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“Little Practical Impact?” Don’t Be Too Sure About that AP

Posted: June 7, 2021 by datechguy in News/opinion
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At Don Surber’s site (which is required daily reading around here) today I saw this piece from the AP about SCOTUS having a case on registering for selective service:

The question of whether it’s unconstitutional to require men but not women to register could be viewed as one with little practical impact. The last time there was a draft was during the Vietnam War, and the military has been all-volunteer since. But the registration requirement is one of the few remaining places where federal law treats men and women differently, and women’s groups are among those arguing that allowing it to stand is harmful.

The ACLU’s argument on the case is interesting:

Men who do not register can lose eligibility for student loans and civil service jobs, and failing to register is also a felony punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and five years in prison. But Tabacco Mar says the male-only requirement does more than that.

“It’s also sending a tremendously harmful message that women are less fit than men to serve their country in this particular way and conversely that men are less fit than women to stay home as caregivers in the event of an armed conflict. We think those stereotypes demean both men and women,” she said.

The section of the piece that Surber quotes suggests that if the case is taken there will be little practical impact since it’s been almost 50 years since the last draft but I strongly disagree. I suspect this case will have a lot of impact over the next few years because the Biden administration’s actions to make the Military “woke” is just the type of thing that will convince the people most likely to join our voluntary Armed services to stay away, which is frankly what our enemies are paying them for.

And when the numbers get low enough that’s when you will see the return of the draft.

So ladies and gentlemen I’d pay close attention to this case because I suspect it will have a great impact on your children before you know it.

The Tapper Media Trap

Posted: June 6, 2021 by datechguy in culture, media, News/opinion
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I am the Editor

Cardinal Richelieu: [whispered to the King] I am the state, Your Majesty. Let us say it now, privately, so that we never have need to discuss it in public. I am France, Louis. I am the state. These men have set themselves above me, and it is I, Louis, and not you who sit in judgment. I render that judgment now.

The Three Musketeers 1948

One might wonder why Jake Tapper of CNN would put him self out there with a virtue signaling claim to the NYT that was so easily disproved by the people he was trying to appear superior to.

The first thought of course is given he was talking to the NYT he presumed that the audience there would never see the evidence to expose the lie since they live in a media bubble that will not report or acknowledge this evidence and to some degree this is likely correct but there is another factor to play here.

Fifteen, Ten or even Five years ago Jake Tapper was in a position where just about any media network would jump at him if available and he would be able to command a solid seven figure salary and bring in ratings and a reputation constant with such a pay.

Now however the law of diminishing returns is in play. CNN in general and Mr. Tapper in particular are now speaking to a dwindling audience which is more and more resembling a cult seeking affirmation rather that people seeking information.

Furthermore his employers whose corporates masters are dependent on the market that China provides and are thus requiring a narrative that supports such a message are not likely to be shy about enforcing that orthodoxly.

It’s easy to say: “I’m not going to sell myself.” But I don’t know what he has out for loans, or college debts for his kids or his mortgage situation or anything else and the bottom line is that there are plenty of people in his diminishing industry who would happily take over his seat at a tenth of the price he is currently commanding.

And if he finds himself off too far off the reservation it’s not just the CNN gig, it’s the prospect of book deals, or speaking engagements or all the other things that supplement his income that could suddenly vanish. Cure Henry Hill:

Henry Hill: And that’s the hardest part. Today everything is different; there’s no action… have to wait around like everyone else. Can’t even get decent food – right after I got here, I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce, and I got egg noodles and ketchup. I’m an average nobody… get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.

Good Fellas 1990

That’s the thing that I suspect restrains Jake Tapper in particular and prominent members of the media in general fear. Foot wrong and the same media companies that made them can toss them back into the mass of the people to live their lives as normal people. Without perks, without reputation, having to rebuild a living an an audience on one’s own merit.

This above all else is why the left has done all it can to create a post Judeo-Christian culture. Courage is one of the greatest virtues and fruits that comes from faith because when faced with such a situation we realize we are not alone.

Human Error My A**

Posted: June 5, 2021 by datechguy in media
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This is how much the tech giants are owned by China these days:

Microsoft Corp on Friday blamed “accidental human error” for its Bing search engine not showing image results for the query “tank man” in the United States and elsewhere after users raised concerns about possible censorship around the Tiananmen Square crackdown anniversary. Users, including in the United Kingdom, Germany and Singapore, reported Friday that when they performed the search Bing returned the message, “There are no results for tank man.”

Let me ask anyone on the left who actually believes that a simple question:

If on the anniversary of the death of George Floyd the initial video that got things rolling in that case suddenly turned up “no results” would you buy the “human error” line.

This is a national and international disgrace. Get Duck Duck Go and Brave and get off of Bing and off of any other site owned by leftists who are trying to spin you.

Closing thought: How many times does this happen on smaller stories without your knowledge? I’m guessing a lot.

For shame

Posted: June 4, 2021 by datechguy in Uncategorized

Italian artist Salvatore Garau recently sold at auction his latest work, entitled Lo Sono. The buyer paid over $18,000.

Garau describes Lo Sono as being “made of air and spirit.” He says he likes to think of it as a vacuum, and calls the work an “immaterial sculpture.” As he told Spain’s Diario AS, “The vacuum is nothing more than a space full of energy, and even if we empty it and there is nothing left, according to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, that nothing has a weight. Therefore, it has energy that is condensed and transformed into particles, that is, into us.”

Confused? Don’t be. The piece of art doesn’t actually exist. There’s truly nothing there.

The buyer will instead receive a “certificate of authenticity” and “display” instructions. Garau insists the “work” must be exhibited in a private house in a roughly five-by-five-foot area free of obstruction.

“Lo Sono,” translated, means “I am.” Garau at least has a sense of humor.

When I was a boy, my brother and I decided to create our own superheroes and sell homemade comic books to the neighborhood suckers. I don’t recall the entire cast of characters we came up with, but Caterpillar Man was a featured player, spinning his own silken threads. Watch and learn, Spidey.

The comics were a series of colored drawings in standard comic book format, stapled together just like the, er, pros do it, and they were even given a brand: Stars and Stripes Comics. And after only a few minutes of showing the wares to the local crew, we found one taker, who gave us our asking price of a nickel each for a couple of issues.

When my mom found out, she made us give the nickels back. Charging for such tripe. No, this was not money we were going to keep. One of us would later work as an artist for Disney Animation and “South Park,” so the art couldn’t have been that bad, but Mom would not be shamed seeing her boys dupe some neighborhood simp.

The buyer hasn’t been disclosed, but be it a simp or a sophisticated modern art tastemaker (same thing you say?), I’m pretty sure Mom would feel at least as shamed were Garau one of hers.

Merriam-Webster defines the word “shame” thusly: “a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety.” The second meaning is: “a condition of humiliating disgrace or disrepute.”

For all the instances of the second meaning we have seen in recent years, we sure seem to have a serious shortage of the first.

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