Posts Tagged ‘glenn reynolds’

How DARE those Jews rescue their hostages!, An Old Fashioned Rand Paul, Mahomes Twice in one game, Glenn Reynolds on Biden and consequences and Just a Shrove Tuesday Coincidence Under the Fedora

Posted: February 13, 2024 by datechguy in Blame Biden Administration, culture, election 2020, election 2024, elections, Israel, Israel vs Hamas, nfl, politics, Sports, under the fedora
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The speed of cultural change in this country amazes me. A recently as 5-10 years ago and definitely 20 years ago a military operation that successfully recused civilians taken hostage unharmed that took only one casualty slightly wounded and killed multiple terrorists in the process would be universally hailed by both sides of the political aisle and lionized by the press.

Instead it has at best been ignored and at worst attacked by sitting members of congress as a “massacre”.

There have been quite a few national disgraces over the last few years. This is one of them.

Rand Paul did something yesterday that we don’t see much of. An old fashioned filibuster of the Ukraine Bill where people actually hold the floor and talk.

While I concede that the current cloister rules are what allowed the chances at SCOTUS which finally doomed Roe I approve of both the Filibuster and Paul’s use of it here and would bring it back if I could, HOWEVER I’d only approve of the real thing.

You see for the last few decades rather than actually holding the floor and making the face a filibuster was considered as read if enough senators indicated they were behind it. I’ve always felt that was lazy. If a bill is worth filibustering it’s worth doing it for real.

Because of a previous vote Paul’s filibuster is limited but he’s playing out the string like Jackie Robinson remaining on the field watching Bobby Thompson circling the based ready to protest if he missed any of them on his way around them in the excitement of the moment.

Agree or disagree on various issues he’s a man of principle. We need more of them in congress.

The difference between a good player and a great player is how they perform when the chips are down. 

While Tom Brady will always have the edge on Patrick Mahomes because of their head to head record in the playoffs (favoring Brady 2-0) Mahomes with his 3rd Superbowl win proves he belongs in the GOAT conversation not just by the victory. But by the fact that TWICE in the same game he lead his team down the field to score the tying or winning points where failure would have meant defeat and did so with less than 30 seconds on the clock.

A lot of stat guys are not believers in “Clutch” performers. Mahomes as well as Brady proves such an assertion is nonsense. Having Mahomes follow Brady It’s like watching DiMaggio come after Ruth or Mantle after DiMaggio.

Oh and full marks to Brock Purdy the idea that a Mr. Irrelevant forced Mahomes in a situation where he had to do that is astounding

Law Professor Glenn Reynolds, the Blogfather has been worth reading for 23 years and if I actually had a bucket list lunch with him would be on it.

At substack yesterday he posted one of the best assessment of Joe Biden’s current situation that I’ve read. That something Reynolds has written is good is a given, but this is SO far above even his standard that you must read it. There are two bits that jump out at me:

As Time magazine reported shortly after the 2020 election, a “cabal” — Time’s word — of “left-wing activists and business titans” worked to get rid of Trump. It pushed mail-in voting. It moved to block election fraud suits brought by Trump and supporters. It employed social media censorship to mute pro-Trump arguments and amplify anti-Trump arguments. It sponsored protests.

Time called this a “conspiracy to save the election,” but in truth it was a conspiracy to save the election for the Democrats. The consequences in terms of lost faith in democracy have been severe, but the worst effect is that the winning ticket was never seriously vetted by the media or the campaign process. 

As one of those who was muted by twitter and is still muted by Youtube for this reason that really strikes home. The second:

After noting the Democrats desperate to replace him he makes what I think is THE critical point:

But whatever the Democrats do about 2024, I would like to see some accountability for the election of 2020.  A cabal of insiders colluded to control the outcome, through all sorts of underhanded tactics.  (Tech companies censored the Hunter Biden laptop story broken by The Post, and retired intelligence officials falsely claimed it was fake, Russian disinformation).  The press allowed Biden to campaign from his basement, covering up the truth that he was already unfit for office.

Now we’re in a pickle.  Whatever happens in this election, I would like to see some consequences for the games played with our democracy in 2020.  Elections belong to the voters, not the insiders.  Or at least they should.

To get that point across, we’re going to have to impose some costs on the folks who rigged the last one.

This states a basic truth that blue cities that were once the envy of the world and are now lawless places where police can be assaulted with impunity, where open air drug markets reign and business have fled. There have been people trying to steal elections for as long as there have been elections just has there have been thugs, drug deals and thieves in all of human history. They only get away with it when those whose job it is to stop them turn a blind eye for their own purposes and let them do it. 

Unless there are consequences for these actions both for those who did it and those who allowed it, it will happen again until the people finally say ENOUGH! 

I suspect if it reaches that point, ENOUGH will not be conveyed via an excellent essay on substack.

Finally as you might recall the WQPH 1st Annual Shrove Tuesday Brunch is scheduled to begin at 10:30 AM at Slattery’s Restaurant in Fitchburg. There have been a lot of small coincidences that have taken place to retard this event that seemed to be overcome. About 48 hours ago it appeared there was one that would not be, the projected storm that closed my place of work today with the potential of 13″ of snow falling fast right at the travel time. The restaurant mindful of the storm and scheduled to be closed on monday gave us till 4 PM on Sunday to cancel or reschedule. After discussion with the head of WQPH we decided to go ahead even if it meant half or less would show but dreaded that is was the wrong one. Yesterday I came home from Eucharist Adoration (cancelled today because of the potential storm) to a phone message from the owner who was there because of a funeral luncheon asking for one more confirmation one way or the other.

I called the head of the station again, our speaker coming down from NH and bringing a relic of the Crown of thorns was determined to come and give his talk on the feast of the Holy Face of Jesus. It was at this time I remembered General Patton’s famous weather prayer written by Fr James H. O’Neill a Catholic priest. I tweaked it and tweeted it out while sending a copy to the head of the station who email blasted it out to her prayer group. It reads:

“Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to restrain the immoderate weather due tomorrow with which we have to contend. Grant us fair weather for Spiritual Battle. Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies and establish Thy justice among men and nations.

We ask this through Christ our Lord Amen”

As of this moment (4:47 AM woke up coughing) the snow that two days ago was predicted to start at 1 AM and end at 3 PM has not yet started (although it’s predicted to do so shortly and is now scheduled to end at 1 PM with an 80% chance of 1-3″ in my area, a walk in the park for any New Englander.

The Biden admin not withstanding this is still a free country and if you wish to believe this is a coincidence you are welcome to do so. If you don’t and are one of the folks who prayed that prayer at our request, thanks much for making the prayer and thanks to he who answered it.

Why Glenn Reynolds has Credibility and the MSM doesn’t One Sentence:

Posted: December 2, 2021 by datechguy in blogs, education, media
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The sentence?

My mistake. I’m bumping this up so that people will see the correction. And thanks, Dean Caron!

We’ve seen how the MSM will at best make “errors” and then quietly issue a correction or stealth edit a piece. Glenn Reynolds shows how to do a correction properly:

Earlier yesterday he put up a piece on how the ABA is allowing law schools to use the GRE vs the LSAT for admission and suggested this was a way to dodge the standards to get students. He got feedback from Paul Caron noting his implication was incorrect:

ERROR-CORRECTION UPDATE: I’m wrong above — this has already been taken account of. Paul Caron writes: “Your comment isn’t right — U.S. News takes GRE scores into account.” Here’s how:

Median Law School Admission Test and Graduate Record Examination scores (0.1125; previously 0.125): These are the combined median scores on the LSAT and GRE quantitative, verbal and analytical writing exams of all 2020 full- and part-time entrants to the J.D. program. Reported scores for each of the four exams, when applicable, were converted to 0-100 percentile scales. The LSAT and GRE percentile scales were weighted by the proportions of test-takers submitting each exam. For example, if 85% of exams submitted were LSATs and 15% submitted were GREs, the LSAT percentile would be multiplied by 0.85 and the average percentile of the three GRE exams by 0.15 before summing the two values. This means GRE scores were never converted to LSAT scores or vice versa. There were 60 law schools – 31% of the total ranked – that reported both the LSAT and GRE scores of their 2020 entering classes to U.S. News.

Not only did he get the correction up fast but he bumped the original piece to make sure people saw the correction.

That’s how you maintain a reputation as a credible source the MSM could take a lesson here if they were actually interested in something other than pushing an agenda.

Of course if the MSM had Reynolds standards people might still trust them.

I’m old enough to remember when Instapundit was called the NYT of bloggers but Glenn took that down as that comparison was not favorable. Perhaps if they emulated his methods of corrections someone might call them the Instapundit of newspapers.

Voting? Who has time for that?

Posted: September 11, 2021 by ng36b in elections, politics
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This year, rather than sitting on the sidelines, I decided to volunteer to help on a local conservative’s campaign. This particular candidate had a small campaign going, running against someone that hadn’t been challenged in two election cycles. I’m two months into helping him, and I’ve both knocked on quite a few doors to campaign and hosted a small fundraiser at my house.

What I’ve experienced in just this small amount of time has really surprised me.

When I started going door to door with a survey and some candidate literature, I expected to get yelled at. Given everything we hear on the news, walking around and campaigning for a conservative candidate seems like a quick way to get attacked by some nut-job left-wing whacko. But that hasn’t been my experience. Most people are pretty decent. A few have actually invited me into their homes. Nobody has swore at me, or told me I was trying to put people in chains, or anything else awful.

The second surprise is that most people I polled aren’t registered to vote. In fact, most people weren’t really following the election at all. Maybe its a Virginia-politics thing, since the governor elections are off-cycle from federal elections. When asked who people would vote for, most answered as “unsure.” Now, that might be because I’m polling them in person, and among their friends they have stronger beliefs. But I thought it was telling that there were so many people seemingly out of the loop of an election that directly affects them.

Hosting a fundraiser was a surprise disappointment. Despite having a really good candidate, I found that most conservatives are lazy. My church is significantly more traditional, yet nobody, repeat, nobody (save one family that is a close friend to mine) from my church showed up, despite our pastor encouraging it. Getting other conservatives to show up was incredibly difficult. Keep in mind this wasn’t a “300 dollar a plate” event. We had pulled pork, macaroni and steamed vegetables. More importantly, people had plenty of time to interact with the candidate and speak to him personally about what concerned them. You couldn’t find an easier way to interact with a potential politician, yet it felt like a Joe Biden press conference. Personally, it was really disappointing, and it makes me think that most conservatives are an awful lot of talk without any action.

I highly encourage people to get involved now with your local party. Talk to your city about becoming an election official, since you have to do some training and get registered. Volunteer to go door to door now, because its far less scary than you might imagine. Check that your friends are registered to vote, and not just in the federal elections. And for crying out loud, be willing to donate to candidates that have your values, especially the local candidates that control things like school boards, redistricting and local tax rates, and who are far closer to your concerns than your federal representative. Because if you don’t, the other side is going to out-compete you, and we’ll get more years of the same stupid policies.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency. Please take a minute to stop by Amazon and buy my book, “To Build A House,” available on Kindle or in paperback.

I wonder where the kids of Fleeing New Yorkers will Flee to?

Posted: August 14, 2020 by datechguy in culture, economy, News/opinion, politics
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Capt Jake Cutter: Monsewer, you haven’t got the sense of a jack rabbit. Letting hot horses drink. Keep ’em away from the water till they’ve cooled out. Don’t you know anything about horses?

Paul Regret: I know enough about horses. When I want one I call a groom. When I’m done, I call a groom to take him and the groom says “Yes, sir, Mr Regret.” That’s all I wanna know about horses.

The Comancheros 1961

Wednesday I was reading an excerpt of William Jennings Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” speech when he was the Democrat nominee for President in 1896 when my grandfather (Dad’s Dad) was a 16 year teen in Sicily. The speech concerned the big issue of the daysound, money a Gold standard vs Bi-metalism that is a gold AND silver standard.

The speech is of course famous for his big finish:

If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we shall fight them to the uttermost, having behind us the producing masses of the nation and the world. Having behind us the commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling masses, we shall answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to them, you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.

Now in an age unlike today where everyone knew basic scripture this was a big deal, but today a good half of the country wouldn’t have any idea what he was talking about and the whole issue of “sound money” in a age when we print it on whims (something that would have shocked both parties in his age) is even more comical. Of course given today’s educational system the very idea that an American High School Student let alone a college student who have even heard of Bryan, a man who any student pre-1962 would have known, is an iffy proposition at best.

But there is an earlier line from that speech that jumped out at me that gets almost no play today that I want to touch on. (emphasis mine)

You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the gold standard. I tell you that the great cities rest upon these broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic. But destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country.

That instantly resonated with me when I saw this piece linked at Stacy McCain’s site:

“There was no reason to leave before,” said a born-and-bred Upper West Side mom, who asked for anonymity. “Now, I’m done. I can leave tomorrow and never look back. If I never came back to this block, that would be fine.”

The six-months-pregnant mother of a toddler daughter just put her apartment of a decade near the Lucerne up for sale.

“I have definitely seen more crime, drugs and harassment in one week than in my whole experience growing up here,” she said. “I don’t want to see a child get hurt or raped, before they realize maybe it was a mistake to put [hundreds of] drug addicts and sex offenders near schools in the most dense residential population in the city.”

Stacy also links to ace who notes:

They’ve literally killed the cities. This is going to be the most transformative shift in 100 years.

This means we get to see if Bryan prediction of cities springing up again is right. In fact NYC is in many ways a shadow of its former self as suggested by this amazing video of a fellow touring the now comparatively empty sites:

There is no doubt that either NYC will correct this situation or other cites will rise because these people are going to live somewhere but Stacy McCain asks the key question concerning all these folks now fleeing for the safety of their families :

Thousands of families are now fleeing New York City, but the question must be asked: Who elected Bill De Blasio as mayor?

Probably a lot of those Upper West Side moms voted for De Blasio, because it was the trendy “progressive” thing to do at the time. Didn’t it occur to any of them to wonder what the consequences might be?

Nope they’ve been raised in Evan Sayet’s safe Kindergarten of Eden and they have no more idea how the real world works then Paul Regret knew how to water a horse. Their live has been so safe and comfortable that they had no idea how to deal when the reality of their voting record came knocking at their door.

So now they are fleeing and at least one Governor of a nearby state says come on down but does not include the required warning that I’ll helpfully add

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

After all remember what happened to Colorado.

The other thing that might happen is that the migrants from high tax states might bring their political attitudes with them, moving to new, low-tax states for the economic opportunity but then supporting the same policies that ruined the states they left. This seems quite plausible, alas, and I’ve heard Coloradans lament that the flow of Californians to their state involved a lot of people doing just that. (I suppose that migrants from lower-benefits states to higher-benefits states might support change the other way, but people who live on the dole seem to have pretty similar voting patterns regardless of location, which is why the dole is so popular with certain politicians).

Surprise surprise Colorado went from purple to practically blue & Denver is becoming a pit.

If I were one of those conservative billionaires (hello, Koch brothers! hi, Sheldon Adelson!) who are always donating tens of millions to support Republican candidates, I think I might try spending some of the money on something more useful: A sort of welcome wagon for blue state migrants to red states. Something that would explain to them why the place they’re moving to is doing better than the place they left, and suggesting that they might not want to vote for the same policies that are driving their old home states into bankruptcy.

Of course that will be their kids problem to figure out where to flee to if their parents turn their new homes into a pit. Let’s hope those parents love their kids enough to keep this from happening.

fyi I’ll be talking about this piece at 3 PM EST on the DaTechguy off DaRadio Livestream podcast

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