Archive for the ‘Global Warming’ Category

T-Rex Terror 1, Big Brother 0

Monday, November 20th, 2023

London mayor Sadiq Khan’s much-hated, rent-seeking “Ultra-Low Emission Zone” scheme uses cameras and vans to catch and fine people using gas-powered cars a hefty £12.50-per-day in order to make clear to ordinary Londoners of limited means just how much he holds them in contempt “fight climate change.”

But a group of Londoners has found an innovative and amusing way to nullify the snooping cameras:

  • It turns out those dinosaur costumes are just the right height to block the snoop cameras.
  • A herd or pack of T-Rexes is evidently called “a terror.”
  • The ULEZ has recently been extended even to outer boroughs like Bexley. “There are lots of people in this sort of borough that are low income. So the reality of this is that if you have a vehicle that isn’t compliant, you may not be in a position where you can afford to: A.) Pay the charge, or B.) Buy a vehicle that’s compliant.”
  • “I’m shocked it’s come to this.”
  • “In central London you’ve got tubes, you’ve got trains. We simply don’t have that out here.”
  • “The people that this affects most of all [are] people at the bottom end of the social ladder.”
  • “I’m 75 and I’m coming out to to help the people that can’t afford to pay the £12.50. This is why we’re doing this.”
  • God bless them. They’re doing the Lord’s work.

    Hamas’ Hospital Hideout

    Tuesday, November 14th, 2023

    Turns out Hamas was always doing what Israel and opponents of jihad terror accused them of doing: Operating out of hospitals to avoid being bombed (in violation of international law). I was already going to write about this when I saw that Jim Geraghty had already done the heavy lifting.

    What would you like Israel to do about the Hamas operations under the Al-Shifa hospital complex and other hospitals in the Gaza Strip?

    A lot of those currently demanding a cease-fire would likely answer, “Leave those operations alone.” That’s a good way to ensure that the threat of Hamas continues. This is the same dynamic as the proposal to deploy U.S. Naval hospital ships off the coast of the Gaza Strip to treat Palestinian children discussed yesterday. Anytime you declare, “Israel will not strike in this spot,” Hamas will move its forces and its equipment to that spot.

    The decision before Israel is to either attack the Hamas targets underneath hospitals while attempting to avoid civilian casualties, or to leave the Hamas operations intact. Attack, and you run the risk of higher Palestinian civilian casualties, even greater outrage on the world stage, and even more propaganda victories for Hamas, painting the Israelis as cruel monsters. Hold back, and Hamas gets to keep more of its men and arms safely in place to fight another day and plot more massacres.

    For those who wonder if Hamas really does operate underneath the Al-Shifa hospital, here’s an account from Taghreed El-Khodary and Ethan Bronner of the New York Times, back in 2008:

    At Shifa Hospital on Monday, armed Hamas militants in civilian clothes roved the halls. Asked their function, they said they were providing security. But there was internal bloodletting under way.

    In the fourth-floor orthopedic section, a woman in her late twenties asked a militant to let her see Saleh Hajoj, her 32-year-old husband. She was turned away and left the hospital. Fifteen minutes later, Hajoj was carried out of his room by young men pretending to transfer him to another hospital section. As he lay on the stretcher, he was shot in the left side of the head. A bit of brain emerged on the other side of his skull.

    Hajoj, like five others who were killed at the hospital in this way in the previous 24 hours, was accused of collaboration with Israel. He had been in the central prison awaiting trial by Hamas judges, and when Israel destroyed the prison on Sunday he and the others were transferred to the hospital. But their trials were short-circuited.

    Another account from El-Khodary in 2009 described a young Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighter demanding he be treated first, ahead of civilians, even if their injuries were more severe:

    A car arrived with more patients. One was a 21-year-old man with shrapnel in his left leg who demanded quick treatment. He turned out to be a militant with Islamic Jihad. He was smiling a big smile.

    “Hurry, I must get back so I can keep fighting,” he told the doctors.

    He was told that there were more serious cases than his, that he needed to wait. But he insisted. “We are fighting the Israelis,” he said. “When we fire we run, but they hit back so fast. We run into the houses to get away.” He continued smiling.

    “Why are you so happy?” this reporter asked. “Look around you.”

    A girl who looked about 18 screamed as a surgeon removed shrapnel from her leg. An elderly man was soaked in blood. A baby a few weeks old and slightly wounded looked around helplessly. A man lay with parts of his brain coming out. His family wailed at his side.

    “Don’t you see that these people are hurting?” the militant was asked.

    “But I am from the people, too,” he said, his smile incandescent. “They lost their loved ones as martyrs. They should be happy. I want to be a martyr, too.”

    Like everything else in the Gaza Strip, it appears that the hospital’s operations were intertwined with Hamas — a deliberate strategic choice to make the line between military operations and innocent civilians as blurry as possible.

    So the left has known that Hamas was committing war crimes for decades, but was willing to ignore it in service of the holy cause of slaughtering Jews.

    Here’s an Israeli soldier narrating what they found in a Gaza hospital, namely weapons and a prepared area for hostages.

    Speaking of Al-Shifa hospital, there’s quite a lot of military activity happening there right now:

    There should be no cease in Israeli operations until they’ve finished the tasking of killing or capturing every Hamas terrorist they can lay their hands on.

    LinkSwarm For November 3, 2023

    Friday, November 3rd, 2023

    Israel rolls on in Gaza, Democrats get indicted on election fraud, Sam Bankman-Fried found guilty, censorship schemes get busted, and George Soros’ evil fingers are everywhere. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
    

  • Israel’s ground offensive has surrounded Gaza City, where it seems to think most of Hamas infrastructure is located.

    The blue circles indicate Israel military activity, which does rather suggest they’re pounding the snot out of Hamas.

  • “House Weaponization Panel Gets IRS To End ‘Abusive’ Surprise Visits.”

    House Republicans on the GOP’s “weaponization” subcommittee said in a Friday report that the IRS has agreed to end its “abusive” policy of surprise visits to taxpayers’ homes following pressure from the panel.

    The Committee’s and Select Subcommittee’s oversight revealed, and led to the swift end of, the IRS’s weaponization of unannounced field visits to harass, intimidate, and target taxpayers,” reads the report. “Taxpayers can now rest assured the IRS will not come knocking without providing prior notice—something that should have been the IRS’s practice all along.”

    The IRS announced in July that it would end most unannounced agent visits to the homes of Americans, citing security concerns.

    But it also came after the agency engaged in what appeared to be witness intimidation, after visiting the New Jersey home of journalist Matt Taibbi on the same day he appeared before Congress to testify on government abuse.

    Following the incident, Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) demanded answers from the IRS, writing “In light of the hostile reaction to Mr. Taibbi’s reporting among left-wing activists, and the IRS’s history as a tool of government abuse, the IRS’s action could be interpreted as an attempt to intimidate a witness before Congress.”

    Taibbi thanked Jordan on Saturday, writing in response to the report:

    One of the cases outlined is my own. My home was visited by the IRS while I was testifying before Jordan’s Committee about the Twitter Files on March 9th. Sincere thanks are due to Chairman Jordan, whose staff not only demanded and got answers in my case, but achieved a concrete policy change, as IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel announced in July new procedures that would “end most” home visits.

    Anticipating criticism for expressing public thanks to a Republican congressman, I’d like to ask Democratic Party partisans: to which elected Democrat should I have appealed for help in this matter? The one who called me a “so-called journalist” on the House floor? The one who told me to take off my “tinfoil hat” and put greater trust in intelligence services? The ones in leadership who threatened me with jail time? I gave votes to the party for thirty years. Which elected Democrat would have performed basic constituent services in my case? Feel free to raise a hand.

    If silence is the answer, why should I ever vote for a Democrat again?

    Why indeed.

  • How George Soros destroyed law and order in the United States without changing a single law.

    In the conversation with [Joe] Rogan, Musk then explains George Soros’ massive bet (now overseen by his son, Alexander Soros) on funding city and state district attorney elections nationwide. He said, “The value for money in local races is much higher than in national races – the lowest value for money is a presidential race.”

    “Soros realized you don’t actually need to change the laws – you just need to change how they’re enforced – if nobody chooses to enforce the law – or the laws differentially enforced – it’s like changing the laws,” Musk said.

    This leaves with a new interview from one Maryland sheriff, just outside of crime-ridden Baltimore City, in Wicomico County, who drops a truth bomb about radical progressive lawmakers in the state, some of whom have likely been funded by Soros, who purposely fail to enforce law and order and only embolden criminal.

    “I’m in my 40th year of law enforcement, and I have never ever seen it this bad,” Sheriff Mike Lewis said.

    Lewis continued: “I’ve never seen a government so ingrained – and quite frankly complicit – in the criminal activity taking place in our nation.”

  • Speaking of Soros: “Soros has funneled over $15M to pro-Hamas organizations through Open Society Foundations.” Of course he has.
  • This week in Democratic Party corruption. “The FBI is investigating whether New York City Mayor Eric Adams’s 2021 campaign conspired with the Turkish government to receive illegal foreign donations.” New Yorkers could have had Curtis Sliwa, but noooooooo….
  • And speaking of campaign finance fraud: “FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Found Guilty on All Counts.”

    A jury has found Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder of FTX, guilty on all seven criminal fraud counts for his role in the crypto exchange’s downfall.

    Those counts include wire fraud on customers of FTX, conspiracy to commit wire fraud on customers of FTX, wire fraud on Alameda Research lenders, conspiracy to commit wire fraud on lenders to Alameda Research, conspiracy to commit securities fraud on investors in FTX, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud on customers of FTX, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

    He faces a maximum sentence of 115 years in prison. His sentencing is scheduled for March 28 at 9:30 a.m.

    During a month-long trial in a Manhattan federal court, prosecutors claimed Bankman-Fried misled investors and mishandled billions in funds. He was accused of misusing customer funds deposited with FTX to boost his crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research.

    Nicolas Roos, an assistant U.S. attorney, said Bankman-Fried committed crimes of “epic proportions.” He alleged during closing arguments that Bankman-Fried built his company on a “foundation of lies and false promises.”

    Snip.

    Bankman-Fried was a Democrat megadonor, giving nearly $39 million to Democrat-aligned causes during the 2022 election cycle.

    Prosecutors said he “misappropriated and embezzled FTX customer deposits, and used billions of dollars in stolen funds for a variety of purposes, including … to help fund over a hundred million dollars in campaign contributions to Democrats and Republicans to seek to influence cryptocurrency regulation,” according to an August indictment.

    Both Caroline Ellison, Bankman-Fried’s ex-girlfriend and the former head of Alameda, and FTX co-founder Gary Wang, testified against Bankman-Fried during the trial. Ellison and Wang both pleaded guilty in December to multiple charges.

  • More of that Democratic Party voter fraud the MSM swears doesn’t exist: “A Bridgeport, Connecticut judge ruled on Wednesday to overturn the city’s Democratic primary election after video emerged of a woman who appears to be the city’s vice chair of the Democratic Town Committee, Wanda Geter-Pataky, committing ballot fraud.”
  • “The Department of Health and Human Services has sent over $800,000 to a group in Texas where they distribute crack pipes, according to the Dallas Express…The funds were sent to the El Paso Alliance, a non-profit that helps people recover from alcoholism and drug addictions, according to its website.” Knowing what I know about leftwing activists, I’m guessing that $80,000 went to crack pipe distribution, and the rest disappeared into various leftwing pockets.
  • “Boston Children’s Hospital given $1.4 million in taxpayer money for child sex changes.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Mike Pence stops pretending he’s running for President.
  • Biden gets a primary challenger in the form of U.S. Minnesota Representative Dean Phillips. We’ll see if the DNS tries to screw him less than Bernie Sanders…
  • California is still having trouble managing this newfangled electricity thing. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • China’s least awful communist official, former Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang, just died of a heart attack at age 68, and the CCP is banning memorial wishes for him.
  • Despite the Texas law against teaching Critical Race Theory, Katy ISD students are being told to reflect on their white privilege.
  • “America’s Top Law Firms Issue Warning to Colleges to Address Antisemitism.”

    More than two dozen top U.S. law firms have issued a stern warning that law schools move with “urgency” to address the rising antisemitism on campus, or else it could affect recruitment, National Review has learned.

    “Over the last several weeks, we have been alarmed at reports of anti-Semitic harassment, vandalism and assaults on college campuses, including rallies calling for the death of Jews and the elimination of the State of Israel. Such anti-Semitic activities would not be tolerated at any of our firms,” the statement published on Wednesday reads.

    “As educators at institutions of higher learning, it is imperative that you provide your students with the tools and guidance to engage in the free exchange of ideas, even on emotionally charged issues, in a manner that affirms the values we all hold dear and rejects unreservedly that which is antithetical to those values,” the letter continued. “There is no room for anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism or any other form of violence, hatred or bigotry on your campuses, in our workplaces or our communities.”

    Snip.

    Signatories included: Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, Kirkland & Ellis LLP, Latham & Watkins LLP, McDermott Will & Emery LLP, Milbank LLP, O’Melveny & Myers LLP, Paul Hastings LLP, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, Proskauer Rose LLP, Ropes & Gray LLP, Shearman & Sterling, Simpson Thatcher & Bartlett LLP, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, Watchtell, Lipton, Rosen, and Katz, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, Norton Rose Fulbright, and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP.

  • Darryl Schriver was fired from his position as CEO of Tri-County Electric Cooperative [north and west of Fort Worth] after his alleged use of company expenses to purchase Star Wars collector pens, Apple products, Oakley sunglasses, Texas Christian University (TCU) football tickets, airfare for his wife, and more.” A company credit card is just about the stupidest way in the world to attempt to embezzle funds. Also: “The filing then details Schriver’s rejection of a $50,000 bonus and subsequent demand for a bonus worth up to $75,000 so that the take-home amount after taxes was $50,000.” Smooth move, Ex-Lax…
  • Jewish homes in Paris marked with Stars of David. It’s good that sort of thing has never led to any negative outcomes in Europe…
  • Good: Disney is making it’s live-action Snow White remake a more traditional film, including actual dwarfs rather than random guys. Bad: The CGI dwarfs look absolutely horrible. It’s as though Disney wants to punish movie-goers for rejecting their woke vision…
  • Adam Ford leaves the Bee.
  • “Hamas Leader Appointed Senior Fellow At Harvard University.”
  • “‘I Wouldn’t Have Gone Along With The Nazis In 1939,’ Says College Student At ‘Kill The Jews‘ Rally.”
  • A young go-getter:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • LinkSwarm For October 27, 2023

    Friday, October 27th, 2023

    A full scale ground war may or may not be developing in Gaza, the Biden recession claims bank branches, California declares itself a “child molesters across from schools” friendly zone, and lots of criminals making very poor decisions. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • There’s evidently been limited Israeli ground force incursion into Gaza. Developing…
  • There was also a screening today for reporters of footage of the atrocities carried out by the organization so many college lefties are cheering for.

    I joined about 20 other journalists in a 14th-floor Manhattan conference room to watch the horrific video, which includes footage and images from a range of sources — such as cameras that Hamas attackers wore, dash cams, traffic cameras, and the phones of terrorists, their victims, and first responders — providing evidence of the crimes that Hamas carried out in Israel this month. The footage shows gagged and bound civilians burnt to an unidentifiable crisp; the casual and summary execution of people, including children, cowering under desks in the dark as they hide from terrorists wearing headlamps; the grisly decapitation of a Thai worker already bleeding from the stomach by a terrorist using a garden hoe; and other horrors.

  • What Israel will face in Gaza

    In Gaza, by contrast, there are no visible military facilities, while Hamas fighters can shed their fashionable black outfits and dress like civilians. This will not, however, frustrate the Israeli offensive, which still has fixed, immovable targets. These are the deep tunnels — too deep for aerial bombing — that Hamas has been excavating and lining in concrete for more than 10 years, using construction equipment and vast quantities of cement donated by different governments and international organisations “to house refugees”. As a result, Gaza’s refugee “camps” do not contain a single tent. Instead, they are home to a forest of high-rise apartments, which is undoubtedly a good thing, except for the fact that both machines and cement were also diverted for tunnelling on the largest scale.

    These tunnels house relatively sophisticated rocket-assembly lines, motor-assembly works, sheet metal and explosives’ stores, and warhead-fabrication workshops. More tunnels house Hamas command posts and its ordnance stores of small arms, mortars and rockets. Even deeper tunnels house its leaders’ lodgings and headquarters. Finally, there are the exfiltration tunnels, though there is no sign that they were used in the October 7 attacks, perhaps because their exits had been detected and blocked long before.

    When Israel’s forces enter Gaza, they will engage any enemies who resist them, but they will not go looking for them. Their task is to escort combat engineers to their job sites — the camouflaged places from which tunnels can be accessed. How do they know where these entry points are? While Israel’s aerostats with cameras, satellite photography and the pictures generated by radar returns cannot reveal tunnels, they have been used to monitor where cement-mixer trucks have stopped over the years. They cannot pinpoint tunnel entrances by doing so, but they can at least identify places worth exploring with low-frequency, earth-penetrating radars or simple probes.

    The obvious danger here is that, even before the escorting troops and combat engineers descend underground to fight off Hamas’s guards and place their demolition charges, they will keep losing casualties to snipers and mortar bombs on their way to the sites.

    To minimise the danger, however, the Israeli army can rely on the most heavily protected armoured vehicle ever developed: the Namer infantry combat vehicle. As well as having significantly more armour than any other combat vehicle anywhere in the world, it uses an active defence weapon to intercept incoming anti-tank missiles and rockets, and also has machine guns to fight off infantry attackers. In urban combat, tank crews firing machine guns from the top of their turrets are desperately vulnerable, but the Namer’s crew remains “buttoned up” inside the vehicle, relying on TV screens to see the outside world and operate their weapons remotely. In 2014, the last time Israeli troops fought in Gaza, most were riding thinly armoured M.113s, which were easily penetrated by RPG anti-tank rockets, with some 60 soldiers killed and hundreds wounded. Not this time.

    After they reach the suspected tunnel sites, the Namers will line up to form a perimeter — an improvised fortress — to protect the combat engineers as they go about their task. It is very likely that there will still be skirmishing before, during and after each de-tunnelling operation, with Hamas mortar teams in action, as well as snipers hidden in ruins. Fortunately, the Israelis will have their 70-ton Namers, as well as their post-2014 street-fighting training, to protect them.

    And they will need that protection, as dismantling Hamas’s tunnel network will take time: the one certainty in all this is that the planting of demolition charges cannot be done quickly without suffering many fatalities. This means there will be at least two weeks of war in the Gaza strip — and even this optimistically assumes that the entire tunnel system in the evacuated northern part can be cleared in a week, allowing the Israelis to do the same in the southern sector, after evacuating the southerners and sending home the northerners. The Government’s vow to persist until the destruction of Hamas will be tested every day.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green.)

  • “US Banks Are Closing 100s Of Branches And Laying Off 1000s Of Workers.”

    During the first week of October alone, U.S. banks closed a whopping 54 local branches…

    Major US banks are continuing to close branches across the US, leaving an increasing number of Americans without access to basic financial services.

    Bank of America axed 21 branches in the first week of October, according to a bulletin published by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) on Friday.

    Wells Fargo shuttered 15, while US Bank and Chase reported closing nine and three respectively.

    In total, some 54 locations had either closed or were scheduled to close between October 1 and October 7.

    That is just one week!

    Of course bank branches have been closing at a frightening pace for quite some time now.

    Last year, U.S. banks shut down about 2,000 more branches than they opened.

    I do wonder how many of those closed-branches are in crime-happy Soros-backed-DA zones…

  • Your city on Bidenomics: “Rite Aid, CVS and Walgreens will shut more than 1,500 stores due to crime and competition – leaving MILLIONS without access to healthcare.” Several of those are in New York and California. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • Scenes from the decline of law and order in California: “Dude is a sex offender with a loophole that allows him to be near a school and he can set up the ‘free fentanyl’ sign because he doesn’t actually have the drugs on him.” Social Justice Warriors seem to love pedophiles almost as much as radical Muslim terrorists…
  • “NewsGuard, a company which claims to rate media outlets’ level of ‘trustworthiness’ and therefore has a meaningful influence over ad revenue, has been sued along with the Biden administration by Consortium News, which also named the Pentagon’s Cyber Command for “contracting with NewsGuard to identify, report and abridge the speech of American media organizations that dissent from U.S. official positions on foreign policy.”
  • Sometimes you start working on a story, only to find out there are too many unknowns to fairly approach it from a blogging angle, or because you run the risk of looking like a complete jackass. Such is the case with this story of APD Chief Data Officer Jonathan Kringen being charged with domestic violence. Kringen is married to Anne Kringen, who seems to have been brought into APD to wage social justice against it in the wake of the “rimagining Austin police” lunacy. “I think it’s fundamentally important to involve the community voice into policing in all spheres, including the academy, and I’ll work to foster a culture of inclusivity that reflects the needs of a city as diverse and exciting as Austin.” “Provide insight into institutionalized racism and explores the underlying causes of inequality as well as tools to address these causes.” No one should be the victim of domestic abuse, but it appears that neither Kringen should be employed by APD.

  • Trump’s gag order is so extreme that even the ACLU agrees his free speech rights are being infringed.
  • Russia now using trucks manufactured in the 1930s in Ukraine.
  • The truth about Postcolonialism: “We started with Frantz Fanon calling for violent revolution, and ended with Gayatari Spivak trying to use postmodern philosophy to attack western ideas of knowledge…Decolonization for Fanon was replacing all the colonizers with colonized people, using violence (or threats of violence) in order to free colonized people from the shackles of western influence…Decolonization is the systematic destruction of any and all western influence anywhere and everywhere by any means necessary.”
  • “On Thursday, 32-year-old veteran NYPD Officer Grace Rose Baez was arrested along with 42-year-old Casar Martinez and charged with conspiracy to distribute narcotics and the distribution of narcotics after they allegedly tried to sell large quantities of drugs to a federal informant between Oct. 9 and 29.” Even NYPD frowns on such shenanigans as setting up your own fentanyl distribution network while on duty…
  • And they say retail workers aren’t ambitious these days: “California Home Depot Employee Arrested For Allegedly Embezzling $1.2 Million.” “She was basically just manipulating the books on how much she was depositing” and would walk away with spare cash. I know theft in California is bad, but I’m pretty sure Home Depot has all those sales computerized, and is going to catch on when you keep coming up short…
  • Robber: “Stop! Hammertime!” Gun store owner: “Nope!” BLAM!
  • 0-60 MPH in less than one second.
  • “The daughter of Nirvana’s deceased frontman Kurt Cobain and his famous ex-lover Courtney Love, Frances Bean Cobain, just tied the knot with Riley Hawk, the son of the most famous skateboarder of all time, Tony Hawk. Oh, and to top it all off, R.E.M.’s lead singer Michael Stipe officiated the ceremony.” And now you can enjoy feeling very old…
  • “Smoke Rises Over Capitol Indicating Congress Has Resumed Setting Taxpayers’ Money On Fire.”
  • Baseball Briefly Exciting After Fan Runs Onto Field And Turns It Into Football.”
  • Finally, a welcome friendly stranger on the subway:

  • Verifying the Hamas Baby Beheading

    Wednesday, October 11th, 2023

    Among the most horrifying Hamas atrocities to come to light following their terrorist attack on Israel is the report that they beheaded babies.

    Hamas terrorists slaughtered at least 40 babies and young children — decapitating some of them — at a kibbutz near the Gaza border, shaken Israeli officials and reporters at the scene said Tuesday.

    “It’s hard to even explain exactly just the mass casualties that happened right here,” visibly distraught i24 News correspondent Nicole Zedek said during a broadcast from Kibbutz Kfar Aza near Sderot about a quarter-mile from the Gaza Strip.

    “Babies with their heads cut off, that’s what [the soldiers] said. Gunned down. Families gunned down, completely gunned down in their beds,” Zedek said of the “sheer horror.

    “This is nothing that anyone would have even imagined,” she said.

    Top CNN reporter Nic Robertson, dressed in a military helmet and flak jacket, said, “There were so many murdered members of this Kibbutz.

    “Men, women, children, hands bound, shot, executed, heads cut,” he said.

    French journalist Margot Haddat added in a translated tweet, “It’s so macabre that no one wanted to reveal it until they had 100 percent confirmation.

    “It is a horror, a massacre. For those asking for the source. They are multiple: Israeli army, internal intelligence service and atrocious images which reached me and which I was able to cross-check,” she said. “But the best source remains this: courageous journalists from the foreign press who were able to see / agreed to see with their own eyes the bodies in Kfar Aza.”

    Here’s a tweet embedding that i24 report:

    I think that a journalist interviewing a soldier who witnessed the aftermath of the slaughter counts as confirmation.

    I wanted to verify this story not because I doubted the bloodthirsty murderers of Hamas were capable of such atrocities, but because it was just a little too on-the-nose. One should always question any narrative that fits a little too neatly into your preconceptions. And indeed, the story has undergone a subtle telephone game shift in the retelling, with it described as “Hamas beheaded 40 babies” instead of the still horrific “Hamas killed 40 young children and babies, some of whom were beheaded.”

    Israel is fighting an enemy who believes it is righteous to decapitate babies as long as they’re Jewish babies, because all slaughter of Jews, any Jews, is permitted because they believe them quite literally to be “apes and pigs.”

    That’s who Israel is fighting.

    LinkSwarm For September 8, 2023

    Friday, September 8th, 2023

    I haven’t been covering the Ken Paxton impeachment because I don’t think I have anything novel to say about it that hasn’t been covered better elsewhere. Enjoy the Friday LinkSwarm!

    

  • U.S. credit card debt tops $1 trillion. Thanks, Joe Biden.
  • Truth about our current economic situation:

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Chinese nationals gate-crashed U.S. institutions more than 100 times in recent years.
    

  • How John Stewart created Tucker Carlson.

    The feature that really made The Daily Show famous was its masterful use of archival video clips to reveal the hypocrisy of the chattering classes. Stewart would set his target on some party shill or professional talking head being condescending, self-important, dishing out blame, kissing whatever ring he’d been paid to kiss. And then the show would play a clip of the same talking head’s appearance on a C-SPAN 3 four-in-the-morning call-in show from ten years ago, back when he’d been paid to kiss another ring, saying the exact opposite thing.

    There was a clip, there was always a clip. And our righteous host would send these hacks packing.

    Through all this, certain public figures would be transformed into storylines with narratives and characters, with inside jokes and recurring bits. The media’s storytellers became the subjects of a theater of the absurd. It got so that when certain figures would show up in a segment, you knew you were about to witness them receive their just comeuppance, a great spectacle of spilled archival blood. The audience would titter in excited anticipation.

    It was a delight to watch.

    Snip.

    What had created a culture of “just talking on TV without any accountability,” as one Daily Show writer put it, was not only the sheer volume and speed of the news. It was this true fact that will sound insane to anyone under the age of thirty: People on television reasonably assumed that no one would hear what they had said ever again.

    As essayist Chuck Klosterman records in The Nineties: A Book, the key characteristic of twentieth-century media was its ephemerality. You experienced it in real time and internalized what was important and what it felt like. Then you moved on. “It was a decade of seeing absolutely everything before never seeing it again.”

    People used to argue with their friends about the plot of a show or what the score had been in the ball game because, well, how were you going to check? Unless you had personally saved the newspaper or recorded it on your VCR, you would need to go to a literal archive and pull it up on microfilm.

    TV news was even shakier, as networks often recorded over old tapes. Some of this footage only exists today because of the obsessive efforts of one Philadelphia woman who recorded news broadcasts on 140,000 VHS tapes over forty years.

    And so, if you were a pundit or a commentator or a “spin doctor” PR flak, you could say whatever suited your needs at the moment, or even lie with impunity — as long as your lie did not become its own pseudo-event. Your lasting impact was whatever stuck in viewers’ heads and hearts. And if you changed your tune in the months or years afterwards, who would remember?

    The Daily Show would remember.

    The explosion of live broadcast and cable news had created a new, completely under-valued resource for whoever thought to harness it: catalog clips. Soon, new digital technology could preserve content in amber, allowing for its retrieval, repurposing, or referencing at any time.

    It’s a long essay, and I don’t necessarily agree with all the writer’s points, but it’s worth reading.

  • How Sweden got Flu Manchu right.

    There was no state of emergency, no curfews, no orders to stay at home or shelter in place. Young Swedes were encouraged to continue with their sports training and events. Schools remained open, and so did offices, factories, restaurants, libraries, shopping centers, gyms, and hairdressers. As a rule, borders were not closed to fellow Europeans and public transportation kept running.

    There were no mask mandates and not even a recommendation for the public to use masks—until January 2021, when they were recommended on public transportation during rush hours (7–9 a.m. and 4–6 p.m. on weekdays). While some other governments forced school children to wear face masks, Tegnell even warned against making children wear them, saying that “school is no optimal place for face masks.”6

    One can see how Sweden’s path diverged from that of its peers by consulting the latest Human Freedom Index, which has data through 2020. During this first year of the pandemic, Sweden’s freedom rating only fell by 0.19 on a 10‐​point scale, compared to 0.49 in Britain and 0.52 in the United States. The only rich country that saw a smaller decline in freedom than Sweden was Singapore, at 0.16.7

    Snip.

    Analysts from other countries—and even some Swedish scholars—predicted disaster. One influential Swedish model, inspired by the famous British Imperial College study, predicted that Sweden would have 20,000 COVID-19 patients needing intensive care by early May 2020 and a need for intensive care units around 40 times over capacity. By July 1, Sweden would have 82,000 COVID-19 deaths. The Imperial College model predicted between 66,000 and 90,000 deaths without mitigation efforts, and a peak demand of intensive care unit patients 70 times higher than capacity.

    Snip.

    When you look at excess deaths during the three pandemic years, 2020–2022, compared to the previous three years, you get a very different picture. According to this measure, Sweden’s excess death rate during the pandemic was 4.4 percent higher than previously. Compared to the data that other countries report to Eurostat, this is less than half of the average European level of 11.1 percent, and remarkably, it is the lowest excess mortality rate during the pandemic of all European countries, including Norway, Denmark, and Finland.

    (Hat tip: John Tierney at Instapundit.)

  • Sweden got immigration wrong.

    The latest violence has erupted in Malmo following a Quran burning by an ‘Anti-Islam activist’ according to the BBC.

    “A group of angry protesters tried to stop the burning, which resulted in a showdown between them and police,” the report states.

  • “Poland Aims To Create Largest Army In Europe Within Two Years.” Golly, who would need a large army with such historically peaceful neighbors as Germany and Russia?
  • Surprised I didn’t see this elsewhere: “Murder & Drug Chaos Forces Lockdown Of Entire Texas Prison System.”

    e Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) declared a statewide lockdown of all its correctional facilities on Wednesday morning, citing increased contraband-related incidents and drug-related inmate homicides.

    TDCJ said most inmate-on-inmate homicides “are tied back to illegal drugs … and over the last five years, the volume of illegal narcotics entering the system has substantially increased.”

    In response to the drug and murder epidemic in Texas jails, TDCJ is implementing the following strategies to restore order:

    • Systemwide Lockdown: Each facility will limit the movement of inmates and their contact with those outside the prison. Inmates and staff will undergo intensified searches to intercept and confiscate contraband.
    • Digital Mail: TDCJ is completing the rollout of the digital mail program. Over the last few years, there has been a significant increase in paper soaked in K2 or methamphetamines coming into our facilities. The digital mail program will halt this contraband being sent through traditional mail. Effective September 6, 2023, all inmate mail should be addressed and sent to the Digital Mail Center. All mail received this week will be delivered to the digital mail processing center. More information about this program can be found here: TDCJ News – TDCJ Digital Mail Rollout.
    • Increased K9 Searches and Other Technology: To assist in contraband detection and outside funding related to contraband, TDCJ will be deploying additional resources. Specialized search teams and narcotic dogs will be deployed to units and staff will be subject to enhanced search procedures.
    • Comprehensive Searches: All persons entering our facilities at all locations will undergo comprehensive searches.

    “Due to the fact staff will be concentrating on these search efforts, visitation will be canceled until further notice. Inmates will still have access to the phone system and tablets,” TDCJ said.

    If drugs are getting into Texas prisons, there’s over a 90% chance correctional staff are getting them in there.

  • “Over 1,600 Scientists Sign ‘No Climate Emergency’ Declaration.”

    “There is no climate emergency,” the Global Climate Intelligence Group (CLINTEL) said in its World Climate Declaration (pdf), made public in August. “Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific. Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures.”

    A total of 1,609 scientists and professionals from around the world have signed the declaration, including 321 from the United States.

    The coalition pointed out that Earth’s climate has varied as long as it has existed, with the planet experiencing several cold and warm phases. The Little Ice Age only ended as recently as 1850, they said.

    “Therefore, it is no surprise that we now are experiencing a period of warming,” the declaration said.

    Warming is happening “far slower” than predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

    “Climate models have many shortcomings and are not remotely plausible as policy tools,” the coalition said, adding that these models “exaggerate the effect of greenhouse gases” and “ignore the fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO2 is beneficial.” For instance, even though climate alarmists characterize CO2 as environmentally-damaging, the coalition pointed out that the gas is “not a pollutant.”

    Carbon dioxide is “essential” to all life on earth and is “favorable” for nature. Extra CO2 results in the growth of global plant biomass while also boosting the yields of crops worldwide.

    CLINTEL also dismissed the narrative of global warming being linked to increased natural disasters like hurricanes, floods, and droughts, stressing that there is “no statistical evidence” to support these claims.

    “There is no climate emergency. Therefore, there is no cause for panic and alarm. We strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy proposed for 2050. Go for adaptation instead of mitigation; adaptation works whatever the causes are,” it said.

  • “California mom Jessica Konen won a $100,000 settlement from her daughter’s school district, Spreckels Union School District, after Buena Vista Middle School had socially transitioned her 11-year-old daughter, Alicia, without her knowledge or consent.”
  • “Hospital Employee Leaks DEI Training Materials That Say Three Year-Olds Can be Transgender.”
  • Remember how the UK was economically lagging other countries in Europe and Remainers blamed Brexit? Yeah, not so much.

    The Office for National Statistics (ONS) now says that the UK economy actually recovered from the pandemic recession back in 2021. It turns out that wholesalers and the healthcare sector, in particular, had produced much greater output than previously thought.

    These updated figures suggest that the UK economy is as much as two per cent larger than previously believed. This means that the UK can no longer be considered the worst-performing economy in the G7. In fact, post-Brexit, the UK recovered from the pandemic at a similar rate to France and at a faster pace than Germany, Europe’s largest economy.

    The ONS’s revision is extraordinary. As one leading economist put it: ‘The entire UK economic narrative – post-pandemic – has just been revised away.’ The very basis for the Remainer elites’ narrative of doom has now been shattered before our eyes.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • San Francisco: A dozen overdose deaths in one day.
  • Hollywood types are starting to get evicted due to the strike. Perhaps someone should let them know that you can find jobs outside the movie industry…
  • Dwight has a swell Medal of Honor story. In Vietnam, he flew four surrounded soldiers to safety hanging off his helicopter skids…
  • Why in God’s green earth is Amazon allowing people to sell AI generated mushroom foraging books on its site?
  • John Lennon wrote “I Am the Walrus” to troll English teachers and make fun of Allen Ginsberg.
  • Mark Felton visits Buckingham Palace, and is Not Amused. “The rooms open to the public are, of course, lavishly decorated. The amount of gold painted furniture, pianos and urns, similar to what I imagine Liberace’s house look like. The walls are hung with the usual assortment of well-fed Hanoverians.” Plus: No bathrooms for you, lowly peasant!
  • Can you spot the Transwoman?
  • “Vials Of Mysterious Substance At Wuhan Lab Labeled ‘Save For 2024 Election.'”
  • Boop!

    (Hat tip:

  • They Want You To Stop Eating Meat And Dairy, But The Gavin Newsoms Of the World Will Always Be Able To Eat At The French Laundry

    Wednesday, August 30th, 2023

    When radical leftwing city officials push insane, impossible policies, are they merely engaging in virtue signaling, hope to profit off graft for the issue, or want to inflict as much pain on ordinary Americans as possible?

    That’s the question to ask about Houston and Austin signing on to an agenda to eliminate meat and dairy consumption by 2030.

    Two Texas cities are participating in an emissions-cutting program that seeks to end meat and dairy consumption.

    According to the organization, “C40 is a global network of nearly 100 mayors of the world’s leading cities that are united in action to confront the climate crisis.”

    Although largely funded by Democrat billionaire Michael Bloomberg, C40 has other donors including FedEx, Google, and the Clinton Foundation.

    Both Austin and Houston are listed as participating cities, with “membership operat[ing] on performance-based requirements, not on fees.”

    Houston is a “Megacity,” according to the C40 membership ranking. Megacities are “Cities that show exceptional climate leadership at the global level, and have an urban population that currently/is expected to exceed 3 million or more people by 2030.”

    Austin is in the “Innovator” membership category, which includes “cities that show exceptional climate leadership at the global level, but do not meet the population/size criteria of a Megacity.”

    Altogether, the participating cities make up a quarter of the global economy.

    According to C40 Cities Executive Director Mark Watts, “As always, C40 has adopted a science-based approach and that science is clear: average consumption-based emissions in C40 cities must halve within the next 10 years. In our wealthiest and highest consuming cities that means a reduction of two-thirds or more by 2030.”

    Watts stated this in a report from C40 Cities in 2019 entitled, “The Future Of Urban Consumption In A 1.5°C World.” The report lays out “ambitious targets” for cities to meet regarding the urban consumption of building materials, food, clothing and textiles, private transportation, electronics, and household appliances, as well as private aviation travel.

    The report defines “ambitious targets” as the following:

    “Target level of ambition for consumption interventions that is more ‘ambitious,’ based on a future vision of resource-efficient production and extensive changes in consumer choices. This level was typically informed by expert judgment rather than existing research.”

    Under meat and dairy consumption, the ‘ambitious target’ would be 0 kilograms of either for all citizens.

    Of course, the idea that a large city in Texas is going to give up meat is absolutely bonkers. Barbecue is one of the biggest civil religions in Texas, only slightly behind football. You might as well ask Frenchmen to give up wine. And I’d really like to see leftwing apparatchiks attempt to close down every taqueria in Houston, as the beat-downs they’d receive would be epic.

    We could ask why liberals continually push policies that they would hate living under themselves, but we all know the answer to that: They’ll never live under the rules they apply to others. You have to give up private vehicles and all air travel in the name of global warming, but they’ll feel no compunction in continuing to jet off to Davos because they’re special. The Gavin Newsoms of the world will always eat at the French Laundry, no matter how much they slam you for daring to leave your house to buy a hamburger.

    Rules are for the little people. Nancy Pelosi will never give up here freezer full of high-end ice cream, but she’ll happily castigate you for daring to ignore the dictates of the ruling nomenklatura.

    Those pushing eating the bugs will never have to eat the bugs themselves. The point is to make you eat the bugs…

    LinkSwarm For August 18, 2023

    Friday, August 18th, 2023

    San Diego tries enforcing the law, a sampler of the lies Obama told about his life, Blade-Runners take on Big Brother’s cameras, a nuke rises in Texas, and a Cthuloid horror swims the chilly waters of Antarctica. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • San Diego tries “this one weird trick” to deal with homeless problem: Enforcing the law.

    Police began enforcing San Diego’s controversial new camping ban Monday, and although officials said they’ve so far focused only on Balboa Park, the new ordinance combined with other enforcement of laws long on the books has already made notable changes in the encampment landscape.

    The “Unsafe Camping Ordinance” allows officers to force people off public land if they’re sleeping within two blocks of a school, shelter, trolley station, waterway or park “where a substantial public health and safety risk is determined.”

    Capt. Shawn Takeuchi, head of the city’s neighborhood policing division, said his five-member team did arrest several homeless people Monday by Balboa Park, but only for existing warrants.

    Others were given a warning, he said. If any of the same people are found illegally camping a day later, they’ll get a ticket even if they’ve moved locations.

    Nobody in Balboa Park accepted offers for shelter Monday, the captain added. Enforcement will continue to focus on schools and parks in the near future, and officials declined to say where the team might move next.

    Do you think Austin’s government might start enforcing the city’s camping ban? Of course not. Then how are they supposed to rake off the graft? (Hat tip: Instapundit, who offers some takeaways worth highlighting:

    1. The homeless respond to policy and incentives like anyone else. The mere announcement of a future camping ban (plus some enforcement of other existing rules) rapidly cleared out major problem areas.
    2. The provision of shelter or housing is neither necessary nor sufficient to accomplish these clear-outs. Of the people asked to leave Balboa Park on the first day of enforcement (issuance of warnings), none accepted offers of shelter.
    3. The NGOs that have colonized the homeless problem have neither the incentive nor the knowledge to solve it. The head of one shelter was confused by the magical disappearance of his potential clients. “Where did they go?”

    )

  • Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz explains why the latest Trump indictment is a joke.
  • Charles F. McGonigal, a former FBI agent pushing the Russian collusion fantasy pleads guilty to Russian collusion. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Hunter Biden’s tax charges dismissed, but only as a prelude to filing more serious charges against him.
  • Biographer David Garrow reveals some of the many things Obama lied about.

    There is a fascinating passage in Rising Star, David Garrow’s comprehensive biography of Barack Obama’s early years, in which the historian examines Obama’s account in Dreams from My Father of his breakup with his longtime Chicago girlfriend, Sheila Miyoshi Jager. In Dreams, Obama describes a passionate disagreement following a play by African American playwright August Wilson, in which the young protagonist defends his incipient embrace of Black racial consciousness against his girlfriend’s white-identified liberal universalism. As readers, we know that the stakes of this decision would become more than simply personal: The Black American man that Obama wills into being in this scene would go on to marry a Black woman from the South Side of Chicago named Michelle Robinson and, after a meteoric rise, win election as the first Black president of the United States.

    Yet what Garrow documented, after tracking down and interviewing Sheila Miyoshi Jager, was an explosive fight over a very different subject. In Jager’s telling, the quarrel that ended the couple’s relationship was not about Obama’s self-identification as a Black man. And the impetus was not a play about the American Black experience, but an exhibit at Chicago’s Spertus Institute about the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann.

    At the time that Obama and Sheila visited the Spertus Institute, Chicago politics was being roiled by a Black mayoral aide named Steve Cokely who, in a series of lectures organized by Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam, accused Jewish doctors in Chicago of infecting Black babies with AIDS as part of a genocidal plot against African Americans. The episode highlighted a deep rift within the city’s power echelons, with some prominent Black officials supporting Cokely and others calling for his firing.

    In Jager’s recollection, what set off the quarrel that precipitated the end of the couple’s relationship was Obama’s stubborn refusal, after seeing the exhibit, and in the swirl of this Cokely affair, to condemn Black racism. While acknowledging that Obama’s embrace of a Black identity had created some degree of distance between the couple, she insisted that what upset her that day was Obama’s inability to condemn Cokely’s comments. It was not Obama’s Blackness that bothered her, but that he would not condemn antisemitism.

    Snip.

    Perhaps the most revealing thing about Jager’s account of her fight with Obama, though, is that not one reporter in America bothered to interview her before David Garrow found her, near the end of Obama’s presidency. As Obama’s live-in girlfriend and closest friend during the 1980s, Jager is probably the single most informed and credible source about the inner life of a young man whose election was accompanied by hopes of sweeping, peaceful social change in America—a hope that ended with the election of Donald Trump, or perhaps midway through Obama’s second term, as the president focused on the Iran deal while failing to address the concerns about rampant income inequality, racial inequality, and the growth of a monopoly tech complex that happened on his watch.

    The idea that the celebrated journalists who wrote popular biographies of Obama and became enthusiastic members of his personal claque couldn’t locate Jager—or never knew who she was—defies belief. It seems more likely that the character Obama fashioned in Dreams had been defined—by Obama—as being beyond the reach of normal reportorial scrutiny. Indeed, Garrow’s biography of Obama’s early years is filled with such corrections of a historical record that Obama more or less invented himself. Based on years of careful record-searching and patient interviewing, Rising Star highlights a remarkable lack of curiosity on the part of mainstream reporters and institutions about a man who almost instantaneously was treated less like a politician and more like the idol of an inter-elite cult.

    Snip.

    Progressive theology is built on a mythic hierarchy of group victimhood which has endured throughout time, up until the present day; the injuries that the victims have suffered are so massive, so shocking, and so manifestly unjust that they dwarf the present. Such injuries must be remedied immediately, at nearly any cost. The people who do the work of remedying these injustices, by whatever means, are the heroes of history. Conversely, the sins of the chief oppressors of history, white men, are so dark that nothing short of abject humiliation and capitulation can begin to approach justice.

    It goes to say that nothing about the terms of progressive theology is original. It is the theology of Soviet communism, with class struggle replaced by identity politics. In this system, Jews play a unique, double-edged role: They are both an identity group and a Trojan horse through which history can reenter the gates of utopia.

    Read the whole thing to see all those facts about Obama that the media ignored…including his fantasies about having sex with men.

  • Yuan hits 16 year low against the dollar.
    

  • The origins of the global warming scam.

    Members of the IPCC, such as Pedro Moura-Costa (above) and Gareth Philips, had major conflicts-of-interest. They owned, created and/or worked for businesses — such as Ecosecurities and SGS Forestry — that would directly profit from the report’s conclusions.

    In fact, the IPCC panel members’ companies were positioned to earn millions of dollars from the report. But the mainstream media did not report these conflicts and instead piled on the “global warming” and “carbon offset” bandwagons.

    Solar energy portal Ecotopia reported that members of the IPCC “…had vested interests in reaching unrealistically and unjustifiably optimistic conclusions about the possibility of compensating for emissions with trees… [and] should have been automatically disqualified from serving on an intergovernmental panel charged with investigating impartially the feasibility and benefits of such ‘offset’ projects.”

  • Social Justice strikes again: Woke Hawaiian Official Stalled Release Of ‘Revered Water’ Until It Was Too Late To Save Maui.”

    According to accounts of four people with knowledge of the situation, M. Kaleo Manuel, a Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner and DLNR’s deputy director for water resource management, initially refused West Maui Land Co.’s requests for additional water to help prevent fires from spreading to properties managed by the company. Manuel eventually released water but not until after the fire had run its course.

    His office has not yet commented on the delay of water resources.

    How much damage could have been prevented with the extra water is not yet known. However, the question of “Why?” needs to be addressed in the wake of one of the worst natural disasters in Hawaii’s history. Though bureaucratic red tape might be the most obvious suggestion, a recent interview with M. Kaleo Manual offers some interesting and disturbing insight. Manuel waxes philosophical on “water equity” (“equity” being a pervasive woke buzzword) and an ancient “reverence” of water as god-like. He uses these beliefs to support his rationale for keeping tight controls over Hawaiian water supplies; not as a resource to be used, but as a holistic privilege offered by the government.

  • Economist who named BRICS says the idea of a common BRICS currency is “embarrassing.”

    “It’s just ridiculous,” [Lord Jim O’Neill] told the Financial Times in an interview on Monday. “They’re going to create a BRICS central bank? How would you do that? It’s embarrassing almost.”

    The economist spoke ahead of the 15th BRICS summit next week, where the nations will meet to decide whether to expand membership to other countries and may also float the idea of the common currency.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • “Blade Runners” take out new London monitoring cameras. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • What’s the matter with Sweden?

    The following story was related to me by a former Governor of Minnesota, who was of Norwegian descent. A number of years ago, a Norwegian dignitary (the Prime Minister, I think) visited Minnesota. Talking to our governor, the Prime Minister tut-tutted about Minnesota’s crime rate, saying that there was much less crime in Norway. Minnesota’s governor replied, “We don’t have a crime problem with our Norwegians, either.”

    That anecdote came to mind when I read, in the London Times, “Sweden’s slide from peaceful welfare state to Europe’s gun-killings capital.”

    Today, Sweden is Europe’s capital of gun homicide. Last year, according to the Swedish national council for crime prevention, 63 people were shot and killed: more than double the European average and, per capita, multitudes higher than London or Paris.

    … The effect on Swedish society has been striking. As well as the lives lost, the violence has brought down a government, changed laws and policies, and become the biggest talking point in a country that once prided itself on its reputation as a peaceful welfare state.

    Violent crime will do that, although, to be fair, Sweden’s homicide rate is considerably lower than ours. But it is now significantly higher than homicide rates in quite a few other European countries, including Norway. Why is that? Have Swedes suddenly started getting violent? No.

    It has also kicked the hornet’s nest of integration. Today, one fifth of all people living in Sweden were born outside the country.

  • Dow Chemical is planning to build a small nuclear reactor to power their plant in Calhoun County. Good for them. The TRISO-X fuel they’re using sounds like it will be a pebble bed reactor design.
  • “Target Sales Dipped in Last Quarter Due to Pride Backlash.”
  • Is Adobe sell AI-generated stock art based on artist’s work?
  • Jihadi dumbass kills himself while cleaning his gun.
  • William Friedkin, RIP.
  • Enjoy contemplating this horrifying Cthuloid abomination swimming in antarctic waters.
  • A guide to the things considered disrespectful when working in a Japanese office. Like “going home on time.”
  • Is there any UK tradition more glorious than tossing hot pennies off a high building for the joy of seeing poor people burn their hands grabbing them?
  • “Country Music Industry Confused By Man Actually From Country Making Actual Music.”
  • “Prince Immediately Regrets Waking Rachel Zegler With A Kiss After She Starts Ranting About The Patriarchy.”
  • Good boy!
  • Netherlands: Let The Power Fall

    Sunday, July 9th, 2023

    The Europhilic, farmer-oppressing, climate cult-believing government of The Netherlands has fallen over immigration policies.

    The Dutch government collapsed on Friday after failing to reach a deal on restricting immigration, which will trigger new elections in the fall.

    The crisis was triggered by a push by Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s conservative VVD party to limit the flow of illegal immigrants to the Netherlands, which two of his four-party government coalition refused to support.

    “It’s no secret that the coalition partners have differing opinions about immigration policy. Today we unfortunately have to conclude that those differences have become insurmountable. Therefore I will tender the resignation of the entire cabinet to the king,” Mr. Rutte said in a televised news conference.

    Tensions came to a head this week, when Mr. Rutte demanded support for a proposal to limit entrance of children of war refugees who are already in the Netherlands and to make families wait at least two years before they can be united.

    This latest proposal went too far for the small Christian Union and liberal D66, causing a stalemate.

    Mr. Rutte’s coalition will stay on as a caretaker government until a new administration is formed after new elections, a process which in the fractured Dutch political landscape usually takes months.

    News agency ANP, citing the national elections committee, said elections would not be held before mid-November.

    Two parties poised to take advantage of Rutte’s coalition falling: The pro-farmer BBB Party, and Geert Wilders libertarian/anti-Islamist PVV.

    Opposition parties in the Netherlands were pleased with the fall of the Rutte IV Cabinet. BBB frontwoman Caroline van der Plas tweeted a photo of herself smiling asking others to show the face they made when they heard the news.

    “Goodbye Rutte, Kaag and the rest!” writes PVV leader Geert Wilders. He said he has requested a parliamentary debate.

    PvdD leader Esther Ouwehand hopes for “the definitive end of the Rutte era.” She said, “Unprecedented that the prime minister created a new crisis in an attempt to save his own skin.”

    Rutte’s government is the one that tried to seize land from farmers to prevent them from farming as part of their global warming/anti-meat/land seizure agenda. That government deserved to fall. Actually, what it deserved was having angry farmers armed with torches and hay rakes track members down in the streets and thrash them within an inch of their lives, but the Dutch haven’t been much in the revolution business since 1648.

    From this remove, it would be nice if the elections could pave the way for a BBB/PVV Euroskeptic coalition focused on property rights, abandoning insane climate change mandates, restricting Islamist immigration, and protecting free markets and free speech. But European politics seldom proceeds along such (to us) logical lines.