Friday morning links

Re: New York Coronavirus Exodus

Here's a quote from an article on Lew Rockwell:

"Moderna Inc., attracted almost a half billion dollars in federal award monies to begin developing vaccines using the technology."
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/10/no_author/while-we-were-distracted-the-world-roll-up-your-sleeve-congress/

In my opinion, the way that the government is using this "outbreak" to write itself a blank check is very troubling. We're talking about maybe fifty million people who are now being paid to stay home. Those government employees will never get fired. And as time goes by, the number of people on the "work from home" gravy train will increase. Who knows? Maybe to a hundred million people. Dare I say two hundred million?

At issue is the fact that the government must meet the same performance metrics as private companies. But they can't, and the military can't either. Therefore, all performance metrics must be destroyed. So don't ask what it costs the post office to deliver a letter. Or for the Army to operate a foreign base. Or for the V.A. hospital to treat a patient. All of that information is secret. And also don't ask why some drug company is receiving half a billion dollars to create a vaccine which may or may not work. There are no metrics. We are now entering the Twilight Zone, where everything is mystical; and where petulant children can destroy their enemies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxTMbIxEj-E

#1 Ron Liebermann on 2020-10-16 08:13 (Reply)

"Writing teachers: Standard English is racist"

Like all "standard" languages, Standard English is a fiction; I've never yet met anyone who speaks a word of it.

But here's the thing: it's a useful fiction inasmuch as it provides an established norm both for written communication and for instruction in English grammar.

#2 JJM on 2020-10-16 08:30 (Reply)

One of my few successful self-improvement projects has been one that I started as a young (occasional) briefing officer in the Air Force. I stopped letting my mouth get ahead of my brain, and paused to speak in complete, organized sentences, without the usual ooing, umming, hemming and hawing (much harder than it sounds). I also pushed myself to use a larger vocabulary, which I had handy as my writing vocabulary. So I sorta, kinda converged towards American Standard English. It's stood me in good stead in my second career as a university lecturer and intermittent civic activist. I do confess that I use much more idiom, dialect, and verbal tricks than in my GI days, but that's because I'm talking with fewer folks who are humor deficient.

#2.1 Mike Anderson (Link) on 2020-10-16 10:31 (Reply)

They're not just against Standard English, they're against any standards at all. You can never level up, you can only level down and any implication that one thing might be better than another is strictly forbidden. Harrison Bergeron was an instruction manual.

#2.2 Jerryskids on 2020-10-16 10:52 (Reply)

Re: Cal Cunningham

I live in NC. I don’t believe his poll numbers any more than Biden’s, but it’s an obvious truth that a sex scandal for a Republican is devastating but for a Democrat it’s a resume enhancer.

Further evidence that if it weren’t for double standards, leftists would have no standards at all.

#3 mudbug on 2020-10-16 09:16 (Reply)

"Understandable hostility toward him has prevented many Jews from seeing the problem on the other side. To even look away from the obscenity in the White House for a moment strikes many, as they have told me, as irresponsible or beside the point...."

"Understandable hostility". The perennial problem with Progressives is that they're too dense to see that their prejudice and hostility against Trump are the root cause of the horrors they perceive on other subjects, like the persecution they see against Jews. These are extensions of their own condoned actions.

Trump has been persecuted in a way very similar to Jews, when you think about it. Unfairly, yes, but - as if all of these persecutions were reasonable and valid behaviors in the first place. It was reasonable to spy on his campaign. It's reasonable to continue after 4 years to leak damaging information that turns out to be false. It's reasonable to impeach him for a non-crime. It's reasonable to beat someone for wearing a red hat. It's reasonable to chase them out of a restaurant, and it's reasonable for elected officials to advocate for this in public.

All of these acted-out hostile bigotries are very similar to classical Jewish persecution: You're vermin, and you're getting what you deserve. Progressives just refuse to see it. I guess at heart they're really just good Germans.

#4 Aggie on 2020-10-16 09:43 (Reply)

An astute observation that will go unnoticed, but before it goes down the memory hole, I wanted you to know that at least one person saw it and thought it good.

#4.1 Assistant Village Idiot on 2020-10-16 21:11 (Reply)

So Scully has drawn all of the fire for lying about his tweet, as directed. He must really want his C-Span job.

But in all the bowing and scraping, aren't we still missing a little something? Isn't it pretty clear that he and Scaramucci were having a conversation? Do, tell us more. About what? About how to, erm, best accommodate the President during the debate? Now, why would you be discussing that with one of his worst insider-detractors?

#5 Aggie on 2020-10-16 09:50 (Reply)

No, it's not "a little something", it's the elephant in the room nobody seems to want to talk about and I can't understand why. Scaramucci actually replied to Scully with a "some more bad stuff about to go down". What was the bad stuff and what did Scaramucci know about its being "about to go down"? I mean, it sounds to me like maybe there's a planned and coordinated attack on Trump - who is organizing this, who all is involved in it? Or is that just some sort of wacky conspiracy theory nonsense to believe there might be some sort of dirty tricks going on?

#5.1 Jerryskids on 2020-10-16 11:03 (Reply)

Particularly since this purported neutral debate moderator's "apology" amounts to saying he's sorry he lied about his account being hacked, but he only did it because the President had been putting him under excruciating stress by being an awful person.

#5.2 Texan99 on 2020-10-16 11:06 (Reply)

Oh, and I forgot: how was Trump acting like an awful person? By implying that this purportedly neutral would-be debate moderator was a Biden operative who was biased against Trump.

#5.2.1 Texan99 on 2020-10-16 11:07 (Reply)

Re: fatherless households

Discussion of this problem comes up periodically so I don’t have much hope that this will be fixed in my lifetime but given what Trump has already done, if anything is going to be done about this, Trump will do it.

#6 mudbug on 2020-10-16 09:51 (Reply)

But properly stating the problem helps tailor the solutions correctly. Buying new computers for a school where 30% of the students are habitually truant isn't going to fix anything. Highly motivated and high-quality teachers will not remain so in environments where they are routinely disrespected by students and parents.

#6.1 Another Guy Named Dan on 2020-10-16 10:39 (Reply)

As I said before:

This was all by intent. LBJ blurted it out on TV one time. I can't remember the exact quote but it was basically that with the welfare the Democrats passed the blacks would forever be dependent and forever vote Democrat.

#6.2 OneGuy on 2020-10-16 11:29 (Reply)

With LBJ crowing that he was going to have "those n*ggers voting Democrat for the next 200 years", saying the effect was anticipated and intentional could be correct, but it is at least understandable.

Of course, a problem cannot be fixed (except by accident) until the problem is properly stated but the problem is that this problem has been defined since the Moynihan Report in 1965. For this reason one has a hard time being terribly optimistic but, as I say, a very small amount of optimism might be reasonable if Trump is reelected. If he is able to get school choice implemented, that could start the ball rolling.

#6.2.1 mudbug on 2020-10-16 13:48 (Reply)

Section 230 immunity was created to foster the spreading of opinion on the Internet, not to stifle it. One of the conditions of receiving it was that the platform provider was to be viewpoint-neutral, exercising no editorial control over content, with a few exceptions for removing abusive, commercial (spam) and offensive posts. Once the provider can be shown to be favoring some viewpoints at the expense of others, he is no longer merely providing platform, but participating inthe discussion.

So while a private actor should have the ability to express or suppress any opinion they want, they should not be able to hide behind Sec. 230 while doing it.

For example, commenter posts "Judge Smayles molests collies." If the moderator allows the posts, but then deletes any posts stating that no, the judge does not in fact interact with said canines, that moderator is tacitly endorsing the opinion, and should not receive 230 protection against a defamation claim.

#7 Another Guy Named Dan on 2020-10-16 10:58 (Reply)

NY exodus fuels Maine real estate boom:

I wonder how many of those New Yorkers have spent time in Maine outside of July and August. Wait till they find out how long and cold the winters are. Maine is beautiful through October, but we have to heat our home eight months of the year, and then we have mud season instead of spring, and we're in Southern Maine. Maine breeds a different kind of person than NY does.

#8 LP on 2020-10-16 11:19 (Reply)

GOP Sen. Sasse says Trump 'kisses dictators' butts' and mocks evangelicals

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/campaigns/exclusive-gop-sen-sasse-says-trump-kisses-dictators-butts-mocks-evangelicals

Ben's Ass really stepped in it here. He has done himself no favors considering how popular Trump is in Nebraska. He has likely just kissed a percentage of his vote good bye, though I don't know how much.

I really wonder what he was thinking when he said these things? I can only speculate he thinks the never Trumpers will vote for him for saying this without losing Trump's base.

I think he just lost more than he gained. A lot more.

He votes with the GOP like 90% of the time. He is needed to keep the majority in the Senate.

Nonetheless, this makes it exceedingly difficult to vote for him.

#9 feeblemind on 2020-10-16 11:46 (Reply)

re American Standard English

"In the name of “linguistic justice,” college writing instructors have agreed that teachers should “stop using academic language and standard English as the accepted communicative norm,”"

Fine with me, I'll hire someone else.

#10 Henry Jackson on 2020-10-16 13:34 (Reply)

re Delightful kids

This is a performance of Unchained Melody by two kids. I'd never downvote a performance on youtube by anyone performing a song with difficult vocals: she's got raw but untrained talent. The guy's expression is worth the watch, and I upvoted it, but ... the guitars are out of tune and the singer is flat.

compare her voice to this cover of an Aerosmith classic by Morgan James.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq4KA0mUnC8

#11 Henry Jackson on 2020-10-16 14:51 (Reply)

I totally disagree with the Reason article about Twitter block the hunter Biden story! It was ruled by a Federal court that when Trump blocked users he "engaged in unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination by utilizing Twitter's 'blocking' function to limit certain users' access to his social media account, which is otherwise open to the public at large, because he disagrees with their speech."https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/09/politics/twitter-trump-appeals-court/index.html

#12 Jack Spadoni on 2020-10-16 17:41 (Reply)

Bari Weiss is a "liberal who has been mugged" in the early stages. She summarizes things well - and maybe peope who would not listen to other sources will listen to her, or identify.

But while scolding other Jews for toeing the radical line, she cannot bring herself to lay down the brush that tars millions of voters as "Trumpists" (at least she didn't say 'deplorables'). While talking about liberal values she labels a prominent conservative a "white supremacist".
So she still has a ways to go...

#13 Ben david on 2020-10-17 16:12 (Reply)

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Friday, October 16. 2020

Friday morning links