With the Presidential election but four weeks away, this is a good time to revisit Milton Friedman’s ten-part Free to Choose each Friday before the election as a reminder of why politically good sounding policies are often bad economics.
The seventh episode: Who Protects the Consumer
Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.
The focus this time: They told us we could become anything, so why not a female baby alien running for office in Mexico!
First, a little ironic mood music:
Carrying on…
“Diaper Play” where adults are treated like babies is a known kink/fetish. It is also, apparently, a protected sexuality/gender in prison…
“A killer who transitioned from male to female while in prison has demanded guards hold her hand while outside her cell because she identifies as an infant.
“Sophie Eastwood, 36, was named Daniel when she [sic] was jailed for life in 2004 after using shoelaces as a garotte to strangle her cellmate.
“Eastwood, who has lived as a woman in Her Majesty’s prisons for the past four years, has been described as ‘attention-seeking’ and ‘manipulative’ by sources inside the jail.
“The murderer has now told chiefs at Polmont prison in Brightons, Scotland, that she [sic] identifies as a tot, and should be allowed to wear diapers and have her meals pureed like baby food.
“She [sic] has also demanded guards hold her hand when she is escorted to and from her cell.
“Prison bosses are taking Eastwood’s requests seriously and have already supplied her [sic] with a dummy”
The acquiesence of Leftist and Democratic Party positions into the Republican Parrty has come not from the “GOPe”, “Con Inc.”, or the the “Surrender Caucus”, but the very people who wished to purge them in order to “fight”. From choosing to echo previous Democratic Party platforms to outright talking like a New Dealer, there is increasing agreement on Leftwing positions like Obamacare should be saved or that solar panels should be subsidized. If there is a political choice when it comes to power, it isn’t about a question of policy. The obvious can no longer be denied.
JD Vance may have had the best debate performance in the past 25 years against a man who increasingly looked out of place. But our side is way too focused on the performance and less so on the concerning number of nearly indistinguishable policy differences between both men. pic.twitter.com/dR3s7apnax
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) October 2, 2024
This shouldn’t come as a surprise. The New Right is just the Old Left who were “mugged by Wokeness”.
The differences are not stark bold colors, but the pale pastels that used to define what a squish was on the Right. It is the choice between a woke Leviathan and a trad Leviathan. It is a very epitome of a false dilemma fallacy.
There has been, for some unfathomable reason, a war on genetically engineering new hybrid species. We’ve seen this opposition from legislators and executive branch bureaucratic red tape. Now a judge has weighed in to deter anyone from trying to “change the genetic makeup of the creatures”. The crime in question? Creating hybrid sheep.
“An 81-year-old Montana man was sentenced Monday to six months in federal prison for illegally using tissue and testicles from large sheep hunted in Central Asia and the U.S. to create hybrid sheep for captive trophy hunting in Texas and Minnesota.
“U.S. District Court Judge Brian Morris said he struggled to come up with a sentence for Arthur ‘Jack’ Schubarth of Vaughn, Montana. He said he weighed Schubarth’s age and lack of a criminal record with a sentence that would deter anyone else from trying to ‘change the genetic makeup of the creatures’ on the earth.”
This is clearly at odds with creating sheep-human hybrids like those developed five years ago. First the sheep girls, soon enough all genetically engineered kemonomimi suitable for domestic adoption will be banned, including catgirls!
Online “witches”, typically of the Tumblr variety, have been a source of mockery by your humble author for some time now. We’ve had “Tumblr Witches” declare war on Donald Trump, Capitalist Patriarchy, opposition to “Transgender Women” in women’s bathrooms, Gentrification, Western Science, the Confederacy, Google, University courses, Supreme Court nominees, the Fedi-verse, and even Allah.
But what do all these “Tumblr Witches” have in common?
None of them are actual, literal witches, nor do they have actual, literal magical powers—from Satan or crystals or whatever.
But showing how much history rhymes, we’ve seen a resurgence of þe olde “Satanic Panic” of late. One such example is Lance Wallnau, a pastor who has gone full MAGA and blames Democrats of literally employing witchcraft, and the only way to fight that is through censorship.
“In a recent online conversation about Ms. Harris’s performance at the debate earlier this month, Mr. Wallnau said that she could “look presidential.”
“‘That’s the seduction of what I would say is witchcraft,’ he said. ‘That’s the manipulation of imagery that creates an impression contrary to the truth, but it seduces you into seeing it. So that spirit, that occult spirit, I believe is operating on her and through her, similar to with Obama.’”
For those old enough, this is the type of hyperbole and fearmongering we heard from the Satanic Panic, which started in the late ‘70s before finally burning out in the early ‘90s. Only this time the focus isn’t on D&D or Heavy Metal… but on Qanon-level grand conspiracies. The Religious Right as a broader social movement burned itself out with the waning of the Satanic Panic, but continued to be political force within the GOP, abet with a bit more grace once the more overt grifters like Jim & Tammy Faye self-destructed.
The inevitable overreach has been virtue signaled for a while now. Gone are the sane days when even Alex Jones mocked “witches, and warlocks, and pumpkin po(p)ssums”. Now we have Tucker Carlson talking with Roseanne Barr about drinking blood and eating human flesh!
Roseanne Barr tells Tucker Carlson that the elites are secret vampires that drink blood and eat babies.
She assures the audience that she’s not crazy and learned of this from people who were in various mental institutions with her… pic.twitter.com/qEvf2ifcLH
— AG (@AGHamilton29) September 27, 2024
News of the Week for October 7th, 2024
With the Presidential election but five weeks away, this is a good time to revisit Milton Friedman’s ten-part Free to Choose each Friday before the election as a reminder of why politically good sounding policies are often bad economics.
The sixth episode: What’s Wrong With Our Schools
Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.
The focus this time: Whichever party controls the White House when it comes will suffer for it.
First, a little ironic mood music:
Carrying on…
Can’t exactly create economic prosperity with tax money when there isn’t much there left to tax, like in Minneapolis.
“Commercial real estate bears a disproportionate share of the city’s fiscal burden. As those values decline dramatically, the short-term fix will be increasing residential property taxes. That will reduce residential real estate values, and drive more upper-income residents out of the city. Which could turn into a financial death spiral.
“Why are Minneapolis’s problems so acute? Because of crime. Formerly a low-crime city, the George Floyd riots and accompanying attacks on law enforcement have caused a dramatic increase in the rate of serious crime. That has caused businesses, as well as individuals, to avoid the city. With leases continuing to expire, there is no reason to think the downward trends have bottomed out.
“The City of Minneapolis, meanwhile, is exploring ways of redeveloping George Floyd Square in a manner that will, in the mayor’s words, ‘honor the life of George Floyd, and point toward a more equitable future.‘”’ Somehow, I don’t think that is the focus that the city needs if it is to recover economically.”
One of the more insidious assaults on Western Civilization is the attack on science and scientific expertise. Sometimes this done by a direct assault that not only posits the validity of anti-science “ways of knowing” and the rights and freedoms that allowed scientific innovation to flourish, but also the demand that medicine and space be “decolonized”. Other times this is done by subversion of substitution, specifically painting things like mysticism and animism as “science”. The incorporation of these non-Western “ways of knowing” is a wolf in sheep’s clothing amongst us. And that incorporation is woke.
“My drive is to make science a safe, equitable, inclusive space that’s accessible for everyone. The content we teach in chemistry or biochemistry is all in a Western context. I’m trying to work out how we can share the discoveries other people and cultures have made, so science isn’t taught through just one lens.
“I wanted to build a curriculum that creates an accessible experience and builds a sense of belonging in science, technology, engineering and mathematics while respecting cultural perspectives. In Western science, humans are organized at the top of systems, whereas my Indigenous world view has interconnectedness at its centre.
“When teaching chemistry, I try to include an engaging story. For example, what were the thought processes and experiments used to first identity subatomic particles? There are also Indigenous world views on how we perceive the Big Bang that I share. With Naomi Lee, a biochemist at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, I co-wrote The Chemistry and Culture Workbook for the Reformed Experimental Activities (REActivities) programme, a redesigned chemistry curriculum with a more student-driven, inclusive approach. It incorporates Indigenous knowledge in chemistry with laboratory experiments to follow along.
“Outside the classroom, I’m interested in finding the unique mentoring styles that serve our students best. The lived experiences I’ve had guide what I share with students and how I bring perspectives to spaces that other people don’t have a chance to share. Maybe I will be able to loosen my DEI and antiracism focus a bit when more faculty members are open-minded, or when the US National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation are allowing more creativity in grants and when lab spaces become more inclusive. For now, there are some places where I will not give a talk because I don’t think they’re inclusive. My work isn’t going to change them; it has to come from a higher institutional level.”
Pictured: The application of indigenous wisdom?
Transgenderism is a rejection of biological reality and of genetic truth. The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) is open to female decedents by blood of Patriots who contributed to the Revolutionary cause in the American War of Independence. So, of course, transgender interests are trying to allow men in.
1/ Sexually confused men are invading yet another women’s group. It's perhaps their most absurd target yet: a group grounded in genetics, the Daughters of the American Revolution. Happily, members are channeling the rebellious spirit of their forebears and fighting back. 🧵
— Michael Knowles (@michaeljknowles) September 23, 2024
2/ DAR bylaws have always been clear. It’s for the daughters—female descendants—of Revolutionary patriots. As a genealogical organization, DAR takes biological integrity so seriously that only biological descendants—i.e., not adopted family members—are eligible for membership. pic.twitter.com/sYpwOm6PN9
— Michael Knowles (@michaeljknowles) September 23, 2024
3/ A small group of the DAR’s leadership now appears to believe that men can be women. They even contend that such men have always been allowed in the DAR.
— Michael Knowles (@michaeljknowles) September 23, 2024
4/ According to an internal FAQ document, members are expected to pretend that “transgender women” have always been eligible and that their inclusion took place “organically,” as if implicit in bylaws written before “transgenderism” was even thought to exist. pic.twitter.com/Q1iYYK6BTn
— Michael Knowles (@michaeljknowles) September 23, 2024
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