Home » Open thread 7/27/21

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Open thread 7/27/21 — 26 Comments

  1. Just for the record, tug-of-war used to be an Olympic event…

    (Watching this particular competition, one can begin to understand why it will not be reinstated any time soon.)

  2. A little optimistic perspective: http://ace.mu.nu/

    Ace has put up a post that includes the ratings for cable news. The thing that should most jump out at you, after the pathetic lack of viewers of CNN, is that Joy Reid is absolutely killing MSNBC’s primetime lineup. It’s their lowest rated show and it’s smack dab in the middle of the schedule, destroying any attempt to retain and grow audience. AND MSNBC WILL NEVER DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT.

    They can never get rid of Joy Reid because “woke” and they’ll simply carry this ratings disaster of a show until Reid dies or decides she wants to do something else.

    Mike

  3. I have been dismayed that people have been sending their children to government schools to be indoctrinated against everything they believe. But there’s good news on this front: homeschooling has increased dramatically and perhaps not just temporarily due to the teacher’s union Wuhan virus closing of schools. See the news story

    “The surge ( in homeschooling) has been confirmed by the U.S. Census Bureau, which reported in March that the rate of households homeschooling their children rose to 11% by September 2020, more than doubling from 5.4% just six months earlier.”

    https://www.foxnews.com/us/sparked-by-covid-19-pandemic-fallout-homeschooling-surges-across-us

  4. Reading Orwell still pays dividends. Here’s a great story he tells, which I guess was common knowledge in his day.
    _________________________________________

    When Sir Walter Raleigh was imprisoned in the Tower of London, he occupied himself with writing a history of the world. He had finished the first volume and was at work on the second when there was a scuffle between some workmen beneath the window of his cell, and one of the men was killed. In spite of diligent enquiries, and in spite of the fact that he had actually seen the thing happen, Sir Walter was never able to discover what the quarrel was about; whereupon, so it is said — and if the story is not true it certainly ought to be — he burned what he had written and abandoned his project.

    –George Orwell, “As I Please” (Tribune, 4 February 1944)
    http://www.resort.com/~prime8/Orwell/02_04_44.html

    _________________________________________

    In the rest of the column Orwell goes back and forth on whether true history can be written.
    _________________________________________

    Up to a fairly recent date, the major events recorded in the history books probably happened. It is probably true that the battle of Hastings was fought in 1066, that Columbus discovered America, that Henry VIII had six wives, and so on. A certain degree of truthfulness was possible so long as it was admitted that a fact may be true even if you don’t like it. Even as late as the last war it was possible for the Encyclopedia Britannica, for instance, to compile its articles on the various campaigns partly from German sources. Some of the facts — the casualty figures, for instance — were regarded as neutral and in substance accepted by everybody. No such thing would be possible now. A Nazi and a non-Nazi version of the present war would have no resemblance to one another, and which of them finally gets into the history books will be decided not by evidential methods but on the battlefield.
    _________________________________________

    Orwell wants to believe, so concludes:
    _________________________________________

    There is some hope, therefore, that the liberal habit of mind, which thinks of truth as something outside yourself, something to be discovered, and not as something you can make up as you go along, will survive. But I still don’t envy the future historian’s job. Is it not a strange commentary on our time that even the casualties in the present war cannot be estimated within several millions?
    _________________________________________

    Too late!

  5. Also at Ace, “The Crying Game: Tears Flow Like Soy at Partisan Democrat Re-Imagining of The Worst Day In American History”

    http://ace.mu.nu/archives/394929.php

    I remember, I think Rush, remarking that “Politics was Hollywood for ugly people.” It seems they have been taking acting lessons on how to cry on cue, or at least methods and means to use.

  6. New CDC guideline just announced: children under 12 must be masked in school, and, here’s the great part: INSIDE THEIR OWN HOME. OMG, these people are truly evil.

  7. physicsguy, this is so wrong. Children under 12 who are not otherwise ill are at practically zero risk of serious illness or death from the Wuhan coronavirus.

  8. “these people are truly evil.”

    I can’t discount the realty of evil but I wonder how much of this boils down to people who have been raised and live their lives without boundaries. There’s no point where they end and the rest of the world begins, so their own fears and hysteria bleed into every thought they have about public policy.

    Mike

  9. Neo, it was a quote from Psaki (Raggedy Ann) given on Townhall. “Speaking to reporters at the White House Tuesday afternoon, Press Secretary Jen Psaki confirmed the CDC will recommend masks be worn by vaccinated individuals who live in areas with high numbers Wuhan coronavirus cases. The CDC will also recommend masks for unvaccinated children under the age of 12 at school and inside the home. ”

    https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2021/07/27/psaki-cornered-if-vaccines-work-why-are-masks-needed-n2593178

  10. I can’t discount the realty of evil but I wonder how much of this boils down to people who have been raised and live their lives without boundaries. There’s no point where they end and the rest of the world begins, so their own fears and hysteria bleed into every thought they have about public policy.

    Hadn’t thought of that. Worth pondering.

  11. physicsguy:

    That seems quite literally insane.

    But also unenforceable – at present. When the telescreens come, though…

  12. Art Deco:

    I believe she was quoted as having said the CDC would be recommending it, not that they already had.

    It seems unlikely to me, even for the CDC. But anything is possible at this point.

  13. Welp, I called it on July 17th. Our kindly host disagreed but maybe she is just less cynical than I.

    Here in WA they are evaluating the new CDC guidance which is just them saying the King is away from the palace today so it will probably be tomorrow that the mask mandate comes back.

    This has all gotten so predictable by now.

  14. I read this as blackmail.

    Get vaxxed or your child will never attend school without a mask again.

  15. FWIW, Ron DeSantis disagrees with Jay Inslee: “Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) defended his administration’s commitment to standing up for children, reiterating his belief that parents — not the government — can and should make decisions about their child’s health and safety, particularly in regard to wearing masks in school. Last week, the Florida governor affirmed his administration will not mandate schools to require children to wear masks when they return to the classroom this fall.”

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/07/27/ron-desantis-defends-no-mask-mandates-in-florida-schools-we-believe-parents-can-make-decisions-about-their-childs-health/

  16. The problem seems to be that the government would like to mandate vaxxes for everyone over 12, but doesn’t want to face the legal challenges and/or the political fallout.

    So they are scolding and manipulating us instead.

  17. @neo:

    “When the telescreens come, though…”

    Do you wield a portable Apple or Android Mini Telescreen? Microsoft Windows 10 Telescreens send a mind-boggling amount of encrypted ‘Telemetry’ back to base.

    So if you start seeing more ads and articles admonishing you to wear a mask at home…

  18. @huxley:

    “So they are scolding and manipulating us instead.”

    We’ve come full-circle. Migration to the cities + Death of God + the multi-generational Progressive promotion of Radical Personal Autonomy atomised us and dissolved the old guidelines, goads, and restraints inherent in and arising from personal relationships and interactions in traditional communities.

    And we called ourselves Free. And had to legalise and financialise just about all interpersonal interactions in order to negotiate this Free World of atomised individuals.

    And then came Social Media. Now we still get to live as Mass Man bombarded by the Yellow Press *and* we get the new-old pleasure of living as all-our-foibles-known-to-our-neighbours villagers in virtual Salem, MA. Justice William Stoughton (D) presiding. And Religion is back. Kind of.

  19. A couple years ago I helped a neighbor set up his new Samsung SmartTV. You had to consent to some ULA legalese that actually said that Samsung may incidentally record sounds and video inside your home. Most TV’s don’t have cameras, but some do.

    And who knows if there are microphones? There was a stink a while ago about how NEST (I think) smart home thermostats had hidden microphones.

    Microsoft has spent millions battling the U.S. in court trying to keep them from snooping on millions of emails, going so far as to put all the servers in Ireland. The gov. always wins. Could be a phony posture on Microsoft’s part.

    This stuff is already here. It is just a question as to how bold governments and corps. are in exploiting it.

    In Windows10 I keep on having to type my location into the weather app, because I won’t let them turn on the location tracking feature. They could just remember the location from the last time, but no; they really want that tracking.

  20. I thought this was a decent article about the dangers of the Delta variant from the NYTimes.

    It does a good job of explaining the two separate factors of contagiousness and severity of disease, but also says that the Delta variant does not appear to cause more severe sickness. Would the NYTimes tell us if it was actually less severe? The CDC is still studying the severity issue. Gee thanks.

  21. Some Reinforcement Learning Material for the Xi Biden Obviously Bought and Paid for by the Chinese Reds Under the Bed MAGA Hat Types:

    https://www.jta.org/2021/01/20/politics/all-the-jews-joe-biden-has-tapped-for-top-roles-in-his-administration

    https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jews-in-the-biden-administration

    You ain’t seen nothing yet.. Just wait until those Slanty-eyed Inscrutable Orientals constitute 2.4% of the US Population… Good luck exercising your Constitutional Rights (err..) to boycott or divest from their infernal goddam commie slave labour junk factories then 😛 They’re at 1.5% of US Pop. already… so Anytime Now. Hold onto your hats!

    The Antichrist himself is a cynical bastard:

    https://gab.com/a/posts/106656402147800301

    “This meme being pushed by the Establishment Right that “Biden is controlled by the CCP” is just as cringe as the Establishment left claiming for four years that “Trump is controlled by Russia.”

    How many CCP members are in Biden’s cabinet? Who is in Biden’s cabinet and what is their background? The cabinet is actually running that “administration” because Joe and the Hoe don’t even know what planet they are on half the time. So if you want to know who “controls Biden” just look at his cabinet.”

    Me..? I’m just here to shill for the Chinks 🙂

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