Another Anti-Asian Hate-Crime By A White Suprema....LOL J/K

Yet another case of not a white guy doing the crime. He says he did it because he didn't like the way the guy looked at him. The victim may not pull through. He's already lost a kidney and his adrenal gland.

Mr. Potato Head De-Transitions

 link

America Has Lost Its Mind: "Rachel" Levine Confirmation Hearing Edition

If people ten years ago could see this...well, they'd never believe it. They'd claim there was no possible way for this dystopian future to emerge--and certainly not so quickly. No one dares even point out that Levin is a guy in a dress pretending to believe that he's a woman... Such hatefacts can no longer be spoken. No, that shit is right off the table now. Now we've moved on to: Is it permissible to object to the sexual mutilation of children? We're not even really asking whether it's permissible to sexually mutilate children. As you can see, Paul is accused of "transphobia" (note: not an actual thing) for so objecting. We're well on the way to moving this over into the Impermissible to question category. Question the sexual mutilation of 3-year-olds and you're a bigot, bigot. You'd think this would be a bridge too far...but, then, you'd have thought all of it would have been. And none of it was. I can't but believe, in my gut, that the U.S. will come to its senses at some point. Even France seems to be. But the progressive left is stark, raving insane at this point, and it controls...well...basically everything. The Biden administration is already a clown show that makes one long for a return to the relative normality of...the Trump administration... But, really, the left's insane transformation of the USA seems to be picking up steam, not losing it. So, one wonders, what comes after child sexual mutilation? My guess has been: open child sexualization. That project is fairly well underway already. It's overtaken polygamy as my lead hypothesis about what. the. fucking. fuck. the deranged left will do next. Even if we do beat this back, the Overton window will have been displaced so far to the crazy that we're probably doomed anyway. 

   And, recall, I have traditionally been far, far more liberal than the average American. I absolutely positively think that Richard Levine should be able to wear dresses, take estrogen, and ask people to call him 'Rachel.' It's a free goddamned country, you see. I'd fight for his right. Or I would have. But, then, I never thought that the left would take control, lose its mind, and insist that we all believe--or pretend to believe--that he really is a woman. I didn't predict this, in part, because I foolishly thought we had won the PC wars. I didn't realize that political correctness, like Sauron, would retreat into the Mordor of the para-faculty, only to emerge, stronger than ever, like five years ago. I knew that PC is the subordination of facts to dogma. But I--stupidly--thought we beat it. Also: who could have predicted that it would become so audacious as to demand that we all pretend that men are women? Not only do our eyes clearly see what's in front of us...but male woman is an outright contradiction. I gotta give 'em credit... Arbeit macht frei seems downright reasonable by comparison. Not to mention War is peace et al...

Kaufman On The Woketarian Destruction Of Philosophy

Kaufman:

"...the woker-than-woke-crowd who have been doing their busy best to turn our once-distinguished, highly respected discipline into an intellectually lightweight, identity-obsessed laughing-stock..."

Kaufman: Peak Woke Philosophy

Sadly, right on the money:

   T-philosopher announces to the profession – all of it – that she is leaving because of philosophy’s “transphobia” and the terrible harm she has suffered at the hands of “bigots” like Kathleen Stock (who else?), whose presence renders her no longer “safe in professional settings.” Then comes the inevitable “call to action”: Journals must refuse to publish articles critical of gender identity theory and activism; conferences must no-platform philosophers seeking to present gender critical arguments; gender critical thinkers must be barred from public discourse, whether on blogs, discussion boards, social media sites, comments sections, or other online venues; and anyone and everyone who is going to engage in both professional and public philosophical discourse on the subject had better accept that “any trans discourse that does not proceed from this initial assumption — that trans people are the gender that they say they are — is oppressive, regressive, and harmful” and that “trans discourse that does not proceed with a substantial amount of care at amplifying trans voices and understanding the trans experience should not exist.”
   If you’ve raised a teenager, as my wife Nancy and I have done, you’ll immediately recognize this as typically adolescent behavior. The clueless narcissism (“to the academic philosophy community…”); the catastrophizing (I know Kathleen Stock. You can watch video of Kathleen Stock. One cannot possibly be “unsafe” because of Kathleen Stock); the empty (because toothless) demands; the emotional blackmail (You see what you’re making me do!); even the proverbial running away from home (I’m leaving and never coming back!) It’s all there.

'Neo-racist'

I had the opportunity to talk to a well-known "cancelled" academician the other day, and he mentioned that the good guys have begun deploying the term 'neo-racism' to describe the leftist racial zealots. I detest this sort of combat by jargon...but I don't, in general, detest fighting fire with fire. Besides, I'm sure we'll just let this counter-jargon die out after we win.

Brian Sicknick's Mother Says Fire Extinguisher Story Is False

As has been obvious for quite some time. 

Dreher: Race, Police, And Innumeracy

Americans radically overestimate how many unarmed black Americans are killed by police every year. They also radically overestimate how many Americans are non-heterosexual.

NYT: Give Up On Critical Thinking: Rely On Wikipedia Instead

Undoubtedly you have already concluded that my title is a joke--that I'm distorting the content of the title for humorous effect. But this op-ed is about as clear as it could be about it. The problem, see, is that you shouldn't pay attention to wrongthink. Don't "go down the rabbit hole" of spending your valuable attention on it! Just navigate away to some "more reliable source"...wink... Featured prominently: Wikipedia. So, in short: if you run up against thoughtcriminals, go immediately to the NYT, Wikipedia, or some other progressive propaganda source, find a sentence that you can use to assuage the irritation of doubt as quickly as possible without any of that dangerous "thinking"...then go back to loving embrace of the groupthink.

[Incidentally, notice that one of their flagship examples is racial IQ differences--the wrongthinkiest badthought ever...which...is an extremely well-established conclusion in cognitive science.]

John Kerry, Climate Hysteriac

Utter bullshit, so far as I can tell.

The Thought-Police Come For Lawrence Mead

Mead thought an unthinkable thought, and now the totalitarian academic left is clamoring for his "cancellation." Because, you see, any suggestion that black and Hispanic poverty is the result of anything other than white racism is a thought that must never, ever be thought--let alone spoken or written. Because it is impossible for it to be true. More importantly, concern with the truth is itself inherently racist / politically incorrect. For every question, q, you should ask only "what does the party tell us to think about q?" To even acknowledge that there is a truth independent of the will of the party is itself thoughtcrime.

How Barack Obama's Good Intentions Destroyed Libya

I turned a blind eye to it because I was excessively pro-Obama. But more and more this seems right to me.

A Hilariously Biased Account Of CRT At CNN

This is a downright hilarious account of critical race theory. It's just commonsense, you see--there's really nothing radical at all about it. What are some objections to it? Well, crazy people like Trump say it's unpatriotic...but that's about it...     Gosh, I can't believe it's all that obvious! How could I have been so blind? I guess there's no sane option but to be in favor of it...

We're Locked In A Culture War With A Political Cult That Believes Contradictions, Declares Them True And Has The Power To Ensconce Them In The Law

Just a reminder.

Jodi Shaw Resigns From Smith

Woke totalitarianism wins another battle in the war for control of academia.

WSJ Weekend Interview: John Staddon On The PC Threat To Science

link

Red Tails vs. ME 262s

If this is wrong I don't wanna be right:

PLZ TO WATCH ON YOUTUBE so's they getz da hitz.

Academia Crazifies Apace: "Student Grievance Processes Weaponized In White Supremacist Institutions Of Higher Ed"

The fact that the problem is actually basically the reverse of this is a hatefact, hatefacter. War is peace, freedom is slavery...you see where I'm goin' with this. Via PHILOS-L:

Student Grievance Processes Weaponized in White Supremacist Institutions of Higher Ed
WHAT: “Neutral” Student Grievance Processes in White Supremacist Institutions of Higher Education WHO: Farhana Loonat, Ph.D.
WHEN: May 19, 2021 TIME: 2:30 – 4 pm Pacific Standard Time 5:30 - 7pm Eastern Standard Time 11:30 pm – 1 am South African Time 3 am – 4:30 am India Time (May 20th)
WHERE: Zoom Meeting *******

Websites of white supremacist institutions of higher education in the United States almost always include messaging about the institution’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Despite administrators’ declarations of their DEI commitments, Black, Indigenous and other womxn faculty of color (BIPOC) remain severely underrepresented in higher education. This underrepresentation exists within a political and historical context in which womxn BIPOC faculty experience various forms of discrimination (Ford 2011; Kelly and McCann 2014; Matias 2013; Morris, Harris and Berthoud 2012; Pittman 2010; Sterett 2002; Turner et al 2011). In this presentation I theorize the ways in which administrators’ avowed commitments to DEI stand in contradiction to their support for racially biased student grievance processes. My presentation: 1. Illustrates how BIPOC womxn faculty’s diminished political status as gendered and raced bodies in academia makes them especially vulnerable to systemic gendered racism disguised as singular events. 2. Illuminates how national patterns of discrimination against BIPOC womxn faculty are reinforced within higher education when biased white students weaponize student grievance processes. 3. Unmasks student grievance processes that masquerade as neutral and expose their role in upholding white supremacy in higher education. 4. Provides recommendations on how administrators can bring their student grievance processes in line with research on students’ racial discrimination against BIPOC womxn faculty. 5. Provide suggestions for how BIPOC womxn faculty can protect themselves against biased students. 6. Invites reflection on what white womxn’s aggression against BIPOC womxn faculty in higher education implies for cross-racial feminist solidarity.

Things Are Very Bad At A University With Which I Am Extremely Familiar

It's no longer all that clear what one can be fired for in academia. At the University With Which I Am Currently Most Familiar (henceforth UWWIACMF), professors have been told to make sure that we always clearly identify our publicly-expressed opinions as our own, as distinct from those of the university. Pretty standard practice. And on this score, they seem to generally be on our side. Apropos of nothing: clearly all my opinions are merely my own--realistically, who else's would they be? Certainly no UWWIACMF, as I have not even said that I have any sort of formal relationship with it.

   Things are bad at UWWIACMF, and there's reason to fear they'll get worse. There is currently an attempt to institutionalize an extreme form of progressive identity politics and make the advancement of "anti-racism" a criterion for evaluation with respect to...well...basically everything. It seems to say that "anti-racism" (which doesn't just mean what it sounds like--it is, of course, a term of art on the left) has become the guiding ideal of UWWIACMF. Its new policy seems to say that "anti-racism" will now become a criterion in evaluating faculty, their teaching and even their research. It will, apparently, be a consideration in promotion decisions. It also seems to say--but this part is even less clear--that that it will be a criterion in evaluating students' academic performance. This policy was announced--without faculty input--over the summer. The policy says that the enthusiastic cooperation of everyone is required. (Note: not the exact wording.) Until two weeks ago, I was the only faculty-member I know of who expressed criticisms of the thing in public. Now two or three have. One would think that a philosophy department, especially, would blow its stack at such a thing. One would, apparently, be wrong.

   Academia is being taken over by a quasi-religious political cult. Faculty are complicit. Complicit, hell--they're the most evangelical of the cultists. This is yet another step down the road of the politicization of universities--which is tantamount to their destruction. 

   When people like me started complaining about the rise of neo-PC several years back, progressives in the chattering class said...well...first they denied that it was a real phenomenon, even at universities. Gaslighting being one of their go-to moves, of course. Then they deployed their Everything is always political and always has been so what are you complaining about? defense. Then they really pushed the This is all confined to campus, it doesn't affect the real world, so what are you complaining about? response. 

   I responded, here, that all of those responses were insane--as they are. But with respect to the third one: since when are universities not part of the world? And: you've got to be nuts to think that what happens on campus doesn't affect the rest of the country. It's a bottleneck through which most of the most influential people pass. Secure the ability to brainwash kids and you win. (As Lenin knew.)

   Anyway.

   I was right. The progressives were full of shit. And now the evil genie is out of the academic bottle. 

   And things are getting worse on campus. 

   So they'll likely get worse everywhere else. 

   Trump and DeVos were pushing back. Biden has reversed that. 

Greenwald: Fake News About The 1/6 Capitol Hill Riot / Non-Insurrection

(1) It wasn't an "insurrection," (2) Officer Sicknick was not killed by the rioters, (3) zip tie guy was with his mom, and picked the zip ties up off of a table so that the police couldn't use them--there were no "capture-kill" teams.

   link

   At what point do we stop believing this bullshit? I'm embarrassed to have given any credence to any of these claims. This is how the MSM operates: slime and retreat. It blasts out progressive-left propaganda, then quietly retracts it. Which mean: it has virtually the same effect on the low-information left as never retracting it at all. Once its nefarious work is done, it is just either allowed to fade away, or is retracted without fanfare. 

   It's not that I think the right is so much more virtuous--though, well, currently it actually is. But the progressive left has near-absolute cultural / "messaging" power. It has control of the elite institutions, including the conduits of information. It has an enormous amount of control over what can and can't be said even via conduits that circumvent mass media--Twitter and whatnot. Power corrupts, etc. The absence of prominent pushback amplifies the innate crazy of almost anyone. It's worse for the left because they have enthusiastically embraced political correctness--the politicization of truth and the subordination of evidence to politics. This minimizes the other main source of pushback against at least the craziest ideas: cognitive dissonance. Those who embrace political correctness accept principles that help them brush aside the pangs of epistemic conscience.

   And don't forget my favorite meta-component of this whole, gigantic epistemic shitshow: there's no such thing as political correctness!

Navy "Task Force" Recommends Leftist Loyalty Oath Swearing Toe Respect "Intersectional Identities"

So, remember when the government used to make people swear that they weren't communists? 

Well, now it wants to make you swear that you are a cultural Marxist.

But it's ok because this stuff is only at universities and it's better than all those mean tweets...

Annie Lowrey on "Facts-Man"

Ok, so about that i.e. this...

   It's not worthless--or so I hereby suggest--because there may be such people (indeed, mostly guys) out there. In fact, I'm sure there must be. Lowrey can't resist the urge to mix in characteristics that are inessential to such a type, and unequivocally bad--e.g., they make pronouncements about science when they don't really know what they're talking about. Anyway--so described, this imaginary-but-possibly-real guy is a jackass.

   But what ought to be obvious is that "facts-men" aren't the main problem in this vicinity. Not to put too fine a point on it, but: I'm not saying that they're not our biggest problem. Problems are rarely our biggest problem. That biggest problem dodge ought to have a name. Since we generally only have a couple of biggest problems at any given time, you can dodge almost any problem by pointing out that it's not in the small set of our biggest ones. I decree that, henceforth, this will be called the biggest problem fallacy...

   What I'm saying is that, among the problems in the vicinity of what Lowrey's talking about, the facts-man problem isn't the biggest and isn't nearly the biggest. They problem is, roughly: too few facts men. Not too many. 

   Lowrey's facts-man is an asshole and a charlatan. So what's to disagree with about such guys?

   Thing is, stripped of such uncontroversially shitty characteristics, the people Lowrey's describing are epistemically and morally virtuous and in damn short supply. We need more not fewer. 

   And one suspects Lowrey's against them for the same reason the rest of the elite progressive establishment is--progressivism is political correctness, and political correctness is the subordination of facts to leftist dogma. "Facts-man," even when stripped of the gratuitous asshole-ism that Lowrey illicitly builds in, is anathema to progressivism. 

   Lowrey paints a picture of a guy who doesn't really know what he's talking about, who is recreationally provocative, and who shoves uncomfortable questions in people's faces willy-nilly. A kind of evil, low-rent Socrates. 

   Again: no disagreement that such guys likely exist, and that they're undoubtedly annoying. 

   But the real problem is that the progressive left shuts down legitimate, important politically incorrect speech and discussion. The real problem isn't that a smattering of people are gratuitously provocative. The real problem is that anyone who dissents from PC orthodoxy is attacked by the mindless progressive mob. And the other real problem is that progressivism is fact-averse--when the facts refuse to comport themselves in a politically-correct manner. 

   The real problem is that progressivism is against anyone who tries to discuss actual un-PC facts and raises un-PC questions. 

   The kind of guy Lowrey et al. should spend more time thinking about was James Damore. Hell, maybe that is who she's thinking about. What Damore wrote in his infamous memo was true. Which doesn't so much matter as that it was reasonable--it was (and still is) supported by actual scientific research. The left pretends to be pro-science--follow the science, bigot!!!. But, of course, it isn't. Political correctness is never actually pro-science since it subordinates evidence to dogma. When it accidentally agrees with some of "the" science, it crows about it. When it disagrees with "the" science, it simply pretends the science is otherwise. That's what it does with IQ, for example. And research on sex differences. Which is, of course, exactly what it did with Damore.

   As for those scare quotes around 'the' above: it's commonly misleading to write of "the" science. There's often conflicting science. Since it controls all the elite institutions, however, progressivism can pick and choose, declaring the science it likes to be the...and the science it doesn't to be not.

   The real problem isn't that some people insist on discussing uncomfortable topics when they could easily be avoided. The real problem is that progressivism tries to make such discussion verboten always and everywhere. We all agree that it's sometimes best to avoid certain uncomfortable truths. Progressivism, however, wants un-PC truths to be not only never discussed...it wants them declared non-truths. It especially wants them never discussed at universities--the place where such discussion used to and ought to be freest. It's attacked people for political incorrectness on campus, off campus, in class, out of class, in professional contexts like conference presentations and out of them, on the internet and off...often even in professional journals. The progressive left does not say: Hey, could we maybe exercise a bit of discretion with respect to these one or two radioactive topics? Rather it says Thou shalt never speak what we have decreed to be hatetruths, hater... And their list of hatetruths is long and lengthening. 

   Well, you've heard this all before. No big finish. Unfortunately progressivism cannot, at present, be reasoned with. They've created a moral panic on man fronts, and they're in crusading mode. All we can do, I suppose, is keep trying...well...and hope that the remnants of liberalism on the left eventually stop enabling the antiliberal left that's currently running the show...

Annie Lowrey: "May I Introduce You To Facts-Man?"

link

I use what I guess to be the older title, in the URL, because it's better than what's on it now ("Beware of Facts-Man"). 

You know, I actually find this piece to be interesting enough to warrant thought and discussion, rather than the knee-jerk derision you might expect...

Bill Gates On Climate Change And Nuclear

This is kinda interesting.

   Though...he discusses new, "super-safe" reactors, and reactors that can run on spent fuel, thus reducing the amount of nuclear waste in the world. Which is all great. However, if you really think that this is an emergency--e.g. an "existential crisis" with a near-future tipping-point...which Gates never says, incidentally--you should just start building new light-water reactors (or whatever we're using now) as fast as possible. They're way safe--certainly preferable to a climate apocalypse--and we should worry about the waste in the future. Needless to say, I'd prefer safer, waste-eating super-reactors just like everybody else. But if we were really facing a climate apocalypse, that's not where we'd be putting our energies. We'd be focusing on absolutely nothing but cranking down carbon emissions as quickly as possible. There is absolutely, positively nothing about nuclear that is dangerous enough to warrant passing it up.

   They do take a long time to build--but we could cut down the amount of time required by easing up on regulation. Even if we have a Chernobyl a year it'd be better than a climate apocalypse, no?

More On The Retraction Of The Sicknick Story

As suspected.

Slime and retreat.

Heels 48 - Hoos 60

Congrats to the Cavs on their seventh straight against Carolina. We haven't won in C'ville in nine years, if you can believe that. I almost couldn't. Crazy, man.

Interview With Shelby Steele: How Equality Lost To "Equity"

link

I can almost hear Mr. Steele growl in his study in Monterey, Calif., as I read these words aloud. “This equity is a term that has no meaning,” he says, “but it’s one that gives blacks power and leverage in American life. We can throw it around at any time, and wherever it lands, it carries this stigma that somebody’s a bigot.” Its message is that there’s “inequality that needs to be addressed, to be paid off. So if you hear me using the word ‘equity,’ I’m shaking you down.”
Equity in this “new sense,” Mr. Steele says, can be understood only as “a strategy.” The president is promising to “fix America morally, and aligning himself with the strategy of black people to gain power by focusing on victimization. He’s saying, ‘America must tackle that problem and create programs that help minorities achieve equity’—whatever that may be.”
...

Equality, Mr. Steele suggests, no longer offers an alibi for black underperformance. Equity, by contrast, “is above all that.” Its absence is “just a generalized sort of evil.” Black leaders and white liberals “wanted a new, cleaner, emptier term to organize around. And equity was perfect because it meant absolutely nothing.” It allows whites, he says, to prove themselves to be “innocent” of racism. “The emptiness is what invites them in, and they say, ‘Yes! Oh my God! We’ve got to help blacks create and achieve equity. Because it will show us to be redeemed of our racist past and therefore empower us’ ”—even as it empowers the black-community leaders who are their moral notaries. He describes this compact as a “nasty little symbiotic bond between white and black America,” with each using the other “to gain power and moral legitimacy.”

It's almost funny to see normal people try to figure out what the progressive vanguard means by 'equity.' Give it up. Look: just don't accept/use their terminology. First, it's usually packed with bogus presuppositions specifically designed to distort the discussion in a way that benefits them. Second, just even saying their words gives them power. It contributes to the overall tendency of society to mindlessly accept their jargon. So just don't do it.

Also: Shelby Steele is a freakin' national treasure. And not just because we're on the same side on these issues. Dude is just impressive and admirable.

LOL @ Dems

So hilariously feckless and full of shit.

To hell with Trump, too...but whatever.

Trump Acquitted (Impeachment 2.0)

Well, ok.  I'm neither for it nor against it. I kinda hoped that the Dems would get him, thus destroying him and his future influence, and thereby destroy themselves, somehow, handing Congress to the Pubs in '22 and the Presidency to them in '24. Oh, a boy can dream, cain't'ee?

Jacob Sullum: Leaving Aside Trump's Role in Provoking the Capitol Riot, His Reaction to It Was Enough To Justify Impeachment

This is basically what I think--except, of course for Sullum's puzzling credulity about the looniest of the anti-Trump stuff coming third-hand via anti-Trumpers. Also, to be clear: I have no view on whether impeachment is really possible or reasonable after its object is out of office. But if he were still in office, I don't think I'd oppose impeachment. And Trump's post-riot actions loom large in my thinking...such as it is.

"BIPOC"

This is the latest terminological fad to sweep the left. It's been around for awhile, but I didn't really hear a lot of people unironically...and sometimes even unselfconsciously...using it until recently. Somebody should keep track of how long these things reign before being deposed. Apparently on function of slang is to signal that one is au courant. So the life-cycle of this stuff is short.

Via Cafe Hayek Via Insty: The Most Politicized Disease In History / When Will The Madness End?

 Cafe Hayek link.

Two Masks

I'm kind of embarrassed to say that, quite some time ago, before it was the newest hysteria, I fiddled around with two masks--mostly a paper surgical mask under a bandana. And, ya know--though again, I hate to say it--whereas one mask feels like some kind of joke that's just not gonna do much--two of them felt like they might actually do something. I tried a couple of configurations, but settled on a paper surgical mask under a bandana. There seems to be evidence that the surgical masks aerosolize the globs of goo you exhale from your swamp-like maw...which is bad. I think there's a decent chance that bandanas will, when all the dust settles, turn out to have been one of the more effective options, since the fit loosely over your nose and mouth, but form a barrier around your lower face. Thus you're not forcing air through the fabric as with most masks. Using a surgical mask and a bandana gives you a tight-fitting mask and a loose-fitting mask of two very different materials. And if the surgical mask does aerosolize your deadly exhalations, at least the bandana should mostly deaden their momentum and keep them near your own face.

   Anyway, now that "double-masking" is the newest half-assed thing being advocated by our moral, social, and epistemic betters, my enthusiasm for the experiment is pretty much over... Though I'm trying to contain my natural hyper-contrariness on this one.

   Bottom line, though, really: it's worth a try. It may end up actually being more than mere virtue-advertising. Or so it seems to me...based on, y'know, nothing more than purely subjective facts about how it felt...which is worth very little.

   

Impeachment

Too busy and exhausted to read enough about it to know what should be done or even what's currently going on. As Churchill apparently said when Germany invaded Russia (though I can't remember the exact quote), it's just a shame they can't both lose. 

EVs Are The Lowest Climate Priority

With all due respect, that's not my understanding. From what I can tell, it's true that they don't do much good. But they're basically in a race to the bottom with almost every other progressive program and technology. Solar and wind are also more-or-less useless...but even they aren't in the bottom tier, because the Dems--as they often do--are using a largely-fake climate "crisis" as an excuse to do unrelated things they wanted to do anyway--head start, "community gardens," loan forgiveness and a whole slew of other utter nonsense that no sane person who genuinely believed the climapocalypse was upon us would even consider funding. Even worse are the counterproductive policies like ending fracking and retrofitting every building in the U.S. with extra insulation(!). That last one is utter fantasy...which is good, because it's also the most disastrously counterproductive thing on their brainless wish list.

   Policy ain't easy. I'm on the warpath not because I think it is, but because: while it's often hard to optimize such things and know exactly which policies it's best to pursue, it's easy not to be a bunch of dishonest, brainless shitheads pushing a list of fantastical and counterproductive policies on the basis of what more and more looks like a lie produced by the preferences and pathologies of the PC cult.

   I'm in no way opposed to looking at climate change objectively and setting priorities and spending money as necessary. And as I've said, the first and most obvious step is: build more nuclear. Here's another: find a replacement for bunker fuel in container ships--which is a kind of heavy fuel oil that's just shy of being tar. Cap and trade, even. I'm against it, but it's not a stupid idea--it's a smart idea. It could be a right thing to do--I won't bitch if we do it. Look into raising CAFE standards on internal combustion vehicles. We may be at the end of that road--but maybe not. 

   Eh. There's going to be a lot of stupid over the next two years at minimum...

What Happened To Officer Brian Sicknick?

This is basically what I've been thinking.

If he had actually been killed by rioters, the footage and the story would be splashed across the front page of every MSM organization in the country.

The fact that it hasn't been basically tells you what you need to know.

My money is on the proposition that this is more progressive anti-Trump propaganda.

WHO Says Wuhan Virus Transmitted To Humans Naturally, No Lab Leak In The Transmission Chain

So the WHO and the CCP agree--no lab leak.

   Which means, personally, I'd still guess the odds are about 50-50. 

   I have no dog in the fight. I just don't really trust the WHO, and don't trust the Chinese government nor any of its agents at all. The CCP is desperate to convince people it wasn't a Chinese lab leak, and the WHO seems unduly influenced by the CCP. So I'll continue to suspend judgment until a more credible organization has a say. 

Is The Wuhan Virus Mostly Spreading In Homes?

This is a mystery to me--not that I've investigated it with that much diligence. But I keep reading things that say, for example: it doesn't seem to be spreading much in bars and restaurants...it doesn't seem to be spreading that much in gyms...it doesn't seem to be spreading that much in classrooms... So anyway, this is of interest to me. I had kinda wondered about this--that is, thought about the possibility that it really isn't spreading a lot outside of homes...but then if somebody in a house gets it, it readily spreads to other occupants/family-members. That's consistent with other things I've read, and might help make sense of this puzzle. Funny to try to puzzle this stuff out given (a) no knowledge of epidemiology and (b) access only to the crap information we get from the media...  Waste of time, really. Which is why I don't invest much energy in it. But it's the kind of thing that the back of your mind fiddles with even without your executive approval.

France Sees An Existential Threat From Woketarianism / American Academia

Good.

They're right:

“The common agenda of these enemies of European civilization can be summed up in three words: decolonize, demasculate, de-Europeanize,’’ Mr. Taguieff said. “Straight white male — that’s the culprit to condemn and the enemy to eliminate.”

The times immediately follows this up with some Woketarian crap:

Behind the attacks on American universities — led by aging white male intellectuals — lie the tensions in a society where power appears to be up for grabs, said Éric Fassin, a sociologist who was one of the first scholars to focus on race and racism in France, about 15 years ago.

Of course that's the way the Woketarians see everything: behind this intellectual disagreement is a power-struggle... And, of course, mostly with the dreaded OLD WHITE MENZ!!!...

   Funny that so much of this actually came to the U.S. from France back in the '80s--bad literary theory and pseudophilosophy--postmodernism and poststructuralism. Though we have the Germans to blame for critical theory. Political correctness has always been built largely on what I've called the postpostmodern mishmash--all three of the above-named views, plus feminism/gender-theory. Now critical legal studies and its offspring critical race theory has been added to the mix. Paleo-PC emphasized pomo/poststructuralism. Neo-PC obviously emphasizes the critical theory bit. And trans ideology has eclipsed feminism. 

   Anyway. These are, indeed, the intellectual viruses that are eating away at universities. They're obscure enough to conceal their obvious absurdities from the mediocre intellects that tend to advocate them, more than merely consistent with antiliberal leftist political fads, and built on the kind of pseudo-intellectual cant that makes it easy for people to sound like a dumb person thinks smart people sound. Also it's a cult, so...it has whatever allure and power those things have over the weak-willed.

   Sad that the Western intellectual tradition is in danger from such a huge pile of pseudointellectual shit.

America Went Cultural-Marxist Overnight

It's not even Marxism...it's cultural-Marxism...which is a mutant strain of Marxism against which American liberalism has no immunity:

America went Marxist overnight.

Enjoy the gulag.

— Shakes The Clown (@MichaelAOShea) February 5, 2021

Rep. Ron Wright (R-TX), 67, Dies From Lung Cancer + COVID-19

His age and the fact that he was also battling lung cancer seem to be left out of most of the headlines.

RIP Congressman Wright.

There Is, By This Point, Little Reason To Believe The Remnants Of Liberalism Will Rise Up To Oppose Woketarianism

Hey, Smart People....could you please explain how Wokism isn't going to take over and how/when exactly the center-left and liberal left will stop it?! Because it seems that America is in some serious trouble:

— Amanda (@AmandaLuvsRoses) February 5, 2021

Read the whole, depressing, dystopian thread. 

Your future is bleak and blue. We've sold ourselves out to approximately the most anti-liberal, anti-American, anti-rational ideology in existence. 

But, hey: no mean tweets...and that's what's important. 

Greenwald: The Journalistic Tattletale and Censorship Industry Suffers Several Well-Deserved Blows

Glenn Greenwald is the shit, and this is right on the money.

John J. Miller: An Optimistic Take On The Swing Toward A "Majority Minority" America

Narrative shcmarrative. But assimilation is good. One way you can tell it's good is that the progressive left is against it. Anyway: it's one of the secrets of our success. And one reason I favor controlling illegal immigration and possibly even throttling back a bit on legal immigration. IMO we don't want to take in new Americans at a pace too rapid to assimilate them. Once you make that mistake, it seems to be the kind of problem that would be hard to fix. The identity-politics left hates assimilation basically because it hates the United States* and its sine qua non is racial and ethnic disagreement and conflict. Most people who have allowed themselves to get drawn into progressivism without really understanding the view don't understand that the vanguard of the view has its heart set on a post-American, post-liberal, post-capitalist future. If not for technology, there's a good chance they'd add 'post-scientific' to that list... Anyway: three cheers for continued assimilation, which has, thus far, been good for both the assimilators and the assimilated.

Carolina 91 - Duke 87

 Caleb Love FTW.

Charles W. Cooke On The Latest In NYT Heretic-Hunting and Groveling Apologies

This isn't the fringe of the contemporary left. This is its flagship newspaper. It is, in a very important sense, its mainstream. Insanity is now their official orientation.

It's, Like, SUPER-Awesome That The COVID Vaccines Have Shitty Side-Effects!!!

This shit is just getting ridiculous.

Climate Lockdowns?

Sounds crazy...but the progressive left is pretty open about not letting a good crisis go to waste. It's clear that they set the bar for triggering lockdowns much lower than the center and right do. And if they believe what they say they believe about climate change, it constitutes a much, much, much greater threat than does the Wuhan virus. Ten years ago, if someone had told me that the Democrats would want to make it illegal to keep boys out of girls' public restrooms and locker rooms, I'd have laughed in your face. I'd have done the same if you'd have told me that the American left would soon become dedicated to radically narrowing protections for free expression. But progressives / Dems are now in a radical freefall leftward. There's simply no very good reason to think that's going to stop. Things that were unthinkable ten--or even five--years ago are now not merely on their wish-list for the near future, they've already been legislated or otherwise enacted. You'd think climate lockdowns would be a bridge too far...but, then, you'd think that indoctrinating government workers with Cultural-Marxist Critical Race Theory hogwash would have been a bridge too far...but it wasn't. 

Welcome to your--dystopian--blue future. Bigot.

Time's Extremely Propaganda-y Account Of What May or May Not Have Been Electoral Shenanigans

It's hard to know what to think about it all from this blatant, nauseatingly hagiographic piece of blue-team propaganda. I have some sympathies with Ace...though, like so many on the right, his objectivity about the election went out the window pretty quickly. Anyway: I don't see how anyone can read that piece of agitprop and think "wow, that's exactly how democracy is supposed to work!"

Sheila Jackson Lee's Unhinged Anti-Gun Bill

Honestly, the Democrats have just lost it. 

Democrats Loooove Masks

Maybe they're hoping this is a stepping-stone to a multicultural utopia where burkas are normalized:

Is this a joke? https://t.co/f0BGr6dSA6

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) February 4, 2021

Fuck It, We're Doing Five Masks

WEAR TWO MASKS, BIGOT!!!

Narrator: There was some precedent for this trajectory...

According to the people who think some men are women and the world will end in ten years, it's just common sense...

Also: IT'S FASHON YOU HEATHEN BIGOT REDNECK

The "Reality Crisis" And Transgenderism

As for being reality-challenged, no other faction can really compete with the progressive left. (Except for the religious right.) But, as usual, the left has become hysterical about the mote in its brother's eye. We must have a Mote Czar to address the Mote Crisis! Only a full-court anti-mote press can possibly save us!!!

More People Have Been Vaccinated Against COVID Than Have Been Infected By It

Weird, for some reason.

Vox Is Extremely Full Of Shit

It's like a half-notch above Salon. Extra LOL points for getting their alleged data from the Guardian.

Is This The Stupidest Book Ever Written?:: Katja Guenther: The Lives And Deaths Of Shelter Animals

Critical race nonsense is really, really stupid. Honestly, nobody with more than half a brain takes this shit seriously. It's like a humanities version of pseudoscience. It really is similar to astrology. There's a kind of system there, but it produces nothing but falsehoods and gibberish.

Progressivism In A Fact-Checking Nutshell: AOC Lied About The Threat From The Riot But It Was True Because She Was Scared

Wow. They're barely even pretending to care about the truth anymore.

More Mask Hysteria: "THE SCIENCE IS CRYSTAL CLEAR"!!!!111

Narrator: The science actually wasn't crystal clear...

Incidentally, I'm weakly pro-mask. But what's crystal clear is that the evidence is not crystal clear. We simply don't have scientific proof--where that does not mean certainty--that masks are sufficiently effective to warrant the kinds of mandates and obsession that we see on the left. At least if such proof exists it hasn't trickled down to hoi polloi like me yet. And the evidence that has trickled down is decidedly mixed. Intuitively they ought to have some effect--and I certainly don't want to be the guy who transmits the Wuhan virus to Jack, who then transmits it to granny...  But I'm also among those who think that progressive superstitions and zeal for imposing them on the rest of us have become dangers of their own. I prefer to push back on other fronts...but I'll admit that I might well wear masks more if not for the politically-motivated hysteria about them. I don't wear them outside, I put them on at the last minute before I go into a public building and take them off as soon as I emerge therefrom, and if go someplace where people tend not to wear them (our Home Depot is one such place, off and on), I usually don't wear one either. We do go out to eat and get beers with people, and, of course, we don't wear them then. I do generally make an effort to keep some distance from people, keep my hands away from my face, and whatnot. However I basically can't have a mask on without fiddling with it a lot. If I knew they were effective, I could summon the willpower to do that less...but I find them pretty annoying, and, given the merely weak evidence of effectiveness, I just doesn't make a lot of sense to be obsessive about it.

Peter Wood: What Does 'Equity' Really Mean?

Definitely worth a read.

   My independent take on the situation: in short: any view built on "equity," combined with the progressive view that every racial disparity (in which a non-white group comes out less-well than whites) is the result of ("systemic") racism, entails that we must enforce equality of outcomes. 

   Progressivism is an extremely radical, and extremely dangerous, view.

WSJ: Liberalism's Ministry Of Truth

Exactly...though of course one can reasonably disagree about whether progressives are liberals.

We're Not In A Sixth Mass Extinction

Which doesn't mean that we aren't fucking things up.

Most Batflu Transmission By People 20-49?

link

Study Says Lockdowns Don't Help

Big if true.

BMJ: Failing To Thwart The Pandemic is SOCIAL MURDER AND POLITICIANS MUST PAY

Because Trump politicians bear all the blame for every death.j

   I couldn't even finish reading this shit.

   Nobody--in the West, anyway--knew what to do. Nobody (with the vaguely possible exception of Xi Jinping) aimed to kill people. Being responsibly mistaken or choosing a reasonable strategy that ends up being suboptimal isn't murder. This sort of thing is grounded in two of the main failings of progressivism (and left-liberalism): overestimating the abilities of experts and overestimating the abilities of government. And, as always: no one ever errs innocently. 

  The progressive left--having lost its goddamn mind, as I may have mentioned--now has a huge ("social") justice boner for "truth and reconciliation" commissions. Not content with their current degree of cultural hegemony, they want even more tools with which to punish the heterodox.

   This sort of thing is of a piece with calls to criminalize politically incorrect findings and even research. 

   Crazytown, man.

Batflu:: It's In The Air: Forget About Surfaces?

Seems like that's been the expert view for awhile...but who can tell?

AstraZeneca-Oxford Vaccine Reduces Transmission Rates. Biden Admin's Strategy Of Getting More People The First Shot Vindicated?

Mostly good news in this story, it seems (good news being permissible again now that bad Orange Man is gone). For awhile we were hearing these weird reports about the vaccines not reducing transmission rates--but that just seemed too crazy to be true. It always seemed plausible that it might be more important to get more people one shot than fewer people two, so there's no real surprise there--at least from the perspective of a layperson.  I wonder whether it might be better to get a different vaccine the second time.

Kevin Roose: Biden Can Solve Our "Reality Crisis" By Appointing A "Reality Czar"

This would be hilarious if it weren't so depressing--and so depressingly representative of the views of the progressive left. Today's left is the most deranged, disconnected-from-reality major political faction in American in my lifetime--with the possible exception of the religious right of the '80s. In this whole post, Roose doesn't mention a single one of the left's cracked, patently false or unproven views, nor any of its conspiracy theories. He mentions the Proud Boys, but never the much more salient gang, Antifa. He fails to mention climate apocalypticism, the view that racist cops are indiscriminately mowing down unarmed blacks, the view that America is made of "systemic racism," nor that its "real founding" occurred in 1619. He doesn't mention the supernatural view that men can become women and vice-versa simply by declaring it to be so, nor the myth that races are "socially constructed." There's no mention of Russiagate, which should be our new paradigm of conspiracy theories.

   Qanon is a nutty view, as is the view that Trump's "beautiful landslide" was undoubtedly stolen. But the contemporary right simply can't compete with the contemporary left when it comes to crazy, counterfactual beliefs. And, as I've said many times before: the left's myths and lies are all worse in the sense that the left has made them official myths and lies. Qanon is a joke almost everywhere that matters. The left's nutty theories are made into the cultural equivalents of--unquestionable--facts. From the perspective of the influential cultural institutions, they might as well be true. 

   But I'm getting tired of making these rather obvious points, and you're undoubtedly getting tired of reading them.

[Oh, and don't forget: there's no such thing as Antifa...there's no such thing as political correctness...there's no such thing as cancel culture... The bad things the left can't pretend are good they simply proclaim to be nonexistent. That's gaslighting with a blowtorch.]

J. Peder Zane: The Gaslighting Of The American Mind

 This is right. Progressivism now has the social power to declare obviously unproven propositions--and even patently false ones--to be official truth. And: to declare them to be beyond questioning and criticism. And: to declare those who do question or criticize them to be [insert accusation of evil here]--racist, "white supremacist," "transphobic," etc. And: to have such people shunned / ostracized: shut out of public discussion, fired, harassed, threatened. Progressivism avoids debate, preferring to shout down / shut down their opponents. The art of debating without debating, to modify a line from Bruce Lee. 

Biden To Build Economic Policy Around race, Sex, Climate Change

 But the important thing is: no mean tweets:

“Biden’s economic policy team signaled that it will be the first administration ever to construct economic policy around issues like race, gender equality and climate change, rather than around traditional indicators like GDP or deficit ratios” https://t.co/xdLxGXerhH

— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) January 19, 2021

BERNIE'S MITTENS ARE WHITE PRIVILEGE

 There's a teensy, weensy fragment of a not-entirely-insane point in here. It's just so insignificant that actually writing it down is worse than a waste of time.

Biden Admin: Climate Change Is A "Racial Justice" Issue

Finally...progressivism's Grand Unified Theory...climate change is racism!

The Age Of The Aircraft Carrier Isn't Over

Dunno.

McConnell: Marjorie Taylor Green's "Loony Lies" A Cancer On The GOP

 Word. Neither as widespread nor deep-rooted nor crazy nor destructive as the loony lies that basically constitute the contemporary progressive left...but some issues aren't entirely comparative. Shut her up and get rid of her as soon as possible. 

"White Americans Are Being Vaccinated At Higher Rates Than Black Americans. This Inequity Cannot Stand"

It's becoming virtually impossible to take this sort of thing seriously. When your only tool is a hammer...etc. Wonder what vaccination rates look like for Jewish and Asian people in the U.S.? Because I've got a guess about that...

   Also: "equity" lol. My God.

   It's not impossible for there to be a point in there somewhere. But I'm basically done trying to dig such things out. Basically all the left does now is shriek racism! and expect to be obeyed. They don't actually make a case, knowing that they generally won't be challenged. 

   The racification of everything is just about the dumbest idea to sweep through American in my lifetime.

Will Biden Move Even Closer To Open Borders?

Probably--but maybe not in a headlong rush. And "11 million" (probably more like 25-30 million) new Democrats would be a disaster given the trajectory of the blue team. (And, of course, this is a great way to import new COVID variants into the U.S.)

McWhorter: Schools Must Resist Destructive Anti-Racist Demands

My university issued one of these nutty things last summer. I seem to have been the only one to raise objections to it publicly. The fact that something so loony can survive at a university and provoke no objections shows that we are in dire straits.

COVID Nomenclature Follies: 'Brazil Variant' Is Also Fine...BUT NOT 'WUHAH VIRUS,' BIGOT!!!!1111

The mutations seem like a matter of genuine concern. Hard to say how much given the untrustworthiness and pervasive bias of the media...but things don't sound optimal, that's for sure.

   The nonsense about politically correct nomenclature is an idiotic sideshow...but since the progressive left started it, and wasted time and energy on it and fanned the flames of senseless conflict, and used the issue to boost the lie that Trump is a racist...I'll just mention that now, in addition to the "UK variant" and the "South African variant," we have the "Brazil variant." Naming (formally or informally) viruses and their variants after the places they were discovered was (1) totally fine, until (2) progressives, motivated by their hatred of Trump and bizarre new BFFdom with the CCP, decided that 'Wuhan virus' and 'China virus' were VERBOTEN, BIGOT. Now (3) such place-of-origin designations are totally fine again...though occasionally progressive sources will catch themselves and thinly-conceal this e.g. by chanting 'Brazil variant' to 'variant from Brazil'...technically a description and not a name! Bigot!

   This is a fairly superficial example of an insanity that goes deep down into the contemporary progressive left. This obsession with language, the loony commitment to interpreting everything said by their opponents as motivated by racism, the thinly concealed, mangled po-mo view that every interpretation is as good as every other, and the unprincipled, impressionistic, inconsistent judgments that nevertheless yield rabid, shrieking certainty. 

   Nobody's wrong about everything...but the contemporary progressive left comes awful damn close to it.

Rachel (Nee Richard) Levine Is a Man

You can get banned by Twitter (and undoubtedly "cancelled," fired, and harassed in many places) for stating that hatefact--or "biotruth" as some lefties call them in a weak attempt at derogation. Levin is a man who misrepresents himself as a woman--as is, of course, his right under most circumstances. People misrepresent themselves--and all manner of other things--all the time. Men lie about their height. Women lie about their weight. The young and old both lie about their ages. It's a free country. Lie away. Outside of special circumstances, you're free to lie about whatever you think you can get away with. But that doesn't mean that the rest of us have to believe you, nor have to lie about it, too.

   This is, as I've said many times, the flagship falsehood of the progressive left. Apocalyptic climate hysteria is, perhaps, the biggest lie. BLM lies about racist police murdering black men en masse is, perhaps, the lie that's done the most real harm to the nation in the shortest amount of time. But the central lie of transgender ideology--that some women are male and some men are female--is the most blatant of the left's politically correct lies. And they got their troops to accept it virtually without argument--merely by shrieking at them. And they've gotten even many conservatives to pay lip service to the lie. They've not got it institutionalized as well. This is the rough equivalent of getting people to believe and affirm that black is white and night is day--and getting it proclaimed true by executive order. It may not be as deadly as spiking the murder rate by 20%, or as wasteful as burning $2 trillion on unneeded technology. But for sheer, flat-out, patent, brazen, right-before-your-very-eyes falsehood it really just can't be beat. It also puts the left into an uncatchable lead on the anti-science front. There's simply nothing on the right that can in any way come close to it.

The BLM/Antifa Protests/Riots Caused De-policing, Which Caused The Great 2020 Homicide Spike

The best, currently available evidence strongly supports the conclusion that the Great 2020 Homicide Spike resulted from the widespread anti-police protests, which in turn lead to a reduction in policing activity directed at fighting gun crimes. To save lives in 2021, we need urgent action to restore proactive policing to its pre-protest levels.

The BLM/Antifa protests/riots were predicated on the world's greatest hate-crime hoax: the progressive myth that racist police are indiscriminately murdering black men en masse. Progressivism no longer cares about truth and falsehood. And it doesn't much care about harm to whites. But you'd think it would at least care about harm to nonwhite residents of inner cities.

Half-Black Conservative Gets It

Yeah she does:

She gets it. pic.twitter.com/emSZa3Id3V

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) February 1, 2021

Her TikTok page. 

VDH: Why Are Progressives So Illiberal?

VDH, always worth a read.

   The essay's on target, but there's a simpler answer to the question: progressivism is an inherently antiliberal position. 

   But why have so many people abandoned liberalism for that antilberal view? Not too bright. Bad moral character. Honest error. Groupthink. Cowardice + fear of being called mean names--esp. racist. Social payoffs for accordance with the fad/orthodoxy. Many were never liberals, they just hitched their wagons to the leftiest major position. Lots of reasons.