The Intransigence Of The "Palestinian" Arabs Is the Only Thing That Has Prevented Their Own State, And Now It Is Too Late

The concept that the Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza deserve autonomy in their own governance, much less a state of their own, was shown on October 7th to be ridiculous. And even after two months of of pummeling by the Israeli military, support for Hamas and their subhuman brand of terrorism is strong. Hamas brought destruction and death upon the people of Gaza, yet they support it! The leadership of Hamas is safely ensconced in Qatar for now, able to spend their billions of dollars (looted from the people of Gaza and the world that wrote the checks) on luxury...and security, because of course the Israeli intelligence services are going to have a say in how long they draw breath.

Giving these people a state is madness. It is the equivalent of allowing Nazi Germany to reconstitute itself in May of 1945, or returning Hideki Tojo to power in September 1945. The West Bank, ruled by the Palestinian Authority, and Gaza, ruled by Hamas, are birds of a feather. There is no substantive difference, other then the propensity for PA officials to wear ties. Both represent a populace that approves...overwhelmingly...of the destruction of the state of Israel and the Jewish people. They are single-minded in their goals, and they inculcate their children with that message. They are a death cult with one thing in mind...killing Jews.

Here is Melanie Phillips eviscerating the widely held belief that a "two state solution" is rational.

The persistent "two-state" delusion

This week, polling results published by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research revealed that no fewer than 82 per cent of Judea and Samaria residents and 72 per cent of Gazans approve of the October 7 pogrom.

If there were an election in the disputed territories, Hamas would win hands down. Support for Hamas in these territories has more than tripled compared to three months ago. In Gaza, such support has also increased. The overwhelming majority in both areas want to see Israel destroyed.

If the Palestinian Arabs are to govern themselves, they must go through the equivalent of the de-Nazification that was carried out in Germany after World War II. That clearly cannot be done by the rejectionist, Jew-hating and despotic PA.

But...in reality it is "de-Islamification," and that is impossible. The attitudes in Gaza and the West Bank did not emerge as a consequence of the re-creation of the state of Israel. An examination of the many pogroms against Jews perpetrated in many Arab states before 1948 suggest that Jew-Hate existed before the "Nakba," as the Arabs call Israeli Independence. And the expansionist goals of Islam, culminating in a global Caliphate are not some myth. Israel and Jews are merely their first target.

So how to cure Gaza and the West Bank of their blood lust? We can't. All we can do is demilitarize the area so there cannot be a repeat of October 7th, and remove the malign influence of UN-sponsored educational systems that actively promote the agenda that led to the savagery of October 7th and before.

Israel is already destroying Hamas and its ability to project terrorism, but the UN and the oh-so-sophisticated 1st world is busily trying to return to the status quo ante bellum; that's what cease fires will lead to.

The "Two State Solution" is dead. The trick is convincing the world that it is better off with a vibrant Israel, complete with world-class technology, liberal democracy, freedom, and most of all respect for human life and humanity.

Because the other side of the coin is a savage 3rd world sh*thole where the law of the jungle prevails, where terrorism in service of a world caliphate is exported, and where tens of billions of dollars from the developed world is stolen to support its despotic rulers.

I know what I would choose.

Posted by: CBD at 12:00 PM | Comments (274) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Morning Book Thread - 12-17-2023 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading (I know the author of this one). Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...

So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, jingle some bells and deck those halls with boughs of holly, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM | Comments (327) | Trackbacks (Suck)

12/17/23 EMT

Happy Sunday.

Posted by: krakatoa at 06:00 AM | Comments (189) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 17 December 2023

Top Story

• Small is the new Large: Microsoft has announced Phi-2, which it terms a "small language model". (VentureBeat)
  
  With 2.7 billion parameters it generally outperforms Llama-2 and Mistral with 7 billion parameters, while being small enough to run happily on graphics cards with just 4GB of RAM.
  
  It's comparable to Mistral on language tests, but significantly better on mathematics and programming.
  
  If that's too big for you, Microsoft recently released Phi-1 and Phi-1.5 which will run on any reasonably specced potato.
  
  I'm happy to see this progress in making improvements to small models you can run yourself, that have potential to do some limited set of things well. The push to ever larger models at astronomical expense is going to fail unless fundamental changes are made to the designs - and to the culture of the companies building them.
  
  
  
• Mistral also announced what they call Mixtral last week. (Mistral)
  
  This a similar idea. Rather than building one huge model that tries to handle everything, Mixtral uses eight small (7 billion term) models, each able to fit on a commodity graphics card, and each tuned to a specific kind of task.
  
  It outperforms the largest version of Llama-2 (70 billion terms) while being 30% smaller overall (for all eight models combined) and working on hardware at one twentieth the price.
  
  
  

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (82) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Overnight Open Thread (12/16/23)

The Saturday Night Joke

A man was telling his buddy over coffee, "You won't believe what happened last night. My daughter walked into the living room and said, "Dad, do not pay off my college tuition loan, cancel my allowance, throw away all my clothes and take my iPhone and laptop. In addition, please take all of my jewelry to the Salvation Army. Then, sell my car, take my front door key away from me and lock me out of your house. Then, disown me and never talk to me again. And don't forget to write me out of your will and leave my share to anyone you choose."

"Holy Smokes", replied the friend, "She actually said that?”
The father replied, "Well, she didn't actually put it quite like that. I'm paraphrasing a little.

"What she actually said was, Dad, meet my new boyfriend, Mohammed. We're going to work together on Biden's 2024 re-election campaign."

(H/T AZ deplorable moron)

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 09:52 PM | Comments (338) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Music Thread: Year-End Wrap...Of What? I have No Idea!

Garrett...just stop...it's a sickness!

Spotify is now pretty much all I listen to in the car, although occasionally I will go old-school and listen to songs saved on my phone. Yeah...I know...I'm a dinosaur.

But recently something extraordinarily irritating has appeared on Spotify! They inserted some sort of AI DJ who talks on what used to be just music feeds. And to make it worse the voice has a ghetto accent which is completely out of place considering the music I listen to.

Dear Spotify; Just because you Can do something doesn't mean you SHOULD do something. Just. Stop.

But they also have a fun little thing that tells users what they listened to over the course of the year. Wow! John Prine!

In Spite of Ourselves

That's the Way the World Goes Round

The Crickets w/ John Prine - Oh Boy

Posted by: CBD at 07:30 PM | Comments (195) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Weekend Hobby Thread

Now of course they are called "drones," but a drone is nothing more than a radio-controlled model plane, or more accurately an RC helicopter.

Back when I was a kid...a long time ago...that was an awesome hobby. And an expensive one. Even the terrestrial versions were pricey! I remember seeing people driving their RC dune buggies in the park in town. That looked like loads of fun!

And what about slot cars? There was a great slot car facility on the bottom floor of a bowling alley near where I grew up. They had two or three really long and convoluted tracks and amazingly fast cars for rent. I remember being amazed at their speed, and how complex even the controllers were.

I'll bet more than a few of you have an old, dusty slot car set in the back of a closet or tucked away in the attic!

Posted by: CBD at 05:22 PM | Comments (127) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Ace of Spades Pet Thread, December 16

* * *

Good afternoon and welcome to the almost world famous Ace of Spades Pet Thread. Thanks for stopping by. Kick back and enjoy the world of animals.

Would you like a treat?

Let's relax a little with the animals and leave the world of politics and current events outside today.

Posted by: K.T. at 03:20 PM | Comments (97) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, Dec. 16

Happy December everybody! Above, a nice arrangement given to the human mom of our Swiss guide dog, Gioia. Sending any flowers this Christmas?

Posted by: K.T. at 01:24 PM | Comments (71) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Things have changed for kids, since you were one

Rural Constitution Day Parade, 2016

History and Old Books

If there's one thing that the new experts in education don't want, it's children grounded in and informed by history and old books. Does your local school have a Constitution Day parade? If we want kids to know about these important things, we may need to find a way other than school to help them learn. Harvard, in the news this week, has warned against old books, like hard cover reading, writing and arithmetic books, or even . . . the Bible! Quelle horreur!

Posted by: K.T. at 11:08 AM | Comments (236) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Classical Saturday Morning Coffee Break & Prayer Revival

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 09:40 AM | Comments (202) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 16 March 2023

Top Story

• Life hack: You can get Japanese products sooner (often by months) and cheaper by simply ordering them from Amazon Japan.
  
  The Pop Up Parade figures for Kiara and Ayame which I had on pre-order through Amazon US, with estimated shipping dates in March and February respectively, are in stock at Amazon Japan right now.
  
  
  
• The Telescreen (Amazon $499) was in front of the painting (Etsy $299). Marketing companies aren't actually listening in on your private conversations. Probably. (Ars Technica)
  
  Even if they say they are.
  
  A marketing team within Cox Media Group claimed it had a tool it called Active Listening, which involved, not to put too fine a point on it, illegally spying on other companies' customers, with the tag line "It's true. Your devices are listening to you."
  
  If it were actually true, the resulting lawsuits would burn the entire company to the ground. Fortunately it seems to be marketing, or in other words, a complete lie.
  
  
  

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:06 AM | Comments (433) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Let Me Get A Big Hell Yeah For A Redneck ONT

Welcome to Friday night! I found this to be interesting.

Twitter embeds don't seem to be working right now, so to see the videos you'll have to click on the link.

Posted by: WeirdDave at 10:00 PM | Comments (317) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Big Mouths Cafe

The Cotswolds, England
@vitaliy_bobrovic

Zoomers attempt to dial a rotary phone.

Playing caught-you-looking.

Do you want to know a secret?

This cat just saw Alien, and he's got some new pouncing technique he wants to try out.

Honk if you want a hug.

Turn the annoying music down, but the video is worth watching: Friends don't leave a friend behind.

Little dog is very particular about playing fetch.

Waiting while the surgeon attends the patient.

Santa is coming. But so is the Anti-Santa.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 07:24 PM | Comments (154) | Trackbacks (Suck)

SCIENZZZZ

Godfather of mRNA vaccines: We're working on vaccinating people against cancer.

I mean... I guess I was really excited about this possibility before the covid non-vaccine...

The pioneer behind mRNA vaccines has revealed plans for a new vaccine that immunizes against cancer more than a decade before it strikes.

Dr Drew Weissman won the Nobel Prize this year for their discovery of a way to inject genetic instructions to induce an immune response against Covid, a discovery that helped save millions of lives and bring the world out of the pandemic.

But... did... it...?

Now, he is leveraging that discovery to create an mRNA vaccine against another of the world's biggest killers - cancer.

The vaccines in development at the University of Pennsylvania, where Dr Weissman conducts his research, teach the body how to recognize tumor cells and fight them when they form.

The vaccines are geared towards people with genetic mutations that raise their risk of cancer, such as the BRCA gene that influences breast cancer risk.

At this point in the article I was thinking exactly this: given the history of this vaccine, which I am totally not allowed to say has caused widespread vaccine injury and heart inflammation, I would only consider such an mRNA shot if I had the genetic markers making me a risk for a specific cancer.

Dr Weissman said at the Nobel Prize lecture on medicine: 'The idea here is that you treat people before they develop cancer... and maybe completely prevent cancer from ever appearing in these patients.'

Maybe.

With the covid-19 shot we had a guarantee, and that turned out not so hot.

...

Dr Weissman and fellow researchers at UPenn set out to find a way to enhance the power of an mRNA vaccine by encoding it with genetic instructions for the body to produce a specific subset of immune cells that kill off cancer cells.

Within that set of genetic instructions injected into mice to produce an antibody response, the researchers included mRNA teaching the body to produce a protein called IL-12, which plays a crucial role as a messenger that facilitate communication between cells.

IL-12 directs the body to generate a specific type of immune cells called effector T cells, which Dr Weissman said could effectively clear out cancer from the body and even prevent it from occurring in people who are at highest genetic risk.

He said: 'We know that it's five or 10 years that cancer cells first start to appear before you've got full-fledged large tumors that impair function.

'If we treat these people maybe every five years with a vaccine that only makes effector T cells, we'll clean out, clear away, kill all of the transformed cells.'

I guess I'd try it, if I knew I was a high risk for a specific cancer. And if they did testing on more than 12 fucking mice.

Good news for asthmatics: new antibody treatment controls 92% of severe asthma cases.

Safer relief for people suffering from severe asthma is a step closer with a large clinical trial finding a monocolonal antibody treatment called benralizumab can radically reduce the need for more dangerous high-dose steroid treatments.

...

The treatment investigated in a phase four clinical trial funded by its producer AstraZeneca, works in a far more targeted way. Benralizumab is a protein antibody that reduces the number of inflammation-causing immune cells called eosinophils, which are produced in abnormal amounts in severe asthma cases.

Benralizumab has been so effective that in the trial of over 200 patients across Europe an incredible 92 percent of them safely reduced the use of inhaled steroids, with more than 60 percent no longer needing them at all.

Almost 90 percent of patients in the steroid reduction group remained exacerbation-free by the end of the trial.

Science says Cat Lady Syndrome is all too real.

A new review suggests that having a cat as a pet could potentially double a person's risk of schizophrenia-related disorders.

Australian researchers conducted an analysis of 17 studies published during the last 44 years, from 11 countries including the US and the UK.

"We found an association between broadly defined cat ownership and increased odds of developing schizophrenia-related disorders," writes psychiatrist John McGrath and fellow researchers, all from the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research.

Is it the cat ownership causing the schizophrenia, or is it the schizophrenia causing the cat hoarding?

This "science" advances nothing!

...

"After adjusting for covariates, we found that individuals exposed to cats had approximately twice the odds of developing schizophrenia," the team writes.

This study is both worrying but also actionable -- losing just a little deep sleep after age 60 significantly increases the chances of dementia. While that's alarming, it also suggests a way to reduce one's risks of dementia.

A decrease of 1% in deep sleep each year for individuals aged 60 and older corresponds to a 27% higher risk of developing dementia.

A study has found that every 1% decrease in deep sleep annually in individuals over 60 years old is associated with a 27% higher risk of dementia. This research indicates that improving or preserving deep sleep, known as slow-wave sleep, in later life may help prevent dementia.

I've been wearing a Fitbit for years so I know about how much deep sleep I get. I know when I get 40 minutes or less my mind is fried and I feel like crap, when I get an hour I feel eh, when I get an hour and 15 minutes I feel normal, and if I can get 1 hour and 30 minutes or more I feel really good.

There is some placebo effect going on there because when I see a good score I definitely feel good just because of the score, but it's definitely true that deep sleep is very restful and restorative sleep.

It comes earlier in the night. They say it comes between 10 pm and 2am and I never got an answer: What if you're a nightowl? Does it shift later for you? Or is it just that people who go to bed early just get more deep sleep than nightowls?

I don't know the answer but I do tend to get more deep sleep the earlier I got to bed.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 06:30 PM | Comments (144) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Quick Hits

Chris Cuomo saw the 45 minute montage of Hamas atrocities:

Christopher C. Cuomo
@ChrisCuomo

Today I was among the journalists who have attended a private screening of the raw footage of October 7th and I want to express to you what I saw since it's not been made public. It's been a very heavy day. A decision was made that Jews are less than human, and treated that way in words and deeds... now know that's exactly the message Hamas sent on purpose -- at scale. I wasn't aware of that before. I saw bodies were burned but I did not understand or appreciate how intentional the effort was -- they did it methodically, you hear it in the voices, the commands the ease, the excitement of finding and mutilating victims.

In the video I linked above, Cuomo points out that Hamas is deliberately, intentionally, methodically burning Jews (both living and dead) to replicate the ovens of the Holocaust.

As for the burning of dead bodies, a utilitarian might say, ah, the body is dead, what does it matter? We cremate the dead anyway. Yes, but as Cuomo say, this is an insight into Hamas' mindset, the utter dehumanization of Jews in their minds and the complete lack of value of Jewish life, and an important clue to future intentions if ever they should have power equal to their hatred and savagery.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm recommending this Chris Cuomo video.

Twitchy has rounded up the lefties' shriekings. But what about the 63 million Palestinian babies the Israelis have publicly executed!!!

One of the most potent self-reinforcing parts of woke ideology is its commitment to the idea that Reality Is What You Pretend It Is. They've created a "reality" based on a fucking song from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. That means they can make up whatever fantastical political lie they want when they need it, and that lie has, according to the precepts of their crude demonic philosophy, exactly as much reality as actual reality has. If you object that something some fucking idiot just made up is not as valid and real as an established fact that has a physical basis in tangible reality, they accuse you of mansplaining and Centering White Experience and attempting to colonize them with White Supremacist Logic while denigrating "ways of knowing" open only to minorities, women, gays, and trans folx.

I missed this -- Eric Swalwell arranged fellow whorebanger Hunter Biden's Capitol Hill steps testimony-dodging speech, meaning that Swalwell, technically a member of Congress, schemed with a man to help him defy an order of Congress.

A member of the Oversight Committee wants to discipline him.

So, you had a member of Congress helping someone who is blowing off a Congressional subpoena. At the very least, Swalwell seems to be serving Hunter Biden rather than his obligations to Congress and the law. That could be a bit of a problem for Swalwell, who was chucked off the House Intelligence Committee for his relationship with a woman believed to be a Chinese operative. Funny how he's helping the Bidens, who are being investigated over alleged corruption connected to the Chinese.

Now, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) says that they are going to hold Hunter Biden in contempt, but that they should probably pursue a contempt action against Swalwell as well.

" We're going to vote to hold him in contempt. We probably need to vote Eric Swalwell in contempt, because the rumor is that Mr. Swalwell aided and abetted him by setting up his facilities so he could have his [press] conference across the way."

And then vote to expel him. (That takes a 2/3rds vote. Santos was only voted out because Republicans are cowards desperate for the approval of the Cool Kids Liberals.)

Bidenomics: Mortgage payments on a new home have risen 90% under Joe Biden.

The dream of owning a home in America is slipping farther away for many, with average monthly mortgage payments now nearly double what they were at the start of the Biden administration.

As interest rates surge above 7% and housing prices continue their ascent, aspiring buyers are confronted with one of the most unaffordable markets in recent memory.

Recent analysis indicates that opting to rent might make more financial sense, with average new leases ringing in at $1,000 less per month than the cost of home loans.

The landscape is bleak, prompting experts to advise potential buyers against waiting for a market shift and instead bracing for an extended period of higher interest rates.

Data from real estate investment firm CBRE illustrates a stark reality: average monthly payments on a new home soared to $3,322 in the third quarter of this year, marking a staggering 90% increase since late 2020 when it hovered at just $1,746 before Biden took office.

This analysis, centered on a $430,000 home with a 30-year mortgage, considering a 10% down payment, underscores the gravity of the situation.

But Raggedy Android says that Joe's working hard to reduce those "junk fees" for overweight airline luggage, so that should all wash out with your nearly-doubled mortgage payments.

Pfizer's stock is falling as people are skipping the nth booster.

Pfizer's shares are plunging downwards to their worst performance in over a decade after the pharmaceutical giant put out a stark warning about its projected revenue as hysteria over the Covid-19 outbreak continues to wane.

Recent financial results and projections alike have not fared well for Pfizer; shares dropped 8 percent on Thursday morning, and the company has lost $140 billion in market cap this year alone.

Pfizer projects that revenue could fall next year and has put out a 2024 guidance that is below analyst expectations, according to a new report by The Wall Street Journal.

As The Journal notes, such a warning brings grave concerns for Wall Street as to how Pfizer will be able to create new sources of sales growth. Such a situation sets up a hefty challenge for Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla to overcome.

While Bourla's Pfizer enjoyed a strong financial performance during the Covid-19 outbreak, with its Comirnaty shots and Paxlovid drugs bringing in tens of billions of dollars in sales, decreased interest has now stung the pharmaceutical giant.

Merry Season of Death!

Vivek was part of a Twitter live spaces and ducked out to take a leak. But he left his microphone on. Jack Posobiec is going to analyze the sound of his urine stream to determine if he's got the Alpha Flow you want and need in a leader (and this is all totes heterosexual you guys).

Another deliberate hit and run, this time in Seattle.

"Hit this b****, hit this b****," one woman in a car involved in a Seattle hit-and-run can be heard saying while another woman laughs. The assault was one of two caught on security cameras purposely hitting two different pedestrians in late November. The Seattle Police Department released the videos on Friday -- including cellphone video taken from inside one of the cars -- in hopes that someone might be able to help ID the victims or the attackers.
Advertisement

There's no mistaking the women's deadly intentions or the glee they took.

"Based on the speed of the impact," MyNorthwest reported on Monday, "it is likely that the victims suffered serious injury."

More at the link. >The repulsive video is here.

More scumbag criminals, and, surprise, incompetent and stupid to boot: some carjackers pistol-whipped a hardworking citizen and stole his Porsche. Or attempted to, as they were unable to drive it away, as they could not drive a stick-shift.

Guys, I don't think AOC's brilliant plan of "decarceration" is working.

Or maybe it is working exactly as intended.

Alabama students created a memorial for the victims of Hamas' 10/7 rape/massacre, planting a little flag for each victim. Some scumbag calling ximself "Jade" posted a death threat on social media, writing "resist my 12 gauge to your skull bitch."

"People in the chapter who saw the post were troubled by it, and said it was a death threat," TPUSA Chapter President Tyler Robertson told Campus Reform.

Robertson told Campus Reform that Jade is known to the group as a local alumna who has regularly responded negatively to the group's Instagram posts in the past.

The group took screenshots of the story, as well as other disturbing posts on Jade's Instagram profile, and filed a release report.

Per the police report obtained by Campus Reform, "Jade removed all posts in regards to Turning Point and any identifying posts once the UAHPD had viewed her Instagram page." Jade's last name was not included on the copy of the police report provided to Robertson.

The police report indicates that the officer spoke with Madison County Chief Trial Attorney Tim Douthit, who "advised there is probable cause for the crime of Harassing Communication."

Robertson says the group's intent to press charges is primarily based on concern for students' right to engage in protected speech without fear of violent repercussions.

"We're pursuing this because threats like this are a serious offense against our right to free speech. No one should accept threats of violence as a normal part of using our 1st amendment rights," Roberston told Campus Reform. "Unfortunately, we aren't surprised this has happened, because far-left activists have been empowered by the elites in academia to believe that it's always open season on conservatism. People like Jade believe they are immune to the consequences of making threats because her ideas fit the mainstream. Thankfully, that's not true, at least for now."

I'm mystified. The death threats we report are real, the death threats they report are hoaxes. But the death threats they report get all the media coverage, and the death threats we report get none.

Can you explain this mystery to me, guys?

Southwest is being praised for offering "customers of size" a free seat.

Plus-size TikTokkers

A great start to any article.

... are praising Southwest Airlines for its "customer of size" policy, which allows overweight passengers to request a complimentary seat and forces the flight staff to accommodate larger flyers -- even if that means kicking others with tickets off of the flight.

"If you're fat, you know the anxiety of flying and this alleviates it a lot," Caroline, a travel influencer who said she is a size 20, told her nearly 200,000 followers in a video posted at the end of October.

"I had a very comfortable flight just feeling like I was allowed to take up the space I needed."

Under the Texas-based airline's policy, customers whose bodies "encroach" past the armrest are entitled to an extra seat at no additional cost.

It says that passengers "have the option of purchasing just one seat and then discussing your seating needs with the Customer Service Agent at the departure gate.

"If it's determined that a second (or third) seat is needed you'll be accommodated with a complimentary additional seat," the policy states.

The flight team will then look at the seating arrangements -- which are not predetermined on Southwest flights -- and would potentially move other passengers around for the "unplanned accommodation."

So... two problems.

I'm not against making a reasonable accommodation. And also, gee it would be nice to not have a gigantic person fatspreading all over me on a flight.

But: Obviously the costs of this are going to be divided out among the other passengers.

And then there's this bullshit that the obese person doesn't have to do any planning in advance, but can show up day of the flight and disrupt other people's plans and have them moved around.

If people are extremely fat, they know it, and they should book their Bonus Seat in advance. What this is allowing them to do is to book a seat when there is no additional seat available next to any seat and just bulldoze other people out of the way to make room for their fat asses.

Accommodation is one thing, gross imposition is another thing entirely.

And this society has moved very, very far from "accommodation" to "gross imposition" with respect to all claims of "marginalized identities."

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 05:25 PM | Comments (202) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Week In Woke

Another victory for Havard's First True Scholar in History Claudia Gay: The school is telling its Jewish center to hide its menorah every night, because they know that Havard students will vandalize it, and Harvard doesn't want the bad PR.

The anti-Semitic vandalization is fine. But the bad press? Unacceptable.

Harvard forces a Jewish student group to hide its menorah each night after its lighting over fears of vandalism that "won't look good" for the Ivy League school, the rabbi of Harvard Chabad said.

"On our campus in the shadow of Widener Library, we in the Jewish community are instructed, 'We'll let you have the menorah, you made your point, OK. Pack it up, don't leave it out overnight because there will be criminal activity we fear and it won't look good'," Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi said at a Hanukkah lighting Wednesday night.

Nikole Hannah-Jones says that any criticism of Havard's historic first black woman, who was clearly hired only for her DEI checkbox value, is...

I mean, do I have to even finish the sentence? Your brains can autocomplete it, right?

Yes, so the stupid thing that stupid people always say, this stupid person said it.

Even CNN is noticing that Everything Woke Turns to Shit. Fareed Zakaria opined this past Sunday that universities no longer promote merit, only political agendas and "inclusion."

"[W]e have to understand the broad shift that has taken place at elite universities, which have gone from being centers of excellence to institutions pushing political agendas. People sense the transformation.

American universities have been neglecting a core focus on excellence in order to pursue a variety of agendas, many of them clustered around diversity and inclusion. It started with the best of intentions. Colleges wanted to make sure young people of all backgrounds had access to higher education and felt comfortable on campus. But those good intentions have morphed into a dogmatic ideology and turn these universities into places where the pervasive goals of political and social engineering, not academic merit. As the evidence produced for the recent Supreme Court case on affirmative action showed, universities have systematically downplayed merit based criteria for admissions in favor of racial quotas. Some universities' response to this ruling seems to be that they will go further down this path, eliminating the requirement for any standardized tests like the SAT. That move would allow them to then take students with little reference to objective criteria. Of course, those who would suffer most would be bright students from poor backgrounds who normally use tests like PSAT to demonstrate their qualifications. In the humanities hiring for new academic positions now appears to center on the race and gender of the applicant, as well as the subject matter, which needs to be about marginalized groups. A white man studying the American presidency does not have a prayer of getting tenure at a major history department.

...

America's top colleges are no longer seen as bastions of excellence but partisan outfits, which means they will keep getting buffeted by these political storms as they emerge. They should abandon this long misadventure into politics, retrain their gaze on their core strengths, and rebuild their reputations as centers of research and learning.

He also discussed their lack of political diversity and their discrimination against Jews and Asians. You can click on the link if you want to read about that. I thought it was more interesting that he gripped the third rail of the leftwing Racial Marxism cult-- questioning diversity quotas and equating them with inferior results. He sounds like some sort of racist white Uncle I might see at a Thanksgiving dinner which I might read about in a Salon article.

If you liked the last epidemic of monkeypox that our "health" authorities refused to take any steps to mitigate -- steps like telling gay men to please stop having orgies with anonymous partners, just until the epidemic blows over; that was considered too much of an ask of the gay community -- you're going to love the next monkeypox epidemic, which features a bug with a higher mortality rate.

From Beege Welborne, an apparently real -- let me put some quotation mark around "real" -- academic paper.

Let me put some quotation marks around "academic" as well.

Misogyny, authoritarianism, and climate change

So far, a plus and a minus: these words seem all picked at random with no possible relationship to each other, which is a minus, but, on the other hand, they are all real words in use in the English language, which is huge and unexpected plus, so, thusfar, I'd say we're way, way ahead of where I thought we'd be by now.

Globally, democratic politics are under attack from Electorally Legitimated Misogynist Authoritarian (ELMA) leaders who successfully use misogyny as a political strategy and present environmental concern in feminine and inferior terms.

They spent $300 million to produce this crazy paper, but you can see it, every dollar is all up on the screen!!!

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 05:20 PM | Comments (223) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Bud Light Opens Up It Money-Vaults and, Mystery of Mysteries, Suddenly "Conservative" Influencers Can't Stop Calling for an End to the Boycott!

Are.

You.

Kidding.

Me.

Bud Light paid the UFC $100 million to partner with them. The UFC is a based company and a lot of its athletes are based. Dana White is as based as a sports executive as we've had in the modern age.

Now, I was disappointed in this deal, but money is money, and I don't want to criticize the UFC or Dana White.

But let's not kid ourselves: Bud Light is paying the UFC so that the UFC will tell conservatives to stop the boycott.

Which Dana White explicitly did:

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 03:20 PM | Comments (387) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Surprise! The Taxpayer-Funded State-Department-Sponsored Company "NewsGuard" Rated Liberal Sites with a 91% Average Trustworthiness and Conservative Sites with a Failing 65%

Which tells advertisers not to advertise on those sites.

Sites like The Daily Caller, The Federalist, the Daily Wire, etc.

But Huffington Post? Highly trustworthy! Fortune 500 corporations -- please fund these strictly factual sites!

The first amendment guarantees liberals the right to use government-coerced taxpayer monies to punish speech they don't want anyone to hear. That's the gist of it, right?

In a study published Tuesday, Media Research Center (MRC) Free Speech America found that NewsGuard, the taxpayer censorship giant self-tasked with rating media outlets on reliability, "overwhelmingly favored left-leaning outlets over right-leaning ones." This is the third year MRC Free Speech America has exposed NewsGuard for its partisanship, and, according to MRC, NewsGuard has become "even worse" than years prior.

Using AllSides, an organization that classifies media outlets by their "right" to "left" bias, "MRC researchers determined that NewsGuard provided a stellar average 'credibility' rating of 91/100 for 'left' and 'lean left' outlets (e.g., The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, Vox)," wrote MRC researchers. Meanwhile, "right" and "lean right" outlets, such as Fox News, the New York Post, and The Daily Wire, were given "an outrageously abysmal average score of 65/100."

"NewsGuard's rating for right-leaning outlets in particular was worse than the still-low 66/100 average rating it slapped on right-leaning media across the prior two MRC studies released Jan. 6, 2023 and Dec. 13, 2021," MRC noted.

One of the strongest examples of NewsGuard's brazen bias is how it excused legacy media outlets' false labeling of the New York Post's Hunter Biden laptop story as "Russian disinformation" back in 2020.

The Washington Post, USA Today, and Politico -- all outlets that discredited the story -- were given "flawless 100/100 scores." The seriousness of what these legacy media organizations did cannot be understated. As MRC noted, polling indicates that suppression of the laptop story played a deciding role in the 2020 election.

According to MRC, NewsGuard's decision to ignore the discrediting of the laptop story isn't surprising, given that NewsGuard itself contributed to its suppression. Indeed, "NewsGuard co-CEO Steven Brill joined CNBC just before the 2020 election to castigate the Hunter Biden laptop story as a probable Russian 'hoax,'" MRC wrote in its report.

While outlets that engaged in journalistic malpractice and election interference are given gold stars, NewsGuard severely punishes conservative outlets like The Federalist. NewsGaurd gives The Federalist a failing 12.5/100 score. "After roughly two years," wrote MRC, "NewsGuard is still criticizing The Federalist's questioning of the efficacy of masks for COVID-19." At the same time, liberal CNBC, which has a "95" NewsGuard rating, "cited a study showing that cloth masks were only 37 percent effective at filtering out virus particles," wrote MRC.

In another example of NewsGuard's double standard, the organization gave Not the Bee a 62.5/100 score "in part because it supposedly 'does not disclose that the site advances a conservative perspective that is apparent in its content,'" MRC reported. "This is grossly hypocritical in light of NewsGuard's perfect scores for blatantly liberal outlets like the explicitly left-wing New York Times," MRC pointed out.

...

"NewsGuard wields its ratings as a cudgel, attempting to scare away advertisers from doing business with media and organizations that have been accused of promoting so-called 'misinformation' or wrongthink on a whole host of issues like abortion, climate change, COVID-19 and elections," explained MRC. "In so doing, NewsGuard effectively strips media outlets with which it disagrees of their ad money, slowly bleeding out their coffers."

As MRC demonstrates, NewsGuard is a political arm of the left, yet it receives hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding from Biden's Department of Defense. "This is the same Biden administration that tried to erect a radical Disinformation Governance Board tied to leftist billionaire George Soros to collaborate with Big Tech companies to target Americans' speech on social media platforms," wrote MRC.

News Guard also received funding from Big Pharma....

MRC is calling on Congress to cease illegally funding an organization that is actively destroying free speech in the U.S. in its pursuit to shut down conservative outlets.

Read the whole thing.

In very much related news: Biden told his FCC that they ought to look into his political enemy Elon Musk, and you'll never guess what the FCC did next.

Here's the background on Starlink, a program designed to provide the internet by satellite to places too poor or too remote for laying cable transmission wires:

The program is supposed to close the "digital divide" by ensuring that every person in America can access high-speed internet. Given the country's geography, some people will never get traditional internet service simply because the expense of getting cables to their homes is astronomical. The program was to go into effect in 2025, allowing providers to expand their infrastructure. Starlink was one of several providers serving various areas.
Advertisement

Starlink was supposed to close that gap, making subsidies available to people who couldn't otherwise afford the high startup costs of setting up the service.

Back in 2020, the FCC identified Starlink as the most viable solution to closing the digital divide for over half a million Americans--a decision so glaringly obvious that only a fool would deny that it was the best available solution.

Brendan Carr, a dissenting member of the FCC, explains:

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 02:15 PM | Comments (255) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The DOJ Official Who Interfered in the Hunter Biden Investigation Has Quietly Left the DOJ

The DOJ lawyer who interfered in the Hunter Biden investigation, forbidding any questioning or avenue of inquiry that could implicate Joe Biden, has "quietly departed" the DOJ.

Of course she wasn't fired. She was doing the will of The Regime. But she's become a bit of an embarrassment, so she's been asked to work in the private sector for a while, where she'll be paid off hugely for her past service.

Later on, she'll be rehired by the Deep State when they have a big political case that needs fixing.

But for now, she's left the DOJ just as she's called for questioning in the impeachment investigation.

A federal prosecutor who allegedly interfered in the criminal investigation of Hunter Biden to protect both President Biden and his son recently left the Justice Department, The Post has learned.

Former Delaware assistant US attorney Lesley Wolf's quiet departure emerged as she appeared for a deposition with the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday morning -- following the Wednesday night House vote to formally authorize the impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden over his role in his son and brother's foreign business dealings.

Wolf's starring role in the alleged coverup in the criminal tax fraud and foreign lobbying investigation is a significant part of the impeachment inquiry -- with whistleblowers saying that she discouraged asking witnesses questions about "the big guy" or "dad," referring to Joe Biden, claiming there was "no specific criminality to that line of questioning."

Two IRS agents who worked on the criminal investigation, Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, alleged in prior testimony to House committees that Wolf tipped off Hunter Biden's lawyers to investigative steps and forbade inquiries into Joe Biden even when communications mentioned him.

Wolf allegedly instructed FBI agents in August 2020 to remove references to Joe Biden from a search warrant affidavit, writing, "someone needs to re [the affidavit]... There should be nothing about Political Figure 1 in here," according to an email released by the Ways & Means Committee.

A federal prosecutor who allegedly interfered in a five-year probe into first son Hunter Biden has left the Justice Department, a source familiar with the move told The Post.

"That email, I think, is super important because it's a one-off example in writing of the constant concern of following investigative leads that might lead to Joe Biden," Ziegler said Thursday in a Fox News interview.

"The FBI agents who ed that affidavit, they believed that they had sufficient evidence -- probable cause -- to support including Political Figure 1 in that affidavit," said the self-identified Democrat and veteran IRS agent, who worked on the case for five years.

"That related to [Ukrainian energy company] Burisma, access to Joe Biden and access to the administration and there was ample evidence that was included in that affidavit that's supported including Political Figure 1. That has a waterfall effect on the investigation because those emails that we're searching for might not come through to the team."

From Matt Vespa, who points out that Hunter Biden's corrupt plea deal blew up when the judge caught wind that this DOJ official had interfered in the investigation.

The FBI official who investigated Trump for colluding with Russia while he himself was literally colluding with Russia was just sentenced to 50 months in prison, which is a light sentence considering that he confessed to what is, essentially, working as a covert agent of Russia.

A former FBI counterintelligence official who played a role in the Trump-Russia collusion probe was sentenced to four years in prison on Thursday for accepting payments from a billionaire Russian oligarch who is under U.S. sanctions.

Charles McGonigal was sentenced after pleading guilty to felonies in two different cases, one of which involved his work for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, The Wall Street Journal reported. McGonigal, who worked on some of America's most important national security cases over a two-decade period with the bureau, was arrested in January and charged with accepting payments from Deripaska in exchange for digging up dirt on one of the sanctioned oligarch's Russian rivals.

Just before he retired from the FBI, McGonigal was involved in the investigation into former President Donald Trump's alleged ties to Russia, allegations a special counsel report suggested were never "technically plausible." The former FBI official played a role in the bureau's probe of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page when in 2017, McGonigal texted a colleague, saying, "Our Team is currently talking to [Carter Page] re Russia," The Washington Free Beacon reported.

Trust your Expert Class and Professional Managerial Class, everyone. They only want What's Best For You (TM).

Meanwhile, more FBI agents are talking about the bureau's corruption and its transformation into a weapon of the left's id. James Gagliano is a retired supervisory special agent. He writes about another retired FBI agent, Assistant Director of the Criminal Division, explaining how the one-time communist party member James Comey redirected agency recruitment efforts towards filling the agency with his fellow travelers, as well as his own observations of the bureau's shift from law enforcement to political enforcement.

Dating back to the 2016 Trump-Russia sham investigation, heavy-handed over-charging of Trump campaign surrogates, blatantly uneven treatment of right-wing and left-wing protesters and rioters, labeling angry parents speaking out at school board meetings as "domestic terror" concerns, aiding Big Tech's 2020 election suppression of information, seeming disinterest in Hunter Biden laptop revelations and Biden family's obvious influence-peddling schemes, and a laughably absurd Richmond division intelligence product warning of "radical-traditionalist Catholics," the FBI has raised eyebrows.

Many retired FBI agents -- to include this author -- have long caveated criticisms of the FBI by maintaining the bias and partiality concerns are related to certain FBI senior executives. We then justifiably laud the hard work and faithful service of the vast majority of the men and women who comprise the street-level, case-working special agents. Yet, it is becoming exceedingly more difficult to separate large swaths of FBI rank and file from its questionable leadership.

Retired FBI Criminal Division Assistant Director Chris Swecker recently outlined why it is no longer just FBI headquarters executives who are radically transforming the bureau and skewing it leftward. Swecker acknowledges the culpability of the FBI's current recruitment processes:

"There has been a seismic shift in the [FBI] culture...[I]n comes [FBI director] Jim Comey and he basically parachutes all these DOJ political appointees into the FBI and slowly the culture shifts over Comey's tenure and then under [FBI director] Chris Wray it's accelerated because I think the type of recruit they're bringing in is more opinionated, more idealistic, more liberal, highly educated, more Ivy League, and they tend to not just follow the facts, they tend to insert their own ideologies, their own opinions because the indoctrination that's taking place in the schools these days -- if you're virtuous and you're highly educated, you do everyone else's thinking for them. You can decide that President Trump is not fit to be president, therefore we need to go after him. You can decide that domestic terrorists only exist on the right side of the political aisle, not on the left side of the political aisle. You can pick winners and losers...It's no longer 'Let's just follow the facts.' I'm going to say that's at the highest levels of the FBI...but I think it's beginning to percolate down to the street level [rank and file agents] as well."

The FBI proclaims that diversity remains "at the core of [its] mission." Same preferred diversity of which American universities clamor -- race, gender, sexual orientation -- all while seemingly avoiding diversity in thought.

...

I also witnessed firsthand the FBI's shift away from objective resource allocation and "calling things what they were" when Barack Obama's "wing man," Attorney General Eric Holder, compelled Comey's FBI to resist accurate description of terror attacks by "radical Islamists" in exchange for more nebulous depictions of our efforts in "combating violent extremism." Contrast that muted downplaying of the Muslim perpetrators of the vast majority of worldwide terror attacks with how DOJ treated the January 6th "insurrectionists" and angry parents at school board meetings -- compared again to 2020 ANTIFA and BLM anarchists and rioters. The FBI has also been accused by a whistleblower of artificially-inflated domestic terrorism data as pertains to rightwing groups. Certainly, appears one-sided and partisan, no?

...
Even the FBI Agents Association (FBIAA) -- which purports to represent active and retired agents -- has taken a perceptible leftward lurch in its advocacy. The FBIAA saluted controversial and embattled immunologist Dr. Anthony Fauci by presenting him its 2020 "Distinguished Service Award," and its then-president tweeted that U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick's death was a "killing" based upon deployment to Capitol on January 6, 2021. According to the medical examiner, Sicknick died of "natural causes." Most egregiously, the FBIAA awarded $100 gift cards to FBI agents who shamefully knelt in solidarity with -- or fear of -- the mob of BLM protestors (and rioters) who descended upon Washington, D.C. in the wake of George Floyd's death in the Summer of 2020. These examples prove that bias hasn't only permeated the top of the FBI. It has also infected segments of the special agent population.

...

We need the FBI. But it can't continue to whistle past the graveyard, refusing to embrace necessary reforms. To do otherwise will serve as the agency's Waterloo.

Speaking of two tiers of justice:

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 01:10 PM | Comments (214) | Trackbacks (Suck)