Albert Einstein, just because it's Tuesday

 From his diaries:

“I noticed how little difference there is between men and women; I don’t understand what kind of fatal attraction Chinese women possess which enthrals the corresponding men to such an extent that they are incapable of defending themselves against the formidable blessing of offspring”.

From their editor:

"the remark that must strike the modern reader as most offensive is his feigning not to understand how Chinese men can find their women sufficiently attractive to have offspring with them." 

-- The Grauniad, 2018

 

 

 

Easy mistake:

Navalny would be alive today had he stayed in Germany in January 2021, but he just had to go back didn't he

 Opposition Leader and Putin Critic Alexei Navalny Dies In Prison at 47 :

Navalny looked healthy when he appeared by video for a courtroom appeal on Thursday. Speaking from prison, Navalny complained about the frequent fines he received while in a punitive cell and asked the judge to send him some money “as my own is running out thanks to your decisions”. ...

In 2020, Navalny fell into a coma after a suspected poisoning using novichok by Russia’s FSB security service and was evacuated to Germany for treatment. He recovered and returned to Russia in January 2021, where he was arrested on a parole violation charge and sentenced to his first of several jail terms that would total more than 30 years behind bars.

 

 

Real Clear Politics becomes The Grauniad lol, The Grauniad is convinced that killing your baby is the winning issue of our time

 

Abortion Is Biden's Strongest Issue. He Should Act Like It

Moira Donegan, Guaridan

The left is upset that Joe Biden isn't more enthusiastic about it, dammit:

 

Biden himself is not a particularly convincing abortion rights advocate. He is, at best, unenthused about the issue. Biden speaks of abortion in stilted, euphemistic terms, talking about “restoring the protections of Roe” or “a woman’s right to choose” more than “abortion”. (He did not use the word in public remarks until he was forced to after facing pressure from activists.) On the stump, he frequently ad libs, straying from prepared remarks to make his dislike of abortion clear. In one set of remarks last year, he unhelpfully offered that he was “not big on abortion”. In remarks this past week, he characterized his own position using anti-choice buzzwords, saying he was opposed to “abortion on demand”. ... Biden is talking like he believes that abortion remains a delicate issue, as if it is something he thinks he will lose by being too strong on.

It was a TRAP lol

 Presidents of America's top universities too stupid to see it coming!

 

Yesterday's obnoxious Nazi Barbie is 2023's Person of the Year

 

Time.

2015 here:

Camille Paglia has written a scathing critique of Taylor Swift, referring to the singer as an “obnoxious Nazi Barbie” whose “twinkly persona is such a scary flashback to the fascist blondes who ruled the social scene during my youth”.

For the tax write-off you idiots

 Why would Elon Musk want to deliberately destroy X?

 Arwa Mahdawi

 

Musk can extract the $44 billion price tag for tax loss purposes and relaunch the thing as the everything platform he keeps talking about. 

This reminds me of the incredulity of Wall Street over Powell's relentless increases to the Federal Funds Rate. He telegraphed it repeatedly months in advance and then raised rates incrementally and said he would keep doing so, but they would not believe, and still do not.

 

Christmas means it's time for someone to find more evidence of Chicom slave labor in a garment

 Reported here.

Never forget that the Baptist Jimmy Carter called for accepting the legitimacy of Hamas in 2014, but Hamas' solution has always been one state, not two

As if there were any doubt any longer.

Here:

And the US and EU should recognise that Hamas is not just a military force but also a political one.

It cannot be wished away, nor will it cooperate in its own demise. Only by recognising its legitimacy as a political actor – one that represents a substantial portion of the Palestinian people – can the west begin to provide the right incentives for Hamas to lay down its weapons. Ever since the internationally monitored 2006 elections that brought Hamas to power in Palestine, the west’s approach has manifestly contributed to the opposite result. Ultimately, however, lasting peace depends on the creation of a Palestinian state next to Israel.          

 

The president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Albert Mohler, condemned Carter at the time.

 

What Henry Cuellar doesn't appreciate is that the illegal aliens have a 4 million year old solution called walking

 In the Grauniad, here:

“A border wall is a 14th-century solution to a 21st-century problem,” the Democratic Texas congressman Henry Cuellar said. “It will not bolster border security in Starr county.

Craig Robertson: 'I’m not coming out [expletive]'

 FBI’s killing of Utah man prompts questions from neighbors :

Questions are being asked if the FBI’s response was unduly harsh. “The FBI just came and shot an elderly man from my ward,” Travis Clark told the paper. “You know, a guy who’s nearly 80 years old, 300 pounds and can barely get around with a cane.” ... “I just think he was an old kook shooting his mouth off,” Clark said. “There was nothing he ever did that would have made me think that he was either mentally or physically capable of doing anything. And anybody who knew him knew that. “I just can’t believe that this man warranted that kind of response,” Clark added.

Death Valley, CA, Climate Emergency ROFLMAO, where year-to-date average temperature is running 1.7 degrees F below normal

 If it's in The Grauniad, it's probably wrong.

 

I watched Die Hard on Christmas Eve

 It was much dumber than I remember, but then so was I back in the day.

It turns out that Roger Ebert's review here captured what's wrong with the film.

The review in THE GRAUNIAD here is just laughable.

Yippee-ki-yay. 

 

Bring back the firing squads

 USA botched 35% of execution attempts...

Sometimes the UK Daily Mail can screw up a story as badly as The Grauniad, but Drudge is even worse

"Converted to non-condensing by 2029" is definitely NOT what the story says. Quite the opposite.

And Drudge's headline is also false:

Biden plans for all to pay $350 to upgrade to 'energy efficient' furnaces... 

$350 is how much more the more efficient condensing furnaces cost. You just won't be able to buy the old non-condensing variety after 2029.

The Biden rule isn't going to force anyone to pay anything unless they elect to buy a new furnace after 2029, in which case you'll be able to get only the more expensive, more efficient type.

I bought one way back in 2008, with a DC motor for the blower which is where the real savings come from: On the electricity used to move the heated air.

Too bad the story never mentions it.

 

LOL, The Grauniad just lies that electric vehicles aren't heavier and don't produce more tire pollution than conventional vehicles

The average weight of all cars has been increasing. But there has been particular debate over whether battery electric vehicles (BEVs), which are heavier than conventional cars and can have greater wheel torque, may lead to more tyre particles being produced. Molden said it would depend on driving style, with gentle EV drivers producing fewer particles than fossil-fuelled cars driven badly, though on average he expected slightly higher tyre particles from BEVs. 

More here, in "Car tyres produce vastly more particle pollution than exhausts, tests show".

Meanwhile, the great Scotty Kilmer was all over this like white on rice a couple of days ago:

 

For once The Grauniad is correct: The answer is a million Bernie Goetzs riding the rails

 

More Police Power Is Not the Answer to NYC Subway Attack

 

Ross Barkan, Guardian

 

 

Phony Russia lies to its people same as the West lies to its people: Demand for payment in rubles starting tomorrow is just face-saving for Putin at home

Meanwhile Russia continues to sell natural gas which Europe desperately requires, and Putin continues to rake in the dough he needs to continue the war and undergird his regime. 

The headline is purely for Russian public consumption.

Putin signs order demanding gas payments in roubles from Friday :

The decree Putin signed on Thursday authorises the state-controlled Gazprombank to open foreign currency and rouble accounts for gas purchases. European buyers would pay in foreign currency and then authorise Gazprombank to make the conversion into roubles, which would then be used to formally purchase the gas.

LOL, The Grauniad thinks it's in the Vanguard of the press, having few scruples about printing Trump's four years filled with swearing, obviously doesn't read POLITICO

Here where it can't even bring itself to spell them out:

In remarks to diners at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Saturday night, Donald Trump called the American media “crooked ba**ards” and Gen Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, a “fu**ing idiot”. ...

Trump’s penchant for swearing is well-known, to the extent that his four-year presidency prompted soul-searching among some US media outlets about which words could properly be printed.

The Guardian has long had few such scruples.

 

POLITICO in October:

Behind closed doors, the former Catholic school boy is quite profane, according to several current and former aides.

“When he gets going he definitely gets going,” said one White House official.

In meetings with aides, Biden’s vulgarities include but are not limited too: “Fuck them,” “What the fuck are we doing?” “Why the fuck isn’t this happening?” “bullshit,” “dammit,” or just simply: “fuck,” according to several current and former aides.

When pushing aides for better answers, he will sometimes say, “don't bullshit a bullshitter.”

Some say they find Biden’s foul mouth endearing — a part of his everyman appeal that made him president. One former aide noted that’s true just as long as you’re not on the receiving end of it.

By contrast, Vice President KAMALA HARRIS’ favorite swear word is “motherfuck-ah,” [emphasis on the ahhhhh] according to someone who worked closely with her. She also alluded to this preference in a past interview. Her office did not respond.

LOL India, home of the Delta variant, has as few daily new cases per million with 26.6% of its population fully jabbed as it did when fewer than 0.1% were back in February

But Eric Topol doesn't want to talk about that, because it doesn't fit the narrative.

He'd rather talk about Japan, which made "full return to baseline after their worst outbreak, by the combination of high level of vaccination and the continued use of masks and mitigation measures."

How did India do it, Eric?

 

 

LOL, expert Eric Topol: 74% vaccinated isn't enough, gotta get to 90-95%

 In The Grauniad:

Noteworthy is Belgium with 74% fully vaccinated and one of the hardest-hit countries in the world, now at 79/100,000, currently 10th highest caseload globally. That alone tells us 74% isn’t enough, and that prior Covid (without vaccination, what some refer to as “natural immunity”) is unreliable for representing a solid immunity wall against the Delta variant. In fact, it has been projected for Delta that any country needs to achieve 90-95% of its total population fully vaccinated (or with recent Covid) in order to have population-level immunity that covers, providing relative protection, for the others.

Actually what it tells us is that the Pfizer vaccine, which is what Belgium overwhelmingly uses, does not stop the spread. 

The CDC and Anthony Fauci have held since late in 2020 that the reproduction rate for COVID-19 of 2.5 means a 60% vaccination level should stop the pandemic. 

The vaccines haven't done that. 

The United States is 57.6% fully vaccinated to date, plus 13.9% who have survived infection to date, thus 71.5% "immune".

Yet here we are, into the sixth wave:

 It's Eric Topol who is in denial.