Quite a while back I wrote about the Palestinians insisting that they were not bringing arms into a sacred area in one of their mosques but then objecting even more strongly to Israel putting in cameras which would have demonstrated the truth (or falseness) of said contention.
The problem was obvious, you could not allow objective truth to be seen because objective truth was contrary to the assertion that was being made.
A similar thing happened with the election of 2020 in six key counties in swing states, at the same time that the media/left insisted that everything was on the up and up they did everything they could in court to fight these assertions in court on the grounds of standing (rather successfully I might add) rather than simply demonstrate via audits and objective examination of the evidence that the elections were clean to the electorate.
The logical conclusion here being that the objective evidence was not friendly to their assertions.
Which brings me to this story concerning a ring the ring doorbell.
You see the ring camera doesn’t care what your race or religion or the desired narrative of the day is, what it does is show the image of what is actually happening, objective reality.
And while it might be considered a good thing for a homeowner protecting their property or a neighborhood wanting to keep criminals from using it as a stomping ground or even for the mother of boys discourage them from getting into the type of trouble that boys do when they’re young and stupid if you’re trying to sell a narrative based on unreality, well it can be a killer.
So expect a lot of pushback against the ring camera as a sign of white supremacy, not because it’s yet another feed that can be hacked and observed but because it provides a does of truth in an age where the lie is king.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro wanted to cut a deal with the Republicans, but his fellow Democrats wouldn’t let him do it.
The issue was important: school vouchers for kids in failing public schools throughout the state.
Surprisingly, Shapiro supported a $100 million program to pay tuition at private and religious schools throughout the state.
The Republicans, who control the State Senate, wanted the deal. The Democrats, who control the House of Representatives, blocked it, bowing to complaints from teachers’ unions and other leftists.
Shapiro had to back down because the Democrats had kept the state without a budget for five days over the issue. “One party can’t get anything done on their own. Democrats and Republicans need to work together if we are to accomplish anything here in our state capital,” said Shapiro, who added he was disappointed but did not want to plunge the state into a “painful, protracted budget impasse.”
Some Republicans expressed shock at the turn of events.
“If this was the plan in the end, (Shapiro) certainly will have ruined his credibility with us, which to this point had been pretty strong,” said Sen. Chris Gebhard, R-Lebanon.
Senate Republicans have not necessarily lost all their leverage. Other items that Democrats had wanted in the budget bill — and that Senate Republicans agreed to in exchange for the private schools program — might need separate legislation to spend that money.
And Republicans haven’t scheduled the Senate to return to session until September 18, allowing them to hold up the budget bill until then without the constitutionally required signature of the presiding officer.
Rep. Tarik Khan, D-Philadelphia, argued that boosting money for public schools — not private schools — must be a priority for lawmakers to try to wipe out disparities.
But public schools, particularly in large cities like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, have been a mess for years. After the COVID shutdown, tests demonstrate that the students have fallen way behind in math and reading at all levels.
The budget impasse also means higher education support remains in limbo, particularly for Penn State, Temple University, and the University of Pittsburgh. All the schools are reeling from declines in admissions and scholarships.
I must credit the governor for trying to reach across the aisle, but here it’s the Democrats, not the Republicans, who favor unions over student success.
The Outsized reaction of the professional left to the performance of the movie the “Sound of Freedom” last week and Disney’s decision to sit on it for a week seems rather odd, particularly when you note how consistent and united this reaction is.
Why you would think the left and their allies had a big hand in that pie. And if they didn’t before they might now.
The medical profession gave up a lot of credibility during the COVID business when they decided that a funeral for your father was murder but large scale marches for the causes of the left were just fine and dandy but nothing destroys the reputation of your family doctor then watching her ask your eight year old son if he identifies as a boy or girl or something else.
It’s stories like this that make my lack of grandchildren at the moment a lot more bearable.
There’s news that a new Malaria vaccine in Africa has not been that successful but is being pushed anyways.
Oddly enough there was a time when Malaria was on the run, but then came the ban on DDT.
A lot of folks ended up dead because of that, but a lot of leftists were able to feel good about themselves which is all that apparently matters.
President Biden remarked that Ukraine is having trouble with ammo.
I understand the IRS has been stockpiling for years, perhaps they can spare a bit.
I wasn’t paying much attention to Facebook/Meta new Threads app and have no intention or desire to get on it, but apparently a lot of people did hoping to do an ah HA on Elon Musk.
Alas they are discovering the truth of the old saying, when a company is offering a product to you for free, you’re the product to wit:
“Most times you can’t hear ’em talk, other times you can All the same old clichés, is it woman, is it man? And you always seem outnumbered, so you don’t dare make a stand.” Bob Seger, “Turn the Page.”
Those lyrics, from legendary Michigan rocker Bob Seger, may turn out to be prescient, because the Michigan House of Representatives, which has a Democrat majority, passed a bill in June that, among other things, will impose a hefty fine or imprisonment, if a person maliciously refuses to use another person’s preferred pronoun.
The bill, HB 4474, expands on a Michigan law that covers religion, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation.
Newsweek noted that Dylan Mulvaney, a man who claims to be woman, said in a video a while back about people like me who misgender him, “I feel like that should be illegal, I don’t know. That’s just bad journalism.”
No, it’s not. Mulaney, an internet influencer who has done to Bud Light what Eric Idle’s S. Frog character did to Monty Python’s fictional Conquistador Coffee, is wrong, as he is on so many things, What I wrote in the previous paragraph is good journalism because it’s the truth. Sorry, wokesters, but men who “transition” into women do not have ovaries, do not have menstrual periods, and do not undergo menopause. Women who do the opposite do not have testicles, a prostate gland, or Y chromosomes. I could go on, but I don’t have to.
Some people need to simply follow the science.
Except, maybe soon in Michigan, if its Senate passes HB 4474 and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, signs it into law, following the science and speaking out about it might get someone like me fined or worse.
In her Senate confirmation hearing, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson could not–or in my opinion, would not–define what a woman is. But according to HealthyChildren.org, at around age two, toddlers know the difference between the two genders. Again, follow the science.
The headline of this blog post is colored red. How do I know? Because when I was at the age when I figured out what males and females are, my mother probably said something along these lines to me, “That color is red.” And that information was confirmed to me when I attended kindergarten.
Some things are that simple.
Well, it should be that simple. Transgendered people complain about being bullied. Well, bullying is wrong. I suppose Mulvaney considers it bullying when internet trolls visit his Instagram page and comments, “You’re a man.” Oh, a word for you trolls. Don’t you have anything better to do? Surely there is trash on a roadside near your home that needs to be collected.
On the flip side, in regard to gender, we are at a stage in America when someone says, “Dylan Mulvaney is a man” in mixed company–especially at work–it has to be spoken in whispered tones, sotto voce as the French say.
Being labeled a transphobe–phobe, by the way means irrational fear–can get many people in trouble on the job. Or maybe soon in Michigan, getting fined or being imprisoned. And it’s not an irrational fear to lose out on a promotion or getting fired for being deemed a transphobe.
I call that bullying.
As regular readers know, my wife was born in the Soviet Union, in Latvia. At school a number of decades ago, repeatedly, her teachers told her that Latvia, along with Estonia and Lithuania, voluntarily joined the USSR in 1940. Of course, that was a lie. Her parents knew it–and so did every adult in the Baltic States at that time. Yes, that includes the teachers. But my wife didn’t discover what really happened in 1940, beginning with learning of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, until she reached adulthood.
During my wife’s childhood, adults in the Soviet Union were afraid of the repercussions of telling the truth. So my wife’s parents never discussed the USSR seizing the Baltic States with her until Mikhael Gorbachev was the Soviet leader.
In the New York Sun,Dean Karayanis, reminded me that Soviet citizens faced prison if they were caught spilling coffee on a picture of Joseph Stalin. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the author of the Gulag Archipelago, spent eight years in the Gulags for criticizing Stalin in private letters, even though he took the precaution of using a codename for the dictator.
American society isn’t at that more frightening point yet. But Michigan just took a baby step in that direction.
Or maybe we are there. Remember that Seger song? “And you always seem outnumbered, so you don’t dare make a stand.” Well, I’m making one. Is anyone else with me?
Fortunately, the new Michigan “pronouns” bill will almost certainly be challenged in court on First Amendment grounds.
Which is another reason why I’m grateful for the 6-3 conservative majority on the US Supreme Court.
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