Fake Hate Crimes, Episode MCXVIII: BLM "Activist" Lies About a Comment by a White UVA Student

Gosh, a fake "hate crime."

So hard to believe...

"How Gay Men Saved Us From" "Mpox"

Monkeypox, that is.

Absolutely unbelievable. The NYT is a propaganda rag that occasionally does news.

Gay men, you see, are not responsible for the spread of monkeypox! Oh no! Perish the thought! Just as they bore no responsibility for the spread of AIDS!

But they are responsible for saving us from monkeypox!

Responsibility for bad things: no.

Responsibility for good things: of course!

Even if the good thing is..uh...somehow...like...not doing the bad thing quite so much...or...whateverTF it is that the NYT is trying to say here...

Oh, sorry--Mpox, of course! Because a mainly gay disease can't have a vaguely insulting-sounding name...that would be stigma or something...

Jesus Christ. How anyone can remain a progressive in the face of this kind of embarrassing bullshit I do not know. Pure, unmitigated cringe. This sort of bullshit has actually made me less sympathetic to the "victim" groups the left so passionately wants to valorize.

Jamelle Bouie Is Always Wrong: Episode MCXVIII

It's like his superpower.

Michael Ramirez: My Drivel

link

Trump lost the 2020 election.
Even if you gave him all the electoral votes from the three closest contested states, he would fall short of the 270 votes needed to win.
When I was at IBD, one of the things we looked for was voter fraud. We were convinced it was happening. What we found was these problems occurred during every election, but not to the extent that it significantly altered the outcome.
Republican claims of a stolen election are complete folly, in the same vein that liberal claims of voter suppression are total nonsense.
Elections should be structured to take the controversy out of something that should be simple and straightforward.
Ballot harvesting should be illegal.
Drop boxes should be dropped.
We should have in-person voting, with photo ID, proof of residency, and signature validation. There can be some exceptions for those who absolutely cannot vote in person, but those accommodations should be made as the exception and not the rule.
If you go to a liquor store, you have to show an I.D. to buy alcohol. The same goes to take a flight somewhere, using a credit card, or to simply check out a book. Voting is significantly more important.
Democrats say elections are important, that every vote should count, and elections are one of the most important elements to retaining our democracy.
I agree. But it is meaningless if you cannot guarantee a credible conclusive result.
Voting should be incontrovertible, not convenient.
Legitimizing elections is in the best interests of those who win, regardless of party affiliation. Validating these elections makes it easier to govern. It benefits all parties.
Mike Lindell seems like a nice guy. I met him once at CPAC. Unfortunately, the $5 million award is just the tip of the iceberg. A $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit from Dominion still lies ahead. If the Fox News settlement is any indication of where that suit will end up, things look bad. I read recently that he had to take out a $10 million loan to fight these defamation lawsuits.
It is a shame that monetary, emotional, political capital, and limited resources are being expended to support nonsensical election drivel from the past. It would be better spent on sensible election reform that will make a difference in the future.
There could easily be a sweep for the GOP in the House, Senate and the Presidency in the next election. Opportunities await wise, level-headed Republicans in 2024. But there is danger ahead, and not from some imaginary force that stole the 2020 election… this one is REAL. And this one can do REAL damage to Republican election chances.
It is the conspiracy, election fraud movement promoted by Charlatans and opportunists for ratings, promotion, popularity, and profit. It is undermining the integrity and credibility of the GOP, and alienating voters.
It turned the “Red Wave” into a red tide.
If the GOP is to succeed, they will have to move forward and put these conspiracies to bed… with or without their MyPillow.

The Abortion Debate Has Hamstrung the Right

Agree.

Marcus Paige, Comin' Home

Excellent news.

Robert Smalls, American Hero....The Movie????

If you've been around the blog for awhile, you know I'm a fan of Robert Smalls...

Holy crap, they might make a movie of his life.

!

When you think about it, it's downright baffling that this hasn't been done before.

Seriously, I'm donating to this project. I'd pay a coupla hundred bucks to see that story on the big screen... In fact, I'd even go and see it on the big screen...which I rarely do anymore.

"Trans" Man Beats 14k Women in UK Marathon; He Competed as a Regular Man in a Marathon Just a Few Months Previously

link

My favorite part is where he yells "girl power"...and also when the New York Post refers to him as "she"...

Taibbi: Report on the Censorship-Industrial Complex

link.

As noted in Lowenthal’s thread, the story of the #TwitterFiles and the Censorship-Industrial Complex is “really the story of the collapse of public trust in experts and institutions, and how those experts struck back, by trying to pool their remaining influence into a political monopoly.” The losers in any advancement of this story would include anyone outside the monopoly, and they can be on either the right or the left. The intense negative reaction by traditional press to the #TwitterFiles stories published to date is rooted in a feeling of betrayal. The new media leaders see themselves as doing the same service police officers in the stop-and-frisk era called “order maintenance,” pouncing on visible signs of discord or disruption. They’re gatekeepers, and the #TwitterFiles — classic old-timey journalism that assumes the public has a right to know things — represents an unacceptable breach of the perimeter.

Taibbi and many others keep trying to make this a bipartisan problem. But as the left itself admits, it's mainly the right that has lost trust in [pseudo-]experts. And that is mainly because the left has taken over all the relevant institutions, including universities, accrediting agencies, professional organizations, etc. So "experts" are now basically spout the politically correct dogmas of the moment. And any expert who doesn't will be dismissed as a kook and face de-credentialling, "de-platforming," and "cancelation." 

   But honestly, of all the amazing lunacy the left has pulled over the last decade, the weaponization of "misinformation" and "disinformation" (and don't forget the latest!: "malinformation"!) is one of the most amazing parts of the story.

Galston: The GOP is Out of Step on Abortion

True.

DIE Comes for Your Pets, or: Vets Go Woke

LOL "brave spaces."

What bullshit.

I got way, way down into the story about alleged racism against black vets and only found one actual story, which, though misrepresented as a story about racism, was actually just the opposite. It involved a white women telling a black vet, basically, that he was probably great at his job to have overcome all the racism. 

Anyway. No sense wasting any more time on that.

Laptop "Russian Disinformation" Letter By 51 Former Intelligence Officials--Campaign Interference?

Um...yes.

At first it just seemed like now-routine Democrat dirty tricks. 

Call me jaded, but, after Russiagate, nothing they do surprises me.

But now that we know that Morell organized it...and he knew it was bullshit...you'd think there'd be some legal repercussions, at least for him...

Probably we'll just get another big red speech by Biden about "white supremacy" or leprechauns or something.

We now have a multi-tier "justice" system. Trump gets dragged into court on trumped-up charges, while Dems get away with outright crimes (see e.g. Michael Sussman).

MSNBC Repeats 68 Lies 279 Times in 11 Minutes

 

Greenwald: The Loss of Tucker Carlson is the Loss of a Rare Independent Voice in Media

link

Tucker's a wild man, and his recent JFK and UFO shows were just plain loony.

But I agree with Greenwald about the claim in the title. Not sure how one could disagree.

Of course independent doesn't necessarily mean right or good. But Carlson is also often--though not always, of course--one or both of those things.

Progressivism is a soft totalitarian movement. It aims to exert control over what we see, hear, say and think. Carlson was an impediment to that--whatever else you could say about him. 

This is also another indication that Fox is moving leftward. Whatever my disagreements with them, that's obviously cause for concern. Though it may just be a natural movement toward the fat part of the viewership curve after the de facto demise of CNN.

Tree Equity, Bigot!

link

Oh and: facepalm.

Oh and: trees are great. But these people have an ability to make even good ideas sound bad by slapping their all-purpose, stupid-ass jargon on them.

Though, to be clear: this isn't going to reduce crime, and no one can seriously believe it will.

Though, in the long run, having trees around is better than not having trees around. So, y'know...couldn't hurt...

The Craziest Thing You'll Read Since the Craziest Thing You Read Yesterday; or: The Return of Sarah Jones; or: "Will Democrats Fight for Trans People?"

Wow.

Seems like somebody's off her meds, maybe...

If you don't affirm that some women have penises, and you don't want government-funded sexual mutilation of children, YOU'RE AN OPPRESSOR, JACK.

Clown.

World.

Project Veritas Video Shows Docs Prescribe Puberty-Blockers to Children as Young as Eight

Remember how this never happens?

Trump vs. DeSantis: Feelings Have Consequences

shrug

   On the one hand, feelings are important, and definitely play a role in such disagreements. OTOH, feelings are largely what drives the unhinged progressive left--really bad feelings combined with, basically, pseudo-reasoning. 

   Similarly with Trump--though the feelings he marshaled were, I think generally good. Not entirely so, of course. But generally so. 

   It doesn't do much good to fret about this, since I have no control over it. Currently DeSantis is, obviously, our best bet. No plausible Democrat is an option, of course, and won't be unless/until the progressive fever breaks. I shudder to think about Trump--he sounds like he's lost it. But, then, he sounded like a nut before, but ended up being surprisingly good, in actual fact, at the job. I guess Youngkin isn't running. Ramaswamy? I don't really know much about him, but everything I hear him say is good...or was, until this abortion is murder business. Which, of course, it might be...but, right now, I'm more interested in trying to save the nation than in figuring that one out.

   I am not looking forward to this next election cycle. If not for the Trumpian monkey wrench in the GOP gears, the Dems would be facing an ass-whoopin' of world-historic proportions. Which might--just might--slap some sense back into them. 

   But that's probably not what's going to happen, is it?

Gerard Leval: Progressives Convinced Us to Get a Gun

link

One thing you can say about progressivism: it's really good at creating non- (and anti-) progressives. It's a self-reductio.

Also, here's a concept you need to be hip to: anarcho-tyranny.

Kay S. Hymowitz: The Transgender Children's Crusade

I tend to focus on the fact that gender ideology is incoherent and patently false...but it's also horrifically destructive of the lives of children. And the two together...my God. Anyone with more than half a brain and unblinded by quasi-religious ideology can see that it is utter madness. It is so absurd that you basically have to want to be fooled by it in order to be.

   Except for kids. Kids are stupid. It's part of being a kid. It's not their fault, and they don't deserve this.

   History will not be kind to the people advancing and defending this insanity.

Kimball on The Garland, Blinken, Morell Morass

It's chilling to think about the fact that Garland was almost a Supreme. Though I suppose he might have been a better Justice than AG. I was generally in favor of his appointment because of his reputation as a moderate and because McConnell's arguments against considering him didn't seem generalizable. Of course at that time I still assumed that HRC would be the nominee, win the election, and reverse the trajectory of the Democrats. Because I was really, really stupid I guess...

   Anyway, Kimball:

   But again, look on the bright side. Garland will soon be gone. And remember, he almost made it to the Supreme Court. Obama nominated him in the waning days of his administration. But Donald Trump had other ideas and—let’s give credit where credit is due—Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) made sure that Garland’s nomination got lost when Republicans held the majority. I am no fan of McConnell’s, but I try to remember to say a little prayer for him whenever I list my intentions. By scotching Garland’s ascension to the Court, McConnell did the country a huge favor.
   I say Garland will “soon” be gone. Most of my readers will assume I mean on or about January 20, 2025, when the next Republican president assumes office.
   It might take that long. But recent developments have me wondering whether he might make his congé even earlier.
   A few days ago, it was reported that an unnamed, senior IRS special agent was seeking whistle-blower status in connection with the ongoing investigation of First Son Hunter Biden, who has serious tax problems.
   According to a letter from the agent’s lawyer to several House and Senate committees, the agent laid out multiple examples of “preferential treatment and politics improperly infecting decisions and protocols that would normally be followed by career law enforcement professionals in similar circumstances if the subject [i.e., Hunter Biden] were not politically connected.” The agent’s allegations also “contradict sworn testimony to Congress by a senior political appointee” and “involve failure to mitigate clear conflicts of interest in the ultimate disposition of the case” against Hunter Biden.
   An “unnamed senior political appointee,” eh? Well, that unnamed status didn’t last long. On Thursday, the New York Post reported that the international man of mystery was none other than Merrick Garland himself.
   Back in March, Garland had insisted to Congress that the investigation into Hunter Biden’s extracurricular activities was free from political interference. David Weiss, the U.S. Attorney investigating the case, had full autonomy, Garland said. Quoth Garland, “The U.S. attorney has been advised that he has full authority to make kind of those referrals you’re talking about or to bring cases in other jurisdictions if he feels it is necessary, and I will assure that if he does, then he will be able to do that.”
   It was not reported whether that claim was greeted with titters. I assume that the echoing claim from the White House, that the investigation would be “free from any political interference by the White House,” was greeted by at least restrained and incredulous laughter.

The Craziest Thing You Will Read Today: Sarah Jones, "Children Are Not Property: The Idea That Underlies The Right-Wing Campaign For 'Parents' Rights'"

Wow.

I mean...just...wow.

That is...some decidedly crazy shit right there.

   I mean, I don't think these are easy questions...and even just from the perspective of trying to limit the brainwashing and sexual mutilation of children that's associated with "transgender" ideology, the power of parents needs to be limited. There are damn few four-year-olds out there wanting to be "trans"... We're dealing here with something similar to Munchausen By Proxy. And, as in that case, it's mostly about the mothers...

   But anyway.

   My own family was no picnic. And everybody acknowledges that there are points at which others have to intervene.

   But as the left gets crazier and crazier, and more and more overtly totalitarian, and so more and more perversely, Leninishly focused on ideologically capturing the children...well, once again, the conservatives turn out to plausibly be right: the family might just be one of humanity's last, best bastions against such crazy. Even what with all the crazy in families themselves.

   God knows where that crazy woman got the idea that conservatives think their kids are their property. Though I'll bet there are some religious extremists out there who think something roughly practically equivalent.

    Conservative have long said that the left hates families and churches basically because they represent loci of organization and authority that the state can't easily displace or control. I've got no kids and no religion, so I don't have a personal dog in this fight. But the unhinging of the left that's occurred over the last ten years has--obviously--made me reassess a lot of ideas I previously derided.

   Here are some relevant ones that I didn't deride, but didn't sufficiently appreciate:

For the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means, as we have seen, the power of some men to make other men what they please. In all ages, no doubt, nurture and instruction have, in some sense, attempted to exercise this power. But the situation to which we must look forward will be novel in two respects. In the first place, the power will be enormously increased. Hitherto the plans of educationalists have achieved very little of what they attempted and indeed, when we read them—how Plato would have every infant ‘a bastard nursed in a bureau’, and Elyot would have the boy see no men before the age of seven and, after that, no women,and how Locke wants children to have leaky shoes and no turn for poetry —we may well thank the beneficent obstinacy of real mothers, real nurses, and (above all) real children for preserving the human race in such sanity as it still possesses. But the man moulders of the new age will be armed with the powers of an omnicompetent state and an irresistible scientific technique: we shall get at last a race of conditioners who really can cut out all posterity in what shape they please.

Biden Admin Will Score Military for "Environmental Justice"

Madness.

Biden Creates "Office of Environmental Justice"

The wokefication of the federal government proceedeth apace...

"Justice" in the mouths of leftists of course means "social justice," which actually means that which is in accordance with leftist identity politics and quasi-Marxist economics.

Biden's Corrupt Web Unraveling Before Our Eyes

Remember how Russiagate dominated the headlines for two years, then was conclusively debunked, then turned out to be the biggest political dirty trick of my lifetime, a fabrication of the Democrats, the MSM, and the FBI...but that last part was suppressed by the same media that did the dirty trick? 
   Then remember how, a month before the 2020 election, Hunter Biden's laptop emerged revealing the Biden family's web of influence peddling with China? But then that was falsely decreed Russian disinformation by 50 former intelligence officials and the media (and, of course, the Democrats)? Then remember how that turned out to itself be disinformation? 
   Well...the evidence for Biden influence-peddling may now be too clear for even the MSM to suppress.

   Ha ha! Just kidding. Probably the blue team has come to the realization that their best shot in '24 is to get rid of Biden. Now. He might as well have signed his own impeachment documents when he started saying he was going to run for re-election. They can't very well let the campaign get underway and risk him losing his marbles even more obviously--or risk the influence-peddling information getting out some other way. And cooler heads over there don't want Harris to be the candidate--though I'm sure that would make the Woketarian wing of the party happy.

   So, sadly, I'm somewhat skeptical that CBS news suddenly started caring about politically incorrect truths. Though hope springs eternal...

Your Daily Facepalm: "Is It Woke To Teach Kindness?"

facepalm

   I'm just going to ignore everything else about this and point out: sanctimony provokes ridicule.

   Almost no matter how good an idea might be in its better forms, it becomes repulsive when it devolves into cartoonish, sanctimonious monomania. 

   Like every other reasonable person, I'm appalled by racism, and always have been. I fought constantly with one of my close relatives about it when I was a kid. But the left's unhinged, counterfactual, hysterical, unctuous bullshit about race has actually managed to take the edge off my angry, incredulous opposition to racism. (Note that I can't even bear to say "anti-racism" now that's another progressive shibboleth, another bit of lefty Newspeak.) To some extent, it's actually caused a rational reassessment, and I now am more inclined to see racism, in many or most of its forms, as just another human foible that, in its weaker manifestations, is probably inevitable and largely harmless. Also: largely a matter of induction. And I'm not sure how often it even appears in its cartoonish, Klannish forms. The progressive dogma that American is currently made of it--in its "institutional" form--is clearly false. As is the view that it is everywhere--in its "systemic" form. 

   I'm opposed to the "beat 'em at their own game" strategy in many such cases because it requires us to play their--twisted, irrational--game. I mean, this is true: currently, the most racist faction in American politics is the progressive left. Hands down. No contest. So, well, ok. But it's important not to help them ensconce the game. Currently, left almost has no argument other than: you're a racist. That's a joke, of course. Because it's not an argument. Not because it's not the left's only one... And, given the crazy (generally ant-white, but also anti-Asian and antisemitic) racism permeating the progressive left, it's damned hard not to leverage that fact rhetorically. But doing so comes at the cost of making dueling accusations of racism seem like a legit debate. So they rather have us in a bind here. Not an unwinnable position by any stretch of the imagination--but an irritating one.

   (Actually, they have a lot of bad arguments, pseudoarguments and quasi-arguments. One is: Historically, idea x can be traced back to something racist*[*]. Another is: Watch me make up a fake history in which x is traced back to something racist*. Another is: Advocating or even debating x constitutes violence against some left-preferred group. Then there's the all-purpose x is socially constructed, which basically means x stands in some relation or other to something or other social. Basically: x exists in the same universe as human beings.)

   But, anyway. You know why those kids laugh when the teacher in question mentions blacks? Because he won't shut up about it. That's just progressivism writ small. You say enough sanctimonious, idiotic things about anything you make it ridiculous. Idiotic sanctimony is ridiculous, and it prompts anyone with a functioning bullshit-detector to ridicule. Eventually, if not immediately. And teenagers are on a hair trigger with respect to ridicule, anyway.

   So here's an idea: stop being unhinged and sanctimonious. See if that solves the problem. Prediction: it will.

[*] As always, 'racist*' means: racist or some variation on the theme: misogynist, anti-homosexual, "transphobic," etc. 

P. G. Wodehouse Censored on Advice of "Sensitivity Readers"

O, brave new world...

Clayton Fox: The Spike [Protein] [:] [Deadly?]

I report, you decide.

Well...I report on other people reporting, anyway...

   My view on the vax has moved around a bit, but not all that much, so far as I can recall. Well, at first I think I was too credulous. I did get it--which I now regret. I got the J&J (aka "the clot shot"), the one where you get just one. That was taken off the market because of side effects, but I think it's back on. I never got another shot. I may not have gotten the first one if my university hadn't insisted. I probably should have told them to get bent...as I'd have expected from myself...but I do need the job, given that I have no marketable skills. Thus it's either (a) this third-rate job or (b) McDonalds. 

   Anyway: I'm suspicious of claims that the vax is deadly. I certainly don't believe them, but I don't dismiss them out of hand. I don't know anything about it--and there are lots of people out there (e.g. FDA) who likely do know a lot about it. And they are convinced it's fine. If I were old and sick, I'd probably think more about it. Oh, shit...I AM old...I keep forgetting...sonofabitch. How did this happen? Well anyway.. It's clear that the risk of COVID has been vastly overblown. And that's been clear for a long time. I'm not overweight and I don't have any known relevant comorbidities. I'm usually in unusually good shape, but it does vary. Anyway: I don't need the vax, so far as I can tell. And so I'll not be having any more experimental substances shot into me, thanks. But if I get a lot older, or sicker, then the calculations would change, obviously.

   And part of my thinking went like this: you basically have to be crazy to think that everyone should get the shot. That's putting all our eggs in one basket in the most profound way. We should be glad that some people don't want the thing. We need people not to take the thing. Because, so far as I can tell, we don't know what it does in the long term. The very fact that the elite establishment reacted to refusers with shrieking insistence rather than gratitude sent me to DEFCON 2-ish. That was nuts.

   Anyway.

   To repeat: I don't believe that the vax is deadly/dangerous. But I don't 100% believe that it isn't. But that isn't saying much.

   If the vax does turn out to be bad--this is one future I've contemplated, anyway--perhaps it will bring the current Lysenkoist house of cards crashing down. Currently, "The Science" is running rampant. The replication crisis indicates that many "scientists" are saying pretty much whatever they want to say. And what they want to say is: all the crackpot ideas of the progressive left are unquestionable truth. Conservatives are rebelling, but they are culturally powerless. They've been right about almost all their major disagreements with the progressive left over the past several years. They went utterly insane about the vax, IMO. But if they were to turn out to be right--or quasi-right--about the vax, too, that might be enough cause a massive political/cultural shift. (At which point we'll probably have to go back to mainly worrying about the crazy right instead of the crazy left...but at this point I'll take that trade.)

   Ah, I don't know anything.

   Why are you reading this crap?

The Plague of Bullshit in Philosophy: "Resisting Gender-Based Domination"

From: Gädeke, D.G. (Dorothea) <d.g.gadeke@uu.nl>
Sent: 17 April 2023 10:04
To: PHILOS-L-request@LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK <PHILOS-L-request@liverpool.ac.uk>
Subject: Post Doc position 'Resisting Gender-based Domination' at Utrecht University

 

Would you like to do a PostDoc in Political/Social Philosophy?

Are you interested in feminism, theories of slavery and domination, freedom and resistance, and republicanism?

Join our team!

 

The Ethics Institute at the Department of Philosophy at Utrecht University seeks a post-doctoral researcher for a 2-year, post-doc project on ‘Resisting Gender-based Domination’.

The position is part of the NWO-funded VIDI project “Theorizing Freedom from Below” under the supervision of Dorothea Gädeke.

The application deadline is 15 May 2023; shortlisted candidates will be invited for an interview, scheduled on 16 June 2023. The intended starting date is 1 September 2023.

You will find all details on the position and on how to apply here.

For questions, please contact Dorothea Gädeke (d.g.gadeke@uu.nl)

 

Alex Byrne: "Philosophy's No-Go Zone," or: Women are Adult, Human Females

Nothing in here will be a surprise to readers of this blog.

Good on Byrne.

Freddy deBoer: "A Conversation About Crime" or: The Left in Yet Another Nutshell

deBoer gets the left too well. Eventually he's going to have to admit to himself that he's not one of them.

The Left's Crusade to Criminalize Self-Defense

madness

VDH: Can We Do Anything About America's Decline?

We could...

Mark Hyman: Woke Defined

link

   The progressive left is made of sophistry and pseudoscience.

It's a very philosophical movement--or, rather, a very pseudophilosophical one, with the obscurantist literary pseudophilosophy of recent Continental "theory" at its core. One implication of this is that it's possessed of a certain low linguistic cunning. It has a knack for making up stupid terminology--but that Newspeak, ridiculous as it is, does have a tendency to baffle some people long enough for Woketarinism to get a hold on their institutions. 

   At any rate, over the past year or so they've pretended that:

'Woke' is undefinable--at least by its opponents

and

'Woke' is racist

   Of course it's their word. But, then, if it weren't for double standards they'd have no standards at all. The train wreck of incoherent bullshit that makes up the worldview of the contemporary progressive left is a hilarious mishmash of all the worst that recent (pseudo)philosophy has to offer. There's no handy, accurate name for it all--no surprise. 'Political correctness' is the core of the thing, but that already-existing term seemed not to catch on this time. The cultist became known as Social Justice Warriors--SJWs. But what to call the tenets of the cult? Eventually people just started using their own word--woke--as we used their own term--political correctness--back in the day.

   It's also worth nothing that this is the movement who used the term 'alt-right' for years without ever having any idea what they were talking about...

   But being unnamable was a weirdly effective advantage, and they don't want to give that up. Low cunning, remember. So they started demanding that their opponents define 'woke' on the spot. It's easy to do--it just means the view of the contemporary progressive left. Aka the cult. But it's very common for people to be unable to produce definitions off the top of their heads. So it can--and has--produced some gotcha moments that the cult plays over and over--cackling with glee, one imagines. 

   Anyway, though it's not hard to define, it's good to have the post Hyman has produced. It's about as good as can be done, I'd say. 

Myron Magnet: The Antiracist Racket

Truth.

Transracialism Is Back--But With Bigger B00bz

Exactly like transgenderism...except politically incorrect somehow.

Per Fleccas: Rachel Dolezal's mistake was not getting size triple-Q boobs.

Get the Kids to Eat the Bugs

The left always goes for the kids.

Robert Reich: "The Republican Part is Hurtling Towards Fascism"

I guess you have to publish in the Grauniad if you're going to get basically everything in your entire op-ed wrong.

Trump Promises Investigation of Transgender Drug "Therapies"

By advocating for the obviously sane policy, Trump once again looks to be the lesser evil.

Trump Edges into National Lead Over Biden Post-Indictment

Good work, Dems.

You have once again made Trump the lesser of the available evils.

Though, TBF, he's been the lesser of the available evils since 2018, bare minimum, and probably since 2016.

"Neo-Nazi Fight Clubs are Fat-Shaming Men into White Nationalism"

You will be shocked to learn that this journalistic masterpiece is at Vice...

Jared Sichel: Why Republicans Retreat and Democrats Advance

Plausible.

Project HAVE DONUT

Evaluation of a defected Mig-21 at Area 51.

Huh.

Learn somethin' new ever day...

Gregory T. Angelo: I Helped Make Corporations Woke and I Regret It

link

Pushing against discrimination on the basis of sexual preference was a good thing. But that liberal project, as we all know by now, metastasized into woke totalitarian madness.

"The Myth of Woke Indoctrination of Students"

facepalm

Look, this would be good news if true...and so I do hope it is true...but it probably isn't. Many of these arguments are weak, and they do seem to be straining for the woke-friendly conclusion. 

   Which is not to deny that it would, to be clear, but some good news if true.

   I'll come back to this when I have more time, but, quickly: the AAUP characterization of indoctrination is confused, failing to include what is, perhaps, the most kind of indoctrination: presenting only one side of a controversial issue or given a biased account of it. Furthermore, it only seems to consider in-class indoctrination by teachers--the most egregious type of indoctrination--when much of it is conducted by student affairs in e.g. orientation (that's what my school was busted for). It relies on a couple of sophistical arguments that arise over and over on the left:

(a) All teaching is indoctrination!

(b) It doesn't work, so it must not be happening!

I could go on.

   The left is in abject denial about bias in K-12 and universities. And they've been pushing these angles for years.

   None of that means that I wouldn't be happy to find out that they were right about this--stopped clocks and all that.

   But I'm not all that hopeful.

"Trans" Bill of Rights

facepalm

The Dumbest Article You'll Read All Week: "Memo to DeSantis: All Education is Indoctrination"

facepalm

This is a type of argument the left loves: objectivity is impossible, so we can't be blamed for injecting our views where they don't belong / making no effort to be objective.

No, you idiot. Not all teaching is indoctrination. 

Here's the author's main reason supporting his idiotic position:

"Whatever curriculum teachers present to students emerges from someone's point of view."

More facepalm.

This is like a wee little critical thinking exercise that I'll leave to the reader for right now, because I'm going to crash, and I don't want to become furious before bed.

But here's a clue: that's a goddamned idiotic reason--a flamboyantly fallacious argument.

HMD: Merit Over "Identity"

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A university’s task is the pursuit of truth. The DEI bureaucracy, however, is founded on a lie—one that teaches students to think of themselves as victims and to see racism where none exists. It is iatrogenic, creating through racial preferences the very divisions and discomfort that it purports to solve, in an endless, vicious circle.
By all means, let us redouble our efforts to make sure that all children are prepared to succeed, by focusing on a child’s earliest years. Campus diversity bureaucrats have nothing to contribute to that effort. They do, however, suck up vast sums of money, narrow the acceptable range of discourse, and force the adoption of double standards of achievement.
The university should embrace a single colorblind definition of excellence. It will only do so, however, by eliminating DEI fiefdoms and by replacing identity with merit as the touchstone of academic accomplishment.

Sidebar: we really do need to stop using 'identity' in this ridiculous, politically correct way. But you can only do so much at once.

Masha Gessen: "Why Are Some Journalists Afraid of 'Moral Clarity'?"

I think I've posted this before, but this story really is dumb on dumb.

   But, humorously, it really does kind of explain why one ought to be averse to the idea of "moral clarity" as a replacement for objectivity. (The two aren't comparable things, for one; "moral clarity" is more akin to truth, i.e. to an end toward which objectivity is a means. But it's actually even dumber than that...) Gessen is--or at least writes as--a blinkered progressive who can't see her way out of that godawful, brainless, quasi-religious worldview. I'm not even going to start with the examples. And it's not worth a read, so I'm not suggesting that... But, honestly, it does end up providing a backhanded answer to the question in her title. My favorite bits are probably actually quotes from some other moron: "Donald Trump is a racist--objective fact"! "Climate change is real--objective fact"! LOOOOOOL. Though not even funny is the deeply dishonest "Black lives matter--objective fact"! (n.b. I'm adding the exclamation marks--but I know the author wanted them there--objective fact!) Go try to find ten people who think that black lives don't matter. What he really means is that the central claim of the organization "Black Lives Matter"--that racist white cops are killing innocent black Americans right and left--is true. Which it isn't. Not by a mile. So, basically: none of the "objective facts" Gessen uses as examples (again: quoting someone else) are facts at all. 

   See, that's why we don't want any part of this. The contemporary left is worse at telling what's factual and what isn't than any other major political faction in America in my lifetime. When they say they want to replace journalistic objectivity with "moral clarity" what they mean is: they want to replace it with leftist political dogmas. False ones, at that.

   Dumb on dumb.

Leftists Ditch Their "Identity" Obsession re: Nashville "Trans" Shooter

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William Spruance: Madness in the Law Schools

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Riley Gains, Defender of Women's Sports, Attacked by "Trans" Protesters at SFSU, Hit Twice by a Man in a Dress

This is what the left wants for the entire country. Any questioning of its dogmas, no matter how patently false and absurd, should those dogmas might be, on the view of the PC left, should be met with violence. This should never be permitted to happen on campuses--nor anywhere else.

Minneapolis Buildings Were Burned Down in "the 2020 Fires"

aka the mostly peaceful social justice riots for peace and justice.    link

Rufo: DIE Captures the University of Florida

This is how they do it.

There's nothing there that's unique to UF.

McCarthy: Bragg's Case Against Trump is Utterly Incoherent

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Twitter: NPR is "State-Affiliated Media"

Also, y'know, bullshit-related.

Tucker:

On Tuesday, two days ago, Twitter slapped a warning label on all tweets from National Public Radio. Going forward, NPR will be identified for users of Elon Musk's social media site as "state-affiliated media." That is the same category as Russia Today or China Central Television. It means that NPR is not that different from the Tehran Times, with the exception, of course, of being less accurate and more anti-American. That happened on Tuesday. Why are we telling you about it? With all the momentous changes underway around the world, why would we open a show with a story about Twitter re-categorizing NPR as state media? Well, because it's true. That's the reason.

Finally, thankfully, somebody in authority has told the truth about something, and that is thrilling to see on its own terms.

Nice to see him taking a break from UFOs killed Kennedy... 

Update:Also, this thing of beauty from the great E. Musk:

NPR howled in outrage, but with its signature pursed-lipped fussiness. Here's a direct quote from a piece on NPR's website, which really does belong in the Museum of Uptight Liberalism: "NPR officials have asked Twitter to remove the label. They initially assumed it was applied by mistake," NPR spokesperson Isabel Lara said. "We were not warned. It happened quite suddenly last night," Lara said. In response to an NPR email for the story seeking comment and requesting details about what in particular might have led to the new designation, Twitter's press account auto-replied with a poop emoji.

Update: You really should listen to this whole thing, or at least read it.

ProPublica: Clarence Thomas and the Billionaire

I assume this is just more Thomas-smearing--but I'm sure we'll be deluged with opinions and analyses soon enough.

Lysenkoism, "Decolonizing" SETI, and the Sad, Slow Death of SciAm

facepalm

Bombshell Study: No Link b/w "Long COVID" and COVID; Also: Stop Vaxxing Healthy Kids; also: Stop Restricting Their Lives

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Brenda Hafera: Colonial Williamsburg Grapples With Political Correctness

An unusually calm discussion of the topic.

George Will: Maybe, Just Maybe, This is Rock-Bottom for Embarrassing U.S. Politics

Though, quoting John McCain: It's always darkest before it turns pitch black.

Vindictive, Politically-Motivated Mistreatment of Capitol Rioters/Protestors

Appalling.

I am, of course, in favor of justice being done. But I don't see any justification for the draconian--and obviously politically-motivated--treatment of people like these folks.

Dems have weaponized the legal system.

Just as Trump's public pronouncements become even loonier, the Dems remind us that, like the meme says, they're not coming after him, they're coming after us. He's just in the way.

This is not a good position, this one in which we find ourselves...

The Left Wins Big in Midwest Elections

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Big Loss in WI Supreme Court Race; Is Dobbs Killing the Pubs?

Very bad news. Though I am against Gerrymandering. Though I'd like to save the country first, then undo Pub-friendly Gerrymandering after...

Did Dobbs do the Pubs in? I predicted it would. Roe was apparently bad law, so overturning it was the right thing to do--though I'm in favor of reasonably expansive freedom to abort. Though I don't have a carved-in-stone position on it. Though, though, though...

Remember When Progressives Lost Their Shit Because Trump's Crowds Chanted "Lock Her Up"?

Really makes ya think.

The Wuhan Batflu Pseudoscience Just Keeps on Rolling Out

Look, I'll guarantee you it wasn't about "how we feel about each other." And I in no way trust the other vax-n-mask cheerleading in this, either.

   Well, the vax pretty clearly lower death rates, as I understand it. So I've really got no grounds for complaint about that one, I suppose. So I don't know why I'm complaining about that bit...

   Anyway, we're not told whether they controlled for age, weight, race, etc. And I don't give studies the benefit of the doubt on that stuff.

   But anyway...back to my rant...

   Look, it's the left that has sown the seeds of division. I do believe we're a more divided country now than most times in my life. Though we'd need to see data on that, actually. But that's a stupid hypothesis about the COVID. If it weren't it'd be the left's fault. Mainly, anyway. But it is. Stupid, that is. 

   This is exactly the kind of study you should just ignore--and I'd have said that before the replication crisis came into focus. 

   And anyway: 1 study = 0 studies. 2 studies = 1 study + 1 study...  

   Wake me if there's ever a metastudy on this. Which there won't be. 

Bad News in the WI Supreme Court Race

Not good.

Bragg Indicts Trump for Removing Mattress Tag

 

Trump Indictment An "Underwhelming" "Nothingburger;" "Amateur Hour"

It doesn't even indicate what law Trump allegedly broke.

Although I'm not particularly pro-Trump at this point, I hope this blows up in the Dems' face even worse than it already has. They deserve to suffer for it.

Another term of Trump might just serve them right.

The First Intellectuals to be Replaced by ChatGPT Will Be Leftist Academicians--i.e. From Grievance Studies

Ever since I've been in real academia, that nonsense has been made fun of. It's just the same old formulaic, misologistic, irrationalist, obscurantist bullshit. Blah blah blah racism; blah blah blah misogyny; blah blah blah oppression; blah blah blah Marx; blah blah blah Foucault. Blah blah blah Derrida. Now we can add: blah blah blah systemic; blah blah blah structural; blah blah blah institutional; blah blah blah white supremacy. 

   That nonsense can't even attract third-rate minds. It drives away anyone with more than half a brain, and, even before AI was lying around on people's desktops, people noted that computers could produce it. Boghossian, Lindsay and Pluckrose were basically hand-crafting mindless AI output in Sokal II. It won't be long before actual AI is producing such autogenerated stupidity.

Friedersdorf: The Courts Shouldn't Have to Enforce Speech Protections on Universities

Absolutely right:

   Of course, it shouldn’t take a lawsuit to exercise one’s civil rights.
   That’s why, in my estimation, it is not enough for the students to successfully prove, in court, their right to host a drag show, because judges aren’t alone in having a responsibility to protect speech rights. State officials have responsibilities, too. If Wendler persists, the Board of Regents and the chancellor he answers to should fire him for knowingly violating the civil rights of students. His statement—“I will not appear to condone the diminishment of any group at the expense of impertinent gestures toward another group for any reason, even when the law of the land appears to require it”—is incompatible with both his legal and moral obligations to students.

 

The Left's Woke Colonizers are the Reason for the Culture War

True and obvious.

Despite the claims by some on the left that it's the right that's prosecuting the war:

   This is why the culture war began in the first place. It is impossible to keep up a “live and let live” philosophy when a militant and very influential political group relentlessly demands the celebration of its values — values that grow more perverted and more at odds with the public with each passing year.
  The Left demands tolerance and acceptance but is always the first to deny that same respect to those who think differently. They will harass and berate everyone into submission by making sure that no stone is unturned, no corner of society untouched by their malign influence. Corporate boardrooms, public school classrooms, television shows, and hell, even grocery store aisles have been transformed into nauseating advertisements for woke-ism.
  What other response is there than to fight back aggressively?

Major Scientific Publisher, Hindawi/Wiley, Retracts Over 500 Papers

The Epoch Times seems to be the only news organization covering this.

Seems to have been a peer review ring

PLOS ONE and Sage busted similar rings, and made many retractions:

Experts are Killing Expertise

Progressives bitch about conservatives "rejecting expertise," and think this means they are ignorant Luddites. In fact, average people have recognized what is obvious: a combination of hubris and ideological capture has led experts to dogmatically advance politically motivated conclusions that much less-well-justified than they make them out to be. COVID is a good example. The left loves control and collective action--and hates risk--and so fell in love with vaccines and mask mandates. The CDC hopped to and--as we've come to expect from such institutions--proclaimed vaccines and masks undeniable sovereign cures. Oh and, for good measure: declared that we knew for a fact that the virus didn't come from a lab. And that any reference to it that suggested any connection to China--including calling it the "Wuhan virus'--was racist. And stigma. And whatever.

   Conservatives and other ordinary people don't deny the expertise of physicists or electricians. They--rightly--question the expertise of experts who are obviously, dogmatically, exceeding the epistemic bounds withing which they should be operating--and those who embrace political correctness, allowing their political preferences to influence their pronouncements.

   And of course then there are non-expert "experts"--political actors who possess only pseudoexpertise--women's studies faculty, gender studies faculty...in fact all the "studies" faculty. DEI administrators and associated race grifters. And now I'd add: "misinformation" "experts" like Nina Jankowicz. Many of CDC's proclamations about COVID weren't medical or scientific, but political, having to do with politically correct--i.e. leftist--naming conventions, "stigma," and whatnot. 

IUPUI Seeks "faculty that 'speaks, acts, and dresses' to connect with minority students"

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   We were told something vaguely similar by our dean: because we expect Hispanic students to make up a greater percentage of our students in the future, we will be pressured to hire more Hispanic faculty. 

   Imagine that someone at a university argued that, since most of their students are white--or the percentage of white students was expected to increase--they should hire more white faculty. Such a person would be burned at the stake on the quad.

   The left is virtually unconstrained by any epistemic standards. Thus it is willing to make virtually any argument (within certain bounds) to advance its goals. It's the rejection of epistemic standards that leads to the production and publication of such utter bullshit as "feminist glaciology" and dog park rape culture. (Though the latter, of course, was a hoax. Peter Boghossian, incidentally, was censured for having performed the valuable task of clarifying exactly how full of shit leftist academic journals are.)

"The Noble [sic] Lies of COVID-19"

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When you've lost Slate...