July 16, 2022

The Children of Marx

"Marxist constituency has remained as narrow as the conception behind it. The Communist Manifesto, written by two bright and articulate young men without responsibility even for their own livelihoods—muc h less for the social consequences of their vision—has had a special appeal for successive generations of the same kinds of people. The offspring of privilege have dominated the leadership of Marxist movements from the days of Marx and Engels through Lenin, Mao, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, and their lesser counterparts around the world and down through history. The sheer reiteration of the "working class" theme in Marxism has drowned out this plain fact.”

- Thomas Sowell, Marxism: Philosophy and Economics

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Potential big win for 1st Amendment

Dana Mathewson


John Hinderaker writes in Power Line:

It has been widely reported that the Biden administration has leaned on tech companies, including social media companies, to censor content with which the administration disagrees. This is not a secret. On the contrary, the administration’s spokespeople have bragged about it, and Congressional Democrats have publicly applied pressure to tech employees, in committee hearings, to censor in accordance with the administration’s preferences.

The social media companies tirelessly tell us that they can engage in censorship because, as private entities, the First Amendment does not apply to them. That is true as far as it goes. However, if the government uses private parties to suppress dissenting opinions, the Constitution is violated.

A number of lawsuits have been brought by various plaintiffs to attack the unholy alliance between the Democratic Party and the social media companies, but so far they have failed, mostly on standing grounds. Which brings us to a lawsuit by the States of Missouri and Louisiana against public officials including, among others, Joe Biden, Anthony Fauci and the Department of Health and Human Services. The case is venued in federal court, in the Western District of Louisiana.

[...]

Plaintiff states have moved for a preliminary injunction and for expedited discovery on issues relevant to their motion. The federal government asserted the usual defenses, but on Tuesday Judge Terry Doughty granted plaintiff states’ motion for expedited discovery. Judge Doughty considered at length and rejected the government’s standing arguments. He concluded his technical discussion with this question:

"If Missouri and Louisiana do not have standing under the facts alleged, when would anyone ever have standing to address these claims?"

The government’s answer, of course, is never. Its alleged violations of the First Amendment would continue forever, without ever being challenged in court.

Judge Doughty’s order granting expedited discovery is potentially seismic. The plaintiff states can serve document requests and interrogatories on the government agencies, as well as social media companies subject to Rule 45 subpoenas, "seeking the identity of federal officials who have been and are communicating with social-media platforms about disinformation, misinformation, malinformation, and/or any censorship or suppression of speech on social media, including the nature and content of those communications.” [Emphasis added.] The order sets forth a rapid timetable for resolution of any objections and disputes arising out of plaintiffs’ service of those discovery requests.

It's about time for something like this. Let's hope the states are successful in their suit!

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The Two Faced Moon

Timothy Birdnow

I was discussing new photos from the Lunar far side taken by a Chinese probe with some of my more qualified friends. I stated:

"It's much less interesting than this side of the Moon; no rilles, maria, or giant craters.

Why did the near side form so differently than the far side? Is the Moon two objects smashed together?"

Maurizio Morabito observed:

Stuff that barely misses Earth is more likely to hit the Earth facing side.

And Meteorologist James Covington adds:

Actually Luna is two moons slowly crunched together. Saw a documentary about it and I've run a few simulations myself.... every simulation I run of the moon forming impact, leads to two moons. In each of my simulations either one crashes back to Earth and the other is eventually lost, or they crash into each other.... but slowly since they're going the same direction, which results in one moon.

This also led to the far side of Luna having a thicker crust, so less basaltic lava poured through.... thus the lack of maria on that side. 🙂

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Morning Pessimism

A discussion between Mike and Tim.

In a conversation about the way corporations follow the "woke" line even when it hurts their bottom dollar, Mike says:

These companies have aligned themselves with the far left for survival. From what I see the left has control and will keep control. I dont believe the great blow out of the dems will happen. I have heard it all before. Carter should have been the death of them and here they still, stronger then ever thanks to the publics tunnel vision. Biden got his start with Carter as well as other dems and like some Repugs they are still there.

And Tim replies:

I agree with you Mike. These corporations aren't stupid and know the Left controls all of the country's institutions. I agree furthermore this isn't going to be the catastrophe' we think it is for the Donkeys. Even if it is we'll find the Republicans who replace the Democrats are weak and won't move to end what has been imposed.

It's the dialectic. Or as they used to say two steps forward, one step back. The Left has taken their two steps now must cool things for a time to avoid the opposition - us - from boiling over and truly moving against them.

If you've ever read Brave New World Huxley discusses a water pipe analogy; too much pressure and it will blow, so the rulers occasionally put pin-pricks into the pipe to relieve the pressure. The Left has perfected that. And they control the means institutions that can allow a controlled depressurization.

Oh, and Huxley was one of them and knew how they operated.

I am less than confident about these upcoming elections. I think it will be less of a blowout than most people believe, and even though I think we'll win a lot, we will fall short of being in total control - enough to pass veto-proof legislation. And we'll fix some of the problems caused by Biden and the American people, with the attention span of gnats, will forget and re-elect the guy, or some other Democrat if they remove Biden from the ticket.

As you say, we've seen this before. If Carter couldn't end the Democrats forever nothing can.

And while I loved Reagan the fact is the country continued to move Leftward even during his Presidency. Things like gay rights got going during the Reagan era, not during Clinton. (They came to their culmination during the Clinton "gay nineties" but the roots were laid during the Reagan era.) The Left will make huge gains politically when in power then work the social end to consolidate that power when they are out. Both are equally important, and we are always playing catch-up trying to resist them. They always strike on ground of their own choosing. We are always simply reactive.

Color me very pessimistic.

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July 15, 2022

Russia Getting Rich

Timothy Birdnow

This from Business Insider:

Central bank data showed that Russia notched a record current account surplus of $70.1 billion in the second quarter this year.

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Economic Furniture Disease (Our arrow has sagged into our drawers)

Bill Weisberg

This is my industry. However, it reflects what is going on in all industries - slow sales and heavy inventories. This is clearly the results of Democratic Party's Marxist and Socialist policies.

Century Furniture CEO: Expect a 6 to 9 Month Recession

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Arguing with idiots: Ukraine War Edition

Timothy Birdnow

On Facebook a discussion broke out worth repeating.

Steven Chase said:

LIKE IT OR NOT...
The U.S. has been fighting proxy wars for the past 40 years - a strategy designed by our CIA. What is happening in Ukraine is NO different. Over the past 16 years, the army the US/NATO built in Ukraine, has swelled to become the largest and best-armed land force in Europe. By almost every metric, it is more potent than the combined armies of Germany, France, and Italy.

War is when the government tells you who the bad guy is. Revolution is when you decide for yourself. - B. Franklin
more...

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Retroactive Punishment by Wokies

This from the Heartland Institute. The Wokists are going hog -wild.

Professors Punished — This Month — for Halloween Costumes They Wore in 2014

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What is Truth?

Mauritzio Morabito

What is a woman?

If X thinks that X is a woman, X is a woman according to X.

If Y thinks that X is not a woman, X is not a woman according to Y.

Key word here - THINKS.

We can't go around policing thoughts. Under the best assumptions, more than 6.999 billion people think me unattractive. This doesn't make them Mauriziophobic.

The debate about separate spaces, mixed spaces, rights...that's something else than the debate about who X and Y think X to be.



Tim adds:

Oh, I think you exaggerate; I'm sure it's no more than 6.5 billion who think you are unattractive. (: I would add this is the democratization of reality, something not at all democratic. It's at the core of Rousseau's idea of the Collective Will; if a majority think it so it must be. But reality isn't taking polls, and it doesn't bow to public pressure. That is where the concept of Natural Law comes into play; there is a law in Nature that transcends human institutions. America was founded on the idea of Natural Law. But there are those who hate the idea, who seek to be gods themselves, and so willfully refuse to accept reality. These are the relativists, who think reality is malleable and subject to our will. The Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Physics and Relativity gave this philosophical system a huge boost in the 20th century because it was argued the observer played a critical role in reality at the quantum level - or where time is concerned at high speeds. But these are very limited things, and we really do not fully understand them. The observer "chooses" nothing; rather, he either observes a or b when there is a dichotomy of events. Yes, Bohrs thought all reality worked that way too, but he's never been proven correct in that (although there are some tantalizing clues in that regard). Still, reality lies outside of us, even if our point of view may play a roll in how reality plays out. In the end an asteroid will still strike the Earth no matter how much we seek to wish it away. As writer Phillip K. Dick famously stated, reality is that thing which, when you stop believing in it, won't go away. You can stop believing your are a man but in the end you still remain one. Even if you have a sex change, you become a mutilated man who dresses like a woman. It won't go away.

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The Real Inflation Rate

Dennis O'Brien

Officially U.S. inflation is close to 10%, but using the old tried and trusted metrics it is closer to 20%.

Meanwhile Russia had deflation in June and so far in July, so real wages in Russia are effectively rising.

European leaders are falling like 9 pins and Ukraine is buckling.

Sanctions backfiring and chickens coming home to roost in the West.

Bread and circuses continuing in Australia.

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Skyrocketing Costs

Bryan Alexander

I just saw a CEO on Fox News talking about how one of their essential materials (silk—they make bedding goods, like pillows) has gone up over 18%, and SHIPPING (from Asia) has gone up from $3,000 per container to $43,000! Unbelievable. Another business owner (whose company installs and repairs air conditioning systems) has had to raise the wages of their employees—since

their employees have to pay so much more for gas to get to work—and is paying 60% more for gasoline (in just the last YEAR) for their trucks, so, of course, they've had to raise prices for their customers. 9.1% inflation my ASS. FJB!

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July 14, 2022

Russian "Doomsday Sub" Goes Live

Timothy Birdnow

Russia is activating her "doomsday sub".

From American Military News:

An advanced "doomsday” submarine capable of launching massive nuclear torpedoes entered service with the Russian Navy on Friday. The move comes after Russian figures have made repeated threats of nuclear war to opponents of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Russian state-owned TASS news agency reported Friday that shipbuilders at the Sevmash Shipyard had made the final delivery of the Project 09852 special-purpose submarine Belgorod to the Russian Navy. The Belgorod is a 508-foot-long modified version of the Soviet-designed Oscar-class submarine.

The Belgorod has been specially designed to carry and deploy up to six 80-foot long nuclear-armed weapons known as the Status-6 Oceanic Multipurpose System "Poseidon,” also known as Kanyon by NATO. The Poseidon weapons have been referred to both as nuclear torpedoes and as nuclear-powered unmanned underwater vehicles. According to U.S. Naval Institute News, the Poseidon torpedoes are estimated to carry 100 megaton nuclear warheads, which could be launched against enemy shorelines and detonate against enemy coastal cities or create tidal waves that flood vast swathes of land. The potential destructive power of the Poseidon torpedoes has earned the Belgorod a reputation as a "doomsday” vessel. TASS euphemistically referred repeatedly to the new submarine as a research vessel.

[...]

Russian Navy Commander-in-Chief Nikolay Yevmenov said, "The submarine Belgorod opens new opportunities for Russia in holding various researches and helps carry out diverse scientific expeditions and rescue operations in remote areas of the World Ocean.”The explosion of this thermonuclear torpedo close to Britain’s coast will cause a gigantic wave tsunami wave up to 500 meters (1,640 feet) high,” Kiselyov said. "This wave also carries extreme doses of radiation. Having passed over the British Isles, it will turn whatever might be left of them into a radioactive desert unfit for anything for a long time.”

End excerpt.

And this is going live. But Biden wants to ramp up the war in Ukraine. The man is mad.

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How Sri Lanka Wrecked Their Economy and Triggered a Revolution

John Lees

How some lunatics who believe in the supreme powers of bullshit, (and cowshit), crashed the Sri Lankan economy.

"After the 2019 presidential election, the newly appointed President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, outlined a 10-year vision for transition into complete organic farming in Sri Lanka. According to a report in News18, it was based on the advice of an Indian environmentalist and anti-modern agrarianism activist, Vandana Shiva, and her organisation Navdanya International, that the Sri Lankan government decided in April 2021 to completely ban the import of agrochemicals to mitigate the health impacts of chemical fertilisers and pesticides in farming, and also to promote eco-friendly sustainable agricultural systems."
https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2022/06/20/viewpoint-green-technology-rejectionist-vandana-shiva-at-center-of-sri-lankas-disastrous-organic-farming-embrace-and-crop-protection-chemical-rejection/

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What a Bunch of Dickes

Timothy Birdnow

As ye sow...

Dickie Sporting Goods Hit with Civil Rights Complaint for Funding Employee Abortions, not Childcare

If you want to dance with the Devil you are going to get burned!

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Dems Want to Disband SCOTUS

Timothy Birdnow

So SCOTUS is "racist and sexist" according the Democrats? Amazing; they have used the Courts for decades to promote their Progressive agenda over the Constitution. Now they want to get rid of the Courts? Just because one thing didn't go their way? I wonder if they understand that this would mean states rights, that states would determine the legality of anything if this were to happen?

Majority of Democrats Believe Constitution Is ‘Rooted in Racism’ and ‘Sexist’

Heartland Institute – Rasmussen poll #3

So let me get this straight; the Democrats want to abolish the Supreme Court for throwing abortion back to the states, and in so doing will throw abortion back to the states. Genius!

Actually, I suspect they think this means Congress or the President will decide to make abortion the law of the land. But Congress failed to pass such a bill, and the President doesn't have that authority even if he wanted it. THAT is the dirty little secret; the Democrats want a President who can simply make laws on his own. We don't need no steeenking Congress!

This illustrates how most Democrats are ignorant and authoritarian. They don't understand the Dobbs ruling at all and just see an out-of-control Court. Funny; they didn't mind an out-of-control court when it was ruling in their favor.

Actually, what they favor is a democratically elected court. Why bother? We already have Congress for that. Dufuses.

Now, I could get behind a plan to put justices up for retention votes, like we do at state levels oftentimes. But even that is a departure from the way the Founders set it up. They wanted politics to not be part of any SCOTUS rulings.

All the Democrats understand is power. That's what they crave. Granted, the Ruling Class in the GOP only understand money and craves it. There is but a remnant that actually seeks the welfare of the nation.

53% of Democrats want to eliminate the Court and create their own "People's Court" akin to the courts in communist countries. I suppose we can have Marilyn Millian run this new "People's Court", or perhaps put some other t.v. judge there, maybe Judge Judy or Jerry Springer?

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What Killed the Dinosaurs?

Richard Cronin

The Alvarez hypothesis is the proposal that a giant asteroid crashed into Earth, sending up dust to block out the Sun and so killed off the dinosaurs. The evidence supporting the Alvarez hypothesis is the discovery of an almost uniform layer of Iridium around the globe, say at the time of the Cretaceous-Tert iary (K/T) extinction, approx. 65 million years ago. Iridium is very heavy and on Earth it only exists in the Lower Mantle (660 to 2900 kilometers down).

Rather, Dr. Gerta Keller describes that the K/T extinction was due to an extended period of intense volcanism. Iridium was delivered to the surface via mantle plume volcanoes, which extend down into the Lower Mantle.

Volcanic emissions include steam, CO2, and massive amounts of sulfur dioxide (SO2), an acidic gas and suffocant. SO2 is heavier than air.

Plodding dinosaurs lived predominately in swampy low lands. Even predators like the T Rex roamed savannahs which were not very much above sea level. Lowland dinosaurs also had relatively weak breathing systems. The sea level atmosphere is heavier thus the dinosaurs never developed the robust pulmonary systems of the mammals. During the K/T extinction no tetrapods weighing more than 25 kilograms (55 pounds) survived.

The lowland dinosaurs choked on the SO2, defoliation set in, and acidic gases turned the oceans anoxic, killing off many marine species.

The nimble 4-footed mammals could climb up mountainsides to get away from the suffocating fumes. The winged creatures joined us in our ascent. Marmosets still live high in the Rocky Mountains.

So there you have it. Without tectonics and volcanoes, the giant predator reptiles would still be chasing our ancestors into extinction.

We are here because our ancestors could climb to safety.

Tim adds:

I rather suspect both were at work. We know the "Great Dying" of the Permian Triassic was entirely a volcanic event.

But we have believed for some time that in the case of the later dinosaur extinctions it was an asteroid. Well, I've read that the dinosaurs were already disappearing before the asteroid that struck in Yucatan, and why would that be? Probably volcanic eruptions had put great pressure on them and then the rock finished them off. But their days were probably already numbered.

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Facebooks' Plan to Censor the Internet

Nikki Grace

Facebook says it wants to help fix misinformation running rampant across the internet — a problem it may have helped create in the first place.

Facebook parent Meta announced a new AI-powered tool on Monday, called Sphere. It’s intended to help detect and address misinformation, or "fake news,” on the internet.

Meta claims that it’s "the first [AI] model capable of automatically scanning hundreds of thousands of citations at once to check whether they truly support the corresponding claims.”

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July 13, 2022

Promises, Promises, from Biden

Timothy Birdnow

And yet he's working to give them the Bomb by renegotiating the Iran nuclear deal. Somethow this "strategic partnership" gives me small comfort.

Biden is still working to get a deal that would allow Iran to make nukes.

Biden Will Declare 'Strategic Partnership' with Israel to Ensure Iran will Never Obtain Nuclear Weapons

This man is a fool. Iran just took their enrichment up to 20%, which means they need just a few more enrichments to reach the critical level.

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The Costs of Inflation

Roy W. Spencer

I thought it would be useful to show the cumulative effect of the CPI increases (inflation) on prices, using $100 in the year 2000 as a baseline. Roughly speaking, your salary should have increased by over 75% to cover the increased cost of goods and services since 2000.
May be an image of text that says '$180 Monthly Cumulative Average Consumer Prices in U.S. from Monthly CPI Data (through June 2022) $170 0555 in $160 $150 $140 Prne $130 canpa $120 $110 Trend During 2000- 2020 CPI data source: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/ $100 000 2000 2001 00 2002 00 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 10 10 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 το7

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He Was For Strict Coke Laws before He was Against Them

James Hatem

Watch hypocrite Joe bragging about the stiff penalties for possession of crack. Now he makes excuses for Hunter.

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