Monday, November 30, 2020

Joseph Epstein: "Pronouns Go Political"

There's so much bullshit about pronouns and "gender" zipping around that it can be difficult for people in my faction in the culture war to admit that we really ought to have a dedicated, singular, non-sex-specific pronoun. 'They' is probably the best option...but it comes with certain costs, obviously. E.g. increased opportunities for misunderstanding. Though that can be said about the non-sex-specific use of 'he', too, of course.
   Anyway, the two biggest problems for me are (a) all the proposed new words sound super stupid, and (b) I don't want to give in to the woketards--nor to appear to be a woketard myself.
   So...someday it'd be good--I'd say--to agree on a new pronoun to do the job...but today is not that day...

Sunday, November 29, 2020

A Wave Of "Anti-racist" Teaching Sweeps K-12 Schools Targeting "Whiteness"

 It'd be a miracle if there were nothing in all of this that was worthwhile...but it would be almost as much of a miracle if there were much of it.

" 'The Smartest Man In The Room' Has Joined Sydney Powell's Team"

Still less crazy than Russiagate, no matter how it turns out.

David Brooks: "The Rotting Of The Republican Mind"

The left spirals down into its own delusional whirlpool of crazy.
   Jane's law claims that the devotees of the party in power are smug and arrogant, while those of the party out of power are insane. Currently, the left/Dems are all of those things--smug, arrogant and insane. The right is so far out of power culturally speaking that it'd be hard for them to be smug or arrogant. Both parties seem inclined to insanity to me, though--less the religious part--the right less so. Of the two parties, there really can't be any reasonable doubt that the left is currently crazier. It's basically lost its goddamned mind. It's not that the Pubs are any great shakes. But at least their religious faction is somewhat isolated and out of power. The left has its own crackpot religious tendencies--e.g. the subordination of facts to political correctness. But, sadly, those tendencies are not out-of-power and isolated to a subordinate political sect. Rather: they are running the show...on the left, hence in the country. And any violation of their dogma results in shrieking denunciation by their hoards of flying monkeys. Once you get to the point of saying that people can change their sex--or, basically, do almost anything else--just by saying so, you've fallen off the edge of the world, rationally speaking. Saying so makes it so is, except in a few trick cases, the epitome of unreason. This isn't an ad hoc principle. It's practically an axiom of reason. 
   I remain hopeful because Trump is such a shithead in so many ways. He could make the goddamn Pope cuss. One of his superpowers is driving people to the other side...odious as that side may be. I know lots of reasonable people who'd never even consider voting for him. The horribleness of the other side hasn't made itself as manifest to them. And, being reasonable, they chose what seemed to be the lesser evil. I'd say that Trump's shittiness is all up front, whereas the other side's shittiness is much worse...in part because it's so much sneaker. But, then, that's the kind of thing people sometimes say when their preferred side is the shitter. As always, I realize I could be wrong. But my view is the Trump's shittiness is largely manifest and superficial, whereas the other side's shittiness is deep and dangerous. Of course, that's the sort of thing people always say when their side seems shittier. So merely saying it settles nothing. Seems really clear to me that the left--formerly the less-crazy-and-dangerous side of our politics--has become the crazier and more dangerous by far. But, then, people are wrong about such stuff all the time. Maybe the left has merely developed its own religion, with its own dogmas and magical claims and sins and naughty words and whatnot. There's still the problem that Christianity is held largely at bay by the First Amendment, whereas, currently, there seems to be little constraining Woketarianism...which masquerades as a non-religious cult. Or maybe it is non-religious. It's a vague category. Hard to say, really.
   At any rate, it doesn't seem to me that the Republican mind is rotting--though it has its problems, and has rotted at points in the past. It's the leftist mind that's currently rotting before our very nostrils. Conservatives are currently the comparative heroes of the story, as they provide a kind of counterbalance. To mix metaphors. (I'm not sure how you counterbalance rottenness...) It's the left that has slipped into the belief that facts are malleable by fiat, some truths are unspeakable, and honest and open discussion is dangerous and worthy of punishment. It's not that the right doesn't veer in that direction from time to time...but the left has lurched hard to crazy...and it shows no sign of stopping. They believe--in some sense of 'believe'--outright, demonstrable falsehoods, insist that thinking so can make things so, brutally silence dissent, routinely employ political violence, and exercise iron control over most of our important institutions. They're bad enough that Donald Trump is far preferable...if you care about truth and reason...or so I say. 
   Where was I going with this? Does anybody remember? Oh well.

[Gosh...remember when the GOP was the crazy party? I do. [sigh] Those were kinda the days, in retrospect... OTOH, the Dems haven't yet lied us into a major war...OTOOH, they went along with it when the Pubs did it, so... ]

U.S. Media: Politically-Motivated Vaccine Pessimism?

Patrick Basham: Why The 2020 Presidential Election Is Deeply Puzzling

Is Ventilation Key To Battling COVID? These Cartoons Say Yes

Biden Poised To Undo Everything Good That DeVos Has Done

Saturday, November 28, 2020

Wikipedia Has A Leftist Bias

Your Blue Future: NM Edition:: 2-4 Hour Lines Outside Grocery Stores Due To Shutdown

 link

Gilad Atzmon: "The Interpretation Of (Left) Dreams

This is pretty near the target (even the Zizek bits!?!)? (Beware! Unz Review...superduper wrongthink!)

“Why do we dream? Freud’s answer is deceptively simple: the ultimate function of the dream is to enable the dreamer to stay asleep.” Slavoj Zizek (2006)...

Traditional Left Ideology sets out a vision of how the world ‘ought to be.’ The Left’s view can be summed up as the belief that social justice is the primary requirement for improving the world, and that this better future entails the pursuit of equality in various forms. The Left ideologist believes that it is both ethical and moral to attempt to approach equality in terms of civil rights and material wealth.
   But if the Left focuses on ‘what could be,’ the Right focuses on ‘what is.’ If the Left operates where people ‘could be,’ the Right operates where people ‘are’ or at least, where they believe themselves to be. The Right does not aim to change human social reality but rather to celebrate, and to even maximize it.
   Left ideology, accordingly, is shaped like a ‘dream.’ Aiming for what ‘ought to be’ rather than ‘what is’ induces a level of utopian illusory detachment and depicts a phantasmal egalitarian world often removed from our abusive, oppressive and doomed reality. In this phantasmic future, people will just drift away from greed and gluttony, they will work less and learn to share, even to share that which they may not possess to start with.
   This imaginary ‘dream’ helps explain why the (Western) Left’s ideology rarely appealed to the struggling classes; the masses, consumed by the pursuit of bread and butter, were hardly going to be interested in utopian ‘dreams’ or futuristic social experiments. Bitten by the daily struggle and chased by existence, working people have never really subscribed to ‘the revolution,’ usually because they were just too busy working. This perhaps explains why so often it was the middle-class and bourgeois agitators who became revolutionary icons. It was they who had access to that little bit extra to fund their revolutionary adventures.
...
   Back in 2006, Zizek provided a Lacanian insight into the reality that we currently see in the USA. “Reality,” Zizek wrote, “is for those who cannot sustain the dream.” It is always the hard-working people struggling for bread and butter who can’t sustain the fantasy of social change. It is always the working classes that push for concretization. They want America to be great again (Trump), they want Great Britain to be as ‘Great’ as implied by its name (Brexit), they want France to be French (Yellow Vests). Before it is too late, those who watched the so-called ‘Trumpsters’ yesterday in Washington DC should accept that the patriotic reality embodied by the flag must at least be as meaningful as the Identitarian ‘dream’ of ‘others united.’

Sharyl Attkisson On The New Woke Times

Sowell: If Biden Wins, "That Could Be The Point Of No Return For This Country"

 


Biden can go f*ck himself.

Old (?) CNN Expose On Smartmatic Machines, Venezuela, and Voting Shenanigans

 Was a hard-hitting expose...now an alt-right ultra-fascist conspiracy theory:



Friday, November 27, 2020

Pubs Flip Another House Seat--CA 21

Like the man said, Trump had awfully long coattails for someone who allegedly didn't win...
Of course there are at least two hypotheses that can explain that: (1) Trump won; (2) Trump's personally unlikeable...

Journalism Basically The Least-Trusted Profession

 Seems mostly prima facie reasonable:

But, um, we probably need to have a talk about professors...

In fact, that rating of professors makes me wonder whether my judgment above is just the Gell-Mann amnesia effect... 

The MSM Is Truly Loathsome

 LOL these people are disgusting morons. 

The funniest bit is adding in the completely irrelevant bit about Don Jr. having the bat flu. ZOMG! He caught a cold that has a 99.5-99.9% survival rate!!!! RUN AWAY!!!!

Michael Tracey Remembers When Lefties Begged For Electors To Vote For Clinton Rather Than Trump

But this was totally cool, right?

Kraken: Released

 Powell files lawsuit in Michigan. 

I don't really have a view about this. I just want the truth to out and justice to be done.

Avoiding the wreck of a Biden presidency would be a bonus...but we really shouldn't think about that at all. 

Thursday, November 26, 2020

More Evidence Of Widespread Mental Illness Among American Liberals (Esp. White, Female, Young)

This is consistent with my informal observations.
Of course one might respond: they're not actually more mentally ill, they just inhabit a social milieu in which mental illness is fashionable, so they are pulled toward it--or at least to professions of it. OTOH, one could argue that conservatives are hesitant to admit to mental illness--the dreaded STIGMA! 
(What happened to "stigma," anyway? It was briefly--about a year ago--hugely fashionable on the left, and then kinda disappeared. My guess: the terminological competition on the left is fierce. The so love their jargon--esp. that with just the right, nauseating lefty ring to it--that jargon-mongers have to really be on their game if their wares are to succeed. 'Stigma' just couldn't secure an environmental niche...)
Or one could argue that liberals go to psychologists more, and so are diagnosed more. So it's a COVID-like testing effect. ZOMG CASES ARE SKYROCKETING!!!!111
Also: so much of leftism is built on the denial of facts...it's just not all that surprising that it leads to / attracts wackos.

[Don't miss the pic of Pantyfa at the top of the article. Note that their point-man seems to be Gallagher.]

Climate Hysteria, Mission Creep, And The Medicalization Of Everything

 Already posted this. Doing it again.

Shelby Steele: The Inauthenticity Behind BLM

Not sure I agree with some of this, but Steele's opinion on this subject is worth a lot more than mine.

Trump 4-1 Favorite Over Biden For 2024

Supposing it comes to that.

MSM Election Propaganda In A Nutshell

 via insty:


Obama Is Increasingly Full Of Shit

link.    
   How can you be so clueless as to not recognize that the progressive left hates white men? They come right out and say it. They re-define whiteness as oppressiveness. Increasingly, they have white women, too. And anyone who's had anything to do with "diversity" hiring knows that white men are in the sub-basement of that particular totem pole. To think that white men are not being victimized by the left, you have to either not be paying attention, or you have to be blinded by political correctness. 
   Increasingly, I realize that my support for Obama was not my smartest political position.

Wednesday, November 25, 2020

Biden Turns To "Polite And Orderly Caretakers Of America's Decline"

The important thing is that they're polite. Better to put us onto a polite and orderly glidepath into the side of the mountain than to brashly and rudely get us over it and into the sunlit uplands.

Trump Pardons Flynn

 Good. And MSDNC can stick that headline up its ass. Lying sons a bitches. (Not, of course, that Flynn didn't plead guilty. But: anybody who knows anything about this case knows that the headline is intentionally misleading.)

Conservatives Right Once Again?

 Bat flu hysteria refuted?


Jordan Peterson Makes The Penguin Random House In-House Snowflakes Go Menopausal

The cultists were howling over the company publishing Peterson's next book. I take great joy at the thought of their hysterical fury and their sweet, sweet tears:
   “He is an icon of hate speech and transphobia and the fact that he’s an icon of white supremacy, regardless of the content of his book, I’m not proud to work for a company that publishes him,” a junior employee who is a member of the LGBTQ community and who attended the town hall told VICE World News.
   Another employee said “people were crying in the meeting about how Jordan Peterson has affected their lives.” They said one co-worker discussed how Peterson had radicalized their father and another talked about how publishing the book will negatively affect their non-binary friend. 
    “The company since June has been doing all these anti-racist and allyship things and them publishing Peterson’s book completely goes against this. It just makes all of their previous efforts seem completely performative,” the employee added.
   A third employee told VICE World News the company’s diversity and inclusion committee received at least 70 anonymous messages about Peterson’s book, and only a couple are in favour of the decision to publish it.

Lockdowns Are Stupid *Even If We Consider Only Health*

Now add in the economic damage... 

Peak Stupidity = Peak Virtue-Signaling

Greenwald: "Demanding Silicon Valley Suppress “Hyper-Partisan Sites” in Favor of “Mainstream News” (The NYT) is a Fraud"

link
I often think--and sometimes say--that being locked up in the web of lies and delusions spun by the MSM may be the fundamental error on which progressivism rests. But that can't be true, because then we'd need a different explanation of why the MSM is so et up with the crazy...
   More likely: the progressive capture of the MSM is what has enabled the radical left to, in turn, capture almost all of the relatively-more-centrist left. Capturing the MSM is analogous to capturing the universities: they're both critical institutions that control information. And the radical, progressive left has exploited them mercilessly.
   At least liberals have principles that should prohibit them from engaging in outright brainwashing. They do sometimes violate those principles...but at least they have them. The principles put some constraint on liberals (and/including conservatives). Progressives, like several other subsectors of the left, don't have any such principles. They largely don't believe in rationality or rightness or freedom or autonomy. They think that everything is merely a power struggle. They think the ideas of rationality and autonomy and the rest are liberal hangups. So they think that the difference between teaching and brainwashing is, too. So, unlike more moderate/less-crazy factions, they have no compunction about using the institutions they control for indoctrination. Of course those views tend to be held explicitly only on the more extremist edge...but they fade off toward the center, and influence the rest of the left. 

What An Honest Request To Wear Masks Would Be Like

 Yep:


Biden: "I Have A Very Progressive Agenda"

The Sydney Powell Theory Is Starting To Sound Like The Steele Dossier

link
I think it was dumb of me--and of you, if you did, too--to take Russiagate and the Steele Dossier seriously. I can't remember how seriously I took it, but I know I took parts of it very seriously...e.g. the stuff about alleged computer communication with Alfa bank.
   Powell's theory is starting to sound kinda like all that nonsense...though Steele is apparently a kook, and Powell is apparently a person to be taken very seriously. 
   Just to be perfectly clear: the antecedent likelihood of Powell's theory is pretty low. I'll be surprised if there's much truth in it. Pre-Russiagate(gate), I'd probably have dismissed it out of hand. Post- those things, that would be nuts. If Russiagate had just been a crazy conspiracy theory, it wouldn't tell us much about this (apparently) crazy conspiracy theory. But, given that Russiagate was itself a massive conspiracy...and an ultimately successful one, in that it may well have cost Trump the '20 election...well...we can't dismiss even Powell's wild-sounding theory out of hand. Even if she's right, I don't see it would be that much worse than Russiagategate. Except, perhaps, for the fact that Trump was, I think, an objectively alarming figure in '16. And I think that might be a mitigating factor. 
   Though, in response, one could argue: by 2020, any reasonable person not epistemically locked up in the MSM web of delusions should be able to see that Trump is not an objectively alarming character...
   No, wait...that argument actually points in the other direction, no? That's to say: it would actually make the Powell theory...eh...insufficient coffee. I'm not sure what I was thinking there.

James Freeman: The Transition Begins...Though We Still Don't Know What Happened In PA

 I take a liberty with the title. It does seem that we're moving inexorably, incrementally toward a much bluer near-term future, unfortunately.

Bardcore: "Smells Like Teen Spirit" In Classical Latin


 

Tuesday, November 24, 2020

CNN: "Trumps Effort To Steal The Election Is Done"

God those people are loathsome. Not linking to the story, though. Not going to give them the clicks. Whelp, I guess Sydney Powell's outlandish claims are just about our only hope at this point.  Funny that CNN never mentioned the blue team's four-year-long effort to steal the election of 2016... 

Monday, November 23, 2020

Trump Approves Transition Resources For Biden Team

Seems like the right thing to do. I don't think it constitutes conceding anything. A dark cluster of timelines looms ever closer...but they're not unavoidable yet

Systemic Racism Is A Fad

 link to Google trends

Christopher Rufo On Dave Rubin

 It's kinda surprising how fast people on the right learned about critical theory and CRT in particular:



The Medicalization Of Everything: The Medicalization Of Climate Change

More Sydney Powell

They're such outrageous claims that we've got to rate them as likely false. But, sadly, we can't rule them out. Ergo they require diligent investigation:

Sunday, November 22, 2020

Turley On Sidney Powell

This is roughly what I was thinking: either she's a kook or may actually be onto something huge. But Powell is said to be a powerhouse:
The press conference held by the Trump legal team was not for the faint of heart. The team alleged a global, Communist-backed conspiracy to “inject” and “change” votes through the use of the Dominion computer system. It was exhausting and breathtaking. I was critical of the press conference as being long on heated rhetoric and short on hard evidence. Dominion issued a statement categorically denying the allegations. The question is whether Dominion itself will now sue. The company denied the allegations but I often measure such denials by whether anyone actually sues. Dominion could do so and force the Trump team to reveal the evidence supporting their allegations or face potentially significant liability. I assume that counsel like Sidney Powell would not make such allegations without proof, but the press conference did not make such evidence public. But these are not just colorful but criminal allegations against named companies and by implication corporate officials and political allies.

The claims are so huge that they almost have to be false...but... again...post-Russiagategate...I'm not willing to simply dismiss them on those grounds.

WSJ: GA Certifies; Trump Lost

Our future is looking bluer by the day.

Trump's Legal Options Nearly Exhausted

link
   I'd like to see more investigations even if Biden becomes President. I still don't believe the wild allegations by Giuliani and Powell...but, sadly, after the last four years, we can't rule them out. 
   A Biden/Harris presidency will be a serious blow--perhaps even a disaster. But that's democracy for ya. Waddayagonnado?

Turkey-Grinch, Notorious Granny-Killer, and Blue-Team Hero A. Cuomo Sends Cops To Cancel Thanksgiving

Cops ignore him.
Apparently he may or may not want them to count cars in driveways and investigate how much stuffing people bought... I take it that's humorous ridicule and not for realz.
  But never forget how crazy the blue team has gone with all this. This is them responding, basically, to the flu. They outright admit that one of their strategies is to exploit crises. And what a coincidence that they're generally the ones fanning the flames of hysteria, eh? And, more recently: actually setting actual fires and burning down actual cities. They seem to love both chaos in itself and the authoritarianism it breeds.
   Remember: I'm a lifelong blue-teamer--until 2.5 years ago. And the only thing keeping me from saying "I will never vote for these crazy motherf*ckers again" is that I swore that twice against the red team, and now am eating my words. (Except I'd almost never actually voted for the red team, other than for a couple of incidental offices... So in that case "again" wasn't really part of the deal.)  (I swore that thing after their shit arguments and efforts to shut down recounts in Florida 2000, and after they lied us into Iraq.)
   Anyway. I think there's a decent chance the pendulum of crazy will swing back toward the reds...though I do think the blues seem to be moving in the direction of a fairly stable state of victory. It won't last forever, but it could last for decades. Or, God help us, longer.

National Dem Party Official Suggests Re-Education Camps For Trump Supporters?

No.
I mean, dude is loony, and said--or, rather, "tweeted"--some injudicious and stupid shit... But he didn't actually suggest re-education camps. Much less "call for" them. He's also probably not being entirely serious. He's just venting some political frustration. He has, after all, been denied an unbridled celebration at Biden's likely victory. There's absolutely reason to take blue-team insanity seriously...but taking one dude's stupid tweet seriously probably isn't the best idea.
   Sadly, he doesn't even represent the craziest of the crazy on the left side of the aisle these days. He's not the 50 yard line either...I'd say he's just at the edge of the red zone...which is...concerning... And, of course, it's always kinda funny to see the party that's come unglued from reality accuse the other guys of that. The Pubs, for all their flaws, currently and generally seem to have a pretty good grasp of reality--Illuminati electoral shenanigans notwithstanding. (Which is not to say that I've abandoned my view that extensive investigation is necessary...) 
   Of course this discussion does occur against the background of actual, extensive leftist indoctrination initiatives in business, K-12 and college... So that makes it a matter of greater concern than it might have been in a different context. Still dumb to make too much of one dumb comment. Imagine if people went through this blog with a fine-tooth comb and picked out ever injudicious nit...

Saturday, November 21, 2020

Incidentally: This Is The Trajectory I Most Feared

Trump doesn't seem like the kind of guy to take losing in stride anyway. He's inclined to say stupid things, and seems capable of doing stupid things. Which does not mean: refusing to leave office. That's ridiculous. Though, I suppose, not impossible...
   But add to losing: the blue team has not only become (in his opinion and mine) truly dangerous, but it has treated him just terribly. Even a more level-headed person would hate those guys with a burning passion by now. If someone had accused me of the things of which they've accused Trump, I'd lose my damn mind. 
   It's a blueprint for disaster. It's also likely to lead Trump to act in ways that are not only objectively bad, but that play into the left's lies about him. On top of everything else, it's likely to give Biden and the blues some additional mojo to implement what IMO is the most disastrous agenda I've ever seen in a lifetime of seeing and fretting about such things.
   Of course it's not a done deal yet. We're a long way from proof that the election was legit. But the grim handwriting on the wall has become pretty distinct.
   One view says: push the election fraud line as hard as possible in order to delegitimize the Biden and Harris Presidencies. Normally I'd be adamantly against such a strategy. But that's what the blues have basically done since 2016--though they attacked Trump himself rather than the electoral process. So that's a major difference. This would constitute escalation of an already dangerous confrontation. However, if you think that the blue agenda is very likely to do largely-irreparable damage to the country, it can seem like a rational strategy. And, of course: we probably ought to undermine confidence in the form of elections we used this time around. To the layperson, at least, it seems like a system engineered to encourage voter fraud. It's just about as clear as it could be that the Dems, overall, have decided to trade off the security of our elections for two related things: (a) wider participation by left-favored groups and (b) more votes. The former is a noble cause, in its way. The latter, of course, is a different matter. So, to wrap this up, the reds have reasons both noble and self-serving to undermine confidence not just in this election, but in this way of running elections. And, further, it's a smart bet that part of the blues' motive for relentlessly exaggerating the danger from bat flu was in order to bolster their case for loosening up election security / increasing participation by members of blue-favored groups. It's a big tangle of motives and hypotheses... But anyone who thinks that it's clearly the reds who are the bad guys here is blinkered.
   Anyway, again: worst of the likely scenarios, I say. Blues will win, Trump will make a stink, thus tarnishing the reds and bolstering the blues--and in a way that will let them pretend that they were right about him all along.
   On the bright side, there does seem to have been rather a turn away from progressivism in the House and the state houses. I say we start working now to clobber the blues in the mid-terms. Then I can maybe start worrying about a red backlash...though that sort of worrying seems like a beautiful dream right now...

Friday, November 20, 2020

Andrew Cuomo To Win "International Emmy" For...Having The Highest Death Rate In His State And Being A Lefty On T.V.

facepalm
You really just cannot make this shit up. 
These people are so goddamn ridiculous I don't even know what to say.
They blame Trump...who actually seems to have done an alright job...for every. single. bat flu death in the entire country. But Cuomo...who was actually responsible for killing tens of thousands of elderly people by idiotically cramming them into retirement homes...and who presided over the highest death rate (or second-highest?) of any state in the country...  Him, they praise. 

Hollywood Idiots Urge Electors To Abandon Trump In '16

facepalm
But, y'know, going to court to rule out electoral fraud is a divisive refusal to accede to the will of the people.

Things That Didn't Happen: Bat Flu Patients Denying The Reality Of Bat Flu As They Die From Bat Flu

Yeah, see, that didn't happen.
   If you think that did happen, then you are not good at telling things that might happen from things that didn't and aren't going to happen. 
   I quit reading at this isn't proof that this didn't happen.  Because you don't need proof to know that this didn't happen. This is progressive smugporn. Seriously. If you thought for even a second that this story might have been true, you need your bullshit detector recalibrated. 
   Besides--not that we need to discuss this seriously--does anybody think the bat flu isn't real? I mean, many of us think it's been blown way out of proportion. And some of us think that part of the motive for doing that was to hurt Trump. Some of us even think this is being exploited to effect "the Great Reset"... But I'd be pretty surprised if more than a scattered handful of people thinks it's completely made up.

Australia Loses Its Mind: S.A. Police: People Can't Leave The House To Walk The Dog Or Exercise

What would they do if we had a respectable pandemic? Shoot everybody as a precautionary measure? As usual, Razor is, as it were, on point:

What's Trump Getting Wrong?

 Mostly the tone / rhetoric / talky-part...as usual. Yes, there's more than enough evidence, so far as we plebes can tell, to investigate / go to court. So, as is so often the case, he's right about the substance. But the talky part matters, too. A lot. Getting that part wrong--like getting the other part wrong--can lead to disaster.

Thursday, November 19, 2020

To Repeat Myself Repeating Myself: Pubs Got Mad About The Wrong Things At The Wrong Time...Probably

 It is, of course, possible that there was a shit-ton of election fraud. Again: there's nothing to do but investigate. And investigate we must. But I say the Pubs got mad too late, and about the wrong thing. They should have gotten mad(der) about the Russiagate conspiracy/hoax--possibly the biggest political scandal...and certainly the biggest metaconspiracy...in American history. But they didn't. In their defense, they were waiting for Durham--they had faith in the process. But Durham apparently isn't going to happen now. Ever. The media poured all its propaganda powers into creating and propagating lies about Trump. And it did likewise to protect Biden and stifle stories of Hunter's depravity and dishonesty. Oh and: influence peddling. I think Pubs thought that it couldn't be done--that the bullshit was so obvious and so outrageous that the media couldn't pull Biden across the finish line. The Pubs thought that the polls were just more journalism--just as dishonest, and intended to manipulate rather than predict. Maybe Pubs had faith in the fundamental level-headedness of their fellow--if blue--Americans. Though God knows why... You would have thought that the massive "systemic racism" hoax and the riots and mob violence would have been the last straw(s)...would have been the last straws long ago...but they weren't. Perhaps Pubs should have gotten mad and physically fought back during the summer...but they didn't. They trusted the system, and they trusted their countrymen, and they trusted that sanity would win out. And all that trust was misplaced. And now they face the horrifying prospect of an increasingly unhinged blue team controlling the Presidency and the House...and maybe the Senate, too. And so now all that righteous anger--along with incredulity and horror--has got to go somewhere. And it's transmogrifying into a red-team version of Russiagate--a conspiracy theory about a vast, tentacular, international effort to steal the election... Which theory, er, could actually be true...but probably isn't. Oh, red team. You were so right, and so close. And the blue team propaganda operation will continue to act as if Russiagate was for real...but Russiagategate wasn't...and they'll be sure that your wild conspiracy theories are never forgotten... That may actually be worse for the country than the election conspiracy thing...

The Election Absolutely MUST Be Investigated...But The Pubs Are Starting To Sound Like Russiagate-Era Dems

Look, we have to have big investigations. No rational person can deny that. But Powell was about one notch shy of implicating the Illuminati and the Knights Templar.
   C'mon, Pubs...we need at least one marginally sane party at any given time. It's like a rule or something. 
   So just throttle back down to, oh, say, Trilateral-Commission / New-World-Order / Bilderberg-Group-level crazy. Ok?
   Investigate, investigate, investigate...but let's not drag Godzilla into this or whatever.

Rove Stops Just Shy Of Calling Giuliani / Powell Accusations Crazy

Sydney Powell Seems Pretty Damn Serious

 


Hodge Twins

 On fire today:



Firearm Ban and Confiscation Efforts Likely Under (Likely) Biden Administration

Respiratory Failure During Bat Flu Usually Not Driven By Cytokine Storm?

 Huh.

"The Baseless 'Great Reset' Conspiracy Theory Rises Again"

That's the kind of headline we get from the contemporary NYT: (a) based on a falsehood pushed by the left; (b) often about some new nefarious nonsense they're plotting, (c) double-dismissed as "baseless" and a "conspiracy theory." 
   Belief in "The Great Reset" is in no way baseless. To claim that it is is just a flat-out lie. But, then, the NYT was part of the Russiagate conspiracy, and part of the conspiracy to fabricate the current race crisis hysteria...and climate hysteria...so it's no surprise that they'd be in on "The Great Reset" as well.
   Of course there are elements on the right that are helping them out by generating genuinely outlandish stuff--e.g. that the batflu was created as a means to promoting the "reset." But most people pointing to this thing aren't "far-right." And they're not manufacturing anything--they're just informing people about the stuff the real, actual, progressive promoters of the real, actual project say themselves.
  You really should read the first link above just because the story is hilariously packed with ad hominems, invective, and dismissals--everything is an "unfounded rumor" by "far-right" folks like--gasp!-- Paul Joseph Watson and Stephen Crowder! BASELESS FALSE UNFOUNDED CONSPIRACY THEORIES BY THE FAR-FAR RIGHT!!!!!!111111
   But--contra the--far-left--New York Times--there actually is a "great reset" project, it's fairly typical of contemporary leftist nuttery, and it's absolutely worth being concerned about. And the fact that the NYT is so feverishly trying to dismiss it by attacking straw-man versions of it should tip you off that something sinister is afoot.
   There is an idea in all this that isn't completely nuts...it's only a little bit nuts... It's that, after the lockdowns, we should consider whether we really need to go back to our usual ways. Instead, we could maybe stick with lockdown-ish ways of living that would keep carbon emissions down. Now...I've stated it more sanely than they do...and absolutely no one should believe that, were this idea to actually be implemented, it would be implemented modestly and sanely. And, since global warming hysteria is largely--though not entirely--well, hysteria...there's far less reason to stay in lockdown--or near it--than the left thinks. And, of course: one of the things they seek is compliance. So we generally have at least some reason to tell them to get f*cked...even when their ideas aren't overtly nuts.
   Also, there's a well-known general tendency of the left to use crises and crisis-hoaxes to get what they want. Never let a good crisis go to waste, to quasi-quote Rahm Emmanuel. Many on the left openly speak of using the pandemic to achieve long-standing political ends. Which would, incidentally, explain their tendency to radically, hysterically exaggerate its severity. It also fits their general pattern of fabricating and exaggerating crises in order to promote their policies as "solutions"--the campus rape crisis, global warming, the "racist cops" crisis, the "systemic racism" crisis, and on and on.
   Anyway.

Thanksgiving

Sadly, we can't make it out West this time, and the in-laws have just concluded it's probably not wise to fly here--which is reasonable, as they're pushing 70. Or maybe pulling it a bit. That, plus some other stuff is probably going to leave us with just us and a friend or two for turkey day. 
   I'm trying to resist the urge to just start calling people to get them over specifically in order to defy the anti-Thanksgiving blue-team effort. But I won't. Nope. I will not do that... Absolutely not...
   We've gone stupid as a country. But, by God, I'm not going to let it make me overreact...any more than it already has...

Starting To Really Look Like Four Years Of Biden-Harris

   I shudder to think what's going to happen even just to the Department of Ed. As I keep saying. Over and over and over. But I do. Just losing DeVos will set us back...well...no use trying to spit out some largely arbitrary number of years. Worse, the blue-team crazies will move the ball even farther down the field. Their goal is basically to implement every loony idea that comes out of postpostmodern academia...and, in fact, out of ed schools...one of its looniest sectors. 
   If, God forbid, we were to be stuck with eight years of the blue team...well....God knows. It's not that we'd exactly end up with desegregated restrooms and no math departments... But that's the general direction in which we'll be moving.
   Among the many depressing aspects of these episodes--this neo-PC one, and the paleo-PC one of the 80s-90s--is seeing how illiberal all the "liberals" secretly were. Last time I resolved never to forget... But I forgot. Most people around you who you think are liberal are actually going to drop liberalism like a hot potato and help the illiberal left tear it all down as soon as they get a chance. Screaming about the evils of conservatism and the dreaded straightwhitemales the whole time. Or standing silently by while the others do. 
   I understand Trump fatigue. Lord I do. And it'll be a relief to not have to deal with his repeated assaults on civilized discourse. Not to mention demeaning the office of the Presidency. Though...it's not like he's Clintonesque in the respect... So, yeah, I really do understand that almost any non-Trump administration will be more comfortable. OTOH, we're f*cked. So...there's also that.
   
   

Wednesday, November 18, 2020

Trump's Refusal To Concede: The GOP View

 On the first point, I agree: I'd bet that there were Democratic shenanigans. There's prima facie reason to believe that, and there were much, much worse Democratic shenanigans at this point four years ago: the blue team was cooking up Russiagate. Were the shenanigans this time big enough to change the vote totals enough to change the outcome? I'd guess not. But my guesses are shit. What's needed are audits and investigations. On the second point--is it harmful to refrain from giving the Biden team briefings?--I don't know. Again, the blue team withheld absolutely critical information last time--that they believed that Russians had infiltrated the Trump organization. (They withheld it because they also believed--or wanted to believe--that Trump himself was an "asset.") Anyway, I don't have a view about the second point. Overall, I've adopted a view that you largely have to judge individual clusters of political actions against the status quo. Against the way things were run last time, anyway, nothing Trump's doing looks that bad. Well...except for some of the things he's saying. He always talks worse than he acts. I'd rather have a president with intemperate words but defensible actions than the other way around. And I'd say that's what we have with Trump. And we have evidence that we had the opposite with Obama-Biden. Though the evidence is non-conclusive.

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Biden Aims To Destroy The Country

I mean, when you're anti-First-Amendment, anti-Second-Amendment, pro-"Equality"-Act, and aim to immediately reverse Trump's good work on immigration...you've basically committed to destroying the country. The blue team is not merely mistaken, it's virtually indistinguishable from being malicious. Immigration is a particularly dangerous issue, because if we fuck it up by bringing in too many people, we'll never be able to turn it around. The blue team wants to maximize immigration because they want to import a new electorate that's guaranteed to support them and their crackpot policies...unlike the recalcitrant electorate we have currently. Basically, they want changes to the point of completely rewiring--i.e. destroying--the country. They're clearly the anti-free-speech, anti-freedom, anti-free-market, anti-firearm, anti-Electoral-College, anti-electoral-integrity party now. There'll be nothing left of America if they get their way. We've been blessed with a good demographic mix...and if we f*ck that up, we're f*cked once and for all. And the Democrats are passionately devoted to f*cking it up. 

The Left Was Right And The Right Was Wrong On Russiagate...So Who Got Twitter-Warned?

So...Both 'Rise Up' and 'Stand Down' are Violent? Also: F***K Whitmer

 The sooner they impeach her sorry ass the better:


Berenson: The Atlantic Is Still All For Team Apocalypse...But It Gets Other Stuff Right: Masks Don't Help, Virus Spreads Indoors

 link

Biden Fills Economic Posts With Experts On Systemic Racism

 America, you just do not make good decisions. Or, well, half of you don't. Too bad you're not just fucking up your own country and blowing your own money. You're fucking mine up and losing mine too. I really, really wish we could see our two possible futures--Trumpian and Bidenian--so that I could more poignantly ridicule you for your patently shitty decision. But rest assured--I'm cussing you out in my mind...

Questioning "Systematic Racism" Is Itself Racist, Racist

Not exactly a Kafka trap, but a close cousin of one.Actual sentence actually written in defense of this dude by one of his (education...unsurprisingly...) colleagues:
That systemic racism exists is not a matter that should be ‘up for debate’, any more than climate change or the tenets of epidemiology should be.

If you'd put such a line in the mouth of a character in an academic novel, it'd be ridiculed as hackery...and rightly so. 

Richard Stengle On Biden Transition Team Responsible for e.g. The VOA and Radio Free Europe

Holy F'in shit.
Well, they're getting a fast start on that blue future that 73 million Americans voted for...
I don't know how much clearer the blue team can make it that they aim to narrow the bounds of free speech in America.
But at least there'll be fewer mean tweets, which is what really matters.

Coup Hysteria On The Left

 We've been told that Trump = Hitler from the beginning. It's always been laughable.

Why So Little Interest In Existing Anti-BatFlu Measures?

 I didn't know about BCG, but I've been baffled that there's been so little interest in UVC. link

Your Blue Future: Biden, Dems Fail To Criticize Violent BLM / Antifa Thugs

 Here's what 73 million Americans (allegedly) voted for.

PUBS ARE THE AUTHORITARIAN ONES!!!111

That used to be true...but you'd have to be a damned idiot to think that's even vaguely plausible today...but wait...FOLLOW THE SCIENCE, BIGOT!!!11

Monday, November 16, 2020

Darth Jar Jar, Again

 With a few notable exceptions, I'm not that into movies. One such exception is, of course, the original Star Wars movies. As for the later crap, I think I've seen them all once-ish. That is, I think I've seen every scene 0-2 times--though some of the movies I've never seen all the way through in one sitting. Rogue One was pretty good, I thought. But anyway: though I'm indifferent to most of the later stuff, I freaking love the Darth Jar Jar theory. In fact, I love it so much that I think it's probably right. It really is a great little theory. If I'd have thought of that thing, I'd never stop crowing about it.

Skepticism About Transgender Ideology Is Politically Incorrect: Virtual Book-Burning

 Target removes Shrier's Irreversible Damage after two online complaints. The surprising part, though, is that then they un-removed it. So: happy ending, I guess. Though it's hard to be all that happy when somebody does something totally fucking nuts and then undoes it when pressured to do so...

Summary Of Alleged Evidence Of Alleged Voter Fraud From Insty's ONT

link
list:

George Turner • 43 minutes ago

I've been debating some liberals elsewhere, and they were sticking to the line that there are no signs of fraud. So I hammered out a list of red flags, which you might find handy as a springboard for your own arguments. The last few concern what Gateway Pundit just found in the floating point Virginia balloting, so I tossed it in. So this was my reply to some guy on the Internet.

 ******

 As the fraud investigators pointed out, sometimes there's one or two red flags but no fraud, but it's rare to have three, and almost unheard of to have four and not be able to prosecute the case to a successful conviction.

 This one has dozens of red flags. During the act, we have:

 1) Trump was winning all the keys states by huge margins on election night. Even people here said 2020 was reminding them of exactly what they went though on 2016. And then, in the middle of the night, Biden surged ahead. That doesn't happen in multiple states.

 2) All the key states mysterious stopped counting at about 1:00 AM, and only the key states stopped counting. Why would a state do that? Red flag.

 3) Georgia claimed they stopped counting, saying the Atlanta arena was flooding from a burst pipe and the vote counters had to be evacuated. That was false. The arena never filed any paperwork for a contractor to come and fix anything. The only confirmation that there was even a leak said it was a minor drip that was quickly mopped up, and was nowhere near the counting. Red flag.

 4) Republican observers were sent home because ballot counting had stopped, and that’s when the new fake ballots showed up. The delivery vehicles full of ballots were caught on video. Ballots aren’t normally driven across a state to be counted somewhere else. Red flag.

 5) How did Biden’s lead massively increase while ballot counting was stopped? If you’re not counting ballots, the number shouldn’t be changing. Yet it did, by hundreds of thousands, but only for one candidate. That one would cause any international election observer to throw a red flag.

 6) Republican election observers weren’t present when the new ballots were arriving in the middle of the night, because they’d been sent home. Another red flag.

 7) Republican election observers weren’t allowed to observe in many of the states. Trump is correct, as backed up by their affidavits. Many were barred, many were ejected, some by “security”. In Philly they weren’t allowed to observe, even with a court order. The sheriff blocked them. That went on for days. Huge red flag, and another that UN observers take as evidence of election fraud.

 8) Long delays in counting the votes in key states. Under international standards, long delays in vote counting are taken as suspicious, and usually indicate election rigging. Counting just isn’t at all hard compared to making up fake ballots that can survive cursory scrutiny. A long delay likely means they’re making sure they have enough “recount survivable” fraudulent ballots, or enough to cover for a rigged vote tally that was made up on election night.

 9) All the long counting delays concerned cities with a long history of machine politics and rampant election fraud.

 10) Observed real-time vote tally’s in multiple states where Trump or Jorgensen’s total count decreased. Negative votes aren’t supposed to exist. That’s a sign that the election were being hacked.

 11) Mail-in-ballots arriving in Pennsylvania before they were even shipped out. That can’t happen in this universe, and is definite sign of fraud.

 12) Large numbers of dead people, who were born over a hundred years ago, being recorded as having voted. I’ve confirmed plenty of those myself.

 13) Large number of women reporting that someone voted under their maiden name. This happened to some of the women I comment with.

 14) Large numbers of people showing up on election day and being told they’d all ready voted.

 15) Republicans checking to make sure their ballot was recorded and finding out that it wasn’t, and then having to harass election officials for days to get it recorded. This happened to a blogger I’ve read for years, who happens to be a member of the US diplomatic corps.

 16) The use of different voting standards in Democrat counties compared to Republican counties. One of Trump’s lawsuits is based on that.

Read more »

Bat flu And Vitamin D

 Incidentally, if vitamin D does turn out to be as important as some suggest for fighting off the bat flu: all the mask bullshit is likely to be making things worse, especially in winter. Apparently vitamin D synthesis from UV exposure is a very important source of the stuff. In winter, in normal climates, only your face and hands are normally exposed to sunlight in winter months. Face diapers, what, cover up half of the relevant real estate? I don't really have nor deserve a view about masks beyond (a) seems intuitively like the ought to help at least somewhat, and (b) fuck right off if you think you're going to force me to wear one. Of course the benefit from masks may outweigh their costs...but if we do find out that vitamin D is really important, and we don't get any corresponding information about masks, and if having your face exposed to sunlight really is (as I've assumed) an important source of vitamin D, then this would at least be some reason to fight/ignore/eliminate mask mandates...outdoors, anyway...

Sunday, November 15, 2020

Tens Of Thousands Of Fraudulent Biden Ballots In Detroit?

 link.  Sounds pretty damn implausible.

Durham Shutting Down Russiagategate Investigation? Afraid Of Biden Blowback?

Hard to believe.
It seems like there's enough even merely publicly-available evidence to warrant indictments...but I am, of course, NAL.
I suppose, if this is right, we may never really know exactly what happened. Nobody's going to come right out and admit that they're shutting down the investigation because they are afraid and/or want to cover for their colleagues.
So if the investigation produces no indictments and no report, that leaves the rest of this as hypothesis. 
It all seemed to be so clearly headed for big revelations of the kind conservatives expected...but it was puzzling that everything was taking so long...
Look, we have a transcript showing that Obama and Biden knew about the Russiagate conspiracy...and that Biden suggested using the Logan act against Flynn...WTF??? (Of course somebody else probably suggested the Logan act previously...I doubt Biden would think of such a thing on his own...)
This just seems crazy.

Snopes.com Is Full Of Shit: Amy Coney Barrett / Merriam-Webster / 'Sexual Preference' Edition

I was actually kind of surprised to see that even Snopes admitted it and rated the claim that M-W edited its entry true. If there's a way to spin things leftward, Snopes.com will find it...  Aaaand of course that's what they did. They had to admit it was edited...but they claim that it wasn't actually edited because of the ACB dust-up...you see...it was just a coincidence that it happened a few hours later! It was already scheduled to be changed...they just sped it up because of the dust-up!
   I'm just going to go ahead and assume that no one is actually gullible enough to believe that story... It's politically convenient for progressives to pretend they believe it...but they just can't really be that stupid. Can they?

"If All The Fraud Is Uncovered, Trump Will Win"

Unlike Bawer, I'm not sure of that. What I am sure of is that there is prima facie evidence that the election was stolen, and that we can't rest until there are comprehensive investigations. If betting, I'd bet against widespread election fraud. But I wouldn't bet a lot against it. 

Did Dem Allies Use Dominion Voting Systems To Steal Votes?

 I doubt it, but obviously there's no alternative: we need investigations, audits, and recounts. I don't see that this would be much worse than Russiagate--though I do think it would be more difficult to cover up and ignore. If the blue team was willing to do Russiagate--and obviously they were--then they would be willing to commit election fraud. So they have motive. And they may have had opportunity as well.

Dems Were Worried About Dominion Voting Systems

 ...until they weren't.  link

Our Orwellian MSM

Piece of Utter Shit From The AAUP: "In Defense Of Knowledge And Higher Education"

 The AAUP was converged long ago. It still does some good--our local chapter does great work. But the national organization seems to see advancing progressive bullshit as its primary objective. This document is a complete piece of shit. It's salvo in the battle over expertise and pseudo-expertise pretending to be a defense of knowledge. It starts off by distorting something Betsey DeVos says, and doesn't get any better from there. There's something to be outraged about in almost every paragraph. And I'm not complaining about matters of opinion; I'm complaining about objective lies and distortions. My favorite part is where they pretend that there's no freedom of speech problem in higher education... In general, the document pretends that all the relevant problems in higher ed come from the right--and the root of the problem is that conservatives simply reject the idea of expertise...mostly in order to achieve their nefarious political ends..but also because they're stupid and hate knowledge...

I probably won't be able to resist the urge to go through that piece of shit in detail at some point...

Leftists Attack Trump-Supporters...Yet Again. Plus: The Washington Pravda Gives Its Take

The Washington Post is now merely a propaganda organ. Althouse quotes the following:

"Scuffles [Physical assaults against Trump-supporters who were exercising their First-Amendment rights] continued into the night as the provocateurs [anarcho-communist gangsters] overturned [destroyed] the tables [private property] of vendors who had been selling pro-Trump gear and set off dozens of fireworks [fired large, often commercial-grade fireworks--i.e. explosives--at Trump-supporters and police], prompting police to pepper-spray them. At 8 p.m., violence broke out five blocks east of the White House between the president’s supporters, who wielded batons [the anarcho-communist gang apparently had no weapons...for the first time ever] , and his black-clad detractors, [Trump supporters "wield batons"...the gang that initiated the violence is merely "clad" in black...] many of whom had participated in racial justice rallies [aka the mostly peaceful social-justice riots for peace and justice] throughout the summer. As the groups approached the same intersection, they charged each other, [see? It was mutual!]  brawling for several minutes before police arrived and cleared the area.... [A]lmost none of [Trump's] backers wore masks. [LOOOOOL]  Among their ranks were white nationalists, conspiracy theorists and far-right activists carrying signs demanding action that was already being taken: 'Count the legal votes.' [This is just plain propaganda by this point] Trump had thrilled them when his motorcade appeared on Pennsylvania Avenue shortly after 10 a.m., prompting fans to scramble to the side of Freedom Plaza to catch a glimpse.... 'Trump, pack your [shit]! You’re illegitimate!' [counterprotesters] yelled into their megaphone... [Wow. They really are bad at rhyming.] A family of four on Capital Bikeshare bikes — the father with an American flag tied around his neck like a cape — were cut off by a line of counterprotesters as they tried to leave a tense scene outside the Supreme Court about 1 p.m. 'Get out of our city!' a young woman in black yelled. 'You lost, losers!' shouted a man. The father and his teenage son began to chant 'U.S.A.!' and raised their fists as police officers surrounded the family and pushed them out of the crowd." [I'm surprised they included this bit about Pantyfa surrounding and menacing a family...but they almost manage to make the family sound like the aggressors...]

The anti-American anarcho-communist gang that initiates violence against its political opponents whenever it can get away with it...it's made up of "racial justice" "activists"...at worst they are "provocateurs". The other side...well...: "Among their ranks were white nationalists, conspiracy theorists and far-right activists carrying signs demanding action that was already being taken: 'Count the legal votes.'" How does the Post know such people were included? How many of them? It doesn't matter, apparently, that the "black-clad" "racial justice" "protestors" include anarchists, communists, anti-white racists and other anti-American totalitarians of various stripes. See 'cause that's fine.
   What actually happened was: Antifa did what it always does: it found small groups of Trump supporters and attacked them. Some fought back. The Post refuses to report on the cowardly assaults on lone individuals and small groups, including women and old people. Because roving leftist gangs terrorizing and assaulting people is just fine...so long as those people are Trump-supporters. Only when some fight back does the Post report on it...and, of course, anyone who would dare fight back against gangs of "racial justice" "activists" must be "white supremacists" and...well, you know the list of horrible-things-they-must-be. Here's just one incident the Post decided not to report on. Videos of such incidents are everywhere on conservative sites--nowhere on mainstream/progressive sites.
   What signs were Antifa carrying, incidentally? And what were they chanting? Because it's usually something about ending the United States...which is what they want. Maybe you should have mentioned those things... Because you could just as easily have said the same thing you said about the signs of the other guys: they're "demanding action that [is] already being taken." We're getting closer to the totalitarian, post-American world for which Antifa is fighting. Funny how the roving gangs of anarcho-communists aren't described as "far-left"...but the guys fighting back against them in order to exercise their First-Amendment rights are "far-right"
   This is your blue future, my friends. And the Washington Post and the rest of the MSM are now "activists" themselves, working hard to bring it about.

Saturday, November 14, 2020

Politico Suggests Quasi-Exile For Trump

Not linking to it.
If you think your blue future sounds just dandy, thank a Democrat, I guess.

Trump Calls Cuomo's Bluff Re: Batflu Vaccine

The Dems Will Go After Trump Once He Leaves Office

 That seems to be the plan, anyway.  And they've already made it clear that they're also going to go after members of his administration, donors, and supporters. Totalitarians want to control every aspect the culture and use it to achieve their nefarious ends. 

Biden And Big Government

link
My current inclination--which might change in a cooler hour--is to say that the GOP's strategy with respect to Biden is clear: wreck him. I don't see how the Dems can be allowed to get away what they've done over the past four years. The only option is to retaliate: absolutely, positively obstruct everything Biden tries to do, and seek to absolutely wreck him. An eye for an eye and a Presidency for Presidency. Put everything into gaining the House in '22, then impeach the living shit out of the lying SOB. If it succeeds and Harris replaces him, wreck her, too. Try to find a non-Trump Trumpian for '24. Trump if necessary, Trump Jr. if possible. Ideally, wreck Biden before he can do anything too insane...e.g. amnesty for the 11-29 million illegal aliens in the country. But he's already got a long list of insane agenda items for "day one"...so...
   What we want--and need--to do is get beyond the current insanity and regain some measure of equanimity and bipartisanship. But I don't see that happening until the Dems shrug off progressive insanity. And, again: they have to be taught that they can't get away with what they've just about gotten away with. So currently I think: revenge...oops...I mean justice...first...then the olive branch and bipartisanship. If the blue team is willing. 
   Though who knows...winning this year isn't out of the question yet... Now that, my friends, would be sweet. There would, of course, be riots aplenty. Because that's who the blue team is now. But that's not a reason not to keep trying. 

Charles Koch Has Second Thoughts About Partisanship

 Anti-partisanship is good. But I'm not sure it's a great idea right now, just after the crazies have taken over the Dems...who have, you may recall, just engaged in a 4-year campaign of conspiracies and lies to more-or-less overturn both the Presidential election of 2016 and that of 2020... Tribalism is bad. But it seems to me that our two political tribes tend not to be equally bad all the time. Only one of them is currently afflicted by climate hysteria, only one of them believes in open borders, only one of them believes that people can change their sex with word magic, only one of them is anti-First-Amendment and anti-Second-Amendment, only one of them is promoting the antiliberal, anti-American brainwashing of children, and only one of them is dedicated to promoting lies that seems rather clearly intended to foment something like a race war... So... though I'm passionately anti-tribal...what that means is that one shouldn't get particularly attached to one's own tribe merely because it's one's tribe. Some tribes are better than others. And this can fluctuate over time. The reds dragged us into the Iraq disaster. 20 years on, the blues have just flat-out lost their f*cking minds. You've got to be prepared to make temporary alliances with whichever one is best...or least-bad...at the moment. Well, I may be missing the main point here. I hope Koch does more good than bad with this new plan.

Friday, November 13, 2020

Escort BTS Bullpup

link
The "deal-breaker" (I really dislike that term) for me is the max 5-rd mag. WTFIUWT? Ridiculous.
I've been looking for:
(a) A riot-type / tactical autoshotty for use against mobs
and
(b) something easier for JQ to handle.
Doubt I can find 2-in-1...but if this had a 10-rd mag in .410, I'd be pretty damn interested...
Instead, probably going to go with something in 12 from Kalashnikov USA. Years ago my little bro had the foresight to get me a Winchester 1300 in 20 gauge, w/ an 18.5" barrel. JQ can easily handle that. Maybe some later we'll get a CZ Scorpion in 9 or 10.

The APA Continues To Be An Embarrassment: Opposing Trump's EO against CRT Indoctrination

Biden Considering Lockdowns And Bailouts

 And so it begins...

Biden Will Wreck Education "On Day One"

You really, really fucked up, America.
   Unless, of course, you want shittier education, more influence by teachers' unions and Ed schools, and more Woketarian brainwashing of kids. Oh and: more dudes in girls' restrooms, girls' locker rooms, girls' sports, girls' scholarships...
   Well, I guess its worth wrecking the next generation so long as we don't have those mean tweets floating around.
   I dread to think what universities are going to look like after four years of the Dems throwing their weight behind Woketarianism. DeVos is so great...just an absolutely fantastic Secretary of Ed...four more years of her and universities might have been back on track. As it is, the voters handed the control of schools back to people who aim to turn them mainly into leftist re-education camps. 
   This is a serious blow to the nation. I don't think I've ever seen such an obviously terrible decision by voters. I can't help but believe that if people anywhere near the center knew what was going on at universities, and what will happen under a Biden administration, they'd never have even considered voting for him.
   I blame Trump, too, for acting like such a lunatic sometimes. But that's no excuse for handing the education of young Americans over to the cult.

Thursday, November 12, 2020

Biden Is Probably Going To WIn

Catastrophe? Tragedy? Farce?
Damn. The missed opportunity.
I know blue voters think they were doing the right thing...but they've shot us all in the ass. 

Leftist Philosophers Explain The 2020 Election To You

 I stay away from the Daily Nous, and online philosophy in general--especially when it intersects with politics. It's virtually guaranteed to be embarrassingly biased and stupid. I don't know why I'm linking to this...it's just godawful depressing. Long ago I admitted that philosophers are just as likely as everyone else to get trapped in shitty worldviews. I'm starting to think they might be more likely than most.  Oh, and don't miss the comment that praises the range of different perspectives! I suppose they're thinking of the one modest not-overtly-leftist essay...

WSJ: Georgia's Reassuring Vote Recount

This is great. Go Georgia!

Tuesday, November 10, 2020

WaPo: REPUBLICANS HAVE DECLARED WAR ON DEMOCRACY ITSELF !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111!1!!!!!1111

 Translation into Saneglish: Republicans on track to do what Democrats have been doing for four straight years.   And in fact that's not even true. What they're in danger of doing is counting the damn votes correctly.

Facebook and Twitter Still Suppressing Posts About Benford's Law And Biden's Vote Tallies...

 I'm no statistician, but within about two seconds of looking at some of those charts floating around, I thought: whelp, that's exactly what I'd think shenanigans would look like...

Our Electoral/Political Situation In A Nutshell

This is just perfect.
   K-Mac lays out an argument--a very cogent argument. An argument that gets right at the very heart of the electoral situation. The position she articulates ought to be at lest fairly uncontroversial: all the legal votes must be counted; no illegal votes can count. Fox News--FOX NEWS--which has now been right and truly converged--cuts away from her comments on the grounds that she is (a) accusing the other side of electoral shenanigans and (b) not providing any evidence. Which is, of course, exactly what she was doing--providing evidence. The blue team has consistently advocated and implemented measures that make electoral fraud easier--and easier to get away with. 
   The one major non-progressive news channel we used to have has been converged. Just like all the rest. Now even the White House press secretary is not permitted even to state the administration's clear and crucial case even on the least-leftist television news network. You aren't permitted to state the argument unless your conclusion has already been proven. By the lights of the other side. This is madness. 
   How many times can the left get away with something like this before even their true believers start suffering pangs of cognitive dissonance?
   Incidentally: the network that unjustifiably called Arizona for the blue team the very instant it thought it could get away with it on election night...
   I don't expect these preliminary results will be overturned. But the blue team's hysterical resolve to ignore the problem and avoid finding the truth has become part of a pattern. This is basically Russiagategate 2.0. Nothing to see here, citizens! Move along! This is only a CONSPIRACY THEORY. Repeat: THIS IS ONLY A CONSPIRACY THEORY...
   My prediction: the next edition of the DSM will include some new malady characterized as: an unwillingness to accept news networks' proclamations about preliminary vote-counts.
   Of course this could all be wrong. I could be missing something. We don't want to slip into a system such that every result of every election can be contested. I'm not objective in this matter. But given the behavior of the blues over the last four years, I just don't see how we can just acquiesce to all of this.

Fear The Turtle: Cocaine Mitch Explains It All For You

Exactly right:
“According to preliminary results, voters across the nation elected and reelected Republican senators to a degree that actually stunned prognosticators,” McConnell noted. “Likewise, the American people seem to have reacted to house Democrats’ radicalism and obstruction by shrinking the House speaker’s majority and electing more Republicans. And then there’s the presidential race.”
   “Obviously, no states have yet certified their election results. We have at least one or two states that are already on track for a recount. And I believe the president may have legal challenges underway in at least five states,” the majority leader began.
   “The core principle here is not complicated,” McConnell insisted. “In the United States of America, all legal ballots must be counted, any illegal ballots must not be counted. The process should be transparent or observable by all sides and the courts are here to work through concerns.”
   “Our institutions are actually built for this. We have the system in place to consider concerns and President Trump is 100 percent within his rights to look into allegations of irregularities and weigh his legal options,” the majority leader added.
   “Let’s not have any lectures, no lectures, about how the president should immediately, cheerfully accept preliminary election results from the same characters who just spent four years refusing to accept the validity of the last election and who insinuated that this one would be illegitimate too if they lost again — only if they lost,” the majority leader added. In fact, millions of Americans signed a petition urging the electors to vote for Hillary Clinton after Trump won in 2016.
   “The people who push this hysteria could not have any more egg on their faces than they do right now,” McConnell declared.
   The majority leader is correct that no state has certified its election results. Election results are not considered conclusive until the “Safe Harbor” date (December 8) six days before the Electoral College votes for the president (December 14). President Trump has a window in which to litigate his concerns, and he is exercising that prerogative.
   While Trump’s challenges should be taken seriously, at this point, Biden’s leads seem too considerable for recounts or specific complaints — like post-Election Day ballots in Pennsylvania — to overturn the expected result. It is premature for news outlets to call Biden the president-elect, but Trump has a rather large hurdle to cross.

Was It Over When The Germans Bombed Pearl Harbor?

Objectively speaking, it ain't over. No amount of insisting by the blue team / MSM will change that.
   Unfortunately, despite the fact that it's going relatively well so far, this really is a set-up for a nightmare scenario in that it couldn't be engineered better to bring out the worst in Trump. He will say something injudicious...he might say something crazy. 
   Did the blues cheat? Of course they cheated. What kind of question is that? They've spent the last four years cheating. By some accounts, they've spent the last 5-6 decades cheating. 
   But the blues assure us that they didn't cheat enough to change the outcome. So why are you making a big deal out of it, bigot? It's a "conspiracy theory" that they cheated enough to make a difference. And if you want to audit or recount the votes, then you're a conspiracy theorist
   In my view, the red team acted like a bunch of assholes during the recount debacle of 2000. And the blue team is acting like a bunch of assholes now. Though I have to say, I'm understanding more and more why the red team doesn't trust the blue team with a recount...
   Though Trump has his vices, one of his main virtues is that he seems immune to blue-team hectoring / "shaming." He'll juggernaut his way forward on this. Good for him.
   There is, objectively, prima facie reason to suspect chicanery. Furthermore, the blues know as well as we do that, unless it can be proven that there was enough to make a difference, they'll pay no price for it. When it comes to blue-team wrongdoing, the MSM guarantees that the message will be whispered into a padded room. It'll be immediately dampened, and the inmates don't want to hear it anyway. If the message gets out at all, it'll be minimized to the maximum possible extent of minimization. Even supposing there was a massive blue-team cheating effort, it'll be stifled and minimized and spun, and dismissed and blamed on Trump somehow. If he weren't a literal Nazi they wouldn't have been forced to employ...uh...what will it be called? Extreme voting measures? Ibram X. Kendi has already floated the claim that the idea of a legal vote is every bit as racist as that of illegal immigrant. Just as they're softening up the low-information center for open borders, they seem to be softening them up for open voting--any ballot received is as good as any other. 
   I do doubt that there was enough fraud to make a difference. But, then, I've doubted everything the Pubs have said for the past four years, and they've been right just about every time. But one thing's for sure: the ballots need to be scrutinized and some will need to be thrown out. So who knows? Trump can still win.
   But: here's another certainty: if we do find enough shenanigans to flip the result, there will be riots. The blue-team Blackshirts would have rioted had Trump won outright, and they'll riot if he's ultimately determined to be the winner. The blue team has simply lost its shit. That manifests itself in different ways across the whole blue sector--the anarcho-communist wing uses violent "direct action," the intelligentsia produced baroque, bullshit theories and indoctrinates the young, the media creates the propaganda, others shriek at any relatively centrist blues who get out of line or flirt with non-blue-approved thought. As is their current wont, they created a web of lies and deception and spin that keeps the whole crazy, cultish scheme rolling along. 
   But we're gonna count the votes, and you can't stop us.

Monday, November 09, 2020

The Tragedy Of Losing Betsy DeVos

If the preliminary counts hold up, we'll lose Betsy DeVos.
   This is a real, actual, certifiable tragedy for higher education--and I'll bet for primary and secondary education, too. She's been such a good, sane, reasonable Secretary of Education I almost couldn't believe she was real. This has been true about a couple of things about the Trump administration: it succeeded fantastically just by installing someone intelligent with common sense--and not of the swamp. 
   DeVos is apparently hated because she has done things like: guarantee the accused in sexual assault cases due process. The once and future practice was just to railroad them. Biden has already said he'll undo her good work. He's got a long list of smart, common-sense Trumpian accomplishments to undo. It's gut-wrenching even to contemplate, actually. 
   Perhaps even more important is that the Department of Education under DeVos has adopted the freaking brilliant strategy of telling universities that, if they're going to advance the project of leftist politicization by claiming that they're full of "systemic racism," then they're going to have to report to Ed...and if it's true, they'll lose federal funds. After all, to get those federal funds they have to certify that they aren't a big fat bunch of racists. This, obviously, puts universities in a dilemma: they either have to stop pretending that they're hotbeds of "systemic racism"...thus give up the fiction that allows them to further politicize the institutions...or they have to give up federal funds. 
   This is a brilliant strategy that we could describe like so: forcing them to stop bullshitting and face facts. Since none of them actually are eaten up with "systemic racism," none of them will actually lose funds...but all of them will lose their fictional justification for moving the institutions further left. 
   So Biden will get rid of that immediately. He'll install some Secretary that has an Ed school degree...which means a swamp creature indoctrinated into the ways of the cult. Academia will lose a powerful defender of truth, reason and objectivity. And we'll slip back into the progressive fantasy world that has swallowed up academia for decades. Innocent young men will continue to be railroaded on the basis of fictional statistics about campus sexual assault. Right now, every even vaguely plausible perpetrator is being prosecuted to the fullest extent of the rules...largely because universities are giddy at finding such a case. If they don't prosecute enough cases, Ed frowns on them. After all, the left alleges rape to be more common on college campuses than it is in the Congo. So if universities aren't prosecuting it, they're falling down on the job. My own august institution lost a lawsuit for $850,000 a few years back because it initially (and correctly) found that a student was not guilty of sexual assault. So then they just tried him again, this time guaranteeing that he'd be found guilty. 
   If you voted for Biden, then, even if tacitly, you voted for all that.

Sunday, November 08, 2020

George Stephanopolous Suddenly Discovers The Value Of Evidence

He was enthusiastically on-board with Russiagate despite its preposterousness and lack of actual evidence...other than the made-up variety... He was also enthusiastically on-board with Gore's 37-day delay to recount. But now, you see...it's all different. There's no evidence of fraud...except that there is...and when that's pointed out, the whining turns rather to "no evidence of widespread fraud"...except that, of course, isn't true either. There's evidence of dead people voting, evidence of thousands of Republican votes being changed to Democrat votes, evidence that Biden's vote tallies fail to accord with Benford's law... Oh, there's plenty of evidence... Not even to mention Russiagate and Russiagategate, which show us that the blue team--including its propaganda wing the MSM--is willing to engage in actual conspiracies to undermine a Republican administration. We know they already did it--and got away with it. We know they're even crazier now than they were then. We know they cheat at elections in general. And we know there's evidence they cheated in this one. Anybody who'd put this past them isn't being honest or isn't firing on all cylinders.
   How many conspiracies do we have to catch them perpetrating before the MSM will admit it? Likely there's no number so large as to trigger that response.
   Oh, and don't forget Schumer's "Nothing is off the table." I suppose the argument there will be: we shouldn't take that seriously because he'd never say it if it were true. Yeah...I'm not falling for that. More reasonable is: when people seem to have admitted that they're going to cheat, you probably ought to take them seriously.
   If Biden won, then Biden won. Shitty as that outcome will be for the nation. But the lyin', cheatin', conspirin' Democrats and their pet propagandists merely saying he won doesn't mean that he won.
   Tough it out, ladies. We're all goin' ta court.