Somebody needs this right now. pic.twitter.com/uu30veZsCf
— TG (@TG22110) March 12, 2023
- Libertarian philosophy does not allow for any challenge to it’s basic premise: government is bad.
So the logic on climate change is pretty much a straight line.
- Any fact that implies the necessity for government is not really a fact. It is bogus, generated for evil purposes.
- Climate change that originates with humans and that endangers human life strongly suggests the need for government regulation.
- So here it is, the straight line:
Evidence of climate change has got to be bogus, part of a global conspiracy.
Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara complains that the
climate propaganda cartel infects virtually everything in media, including weather reporting.
But Michael has a reliable alternative:
Key reliable alternative (in Michael’s words):
A weather network, tied to one of Steve Bannon’s platforms.
Yup. The reliably reliable Steve Bannon.
Well, any port in a climate storm, I suppose.
Key endorsement:
I never heard of WeatherNation before coming across this article. But it’s refreshing to know that there still exists a weather outlet that actually sticks to verifiable facts. - Any fact that implies the necessity for government is not really a fact. It is bogus, generated for evil purposes.
- Dave Dubya suggests that those who use woke as an insult have another problem.
- PZ Myers watches the interview as conservative Bethany Mandel gloats about the defeat of woke. But when she is asked just what she means by woke, she suffers a stuttering, stammering brain freeze.
And thus we have a new birth of viral video.
I have a slightly different take. I don’t see an inability to define what she is against. I see an unwillingness to put it into real words. Anti-woke conservatives seem to be antagonistic toward what most Americans see as a fundamental ethic. She is struggles to keep from saying aloud that she is against basic fairness, equality, and compassion.
A more coherent response might have pointed to one or more of the few extreme excesses that can endanger any social movement, and use them to characterize the entire movement.
Kevin Drum lists a few possible extreme examples:
My favorite:
Race-Based Silencing – Telling a white person they don’t have the right to speak because they’re an oppressor.
- Cato’s Julian Sanchez captures the essential point:
- North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz has a thought about woke folk:
Jesus preached compassion, generosity, caring for the sick, feeding the hungry, welcoming the immigrant, loving the least.
The Right would have called him "woke" and cancelled him.#SundayMorning https://t.co/bBKCztOuIf
— John Pavlovitz (@johnpavlovitz) March 12, 2023
- Scotties Playtime carries a series of sane responses after a Fox Network host blames the near collapse of Silicon Valley Bank on Pride Month.
- Disaffected and it Feels So Good suggests the new Go Woke Go Broke Republican narrative about the bank run is part of a more global conservative pattern:
They do not assign blame in order to escape responsibility for their policy failures.
They create serious crises for the specific purpose of assigning blame.
- Frances Langum brings us US Congressional Representative Katie Porter to explain the troubles at Silicon Valley Bank. Rep. Porter has a long history of dealing with the aftermath of bank failures. She makes it easier to understand what happened, and why, and who is responsible.
- Considering how Fox executives consider their own network, News Corpse considers whether the White House considers Fox News to be a news organization.
Key spoiler quote from Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre:
When you look at the depositions that have been out there recently, it even states from FOX leadership that they do not see Tucker Carlson’s show as news or even truthful. That is coming from the FOX News leadership. That is not coming from me. That is coming from them.
- In the Borowitz Report the Chinese spy balloon finds no information at Fox News.
Key satiric quote:
“This was a waste of a perfectly good balloon,” China’s President, Xi Jinping, reportedly griped.
- In Letters from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson wades through the Silicon Valley bank rescue to what she says is a more important story involving the containment of the military influence of mainland China: a meeting of the US, the UK, and Australia.
Key sentence:
At the meeting today, the U.S. announced it will share its nuclear propulsion technology with Australia and will increase U.S. submarine construction capacity. The U.K. announced it will increase its defense spending. And Australia will buy at least three nuclear-powered submarines from the U.S.
- Even as a kid, I thought the rare but not unheard of method of teaching a child to swim was brutal. The idea was to row to the middle of a pond and just throw the child in.
Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit has thoughtful speculation of why the latest Putin official was taught to fly.
- Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger has the polling. Although some public conservatives and Republican politicians are enthusiastic about Putin’s Russia, most Americans disagree.
It isn’t close.
Not even close to being close.
- Florida Governor Ron DeSantis says the US should not be involved in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia.
Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson is not impressed with his analysis:
Worst foreign policy statement since Dean Acheson failed to include the Republic of Korea as part of the defensive perimeter in Asia. But that was a mistake. DeSantis' statement was on purpose and could have even more disastrous results. https://t.co/y4Q31Se01z
— James Wigderson (@jwigderson) March 14, 2023
- Green Eagle reviews this week’s wingnut fantasies and goes past skepticism to outright biting sarcasm. Fun biting sarcasm.
- tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors brings news from South Carolina as Republicans push for the death penalty for women who have abortions.
- M. Bouffant at Web of Evil takes a look at a new conservative campaign pushing law schools to contact future potential employers to discourage the hiring of specific students who have ever participated in protests.
- Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged provides half the names, and links to the rest, of elected Republicans who refused to denounce white supremacy.
- CalicoJack in The Psy of Life recounts the original startling discovery that Artificial Intelligence facial recognition programs could not recognize the face of a Black woman as a face. The search for a reason reveals something about racism and our society.
Key conclusion:
A variation of GIGO:
When we produce AI that interacts with the public, we end up creating an AI that implements our systemic racist culture and when we try to fix it, we get Ron DeSantis’ Florida.
- The bad news is that the number of MAGAs remains substantial, and they are a cult.
The Palmer Report has the good news:
The number of MAGAs remains substantial and they are a cult.
- Tommy Christopher is impressed with Mary Trump when an interviewer demands to know why she is so hard on her Uncle Donald.
- Such an old insult it has become a cliché. That [insert enemy] is a [any lowlife – rat?] is an insult to [whatever lowlife].
And yet, (to use a cliché) real life sometimes mimics cliché.
In Hackwhackers it turns out that, before a confirmed pedophile was confirmed to be a pedophile, he considered Donald Trump too corrupt to be around.
Key sentence:
The brother of the late pedophile tycoon Jeffrey Epstein says that he broke off his relationship with the Malignant Loser because he was a “crook”.
- Iron Knee at Political Irony sees Pence finally blame Trump for insurrection violence and views deserting rats as another sign of a sinking ship.
- Third parties have an unfortunate history during a couple of relatively recent Presidential elections in which they had an effect: 2000 and 2016. driftglass is not reassured by the reassurance of No Labels that they are not trying to blow things up.
Key caveat:
Instead, they are generously offering to not blow things up as long as everyone does what they tell them to do.
- YellowDog Granny has the ways and memes about age, men, women, and more.
- @whiskeywhistle98 has a thought about men:
No idea why TikTok goes to autoplay and defaults to zero volume. Try clicking volume, then reload (such a bother).@whiskeywhistle98 Yep…#darkhumor #marriagehumor #husband #fyp #foryourpage #tiktokmom #car #shovel #bat #seriously #omg ♬ original sound – Lynn Solon - At The Moderate Voice retired U.S. Air Force Major and former aerospace/defense executive, Dorian de Wind, knows something about the field of computer technology and science and the pioneering role women have played. Turns out it was massive.
One of several key facts:
In the 1940s, women were the predominant coders, programmers, “software engineers,” and, as such, played a vital role in in the war effort.
- The Journal of Improbable Research gets serious with a growing source of academic corruption: genuine scholarly papers that sell co-authorships. Authors who are not really authors can purchase unearned credentials.
- At The Onion, Mark Zuckerberg starts suspecting Facebook is spying on him when he gets a targeted ad for a shirt that reads I Just Laid Off 10,000 Employees.
- Pope Francis stirred some controversy when he recently suggested that the celibacy requirement for priests may be reconsidered. Infidel753 does the research and finds a category of small Catholic churches where non-celibacy is already official policy and clergy are commonly married.
- Clickbait satirist Reductress guides us on how to cut toxic people out of your life except the ones who are fun.
- Science fiction author John Scalzi loved the film and is delighted that we’re in a place in the multiverse where Everything Everywhere All At Once won an Oscar.
Key sentence:
[B]y being its own weird and authentic self, this film stands as a rebuttal to the wave of racist, nativist and homophobic hate that’s sweeping this country, packaged as politics.
- Vincent at A Wayfarer’s Notes joins those of us elderly enough to remember where we were and what we were doing when we learned of the assassination.
- Nan’s Notebook agrees with other American consumers unhappy with customer service. Her speculation is a bit McLuhanesque: Service by phone is worst.
- In Happiness Between Tails da-AL goes adventuring in what she refers to as the seat of India’s intellectual creativity, Kalkata, including a visit to her dream of nirvana:
a football field worth of readers, authors, and publishers of books.
- Dave Columbo and Laura High go duet, kind of
Gaaaa – Once more: No idea why TikTok goes to autoplay and defaults to zero volume. Try clicking volume, then reload (such a bother)@davecolumbo What’s your thing? #couples #couplestiktok #couplegoals #marriagegoals #marriage ♬ original sound – Dave Columbo - Nojo applies a software update, but first reads the fine print.
- SilverAppleQueen has a pair of restful cats.
– Podcasts –
Burr, your comments about woke-ness are much appreciate for how you’re not out to further the divide between people, which just makes things worse & plays into the hands of Trump & his ilk