Tag: Stupid people

Ummmm Okay

Government Thugs

Here’s a headline that’s supposed to evoke a response from me, but I don’t think my response is the one they’re looking for:

DHS says more than 300 TSA agents have quit since start of shutdown

I know, I know:  I’m supposed to get all upset that the filthy socialists in Congress have blocked funding for the Department of Homeland Security.

However, my hostility towards the TSfuckingA goes back pretty much  to its post-9/11 panic foundation.

So my feelings run more towards this response:

When it comes to abolishing transparent Security Theater and government bullying, put me at the head of the line of supporters.

And by the way:  I have fairly similar feelings about the entire Homeland Security department.

Irrelevant

Friday Feature, The Worst

I said a long time ago that I am not interested in hearing anything said by Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, and here’s a good reason to add Megyn Kelly to make a list of the Three Worst.

I’ve come to loathe the appellation of “influencer” because the problem with being one of these vacuous fools is that (if they’re collecting money for their opinions, as most are) whether they’re being contrary or else sycophantic, there’s always a motive for those opinions:  the more outrageous, the more attention they get, the more cash flows their way.

Well, good for them.  There’s nothing wrong with being a pimp after all, because all you’re doing is bringing a product to the attention of the market.  Of course, I don’t have to buy the product, but some people are quite in thrall to said blandishments.

And as Scott Pinsker points out in the above linked article, other people — in this case, the liberal media — have an ulterior motive to pimp the pimps, because in this particular case Carlson, Owens and Kelly are pushing an agenda that happens to coincide with that of the liberal media — i.e. trying to split up the MAGA movement.  Even though I don’t go along with this, I will at least acknowledge that it’s an acceptable tactic:  a fractured enemy is always easier to defeat than a cohesive one.

The point is that I don’t trust the motives of these three foul influencers, because in the end, whatever they say is all about drawing attention to themselves and not necessarily coming from principle.  In Carlson’s case, I’m fairly certain that someone else is actually deciding what it is that he has to say because from what I can gather, some of his sponsors look extremely dubious (in a bad way).

Whatever.  Frankly, I think that if money is the issue — and Carlson seems to have that nailed down — Owens and Kelly should consider an OnlyFans presence because their opinions are fucking worthless.

Null Set

History

From that Yglesias twat:

Name one.

Seriously.  I have studied Nazi Germany extensively for well over half a century — both as an amateur historian* and as a serious student (as part of my Western Civ major) — and I’ve yet to come up with a single Nazi “idea” that can be called good.

And I don’t accept the red herring about aeronautics and blitzkrieg, for instance.  Those were engineering and military ideas conceived by Germans, not Nazis;  and in many if not most cases, they predate the NDSAP’s assumption of power in 1933.

If you exclude any “good” Nazi ideas that weren’t related to making war, propaganda or genocide more efficient, or furthering the Nazis’ obsession with race, you’re not going to find any.

Ich habe Dachau gesehen.

Oh, and please don’t even think of the “medical advances” made by using concentration camp inmates as guinea pigs, because that just turns my stomach.  Ditto the “miracle” of keeping their industrial centers going despite the Allied bombing, which they achieved only through extensive use of slave labor.

So as a piece of provocative writing, Yglesias’s little statement is cute — but it’s also specious.  The Nazis had no good ideas, and to even suggest they did is either malicious or moronic.

*I first read Shirer’s Rise And Fall back when I was in high school, and have re-read it maybe a dozen times since.  Ditto works from Erich Manstein and a host of other military figures.  Even that slimy little shit Albert Speer’s Inside The Third Reich  has been on my bookshelf.  And the lasting impression from all of them is that the Nazis were absolutely hopeless, at everything.

Canceled Entertainment

Drive Time, Sports

Great moments in bad timing, #435:

Formula 1 is going to have to cancel the two Grand Prix races in April, because the venues (Bahrain and Saudi Arabia) have become an unwitting victim of Operation Kick Shi’a Iranian Ass.

This sucks big time….

…although strictly speaking it serves F1 right because they should never have given the Arabs so many Grands Prix in the first place.

The races can’t be rescheduled because the calendar is full and there’s no room at the inn.

But in the grand scheme of things, it’s irrelevant because the new “formula” in Formula 1 has turned the races into even more boring spectacles than they were before, which is saying something.

I have a simple fix for their “boring” problem, by the way (although they won’t want to hear it):

Ditch those pathetic half-Duracell / half-tiny-turbo engines (1500cc?  WTF?) and replace them with gasoline-powered 2.5-litre V16s, screaming their lungs out and deafening spectators at 18,000rpm.  And let the drivers drive, instead of forcing them to be battery-power managers.

And then I’ll show you all around my unicorn garden.

Quote Of The Day

QOTD, Wars & Other Fun Games

From this guy, talking about the Iranian Ass-Kicking Exercise and BritPM Starmer’s reaction thereto:

“Progressive realism has met reality: when the chips are down, nobody cares about international law; nobody cares about tolerance and diversity; nobody cares about human rights; nobody cares about doing the right thing. They care about winning.”

Yup.  It works at both the macro- and micro levels, btw.  (see:  Righteous Shootings)

Lockdown / Shutdown

Education, Plagues and Poxes

I know that this is just stating the obvious, but here it is anyway:

Babies born during the COVID-19 pandemic are ‘falling behind’ on key milestones including talking and crawling because of a lack of social interaction, early learning staff and scientists have warned.

Studies have also revealed children born after March 2020 are less likely to be able to vocalize than their peers were at this age, and are yet to develop social skills such as sharing and waiting their turn — leading to more fights.

Scientists suggest a lack of social contact with family and relatives due to restrictions is behind the shift.

The long-term impact of the pandemic on children is not yet clear, but experts have warned keeping children away from their peers for so long with lockdowns is bound to have harmed their development.

Look, I’m not remotely an expert on this stuff, but it’s a well-known fact that childhood learning (particularly during the early years) requires continuous stimulation — and by “continuous” I mean uninterrupted.

While it is generally acknowledged that children’s brains are absolute sponges when it comes to learning, it is also true (to continue the metaphor) that letting the sponge dry out during the process, even for short periods of time, can affect its absorption capacity.  And once that is lost, there is no recovery of the ability.

So for the (dubious) purpose of saving a few lives, an entire group of children has been irremediably harmed.

A paper published in JAMA in January this year that looked at 225 children born in 2020 revealed babies were less likely to be crawling and smiling at themselves in a mirror within six months. It also showed they had reduced social and problem solving skills.

And a UK-based survey of teachers released last month found those teaching children in the early grades were now seeing more biting and hitting in the classroom than previously.  [New Wife reports the same from her preschool, incidentally]

British-based charity Ofsted has also suggested in a report that after reviewing more than 280 educational settings, children are struggling with basic skills such as writing and speaking in the wake of the pandemic.

They said some teachers even said they had seen youngsters lack confidence in group activities, and struggle to share and take turns.

Similarly, Brown University scientists, who assessed 1,000 children, found there was a 23 percent dive in ‘pandemic’ babies scores in three cognitive tests.

Any time in the future that the Panic Purveyor Set (e.g. Fauci) suggests that we isolate ourselves in the Covid-19 manner, we should set about them with baseball / cricket bats (apply according to national preference).

For the children.