+++++++++++++++++++++++
Our "follow the science" president chose politics over science when he canceled the Keystone Pipeline Project with the stroke of his pen.
It is far safer and thus, ecologically better to ship oil and gas through a pipeline than on Warren Buffet's train line but then Buffet is a significant contributor to the DNC.
+++
Had to repost. Californians are either insane to tolerate this or are another former of humanity. Rather than recall their governor they need to recall themselves. Their wine region must grow amoebic's?
A California Story...
Coming to a state near you.
If there ever has been an example of the ability of
government, like cancer, to grow and grow and metastasize into every nook and
cranny of your life — FOLKS, LET CALIFORNIA BE THE EXAMPLE
That government is INCAPABLE of self-control — it can only divide and multiply until it kills the host .
These are all California State Agencies...
California
Academic Performance Index (API) * California Access for Infants and Mothers *
California Acupuncture Board * California Administrative Office of the Courts *
California Adoptions Branch * California African American Museum * California
Agricultural Export Program * California Agricultural Labor Relations Board *
California Agricultural Statistics Service * California Air Resources Board
(CARB) * California Allocation Board * California Alternative Energy and
Advanced Transportation Financing Authority * California Animal Health and Food
Safety Services * California Anti-Terrorism Information Center * California
Apprenticeship Council * California Arbitration Certification Program *
California Architects Board * California Area VI Developmental Disabilities
Board * California Arts Council * California Asian Pacific Islander Legislative
Caucus * California Assembly Democratic Caucus * California Assembly
Republican Caucus * California Athletic Commission * California
Attorney General * California Bay Conservation and Development Commission *
California Bay-Delta Authority * California Bay-Delta Office * California
Biodiversity Council * California Board for Geologists and Geophysicists *
California Board for Professional En and Land Surveyors * California Board of
Accountancy * California Board of Barbering and Cosmetology * California Board
of Behavioral Sciences * California Board of Chiropractic Examiners *
California Board of Equalization (BOE) * California Board of Forestry and Fire
Protection * California Board of Guide Dogs for the Blind * California Board of
Occupational Therapy * California Board of Optometry * California Board of
Pharmacy * California Board of Podiatric Medicine * California Board of Prison
Terms * California Board of Psychology * California Board of Registered Nursing
* California Board of Trustees * California Board of Vocational Nursing and
Psychiatric Technicians * California Braille and Talking Book Library *
California Building Standards Commission * California Bureau for Private
Postsecondary and Vocational Education * California Bureau of Automotive Repair
* California Bureau of Electronic and Appliance Repair * California Bureau of
Home Furnishings and Thermal Insulation * California Bureau of Naturopathic
Medicine * California Bureau of Security and Investigative Services * California
Bureau of State Audits * California Business Agency * California Business
Investment Services (CalBIS) * California Business Permit Information (CalGOLD)
* California Business Portal * California Business, Transportation and Housing
Agency * California Cal Grants * California CalJOBS * California Cal-Learn
Program * California CalVet Home Loan Program * California Career Resource
Network * California Cemetery and Funeral Bureau * California Center for
Analytical Chemistry * California Center for Distributed Learning * California
Center for Teaching Careers (Teach California) * California Chancellors Office
* California Charter Schools * California Children and Families Commission *
California Children and Family Services Division * California Citizens Compensation
Commission * California Civil Rights Bureau * California Coastal Commission *
California Coastal Conservancy * California Code of Regulations * California
Collaborative Projects with UC Davis * California Commission for Jobs and
Economic Growth * California Commission on Aging * California Commission on
Health and Safety and Workers Compensation * California Commission on Judicial
Performance * California Commission on State Mandates * California Commission
on Status of Women * California Commission on Teacher Credentialing *
California Commission on the Status of Women * California Committee on Dental
Auxiliaries * California Community Colleges Chancellors Office, Junior Colleges
* California Community Colleges Chancellors Office * California Complaint
Mediation Program * California Conservation Corps * California Constitution
Revision Commission * California Consumer Hotline * California Consumer
Information Center * California Consumer Information * California Consumer
Services Division * California Consumers and Families Agency * California
Contractors State License Board * California Corrections Standards Authority *
California Council for the Humanities * California Council on Criminal Justice
* California Council on Developmental Disabilities * California Court Reporters
Board * California Courts of Appeal * California Crime and Violence Prevention
Center * California Criminal *Justice Statistics Center * California
Criminalist Institute Forensic Library * California CSGnet Network Management *
California Cultural and Historical Endowment * California Cultural Resources
Division * California Curriculum and Instructional Leadership * Branch *
California Data Exchange Center * California Data Management Division *
California Debt and Investment Advisory Commission * California Delta
Protection Commission * California Democratic Caucus * California Demographic
Research Unit * California *Dental Auxiliaries * California Department of Aging
* California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs * California Department of
Alcoholic Beverage Control Appeals Board * California Department of Alcoholic
Beverage Control * California Department of Boating and Waterways (Cal Boating)
* California Department of Child Support Services (CDCSS) * California Department
of Community Services and Development * California Department of Conservation *
California Department of Consumer Affairs * California Department of
Corporations * California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation *
California Department of Developmental Services * California Department of
Education * California Department of Fair Employment and Housing * California
Department of Finance * California Department of Financial Institutions *
California Department of Fish and Game * California Department of Food and
Agriculture * California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF) *
California Department of General Services * California Department of General
Services, Office of State Publishing * California Department of Health Care
Services * California Department of Housing and Community Development *
California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) * California Department of
Insurance * California Department of Justice Firearm s Division * California
Department of Justice Opinion Unit * California Department of Justice, Consumer
Information, Public Inquiry Unit * California Department of Justice *
California Department of Managed Health Care * California Department of Mental
Health * California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) * California Department
of Personnel Administration * California Department of Pesticide Regulation *
California Department of Public Health * California Department of Real Estate *
California Department of Rehabilitation * California Department of Social
Services Adoptions Branch * California Department of Social Services *
California Department of Technology Services Training Center (DTSTC) *
California Department of Technology Services (DTS) * California Department of
Toxic Substances Control * California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) *
California Department of Veterans Affairs (CalVets) * California Department of
Water Resources * California Departmento de Vehiculos Motorizados * California
Digital Library * California Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise Certification
Program * California Division of Apprenticeship Standards * California Division
of Codes and Standards * California Division of Communicable Disease Control *
California Division of Engineering * California Division of Environmental and Occupational
Disease Control * California Division of Gambling Control * California Division
of Housing Policy Development * California Division of Labor Standards
Enforcement * California Division of Labor Statistics and Research * California
Division of Land and Right of Way * California Division of Land Resource
Protection * California Division of Law Enforcement General Library *
California Division of Measurement Standards * California Division of Mines and
Geology * California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) *
California Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources * California Division
of Planning and Local Assistance * California Division of Recycling *
California Division of Safety of Dams * California Division of the State Architect
* California Division of Tourism * California Division of Workers Compensation
Medical Unit * California Division of Workers Compensation * California
Economic Assistance, Business and Community Resources * California Economic
Strategy Panel * California Education and Training Agency * California
Education Audit Appeals Panel * California Educational Facilities Authority *
California Elections Division * California Electricity Oversight Board *
California Emergency Management Agency * California Emergency Medical Services
Authority * California Employment Development Department (EDD) * California
Employment Information State Jobs * California Employment Training Panel *
California Energy Commission * California Environment and Natural Resources
Agency * California Environmental Protection Agency (Cal/EPA) * California
Environmental Resource s Evaluation System (CERES) * California Executive
Office * California Export Laboratory Services *California Exposition and State
Fair (Cal Expo) * California Fair Political Practices Commission * California
Fairs and Expositions Division * California Film Commission * California Fire
and Resource Assessment Program * California Firearms Division * California
Fiscal Services * California Fish and Game Commission * California Fisheries
Program Branch * California Floodplain Management * California Foster Youth
Help * California Franchise Tax Board (FTB) * California Fraud Division *
California Gambling Control Commission * California Geographic Information
Systems Council (GIS) * California Geological Survey * California Government
Claims and Victim Compensation Board * California Governors Committee for
Employment of Disabled Persons * California Governors Mentoring Partnership *
California Governors Office of Emergency Services * California Governors Office
of Homeland Se curity * California Governors Office of Planning and Research *
California Governors Office * California Grant and Enterprise Zone Programs HCD
Loan * California Health and Human Services Agency * California Health and
Safety Agency * California Healthy Families Program * California Hearing Aid
Dispensers Bureau * California High-Speed Rail Authority * California Highway
Patrol (CHP) * California History and Culture Agency * California Horse Racing Board
* California Housing Finance Agency * California Indoor Air Quality Program *
California Industrial Development Financing Advisory Commission * California
Industrial Welfare Commission * California InFoPeople * California Information
Center for the Environment * California Infrastructure and Economic Development
Bank (I-Bank) * California Inspection Services * California Institute for
County Government * California Institute for Education Reform * California
Integrated Waste Management Board * California Interagency Ecologic al Program
* California Job Service * California Junta Estatal de Personal * California
Labor and Employment Agency * California Labor and Workforce Development Agency
* California Labor Market Information Division * California Land Use Planning
Information Network (LUPIN) * California Lands Commission * California
Landscape Architects Technical Committee * California Latino Legislative Caucus
* California Law Enforcement Branch * California Law Enforcement General
Library * California Law Revision Commission * California Legislative Analyst's
Office * California Legislative Black Caucus * California Legislative Counsel *
California Legislative Division * California Legislative Information *
California Legislative Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Caucus *
California Legislature Internet Caucus * California Library De velopment
Services * California License and Revenue Branch * California Major Risk
Medical Insurance Program * California Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board *
California Maritime Academy * California Marketing Services * California
Measurement Standards * California Medical Assistance Commission * California
Medical Care Services * California Military Department * California Mining and
Geology Board * California Museum for History, Women, and the Arts * California
Museum Resource Center * California National Guard * California Native American
Heritage Commission * California Natural Community Conservation Planning
Program * California New Motor Vehicle Board * California Nursing Home
Administrator Program * California Occupational Safety and Health Appeals Board
* California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board * California Ocean
Resources Management Program * California Office of Administrative Hearings *
California Office of Administrative Law * California Office of AIDS *
California Office of Binational Border Health * California Office of Child
Abuse Prevention * California Office of Deaf Access * Cali fornia Office of
Emergency Services (OES) * California Office of Environmental Health Hazard
Assessment * California Office of Fiscal Services * California Office of Fleet
Administration * California Office of Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act (HIPAA) Implementation (CalOHI) * California Office of
Historic Preservation * California Office of Homeland Security * California
Office of Human Resources * California Office of Legal Services * California
Office of Legislation * California Office of Lieutenant Governor * California
Office of Military and Aerospace Support * California Office of Mine
Reclamation * California Office of Natural Resource Education * California
Office of Privacy Protection * California Office of Public School Construction
* California Office of Real Estate Appraisers * California Office of Risk and
Insurance Management * California Office of Services to the Blind * California
Office of Spill Prevention and Response * California Office o f State
Publishing (OSP) * California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development
* California Office of Systems Integration * California Office of the Inspector
General * California Office of the Ombudsman * California Office of the Patient
Advocate * California Office of the President * California Office of the
Secretary for Education * California Office of the State Fire Marshal *
California Office of the State Public Defender * California Office of Traffic
Safety * California Office of Vital Records * California Online Directory *
California Operations Control Office * California Opinion Unit * California
Outreach and Technical Assistance Network (OTAN) * California Park and
Recreation Commission * California Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST)
* California Performance Review (CPR) * California Permit Information for
Business (CalGOLD) * California Physical Therapy Board * California Physician
Assistant Committee * California Plant Health and Pest Prevent ion Services *
California Policy and Evaluation Division * California Political Reform
Division * California Pollution Control Financing Authority * California
Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo * California Postsecondary
Education Commission * California Prevention Services * California Primary Care
and Family Health * California Prison Industry Authority * California
Procurement Division * California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS)
* California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) * California Public
Utilities Commission (PUC) * California Real Estate Services Division *
California Refugee Programs Branch * California Regional Water Quality Control
Boards * California Registered Veterinary Technician Committee * California
Registrar of Charitable Trusts * California Republican Caucus * California
Research and Development Division * California Research Bureau * California
Resources Agency * California Respiratory Care Board * California Rivers
Assessment * California Rural Health Policy Council * California Safe Schools *
California San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission * California
San Gabriel and Lower Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy * California
San Joaquin River Conservancy * California School to Career * California
Science Center * California Scripps Institution of Oceanography * California
Secretary of State Business Portal * California Secretary of State * California
Seismic Safety Commission * California Self Insurance Plans (SIP) * California
Senate Office of Research * California Small Business and Disabled Veteran
Business Enterprise Certification Program * California Small Business
Development Center Program * California Smart Growth Caucus * California Smog
Check Information Center * California Spatial Information Library * California
Special Education Division * California Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology
Board * California Standardized Testing and Reporting (STA R) * California
Standards and Assessment Division * California State Administrative Manual
(SAM) * California State Allocation Board * California State and Consumer
Services Agency * California State Architect * California State Archives *
California State Assembly * California State Association of Counties (CSAC) *
California State Board of Education * California State Board of Food and
Agriculture *California Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) *
California State Children's Trust Fund * California State Compensation
Insurance Fund * California State Contracts Register Program * California State
Contracts Register * California State Controller * California State Council on
Developmental Disabilities (SCDD) * California State Disability Insurance (SDI)
* California State Fair (Cal Expo) * California State Jobs Employment
Information * California State Lands Commission * California State Legislative
Portal * California State Legislature * California State Library Catalog *
California State Library Services Bureau * California State Library *
California State Lottery * California State Mediation and Conciliation Service
* California State Mining and Geology Board * California State Park and
Recreation Commission * California State Parks * California State Personnel
Board * California State Polytechnic University, Pomona * California State
Railroad Museum * California State Science Fair * California State Senate *
California State Summer School for Mathematics and Science (COSMOS) *
California State Summer School for the Arts * California State Superintendent
of Public Instruction * California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS) *
California State Treasurer * California State University Center for Distributed
Learning * California State University, Bakersfield * California State
University, Channel Islands * California State University, Chico * California
State University, Dominguez Hills * California State University, East Bay *
California State University, Fresno * California State University, Fullerton *
California State University, Long Beach * California State University, Los
Angeles * California State University, Monterey Bay * California State
University, Northridge * California State University, Sacramento * California
State University, San Bernardino * California State University, San Marcos *
California State University, Stanislaus * California State University (CSU) *
California State Water Project Analysis Office * California State Water Project
* California State Water Resources Control Board * California Structural Pest
Control Board * California Student Aid Commission * California Superintendent
of Public Instruction * California Superior Courts * California Tahoe Conservancy
* California Task Force on Culturally and Linguistically Competent Physicians
and Dentists * California Tax Information Center * California Technology and
Administration Branch Finance * California Telecommunications Division *
California Telephone Medical Advice Services (TAMS) * California Transportation
Commission * California Travel and Transportation Agency * California Unclaimed
Property Program * California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board * California
Unemployment Insurance Program * California Uniform Construction Cost
Accounting Commission * California Veterans Board * California Veterans
Memorial * California Veterinary Medical Board and Registered Veterinary
Technician Examining Committee * California Veterinary Medical Board * California
Victim Compensation and Government Claims Board * California Volunteers *
California Voter Registration * California Water Commission * California Water
Environment Association (COWPEA) * California Water Resources Control Board *
California Welfare to Work Division * California Wetlands Information System *
California Wildlife and Habitat Data Analysis Branch * California Wildlife
Conservation Board * California Wildlife Programs Branch * California Work
Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) * California Workers
Compensation Appeals Board * California Workforce and Labor Development Agency
* California Workforce Investment Board * California Youth Authority (CYA) *
Central Valley Flood Protection Board * Center for California Studies * Colorado
River Board of California * Counting California * Dental Board of California *
Health Insurance Plan of California (PacAdvantage) * Humboldt State University
* Jobs with the State of California * Judicial Council of California * Learn
California * Library of California * Lieutenant Governors Commission for One
California * Little Hoover Commission (on California State Government
Organization and Economy) * Medical Board of California * Medi-Cal *Osteopathic
Medical Board of California * Physical Therapy Board of California * Regents of
the University of California * San Diego State University * San Francisco State
University * San Jose State University * Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy *
State Bar of California * Supreme Court of California * Teach California *
University of California * University of California, Berkeley * University of
California, Davis * University of California, Hastings College of the Law *
University of California, Irvine * University of California, Los Angeles *
University of California, Merced * University of California, Riverside *
University of California, San Diego * University of California, San Francisco *
University of California, Santa Barbara * University of California, Santa Cruz
* Veterans Home of California.
Our government says the only places they can cut expenses is Police and Fire...
It doesn't matter
whether you are a Democrat, a Republican, or an Independent. This list is
shocking. Over the years, our politicians have created this enormous pork barrel
of agencies that employ over 350,000 people directly and countless more via
contracts with the State.
Almost all of these
people get salaries, medical coverage, and pensions at our expense and almost
all are unionized.
And:
More statistics and I passed the three tests rather quickly"
Earth's
Population in Perspective
The population of Earth is around 7.8 Billion.
For most people, it is
a large figure, that is all.
However, if you
condensed 7.8 billion in the world into 100 persons , and then into various
percentage statistics.
The resulting analysis
is relatively much easier to comprehend.
Out of 100 :
11 are in Europe
5 are in North America
9 are in South America
15 are in Africa
60 are in Asia
49 live in the
countryside
51 live in cities
12 speak Chinese
5 speak Spanish
5 speak English
3 speak Arabic
3 speak Hindi
3 speak Bengali
3 speak Portuguese
2 speak Russian
2 speak Japanese
62 speak their own
language.
77 have their own
houses
23 have no place to
live.
21 are over-nourished
63 can eat full
15 are under-nourished
1 ate the last meal,
but did not make it to the next meal.
The daily cost of
living for 48 is less than 2 USD (2 USD).
87 have clean drinking
water
13 either lack clean
drinking water or have access to a water source that is polluted.
75 have mobile phones
25 do not.
30 have internet
access
70 do not have
conditions to go online
7 received university
education
93 did not attend
college.
83 can read
17 are illiterate.
33 are Christians
22 are Muslims
14 are Hindus
7 are Buddhists
12 are other religions
12 have no religious
beliefs.
26 live less than 14
years
66 died between 15 -
64 years of age
8 are over 65 years
old.
If you have your own
home,
Eat full meals &
drink clean water,
Have a mobile phone,
Can surf the internet,
and
have gone to college,
You are in the
miniscule privileged lot.
(in the less than 7%
category)
only for those who think they are having memory loss
Anosognosia
In the following
analysis the French Professor Bruno Dubois Director of the Institute of Memory
and Alzheimer's Disease (IMMA) at La Pitié-Salpêtrière - Paris Hospitals /
addresses the subject in a rather reassuring way:
"If anyone is
aware of his memory problems, he does not have Alzheimer's."
1. I forget the names
of families ..
2 I do not remember
where I put some things ..
It often happens in
people 60 years and older that they complain that they lack memory. "The
information is always in the brain, it is the "processor" that is
lacking."
This is
"Anosognosia" or temporary forgetfulness.
Half of people 60 and
older have some symptoms that are due to age rather than disease.
The most common cases
are:
- forgetting the name
of a person,
- going to a room in
the house and not remembering why we were going there,
- a blank memory for a
movie title or actor, an actress,
- a waste of time
searching where we left our glasses or keys ...
After 60 years most
people have such a difficulty, which indicates that it is not a disease but
rather a characteristic due to the passage of years ...
Many people are
concerned about these oversights hence the importance of the following
statement:
"Those who are
conscious of being forgetful have no serious problem of memory."
"Those who suffer
from a memory illness or Alzheimer's, are not aware of what is happening."
Professor Bruno
Dubois, Director of IMMA, reassures the majority of people concerned about
their oversights:
"The more we
complain about memory loss, the less likely we are to suffer from memory
sickness."
Now for a little
neurological test:
Only use your eyes!
1- Find the C in the
table below!
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
2- If you have already
found the C, then find the 6 in the table below.
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
69999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
3- Now find the N in
the table below.
Attention, it's a
little more difficult!
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
If you pass these
three tests without problem:
- you can cancel your
annual visit to the neurologist.
- your brain is in
perfect shape!
- you are far from
having any relationship with Alzheimer's.
So, share this with your over-55 friends, it can reassure them.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
As I have been writing:
The World Goes On While America Sleeps
While we are busy devouring each other, China is smiling that once-feared American running-dog capitalists have become laughable Keystone Cops.
The Democratically-controlled Senate spends thousands of collective hours conducting an impeachment trial against a president who is no longer president.
The acquittal is predetermined, as in the first impeachment effort a year ago—and known to be so to the Democratic prosecutors.
The constitutionally mandated presiding judge—the chief justice of the United States—refused to show up.
Chief Justice John Roberts apparently believes an impeachment trial of a private citizen is either a waste of time or unconstitutional—or both.
The Democratic House of Representatives is busy ferreting out purportedly extremist Republican members. For the first time in memory, one party now removes committee members of the other.
Yet for each Republican outlier, there is a corresponding Democratic firebrand member who has either called for violence or voiced anti-Semitic slurs—and yet will not be removed from House committees.
So the asymmetrical tit-for-tat continues.
The subtext to this madness is that the Democratic Congress, the new administration, the administrative state, and the political Left are obsessed with dismembering the presidential corpse of now citizen Donald Trump.
Apparently, they fear that one day he will rise from the infernal regions to wreak his revenge.
The Debt Piles Up
Meanwhile, life in America goes on.
Yet few of our leaders are much worried about the existential crises left unaddressed by their obsessions with the ghost of Trump.
Take the debt. It is now $28 trillion. And it is growing at almost $2 trillion a year. No one in Washington talks about reducing the annual budget deficit. Much less do officials find ways to balance the budget. The idea of paying off the monstrous debt remains a fantasy.
Instead, our elected representatives argue over whether to borrow another $1 trillion or more likely $2 trillion, without worry of where it comes from or how it will be repaid.
But money is not completely a construct.
We will eventually pay for our profligacy either with steeper taxes, higher inflation, 1970s-like stagflation, or permanent zero interest. Or eventually, America will renounce its debt and destroy the credibility of the U.S. government.
Meanwhile, hundreds of billions of dollars and countless hours of once productive labor are diverted to unproductive ideological censorship, career canceling, and indoctrination.
Our allies like democratic France warn America that it is cannibalizing itself—and becoming dangerous to others. Our enemies like the totalitarian Chinese are delighted with our suicidal wokeness.
The cost is not just the expense of cleaning up the billions of dollars of destruction from the summer riots, the thousands of memorials and statues destroyed and defaced, the hundreds of schools and buildings to be renamed.
Far more consequential is the suppression of creative thinking—from humanistic study to scientific research.
P.C. Stagnation
The Islamic world, as the historian Bernard Lewis once observed, stagnated in the 19th and 20th centuries, once radical Islamists began squelching all free inquiry that bothered the madrassas.
Humanities and science were perverted from 1932 to 1945 in Germany by the pollution of Nazi racial censors.
What was written or advanced in Communist Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union is largely discredited, given that commissar hacks determined the rules of publication and research.
Something similarly frightening is now occurring in the United States.
Scholars, journalists, artists, and educators feel they must mouth politically correct platitudes. They constantly hedge their public discourse in fear of career cancellation.
They strain to synchronize their research with some approved woke ideology to save their livelihoods.
When professors must write “diversity statements,” and hire, promote, and fire on the basis of race, the model is not the U.S. Constitution, but something out of contemporary China.
Suicidal Tendencies
No one pays much attention that our capital is now weaponized with soldiers in camouflage and barbed wire.
Not since the Civil War has Washington resembled such a vast police state. Ex-military officers who once warned Donald Trump not to deploy federal troops to ensure the safety of the White House from Antifa and BLM demonstrators now are silent about a veritable army deployed in Washington.
Joe Biden has signaled that all new pipeline construction is over.
Fracking on public lands is taboo. The border is to become wide open. Federal immigration law is now nullified.
Americans may soon have to be tested before flying into or out of the country. But undocumented aliens will not be so COVID-19 certified when—illegally—they cross the border.
Iran is bankrupt, isolated, and roundly despised by most of the countries in the Middle East. Now America is doing its best to resuscitate this most radical and anti-American regime in the world—at the expense of our allies in the Arab world, Israel, and America’s own interests.
While we are busy devouring each other, China is smiling that once-feared American running-dog capitalists have become laughable Keystone Cops.
About Victor Davis Hanson
Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness and the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is an American military historian, columnist, a former classics professor, and scholar of ancient warfare. He has been a visiting professor at Hillsdale College since 2004. Hanson was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 by President George W. Bush. Hanson is also a farmer (growing raisin grapes on a family farm in Selma, California) and a critic of social trends related to farming and agrarianism. He is the author most recently of The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won and The Case for Trump.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The NYT's remains a fish wrapper and now even Brett is aboard:
Read the column the New York Times didn’t want you to read
Last weekend, New York Times columnist Bret Stephens wrote a piece criticizing the rationale behind the forced ouster of Times reporter Donald G. McNeil Jr., but it was never published. Stephens told colleagues the column was killed by publisher A.G. Sulzberger. Since then, the piece has circulated among Times staffers and others — and it was from one of them, not Stephens himself, that The Post obtained it. We publish his spiked column here in full.
Every serious moral philosophy, every decent legal system and every ethical organization cares deeply about intention.
It is the difference between murder and manslaughter. It is an aggravating or extenuating factor in judicial settings. It is a cardinal consideration in pardons (or at least it was until Donald Trump got in on the act). It’s an elementary aspect of parenting, friendship, courtship and marriage.
A hallmark of injustice is indifference to intention. Most of what is cruel, intolerant, stupid and misjudged in life stems from that indifference. Read accounts about life in repressive societies — I’d recommend Vaclav Havel’s “Power of the Powerless” and Nien Cheng’s “Life and Death in Shanghai” — and what strikes you first is how deeply the regimes care about outward conformity, and how little for personal intention.
I’ve been thinking about these questions in an unexpected connection. Late last week, Donald G. McNeil Jr., a veteran science reporter for The Times, abruptly departed from his job following the revelation that he had uttered a racial slur while on a New York Times trip to Peru for high school students. In the course of a dinner discussion, he was asked by a student whether a 12-year old should have been suspended by her school for making a video in which she had used a racial slur.
In a written apology to staff, McNeil explained what happened next: “To understand what was in the video, I asked if she had called someone else the slur or whether she was rapping or quoting a book title. In asking the question, I used the slur itself.”
In an initial note to staff, editor-in-chief Dean Baquet noted that, after conducting an investigation, he was satisfied that McNeil had not used the slur maliciously and that it was not a firing offense. In response, more than 150 Times staffers signed a protest letter. A few days later, Baquet and managing editor Joe Kahn reached a different decision.
“We do not tolerate racist language regardless of intent,” they wrote on Friday afternoon. They added to this unambiguous judgment that the paper would “work with urgency to create clearer guidelines and enforcement about conduct in the workplace, including red-line issues on racist language.”
This is not a column about the particulars of McNeil’s case. Nor is it an argument that the racial slur in question doesn’t have a uniquely ugly history and an extraordinary capacity to wound.
This is an argument about three words: “Regardless of intent.” Should intent be the only thing that counts in judgment? Obviously not. Can people do painful, harmful, stupid or objectionable things regardless of intent? Obviously.
Do any of us want to live in a world, or work in a field, where intent is categorically ruled out as a mitigating factor? I hope not.
That ought to go in journalism as much, if not more, than in any other profession. What is it that journalists do, except try to perceive intent, examine motive, furnish context, explore nuance, explain varying shades of meaning, forgive fallibility, make allowances for irony and humor, slow the rush to judgment (and therefore outrage), and preserve vital intellectual distinctions?
Journalism as a humanistic enterprise — as opposed to hack work or propaganda — does these things in order to teach both its practitioners and consumers to be thoughtful. There is an elementary difference between citing a word for the purpose of knowledge and understanding and using the same word for the purpose of insult and harm. Lose this distinction, and you also lose the ability to understand the things you are supposed to be educated to oppose.
No wonder The Times has never previously been shy about citing racial slurs in order to explain a point. Here is a famous quote by the late Republican strategist Lee Atwater that has appeared at least seven times in The Times, most recently in 2019, precisely because it powerfully illuminates the mindset of a crucial political player.
“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’ — that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, ‘forced busing,’ “states’ rights” and all that stuff.”
Is this now supposed to be a scandal? Would the ugliness of Atwater’s meaning have been equally clearer by writing “n—, n—, n—”? A journalism that turns words into totems — and totems into fears — is an impediment to clear thinking and proper understanding.
So too is a journalism that attempts to proscribe entire fields of expression. “Racist language” is not just about a single infamous word. It’s a broad, changing, contestable category. There are many people — I include myself among them — who think that hardcore anti-Zionism is a form of anti-Semitism. That’s also official policy at the State Department and the British Labour Party. If anti-Semitism is a form of racism, and racist language is intolerable at The Times, might we someday forbid not only advocacy of anti-Zionist ideas, but even refuse to allow them to be discussed?
The idea is absurd. But that’s the terrain we now risk entering.
We are living in a period of competing moral certitudes, of people who are awfully sure they’re right and fully prepared to be awful about it. Hence the culture of cancellations, firings, public humiliations and increasingly unforgiving judgments. The role of good journalism should be to lead us out of this dark defile. Last week, we went deeper into it.
From: Isaac Barr MD
To: leonhardt@nytimes.com; pau
Subject: Nothing to worry: your day will come, the wolves will eat you.
My friends at the New York Times and LA Times, Leon and Paul, Your day will come days of shame are closing, but not because of what you said but because of what you supposed to have said. The issue is simple: once you invent a weapon you have no monopoly of its use. Others like you, can lie, deceit, defame, dehumanize, degrade you and your family. As loyal as you can be, as many communists in Russia were, they were executed or sent to a Gulag in Siberia. Aleksandr
by Giulio Meotti
Donald McNeil is a famous American reporter for the New York Times, where he has worked for 45 years and had just been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for his articles on the pandemic.
Two years ago, McNeil led a group of high school students on a Times-affiliated trip to Peru. Subsequently, a handful of students and some parents complained that McNeil, who is white, had used the word "nigger" to repeat a story and that he had rejected the idea that there is a "white privilege".
What is the real story? McNeil was asked at dinner by a student if he thought a classmate of his should be suspended for a video made when she was twelve in which she used a racial slur. To understand what was in the video, McNeil used the insult himself .Therefore, the journalist did not want to use the word to offend, but to understand in what context the word had been used. That's enough to be destroyed.
"It is now the official policy of the New York Times that for some words intent does not matter, it only takes one strike to sink a 47-year career," wrote Reason's Matt Welch.
Two years ago the Times investigated the complaints, scolded McNeil and closed the case. End of story? No, because days ago The Daily Beast website learned of the complaints and wrote about the case.
150 Times reporters said they were "offended" by the comments reported by their colleague McNeil and complained that they had not been consulted at the time. Times editor Dan Baquet reneged on the 2019 decision, denounced "racism and discrimination of all kinds" and pushed McNeil out.
And it is certainly not the first case. “By now Twitter is running the newspaper”. It is with these words a year ago another journalist, Bari Weiss, resigned from the Times.
Not only that, but to try to calm the situation, the reporter had written a pathetic letter of apology, which Andrew Sullivan compared to the "confessions" that the Khmer Rouge extorted from prisoners. "This sounds like a Bolshevik at his trial of him farce that he admits he betrayed the revolution even though he never wanted to betray the revolution because he loves the revolution," comments Vanity Fair's Peter Savodnik.
It is the story of Arthur Koestler's “Darkness at Noon”, the Rubascëv case, the tale of a former Soviet commissioner who himself ends up in the dock and who will "confess" to crimes he was not guilty of just as the people he had accused did.
The liberal press is daily less and less liberal.
DO NOT BUY IT, THE NYT!
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How could it be that Biden lied. He remains fixated on hating Trump. Bless His Soul.
Joe Biden’s Covid Schooling
Rather than reopen classrooms, the new president coasts on his predecessor’s work.
By Kimberley A. Strassel
Handling a pandemic is hard work. Lucky for Joe Biden, he’s discovering his predecessor did most of the heavy lifting.
Mr. Biden ran on two big promises. One was national unity, which he has redefined as Republicans agreeing to his agenda. The other was to “get control of the virus that’s ruined so many lives”—enabled, he says, by the Trump administration and “the worst performance of any nation on earth.” He would do this by “finally” imposing “a plan” to get the economy running, schools open, vaccines distributed.
The new administration has spent every minute talking coronavirus. Yet 90% of its energy has gone to trashing its predecessor and resetting expectations, not to any sweeping policy change. Logistically, it would seem Mr. Biden inherited a fine plan after all. In the few areas where he might actually force improvement—notably reopening schools—the president has whiffed.
On the top priorities, vaccine production and distribution, Mr. Biden continues to pretend he had to start from scratch. This week he accused the Trump administration of misleading his team about the amount of “vaccine available.” How so? The prior administration started placing bets on vaccine candidates last summer, helping companies manufacture them before clinical trials were complete. By December, two vaccines, from Pfizer and Moderna, had panned out, and officials had announced that a total of 400 million doses would be delivered by summer.
The Biden administration has made little change to the vaccine-production plan; there’s nothing much to be done. It made hay of its early decision to order 200 million more doses. But the deal won’t accelerate the pace of production and may prove unnecessary as other vaccines become available sooner. The administration also crowed that it is invoking the Defense Production Act, ordering suppliers to prioritize Pfizer’s demand for raw materials. A good sound bite, though unnecessary. The Trump administration already provided Pfizer priority with a deal in December.
The new administration has made no real changes to vaccine distribution either, relying on the sweeping logistical network already in place. Team Biden did inject racial politics into distribution, announcing this week it would increase “equity” by sending more shots directly to community health centers that serve minorities. Yet these allocations will be small at most, given supply. How good was that existing distribution plan? Mr. Biden within a week of taking office had to revise his “100 million shots in 100 days,” given the states had already outpaced it.
Most of what the administration is doing seems aimed at aggravating the nuisance of Covid mitigation. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now suggests that two face masks are better than one, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is busy on a plan to make airline travel even more onerous.
Most remarkable is the administration’s failure to take steps that would do real good. Parents are revolting now that their children have been denied education for nearly a year. The CDC issued a study saying it’s safe to return, and the Biden-appointed CDC director, Rochelle Walensky, last week reaffirmed the teachers can safely return to the classroom prior to getting a vaccine. Yet White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki now says Ms. Walensky was speaking (at an official briefing) in her “personal capacity.” So much for “listening to the experts” and “following the science.”
This is Mr. Biden channeling American Federation of Teachers head Randi Weingarten. So much so that the administration this week redefined its goal of opening schools in 100 days. It’s new definition of “open” is 50% of schools holding in-person learning one day a week. Conveniently for Mr. Biden, estimates are that more than 60% of elementary and middle-school students are already getting some form of in-person instruction. Look, the Biden “plan” is working!
Johnson & Johnson meanwhile has submitted an application for emergency use authorization of its vaccine, of which millions of doses will be available as soon as the Food and Drug Administration approves. Yet rather than use this opportunity to revisit its turtlelike review process, the FDA won’t rouse itself to meet until Feb. 26.
Then there’s Congress’s bipartisan, 56-member Problem Solvers Caucus, which recently issued a plea for a quick vote on a $160 billion package focused entirely on vaccine distribution. This is eminently sensible, so of course House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the White House dismissed it. Democrats are willing to delay vaccines rather than risk derailing their $1.9 trillion blowout.
These pages pointed out last year that Mr. Biden’s promises on the pandemic were a “me-too” plan, “little different on the substance” from what the previous administration had been doing. But the voters who believed him are getting a sharp awakening. Get ready for a lot more expectations management.
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