! All fixed.
HELL ON EARTH FOR AFGHAN WOMEN: Blaze Media reports an Indian TV interview with one of the early victims whose eyes were knifed out includes this chilling warning:
“‘It’s tough for the world to imagine what we built in the past 20 years,’ she told the outlet. ‘We built dreams. Now they are gone. It’s all over for us. Women who work with the government or police were being hunted and threatened even before the Taliban had taken over the country. Now, the concern has gone beyond letting women work. At this point, I am scared if they would leave these women alive. They don’t just kill women — they make animals feed on their bodies. They are a blot on Islam.'”
LIVE AT 3:30PM EASTERN: ‘Five O’Clock Somewhere’ with Kruiser, Preston, VodkaPundit.
Hot takes, cold drinks.
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