The Distraction Curtain

 https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/05/the-distraction-storm/

Our age is one of distraction, denial, diversion, drift, deflection, and a host of other such terms of avoiding being here now, in the present. 

"Pay no attention to that man(reality) behind the curtain"  is the defining  metaphor for our time. 

Let's ignore trillions of dollars in debt, unfunded liabilities, and deficits TODAY, and rather focus on climate, "Critical" Race Theory, etc 

What is necessary to understand in the present is that our current cultural convulsion — the constant, distracting storm of outrage and panic and hatred and denunciation that plays out over social media and in real life every day — is being used as moral camouflage for failing institutions, from city governments to federal agencies and from the college campus to the commanding heights of media and technology. The burghers of the Bay Area won’t be around to comment on the weather in 100 years, and they’d much rather not talk about what’s happening down at the corner drugstore right now.

It is important for governments to look to the future and to understand history — planting trees under the shade of which we never will sit and all that. But governments at all levels also have a responsibility to the here and now, to the clear and present, to the local and the ordinary — a responsibility to see what is in front of their noses and, when necessary, try to do something useful in response to it.

CCP Virus Breakthroughs, Stop Counting

Epoch Column

I'm happy that the CDC and media are treating virus breakthroughs of fully vaccinated people as "not a concern", because that is how reasonable people operate. If only they would have treated the tiny number of serious  cases in children and even healthy adults under "50" in the same reasonable manner. 

What does concern me a bit more is: 

Of the cases, more than six in 10 occurred in females, with the median patient age being 58, according to a new report from the CDC, which stopped counting breakthrough infections as of May 1, except for those that cause hospitalization or death.

 Is there a pattern here?  The Obama administration stopped counting H1N1 cases in 2009 because "they already knew it was an epidemic". I've often said that if you don't like what someone tweets,  quit following them -- my general attitude to lots of supposed "sources" these days. 

However, when it is your job to count, ceasing to count when you don't like what you see tends to make your "counting" more political than scientific. It makes the sham of trusting the bureaucracy a bit too clear -- the actual mission of any bureaucracy is to increase its power,  not to actually do some supposed "critical mission".

As I've often observed, the real meaning of "believe the science" is "believe the narrative". 

America, Taiwan, What Is "A Country"?

 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/actor-john-cena-apologizes-after-taiwan-comment-n1268526

Taiwan has the advantage of being a specific territory, but through use of power, China increasingly says it is not a country. So does John Cena. 

Iraq once declared Kuwait was not a country. HW Bush, ("wouldn't be prudent"), usually considered a total whimp, actually stood up and threw the Iraqi bums out. Kuwait remained a country. 

The old United States was a country based on ideas rather than territory. "We hold these truths to be self evident", a written Constitution that was actually followed, and a population that revered the founding, the founders and the founding principles/ideas. I maintain that since Critical Race Theory and "Wokeness" are now the supposedly "elected" foundation of the territory once known as "America", whatever it is, it is no longer a country. 

Part of being a country is being able to defend your borders, and/or having enough allies to join with you to keep your status as a country. 

Suppose the Cadaver In Chief of Wokeistan is likely to stand with Taiwan? 

Not too likely is it? 

  

The Wuhan "Lab Leak"

https://threader.app/thread/1396992531385180165

As the Cotton piece makes clear, the case this came from the Wuhan lab was a strong one since early last year.

What is also a strong case is that Fauci was involved in funding that lab for viral “gain of function” studies.

Knowing your enemy is good, creating your enemy is even better!

There are many important “coincidences” in the Wuhan Virus story — it is reminiscent of the Russian, Ukraine, Biden “election”, and January 6th hoaxes is a lot of ways. We are beset by “coincidences”, and they are all focused in one political direction! (remove Trump at any cost) It reminds me of a series of murders where all the victims just happen to be named “Sarah Connor”.

Naturally a tornado COULD blow through a junkyard and assemble a perfectly functioning 747. I’d just prefer to not be forced to be a passenger on it’s first flight.

I believe the lab “leak” was a “leak” in the same way that political leaks are. In this case the leak happened to be a virus vs information, but given things like mRNA (which is information), why not? “Leaks” happen.

When the Davos Elite knows what is best for the “proletariat, masses, deplorables, etc”, isn’t it their duty to make it happen for the good of “all”?

I happen to be reading “Crime And Punishment” (finally). How can one really weigh the morality of accelerating the deaths of a small percentage of elderly against the horror of Trump, and the potential that the racist deplorables might slow the inevitable “arc of history” toward utopia?

“What do you think, would not one tiny crime be wiped out by thousands of good deeds?”

The meaning of “tiny” is even tougher than the meaning of “is”.

The AP, Dead Gorilla In Coal Mine

 https://spectator.us/topic/decline-fall-associated-press-gaza/

A common old time expression was "the canary in the coal mine". Allegedly, miners kept a canary with them, and if it dropped dead, they got out. Supposedly canaries were more sensitive to lethal gases than humans, so they were an early warning system. 

The AP has been dead for a long time, but in this age of continuing to kick Trump and his supporters after he is long gone, a little "corpse abuse" is in order.

The latest example of AP’s troubled role involves its offices in the Gaza Strip, a territory controlled by Hamas. For some 15 years, the AP has operated out of an 11-story building in Gaza City, the al-Jalaa Tower, where al Jazeera also has offices. According to Israeli military intelligence, journalists weren’t the only ones in that tower. Hamas terrorists also had offices there and were using them to plan terror attacks on Jewish civilians. So, in the midst of Israel’s wider military campaign against Hamas assets, the Israeli Defense Forces told everyone to evacuate the building, which was then destroyed by aerial bombardment. No one was injured.

Remember how Trump was going to be disaster, especially in foreign policy? Is't it special that we now have the worst Palestinian situation since 2014? Gee, who was president then?

The column is worth a read, as Lipson usually is.

Nord Stream Yes, Keystone No

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/05/biden-yields-to-putin-on-nord-stream-2-pipeline.php 

The linked talks about how Biden has decided to quit blocking the Russian to Germany Nord Stream 2. I suppose in an effort to avoid "whataboutism". It ignores the fact that Biden cancelled Keystone on day 1, and also stopped fracking on government lands.

Support our rivals, kick America to the curb. After all, America, now Wokeistan is "institutionally racist" don't ya know. 

C'mon man

Consumer Confidence "Unexpectedly" Declines

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/05/consumers-arent-so-dumb.php 

When a Democrat is in power, negatives that can't be hidden are always "unexpected". 

When a Republican is in power, positives that can't be hidden are always "unexpected". 

Very simple and easy to understand. 

Rigged, A Preview

https://thefederalist.com/2021/05/11/mollie-hemingway-is-writing-the-2020-election-book-the-media-dont-want-you-to-read/ 

I have a strong suspicion that reading this book is pretty much an exercise in closing the barn door after the cows are out Voter fraud and Democrats have been joined at the hip from Jim Crow, through Boss Tweed, the Daley machine, and all elections at every level forever. 2020 was just more obvious.  

Anyone against voter ID supports voter fraud. There are few things more obvious than that, yet the government media complex denies it. Criminals support gun control and defunding the police. How can anyone not understand the obvious? Only because they DO understand it, they just find following the law to be inconvenient for them. 

The preview is good, as is everything I've read by Mollie Hemingway. 

Good, but sad. I will be reading the book. 

And Just Like That, Covid Is Over

https://spectator.us/topic/wait-pandemic-over-cdc-masks/ 

One of my very early questions on Covid lockdowns/masks, etc was "What is the end game on this?"

Silly me. In the age of credulity for media, bureaucracy and big business, it is "whenever they say so". As we have seen with Russiagate, two farcical "impeachments" and the election by the dead, thou shalt believe and parrot the narrative of the day. 

The Covid narrative has had more twists and turns than a cheap garden hose, and I'm fairly certain there will be more. The narrative was just too good for the power hungry, big box store companies, inflation beneficiaries, etc to not go on ... likely in a more "lethal" mode. Perhaps the next time it will kill more babies than a month of abortions. 

Just like that? Nothing about this pandemic, or the science behind it, or the vaccines that have stopped it, tells us that something changed suddenly and magically for vaccinated people yesterday. But today we can finally lose our masks, as President Biden’s CDC finally announced a full loosening of mask restrictions other than crowded indoor spaces and public transportation. Joe Biden wants you to believe that this day arrived by the good graces of science and his administration’s tireless work, but that would be incorrect. The public has been getting vaccinated since early January and we are now five months into 2021. It’s the same vaccine, yet we are supposed to buy the idea that today, May 13, 2021, will go down in history as the day the pandemic suddenly ended.

It's gotta be true! Even MN governor "tear down this Walz" lifted his mask mandate -- although he did retain his "emergency powers".  

The idea that if you had it, or were fully vaccinated, you STILL needed to wear a mask was even more unbelievable than the idea that a mask protected anyone. Either the vaccinations work or they don't.  If they do, the odds of you getting it and thus being a spreader are very low. If they don't work, why bother? 

Since the masks were "80% +" about virtue signalling, there are going to be a lot of people unwilling to give up their "virtue". 

Slow Joe, Slow Decisions

 https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/05/ny-times-slow-joe-getting-slower.php

Hey, when the missiles are in the air, or hordes of Chinese drones are knocking out your power grid, you want a "leader" who can make some sort of decision in a week or so. 

On policy issues, Mr. Biden, 78, takes days or weeks to make up his mind as he examines and second-guesses himself and others. It is a method of governing that can feel at odds with the urgency of a country still reeling from a pandemic and an economy struggling to recover.

Oh, I'm sure this is only on "policy issues". Putin (and no doubt Xi Jinping) are likely duly impressed with the amount of "behind the scenes prep" it takes for Joe to be functional. Nothing like a senile "leader" of the formerly great nation that was once competitive with you!

In the end, Mr. Biden called Mr. Putin directly and then delivered a public statement on Russia sanctions that lasted only five minutes and 49 seconds. For as much as Mr. Biden projects an aura of ease — with his frequent backslapping, references to Irish poetry and liberal use of the phrase “c’mon, man” — his aides say it takes a lot of behind-the-scenes work to prepare him to project an assured demeanor.

This stuff is from the NY Times, through Power Line. I think PL is being pollyannaish about  there being any rationality entering into the MSM mindset. Joe is a great guy for them, Russia, China, the Davos Elite, etc ... 

The Symbolism Of Masks

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/05/the-mask-is-an-outward-sign-of-inward-things/ 

The masks are a wonderful symbolic statement of being a pious follower of Scientism, so don't expect them to exit quickly. Expect other symbols of being part of the "illuminati" to follow in their wake.

 Secularists have been lacking in iconography for their faith, and as humans, that is important -- no matter how pointy your head may be. The Darwin Fish tended to indicate an evolution focus rather than general materialist/scientist faith. The rainbow is too gay, Che Guevara tees can just confuse people, and body piercings, tats, etc don't really invoke "science", but rather paganism. 

The KKK liked hoods, but while a rainbow hood might catch on and be even more materially effective than masks (especially if it had a respirator included), it would be unwieldy, and as the linked column points out, it was never about "effectiveness". 

The use of masks as a social signifier is hardly new to the COVID-19 era. Face-coverings and head-coverings have featured in the social and religious life of Muslims (hijabs and kufis), Christians (mantillas, wimples, zuchettos), Jews (tichels, kippahs), Hindus (ghoonghats), and many others for centuries. The head-covering and face-covering impulse is partly rooted in modesty (both sexual modesty and modesty before God), but it also has a community-building aspect. When the Sikh spiritual master Guru Gobind Singh ordered his male followers to forgo cutting their hair and to wear turbans, he did so in order that, as he put it, his “disciples will be recognized among millions.” Outward signs of community and solidarity inevitably take on, to some degree, a depersonalizing role, as with the military uniform, which makes soldiers exactly what the adjective promises.

The Covid mask primarily screamed "I'm a follower". 

While the media worked overtime to claim that MAGA hats indicated the person was a brainless sheep, they were uncommon enough in most quarters to take some level of backbone to put one on. Like a Trump sticker on your bumper, there was a not insignificant chance wearing one could get your car keyed, or even physically attacked. Nobody keys a car for a Darwin or rainbow bumper sticker -- primarily for the same reason you see very few demonstrations by the "deplorables" (they are working). In the nearly unique case of the Capitol "riot" -- which was not a "riot" since the only person killed was an unarmed white woman veteran, nobody got a free tv, and nothing was burned, Democrats had to label the demonstration as an "insurrection". 

A worthy and thought provoking column. Do I need to start wearing a cross? 

This column also does a good (and simpler) job of explaining mask "virtue". 

But masking while fully vaccinated entails a baffling contradiction. We’re simultaneously to believe: 1) everyone must get vaccinated; 2) vaccines don’t work. Wrap your head round that. Because if your vaccination overwhelmingly prevents both transmission and disease (meaning it works), even unvaccinated people present no danger to you. So you don’t socially distance. You go to restaurants. You see your friends. And you don’t wear a mask. Yet, bizarrely, in surveys vaccinated Americans express far less willingness than the unvaccinated to resume once-normal activities like hopping on a bus, often by a factor of two. Calling that ‘cognitive dissonance’ may be too generous. Let’s go for ‘state-induced mass hysteria’ instead.

It is a delusional age on so many fronts that sanity is abnormal. From wind and solar are going to replace fossil fuels, printing trillions won't cause inflation, voter id suppresses voting, the Russian hoax, to Jeffrey Epstein himself, it is truly a mad mad world. 

Irony, Patrick Buchanan, Fascism

 https://spectator.us/topic/all-capitalist-pigs-jeff-bezos-billionaires/

The fact that the linked was written by Pat Buchanan, often considered a Fascist, authored a column clearly describing modern Fascism, yet fails to recognize it as such, proves that irony is not dead yet.

However they [the billionaires] did it, America’s most successful capitalists have learned the lesson some previous generations of capitalists did not — how to preserve their wealth, privilege and economic power and avoid such derisive terms as ‘capitalist pig’.

Yet, of greater interest, and import, is that the China of the new Great Helmsman, Xi Jinping, a one-party Communist dictatorship, coexists with hundreds of Chinese billionaires.

What would Marx, Lenin, Stalin or the Mao of the Revolution that triumphed in 1949, who put his country through the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, say of Chinese oligarchs and plutocrats, each of whom possessed at least a billion dollars in wealth?

Isn't it obvious? Both the Davos elite and the Chinese elite have learned "marketing" in the time honored Fascist way! "Capitalist" is a good cover for Fascism in the west, and in China, "Communist" is an equally good cover for Fascism in the east. 

They work their magic by cozy relationships between massive world government bureaucracy,  global finance, and maybe most importantly, global media. Bezos owns the Washington Post, Zuckerberg is Facebook. Jack Dorsey of Twitter is worth a mere $5 billion, but he clearly knows where his bread is buttered. He has been able to cancel a former president, and assist mighty in "electing" the current Cadaver In Chief. 

Fascism is far more dangerous than Capitalism, Communism, and Socialism (Communism lite) because it's span of control is much wider. Antitrust laws used to try to prevent captains of industry from working in concert to control markets, government and finance. One ace in the hole used to be adversarial media, but today, big business owns the media (see Bezos and Zuckerberg), and meetings like Davos between the power elite in business, government, education, media, and finance are out in the open and even celebrated. 

Understand the Great Reset! 

Israel, The Fog Of War

 https://spectator.us/topic/israel-worrying-descent-into-violence/

I like the Spectator because it admits it has a conservative bias (like there is such a thing as truth, life has meaning,  etc) ... that old fashioned stuff, while it valiantly tries to be even handed. 

This column admits that it is "possible" that Netanyahu had a hand in this escalation. It is clear however that violence in the region is a way of life. Israel isn't going away, and the Arabs are going to continue to attempt to erase it. It is widely thought that Israel has nuclear subs with nuclear missiles, in which case, "erasing" Israel would almost certainly result in the destruction of Tehran, and possibly Mecca. 

Muslims see that as a good thing. If they destroy Israel, and Israel kills them,  they are assured  that Muslim heaven will have a severe  run on virgins. Given that Muhammad's favorite wife had the pleasure of the marriage being consummated when she was  age 9. Does Allah simply create more virgins millions of Muslims are annihilated by nuclear fire? It has never been clear to me what female Muslim martyrs get, but I suppose that is not of any concern in their system. 

The Muslim respect for women knows no bounds. The American left just loves Islam, were women caught in adultery and gays are stoned. OTOH, they hate Christians that espouse horrible things like loving your enemies. 

If you think about how the left looks at lots of things ... like assuming we won't have an energy problem if we get rid of all fossil and nuclear, and go to wind and solar, perhaps this actually makes sense in context? 

The Woke CIA

 

Tucker gives us some "hope a dope" that this may all be a deep fake. (ha, ha)

When the world is insane, and lest a little laugher at the insanity might improve your mood! 

Killing Freidman

 Link to NR column.

A little hard to do since he died in 2006, but the dead are a major part of the Cadaver In Chief's constituency ... could the dead be the opposition? Things like ideas and principles are easy to ignore, but they often take over when you really desire to ignore them most (age and death being great examples). 

Milton Friedman, whose empiricism led him to embrace free-market public policy, was the most influential economist of the second half of the 20th century. But Biden has a weird habit of treating Friedman as a devilish spirit who must be exorcised from the nation’s capital. For Biden, Friedman represents deregulation, low taxes, and the idea that a corporation’s primary responsibility is not to a group of politicized “stakeholders” but to its shareholders. “Milton Friedman isn’t running the show anymore,” Biden told Politico last year. “When did Milton Friedman die and become king?” Biden asked in 2019. The truth is that Friedman, who died in 2006, has held little sway over either Democrats or Republicans for almost two decades. But Biden wants to mark the definitive end of Friedman and the “neoliberal” economics he espoused by unleashing a tsunami of dollars into the global economy and inundating Americans with new entitlements.

As we can see from the Cadaver administration, reality seemingly isn't running the show either.  

The Horror Of America

 https://www.newyorker.com/news/on-religion/a-pennsylvania-lawmaker-and-the-resurgence-of-christian-nationalism

The left is very concerned about any hint of patriotism. They have made it clear that when there was an "America", it was "institutionally racist", founded on whiteness, sexism, and noxious combination of horrors like patriotism, Christianity, the nuclear family, rule of law, capitalism, etc. 

The rather long linked column lays these threats to Wokeistan out very clearly using the example of a fairly obscure Pennsylvania legislator, Doug Mastriano. The following gives some idea of the horror of seeing Muslims as a threat. 

By the nineties and two-thousands, many white evangelicalshad come to understand Islam to be the primary threat to America. “White evangelicals were already worried about the growth of Islam, especially beginning in the seventies with the Arab-Israeli war and the rise of oil,” Sutton told me. “What 9/11 shifts is that Muslims are no longer just a threat to Israel but a direct threat to the United States.” This hostility also turned on Muslim communities in America. At megachurches, pastors preached about the spread of “sharia law.” Secular liberalism and movements for social justice were also seen as threatening. “In the early two-thousands, among conservative pastors, you’d often hear that the gays are softening up our society in preparation for Islam,” Michelle Goldberg, the author of “Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism,” told me.

The Cadaver In Chief (Biden) has labeled "White Supremacists" as the greatest terrorst threat to Wokeistan.  Apparently in the past, he was deluded to thinking that Islamic extremis were a threat, but he is woke now. 

The idea that that old tired nation of "America" was as recently as the early 2Ks considered to be "exceptional", or even (horror!) "under God", is abhorrent to the woke elite like the New Yorker. 

As BLM states, "Silence is Violence". If you fail to speak out against the vanished "America", you are an enemy of Wokeistan. 

Get your mind right!

Souls In The Twilight, Scruton

https://newcriterion.com/issues/2019/5/scrutons-souls

The review maybe goes into a bit too much detail of the book. I'm not sure you can access the whole review outside of a Criterion subscription, but if you can sneak it in, it is worth it ... maybe even with one of those "free introduction subscriptions" ... easy to get into, hard to get out of. So much of life is that way. 

A good summary of the book is "elegiac" -- a lament, haunting, wistful. 

If I wasn't such a fan of now deceased Scruton, I would likely not have purchased it. I'm glad I did, I see it as an elegy for Sir Roger.