A NeverTrumper lied about a Newsmax cover story entitled "Vlad the Great" being pro-Putin. In fact, it's anti-Putin -- the "Vlad the Great" title depicting him as a conqueror, which is his ambition, obviously -- and any investigation greater than "none whatsoever" would have discovered this.
Even after being told his original claim was a defamatory lie, the NeverTrumper retweeted it again, thus demonstrating NeverTrump's high regard for the truth and great personal integrity.
So much Fidelity to the Truth. So much Commitment to Personal Honor.
A teacher and board member of the NEA -- the nation's largest teacher's union -- posted that those with religious objections to the vaccine should be shot. And not shot with vaccine needles, but shot with bullets.
Chris Cuomo now has been fired from both of his jobs and he's had his book canceled.
He'll be giving out handjobs under a bridge for fifteen dollars a man soon enough. Or, as he likes to call it, "Back to college!"
CNN is actually proud to announce it's "working with the White House" to massage its own economic news coverage to be more favorable to Joe Biden.
It congratulates itself on being willing toadies for the DNC, calling its presidential fellation sessions "productive."
If you're baffled at how a "news" network could not only admit this but boast about this, let me explain:
CNN is not a news network. You knew that, of course, but let me be elaborate. CNN is specifically a partisan shill organization whose viewers do not tune in for purposes of being "informed" but to see how CNN is propagandizing useful political messages to other viewers, "persuadable" viewers.
In other words, CNN's "viewers" are primarily not interested in CNN as viewers themselves but are interested in CNN as a vehicle for propagandizing to other, non-committed persuadable viewers.
But the joke's on them -- the only people watching CNN are rabid DNC partians. There are no "persuadable" viewers CNN is propagandizing to; their viewers are exclusively the already-propagandized, and self-propagandizing.
To continue: these viewers are angry at CNN for not reporting "the good news" about Biden's economy.
That is why CNN are bragging about this: they are telling their viewers "we have heard your legitimate complaints that we have not licked enough poo off Biden's shit" and we are now asking him to write our economic reports for us, so you should be happy now. The Biden Regime be writing our propaganda for us now, so we'll be better able to propagandize to those "other persuadable viewers" you think we're reaching but who do not in fact exist because you lunatics are the only people that watch this absolute fucking clownshow of incompetent North Korean State Media.
BIDEN: "We're making progress. We're going to keep at it to ensure the American people are paying their fair share for gas." pic.twitter.com/f41bFtbeEP
Tesla founder Elon Musk tore into President Joe Biden's 'Build Back Better' plan Monday over over its regulatory framework – even as the plan prepares to provide big subsidies for electric cars.
Musk, who has gone after Democratic tax policies in the past, slammed the proposal in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.
'Rules and regulations are immortal,' he said. 'They don't die. The vast majority of rules and regulations live forever... there's not really an effective garbage collection system for removing rules and regulations, so this hardens the arteries of civilization where you are able to do less and less over time.
...
'Honestly, it might be better if the bill doesn't pass,' Musk told the Journal's CEO Council Summit.
'I'm literally saying get rid of all subsidies,' he said.
'It does not make sense to take the job of capital allocation away from people who have demonstrated great skill ... and give it to, you know, an entity that has demonstrated very poor skill in capital allocation, which is the government,' he said.
Jimmy Fallon, Arianna Grande, and Megan Thee Fallon are national treasures, by which I mean, they should be buried until Nicholas Cage can find them in the sequel, not due out until 2026.
Kind of a good joke for a Norm MacDonald roast there.
I'm wondering if there is a breaking point at all.
Do they even have to show up, ever?
Can we just admit that the "teaching occupation" is just a welfare program for a fairly low-educated, low-ambition bunch?
Remember when teachers unions around the country insisted they were eager to reopen schools but only once it could be done safely? Unions gave all sorts of excuses. First it was that not all teachers had been vaccinated. Then it was that schools lacked sufficient ventilation. Then it was that not all students had been vaccinated. The shifting list of demands had only one clear goal: Keep teachers (and students) out of classrooms for as long as possible. Even when local authorities tried to twist their arms, they refused to return.
And as the evidence piled up that remote learning wasn’t working for a large number of students, unions simply ignored or denied it. Cecily Myart-Cruz, president of the LA Teacher’s Union, claimed no learning loss had taken place during the 18 months LA schools were closed. “Our kids didn’t lose anything. It’s OK that our babies may not have learned all their times tables…They know the difference between a riot and a protest,” she said. Some unions claimed the push to get teachers back to classrooms was racist.
Fortunately, all of that is behind us now. Or maybe not. Today the NY Times reports that schools are extending time off and resorting to one day a week (or a month) as remote learning only...
As John Sexton reports, the teachers -- who clearly just wanted to stop working -- have given up using covid as an excuse to stop working, and are now offering the excuse that the "battles" over them taking time off during covid, as well as arguments about CRT, is just "too much" for them, and they need some Mental Health Days.
Sexton quotes this posting from a "veteran public school teacher" who encourages teachers to basically take as much time as they need to get their heads together, and, if parents don't like it, well then: Parents can teach their kids.
Veteran public school teacher here. I am hearing the same experiences over and over from my former colleagues (and on several private teacher-only message boards): rude parents, combative students, undermining administrators, useless curriculum, stagnant wages, total burnout. Some of their personal stories from the classroom this year would make your toes curl. We understand this is a profession that has its ups and downs, but the near-constant abuse and the general consensus for years that teachers are responsible for all of the ills of society have finally taken their toll. To the teachers in the trenches: I see you, and I support you. I know the invisible load you carry and the unseen work you do. If virtual Fridays help to make your life and mental health better, it's time for parents to step up and do their part.
Well, parents thought they were doing their part by paying people to teach their children.
If you're not willing to do that job, they can pay other people to teach their children, and fire your lazy, uneducated, ignorant asses.
This is incredible.
As Sexton says: Don't expect this to stop in LA. Once word gets out that this is going on in LA and teachers are getting away with it, teachers across the country will begin doing this.
Teachers have decided they are part of the "Laptop Class" they are so envious of, the upper middle class that can do almost all of their work remotely through a computer and via zoom meetings, and being envious of higher-status people, they've decided to convert teaching into a "Laptop Class" occupation against the wills of parents.
They're not that -- they're workers at a modest middle-class civil service job -- but they conceive of themselves as part of the Upper Middle Learned Classes and they're determined to gain both the salaries and non-pecuniary benefits that attend to those classes.
And if that's inconvenient for parents, who will have to make arrangements for someone to watch their children during school hours -- why they'll just have to "step up" then, won't they?
More at Sexton's link. And do hit it. I've taken so much from him today! But most of the quotes are back there, including more quotes from entitled teachers who obviously hate parents -- and children, too.
Twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is pulling her would-be 2016 presidential victory speech out of the archives as part of a “MasterClass lesson,” which is what TODAY described as “the power of resilience.”
The "power of resilience" may include full-blown alcoholism plus a spiteful conspiracy to overthrow a duly-elected president out of spite and entitlement.
In the full class, which will be released Thursday, Clinton focuses on the speech she would have delivered on November 8, 2016, had she defeated former President Donald Trump.
“In this lesson, I’m going to face one of my most public defeats head-on by sharing with you the speech I had hoped to deliver if I had won the 2016 election,” Clinton said, emphasizing she has “never shared this with anybody.”
“I’ve never read this out loud. But it helps to encapsulate who I am, what I believe in, and what my hopes were for the kind of country that I want for my grandchildren, and that I want for the world, that I believe in that is America at its best,” she said.
More at Breitbart.
While the speech talks about "uniting," it must be kept in mind that less than 24 hours after realizing she lost, Hillary Clinton gathered her minions to launch a conspiracy to push a lie into the media and FBI and DOJ to get the duly elected president investigated and delegitimized and divide the country for five years all due to her spite and wounded ambition and refusal to accept the fact that the nation had rejected her -- again.
Video of her tearing up as she reads her gassy, dishonest speech.
I love that the leftwing hosts go "unh-unh" and "whoa" at the ended of this passage like they're Will Smith filling in on someone else's rap in 1999.
The nation’s large and diverse group of Hispanic voters is showing signs of dividing its support between Democrats and Republicans more evenly than in recent elections, a new Wall Street Journal poll finds, a troubling development for the Democratic Party, which has long counted on outsize Hispanic support.
One year after giving Democratic House candidates more than 60% of their vote, according to polls at the time, the Journal survey found that Hispanic voters are evenly split in their choice for Congress. Asked which party they would back if the election were today, 37% of Hispanic voters said they would support the Republican congressional candidate and 37% said they would favor the Democrat, with 22% undecided.
Hispanic voters were also evenly divided when asked about a hypothetical rematch in 2024 of the last presidential contenders, with 44% saying they would back President Biden and 43% supporting former President Donald Trump. In 2020, Mr. Biden won 63% support among Hispanic voters, nearly 30 points more than Mr. Trump, according to AP VoteCast, a large survey of the presidential electorate.
‘Latinos are more and more becoming swing voters.…They’re a swing vote that we’re going to have to fight for.’
...
Hispanic voters in the survey ranked economic issues as the priority for Mr. Biden and Congress to address. Hispanic men said Republicans had the better economic policy, by a margin of 17 points. Hispanic women, by contrast, said Democrats had better economic plans, by a 10-point margin.
A majority of Hispanic men said they would like to return to the policies that Mr. Trump pursued as president, while a majority of Hispanic women said they would rather stick with Mr. Biden’s policies.
...
Mr. Fabrizio said: “This says to me that the economy matters, particularly to Hispanic men. The economy and economic factors are driving them.”
Pollsters, what would we do without them?
I'm not sure if the shifts will actually influence the presidential race, though. The biggest shifts were in Florida and Texas. Florida is now a red state and I guess the shift in Hispanic voting is part of why it's a very solidly red state, so maybe the shift has affected the presidential vote. But mostly just to change it from a red state to a "red state that is no longer in any contention."
Another of the biggest shifts has happened in Texas. But then, like Florida, Texas was always a red state. It's just redder now.
Even with Noted Hispanic Robert Francis "Beto" O'Rourke running for Governor.
There have been "double-digit" swings in "parts of the northeast" but the northeast seems so very blue I don't know how shifts 12% of the population in "parts" of the northeast can change anything.
Maybe in Virginia, though?
In last month’s election for governor in Virginia, AP VoteCast found that Republican Glenn Youngkin, who won the race, outpolled his Democratic opponent among Hispanic voters.
Hispanics were basically in-line with the entire population's assessment of Biden's performance, though somewhat more favorable to the Democrat: 42% approving, 54% disapproving. The overall approval was 41% approving, 57% disapproving.
Turns out that LatinX voters don't like Biden's dogshit economy.
As Democrats seek to reach out to Latino voters in a more gender-neutral way, they’ve increasingly begun using the word Latinx, a term that first began to get traction among academics and activists on the left.
But that very effort could be counterproductive in courting those of Latin American descent, according to a new nationwide poll of Hispanic voters.
Ya Boi Zach, who lives in a Hispanic neighborhood and who married a Hispanic woman (and divorced her) and has a Hispanic son, is fond of pointing out that Hispanics hew to the most traditional gender roles in America today of just about any race, and yet the left is bizarrely invested in casting them as "gender neutral" and even "transgender."
Turns out, they don't like that too much.
No es bueno, as they might say.
Or, better yet: No es buenoX.
Only 2 percent of those polled refer to themselves as Latinx, while 68 percent call themselves “Hispanic” and 21 percent favored “Latino” or “Latina” to describe their ethnic background, according to the survey from Bendixen & Amandi International, a top Democratic firm specializing in Latino outreach.
More problematic for Democrats: 40 percent said Latinx bothers or offends them to some degree and 30 percent said they would be less likely to support a politician or organization that uses the term.
...
Amandi emphasized that he wasn’t blaming the erosion of Latino support for Democrats merely on the use of the word Latinx. Hispanic voters have started shifting right for myriad reasons, he said, chiefly because of more aggressive engagement from Republicans who have “weaponized culture war issues at the margins with Hispanic voters.”
We "weaponized the culture war" by saying crazy things like "boys should not be in girls bathrooms or girls sports."
I'm sorry, I mean Girlx bathroomx or girlx sportx.
...
While activists and academics for the past decade have actively supported and adopted Latinx, it has only been in recent years that the term has grown in prominence and drawn pushback from those opposed to its usage as an alternative that doesn’t follow the gender binary in the Spanish language.
Spanish is a gendered language, with nouns typically ending in “A” for the feminine and “O” for masculine words. Masculine nouns are typically prefaced with “el” or “un,” while feminine nouns are used with articles, like “la” or “una.” When referring to a group of mixed-gender people, the language defaults to the masculine — Latinos to refer to all genders.
I think I said that.
Those using Latinx argue that masculine words should not be the default when talking about a mixed-gender group.
Yes, entitled leftwing American white women who spent $200,000 of daddy's money on a degree that makes them qualified to hit the "froth" button the cappuccino machine have lots and lots and lots of opinions about how native Spanish speakers should use their language.
If you want to refer to Latinos by a weird, gender-neutral term, why not follow the media's example of referring to Darrel Brooks, and just call them SUVs?
But Spanish words do not end in the letter X, which is pronounced “eh-kees,” and some Spanish speakers argue it’s tricky to know how to pronounce Latinx in their native tongue.
Latinks? But that would be an English pronunciation of a non-word. There is no Spanish way to pronounce this non-word.
I think most people say "Latin-Ex" which sounds like an acid blocker when you've had too much burrito.
That's also a non-Spanish pronunciation. The problem is that the phoneme -- the unit of sound being represented here, "-inx" -- simply does not exist in Spanish at all.
It's a Colonialist Intrusion into the language.
It's an imposition by Karen Konquistadores.
The term has become more politicized in recent years as the right has increasingly highlighted its use in an effort to portray Democrats as too out of touch or at least worthy of scorn.
Actually we're horrible at politics; you did that all by yourselves.
...
Virginia Republican Attorney General-elect Jason Miyares — who is of Cuban descent and will be the first Hispanic to hold the office in the state — said the word Latinx turns off Latinos.
“By insisting on using the incorrect term Latinx, progressives are engaging in a type of cultural Marxism, a recast of societal norms,” he told POLITICO. “Latinos don't use the term — only upper-educated white liberals who hardly interact with the Latino community. I believe that every time they use the term Latinx, they lose another Latino vote.”
...
One of the founders of Univision, Joaquin Blaya, said they built the network around the concept of using the words Latino and, especially, Hispanic, because it reflected the Spanish language and united Spanish speakers from across Latin America. He said his objection to Latinx is that it’s “too weird. It’s dumb. It’s foreign. It’s not Spanish.”
“Democrats are helping Republicans make them look out of touch,” said Blaya, a registered Democrat. “We built a network around our Spanish language and we have a shared culture around it. Why are we trying to change this? It’s offensive to a lot of people.”
Pretty good objection: Why are you trying to build solidarity with Spanish speakers based on an faux-Spanish English word?
Finland's 36-Year-Old Prime Minister Misses a Text Telling Her to Quarantine Because She Was Out Clubbing Until 4am and Left Her Phone At Home
—Ace
Sounds like a Millennial.
Except the part about "leaving her phone at home." I don't think that's allowed. For a Millennial, I mean.
Her Foreign Minister tested positive with covid so they called her to tell her she had to quarantine because she had been exposed. She said she didn't get the message which I frankly think was a lie, I think she just wanted to keep on clubbing.
But whatever, Hot Girl Rules.
PMILF!
I'd salt her lutefisk, if you know what I'm sayin'.
The LA School District Is Now Bribing Children With Pizza to Consent to a Vaccine Jab -- and Telling Them Not to Tell Their Parents About It, So They Don't Get "In Trouble"
—Ace
As John Ekdahl said: "If this happened to my kid, I'd be in jail."
But why aren't these people in jail?
Why are we allowing these radical activists free access to indoctrinate, medically experiment on, and sexually groom our children?
A school in LA gave students the vaccine without their parent’s permission after they bribed the students with pizza and told them not to tell their parents: pic.twitter.com/NMNpL5w3FE
Sexton is trying to be "fair" to the teacher by urging "leeway" for teachers' free speech in the classroom -- but they have very little. They are not speaking in their private capacity as citizens -- they are speaking as paid employees of the government, and hence paid agents, indirectly, of the citizenry, to do a job we're telling them to do, and telling them how to do.
They are not at liberty to just teach "whatever the Muse tells them to teach each day."
And frankly: I don't have free speech in my fucking life outside my job. But teachers are to have near-absolute free speech in the performance of their 8 to 3 jobs -- government jobs! -- teaching our children!?
One of the top stories at the Washington Post today is this piece about a teacher named Matthew Hawn who was fired for teaching his class about “white privilege.” Actually, the argument here is really over whether or not Hawn was teaching the topic, i.e. offering it as one perspective, or just telling students to adopt his own progressive viewpoint on political issues. In the end, the school decided it was the latter and he was fired.
Regular readers will know I’m always hesitant whenever someone is getting fired over their political opinions. That’s a double-edged sword that, once endorsed, can do do damage to a lot of people. Even so, in this case I’m hard pressed not to see a teacher who had really abandoned any pretense of objectivity.
Hawn teaches a class on contemporary issues which is meant to discuss things that are happening now. After the shootings in Kenosha by Kyle Rittenhouse, Hawn pointed to Rittenhouse as an example of white privilege.
...
“My question to you, and this is going to be a tough one,” Hawn said to his class on Aug. 27, 2020, “is how is that not a definition of White privilege?”
Tired after a long day of hybrid teaching, Hawn accidentally uploaded the video to the folder for his personal finance students, where a parent spotted it. The parent immediately contacted Sullivan County administrators to complain.
That description doesn’t really do any justice to what Hawn actually said. The Post does include video of this statement which seems a lot more strident and misleading.
I’ll go ahead an say it. There’s no really arguing this or debating this. This is white privilege is what it looks like. That kid right there. Whenever you can fire into a crowd of people and kill people and then you can walk to the police without fear of being shot back, that is the definition of privilege, of white privilege. It’s awful. These aren’t isolated incidents. This has been happening to African-Americans for 400 years.
In January he assigned a Ta-Nehisi Coates essay to his class in which the author blames Trump’s election on racism. He was reprimanded and appealed the reprimand claiming he had planned to introduce other reading into the discussion. But ultimately the school board upheld the reprimand. Then, just a few weeks later Derek Chauvin was convicted for the murder of George Floyd and Hawn was asked what it would have meant if Chauvin had been acquitted. Instead of answering in his own words, Hawn pulled up a video clip about white privilege.
Hawn decided to let the poet Kyla Jenée Lacey speak. He clicked to YouTube.
Jones and several other students in the class later said they remember a group of White boys throwing up their hands in anger during the poem.
“The video is definitely very confrontational and doesn’t sugarcoat, the point of it is to be in-your-face-harsh,” said a White 18-year-old in the class, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of backlash from her conservative family. “I think that’s what really upset the boys.”
One of those boys complained to administrators, his classmates said. Within two weeks, Hawn was fired.
Again, you won’t really get a sense of what Hawn was promoting by reading the Post story. Here’s the video he apparently showed the class (contains some NSFW language):
Should he have been fired for assigning the Coates reading or showing the video clip? My own take is that teachers should be given a lot of leeway in class. But in this case it seems that Hawn wasn’t really presenting anything like a range of viewpoints to his students. It’s just one leftist diatribe after another with him directly telling students in some cases that there’s no discussion. Hawn himself, when he appealed his firing this summer seemed to belatedly acknowledge that how he taught the class wasn’t really appropriate.
Again, Sexton is offering what he feels is "fairness" here which is inappropriate.
I think people are very confused on this issue, so let me unconfuse people:
We have an individual right to speech, which is supposed to be absolute.
There is also something that can be called "collective speech." Collective speech is the speech we make together, as when we decide, collectively, to put up a statue in a public park.
Collective, "corporate speech" -- "corporate" in the sense that it's "of the collective body," of the corporate whole -- is by its nature politically shaped, subject to the editing and frankly censorship of the group.
Obviously, this is group speech and no individual has an absolute right to control its content, because how could one person have a veto right over the group?
Now I disagree with a city deciding to pull down a statue of Thomas Jefferson -- but I have no doubt that the city has the right to make that decision as part of its collective speech. They take a vote on it, they politically decide what their collective speech is.
Collective speech is rarely the best, most interesting, or truest speech, because, well, it's decided by a group of people which is made up of, let's face it, >50% idiots and >10% degenerates.
But still, it is what it is: A lot of public speech is collective speech, and collective speech, unlike individual speech, is subject to public monitoring and public editing and public censorship and public debate.
My -- your -- our -- individual speech isn't. Or shouldn't be, and didn't used to be.
But our collective speech has always been subject to pressure from the group and majority rules. (Or, as if often the case: rule by an animated and loud minority.)
Confusion over this critical distinction results in our applying the rules of collective speech to individual speech -- and insisting that the Group should have censorship and veto rights over individual speech -- while also insisting that collective speech, which is what teachers have when they show up for their government jobs to teach kids mandated by law to appear before them, have free speech rights to argue indirectly with the kids' conservative parents about what the HuffPo told them was on FoxNews last night.
(Anyone who watches Libs of Tik Tok knows this is what animate 99% of leftwing activists teachers -- they're angry about what they're leftwing "news sources" on Twitter like Jezebel and HuffPo and Daily Beast them "the right" is doing, and they're attempting to get revenge on their evil conservative parents of their imagination by going after their children and "converting" them. Some are pretty explicit in straight-up admitting this motive.)
What teachers are supposed to teach in class, and what they are allowed to teach in class, is collective speech, not individual speech.
Telemarketers do not have "free speech rights" when they're delivering the boss's pitch to potential customers on the phone.
These are not fucking college professors. They are not doing original research here, guys. I'm pretty sure that we've plumbed the full mysteries of the bowtie method.
And people aren't seeking them out of their own free volition. Kids are forced into these specific schools due to the happenstance of where they lived, and forced to attend classes taught by these teachers based on an automated classroom assignment system.
When kids are forced to be in a classroom, the teachers' rights to free speech diminish.
The kids' have rights too, don't they?
Weird how all that CRT training about "power dynamics" and "unearned privilege" goes right out the window when it's a leftwing teacher with control over a student's grades and therefore over his future earnings telling a student what he is required to believe.
These are our children, not theirs. We are now in the bizarre position where parents' control over their children is doubted and questioned and highly disputed by the state, whereas teachers' control is assumed.
This is not a free speech issue. They are being paid to say what we tell them to say in class.
We don't have free speech in our lives outside the classroom, but inside the classroom, where our children are mandated by law to be present, which we are compelled by law to fund with our taxes, they live in a bubble of nigh-absolute free speech?
This is madness. This is MADNESS.
Fire every single one of them and make them re-apply and re-interview for their jobs, and hire back about 40% of them. Open the hiring pool to non-holders of the crap Education degrees and get some quality non-activist Actual Teachers in there.
And end tenure -- forever. Pass a fucking constitutional amendment to kill it dead.
The suspect is identified as 49-year-old Craig Tamanaha, who is homeless, with a last known address in Brooklyn.
A lighter was found in his possession.
Police say the 49-year-old suspect climbed up "the metal superstructure" -- the tree is an artificial sculpture that is shaped to look like a tree -- lit papers he brought with him on fire, and shoved the papers into the tree structure.
He then climbed down and watched from the street level as it burned, and he was spotted by building security who pointed the man out to police officers posted in nearby Rockefeller Center.
Tamanaha is charged with criminal mischief, reckless endangerment, arson, criminal nuisance, endangering others, criminal trespass, criminal tampering and disorderly conduct.
He has three prior arrests, two for drug possession and one for public intoxication.
"He was issued earlier this year some appearance tickets and didn't come back to court, which unfortunately is something we see all too often. Also has some low level arrests out of state."
Great. Another George Soros Special.
The New York Times had some difficulty connecting the dots between the arrested man to the arson. So definitely trust their News Judgment.
Dean Obeidallah, an extraordinary dull-witted and non-funny "comic" who was given gigs and jobs he did not earn post 9/11 in some kind of bizarre apology by America for being attacked by Muslims, and whose job since then has been to make fun of Americans for being fearful of terrorism committed by his fellow Muslims, did what the leftwing media pays him to do and made fun of people for feeling victimized by the forces of violence and chaos on the left:
They put up the Big 12 Championship Game (Baylor - OK State) up on YouTube in its entirety and I watched the first half yesterday during my lunch hour, and unlike the NFL game I ranted about last week, they are showing a fair amount of crowd shots, and how glorious it is for me to see nary a mask in sight. It cheers my heart. Everyone is laughing and clapping and cheering and having a good time and it's just so refreshing to see normal life again.
So I envy you morons who live in open states.
Meanwhile, here in Oregon, the state is run by commie thugs and nanny state busybodies and our governor, Kate Brown, has the persona of a pinch-faced librarian who spends all her time going from table to table shushing anyone who raises their voice above a whisper. Naturally, we've got some of the most onerous lockdown mandates and rules in the nation, right up there with New York and California, and almost everyone you see in the stores around here are still masked up. Mrs. Muse hates masks and will not wear one if she can get away with it and she tells me that she sometimes gets dirty looks from masked Karens of either sex as she does her shopping. We both of us thought that by this time, more people would have sobered up and realize the stupidity of permanent masking and stop using them, but no, pretty much everybody around here is still drunk on compliance and it's not uncommon to see people walking around with masks outdoors(!), or, get this, masked inside their cars(!!)
Even the medical profession. I would expect sense from doctors and nurses, but no. I went to a specialist appointment awhile back, and in the waiting room, all the seats are marked off with the arbitrary 6-foot social distance, and a sign says they're doing this "to stamp out Covid-19". They actually said that. They think they're going to eradicate an airborne respiratory virus.
It's like everyone is still taking their daily dose of stupid.
Anyway...
The latest stupid news from the stupid people who are running this stupid state is that the state-wide indoor mask mandate, which has a statutory life of 180 days, is scheduled to expire in February. So the stupid state bureaucrats are starting to do whatever it is they do to make the mandate permanent. 'Indefinite' they're calling it, but everyone knows (wink, wink) that it's just a different word permanent. I guess 'statutory' means they have to pass a law, but that's not going to be a problem for the Democrats because they've got a super-majority lock on both state houses as well as the executive, so they can get whatever they want. Oregon has picked up enough refugees fleeing California that we now have enough population for an additional congressional seat, but the Democrats have the congressional districts effectively gerrymandered so that the GOP has just enough voters in each district not to have a majority.
So we're pretty much screwed.
And just to show you how super serial our nanny governor is about maintaining the indoor masking requirement, here is a photo of her at some recent event, perhaps fundraising, or maybe she just wanted to get down and party with some friends:
Yes, it looks like she's having a great time hanging out with some bros. Nice. Where's her mask, though? Did she forget to wear one? And her bros. Also unmasked. I guess everyone must have amnesia.
She does look like the stereotypical Karen, though, doesn't she? Like she's just itching to call your manager.
Here's another photo, probably from the same event:
Looka like she's doing a photo op with someone who is either an extremely homely woman or a tranny hooker. And no masks in sight. Oh wait, there's some guy in the background over Karen's left shoulder who's remembered to bring his. Probably one of her untermensch servants.
One more:
Brown is basically Gavin Newsom with breasts, including his "rules are for peasants" schtick.
Narrator: Actually, Anybody With a Lick of Common Sense Saw This Coming:
"The Future Belongs To Those Who Show Up For It"
Finland FTW!
AoSHQ Weekly Prayer List
Prayer Requests:
10/17 – Pollywog the ‘Ette passes along a prayer request for Brother Tim, who was admitted to the hospital Sunday for kidney stones and UTI. He needs both full healing, since this isn’t the first time he’s had these problems, and financial blessings. Prayer that he be able to have rest and peace, not something hospitals are known for, would be helpful as well.
11/16 Update – Brother Tim is healing, but still needs prayers for his job situation.
10/22 - Pookysgirl asks for prayers for Pooky, as he is going in for extensive neuropsychological testing for 4-8 hours on Oct 27, so he could really use prayers today. He’s had issues with similar testing in the past, so prayers for calming and peace would be appreciated.
11/29 update – The results were not what they were hoping for. Pooky did not get any specific diagnoses but got put into 4 different “unspecified” categories. He sees his therapist and his med manager within the next month, and hopefully they can help them understand the diagnoses and any medication changes. This news has been very difficult to handle.
11/5 – Eeyore mood has an update:
I wrote you a couple of times about my friend's 4 year old grandson who was killed by the child's mother's boyfriend. He got out on bail because he was only charged with Negligence Resulting in Death. The autopsy report has not been formally released. The results could bring an increase in charges. The man is due back in court for a preliminary hearing on Nov. 15th. I would ask for prayer that the man who killed my friend's grandson be charged for the crimes he committed and justice be done. Also that God's peace be for the child's father, siblings and grandmother so they know He cares for them. Understandably, they are still devastated by this tragedy. Compounding this is that the child's mother is still defending her son's killer, saying it was an accident. If you are on Facebook and want more information, you can go to the Justice for Brantley page or go to the justiceforbrantley.com Thank you for your assistance.
11/18 Update – The mother’s boyfriend is still out on bond. No new charges were added. The tentative trial date is June 22.
11/8 – 496 requests prayers for strength and wisdom for him and his entire family.
11/9 – Weak Geek asks for prayers for his father, who is recovering from surgery. He is out of intensive care but drops into bouts of defeatism. Also prayers for WG’s sister, who is on site and therefore shoulders the brunt of this burden.
11/9 – Krebs v Carnot has 2 requests: First, that his father-in-law William, find peace and blessings in the presence of the Lord, having passed away Saturday after a brief illness, and hat members of his family be comforted and strengthened with the knowledge that their beloved Bill has found eternal and joyous peace at last. And second, that his mother, 3 siblings, and he be granted patience, strength, and wisdom, as they work through getting Mom to a state where she is able to continue to live her life as independently as possible in the place of her choosing, and that all those in the elder care community working with her continue to help Mom see and do what she much through their kind and loving teachings and that Mom’s eyes be opened so as to understand that they, too, will rejoice as she progresses toward her goal.
11/16 – Inspector’s best friend Tom was diagnosed with Covid last week. It’s been like a nasty flu, but he is recovering. Prayers for his continued recovery, that it not affect his job.
11/16 – Inspector’s co-worker Marie was diagnosed last week with uterine cancer. It was caught early, so they’re hopeful for the prognosis, but prayer for healing, and strength for her and her family would be very appreciated.
For Healing:
11/3 – MammaB is asking for prayers for her father who is 84 and having kidney failure.
11/4 – Tonypete asks for prayers for his dear friend Beth’s daughter Dominique who is 36 years old and has been diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer. It has already spread to her liver and appears to be very aggressive. Please pray for a remission and for her doctors’ skill. Failing that, prayers for a Holy Death.
11/24 – commissar of Plenty and Lysenko gender fluid requests prayers for healing and no surgery required (20% odds) for a medical problem he is experiencing.
11/28 - Ladyl asks for complete healing for Hattie, a 3 year old who is undergoing multiple complex surgeries for a congenital skin condition. Brad, a middle-aged man diagnosed with colon cancer who may end up with a colostomy bag needs prayers as well, that his physicians find the best possible solution and cure his condition. And DR, a 65 year old man who also requested prayers for an undisclosed situation.
11-28 – JerseyDevilRider requests prayer for his son's best friend, Ben (age 24), who has been hospitalized and diagnosed with Hogkin's lymphoma. He also has Crohn's disease so the doctor thinks there is a 1% chance he will get sick from the treatment. He has been started on chemo.
For submission guidelines and other relevant info, please contact Annie's Stew, who is managing the prayer list. You can contact her at apaslo at-sign hotmail dot com
If you see a prayer request posted in a thread comment, feel free to copy and paste it and e-mail it to Annie's Stew. She tries to keep up with the requests in the threads, but she's not here all of the time, so she may not see it unless you e-mail it to her. Please note: Prayer requests are generally removed after five weeks or so unless we receive an update.
Romans 8:26-27 [26] In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. [27] And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.
Monday Who Dis: Irish McCalla, who started out as a model for pinup artist Alberto Vargas, is perhaps best known for playing the lead role in the short-lived TV series Sheena: Queen of the Jungle (1955). Following a brief Hollywood career, she became an accomplished painter of seascapes and Western or Native American motifs. She has painted more than 1,000 paintings, eight collector plates and numerous limited edition lithographs. Her artwork is displayed in the Western White House, Los Angeles Museum of Arts and Sciences, and the Cowgirl Hall of Fame. Meanwhile, Steve Cochran made his career playing bad guys, heavies, and other villains. In 1965, he organized a sailing trip to scout out locations for filming an upcoming movie. He was accompanied by all-female "crew", some of whom were minors (Cochran was quite the hound dog), but a lung infection, which he had picked up earlier, flared up and he died from it. The women didn't know how to operate the boat, so they drifted for 10 days with Cochran's corpse before being rescued. Ugh. Somebody could probably make a crappy horror movie based on this incident.
Anyway, McCalla and Cochran starred in a low-budget crime thriller in 1959, The Beat Generation.
Today's Edition Of The Morning Rant Is Brought To You By French Crullers:
Good morning, kids. Wednesday and while the clueless, deranged imbeciles are steering the ship of state off the edge of a flat earth, there is one thing that I do not want to ever get lost. Scores of your fellow citizens - ordinary, law-abiding, hard working and G-d fearing - remain incarcerated in horrendous conditions, subjected to physical and psychological abuse by real criminals and their government-controlled gaolers, for merely exercising their first amendment rights last January 6th. 11 months behind bars as political prisoners.
Whatever other insanity is going on, whether with our enemies abroad, or the tyrants right here in our own country - and I will touch on those subjects in a bit since there are points of intersection on this Venn diagram of doom - this above all else, at least for me, is the sine qua non that defines the times we live in. For these people to be persecuted like this, in this country by those we at one time in the not too distant past thought had shared the same values and come up in the same system proves beyond any doubt that America as it was or at least as we had imagined it no longer exists. Over time, things change, culture of course changes and laws (for better or worse) change but the one thing that was supposed to remain constant is the essential nature of what it means to be an American. The sense of commonality and common purpose, despite often diametrically opposed views on issues and their resolution, is what kept society moving forward and kept the peace.
Greene and Gohmert (and their respective staffs) finally got to tour the D.C. jail where the J6 inmates are held, though the jail staff DID try to end the tour of the jail before the reps got to meet the political prisoners.
"What is there to hide?" Gohmert pressed. "The complaint has been that they've been treated differently than the other detainees. I thought tonight we were going to find out."
At that point, the tour had already lasted two hours and Greene and Gohmert hadn't yet met a single J6 inmate. After an 11-minute discussion, the tour went forward.
Greene and Gohmert met with roughly 40 J6 inmates, in what Greene described as a noticeably older part of the prison, which appeared to have not been updated recently, unlike the rest of the prison.
The political prisoners cheered as they met Gohmert and Greene. Some cried and all were visibly shaken (they were the only inmates on the tour to cry). They lined up to shake hands with Greene and Gohmert and began chanting "U-S-A! U-S-A!" . . .
. . . Greene's report is disturbing and damning. It highlights the brutal and unconstitutional treatment of J6 prisoners at the hands of Biden's legal system. J6 inmates have been beaten. The prisoners complain of chemicals and pubic hair in their food.
The conclusion to her report starts with the following:
The congressional visit to the D.C. jail on November 4 unquestionably proved that there is a two-track justice system in the United States. This two-tiered system is not based on race, violence, or conviction of crime, but politics.
The findings of the report, as well as the rest of this article will disgust and enrage you. At least it damned well better. The one thing that is not mentioned is that the only reason these people are being incarcerated in the first place is because of what I believe is a Democrat Party/DOJ coordinated plot to use the planned peaceful protest rally of January 6th to create a Reichstag Fire incident. It was leftist stooges and quite probably FBI plants if not actual agents themselves dressed in MAGA gear that breached the Capitol Building on January 6th. The unfortunate folks who followed them in, none of them doing anything more than gawking at the drapes, taking selfies and leaving post-it notes on Pelosi's desk are now being made examples of.
Worse, the Capitol Police sadistically beat Roseanne Boyland to death and shot Ashli Babbit. Two unarmed women who posed zero threat to anyone. Whatever other nightmare scenarios are going on abroad and at home, and for sure they are nightmare scenarios, this for me is the bitter end. And all of it stems from the 2016 and 2020 elections. Specifically, the American people trying to stop the trajectory this nation has been on since the end of the Second World War and the reaction by the progeny of those who set us on it.
For decades, the differences between liberal and conservative has slowly (then all at once) disintegrated to the point where we are no longer debating issues. Indeed there is no longer a debate as no debate is to be countenanced by a political/cultural entity that has overthrown the nation, hijacked the key pillars of government, the private sector and society at large and declared all opposition to it as not merely illegal but an evil that is to be eradicated from the face of the earth. Naturally, it has more impact in the original German, but it's got groove, it's got meaning in the current translation in Jive.
A teacher at a Pennsylvania high school who was a member of the Board of Directors of the National Education Association (NEA), the nation's largest labor union which represents almost three million employees, mostly teachers, reportedly posted a Facebook message that people who obtained religious exemptions so they could remain unvaccinated for [Chinese] COVID-19 should lose their jobs, get sick, and perhaps die, adding that the GOP should take the "guns they profess to love" and start shooting the unvaccinated individuals.
Mollie Paige Mumau reportedly wrote on Facebook:
Screw this guy and screw them all who are all about hiding beyond religious exemptions because they don't want anybody to tell them what to do. People tell you what to do all the time, and you do it. This is such BS. He and his ilk deserve whatever comes their way, including losing jobs, getting sick, and perhaps dying from this virus. But in the meantime, he's going to put all the people around him in danger. I don't know why the GOP doesn't take those guns they profess to love so much and just start shooting all of their constituents who think this way. It would be quicker and ultimately safer than putting me and my friends and family at risk.
The Daily Caller contacted the General McLane School District (GMSD) in Pennsylvania. Sarah Grabski, director of communications and administrative services for GMSD, confirmed the district did employ a woman named Mollie Mumau at General McLane High School.
"Grabski said the district could not legally discuss any personnel actions right now but that Mumau is not currently in its buildings."
Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, a feeble, crooked pervert with the mental capacity of a glue-huffing geoduck is supposedly standing up to Vladimir Putin as the latter is about to roll over the rest of Ukraine it didn't swipe from Obama. While inept boob Jake Sullivan is threatening Putin with a strongly worded letter to the NY Times, you have to wonder what's worse; drawing a red line in the sand and doing nothing as Putin's army gobbles up territory so as to destroy whatever scintilla of credibility American foreign policy still has with our allies and foes, or worse, if the puppet masters of the Klain/Kalorama Known Kommittee actually blunder us into a shooting war with the Russians just to save face and distract us at home from the disastrous domestic destruction.
By the time Barack Obama left office, every branch of the military was smaller than it had been on September 11. But the change in size concealed the true impact of America's most left-wing president in undermining our national security and weakening us in the face of our enemies.
"I've got a pen, and I've got a phone," Obama famously boasted. He used the pen to unleash a blizzard of executive orders and memorandums. Some led to outraged protests, but some of his most devastating penned assaults on our nation's military flew under the radar.
One of those took place during the end of his last year in office. His memorandum, "Promoting Diversity and Inclusion in the National Security Workforce", created the woke military of the Biden administration by putting identity politics, diversity quotas, and political indoctrination at the heart of the military's mission.
Obama had always resented the military. Even former General McChrystal, an Obama loyalist fired for describing his boss a little too aptly in the presence of a Rolling Stone reporter, described him as "uncomfortable and intimidated" by generals. But Obama's parting shot at the military cut the generals down to size by transforming them into community organizers.
His order redefined diversity as the military's "greatest asset" and reinvented national security as a system for maximizing employment diversity by race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and every identity politics metric, but not the military metrics that truly mattered, readiness, competence, and a willingness to wage war in defense of the homeland. . .
. . . Obama didn't just leave the military smaller in size, but smaller in spirit, its leadership class no longer dedicated to national security, but to the identity political agendas of the radical Left.
By Obama's second term, male Army ROTC cadets were being forced to march in women's high heels. The humiliating woke rituals, whose purpose is not the stated one of inclusion, but of exclusion, of demeaning and destroying the morale of the traditional fighting man, continue to hollow out the military readiness of armed services waging a culture war against themselves.
Spot on as usual by the esteemed Daniel Greenfield. But I would say one thing that he leaves out is, the American military may be inept when it comes to actual combat except for one thing: you better believe that the recruits and the cadres in uniform, be it BDUs or girdles and heels are being drilled incessantly to combat a real enemy: WE THE PEOPLE.
Look what happened to the poor folks in the Garland Archipelago. Look what is happening in Australia. You better believe that just as your kids are being mind-raped to hate America as founded, our recruits are being taught the same damned thing.
And that, gentle reader, is why we have a Second Amendment.
Michael Goodwin: "Our adversaries have clear goals and iron fists, we have a fumbling, mumbling [so-called quote-unquote "president"] who leads an alliance of largely disarmed welfare states formerly known as NATO. Our military is a woke but sleeping giant." Glass Joe: Weak Biden No Match for Putin and Other Foes
"Antifa's fortunes have faded. After beating up reporters covering their riots, attacking police officers who try to stop them from rioting throughout the United States, assassinating a Trump supporter, looting, and firebombing, Antifa thugs are finally being charged for their hate crimes by one city. One. And it's about damn time." Violent Antifa Terrorists Are Finally Prosecuted for Attacking Conservatives
"Texas isn't the only state to challenge the Biden administration on policies ranging from abortion to vaccine mandates to elections. However, it certainly seems to be paying a unique price." Biden's DOJ Has A Favorite Red-State Target: Texas
AMERICA, AND THE WORLD, IMPRISONED: CHINESE CORONAVIRUS FICTIONS AND FACTS
"The Court acknowledges the tragic toll that the [Chinese] COVID-19 pandemic has wrought throughout the nation and the globe," Judge Stan Baker begins. "However, even in time of crisis this Court must preserve the rule of law and ensure that all branches of government act within the bounds of their constitutionally granted authorities." Federal Judge Blocks Biden's Vaccine Mandate for Federal Contractors
"Having missed out on the opportunity during the first wave of pandemic panic as they busied themselves with impeachment theatrics, Democrats are ready for it now." Omicron Alarmists Delight
"Louisiana's legislature takes action to stop John Bel Edwards' school vax mandates, but he won't have it." Louisiana's Unamused Emperor
Betsy McCaughey: "A mayor who professes to defend bodily autonomy is doing the opposite, forcing everyone to take the shots, regardless of personal qualms. This is the same de Blasio who warned at a recent Brooklyn pro-choice rally that 'you cannot have your government attempt to take away your right to control your body. It cannot happen in America.'" "My Body My Choice?" Only for Abortion as Left Pushes Vaccine Mandates
A walking shard of evil called Mollie Mumau: "Screw this guy and screw them all who are all about hiding beyond religious exemptions because they don't want anybody to tell them what to do. People tell you what to do all the time, and you do it. This is such BS. He and his ilk deserve whatever comes their way, including losing jobs, getting sick, and perhaps dying from this virus." Teacher Who Was Listed On Board of Directors of NEA: GOP Should Shoot People Unvaccinated Through Religious Exemption
"Saule Omarova wanted to radically change banking in America." (big deal, the left have a very deep bench chock full of psycho commies even more radical than this freakazoid - jjs) Comrade Down: Socialist Nominee for Bank Regulator Drops Out
"The Build Back Better child-care plan would relegate religious providers to the margins." Wards of the State
"K-12 public schools throughout the U.S. are facing staff shortages so severe that school days are being canceled." Dealing with the School Staff Shortage
"In Carson v. Makin, the Supreme Court has a chance to reaffirm that the Constitution does not permit discrimination against faith-based schools." Correcting Maine's Error/
OTHER DEMOCRAT, LEFTIST AND RINO SCANDALS, MESHUGAS, CHUTZPOCRISY
"Rules and regulations are immortal. They don't die. The vast majority of rules and regulations live forever . . . there's not really an effective garbage collection system for removing rules and regulations, so this hardens the arteries of civilization where you are able to do less and less over time." Elon Musk Rains on Joe Biden's Parade, Calls on Congress to Throw Out Build Bolshevism Biggerer Bill
Michael Walsh: "Enjoy the schadenfreude, with a heaping side order of hypocrisy, all washed down by the sweet tears of whine. With special guest appearances by Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren and other enemies of the people" "Blue States Are the Problem"
"The Republican leadership's obsession with courting the transgender vote to the exclusion of things that matter to voters could spell disaster in 2022." Why The Red Wave Could Become a Red Puddle
"Twenty years ago, it was hard to see any major difference in government from one state to another, except perhaps in the prevailing tax rates. But now it's obvious." Escape To a Good State -- But Don't Ruin It
"The Socialist Alternative councilwoman has done more than any other leader to turn Seattle into a third-world hellhole by defunding police, encouraging the 'homeless' to reside in Fentanyl Flats, stoking job-killing policies, and chasing out business." Seattle Voters May Finally Get Rid of Turbulent Socialist Kshama Sawant
"Twitter is a childish cesspool of snarky stupidity. No scientist, researcher, respected journalist, or anyone who wants to be seen as a serious and legitimate source of information should use it. Dump it, now. It won't hurt your traffic in any serious way, since no one of any importance uses it. The general public certainly doesn't." Today's Blacklisted American: The American Heart Association Censored by Twitter
"Like most states, Massachusetts lets police seize property when they have 'probable cause' to believe it was used for drug trafficking. But once they have met that minimal threshold, the burden of proof shifts to the owner, who must show that the property is not subject to forfeiture -- a rule that helps explain why Massachusetts was the only state to receive an F in the Institute for Justice's 2020 report on civil forfeiture laws." One Woman's Six-Year Ordeal Shows We Must Reform Civil Forfeiture Laws
"Timothy Gilbert of Giles County, Tenn., was convicted of 'aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, unlawful possession of a weapon by a convicted felon, and resisting arrest.' All that has been thrown out the door. A Tennessee appeals court unanimously agreed that Gilbert deserves a new trial because an all-white jury deliberated in a room with a small Confederate flag in a frame, as well as a painting of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Black Man Gets New Trial Because of Confederate Memorabilia In Jury Room
BIDEN AFGHANISTAN BUG-OUT DISASTER
"Yet again, Biden has failed to live up to his pledge of transparency by missing the congressionally imposed requirement that his administration share complete details of the Afghanistan evacuation, including a detailed list of those airlifted out of Kabul." Biden Misses Deadline to Provide Congress Afghanistan Withdrawal Details
FOREIGN AFFAIRS, INTERNATIONAL
Clueless globalist stooge Jake Sullivan: "The measures we have put on the table are designed to show the Russian Government that should it choose to engage in such an invasion there will be those consequences." (our weakness is horrifying, but will the Kalorama Klown Kommittee blunder us into a shooting war with the Russians? - jjs) Comedy Gold! Biden Warns Putin He Will Be Tougher than Barack Obama to Protect Ukraine
"If I can advise [so-called quote-unquote "president"] Biden, I would like him to articulate to Mr. Putin that no red lines from the Kremlin side should be here," Reznikov said. "The red line is here in Ukraine and the civilized world will react without hesitation." "Bloody Massacre": Ukrainian Official Describes Devastation Russian Invasion Would Bring
"According to statements by Astra and the Space Force, the startup's next launch, its first operational mission intended to place payloads in orbit, will occur in Florida at Cape Canaveral." Astra's Next Launch to Be in Florida
"The uncertainty of science: Astronomers have detected a galaxy about 250 million light years away that shows no evidence of any dark matter, a phenomenon that defies the accepted theories about dark matter." Astronomers Find Galaxy With No Dark Matter
FEMINAZISM, TRANSGENDER PSYCHOSIS, HOMOSEXUALIZATION, WAR ON MASCULINITY/NORMALCY
"[Andrew Breitbart] once said, very adroitly, that politics is downstream from culture. Our culture, we don't eat the same breakfast cereal anymore. We don't read the same newspapers. We don't consume the same news. We're divided in every way, shape, and form in our culture, and thus it translates downstream into our politics. I personally think -- and not that I'm hoping, I'm just an observer -- but I think the United States is heading toward a breakup. It's already happening." Pearl Harbor Historian Wonders If America Can Stay Together Through Its Third Century
Dennis Prager: "Putting aside issues of courage, of standing for what is right, of saving America from those working to destroy it, there is a great selfish reason to come out of the closet: kindred spirits, i.e., good people, will discover you." Why You Should Come Out of the Closet With Your Conservative Values
Trinity Repertory Theatre panned by Providence Journal: "beginning with an opening monologue -- inviting people to remember Native American tribes that once populated the state, mentioning slave trade connections and urging support for people of color -- there is a layer being added to Dickens' message of humanity and kindness that feels forced" Rhode Island Theater Company Injects Racial Activism Into A Christmas Carol -- Gets Upset At Bad Review
NOTE: The opinions expressed in some links may or may not reflect my own. I include them because of their relevance to the discussion of a particular issue.
ALSO: The Morning Report is cross-posted at CutJibNewsletter.com if you want to continue the conversation all day.
This is in the same sense as "Jeffrey Epstein didn't increase his own error rates". AWS US-East-1 burned down, fell over, and sank into the swamp.
With it went a few little sites like Netflix and Disney+ and, oh, Amazon itself. Tens of thousands of Adele fans waiting in virtual line for pre-release tickets were not impressed when the whole thing was rescheduled, and they weren't notified by email because email services relying on AWS were also down. (Fortune)
AWS is not just a product, it's Amazon's own computer system. With that down, the storefront went down, and all the inventory and logistics services went with it. Delivery drivers were paid and sent home because there was nothing they could do - there's no paper trail for this, not at Amazon's scale.
It's a DRAMless TLC drive, which is a viable option if you're on a budget and not running Oracle databases. But if you look around you'll likely find the Samsung 970 EVO for only about 10% more, and it's worth the 10%.
"To be clear, our finding is not a warp bubble analog, it is a real, albeit humble and tiny, warp bubble," White told The Debrief, quickly dispensing with the notion that this is anything other than the creation of an actual, real-world warp bubble. "Hence the significance."
Yeah, nah. Funnily enough, the actual published research paper - of which White himself is the lead author - says nothing of the sort. It's full of words like "intriguing" and "correlation" and starkly short on "actual real-world warp bubbles".
Party Like It's 1979 Video of the Day
Disclaimer: There's a time when all the world's asleep, except for sysadmins who are tearing their hair out because critical online services have gone offline for the seventeenth consecutive day.
“Everyone should be able to defend themselves. I think it’s a God-given right, the right to self-defense. That’s what was on trial in Wisconsin, the right to self-defense.” Kyle Rittenhouse
Quote III
"I believe we've reached here a solution to the debt ceiling issue that's consistent with Republican views of raising the debt ceiling for this amount at this particular time and allows the Democrats to proudly own it," Sen. Mitch McConnell (RINO-KYJelly)
Quote IV
I'm so grateful to be able to eat scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast and sometimes a roast beef sandwich for dinner. Mel Brooks
Shocking photos show heavily armed members of Mexico’s National Guard patrolling among half-naked sunbathers in tourist hot spot Cancun in a show of force against warring cartels.
Images taken Sunday show the officers, fully clad in military gear and brandishing assault rifles, marching through the sand as bemused sunseekers look on.
Other pictures show a long line of armored vehicles arriving after an extra 1,500 guardsmen were dispatched after an escalation of violence killed two tourists, including a travel blogger from California. Other international tourists have also been injured in shootouts among rival gangs.
“This cannot be repeated,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said last month as he announced the extra guardsmen during a visit to Cancun.
Sometimes, work thought up by acclaimed designers takes longer than expected to enter the world. New York City’s Four Freedoms Park, designed by architect Louis Kahn, took decades to go from plans to a physical space that people could walk through. A similar process might be underway for a bold modular-home design created by some of the 20th century’s most beloved designers, Charles and Ray Eames.
Billboard just released its annual year-end 200 chart, which reflects the most purchased and streamed albums of the year. For the first time in its history, not a single new rock or metal album cracked the Top 200.
The Billboard 200 (which dates back to 1992) is calculated by combining the year’s physical and digital sales for an album, as well as its streaming numbers. As Loudwire points out, the newest rock album on the 2021 edition of the chart is Machine Gun Kelly’s 2020 album Tickets to My Downfall, which is ranked at No. 24 on the chart, just one notch below Queen’s 1981 Greatest Hits. (At No. 23, that Queen compilation is the highest-ranking rock record on the chart.)
During and after several games throughout the fall semester, Senior Associate Athletics Director Reyna Gilbert-Lowry asked the group to “tone it down” when cheering in the stands—a strange request to fans cheering their home team in a large, outdoor soccer arena.
In response to a foul call at a match on Sept. 26, many fans booed and shouted at the referee. Lohr joined in by yelling “what?!?” several times at the official. In response, Gilbert-Lowry approached the Shirtless Boys and asked them to quiet down. Lohr asked her what she meant, and she then directed campus security to remove the students from the event. Before security arrived, Lohr called her “a glorified PE teacher,” and encouraged the crowd to steer its derision toward her. The crowd jeered Gilbert-Lowry as security removed the boys from the match.
The next day, one of the other Shirtless Boys emailed Gilbert-Lowry seeking clarification for why she removed them from the game. Gilbert-Lowry replied: “There is no place for Sean Lohr’s behavior and level of disrespect he showed to me last night, and previously.” Lohr then contacted Gilbert-Lowry to set up a time to discuss what happened. Gilbert-Lowry responded by banning Lohr from all women’s soccer home games for the remainder of the year, citing “last Sunday’s actions and your continued level of disrespect to me.”
NEW YORK, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O) on Tuesday lost its bid with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to delay a union election at three of the coffee chain's locations in Buffalo, New York.
Workers received ballots in the mail in November and began sending them in. The NLRB will count them up on Thursday, but the company had tried to delay the tally with its objection to parts of the election process. The NLRB decision means that a vote count will go forward.
***
The ONT Musical Interlude
&&&
***
Although I am employed at the highly successful AoSHQ. Sometimes I wish mankind would have stopped at the Gutenberg printing press. A plethora of Genius Award Winners.
A German court convicted a 67-year-old electrician of aggravated, dangerous and simple assault for removing the testicles of several men at their request, causing one person to die, the dpa news agency has reported.
A Munich regional court sentenced the man to eight years and six months in prison. The defendant, whose name was not released for privacy reasons, had initially also been charged with murder by omission but prosecutors later dropped that charge.
The defendant had admitted during the trial to offering “castrations” on sado-masochistic websites and said several men paid him money for torturing them and removing their testicles, dpa reported.
Felix Klieser might have been born with no arms, but it’s not stopped him developing an international career as a horn player. Instead of using his hands to press the valves, he uses his toes.
His French horn sits on a stand, and he uses his right foot to move in and out of hte bell of the instrument and his left foot to press the valves and change the notes.
***
Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by Acuity.
Notice: Posted with permission by the Ace Media Empire, AceCorp, LLC and the First Amendment.
How many Democrats are in this sample where Biden is at 41% approval despite being at 30% with independents and presumably even lower with Republicans?
They're claiming that something like 60% of the country are Democrats? That Independents plus Republicans together constitute a distinct minority?
And what would the Republicans' lead be like with a more reasonable sample?
More voters say they would back a Republican than a Democrat for Congress, 44% to 41%, if the election were held today, a lead that is within the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.
See RedState for a list of issues the public wants the president and Congress to focus on -- immigration topping the list at 13%, followed by the economy at 11% and inflation at 10%.
Surprisingly, the situation in Afghanistan comes in at a whopping 0 percent, so while that travesty may have been a big reason for Biden's initial collapse some months ago, it appears that other issues are now at the forefront of most people's minds. That China doesn't register is a bit disconcerting, but given this is only a ranking of top issues, Americans very well could still have a decent understanding of the threat posed.
Past that, another gut punch for Democrats is delivered by abortion coming in at just 1 percent. For a few days, many on the left were bleating that the Supreme Court possibly gutting Roe v. Wade would represent a turnaround moment for their 2022 chances. That doesn't appear to be the case, a reality I discussed some days ago.
Yes this is a blow-off post. I was going to just post the animal post but I saw this poll drop.
From tweets by Jason Meisner (@jmetr22b). There is no video; Mr. Juicy Smolliet objected and would not permit cameras in the courtroom.
The Nigerian brothers are named Abel and Abimbola Osundairo. The latter is called "Bola" and sometimes "Ola." I've changed references to him to be "Bola," consistently.
#JussieSmollett is retaking the witness stand now.
Jason Meisner
Prosecutor Dan Webb is resuming his slightly folksy questioning, getting Jussie to admit that he drove around Lakeview with the Osundairo brothers, but deny that he recruited them in the hoax attack during the ride.
Smollett is answering in clipped tones. Leaning into the microphone as he says,"That’s what I said, yes." When asked about any hoax planning, he says "Absolutely not. That never happened."
Webb is working to an important point. If Smollett had picked up Abel to go workout, as he's testified, why did [Bola] get in the car, why did they drive all the way to Streeterville and just turn around and go back to the Osundairos' home?
In other words: If he was just working out with Abel -- as the lie goes -- he should just be in the car with Abel.
But, on the other hand, if he's going to do a "dry run" of the fake hate crime with both Abel and Bola, then he'd need both men.
And look at this -- he has both men, not just Abel.
Q: You got so stoned that you decided when you got to Streeterville you were too stoned to work out?
Smollett sounds slightly annoyed by the question. "No," he answers. "I've worked out many times high on weed. It certainly wasn't that."
Smollett says it was "weird" that Bola was with them and he had an interview set up so he decided to just scrap the workout plan.
He seems impatient with Webb's repeated questions about whether he's denying planning the hoax.
Webb shows surveillance video of Smollett's car circling the area where the attack occurred.
"You mean the intersection directly across from my garage?" Smollett retorts.
Webb tries to get him to agree he went past three times.
"I can’t tell you how many times it was," he says.
Webb: Do you have any reason to disagree with police testimony that you passed by the intersection three times?
Smollett: I don’t know. I circled around the block.
Webb: How long were you there?
Smollett: Well you have the surveillance, you have to tell me. It was three years ago
Seems like they're casing the area to check the cameras and find the right place for the Fake Hate Crime Hoax production.
Next they talk about Juicy sending Abel messages from Instagram as he was returning from NYC to Chicago -- keeping him apprised of when his plane was landing, so he would know when it was time for the Fake Hate Crime Production to take place.
Webb asks Smollett about Instagram messages sent to Osundairo from NYC.
A: Mr. Webb, all due respect you don’t understand Instagram.
Webb: Look at me. I’m old. I don’t understand Instagram. Just answer my question.
Smollett accuses Webb of "misrepresenting" things to the jury
Testy back and forth going on here, with Webb interrupting Smollett and asking the judge to strike his answers as non-responsive. Judge Linn tells Smollett to listen to the question and don't ad lib.
This is all over whether the Instagram messages were public or sent only to Bola
Juicy is claiming that he was sending updates about his travel progress to everyone so it was NBD if he also sent texts to Bola, right?
Webb shows him the next Instagram message: This is the second time you updated him about your flight status?
Smollett: Out of context, yes sir
Webb: I’m sorry, what?
A: Yes
Webb: Did you answer yes?
Smollett: Yes
Webb reads a text from Smollett with the word "n**ga" and Smollett stops him and asks him not to say it out loud, "out of respect for every African American in the courtroom."
That's rich. It was part of Smolliet's script of his Fake Race Crime Hoax to have that word repeated multiple times and he uses it all the time in his texts but now he's piously telling the prosecutor he's not allowed to read from his own text messages, "out of respect for every African American in the courtroom."
Webb apologizes, says why don't you read it instead. "Apology accepted but that’s been used a lot."
Another update message to Bola with the N-word. Webb says, "Why don you read it? I don’t want to mispronounce anything."
Smollett reads the text in question: "N---- finally made it just landed haha"
Remember, for the attack, Smolliet first claimed his attackers were "white," and then, when it turned out they were very dark-skinned Nigerians, shifted this to "pale." His lawyer even suggested that perhaps they were wearing whiteface makeup during the attack.
Besides asking about why he misidentified dark-skinned men as "white," the prosecutor will also ask why he misidentified men he knew well as completely unknown strangers whose voices he failed to recognize.
We are now on to the attack. Webb asks if he's denying that Smollett told Osundairo to do it right at the intersection near his building at 2 a.m.
Smollett: I’m saying that that’s a bold faced lie, yes.
You just happened to be there?
A: It's difficult to answer with a yes or no
Webb and Smollett now squabbling over whether he really believed the Walgreens was open 24 hours.
Smollett: How would I know that, Mr. Webb? I was not frequenting Walgreens in the morning for eggs. ...I’m under the impression that drug stores are 24 hours.
The entire tone of this cross is 180 degrees from yesterday. Smollett is on the defensive, annoyed. Webb keeps pressing him about the eggs. Smollett launches into a lengthy answer about diet and cleanses and such.
Webb: "Sir do you even remember what my question was?"
Webb asks if there were any messages with Osundairo mentioning a workout the night of the attack.
Smollett: No, but there’s also no messages about an attack and I’m on trial for an attack that I didn't do.
Webb moves again to strike as non-responsive.
When Linn directs Smollett to answer the question, Jussie turns to the judge and says "I’m just concerned about answering yes or no."
"Please, please," Linn says. "It’s the same for all witnesses, it’s not personal to you. The lawyer asks questions, you answer them."
Webb: Didn't you recognize Bola's voice when he yelled out "Empire n-----" during the attack?
Smollett: In that moment, I’m not going to stop and say hey Bola is that you? It was an attack. It happened fast.
Webb: Do you doubt the Osundairo brothers' testimony that they're the ones seen on surveillance?
Smollett: I doubt every word that they say.
Webb: So is that them?
Smollett: I just don’t know. They’re liars, so.. they also said I had something to do with it and that’s not true.
So Smolliet is also claiming he doesn't necessarily believe these guys are the attackers -- maybe they're just making this elaborate lie up!
Smollett seems exasperated when asked if he testified his attackers "sounded" white.
"I never would say that they acted or sounded white." He says he made the "assumption" that they were.
"That would be racist to say that someone acted white or sounded white."
Again, the richness of this nasty race-baiting racist piously telling us what would or would not be "racist."
Webb still questioning Smollett on his description of one of his attackers as white. Smollett acknowledges he later changed that to "pale."
"I didn’t want to make the assumption that they were white. So I said let me change that and just say that they were pale skinned."
Smollett said it was the "responsible thing" to change his description. "They could’ve been a white person, they could have been a pale someone else."
Webb: Did you say 'white' to get more attention?
Smollett: You'd have to ask someone who actually did a fake hate crime.
Juicy's cover story is that he was only talking to Abel about arranging a workout.
That workout obviously never happened.
But surprise surprise -- Juicy never texted Abel to cancel the workout, and Abel never texted to say "Where are you? I thought we had a workout."
Almost as if they never scheduled a workout, because they had instead scheduled a Fake Hate Crime Hoax.
Very subtle but important point raised by Webb in all of
this: After all their supposed planning over this delayed workout, there wasn't a single text message or call between Smollett and Osundairo the morning after the attack saying it had to be canceled.
Smollett upset after Webb asks him if "getting a few bruises" was really a big blow to his career.
"Mr. Webb, I have a scar under my eye that looks like a bag for the rest of my life," as well as a "black circle" on his face, Smollett retorts. "It’s absolutely a problem."
Webb then shows Smollett an image of him from the Robin Roberts interview a couple weeks after the attack. Smollett asks Webb if he knows what a Hollywood interview is like and that he was in makeup that "makes me look much better."
Webb's just letting him take the bait.
Webb appears to be done with his cross. We're on a quick break.
On The Five, Jesse Watters said that when asked if Juicy had done this for attention, Juicy had responded that, as an actor, he never sought attention.
This woman just can't believe that "a creepy old guy" is looking at her!
Someone responded to the below, "You couldn't have been waiting to tell your father this for too long, because people only made up this bullshit a year ago."
My dad was born in 1966, my mom in 1967. They are always talking about how different things were when they were younger. My dad sent me this. It really helped to explain. I thought y'all would find it interesting. 👇
Notice the headline is not "We've discovered cancer, scientists say."
Researchers at the UK's University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores University surveyed pet owners to rate their cats' level of psychopathy -- as defined by human psychological standards.
Their findings, published in the December issue of the Journal of Research in Personality, revealed that most cats fall somewhere on the spectrum of psychopathy -- that is, on the "triarchic" concept of psychopathy, which uses levels of boldness, meanness and disinhibition to measure the psychiatric disorder in people.
The 46-question survey, which currently includes 549 participants, asked cat owners to rate whether their cat "torments their prey rather than killing it straight away," "cat dominates neighborhood cat(s) (e.g. chases them, picks fights with them)," "is undeterred by punishment i.e. will repeat behaviors he/she is scolded for" and "vocalizes loudly (e.g. meows, yowls) for no apparent reason."
...
In addition, researchers added human-unfriendliness and pet-unfriendliness to their scale to create the Cat Triarchic Plus, a tool to measure feline psychopathy.
Wow, so much Sciencing.
And what does all of this mean? What important conclusions can be drawn from this Study?
The fact that many cats will fall somewhere on the psychopathy spectrum may be attributable to their animalistic nature, researchers said in an earlier statement to UK media.
Oh. Oh.
God Bless you all in your work.
In Women Posting Their W's Online news, one pluckly lass is just absolutely shredding the women's swimming records at the University of Pennsylvania.
And what's more -- she's new at being a woman! She just started being a woman last year!
Talk about a prodigy!
Lia Thomas, 22, smashed two U.S. swimming records at an Akron, Ohio contest
Thomas won the 1,650 freestyle in a record time of 15:59.71 beating her closest rival Anna Sofia Kalandaze by 38 seconds
She left rivals floundering in a 500 freestyle beating them by 14 seconds
Last month she competed in a women's swimming event between Princeton and Cornell and has regularly broken records as part of UPenn's team
Thomas previously competed for the school's men's team for three years before
joining the women's team. Her last men's competition was in November 2019
Some have voiced their anger at her swimming success, claiming it to be 'unfair,' and many refused to refer to her as a woman
NCAA rules dictate any trans female athlete can take part in women's events if they have completed a year of testosterone suppression treatment
Imagine how good he'd be at women's swimming if he'd been doing it his whole life!
From The Greatest Story Ever Department, a woman wanted an ex-boyfriend to get in touch with her and ask her out again.
So she dreamt up a scheme: She would post online about her imaginary, made-up wedding, which she thought would spur her former boyfriend to desperately contact her and beg her to dump the man she just married to date her former boyfriend.
Woman reveals she FAKED her own wedding - complete with lavish venue, stand-in groom, and a professional photoshoot - in a desperate attempt to get her ex to text her, only for him to IGNORE the faux matrimony
The woman, who is named Jacqueline, revealed on TikTok that she pretended to get married in an attempt to get her ex-boyfriend to text her - but it didn't work
She showed off pictured that were taken from the fake-wedding in a now-viral video, which has gained more than 1.7 million views since it was posted
The photos showed her and her faux-groom cuddling, laughing, and dancing together, while she donned a fancy white wedding gown and he wore a tux
It appears that Jacqueline even rented out a venue to take the photos, had her hair done professionally, and paid to have a wedding cake made
The pictures, which were taken by Alessandro Valeriani, looked convincing - but the stunt was unsuccessful in the end and her ex didn't reach out
It's unclear how much Jacqueline payed for the photoshoot, but a photographer will charge anywhere between $500 - $10,000 for a pre-wedding shoot
Is this all just an elaborate pitch for Ryan Reynolds' next movie?
The video her confessing her plan is here. But it's easier to see in the slideshow at the Daily Mail.
She's kind of cute. Thicc German girl. Thicker than a bowl of oatmeal. She's obviously insane but that might have some advantages, at least for a couple of weeks.
Not sure why she's having trouble finding dates.
Maybe this is all a lie and she's just playing two dimensional chess to get attention, making up a story about a made-up wedding. (Influencers are operating at absolute peak if they play two dimensional chess.)
I heard about this on the Boyscast. They had a guest, An0maly (his spelling not mine), who said something like, "I'd like to have workshopped this plan with her beforehand. Like, best case scenario, he contacts you and you call off your pretend wedding, but now he's with a woman who he thinks cheats on her honeymoon if someone just DMs her 'u up?' on Twitter. We can do better than that. Let's brainstorm. There are no bad ideas, except for the original one you had about the fake wedding."
Actually he just said the "workshop" thing and pointed out how bad the plan was. But those were good things to say.
Kyle Rittenhouse confirms on @SydneyLWatson and @ElijahSchaffer podcast that he wants to be a lawyer and go up against "piece of shit prosecutors like Thomas Binger" 😂
The I&I/TIPP Poll gave respondents the names of 16 other possible candidates, asking "Who do you want to see run for president on the Democratic ticket in 2024?"
As mentioned, Biden was named by just 22% of those asked, while 12% mentioned Vice President Kamala Harris, whose abrasive style, lack of preparation, and revolving-door personnel changes have drawn criticism even from formerly friendly Democrats and the left-leaning media.
None of the rest rose above low single-digits: Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg garnered 4%, while New York Rep. Andrea Ocasio-Cortez, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy, and Georgia 2018 gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams each attracted 3% of the support.
...
Even Democrats seem less than enthused about Biden holding the top spot. Just 37% want him there. And only 16% give Harris the nod as presidential standard-bearer, alarming given that Vice President Harris is next in line to be president should Biden not complete his term in office.
Younger Americans are a key part of Democrats' base, but they have soured on President Joe Biden.
Polling shows -- despite winning roughly three-in-five voters under age 30 -- Biden's approval rating slipping below 50 percent among the youngest segment of the electorate. That includes a new Harvard Youth Poll released Wednesday that pegs Biden at 46 percent approval among Americans aged 18 to 29, compared to 51 percent who disapprove.
It's a 13-point drop for Biden from March, when 59 percent of young Americans approved of the job Biden was doing.
Only three were moved in the Democrats' direction: Massachusetts, which was moved to a Lean D because the "Republican" governor Charlie Baker is retiring; Georgia, which moves to a toss-up I guess because Perdue is announcing a primary against incumbent Kemp and I guess because the current incumbent Stacy Abrams just announced her re-election bid; and New York, which was already lean D and now is solid D. Not sure why.
But eight move in a GOP direction, and they're eight you'd really like to win.
Most notably, Cook moved Wisconsin, Michigan, and Nevada all from "lean Democrat" to "toss up."
Wisconsin has long been considered a swing state, where the presidential race results have come within one point during the past two elections and where Evers just barely beat out former Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, in 2018.
Since taking over the governor’s seat, however, Evers' term has not been without turmoil. The Wisconsin Democrat faced waves of criticism in 2020 both for stringent coronavirus policies and for focusing more on race relations and less on maintaining law and order after deadly riots broke out in Kenosha following a police officer shooting Jacob Blake.
The upheaval in his state has continued to dominate headlines between the exoneration of Kyle Rittenhouse -- who killed two of his attackers during one of last year's riots -- and the Waukesha parade tragedy, where a man with an extensive criminal background out on bail allegedly drove an SUV into a parade, killing seven people.
Cook cited a Marquette Law School poll that showed Evers’ approval rating "in the danger zone for an incumbent," at 45 percent approval and 46 percent disapproval.
"Most damning for Evers though was when the poll asked whether he should be re-elected," Cook noted. "Only 40% said definitely/probably, while 53% said they'd definitely/probably vote for someone else.... These are numbers an incumbent doesn't want a year out from the midterms."
The leading GOP challenger to Evers, former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, is proving competitive in the early stages of the race after a poll this fall found her neck and neck with the governor.
A Harvard Poll finds that Trump would beat Biden were the election held today, but, to be honest, not by as much as I'd hope, given how badly Biden is faring right now:
A new Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll reaffirmed an ongoing trend that former President Donald Trump is increasingly more popular than his successor, President Joe Biden.
Released exclusively to The Hill, the poll showed that 48 percent of likely voters would back President Trump in a 2024 matchup versus 45 percent for Joe Biden. As noted by The Hill:
The results were evenly split at 46 percent among women, while men backed Trump by a margin of 50 percent to 43 percent. Biden won urban voters by 20 percentage points and suburban voters by 4 percentage points, but Trump romped among rural voters by 33 percentage points.
A federal judge in Georgia issued a nationwide injunction that prevents the U.S. government from enforcing a COVID-19 vaccine mandate on federal contractors, temporarily shutting down the last remaining vaccine requirement by the Biden administration.
U.S. District Judge Stan Baker in Savannah, Georgia, said Congress did not clearly authorize the president to use procurement to impose a vaccine requirement on contractors that will have "vast economic and political significance."
The lawsuit was filed by the states of Georgia, Alabama, Indiana, Kansas, South Carolina, Utah and West Virginia as well as a trade group for contractors.
AllahPundit just turned out all the lights, pulled the curtains closed tight, and put on the Cure's Disintegration.
Alec Baldwin Shows Infamous Hot Temper, Chases Questioner Even As DA Is Considering Charging Him In Shooting Death of Cinematographer Plus: Alec Baldwin -- Murderer?
After that video, a video of Viva Frei discussing why he thinks that Alec Baldwin probably deliberately fired the gun in a rage.
No, he didn't know there was a bullet in it (we assume). But this is a man we have repeatedly seen provoked into rage over trifles. And here he was, being ordered about by a female cinematographer, rather than a male director (and it's always directors who give orders to actors, not cinematographers).
To make his point, Viva Frei takes us through a quick recap of Baldwin's well-known rage and impulse control issues, from "selfish rotten little pig" to molesting papparazzi.
His logic makes sense: Baldwin was, as usual, in a mad rage over nothing, and forgot himself, and forgot all of his gun safety training, and angrily pointed the gun at the cinematographer and angrily pulled the trigger.
This accords with the first reports from the set which said that Baldwin did exactly that: That he said, angrily, "You want it like that?!" as he pulled the trigger.
Note this wouldn't make it murder, as he wouldn't have intended to shoot and kill the woman, as he wouldn't have known the gun was loaded with a bullet. (Although see below.)
It would start to put him on the hook for something like criminally negligent homicide.
Andrew "Law of Self Defense" Branca was impressed by Viva Frei's argument and carried it further, wondering if, were it true that Baldwin had angrily pulled the trigger of a gun while aiming it at a human being, he could/would be charged with actual murder.
Or felony murder, to be precise. Branca wonders if Baldwin's hypothetical angry, deliberate snapping of the gun at Helenya Hutchins could be construed as a battery, which is a felony. A predicate felony for applying the felony murder rule, which says that if a death then occurs in the commission of any predicate felony (such as battery), the person committing that felony may be charged with murder, whether he intended to commit murder or not.
Under New Mexico law, an unlawful intentional touching or application of force done in an angry manner qualifies as a simple battery (s. 30-3-4. Battery). Of course, we're presuming that Baldwin never intended to actually apply force to Hutchins.
Nevertheless, merely putting someone in fear of an imminent battery is itself a crime. Under New Mexico law, menacing conduct which causes another person to reasonably believe that he is in danger of receiving an immediate battery qualifies as misdemeanor simple assault (. 30-3-1. Assault).
Further, a gun, a deadly weapon, was used here, and unlawfully assaulting someone with a deadly weapon meaning putting them in fear of imminent harm from the gun, escalates the criminal offense to felony aggravated assault (s. 30-3-2. Aggravated assault).
And, finally, under New Mexico law the killing of one human being by another without lawful justification in the commission of any felony qualifies as felony murder, a murder in the first degree (s. 30-2-1 Murder).
I don't buy any of that because, if Hutchins' assumption was that the gun was unloaded, she could not fear an imminent unlawful application of force.
A. Murder in the first degree is the killing of one human being by another without lawful justification or excuse, by any of the means with which death may be caused:
(1) by any kind of willful, deliberate and premeditated killing;
(2) in the commission of or attempt to commit any felony; or
(3) by any act greatly dangerous to the lives of others, indicating a depraved mind regardless of human life.
The idea is that you act in a way that is so willfully in disregard to whether someone lives or dies it counts as intentional murder. It's called "depraved heart" in other states that employ the rule.
The trouble with that is: Well, you wouldn't want all accidental shootings to fall under this rule, so what would bring Baldwin's shooting into the "depraved mind" category? You could argue that he had prior knowledge that there were all sorts of problems with the guns and live ammo on the set, with people quitting over safety concerns. (He claimed he didn't hear about that but I'm sure he claimed that to avoid legal liability, and I'm sure this could be proven a lie.)
So he had a duty to act with even greater care, not the much reduced care he actually acted with.
Still, another big s-t-r-e-t-c-h.
But the idea of Alec Baldwin cooling his heels in jail for the rest of his life amuses me sufficiently to spend a few minutes trying to dream up ways in which it could possibly happen.
Note that Lemon's warning would caused Smollett to reduce cooperation with police. So Lemon was playing lawyer for a subject he was "covering" as a "journalist."
Nick Arama at RedState points out that Don Lemon admitted that he had an emotional connection to Jussie Smollett, who, like Don Lemon, was black and gay and who had also suffered zero discrimination in his overpromoted life:
Lemon has already said that he was in constant contact with Smollett early on in the case and that the story was "personal" to him.
During his testimony, Smollett said he refused to give police his cell phone because Don Lemon had warned him the police didn't believe him:
Megan Crepeau
@crepeau
He also says he declined to give his phone to CPD in part because earlier he'd gotten a text from Don Lemon "saying he'd gotten a text from CPD saying they don't believe me."
objections, then a sidebar.
The police were not interacting with Don Lemon as a pal. They were responding to his questions as a "journalist" -- and likely, they were attempting to blunt his hot-tempered, accusatory questions like "Why don't you racists already have these MAGA terrorists arrested?"
So he was flinging that kind of question at police, elicited the response "We don't know if we actually believe Smollett," immediately passed that to a subject he was covering, and Smollett immediately used that information to decided to not share his cell phone with cops.
Although, given the fact that the cell phone contained his interactions with the Nigerian brothers, it's a fair bet he'd already decided not to do that.
But again, as with Fredo, we have a "journalist" using his resources and cachet as a CNN "reporter" to get information which he then passes on to a subject he has an emotional connection to.
CNN has continued to stand behind Don Lemon, who has allegedly tried to settle with Hice [the man that Don Lemon sexually assaulted] on multiple occasions. In response to the network terminating Chris Cuomo for alleged sexual misconduct and for using CNN resources to aid his brother's crisis team, Hice told Fox News Digital that the network protects predators.
"They're a network rife with predators and perverts," Hice said. "Lemon will have to testify under oath in the near future, but it's good to see that there's finally some accountability happening."
"This is who they are. They're a predator-protecting machine, they slander and smear victims with impunity," Hice added.
Fun #BlueAnon flashback: Mercury News "reporter" Martha Ross suggested @DonaldJTrumpJr and other conservatives were promoting a "conspiracy theory" after they tweeted that Smollett's story could be a left-wing hoax.https://t.co/7PLt70UCNQ
Eric Zemmour is a French journalist and pundit who captured the attention of the French body politic by announcing his candidacy for president with a bang...simply reading a famous speech by Charles De Gaulle.
My dear Countrymen -- For years, the same feeling has swept you along, oppressed you, shamed you: a strange and penetrating feeling of dispossession. You walk down the streets in your towns, and you don't recognize them.
You look at your screens and they speak to you in a language that is strange, and in the end foreign. You turn your eyes and ears to advertisements, TV series, football matches, films, live performances, songs, and the schoolbooks of your children.
You take the subways and trains. You go to train stations and airports. You wait for your sons and your daughters outside their school. You take your mother to the emergency room. You stand in line at the post office or the employment agency. You wait at a police station or a courthouse. And you have the impression that you are no longer in a country that you know.
It's well worth a read, mostly because the media will portray it as a xenophobic, racist, classist, sexist, anti-Semitic rant against the modern world.
But it isn't. Recognizing that the glories of France are being subsumed into a chaotic mix of the rest of the world is not hatred of the foreign...it is a recognition that the accomplishments of a significant culture are worth preserving. Zemmour is blunt, and he is a firm adherent of the classically French snobbery about their culture and their country. It is easy to fall into the lazy assumption that he hates, but the reality is a bit more complex. For instance, he has been accused of anti-Semitism by some of the leaders of French Jewry, but that is laughable, since his entire political philosophy is based on the glory of France rather than the glorification of its many ethnic groups.
Even Daniel Pipes -- who is a fine example of an academic mind without much common sense -- understands Zemmour's importance.
What to make of Éric Zemmour, the just-declared candidate for president in France in 2022?
His last name in Arabic means, perhaps suitably for an intellectual, honking, as what geese and car horns do.* His parents fled Algeria and he openly identifies as a Jew but presents himself as the representative of traditional Catholic Deep France and the scourge of immigrants and Islam. He adopts positions on Jewish issues so extreme that France's Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia called him an antisemite. He's been twice found guilty of hate speech and wears these condemnations proudly. His anti-feminist positions are antediluvian. He's pro-Russian and anti-American.
* Dec. 2, 2021 addenda: (1) Two readers inform me that the name زمور is actually Berber and means olive tree.
But Pipes goes on to say:
Despite my many criticisms, large and small, of Zemmour, I would vote for him were I a French citizen. That's because he grasps an essential truth, that France faces a scourge from immigration, that the country needs more babies, and that the elements which made France great are in peril of being overwhelmed by alien cultures. He speaks these realities eloquently and fearlessly, hoping thereby to revive a country that otherwise is heading toward a self-imposed crisis.
I doubt he will win, but the fact that his message is being taken seriously, or at the very least being reported far and wide, is a testament to the pent-up demand for love of country, for patriotism, for pride in culture.
It is long past time when the glory of Western culture is taken seriously rather than constantly denigrated as an anachronism in the modern world. It is odd that all other cultures are celebrated, but the most successful one; the one that has brought the world most of its wonders, is mocked and minimized and demonized.
Thomas Hobbes described the natural state of mankind as, "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Western culture, in which France had a significant role, banished that life. It is by no means guaranteed that it will not return, and Zemmour understands that very well.
Good morning, kids. Tuesday and despite our world collapsing in on us, and really because of that sad reality, it's even more important to remember and reflect on the events of 80 years ago today. Today is Pearl Harbor Day. What happened there that day, as well as the declaration of war by Germany against the United States changed the course of history and brought us to where we are today. It is bitterly ironic that in the wake of our absolute military victory and emergence as the preeminent global superpower, the evil that we overcame did not disappear, but re-emerged in only a slightly different form and spent the ensuing eight decades sowing the seeds of our self-destruction from within. No doubt, the Soviets and the Chi-Coms each played and continue to play a crucial role in fomenting the cancer that Lincoln nearly 100 years earlier prophetically warned, If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
Take a look around and that is exactly what is happening. Little wonder then that the neo-Cultural Revolutionaries are aiming to erase Lincoln with equal if not more zeal than Robert E. Lee or even the Confederate flag. The logic is simple, if not completely insane. Since America was not only never perfect but evil and illegitimate from the outset, nothing that anyone did to redress its greatest flaw, slavery, really mattered. Not the founders who laid the legal foundation for its abolition in 1789, nor the 700,000 sacrificed in a civil war to end it, nor anything anyone has ever done since then to try to live up to the ideals of liberty and justice for all. Therefore, even Abe Lincoln is to be removed from history. But, as is my wont to do, I digress.
Most Americans once were mostly in agreement about what happened on December 7, 1941, 80 years ago this year. But not so much now, given either the neglect of America's past in the schools or woke revisionism at odds with the truth.
The Pacific war that followed Pearl Harbor was not a result of America egging on the Japanese, not about starting a race war, and not about much other than a confident and cruel Japanese empire falsely assuming that its stronger American rival either would not or could not stop its transoceanic ambitions. . .
. . . In sum, it was largely Yamamoto's enormous ego, his tactical genius, and his strategic ineptitude, along with Japanese hubris, that explain the strategic idiocy of a brilliant but short-lived victory at Pearl Harbor. But to be fair, no student of military preparedness, economic resources, or social organization could have ever believed that a relatively vulnerable and isolationist United States, still reeling from recurring cycles of depression, in less than four years would have fought simultaneously across the Pacific and Europe with a 12 million person military, the largest economy in history, and the world's most formidable weapons such Essex class fleet carriers, Balao submarines, B-29 long-range bombers, Hellcat and Mustang fighters and the world's first atomic bombs.
Dr. Hanson's essay is well worth the read as he explodes a few myths and lays out the attack and its consequences. Now 80 years later, America is at best a nation divided and at worst (and if you have been reading my posts for any amount of time you know my feelings) a nation that no longer exists. We have no borders, we have no equal justice under a just and stable law and most dangerously, we are split into two camps that not only disagree on issues but disagree on the legitimacy and nature of the nation itself. While that is happening, China and to a lesser extent Russia are making geopolitical and technological moves that threaten to leave us in the dust and perhaps turn us into dust.
Over the past several weeks a hard truth has become undeniable: The United States of America is no longer the all-powerful superpower it has been since the end of the Cold War. Far from it. The strategic implications of this state of affairs are profound, for both the United States and its allies.
A nation's position in the global pecking order is based on two things -- its capabilities and its credibility. America's capabilities have diminished in a stunning way relative to its superpower competitors. And so has its credibility. . .
. . . Together with its allies, the United States is still the most powerful nation on earth. It can still defeat, or at a minimum massively harm, all of its enemies. But whether it is dealing with Iran or China, Russia or Afghanistan or beyond, America's strategic credibility is in tatters. Neither its allies nor its enemies take its commitments or its threats seriously. Consequently, as it lags behind its adversaries in space weapons, the United States projects a weakness of intent that invites aggression against itself, against its interests and against its allies.
The luxury of having no rival in the world and only the comparative irritant of almost stateless terrorist organizations, which inflict tragic outrages but cannot threaten the existence of great nations, induced the United States into the first bout of self-hate in its history.
Centuries of often excessive but certainly not unfounded self-commendation as a free and virtuous meritocracy, a champion of freedom in the world, that has made the greatest effort of any in history to raise up a subjugated racial minority to a status of equality, have degenerated into an acutely self-critical disorder and caused the United States to detach from its legitimate global strategic interests. . .
. . . The strategic equation is complicated and increasingly dangerous because this administration is so feeble and the U.S. military has been so incompetently directed recently. But the United States is fundamentally a much stronger country than China or Russia, and if it inspires and leads its allies, it is at the head of an overwhelmingly powerful coalition of free states.
We have three more years to muddle through before the leadership that is all that is really lacking, can be installed. It is perilous but far from hopeless.
CHINA has been secretly developing Trojan Horse-style missiles hidden in shipping containers that can be unleashed on enemy ports, experts warn.
Military analysts believe the country's huge fleet of freighters and fishing vessels could be turned into warships with the use of the secretive container missiles. . .
. . . For example Chinese missile launching containers could be stored near the Port of Seattle. The Chinese would wait for the day they can launch an electromagnetic pulse warhead-armed missiles over the nearby nuclear ballistic missile submarine base Fisher said.
"The EMP blast might take out electronics on the [submarines] and all over the base without having to launch a nuclear missile from China," he said. "Washington would be in chaos, would not know against whom to retaliate, and perhaps China uses American distraction to begin its real objective, the military conquest of Taiwan."
Frankly, I think the Chinese, the Russians, the Iranians and every other bad actor out there are wasting their money. People (allegedly) like Rustoleum-hair Nikole Hannah-Jones, Ibram X. Krement, Titty Caca AOC, Nazi collaborator George Soros and the litany of other sick, deranged fiends will be our undoing, aided and abetted by the DC junta so long as they get their $28 trillion pieces of silver.
Assuming we even survive the next three years without any major shifts in the geopolitical map as it stands today, our government and far too many institutions outside of it are so horribly corrupted that even if a Trump, DeSantis or other outsider were to win the White House and the Democrats lost control of one or both chambers of Congress, what real good would it do? And the national rift between American and anti-American citizens will still be there.
With all due respect to all those who fought and perished between 1941 and 1945, the challenge facing us here and now is perhaps even more perilous. And for sure, the situation is still very much in doubt.
"[Chinese] COVID has accelerated the transformation of our education system into a mini-totalitarian state." Soul Monitors
"The ANC has taught young black South Africans that African government doesn't work, that their politicians are crooks and that it's not worth voting. The exact opposite of Mandela's dream." (hat tip CBD - jjs) The End of the Apartheid Alibi
"A coalition of the World's largest multi-national corporations is working to manipulate you into eating more 'equitable' food though a business strategy designed to help major 'food players' and other large businesses facilitate 'the coming food systems transition.' They plan to do so with the help of a new strategy that assesses the supposed morality of individual food items and uses that metric to make business decisions and levy performance reviews." Big Food Says the "Transition" to the New World Order Food System is Already Underway
"The president's lawyer must not be sacrificed to the authoritarian impulses of a lawless regime." In Defense of John Eastman
AMERICA, AND THE WORLD, IMPRISONED: CHINESE CORONAVIRUS FICTIONS AND FACTS
Rep Lee Zeldin: "When you dangerously combine a far-left, lame-duck politician, who is anti-business, one-dimensional, unaccountable, not bright and has a perpetual 'I always know best' attitude, you get Bill de Blasio, the worst mayor in America. There is no way this job-killing, small business-suppressing mandate is legal!" "Blindsided": Fury in NYC as DeBolshevik Gives Firms Just 3 Weeks to Get Vaxxed
"The news that private businesses in the city will be forced to mandate vaccinations starting on Dec. 27, and indoor businesses will now have to check the vaccination cards of all kids over 5, was just the latest missile the mayor has lobbed at a once-thriving city." Spectacle Mayor: DeBolshevik Punishes NYC on His Way Out the Door to Help Himself
"As reported by Just the News, two studies published last month in the New England Journal of Medicine showed statistically insignificant differences between participants who received vaccinations or placebos in both Pfizer and Moderna trials." REPORT: Research Sponsored by Chinese COVID-19 Vaccine Makers Undermines Mandates
Michael Applebaum, M.D.: "So, how do the [Chinese] COVID vaccines compare to other vaccines?" Comparing Vaccines
"Dr. Susan Desmond-Hellmann -- a member of Pfizer Inc.'s Board of Directors -- previously served as the Lead Independent Director at social media giant Facebook. The site has routinely censored posts relating to [Chinese] COVID-19 vaccines, with Pfizer in particular eliciting support from major corporate outlets." REVEALED: New Pfizer Board Member Is Ex-Facebook Director
"So what there is a new variant, Omicron, that appears very contagious. It also appears relatively harmless, and besides, you likely already have natural immunity, since at least half of the American population has already been infected with [Chinese] COVID. With natural immunity Omicron is nothing more than a boogy-man monster hiding in the closet that little children cower in fear from. Are you a child, also cowering in fear? Or are you an adult willing to live life to the fullest, facing the normal risks of life?" Stop Being Afraid!
"Biden had called similar travel bans in the early days of the pandemic, particularly the one President Donald Trump implemented against travelers from China in early 2020, a product of 'hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering.'" Ghana: Joe Biden Travel Bans Make "Africa Their Whipping Boy"
"The price drop comes two months after a dire outlook for winter heating prices from the United States Energy Information Administration, which predicted that American households would have to pay an average of 30% more on their heating bills in comparison to last year." Warm Winter Weather Bails Out Biden, Causes Natural Gas Prices to Fall
"It will take a lot more than a press conference and a paltry 50 million barrels of oil to repair the economic damage brought upon America by this [junta's] policies." Higher Prices? Ho Ho Ho, Yes
"Alan Sokal by the way did this exact same thing in 1996, proving that most social and gender study journals were utter bunk. Not that his hoax accomplished much, as these brainless departments marched on until they have permeated all of academia with their nonsense, with Critical Race Theory now leading the way." Another Obvious Hoax Paper Published by Peer Review Journal
"This is the academic culture today, driven by fear and race. Don't dare do anything that might offend a black student in any way. If you do, don't dare apologize while citing your commitment to equal rights and justice for minorities because then you are a 'white savior' and pushing your 'white privilege.'" Today's Blacklisted American: Professor Fired for Mistakenly Confusing the Names of Two Black Students
"Biden's business giveaway was revealed by the Center for Immigration Studies, which also showed that Biden's deputies have reduced by two-thirds the deportation of criminal migrants who threaten Americans and the nation's growing population of illegal migrants." Joe Biden Abolishes 90 Percent of ICE's Deportations
"The complaint we filed today alleges that Texas has violated Section 2 by creating redistricting plans that deny or abridge the rights of Latino and black voters to vote on account of their race, color, or membership in a language minority group." (Abbott should invoke the 9th and 10th Amendments, as well as nullification of an illegal federal authority. IOW, "FOAD" - jjs) DOJ Announces It's Suing Texas Over New Congressional Map
BIDEN CRIME FAMILY REVELATIONS, AND OTHER CORRUPTION
"Democrats, establishment media, and Silicon Valley actively suppressed the New York Post's story last October, which revealed that emails on a laptop abandoned by Biden showed that he introduced a Ukrainian colleague from the Burisma energy company to then-Vice President Joe Biden, despite the latter claiming that he had no knowledge of his son's business activities. Other emails showed Hunter Biden arranging a joint Chinese venture in which his father would have a 10% stake." WATCH: Piss-Hockey Psaki Refuses to Revise Claim Hunter Biden Laptop "Russian Disinformation"
"Hunter is reportedly under investigation for tax and money laundering schemes, CNN first reported in 2020. The FBI is allegedly investigating whether Hunter and his associates violated 'tax and money laundering laws in business dealings in foreign countries, principally China, according to two people briefed on the probe.'" (it's gone beyond chutzpocrisy to actual sadism - jjs) White House Flags Art Industry for Money Laundering While Permitting Hunter to Sell Art to Anonymous Buyers
POLITICS
"The time has come to reopen the Internet and allow for the free flow of ideas and expression without censorship. The United States of America made the dream of the Internet a reality and it will be an American company that restores the dream. I'm humbled and honored President Trump has asked me to lead the mission and the world class team that will deliver on this promise." Rep. Devin Nunes Will Retire from Congress to Join Trump Social Media Company
"Since Donald Trump's political renewal is already underway, it makes sense to think about who is against him and who is on his team now -- and to get ready for the coming revenge." A Typology of Trumpism
FIRST AMENDMENT ISSUES, CENSORSHIP, FAKE NEWS, MEDIA, BIG BROTHER TECH
"According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, Cuomo claims that CNN president Jeff Zucker was very much aware of his efforts to help his brother through his sexual misconduct allegations." Will a Disgruntled Chris "Fredo" Cuomo Take XiNN Down With Him?
". . . So, right now, I have to take a step back and focus on what comes next. That means I will no longer be doing my SiriusXM radio show." Chris "Fredo" Cuomo Out Of Another Job
"CNN has continued to stand behind Don Lemon, who has allegedly tried to settle with Hice on multiple occasions. In response to the network terminating Chris Cuomo for alleged sexual misconduct and for using CNN resources to aid his brother's crisis team, Hice told Fox News Digital that the network protects predators." Don Lemon Accuser: XiNN Is a Predator-Protecting Machine, Rife with Perverts
"A large and growing share of the American people assume that virtually all news as presented by the current mainstream media is either a fabrication or an exaggeration to promote an authoritarian agenda. By doing so they will ensure that the mainstream media will, in due course, no longer be mainstream." The Left-Wing Legacy of the Mainstream Media
"George Cacioppo, a senior vice president at Sony Interactive Entertainment according to his LinkedIn profile, allegedly invited over a 15-year-old boy to his home, according to a video uploaded to the People vs. Preds YouTube channel." Sony Executive Reportedly Caught In Amateur Pedophile Sting Video
"After another student is murdered, Columbia University's leadership decides that the best position is no position." Silent Might
"As the man who fired the shot he is ultimately responsible for the safety of the weapon and what he did with it." Alec Baldwin, Without Remorse
"Gotham's 'safe consumption sites' bring disorder and questionable methods to its worst-off neighborhoods." New York City's Drug Experiment
FOREIGN AFFAIRS, INTERNATIONAL
"On Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian reiterated that the people in the Biden [junta] allegedly planning to 'boycott' were not invited, so they could not reject the invitation." White House Confirms U.S. Will Play China's Genocide Olympics
Caroline Glick: "America twiddles its thumbs while its enemies develop anti-satellite capabilities and hypersonic missiles." China and Russia Race Ahead of America
Conrad Black: "The luxury of having no rival in the world induced the United States into the first bout of self-hate in its history. We are now faced with navigating reality under such conditions." (he paints a rosy picture yet ignores our greatest existential threat; the leftist enemy within - jjs) A Perilous (But Not Hopeless) Time on the International Stage
"Professor Kristina Sundquist and her colleagues are under investigation by the Board of Appeal for Ethical Review, a body that reports directly to the Swedish Ministry of Education, over whether or not they had 'ethical license' to handle 'sensitive data.'" Professors Face Prosecution for Study Finding Migrants Commit More Rapes
DOMESTIC AFFAIRS, WASTE/FRAUD/ABUSE, THE COURTS
"Problems with American infrastructure projects extend far beyond cost overruns." The Wrong Critique
"Sildenafil came out on top, associated with a 69% (snicker) reduction in the incidence of AD in patients who took the drug." (So, Biden gets two more brain cells and a perpetual hard-on for the teeny-boppers within his reach. Winning - jjs) Get Excited! Study Points to Possible Treatment for Alzheimer's Disease: Viagra
"This launch tonight was 116th successful launch in 2021, which is the most launches completed in a year since 1988. Based on the number of planned launched over the next three weeks, there is an outside chance that the global total will top 127, making this the second most active year ever in the history of space. Even if the numbers end up in the mid-120s, 2021 will be among the top eight years ever. And I expect next year to easily top this year." Ariane Espace Launches Two Galileo GPS-Type Satellites
"An update on the Chinese lunar rover Yutu-2 has revealed that its science team has now decided to head towards a square boulder that the rover had recently spotted on the nearby horizon." Yutu-2 Continues Its Travels on Moon's Far Side
Salena Zito: "There is scant evidence that Mark Twain's friend, banker-industrialist John Garth, used his wealth and power to demean those who worked for him. The same cannot be said of today's cultural curators." Is the Rift Between the Public and the C-Suites Permanent?
"The person will get into the capsule and lie down. It's very comfortable. They will be asked a number of questions and when they have answered, they may press the button inside the capsule activating the mechanism in their own time." (Edward G. Robinson rolls his eyes somewhere in Heaven - jjs) Switzerland Legalizes 3-D Printed At-Home Assisted-Suicide "Pods"
NOTE: The opinions expressed in some links may or may not reflect my own. I include them because of their relevance to the discussion of a particular issue.
ALSO: The Morning Report is cross-posted at CutJibNewsletter.com if you want to continue the conversation all day.
With the new software lab buildout I'm going to end up with eight computers on my desk - half laptops and half NUCs, so they don't take up much room. And it's a big desk. Huge actually, it's made from the oak floorboards of an old wool warehouse and weighs about three thousand pounds.
Anyway, with three or possibly four monitors each with four inputs, there'll be no problem plugging everything in to a display. But then there's sound. What I want is all of those systems wired up to a single good speaker system, so it doesn't matter what the sound source is, it comes through loud and clear.
I could use a Behringer mixer; they're easy to find and reasonably priced. But they are mono, and designed for XLR or at best 1/4" phone jacks, so for each 1/8" stereo input I'd need a cable to convert to it two 1/4" mono plugs, which again, easy to get, but having eight of those plugged into a 16 channel mixer seems like overkill.
If only there were something small, cheap, and purposed-designed to take five 1/8" stereo inputs, provide suitable fader, gain, and balance controls, and deliver three 1/8" outputs at line, speaker, and headphone levels respectively and maybe - stop me if I'm dreaming - have a special cable to loop multiple units together like the Maker Hart Loop Mixer (Amazon) oh wait that's just what I need hang on (clicking noises) right that should arrive next week.
Included in my lab shopping list is regrettably a MacBook Air because I will need to test some things on a Mac. Plan is - with all four notebooks - that they will sit on a shelf while plugged in to two 27" monitors each, and rarely actually move. They're laptops in potentia.
That's fine with Windows. Do it all the time. Scaling support isn't perfect but it works.
On an M1 Mac though if you venture outside standard 4k resolution the results are likely to be poop which is odd because Apple doesn't make a computer with a 4k screen. (The Register)
MacBook Air is 2560x1600; MacBook Pro 14" and 16" are 3024x1964 and 3456x2234 respectively; the 24" iMac is 4480x2420 and the 27" 5120x2880; and the Pro Display You Can't Afford It Edition is 6016x3384.
So it's kind of curious why M1 Macs only give reliable results on third-party monitors if they run natively at 4k.
But credit to Apple for creating new opportunities for independent software developers fixing their shitty operating system.
These use recycled PlayStation 5 chips, which are AMD CPUs with AMD graphics built in. If the graphics component doesn't work - there's some built in redundancy, but if there are too many microscopic defects on that particular sliver of silicon - Sony can't use it, but it is still a perfectly functional 8 core CPU.
The 4700S gave these damaged chips new purpose in life. Unfortunately it kind of sucked. The integrated graphics were disabled, and it only had a PCIe 2.0 x4 interface for a graphics card, which severely restricted performance. This new board upgrades that to PCIe 4.0 x4, which is four times as fast and faster than the interface on external Thunderbolt graphics cards.
Still seems slightly pointless but we'll see how it goes when it arrives.
I expect my brand new laptops to be immediately obsoleted. Hell, one of them was dropped from Dell's product line the day it arrived.
But I wanted that specific configuration; having see the leaks of Intel's new laptop CPUs I don't think they're going to work better for my use case, which as I said is more of a shelftop.
Some of their points are quibbles, but some of them seem valid, like the fact that Cloudflare compared their own platform against a beta product using a free trial and a compute workload that involved no computation.
Amazon has a MongoDB-compatible database called DocumentDB. Rather than taking the sane approach and building on the last open-source release of MongoDB, they added an interface layer to PostgreSQL which, um, should at least be entertaining.
"It is not MongoDB compatible," Porter said. "That is an untruth… it is 34 per cent compatible, through our tests. Most importantly, for our users and our customers, it is not compatible in all the ways that make MongoDB magical.
"There's no aggregation, there's no change streams, there's not as many languages; it is a 'Frankenbase', there is no other word for it.
On the other hand, it doesn't create duplicate keys in unique indexes and irrecoverably lose your data the way MongoDB releases 5.0.0, 5.0.1, and 5.0.2 all did.
Hold Me Closer Tiny Mixer Video of the Day
That's the mixer I just ordered. Apparently it's halfway decent, which is all I ask. If I end up doing audio engineering that isn't 100% digital I'll buy something else.
“I felt a tension in Israel, from the Jewish community, the psychology of occupation impacted the Jews who live there who are free….there’s a history of complex trauma that people are living with every day. Yad Vashem brought that home to me.”
Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-New York)
No word about weather control.
Quote II
“I think the best way to do it is not a patchwork of state laws, but to codify Roe v. Wade, put it into law. And we even have some pro-choice Republicans that have signaled interest in doing that.” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)
Quote III
‘I had the vision and I made it come true. I wanted to create something magnificent and eye-catching – which I have done,’ Aidan Liban
Quote IV
“I'm absolutely appalled that Davenport would go out of their way to provide a product which is specifically intended for the opposite sex. It's not wanted or needed, and it contradicts basic biology to think that they are.” Davenport student Josh Buehler
Less than a week after getting the top job at Twitter, new CEO Parag Agrawal announced on Friday a corporate restructuring that will see two top executives leave the company.
Agrawal has shifted the company’s hierachy around three people: Kayvon Beykpour, Bruce Falck and Nick Caldwell, according to a new SEC filing. Beykpour will be responsible for constructing the consumer-facing features, while Falck and Caldwell respectively manage the sales and engineering teams.
The exits: Chief Design Officer Dantley Davis and Michael Montano, Twitter’s engineering lead, who will remain as an advisor through March. Davis arrived at Twitter in 2019 amid a shift led by then CEO Jack Dorsey to spark greater—and faster—innovation at the company. Davis’ brusque style though was reportedly at odds with the existing company culture, one that has appeared kinder and gentler than Twitter’s Big Tech peers.
Wonder if Fredo is taking any online courses. I can hear Joana Goldberg going "Oh Fredo, you're so masculine."
A man was transported to the hospital after he allegedly slipped and fell onto a World Was II anti-tank shell. The shell was lodged into the man’s, well, read on.
Army bomb squad technicians were sent to a hospital after a man arrived with a WWII anti-tank shell lodged into his rectum. Medics called for specialist support after the man presented in the Accident and Emergency unit of Gloucestershire Royal Hospital in Gloucester when he could not remove the 57mm shell.
The military collector claimed he armour-piercing munition was from his private arsenal. He told medics the 80-year-old explosive device became lodged after he tripped and fell awkwardly.
***
On December 3, 2019 Kamala "The Head Hunter" Harris dropped out of the Democratic Primary, she was heard to utter, Boy, do I suck.
A heartbeat from the presidency at a dangerous time, can Kamala Harris rise to the task?
VP struggles with staff drama and gaffes in new Biden administration role
When Kamala Harris made Joe Biden’s shortlist for vice president last year, Willie Brown offered a surprising take.
“If Joe Biden offers the vice presidential slot to Sen. Kamala Harris, my advice to her would be to politely decline,” the ex-mayor wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle.
If she did accept the job, he said, “the glory would be short-lived, and historically, the vice presidency has often ended up being a dead end.” He urged Harris to hold out for a position with “legitimate power,” like United States Attorney General. Of course, his counterintuitive suggestion was soon drowned out by fanfare for Biden’s historic choice of VP Harris.
At the time, Brown’s opinion seemed like contrarian clickbait. Yet recent press coverage indicates he made a fair point. Highly detailed media reports depict a VP dreadfully unhappy in the role. Her misery has company: One outlier poll showed her with a shockingly low approval rating of 28%. The number led some media outlets to call her the most unpopular vice president in modern history – even worse than Dick Cheney, who bottomed out at 30%.
If you're on this call, you are part of the unlucky group that is being laid off," Garg said on the call, a recording of which was viewed by CNN Business. "Your employment here is terminated effective immediately."
Thus spoke Vishal Garg, CEO of Better.com during a Zoom call on Wednesday. Roughly 9% of the company's workforce was let go in fell swoop.
Authorities are progressing in making compulsory face coverings an indefinite mandate and have taken “the first step in making the rule permanent,” reports KATU.
“The Oregon Health Authority (OHA) convened a Rules Advisory Committee (RAC) on Thursday. The RAC provided feedback on the indoor mask rule. The point of the committee is to suggest what should and shouldn’t be included in the ruling and discuss the impact it will have on the public.”
“Community stakeholders, including those from the hospitality and faith sectors, joined in the meeting. People from the Seventh Day Adventists Church, the High Desert Museum, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and McMenamins were a part of the conversation.
Pastor who appeared in drag on HBO’s ‘We’re Here’ forced to leave his church
Pastor Craig Duke was relieved from his pastoral duties last week at Newburgh United Methodist Church near Evansville, Indiana, after receiving pushback from congregants over his appearance on the show.
According to SwissInfo, inventor Dr. Philip Nitschke of Australia-based international nonprofit Exit International says that the Sarco “death capsule” is “activated from the inside by the person intending to die” and can be towed anywhere, such as “an idyllic outdoor setting or in the premises of an assisted suicide organisation, for example.” He added that the device is designed with comfort in mind.
“The capsule is sitting on a piece of equipment that will flood the interior with nitrogen, rapidly reducing the oxygen level to 1 per cent from 21 per cent in about 30 seconds,” Nitschke told SwissInfo. “The person will feel a little disoriented and may feel slightly euphoric before they lose consciousness. Death takes place through hypoxia and hypocapnia, oxygen and carbon dioxide deprivation, respectively. There is no panic, no choking feeling.”
Two Los Angeles Police Department officers just caused an international incident by making a wrongful arrest—in France.
It happened in Marseille, where LAPD Chief Michel Moore and Assistant Chief Robert Marino were walking the streets after dinner with their wives, along with two LAPD officers as security detail.
On Nov. 17 around 11 p.m. local time, Moore, Marino, their wives, the security detail, and members of the French National police left a restaurant, according to police. A man walking down the street with a group bumped into Marino’s wife, who then accused him of stealing her cellphone.
Every year, Dale Marks puts up a massive Christmas lights display at his home in Des Moines to raise money for the Food Bank of Iowa. It's part of a neighborhood tradition.
This year Marks was too weak to put up his own lights. So, a stranger did it for him.
***
Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by Finishing Touches.
Notice: Posted with permission by the Ace Media Empire and AceCorp, LLC. ONT Tips, accordion sheet music and frozen beef pot pies to petmorons at gmail dot com. Complaints, pissing and moaning, definitely not here.
Picture of Daunt Books in Marleybone, London,
taken by their competitor Kenilworth Books (@kenilworthbooks)
I think they need to look up "competitor" in the dictionary
Chris Cuomo, terminated from a prominent CNN anchor job over the weekend, is giving up another perch.
Cuomo is also leaving SiriusXM, where he hosted a regular weekday radio program, "Let's Get After It" -- a title borrowed from a catchphrase he employed as part of his primetime program on CNN.
"The way my time ended at CNN was hard. While I have a thick skin, I also have a family, for whom the past week has been extraordinarily difficult. So right now, I have to take a step back and focus on what comes next," Cuomo said via a Twitter post Monday. "That means I will no longer be doing my SiriusXM radio show."
Thanks, Biden:
Disclose.tv
@disclosetv
JUST IN --GOP Rep. Devin Nunes to resign from Congress in the coming weeks to become CEO of Trump's media company.
Catherine Herridge
@CBS_Herridge
NEW: @DevinNunes joining #TMTG
"Trump Media & Technology Group announced Congressman Devin G. Nunes has been selected to join the Company as Chief Executive Officer... formerly the Chair of the House Intelligence Committee. Mr. Nunes will begin his new role... January 2022."
Ugh, we're going to really miss him in Congress. I hope he can have as much impact in his new post, and quickly.
I know people will say "One vote in Congress doesn't matter" but he was a lot more than that. He mattered. When it counted, he really mattered.
Two elderly men escaped a nursing home to attend a heavy metal concerrt. Razorfist says it was Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley.
About a year ago, I decided to build a library on my front lawn. By library, I mean one of those little free-standing library boxes that dot lawns in bedroom communities around the country — charming, birdhouse-like structures filled with books that invite neighbors and passers-by to take a book, or donate a book, or both.
…
Then one morning, glancing out my front window, I saw a young white couple stopped at the library. Instantly, I was flooded with emotions — astonishment, and then resentment, and then astonishment at my resentment. It all converged into a silent scream in my head of, Get off my lawn!
The moment jolted me into realizing some things I’m not especially proud of. I had set out this library for all who lived here, and even for those who didn’t, in theory. I would not want to restrict anyone from looking at it or taking books, based on race or anything else. But while I had seen white newcomers to the neighborhood here and there, the truth was, I hadn’t set it out to appeal to white residents.
…
What I resented was not this specific couple. It was their whiteness, and my feelings of helplessness at not knowing how to maintain the integrity of a Black space that I had created. I was seeing up close how fragile that space can be, how its meaning can be changed in my mind, even by people who have no conscious intention to change it. That library was on my lawn, but for that moment it became theirs. I built it and drove it into the ground because I love books and always have. But I suddenly felt that I could not own even this, something that was clearly and intimately mine.
Anti-vaccine pass protesters break down barrier to enter a Christmas market in defiance of the health pass mandate in Luxembourg. pic.twitter.com/d17DDtbUy6
Deranged, Delusional Alexandria Donkey-Chompers Claims That Organized Looting Just Isn't Happening, That The "Data" Say All Of the Looting Videos are Just Hallucinations
But the illegal tech monopolies don't even consider slapping a warning on
incandescently false claims that the far left considers helpful to their cause.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview last week with The Washington Times that "a lot of these allegations of organized retail theft are not actually panning out."
"I believe it's a Walgreens in California cited it, but the data didn’t back it up," she said.
She made the claim after scores of videos documented a rash of attacks by rampaging thieves and reports from big-box stores across the country about an uptick in organized retail theft and violence against employees.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s office did not respond to a request for her to elaborate on her remarks.
“I don’t know what data she is talking about,” said Rep. Rodney Davis, Illinois Republican. “But you don’t really need much data from someplace in San Francisco or California. All you need to do is walk down the street to the CVS in Eastern Market,” he said, referring to a public market about 1 mile from the U.S. Capitol. “I’ve seen on multiple occasions when I’ve been in there buying things, someone will come in and raid a shelf and walk out.”
If you've wondered when the forces of chaos and violence would escalate and start with carjackings and home invasions, wonder no more:
Jacqueline Avant, the wife of music legend Clarence Avant, was shot and killed at their Beverly Hills home early Wednesday.
Police responded to a report of a shooting around 2:23 a.m. in the 1100 block of Maytor Place, according to the Beverly Hills Police Department.
Officers arrived to find 81-year-old Jacqueline Avant suffering from a gunshot wound. She was taken to a local hospital, but did not survive, police said.
...
Jacqueline Avant married record executive Clarence Avant in 1967, and the pair are parents to two children, including film producer and former U.S. ambassador Nicole Avant, who is married to Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos.
Reed Hastings, the other co-founder of Netflix, was the second largest contributor to LA County DA George Gascon's campaign. The largest was George Soros. Wonder what his partner thinks of that now.
Posted by: Mark1971
Violent crime rates have been rising in the city for two years, according to the Los Angeles Times. While property crimes have reportedly seen only modest changes since 2019, car thefts are up nearly 53% and homicides are up 46.7% from 2019.
The crime wave has even touched the safest, wealthiest neighborhoods in the area. Violent crime in Beverly Hills rose 23% in the last two years, the Los Angeles Times reported.
"I have never seen anything like it," Dominick DeLuca, owner of a local skateboard shop told the Los Angeles Times. "In the last two years, I have been broken into three times."
Oprah Winfrey mourned the death of Avant on Twitter, saying "The fact that this has happened, her being shot and killed in her own home... has shaken the laws of the Universe."
What Laws? The Laws that you get to experiment on the country as if it were your little petri dish but you get to remain insulated from the pathogens you cook up?
Amid a surge in some New York City violent crime, Wall Street bigwigs continue to encourage younger staffers to come into the office -- but to do so with caution.
At Bank of America, senior executives have quietly encouraged younger employees to "dress down" to attract less attention as they make their way to B of A's tower at 1 Bryant Park.
These execs have told their staffers that dressing up, or wearing anything with a Bank of America logo, could make them a target.
I saw a video of a woman who brings an extra long belt with her on to the subway -- which she uses to bind herself to a pillar, so that lunatics are unable to push her into the way of oncoming subway trains.
Which they're doing with alarming frequency.
Throughout the country, bandits and killers are marauding the countryside, but Alexandria Donkey-Chompers claims "the data" say none of this is happening.
Kumala: My Staff Has Failed to Prepare Me for Success Former Staffers: We Did Prepare Her For Success -- She Just Refused to Read Our Briefing Papers and Then Blamed Us When She Was Caught Unprepared by Reporters
Noting that four top staffers have recently resigned, the Washington Post -- yes, the leftwing Washington Post is now Positioning Kumala Harris for an Early Exit -- writes:
[T]he quartet of soon-to-be-empty desks reignited questions about why Harris churns through top-level Democratic staff, an issue that has colored her nearly 18 years in public service, including her historic but uneven first year as vice president.
...
“One of the things we’ve said in our little text groups among each other is what is the common denominator through all this and it’s her,” said Gil Duran, a former Democratic strategist and aide to Harris who quit after five months working for her in 2013. In a recent column, he said she’s repeating “the same old destructive patterns.”
“Who are the next talented people you’re going to bring in and burn through and then have (them) pretend they’re retiring for positive reasons,” he told The Post.
...
The Washington Post spoke with 18 people connected to Harris for this story, including former and current staffers, West Wing officials and other supporters and critics. Some spoke on the condition of anonymity to be more candid about a sensitive topic. The vice president’s office declined to address questions about Harris’s leadership style.
Her defenders say the criticism against her is often steeped in the same racism and sexism that have followed a woman who has been a first in every job she’s done over the past two decades.
Yes, this is what Kumala always claims the excuse is, and this is her only excuse.
Well, that and her staff (and Joe Biden's staff) "failing to prepare her and position her for success."
Her staffers say they did try to "prepare her," writing up briefing papers for all the most salient subjects of the day.
Trouble is, Kumala is lazy and refused to read them.
And then blamed them for leaving her "unprepared" when she looked incompetent and stupid in public.
...
Staffers who worked for Harris before she was vice president said one consistent problem was that Harris would refuse to wade into briefing materials prepared by staff members, then berate employees when she appeared unprepared.
“It’s clear that you’re not working with somebody who is willing to do the prep and the work,” one former staffer said. “With Kamala you have to put up with a constant amount of soul-destroying criticism and also her own lack of confidence. So you’re constantly sort of propping up a bully and it’s not really clear why.”
A soul-crushing bully who's also lazy and stupid!
Via The Morning Greatness, remarking, "the issue isn't just that she's a mean girl boss, it's that she's a lazy mean girl boss."
One more point: The article notes that after the first stories of Kumala's incompetence and problems with her staff began circulating, she held -- staged, let's say -- a hamburger barbecue with her staff a publicity operation to send the message that everything's fine and Kumala loves her staff and Kumala's staff loves her.
And now, as Kumala's staff flees her sinking ship, one of her remaining staffers just happens to tweet out how very awesome it is working for Kumala.
And Jen Psaki says why no, I can't say whether or not that staffer was ordered to tweet that or not.
Still at zero total Omicron deaths worldwide per the MSM and WHO btw.
Posted by: Moron Robbie
I'm going to write a script called "Omicron Man" where it's just like Omega Man except Charleton Heston is a man trying to survive in a world where everyone else is also alive
that's a good joke i wrote
you're going to tell your kids that joke one day and you're going to lie and tell them you made that joke up and it's okay, I understand why you're gonna lie, it's a good joke and i forgive you
Derek Hunter: the woke-off to replace Fredo I like the suggestion that we pressure CNN to do what it's always pressuring everyone else to do: Hire a woman of color. Preferably a lesbian with one side of her head shaved and dyed a bright shade of putrid.
This film by @yesnicksearcy is outstanding.
Mind-blowing accounts of terrorist-style FBI raids on Americans and their young children.
Heartbreaking new footage of Ashli Babbitt and interview with her husband, Aaron.
Please spare $10 and watch.
Trailer here I first heard of this when he responded to baseball cvck's disgraceful tweets calling for even longer sentences for Q Shaman. Searcy addressed Cvck as "Hey, stupid." Which is better than he deserved but Searcy prides himself on being a gentleman.
There is an alleged Chris Cuomo sexual harassment victim represented by a high profile attorney, according to a source
Source tell me the "additional information" that's come to light mentioned at end of CNN statement are sexual harassment allegations
I can only lol so much
Comment at that Seth Rogen "Santa Inc." trailer: "Seth Rogen should appear in more serious movies. Perhaps a period piece with Alec Baldwin."
Sefton & CBD rant about abortion, guns, and some other stuff...
447 Hey Ace can you do a post on Google/YouTube messing with the election in France? I know they would never do such a thing here but sort of thinking this might be something.
Posted by: mercury
hey I just saw this comment and just saw this story a couple of hours ago. maybe I'll write about it on Monday. But I mean, they do it here, and no one cares, including the GOP, which just blesses it because Muh Corporations and Muh Corporate Donations.
The only interesting thing I can speculate is that maybe France and Europe, which are willing to slap the tech monopolies with consequences, will do something? But I don't know if they will, because YouTube is limiting the reach of a video by a "far right" candidate (Eric Zemmour) and most of establishment France will not mind this particular censorship, even if they object to the intrusion, generally, of a transnational monopoly in their politics.
Another staffer decides to no longer Position Kumala for Success:
Tim Perry
@tperry518
A source familiar confirms Peter Velz, Director of Press Operations for @VP
Kamala Harris, also plans to leave the VP's office "in the coming weeks."
I have a theory: Kumala is incompetent and dislikable and can only move up on her knees. I'll be on the lookout for further evidence for this theory.
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.jpg)
.png)
