Fake Walls Closing in on Trump!

I guess if you can't get the real walls to close in after seven years, you might as well just make some up...

CCP Military Misgendering Tactics Against USA

He/him! He/him!

"Trans" and Anti-Firearm Protesters Storm KY, TN, OK, TX Capitals

Insurrections!

?

And no, you can't have our guns.

So you might as well give up on that one.

Noah Carl: Why Gun Control Won't Work

link

   I don't rule out additional restrictions on gun ownership a priori. I've gone back and forth. However, I'd demand very strong evidence that any additional restrictions would have solid payoffs. Any such proposals would, IMO, have to carry a heavy burden of proof. 

   Furthermore, since the scales finally fell from my eyes, and I now realize that every concession to the left is largely, to them, a beachhead for further future assaults on freedoms, I'm generally less willing to compromise with them on such things. I've come to think that virtually our only option is to fight for every inch of ground.

   I don't like having that attitude, but I don't really seen any good alternative currently.

Biden's Smart Immigration Idea?

It does actually sound like a good idea.

Sadly, it's basically part of an open-door policy that's flooding the country with illegal aliens...so...that's the downside...

Seriously, though. I'm sure there's a catch, and it's just another way to increase the flow of immigrants into the country. By itself, or as part of a sane policy framework, it sounds like it would be really good. But that's not the situation. Without hearing informed criticism of the policy, we can't understand much about it.

Display Your Pronouns to Reduce Misgendering!

The...uh...whatever this is...that you've been waiting for.

Liel Leibovitz: Protest Porn

I probably only agree with about half of this, but it's kinda interesting.

The Crisis Crisis

 I think there's some measure of truth in this:

The crisis is not covid. The crisis is not war.
The real crisis is a population that falls for every crisis. The propaganda consumers are the never ending crisis.

— Dakara (@dakara_prisoner) March 5, 2022

The Quartering: Conspiracy to Suppress Nashville Murderer's Manifesto

Yep, something's up.

She was probably influenced by increasingly violent "trans" rhetoric.

See e.g.: "Trans Day of Vengeance"

Donut on the Nashville Trans School Shooter

Nashville "Trans" Shooter and the Anti-Firearms Campaign

Crying about an assault an weapon ban when the shooter literally left a manifesto saying that school was chosen because of the lack of armed security compared to another target is wild.

The shooter killed 6 ppl w/ so called Assault weapons. The V-Tech shooter killed 36 w/…

— Colion Noir (@MrColionNoir) March 27, 2023

Banana Republic Watch: The IRS Makes a Strange House Call on Matt Taibbi

Your blue future.

MSM Apologizes for "Misgendering" Nashville School Shooter

She was, in fact, a woman, but she preferred to misrepresent herself as a man. 

And, of course, her (now non-existent) feelings are more important than the facts about the mass murder she committed.

Feelz > facts, bigot.

Progressives Whine About Conservatives Using 'Woke' to...Name Woketarianism...

This is stupid.

It's their typical arc. They benefitted from the fact that there was no accepted name for their position, and they have complained about every effort to give it a name. 'Woke' is their term. It has acquired a negative valence because their views are insane. This is what happened with 'political correctness.' It was their term, but they were crazy, so eventually the term acquired a negative valence, so then they gave it up. Then they said there'd never been any such thing. Oh, and, one of their favorite ploys: demanded that their opponents provide a definition. Of their view. It's not a serious request, of course. It's a debating trick. The right answer is: You tell me; it's a term for your incoherent view--whatever the hell that is. Actually, it's an incoherent mishmash of postmodernism, poststructuralism, trickle-down Foucault, critical theory, CRT, queer theory, radical feminism, (trans)gender ideology/mythology/pseudoscience, political correctness, anti-liberalism, the hermeneutics of suspicion, Marxism, neo-Marxism, cultural Marxism...a loony, incoherent mix of individually incoherent theories. Which is why people basically gave up and said: well, you call it being woke...so we'll just adopt your term. But the left has decreed that unacceptable. 

   This, remember, is the faction that shrieked about the "alt-right" for years without ever producing anything like a definition... 

   At any rate, their real view is: you don't get to name our view because you are critical of it. You aren't permitted to refer to our view at all unless you accept it. This is similar to the pronoun nonsense: we get to determine how you will refer to us; you will only speak of us as we tell you to. 

   What they want is to force us to call their view "progressive" or some other positive term. Buth they also demand that we maintain the positive valence of the term. So, basically: if you are going to criticize us, you don't get to refer to us at all...

Caleb Love to Leave UNC

Sorry to see him go.

The teleportation nexus or whatever the hell it's called is another nail in the coffin of college hoops. 

I mean, I want people to have freedom of choice, of course, but why not just watch the NBA?

College sports is probably unstable anyway. I expect it to continue to evolve until teams are just outright pro organizations loosely associated with universities. Eventually we may see things like whole teams switching schools so that we end up with e.g. the Arizona State Basketball Terrapins or whatever.

HMD: Dismantle DEI Ideology

Right on target, as usual.

The emotional solipsism of the Stanford students and their peers around the country would make the practice of law impossible. But it also undercuts the highest ideals of Western civilization: that human beings can transcend tribal identities and use reason to govern themselves and to unlock the secrets of nature.

By all means, axe every college DEI office, since every one is a monument to a lie. But the student-services bureaucracy and a large portion of the faculty will simply continue their work. That is why, if we are to restore academic integrity, it will not be sufficient to advocate for free speech, however important such advocacy is. It will be necessary to challenge head-on the grounding falsehoods of the diversity university: that majority society (or whatever is left of it) is always and everywhere oppressing the fragile “Other” and that victim identity trumps the ideal of transcendent, objective knowledge.

Nashville School Shooter Was "Transgendered;" Media Suspends Woke Rules, Refers to Her by Real Name, Normal Pronouns

About the real tragedy of six deaths, I have nothing to say.

   I'm just noting that, in any other context, they'd be referring to her by masculine pronouns and whatever guy's name it was she'd adopted. To refer to her by her actual name and the correct English pronouns would bring out the shrieking Reaver hoard--"deadnaming!" "misgendering!" REEEEE

Is Woketarianism Winning?

If you fiddle with the poll results and count things like equality between the sexes as woke, then...well, still no, because that would be stupid.

link

Except actually yes.

It's certainly winning beyond what, I think, any sane person would have predicted a decade ago. Twenty years ago I thought political correctness had been largely defeated--that's how stupid I am. Today the illiberal left seems to basically control all our institutions, critical (race) theory indoctrination has become common across the nation, pretending to be the opposite sex has become routine and transgender mythology/pseudoscience is accepted as fact by more-or-less every institution. If a man in a dress is standing right in front of you, you are supposed to pretend to believe he's a woman. And if you don't the Reavers will come after you. And if they had their way, you'd go to jail for not so pretending--make no mistake about that. 

   This is the ultimate goal of political correctness: to train people to routinely accept falsehoods as truths if that's what they're told to do.

West TX A&M Cancels Drag Show

Ya can't do that, broseph.

The drag show must go on.

Scott Alexander on the Hyperstitious Truth Cascade, and Giving Up 70% of the Way Through It

I'm more like a 99%er...

Behold: All lives matter.

Also: everybody forgets--and this is really baffling--that 'black' was made unPC ca. 1990. In the late '80s, the PC left declared 'African-American' to be the only acceptable term. The paleo-PCs didn't control the media...or anything, really, outside of universities. But this idea did seep out and take over in the media. It was so bad and long-lasting that even I--yes, even I--eventually decided (a la Alexander) that I should give up the fight, and--briefly--I used 'African-American,' too. But I was such a dead-ender that fashion--I mean...morality!--changed pretty soon thereafter, and so I went back to 'black.' Of course not it's 'Black,' capital 'b', so as to give a handy way of orthodoxy-signaling. Especially as opposed to 'white,' lower-case 'w.' 

Also, of course, as I often pointed out at the time, 'African-American' isn't right for most of their preferred uses. For one thing, most American blacks have never been to Africa. I'm more German-American than they are African-American. Also, this particular bit of PC nonsense gave people no way to relevantly refer to, e.g., blacks from France or the UK...or anywhere other than the USA. I even heard people refer to African blacks who had lived their entire lives in Africa--and who would probably never even visit any other continent--as "African-Americans." Finally, of course, Elon Musk is obviously an African-American...but that's not consistent with the intended PC meaning of the term.

Anyway. 

Not sure I agree with Alexander about the overall point, but it certainly seems plausible.

Colin Wright: Understanding the Sex Binary

I don't think 'binary' is actually the right term...but there are, indeed, two and only two sexes...

He makes lots of good points in here--some of which I've made repeatedly, but some of which are way beyond my understanding of the biology.

28 Racist Things. Racist.

RACIST ALL THE THINGS

Professor Discovers That He...Is A Professor

At the age of 40, this professor claims to have realized that he was socially awkward, could not related to most of his colleagues...able to "dive deeply into complex research tasks," "focus intently" on certain things...in short: he's basically a professor.
   No, wait: he's...NEURODIVERGENT! In fact: AUTISTIC! The most fashionable neurodivergence of the whole fashionable category!
   And now it's his "identity": "I now understood that (a) I was an autistic academic and (b) that identity was vital to how I existed in the world, whether I had known it or not."

   The Chronicle of Higher Education turned into Tumblr so gradually that...etc. etc...

   Actually, the CHE pretty much sucks--but that's because academia sucks...

   So...professors used to be awkward, introverted nerds...but then academia corporatized, and it became cool to be cool...and being awkward and introverted might just get you accused of something, Jack. So now to survive, ya gotta come up with some bullshit about how your scholarliness is actually woke. So...autism!

   James D'amore, you may recall, plead autism to try to save his job at Google. Which I thought was a humiliating cop out. Fuck 'em. Don't play their game.

"Her Testicles"

“Her testicles” pic.twitter.com/bPDp0Njah8

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) March 26, 2023

Yes, DEI Can Erode Academic Freedom

Just like it erodes freedom of speech.

There's no question about this, actually.

Trump's Bizarre Behavior A Gift To The Left

And just as public opinion was turning against Bragg.

   The most important aspect of all of this, IMO, is the left's weaponization of government against its political opponents.

   This is the sort of thing Trump saw clearly long before many of us--before I did, obviously.

   But Trump's chaotic, irrational intemperance tends to overshadow his insights and abilities--and the criminality and irrationality of his opponents.

   For years now it's been fairly clear that Biden's influence peddling makes him, basically, what the left has long claimed Trump was. Biden actually is beholden to a hostile foreign power. The media has suppressed the information, of course. But truth has a way of escaping from containment.

   But just as it does, Trump very publicly shoots himself in the ass yet again.

   And it's not just a matter of self-sabotage/imprudence. He really is sounding kinda crazy. 

   My own prediction is that he'll hand the White House to the Democrats again in '24. And that will be another, perhaps even more catastrophic, catastrophe.

Abe Greenwald: The Tide Is Turning Against Big Trans

link

Scott Yenor: Making Wokeism Die

or DIE...

Josh Hammer: Recent Lowlights in the Woke Capture of Our Once-Venerable Institutions

link

Sasha Stone: Pledge of Allegiance to the Woke

link

TRUMP RALLY IN WACO BECAUSE REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

ALSO REAGAN REEEEEEEEEEEEE

   This is possibly the dumbest thing you'll read today.

   This is what happens when you adopt a postpostmodern political religion that adopts a free-form interpretive method that allows you to make up whatever story you want so long as the conclusion is politically correct.

   The Waco siege lasted something like 50 days. If you do something in Waco, it's not exactly hard for it to happen some time during the same time of year as the siege. And if you think the siege was the only thing that ever happened in Waco, you can convince yourself of this kind of nonsense. 

   The Trump campaign, unsurprisingly, had a perfectly reasonable explanation: Waco is central to several major metropolitan areas and has facilities capable of accommodating such a rally. 

   And Bennen's claim that it "strains credulity" that Waco was not chosen to...send some kind of message but God knows which one...utter idiocy.

   This is the kind of free-form interpretation--i.e. making shit up--that forms the intellectual core of the progressive left.

   And note: he doesn't merely float it as a wacky, possible hypothesis...he claims that it "strains credulity" to deny it. The mind, it reels.

   Then there's this:

...the Republican had plenty of choices within the Lone Star State — Texas is massive, with nearly 270,000 square miles — before settling on the city with the 24th largest population in the state.

As if the entire surface of the state were an option... First of all, what's the meaning of having the rally in a city at all? Huh? What's up with that? Why not out in the desert? 270,000 square miles, and TRUMP picks a CITY of all places!

   Waco is actually the 22nd most populous city in the state--a city of 140k people in a metro area of 240k. That is a big-ass city.

   There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for having the rally there, which the Trump camp has stated. Bennen's explanation is idiotic. It makes no sense whatsoever. Does he think Trump is trying to get that sweet, sweet cultist vote? 

   This rather reminds me of all the stupid hypotheses that cropped up like the week after 9/11. They did it on 9/11 because it was like 911 the emergency number! They picked American airlines because...uh...symbolism! Same for United!..

   The hypothesis about Reagan is even stupider. And notice that the charge, basically, is that Reagan said the things he said during that campaign...in Mississippi...in a counting vaguely near a place where something bad happened! An "unmistakable sign"!

  facepalm

  Honestly, these people have just come unhinged.

[Note that Bennen seems to basically rip this off from the Houston Chronicle...so...it's not just one dumbass saying it, either...]

Brady and Waltz: The Military Should Reject DEI and CRT

yes.

Nature's Endorsement of Biden Backfires?

Lysenkoism, of course:

   A month before the U.S. presidential election, Nature published an editorial supporting Democratic candidate Joe Biden for president. The editorial justified its endorsement by citing Donald Trump's "disastrous response to the COVID-19 pandemic" and also decrying his promotion of "nationalism, isolationism and xenophobia — including tacitly supporting white-supremacist groups." Consequently, the editors declared, "We cannot stand by and let science be undermined. Joe Biden's trust in truth, evidence, science and democracy make him the only choice in the US election."
   In his study, Zhang conducted an online survey during July and August of 2021 randomly exposing more than 4,000 Trump and Biden supporters to two conditions. The treatment group saw a summary of the Nature endorsement, and the control group read a description of Nature's new redesign. Both groups were reminded that Nature is one of the world's most prominent science publications.
   Zhang reports:

   The endorsement message caused large reductions in stated trust in Nature among Trump supporters. This distrust lowered the demand for COVID-related information provided by Nature, as evidenced by substantially reduced requests for Nature articles on vaccine efficacy when offered. The endorsement also reduced Trump supporters' trust in scientists in general. The estimated effects on Biden supporters' trust in Nature and scientists were positive, small and mostly statistically insignificant. I found little evidence that the endorsement changed views about Biden and Trump. These results suggest that political endorsement by scientific journals can undermine and polarize public confidence in the endorsing journals and the scientific community.

   Rather than being chastened by Zhang's findings, the editors of Nature doubled down, responding with a new editorial insisting that they will continue to endorse political candidates. "The study shows the potential costs of making an endorsement," acknowledge the editors, however adding, "But inaction has costs, too."
   Zhang responded on Twitter that he finds the new editorial's "counter-arguments and the conclusion unconvincing." As he notes, while it may well be true that the original editorial was calling out a truly disastrous situation, "there's no evidence that 'inaction has costs'—a bad situation is not 'costs' of someone's inaction unless their action can materially change the situation for the better, which is exactly what the study suggest to be *not* the case." Zhang's research shows that Nature's 2020 endorsement of Biden, in which the editors asserted that they "cannot stand by and let science be undermined," did just the opposite by significantly eroding trust in the scientific enterprise among out-party voters.

Biden and the Left's "Voter Suppression" Myth

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Will FL's Parental Rights in Education Bill Actually Turn Into a "Don't Say 'Gay'" Bill?

Reason is unhappy.

I don't know enough about K-12 education to know what's reasonable here--but we don't want to go overboard here.

   Reason is unhappy about preventing discussion of "gender identity" and "sexual orientation"...but the former is pseudoscientific--and perhaps even a pseudoconcept--and the left's orthodoxy about the latter is pretty wacky, too. See, you can switch back and forth at will between being a man and a woman--or a boy and a girl. But your "sexual orientation" (formerly: preference) is wet-wired into you and that's that!

   This is, of course, basically backwards. Your sex is wetwired in, and that's all there is to being a man or boy or woman or girl. Your sexual preferences--while, it seems, largely innate--are undoubtedly a lot more flexible than that. 

   And make no mistake about it: lots of kids will be getting straight-up leftist indoctrination on the topics.

Nevertheless, the right can't be trusted either. Though it's good that they're finally fighting back against this insanity, we can basically predict that they'll overcorrect. It's suboptimal, but it's better than pseudoscientific sexual brainwashing running amok and unopposed in schools.

Turley: National Archives Just Torpedoed Biden's "I Know Nothing" Defense

As Turley notes, it's worked surprisingly well thus far because the MSM is complicit in the lie. They simply ignore the clear and convincing evidence of influence-peddling. 

But TBF they probably don't have time to look into this when there is a literally infinite number of possible anti-Trump stories as-yet unwritten. If this UFO thing has legs, I predict a spate of Trump-alien collusion stories...

Jo Bartosch: "Barbie Kardashian" and the Grisley Reality of Self-ID

The progressive left happily accepts absurd falsehoods--and shriekily badgers the rest of society into going along with the farce. 

But you'd think they'd draw the line at things like sexually mutilating children and putting male sexual psychopaths into women's prisons.

But nope.

Jenny Holland: The Twitter Files Reveal an Elite at War With the Truth

I think this is just about as right as it could be.

I'd emphasize that the madness did not originate with Trump and was not a reaction to him--Holland only says it does to some extent. It was already in place / under way when Trump came on the political scene. He threw some fuel on the fire, I agree--who could not? But most of the reaction was to his opposition to the mad worldview of our "elites." The progressive left loses its mind at the least hint of opposition. Its reaction to Trump is exaggerated largely because they can't hurt him--they can't take his livelihood away, and he doesn't give a rat's ass what they think of him. Trump's damned Trumpiness was part of their loss of shit--but not half. Not a quarter. 

Well. Maybe a quarter...

And, of course, I say again: he was always a desperate gamble. And since he lost the election he's done nothing but hurt us, e.g. losing the Senate.

Next on his agenda, apparently: losing the 2024 Presidential election.

3 Soros Prosecutors Under Fire in VA

Despicable people.

BLM is a Scam

...in case you didn't know..

Candace Owen's "The Greatest Lie Ever Sold" gets shouted down by the left at Central Connecticut State U.

Media Literacy Education: Another Politicization Vector in Education

Pretty much any new educational initiative that isn't specifically focused on, say, wood shop, is going to have been introduced at least largely as a means for the left to further politicize education--and even if it wasn't so intended, it'll be exploited to do so.

link

link

link

link (on "SEL")

Cancel Culture and the American Soviet Mentality

link

Ukraine Tearing Up Russian Armor

Git 'em.

Political Correctness Watch: "The EEB Language Project" Lists "Harmful Terms"

EEB = Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

   The terrible, horrible, no good, very bad words (and phrases) include 'male,' 'female,' 'man,' 'woman,' 'mother,' 'father,' 'citizen science' (because harmful to non-citizens, bigot), 'gender' (because...well, it says can be confused with 'sex'), 'survival of the fittest' (because eugenics! "ableism"! social Darwinism!...huh?) and my favorites: 'blind' and 'double-blind'.

   Ten years ago, smart money would say this was a joke...

   ...but today? I guess it means that the sciences are just as stupid as the humanities and social "sciences"...

Addendum: Dawkins tells 'em to get bent.

The "Strongest Evidence Yet" for the Zoonotic Hypothesis?

I can't get behind the paywall right now, but here it is.

   I have to admit, I don't take these people seriously anymore. Their hysterical three-year campaign to stifle the--obviously more prima facie likely--lab-leak hypothesis has steadily eroded my ability to be objective about this.

   I don't care where it came from. But:

(a) I want to know the truth

but, perhaps even more importantly:

(b) we have to push back against Lysenkoism.

   The answer to this particular question is interesting and consequential. But it pales in comparison to the problem of the general politicization of science--not to mention all our other institutions--by the PC left. The Lysenkoization of science has profound implications not merely for the answer to this question, but for the answering of all scientific questions. Political correctness is the subordination of the epistemic to the political. And that means replacing conclusions supported by the evidence with conclusions preferred by leftist ideologues.

   From the beginning, the blue team has tried to make the zoonotic hypothesis, basically, true (or "true") by fiat--or, rather, on the political grounds that--somehow--LLH was racist.* Hence it was declared (as one internet interlocutor said to me) "tin-foil hat territory." Supporting the zoonotic hypothesis became a matter of political principle. So what we ended up with is what we so often end up with today: all the relevant elites and institutions lined up, striving mightily to make a case for the left-preferred answer...and anyone who questioned the madness declared crazy, racist, anti-science... Because actually considering the evidence in a politically neutral way is...totally unscientific...

   And the pattern is familiar, of course, from the debates about transgender mythology, climate change, and "systemic" racism in all its alleged varieties.

   So anyway, the zoonotic hypothesis could, of course, turn out to be true anyway. And I haven't seen any reliable reporting on the new evidence yet.

   But I have to say, I still think the LLH gets presumption.

* I refuse to play the stupid yera racist game. So I tend to pass on the many chances we have to outmaneuver the PCs at their own game. But I do think it's important to point out how impressionistic, improvisational, ad hoc that game is. When, at first, it looked like the Wuhan virus really might have come from the wet market, the left was already spinning up its racism! drives...because it's racist to think that wet markets are gross. If this had all gone slightly differently, the left would be insisting that the zoonotic hypothesis was racist. And certainly if the competing hypothesis were It started in China and It started in Belgium--or Russia!--the China one would be, like, totally racist...

The January Cochrane Review Re: Masks

Here's the bottom line: still no proof that masks work to limit the spread of the Wuhan batflu of d000m.

Bill Schneider: "Grievance Politics, Rather Than Problem-Solving, Now at the Heart of the Republican Party"

   So delusional one hardly knows where to begin...

   Preventing the brainwashing and sexual mutilation of children is solving a problem--a problem created entirely by the progressive left.

   It's even more hilarious that anyone would describe pushing back against DEI as Schneider does in the title--DEI, like "anti-"racism, is grievance politics par excellence. And it has become little more than a mechanism for institutionalizing the insane political religion of the left and promoting the ideological capture of universities. Again: stopping such madness is clearly solving a problem. 

   As for opposing our involvement in Ukraine: though I tend to disagree, that can't in any way be characterized as some kind of grievance-mongering.

   Finally: if Biden had merely not accomplished anything, he'd be ten times the President he actually is. The problem is that he's accomplished a fair bit--but none of it good. (Unless you count Ukraine. Which I might.)

   What's crazy to me is that, despite the fact that the Democratic party has completely lost its mind, almost none of the Democrats I know have abandoned it.

   Of course it's not the cleanest case, given that Trump showed up on the scene about the time that the Dems were completely losing it--and gave them a little extra nudge over the cliff... And, though he's about 1/10th as bad as the left wishes he were, I still understand that he makes it more difficult for people to jump ship.

   Though, call me crazy, I don't think that mean tweets outweigh the brainwashing and sexual mutilation of children and the Orwellianization of all our major institutions...

Ian Haworth: "How Trans Activism Became the New Religion of the Left"

Woketarianism is the religion. Transgenerism, like "anti-"racism is just one of its principle dogmas.

The Left Always Seeks To Suppress Disagreement: NYT "Trans" Dust-Up Edition

What it really comes down to is that they want to eliminate all disagreement with and questioning of their position. 

And that's because it is incoherent and can't stand up to even moderate scrutiny.

Turley: Manhattan D.A.'s Trump Prosecution is Bullshit

That's my summary.

Douthat: What It Means To Be Woke

   When criticism finally starts zeroing in on some crazy aspect of progressivism, one of progressive's go-to arguments is: that doesn't exist. Political correctness, cancel culture, Antifa--and, briefly, CRT--the ploy has been tried with them all. Another ploy: the term you're using is meaningless--or at least you don't know what it means. E.g. 'CRT' again...and 'woke.' 

   Generally the request for definition is a rhetorical ploy, of course. Whatever definition you give will be deemed incorrect. And it's not a serious question. So best not to play--just call them on their dishonest question. 

   Things like Woketarianism tend not to have pithy, perfectly precise definitions. That's not uncommon and not a problem. 

   Woketarinism is, perhaps, a little harder to define that most because it really is a sprawling, incoherent movement made up of individually often incoherent parts. It's a grab-bag of anti-liberal ideas all generally aiming to tear down the liberal order. So it's a lot.

   But if the difficulty of producing a definition were a problem, it would be more of a problem for the proponents of the view than for its opponents.

   And: 'woke' is their word. We just started using it because there was no better term laying around. Well, actually, there is: political correctness... But I guess we're not going back to that one.

   'Political correctness' was their term, too. But their view is crazy, so the term eventually took on negative connotations to match the reality. So they dumped it. Oh yeah: and then later said it had never existed... Now the same thing is happening to 'woke'...so eventually that will be dumped. And so on. A basically synonymous term is 'social justice.' That's rhetorically/tactically better, since it gets 'justice' in there. But previously they simply deemed their own position "correct," and that didn't help...so perhaps people will eventually see through 'social justice', too.

   Anyway: Douthat gets the position generally right, but leaves out the tangle of pseudophilosophy at its core--the postpostmodern mishmash of poststructuralism, postmodernism, critical theory, queer theory, radical feminism, etc.

"Ancient Judaism Recognized a Range of Genders; It's Time We Did, Too"

This is nonsense all the way through.

To take just one prominent example: becoming a eunuch--i.e. being castrated--is not a gender.

For the billionth time: the whole house of transgender cards is built on the sex/gender distinction...and they can't even get it right.

Or, rather: it's one of their strategic ambiguities. Like 'socially constructed'.

Unsurprisingly the ad misericordiam / ad baculum one-two punch gender ideologues love so much shows up: you must believe this outlandish theory because what about the children??? They're a mess! And they juuust might kill themselves if you "misgender" them! Or refuse to believe that people can change sex...or gender...or whatever it is they're talking about...by fiat. And you wouldn't want to be responsible for that...would you...?

Judge Kyle Duncan: My Struggle Session at Stanford Law School

Our universities are producing totalitarian morons.

Matt Welch: Journalists Abandoning Objectivity for "Moral Clarity" Really Just Want to Call People Immoral

Well, they probably most want to call them racist...

Anyway, yeah.

This whole "moral clarity" fad is stupid as hell, as is the anti-objectivity fad.

As is the truth not objectivity fad.

Saying that we want truth rather objectivity is rather like saying that I want money rather than a good career. In each case the latter is normally the best means to the former. Numbnut.

Moral clarity isn't analogous to objectivity. they're different kinds of things. One's a kind of outcome, one's a method.

And I suppose "moral clarity" would be nice. But, again, what the lefties pushing that really want is a thin pseudophilosophical cover story for spewing their ideology at every turn. Which includes, of course: calling people racist. 

Moral clarity is only genuinely valuable when you first have justified moral views. But by clarity they really mean certainty. But in this case, that's just a euphemism for dogmatism.

Anyway, how do we go about getting justified moral beliefs?

Anybody? Anybody?

Starts with an 'o'...

The F-4 Phantom Is Badass

link

But no, it is not beautiful.

Though it's weird to make that point by comparing it to the F-35. Aka Fat Amy. Hardly the plane renowned for its beauty.

J. K. Rowling: There's Something Dangerous About The Transgender Movement

It starts with an outright denial of obvious fact and ends with the brainwashing and sexual mutilation of children. So yeah.

GMU Econ Statement of Commitment to Academic Freedom and to Intellectual Merit

God bless Mason Econ.

J. Peder Zane: Why The Russiagate Scandal Outranks the Rest

I honestly don't understand where it ranks in the history of American political scandals.

But it was awful.

And that's before mentioning the ongoing coverup by the MSM et al.

Trump Indictment Coming?

These people are rabid with TDS.

I'm no lawyer, and I haven't been following this closely, so I could easily be wrong...very easily...

But this certainly seems, prima facie, like real banana-republic-type stuff.

I don't see any way to deny that the blue team has weaponized our institutions--including government and the legal system--against us.

Justice should be done...but this seems like a very selective application of the principle.

[Yup. Real banana-republic-type stuff, it seems.]

[But, hey, weaponization of the coercive power of the state against political opponents, mean tweets...it's six of one, half a dozen of the other, amirite?]

"Beyond Objectivity"

I just got done reading this "report." It is so goddamned awful that I hardly know what to say about it.

tl;dr:

Objectivity is white and male and dumb and we don't want to use the word anymore. Journalism aims at truth--which is different than facts. And different than accuracy. And we don't really know what we're saying here, but we do know that diversity is the really the very most important thing there ever was... Another thing that's important is social media, though.

The Stupidest Article You'll Read This Week: Masha Gessen, "Why Are Some Journalists Afraid of 'Moral Clarity'?"

Funny how all the unquestionable moral facts about which we can have "moral clarity," according to Gessen, are those propositions accepted by the left. She quotes some Lowrey fellow:

For Lowery, moral clarity is, he wrote, “first and foremost, about objective facts. Nazis are bad—objective fact. Black lives matter—objective fact. Climate change is real—objective fact. President Trump is a liar—objective fact.” In his Times Op-Ed, Lowery added that moral clarity involves naming what we observe without resorting to euphemisms, which includes labelling the President a racist. Moral clarity can also describe the journalist’s own position in relationship to the subject matter. “So often the questions that get the best/most insightful answers are posed from a place of moral clarity,” Lowery tweeted. “Questioning someone powerful from a place of ‘neutrality’ often, in practice, results in journalism that is inappropriately soft in its framing.”

So...Nazis are bad alright. Who disputes that, exactly? Black lives matter--ambiguous. True proposition taken as such. But the intention is to refer to the BLM organization and its views--which views are generally misleading or outright false. After that, things go downhill fast. Climate change...well...the climate changes...but, then, that's not what he means. And what he means is probably not an objective fact at all. President Trump is a liar? Well, he has lied. And his opponents have lied about him at least as much. And he lied less than Joe Biden. And less than the NYT lied about him. So--is he a liar? By the standards of American politics and public life, I mean? I've often argued that he's more of a bullshitter than a liar. And, as Dave Chappell has put it: at last he's an honest liar. He may bullshit a lot, but he's also laying a lot of important truths on you that no one else in D.C. will say. 

   When lefty journalists like Gessen say they want "moral clarity" instead of objectivity, what they really mean is: We don't want to have to tell you what people to our right actually think, don't want to tell you their side of the story, don't want to have to take their arguments seriously nor even state them. We just want to be able to state our ideological dogmas. And then, apparently: say "objective fact" after them... 

   And Gessen isn't really talking about "moral clarity," anyway. She's talking about ideological dogmatism. She's obviously filled to the brim with certainty...but most of it seems to be wrong. Dogmatism is the order of the day on the left. The vanguard of the progressive left is nothing if not convicted. They think they are right about everything, and everyone to their right is evil and wrong about everything. They have no time for the suggestion that they might be wrong about anything. The ideas of fallibilism and fallibility have never, apparently, entered their blue-dyed little heads. 

   Dogmatists are dangerous. Radicals are dangerous. Idiots are dangerous. Idiotic radical dogmatists...they are off the scale dangerous.

   Gessen and her ilk are dangerous--and of a type known to be dangerous. They are the last people you ever want to be in positions of power, running the show.

   I don't have the time or the heart to slog through the rest of that vat of nonsense Gessen has assembled.

   

Mary Harrington: "The Fairy-Tale Allure of Conspiracies"

Not sure whether the truth is allegorical...but it's certainly clear that a lot of what gets dismissed as "conspiracy theory" actually hits pretty close to the truth.

Biden Accuses Republicans of Wanting to Defund Police

Unbelievable.

A particularly infuriating lie.

Ukraine?

Still don't know, incidentally. I'm a military junkie with no real knowledge of the subject. That's all. I have no idea whether we should be doing what we're doing. I'm inclined to think the Biden administration is doing the obvious thing. And I have no better ideas. "Fight to the last Ukrainian," as a friend of mine puts it. Sometimes all you have are bad options.

   Surprising to me how the right has all fallen in line behind their unofficial None of our business orthodoxy. Did they actually learn something from Iraq? Seems far-fetched...

   OTOH, I'm inclined to think the right is right about this being partially our fault on account of NATO batting its eyes at Ukraine. 

   So I think Putin was pretty right about that part.

   But once the T-72s came rolling across the border, that was that. 

   No more Mr. Nice Hyperpower.

   Oh yeah, but remember: I was ostentatiously wrong about whether or not Putin really intended to attack.

   Shows what I know.

Jussie Smollette's "Hate-Crime" Hoax Assistants Re-enact the "Crime"

Dudes are pretty funny.

Lots of lefties who fell for this never recanted.

Some of these errors/hoaxes aren't so obvious. This one was like the UVA/Rolling-Stone rape hoax--obviously bullshit from the get-go. Yet progressives fell for both en masse. And anyone who stated the obvious--that the stories made no sense--was ripped into. Then, of course, when the facts become undeniable, the story largely just fades away--with no "reckoning." See also: Russiagate.

Su-27 Attacks MQ-9 Drone Over Black Sea

The Flankers dumped fuel on the Reaper, then one collided with it--perhaps while trying to buzz it. Not clear, apparently. The Reaper either crashed or we brought it down intentionally. Not clear.

Media Ignore Dems in Congress Stepping on Free Speech

link

Tucker Carlson's Chansley Tapes

This should go without saying, but: of course it's possible that the video Carlson showed of Jacob "The QAnon Shaman" Chansley was misleading. A large amount of video showing someone acting peacefully doesn't guarantee that there's not other video showing him acting violently. But the video of him acting peacefully tells us something. Furthermore, if there's video of him acting violently or threateningly, we need to see it--and, so far as I know, we haven't. And, of course: the suppression of the peaceful-Chansley video was concealed from us--and, apparently, from his lawyers. 

   Hopping up a level: we know that the left controls the media, much of the bureaucracy, and most or all of our powerful institutions. And we know that the cornerstone of the left is political correctness--the subordination of the alethic and the epistemic to the political. And we know that they lie to us relentlessly, whenever such lies advance the projects and ideas of the progressive left. Knowing what we know, we should, I think, conclude that the Chansley case is yet another case of leftist politics trumping truth. 

   Now, I don't think Chansley should have been walking around in the Capitol with a flag-spear. I'm not saying he's blameless. I'm just saying what I'm saying: that he was apparently a helluva lot more peaceful than we were led to believe. And that we were likely lied to. And that this is now routine.

   In general: I think the riot was appalling and inexcusable. It also was--to some extent--an insurrection. However, it wasn't an insurrection to any great extent. It was largely a peaceful protest, largely a violent riot, and a little bit of an insurrection. In my view, pretty much any admixture of the latter two things is beyond the pale. Nevertheless, we have to clearly understand how much of each was in the mix.

   I'm somewhat skeptical of such comparative judgments, but I do think it's instructive to compare the Capitol Riot to the May 29th 2020 BLM riot outside the White House. The events are similar, but the coverage was radically different. Of course the events are very different in that the former involved breaching/entering the Capitol, whereas the latter did not succeed in breading/entering the White House. That makes the cases importantly disanalogous.

ADF: Why "Anti-Racist" School Curricula Are Hostile To Free Speech

 

Allegedly Infallible Knowledge of "Gender Identity" Is Really A Special Case of the Left's Relativistic View That Thinking x Is So Makes x So

I'm not going to defend that claim, I'm just throwing it out there for now. As usual, the left has no very clear view of what it's trying to say. You can see their talk about "gender identity" on the model of realism + privileged access: there's a real feature of your internal terrain--your "gender identity"--and you have privileged access to it. That is: you have infallible knowledge of it. Note: the left accepts and rejects the idea of privileged access as convenient--you have infallible knowledge of "gender identity," but you can be wrong about whether you are a racist... 

   But you can also see this nonsense on the model of relativism: your thoughts and assertions about your "gender identity" create its properties. The left has long been relativistic--which is one reason they so adore the phrase ...is socially constructed. It's equivocal in exactly the way they want it to be. When they want to mean it realistically, they can say that's what they're doing; and when they want to mean it relativistically they can say that's what they're doing. Like most relativists, they tend to let the relativistic interpretation hang ostentatiously in the background--but then deny that when pressed on it. They tend to speak, for example, as if we actually created race by dreaming up the idea of race. They then move back and forth between these two interpretations:

(i) Race is real; and we created it by creating the idea.

(ii) Race is not real; it's just an idea; an idea that does not correspond to any reality.

The latter is false, but not all that weird. The former is nuts. They tend to add more confusion by sometimes interpreting 'real' in (i) as: "socially real." Another extremely confused and misleading phrase. By "socially real," they tend to mean: has social consequences. So race isn't real...er...except it is! It's Socially real! That is, basically: people believe it's real and act accordingly. 

   Which, of course, means that all of the following are also real: Bigfoot, witches, the Loch Ness Monster, phlogiston, innumerable gods, goddesses, demigods and demons, humors, ghosts...and on and on. Also: the Earth used to be flat (and still is for some), the solar system used to be geocentric (and still is for some)...etc.

   But all of these are also ways of advancing and defending the view that always hangs in the background: saying so makes things so.

   At any rate, this commitment to relativism and the say-so principle also explains the left's love of phrases like "your truth." And CRT's commitment to the authority of "story-telling" over science. And the primacy of "identification" / identifying as--to identify as F is to believe or say that you are F. And that semi-makes you F...pending an ad hoc decision about the case by the left. (Jenner et al.: yes; Dolezal: no).

   Anyway.

"At Wellesley College, a Fight Over Whether to Admit 'Trans Men' "

I can't keep gender Newspeak (ahem) straight sometimes. So at first I thought this meant that Wellesley was referenduming whether to admit men pretending to be women. But it turns out that they already admit men pretending to be women. What they're deciding is whether to admit women. Specifically: women pretending to be men. To their women's college. Which, let me emphasize, already admits both women and men. So long as the latter are pretending to be women. But admitting actual women is a bridge too far. If they are pretending to be men...

The Trans Twitter Reavers Come for Singal Again

These people are really, really, really crazy.

   It's not a coincidence that the people most unhinged from reality are also the most dogmatic, vicious and prolific. Adamant repetition of their fantastical doctrines is what takes the place of evidence and truth on the postpostmodern progressive left. It's also no coincidence that these are the people religiously devoted to social constructionism.

   Singal is obviously a good guy. And a guy who's driven by the evidence to write about transanity. He'd clearly rather be writing about something else. But one can't just look away from the mass sexual mutilation of minors merely because one would rather not see it. Well, some can. I can't. Singal can't.

   Of course, the point of cancel culture is to raise the cost of disagreeing with the left. Nobody likes to be shrieked at by a hoard of crazy cultists.

   I do get annoyed with Singal because he's one of those Oh, I'm on the left make no mistake about it critics of the left. Yes, yes. Been there, man. But eventually you've gotta accept that left does not mean good. And right does not mean bad. This is not a bug in progressivism. It's a feature.

Russia Refurbishing T-62s

Holy crap.

Where's all them Armatas we been hearin' so much about?

Get That New Washing Machine and Dishwasher While the Gettin's Good

That's what we did. We didn't want to be saddled with either of our old ones until halfway through the next Republican administration when well-functioning appliances become available again.

Biden's Executive Order on Firearms Just Tells Executive Agencies to Follow the Law

Ok. Uh. Good?

The Zombie Wage Gap

Even when a bit of progressive dogma is soundly refuted, it continues to walk the Earth, spreading the mind-virus:

We live in a world of political zombies. No matter how many times the “wage gap” is debunked, it comes back again, hungry for our brains. https://t.co/ARX91G0ilH

— Gail Heriot (@GailHeriot) March 15, 2023

[And I guess progressive kids stopped talking like "I say, father, I've been reflecting on Keynesianism and the economics of the wage gap..."]

Biden Approves Massive Oil-Drilling Project in Alaskan Arctic

I don't automatically fall on either side of such questions. They're a matter of costs and benefits, and I know nothing about this project. In general, though, there's no doubt that we need more oil, and significant doubt about climate apocalypticism. It's really the more mundane environmental stuff--e.g. migration routes--that's of more interest to me.

   So I don't know, but it seems to me that the Biden admin is doing the right thing in this case. So good on them.

   Now about that Keystone pipeline...

Insta-Glenn: Woke Colleges Are Driving Students Mad

Agreed.

   To repeat myself repeating myself: they're telling them that they have no future because of the climate apocalypse; they may discover tomorrow that they're the opposite sex/gender/whatever; their country is literally made of racism and is uniquely evil; if they're white they are (by definition!) an evil oppressor, if black, their country hates them and they are in constant danger from the police...and it doesn't even end there.

   And it's not just colleges. But they're the worst offenders.

   I do hesitate to use this argument, because I fear that it's playing the progressives' game, just one level up: it's not the falsehood of your worldview that's the problem; it's that it does [weeps] haaaarrrrmmmm....

   As if the falsehoods would be just fine if it weren't for the psychological damage they cause.

   Anyway.

Rolling Stone: Dylan Mulvaney One Year Into Girlhood [sic]

Actually, it's his zeroeth day of girlhood, as it will always be:

ON A STORMY Monday night in New York City, a girl man in a massive pink ballgown appears at the top of a spiral staircase. “Hi everyone!” she he calls as the audience below her him erupts into ecstatic applause. Her His friends fill in dozens of rows, her his father is front and center. For the next hour and change, she he will sing, dance, cry, have multiple costume changes, and be held by a family that has chosen her him again and again. It’s not her his wedding. Or her his birthday. The girl man is ["]trans["]-TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney — and it’s her his 365th 0th day of being a girl.

FIFY. 

   For the zillionth time: guys want to wear dresses and generally be feminine--even over-the-top feminine--that's their business. It's all pretty simple: sex and gender--actual gender, i.e. masculinity and femininity--don't necessarily go together. So if you're a girl but prefer to be masculine, knock yourself out. You've got no obligation to wear the clothes other people expect you to wear. But man and woman are not gender concepts, they're natural kinds--species/sex/age kinds. Women are adult female humans, as everyone has known from the beginning. If Mulvaney were merely bucking sex-specific clothing conventions, I'd be on his side--though I may not think it's the best choice aesthetically... But, instead of taking that reasonable and obvious route, transgenderism takes the opposite, the very least plausible, the most obviously false possible route: men can't wear women's clothes, because a woman is a human that wears women's clothes. The link between womanhood and dresses is a necessary one. By definition, to be a woman is to wear women's clothes... So long as you're fine with circular definitions...and a complete disregard for reality...you can go that route instead...

   In a way this is an experiment--or a case study in one of the central tenets of the postpostmodern progressive left. And the hypothesis is: if you just keep saying something over and over and over again, you can make people think it's true. And, according to the pomo-prog left, there's no difference between everyone thinking something is true and its being true...

FL Dems Accidentally Admit DeSantis Is Right About Pr0n in Schools

link

Greta Thunburg Deletes Tweet about 2023 Deadline and the End o' the Whirrrrrled...

It didn't exactly say that the world would end in 2023. But close enough. It said that it was all over if we didn't stop using fossil fuels by 2023. Dumb enough for government work.

   This is the thing, see: the left keeps setting such deadlines, but never acknowledges that they pass. As I've screeded many times: they'll keep setting 'em. And they'll keep passing. And they'll never say either of the following things:

(a) Hey, maybe we really are being alarmist...

(b) Whelp, we missed our window. Might as well party like it's 1999...

   There's no climate crisis. There's no existential threat from fossil fuels. It's all quasi-religious, eschatological, end-times hysteria. 

   I'm a Lomborgian/Currian/Muskian: we really ought to pay attention to the possibility of anthropogenic climate change. It could be real--and could be a Really Big Thing. But as of now: we just don't know. Nevertheless, we should probably start figuring out how to move away from so much fossil fuel use--because if we start now, we might make real inroads by the end of the century. And that better be good enough, cause it's not gonna happen much quicker than that. So that means: more natural gas* right now, and lotsa nuclear in the long run. Deal with it. But if you think that the USA is going to cut back by half in ten years, you're utterly daft. And if you think that the USA even going to net zero, by itself, is going to make a big difference, then you're just not paying attention. 

   This may not be a problem at all. But it might be. And if it is, it had better be a long-term kind of problem. Because if it isn't, we're screwed. If the whole world has to go back to, say, 1980 levels of CO2 emissions by 2050...well...might as well party. Cause it's not going to happen.

*And that spells f-r-a-c-k-i-n-g, kidz!

Funny How The Basketball Season

Just ended without a tournament this year.

I just can't keep up with all these changes...NIL...NIT...teleportation portal...the Mondo burger.

Judge Kyle Duncan on the Stanford Law Shout-Down Incident

This is the left.

It's not a bug, it's a feature.

"THERE IS NO SECRET PLAN: FIRST THEY CAME FOR TRANSPEOPLE"!!!!!111111

Subtitle: "American is sick with fascism"

The actual complaint: the Republicans are trying to stop them from brainwashing and sexually mutilating children on the basis of (trans)gender pseudoscience.

False Claims Suit Against Fox News

link

   I don't know anything about such laws...but it's pretty hard to believe that Fox alone could be vulnerable to such charges while the MSM continues to pour out laughable falsehoods virtually unchecked. NYT got a Pulitzer for its role in creating--not just reporting on--the Russiagate hoax... Though they did seem to believe what they were writing at least somewhat. So that's more on the side of stupidity and dogmatism, I suppose. But that can't excuse the "1619 Project," which even they, by now, know is bullshit. I suppose the story there is that there's not sufficient direct harm to identifiable individuals? 

   Anyway, Fox and the rest of the MSM lie about different things. But Fox is the only organization lying for the right. I guess the torrent of lies about Trump from NYT, CNN, WaPo, et al. were/are different? Those lies probably cost us more in that they gave us Biden... But I have no idea what the legal situation is like. And, once again, I have no particular inclination to defend Fox. I just don't see how the (rest of the?) MSM gets away with so much more, so routinely, and without attracting nearly so much scorn.

   MSNBC is worse than Fox--or was last time I checked in with either of them. Didn't Maddow's show defend against a lawsuit basically by saying that it wasn't news and no one could possibly think it was? 

The Dishonest, Disastrous Invasion of Iraq, 20 Years On

Idiotic.

And obviously idiotic at the time.

Michelle Goldberg: Right's Obsession With Wokeness is a Sign of Weakness

facepalm

I'm not sure where I'd even start with that. 

Styxhexenhammer666 Hits All the Capitol Riot Nails Right on the Head

Naomi Wolf's Apology to Conservatives

It's not completely clear what happened during the Capitol riot. We know there was violence and vandalism--everyone acknowledges that, and everyone condemns it. What Democrats suppressed, obviously, was evidence that much of what happened was peaceful--for which the protesters don't get a lot of credit...because such things are supposed to be peaceful... Democrat prosecutors seem to have lied about the actions of Jacob Chansley--the "QAnon Shaman." Conservatives have been saying all along that the prosecutors are out of control, and that the protesters/rioters are being treated unfairly, prosecuted excessively and sentenced too harshly. Many have been kept in solitary confinement, apparently. It certainly sounds as if they are being mistreated and treated unfairly...but all that information is coming from the right. So I can't be sure about it. Given the madness that's seized the left generally, I'd be a bit surprised if it hadn't affected the riot trials at all. We know that it affected the treatment of the BLM/Antifa rioters--they were treated with kid gloves. They laid siege to a federal building in Portland for 100 days, using weapons including industrial-grade fireworks and laser pointers against police. Few were prosecuted--and those reluctantly...

   But Wolf is also fessing up to all the other leftist lies she fell for before seeing the light--Russiagate and the Steele Dossier, Hunter Biden's Laptop, etc. Honestly, I don't understand how so many Dems and (at least former) liberals have taken so long to see what's going on. Some never have. Undoubtedly some never will.

   But, anyway. Good on Wolf for admitting all this to herself--and everyone else. Not an easy thing to do.

J. K. Rowling Was Right All Along About Transgender Ideology

Yep.

A reminder about Spencer Case: When Philosophers Fail To Do Their Jobs.

   As I've been saying for ten years (or however long it's been): the central case here is an open and shut one. It is simply not in question: a woman is an adult, female human. A girl is a juvenile female human. Men: adult male humans. Boys: juvenile male humans. Everybody knows this. 

   Adults are free to live as they like. That can mean e.g.: men dressing in womanly ways, etc. People are free to lie about their sex, delude themselves about it, whatever. But the idea that dressing or "identifying" as a woman is what makes someone a woman is simply absurd.

   Should men be able to use women's restrooms and locker rooms? Should they be able to play in women's sports divisions? Should hospitals, universities, etc. have to play along with women who insist they're men? Those are separate questions. But we should start the discussion of them by drawing a line in the terminological (and to some extent conceptual) sand with respect to 'woman,' 'man,' etc.

   The public has been badgered into pretending that (trans)gender ideology is a reasonable view--in fact, that it's now the orthodoxy. In fact, that it should be treated with kid gloves--reverentially, even. Some have even been badgered into believing it. And, of course, many on the left are true believers. But it's false. Absurdly false.

  Philosophy, which actually could have been some help for once, has been ideologically captured. It seems to split fairly evenly into two groups: (a) true believers and (b) those who timidly refuse to contradict the left--at least in public. 

   Anyway.

   Yes, J. K. Rowling has been right all along. Weird that it takes a celebrity to play such a role.

ESG Will Lose You Money

To the surprise of absolutely no one.

Taibbi: The Twitter Files: The Censorship-Industrial Complex

link

This, ultimately, is the most serious problem with the Censorship-Industrial Complex.
Packaged as a bulwark against lies and falsehood, it is itself often a major source of disinformation, with American taxpayers funding their own estrangement from reality.

and:

In the digital age, this sprawling new information-control bureaucracy is an eerie sequel to the dangers Dwight Eisenhower warned about in his farewell address...

Pence: Biden's Budget Denies Reality

link

"Most View 'Woke' As Positive," or: I Guess Even the Democrats Realize They're Going to Lose...

Given the torrent of idiocy that pours from the left these days, it's a little weird to complain about this minor drip of stupidity...but I found it pretty funny. You're really scraping the bottom of the rhetorical barrel if the best you've got is "b-but...most people think this word m-means something p-positive..."

   I guess even the Woketarians realize that they're going to lose.

Most Disappointing Season Ever Finally Comes To An End

Basketball is a stupid game.

Public Unions vs. The People

I don't have a settled opinion on this.

"Why Are We Still Arguing About Masks?"

tl;dr: despite what the stupid new metastudy says, MASKS WORK BIGOT.

   THE science, you see, cannot be overturned by mere, y'know, science...

   My own view remains what it's basically been most of the time since the batflu hit: it's hard to believe masks do nothing...but hard to believe doesn't count for a lot. The evidence that they do work simply hasn't been good enough. Sure, we were deluged by it...but, again, we were obviously being bullshitted by a media and public health establishment that insists that every leftist dogma is unquestionable THE SCIENCE. Trying my best to control for that, I never saw enough to convince me that wearing masks was worth it. Add to that that: if you're being lied to and commanded to act in accordance with the lies, this constitutes reason to do the opposite of whatever you're being told to do... Not always sufficient reason...but always some reason...

Ashley Rindsberg: The Treason of the Science Journals

   Well, here's something I was wrong about: the right was right about Fauci.

   Though I've been right about the lab-leak hypothesis all along, to be clear...

   Look, one of the things even laypeople can tell about this sort of thing is: the progressive establishment goes all-in for its PC orthodoxies. It was clear from early on that they were irrationally pro-vax,* pro-mask, and anti-lab-leak. In each case, there was some evidence on their side. But in each case it was clear that they were lying/cheating. The media lying/cheating is one thing. But it clearly went beyond that. The lying and cheating is now being done by scientists as well. In fact, the ideological capture of science itself is well underway. 

   The same thing has, of course, happened with transgenderism and (trans)gender ideology. It is now fairly routine to see scientists--or alleged scientists--insisting that transgenderism is simple plain fact--"settled science" in their vernacular.

   The same thing is happening with respect to anthropogenic climate change. Given what I can understand of the debate, there clearly seems to be appreciable room for doubt. Combine this with the fact that the left is religiously committed to climate apocalypticism, and that the progressive (science/media/university) complex routinely lies and errs about things like the relation between climate and weather...and...well...here's the thing: AGW and its likely effects are clearly being exaggerated. I'd be willing to bet significant money on it. It's the same pattern we're seeing basically everywhere on the left. Oh and: the lies are lucrative. Climate hysteria--like DEI/racism hysteria--is a way to channel money to leftists and leftist causes. And that's on top of the religio-political incentives...

   None of that's to say that warming isn't a concern. I'm concerned about it, alright. There are grounds for concern. But hysteria is a different matter entirely. 

* After they stopped their initial shrieking about how they would never take the Trump vax, that is... They switched from I'll never take it to You have to take it, too pretty much instantaneously.

ESG: The Gleichschaltung is Coming for Your Retirement Account

Because totalitarians gonna totalize. It is not permissible that any aspect of society remain unleftified.

Leftified investments used to be a TIAA-CREF option that VA professors were not permitted to choosed. I objected to that. At the time, I was interested in choosing that option. Though I wouldn't consider that now, I think others should be able to choose whichever options are offered. If they want to throw their money away on such stuff, they should be able to. 

   But I don't want to throw my money away on such stuff. Maximize my returns and then I'll decide whether and how to give my money away.

   Of course this is just one of the innumerable ways Democrats find to fund leftist causes and organizations under the table.

The Push to Effectively Ban Research on Race and IQ

On the Nathan Cofnas affair.

I was only dimly aware of this when it happened.

Hysterical Lysenkoism is becoming the order of the day.

Cofnas is arguing that such research should be permissible--a no-brainer. The title of the paper is:

Research on group differences in intelligence: A defense of free inquiry

But free inquiry is exactly what the Lysenkoist left does not want, of course. What it wants is you to shut up and believe what they tell you to believe.

Many philosophers and scientists called for a retraction of his peer-reviewed paper, called for his "cancellation" and for the resignation of the journal's editor. 

Sane philosophers--what few seem to remain--were generally silent.

The semi-official orthodoxy of the progressive left now is: research that is in any way politically incorrect must not be permitted. Which is no surprise: that's what political correctness is, after all.

[I stay away from The Daily Nous--I'm depressed enough about philosophy as it is. But here's David Wallace slapping around Mark Alfano, the point man of the anti-inquiry faction, in the comments.]

Rufo: "Racism in the Name of 'Anti-Racism' "

link

Colin Wright: "Are There More Than Two Sexes?"

Of course not.

   Leftist, Lysenkoist "scientists" are using the same strategy--and in fact the very same argument forms--here that they've been using with respect to race for at least ten years: knock down outrageously absurd straw men that no one has ever accepted, make a few proclamations about "social justice" and declare victory. 

   Wright does a better job controlling his outrage than I would. Here's the thing: no one has ever thought that all males have exactly the same characteristics. And no one has ever thought that there was exactly one phenotypic difference between males and females. Nor that there's exactly one genetic difference. 

   Biology: how does it work?

   It takes an astonishing combination of low IQ and intellectual dishonesty to produce such a collection of sophistries. For posterity, here's the info:

Multimodal models of animal sex: breaking binaries leads to a better understanding of ecology and evolution

 J. F. McLaughlin, Kinsey M. Brock, Isabella Gates, Anisha Pethkar, Marcus Piattoni Alexis Rossi, Sara E. Lipshutz

You'll note that they've adopted the convention of putting 'sex' in scare quotes, like so: "sex". This is the convention Lysenkoists about race adopted a decade or so ago. Like so: "race." I expect we'll get the same kind of equivocation re: sex that they've adopted re: race. To wit:  race is a "social construct!" This has the following advantage: it equivocates (inter alia) between meaning (a) the thing in question isn't real and...(b) something far more ridiculous: it is real!..."socially real"... Since "x is socially constructed" can mean something like 8-10 different things (I counted once), it's a very handy equivocator to have in your bag of tricks. Great for motte-ing and bailey-ing--at which the left excels. Depending on how the argument is going for them, leftist can speak as if race is a fiction--until it's handy not to. And, of course: like 50% of the 75% of college professors who profess to study race don't particularly want to be studying a fiction. So it's handy to be able to proclaim--as they do as convenient--that "calling x a social construct doesn't mean it doesn't exist." Well, that's the thing. Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't... If there's a more deeply confused quasi-philosophical pseudo-concept than socially constructed, I haven't stumbled across it.

   Oh and: by "socially real," they mean: has social consequences. So Bigfoot is socially real. As are witches. And ESP. If someone believes in x, x probably has social consequences. "Socially real" actually means: not real. It's like saying Oh, ghosts are real alright--psychologically real...

   Anyway. 

   That this kind of madness is not only being tolerated, it's flourishing--and in science--should horrify everyone. 

   Supposing sanity someday returns, there should be a new branch of the Smithsonian dedicated to insuring that we never forget the madness. And never forget that scientists have turned out to be no more immune to the bullshit of the humanities than humanists have been.

Trump vs. the Media in a Nutshell: It Comes From Chi-Na

Say what you will about Trump--and there's one helluva lot to say--he's way, way, way less crazy than the popomo progressive left/MSM:

They Lied To You About The Capitol Riot

By this point, you should realize that you only see the parts of videos that they want you to see:

Jimmy Dore on Jon Stewart on COVID

Of course Stewart's been a good boy since his one flirtation with truth.

Colbert is an abject idiot who'd evaporate if he ever so much as peeked outside the boundaries of progressive groupthink.

PC COVID: When the Grauniad Admits a Lab-Leak is a Real Possibility, the Official Progressive Storyline is on the Way Out

This is my favorite bit:

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the search for the origin of the virus has been distorted by politics on many fronts: from China’s restrictions on the release of scientific information and refusal to cooperate with international investigations, to former president Donald Trump’s “China virus” and “kung flu” slurs, to the unfounded and continued branding of the lab-leak hypothesis as a fringe conspiracy theory by influential news organizations and high-profile scientists – including some with financial and research ties to the Wuhan labs at the center of the lab-leak hypothesis.

So let's get this straight, shall we?:

It's bothsides, of course!... Because the only two options are: (a) entirely the fault of the right and (b) hey, well, y'know, this is really bothsides, isn't it?...

...with the left and its friends, allies and heroes doing the following:

Left and buddies:

China:

Refused to release scientific information

Refused to cooperate with international investigations

U.S. progressive/elite establishment (e.g. media, scientists)
Brand LLH a "fringe conspiracy theory"
[Oh and uh..censored discussion of it...branded those who did discuss it racist...weird to stop with this radically short and incomplete list...]

 

 And on the other side:

Right:

Trump said 'Kung Flu' once. Oh and 'China Virus.' 

So, y'know...bothsides...

The massive, well-funded, massively influential U.S. progressive/elite establishment--"including some with financial and research ties to the Wuhan labs at the center of the lab-leak hypothesis"--engages in a full-court press to brand LLH some kind of crackpot racist conspiracy theory, censors it, banning the mere suggestion that it might be true for social media, spewing disinformation about it for three years...

...but Trump said. 'China virus.'

Which, incidentally, is a perfectly legitimate way to refer to the thing.

Because it comes from China

Though I prefer 'Wuhan virus.' 

(Listen to the parade of strawmen by the hysterical reporter prior to Trump's response, incidentally. It's a hoot.)

   "Kung Flu" is a joke, incidentally. Maybe you think it's in poor taste. But IDGAF what you think about it, you'd have to be outright insane to think that it constitutes some kind of counterbalance to the left's madness and lies about all this.

   As I've written before, it tells you a lot about the contemporary PC left that, as the virus was initially sweeping across the globe, lefties were hysterically shrieking about how RAZZZIZZZT it was to....use ordinary, long-established naming conventions to determine how to refer to the thing... According to which it should be called what it was originally called: Wuhan virus.

   Finally, because this is so idiotic I'm actually getting mad about it: there is no possible way, no matter how you look at it, that any even vaguely sane person can think that 'China virus' is a "slur." You would have to be actually insane to think that.

Schools are Pushing "Gender" Pronouns and Hiding It From Parents

link

There's a sense in which the springboard for all of this is the fact that gender ideologues misunderstand their own central concept. The genders are masculine and feminine. You could add androgynous, but it's really a borderline case of masculinity and femininity. Masculinity and femininity are behavioral categories that are only contingently connected to sex. Which is, of course, biological. Contra gender ideology, being masculine doesn't make you male--ergo it doesn't make you a man or a boy. A masculine woman is a woman. To be on the borderline is to be androgynous--not "nonbinary." Individuals cannot be "nonbinary"--only distributions can be. 

   But that's largely what's up with this nonsense. Being androgynous was never exciting. Changing to the trendy term 'nonbinary' really made the idea take off. 

   The left is all about words, words, words... And they have a real talent for coming up with stupid, annoying ones. And for manipulating and controlling language. As for making actual sense...not their forte...

Carolina 57 - Duke 62

Most irritating basketball season ever.

Go Tar Heels

That is all.

McSweeney's Kinda Sorta Criticizes the Left

...and when the left kinda sorta loses McSweeney's...

Obviously the censorship of Roald Dahl is coming from the left. Because it is. And because that's basically where all the censorship comes from these days.

Unless you count taking PC groomer pr0n out of grade schools, of course...

So actually: McSweeny's did criticize the left. 

Though of course they didn't say that explicitly. 

And, of course, they did say this:

At the moment, the right wing of the US is censoring books. They are fighting to keep non-white and LGBTQ+ narratives from kids. They are pulling books from shelves. They are villainizing teachers and librarians.
You are no better than these right-wing assholes.

This is one version of the only allowable criticism of the left: what you did is like the right!

Also there's the Holy Alphanumeric+ string in there...minus the '2'. WHERE'S THE '2' YOU FUCKING BIGOTS???????

Anyway.

Oh and: no. It is not true that "The problem with censorship is that it has no end." That's not the problem at all. Even censorship with a clear and definite end is wrong. It's wrong when the left does it, even! And not just because the right might someday do it to. You morons.

   The fact that McSweeny's would never consider actually making direct fun of anything of consequence on the left is a testament to the strength of progressive groupthink and political correctness. Imagine some Christian sect had declared that men could become women on account of the illimitable power of God...and that He could even make them women in their essence without making them women in their accidents. Gender transubstantiation. McSweeney's...in fact, the entire MSM+...would never, ever, ever stop viciously, mercilessly ridiculing the idea. As well they shouldn't.

  But. despite the objective ridiculousness of basically everything on the contemporary progressive left...hysterical climate apocalypticism, ceaseless, indiscriminate accusations of every imaginable -ism and -phobia, feminist glaciology, gender mysticism, drag queen story hour and all the rest...and despite the fact that McSweeney's exists basically to ridicule the ridiculous...all the sacred bull remains ungored.

   McSweeny's is a hitter. And the progressive left just keeps giving them slow, fat, juicy pitches right down the middle...and they just keep striking out watching. 

   That's how profound is the political correctness, fear and solidarity on the contemporary left.

   Which is why the Babylon Bee is funnier now than any of the ideologically captured former iconoclasts of the left. Looking at you, The Onion...