What is the longest sentence in the English language?
Life in prison.
*.*
My wife just gave birth today and after thanking the doctor, I pulled him aside and sheepishly asked, "How soon do you think we'll be able to have sex?"
He winked at me and said: “I’m off duty in 10 minutes."
*.*
The pro wrestling world was rocked last week when a new challenger arrived on the WWE circuit weighing in at 890 pounds, possessing 10 inch claws, and the strength to crush bones into gelatin. “He calls himself ‘the Grizzly’ and he is unlike any other wrestler anyone in the WWE has ever come up against,” said wrestler Seth Rollins from his hospital bed after a brief run-in with the massive opponent. What makes the Grizzly so unique? He is a trans-grizzly bear; the man recently decided to identify as human after being born an Alaskan grizzly bear. Along with his new identity, he has embraced his dream of becoming a champion human pro wrestler.
“The Grizzly has stated that his preferred pronouns are he/him/human and so we are going to respect that,” said A.J. Styles, wincing in pain as doctors attempted to realign his spine — another victim of the Grizzly’s punishment.
The Grizzly has torn apart his competition, sometimes literally. There are few remaining wrestlers left who are even willing to attempt a match against him. “He’ll be our star wrestler by, oh I’d say around seven thirty tonight when he gets the championship belt,” said WWE owner Vince McMahon.
“It’s really inspiring to see someone embrace their true self and find victory, not only in the sport they love, but over their own issues with identity,” said wrestler Randy Orton just before going in to have both of his shattered legs amputated. “Good on him."
*.*
A gorilla at the San Diego Zoo recently underwent cataract surgery. It obviously has better health insurance than I do.
I'm trying to get more excited about the upcoming Seattle Mariners season. Only team in baseball where the obstructed view seats cost more.
Naked photos of Harvey Weinstein were shown to jurors in his trial. The judge had to finally yell out, "Mr. Weinstein, put those away!"
At first, I thought I was just in a bad mood. But several years later, I realize that this is just who I am.
Forget kale. What are Keith Richards and Betty White eating?
Frank Lloyd Wright's Architecture School is going to close after 88 years. And not by design.
A new study says that the average American will spend around 21% of their life watching, "The Irishman."
*.*
"You're beautiful and I love you," I yelled as I stood alone on the cliff.
My echo replied, "I just want to be friends."
Quote of the Times;
If you show up with prostrate cancer and you’re 95 years old, we should say go and enjoy, you’ve had a long life, there’s no cure and we can’t do anything. If you’re a young person, we should do something about it. – Bloomberg
Link of the Times;
https://reclaimthenet.org/apple-rejects-freedom-of-expression/
Issue of the Times;
Hey, Democrats: Here’s the Price I Paid for your Socialist Dream by Enrique Padron
American Democrats are pining ever more loudly for socialism these days, for “free” education, “free” health care and much else.
Let me tell you about socialism as I lived it under the Fidel Castro regime.
The house where I was born in Communist Cuba had a dirt floor, a bathroom hole-in-the-ground, which we shared with six other families, and a zinc roof that left us unbearably hot in the summer and shivering in the winter.
We had no running water, no refrigerator and no door in the back of the house. We cooked with charcoal. My mother raised four boys by herself in that “house,” working 12 hours a day to earn 160 Cuban pesos, or approximately $6, a month.
Why didn’t we fix it? In addition to the meager income, we had no access to hardware stores to buy nails or cement to fix our humble house. In fact, the local member of the ¬National Assembly was the only person authorized to approve whether we could buy a bag of cement or a roll of roof paper — if they were available.
We couldn’t buy these simple materials without that precious piece of paper. Can you imagine going to your congressional representative to ask for permission to buy a box of nails? Or roof tiles? Or roof paper? It seems unthinkable in the United States. But in Cuba, where we lacked the ¬necessities of life, we had to. And when we complained, the authorities scolded us to be grateful for free education and free health care.
In Cuba, it is illegal to speak against the government or complain about living conditions. We were prohibited from speaking with local media, but the journalists were state employees and wouldn’t publish our stories anyway. We couldn’t ¬express our unmet needs and were reminded that we shouldn’t complain anyway, ¬because we were promised — you guessed it — free education and free health care.
In Cuba, doctors make the equivalent of 25 cents an hour and teachers 21 cents an hour. Pharmacists earn eight cents an hour.
In Cuba, there is no right to free speech and virtually no ¬independent media.
There are no free, fair, multiparty elections. In fact, there is just one political party (Communist), and only members of the Communist Party may run as candidates for any ¬office. But we were told we couldn’t object to this system, lest we lose our free education and free health care.
Two of my brothers were sent to fight in Angola when I was a boy. After years of risking their lives for a strange cause, they came back to Cuba to find out that their mother and little brother were living under worse conditions than before they left. They learned that the promise of going to another country to fight for the “big, beautiful future of socialism” was just a big lie.
In Cuba, if you dare to yell something true — like “Fidel and Raul are dictators!” — you could spend many years in prison. Dictatorship is another price we had to pay for free education and free health care.
I desperately needed something more than the promises of free education and free health care. I knew that I needed freedom — freedom to speak my mind and vote my conscience. It was worth the risk of being eaten by sharks than to continue living a life with no purpose and no freedom.
On August 16, 1994, I decided to get into a boat with 20 other Cubans in search of a future.
One of my two brothers followed me to the United States, also in a raft, nearly dying of thirst and hunger during the journey. My other brother is still awaiting the visa I filed for him.
Throughout their ordeals, my brothers have been promised free education and free health care.
After arriving in the United States, I worked as an international sales manager, owned a restaurant, hosted a radio program and authored two books. Today, I work for a member of Congress. None of those opportunities would have been possible for me in socialist Cuba.
I wish that one day I might have a conversation with some of these young American socialists, who have no experience with actually existing socialism. They like to think they can have democracy and a socialist economy. But everywhere it’s been implemented, public ownership of the means of production has led to political repression.
Not least in my native Cuba, with its promises of “free” cradle-to-grave services.
I chose so much more than the promise of “free.” I chose freedom.
News of the Times;
https://theintercept.com/2019/06/04/ginni-thomas-trump-conservative-group/
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2020/02/how-interpreter-scam-brought-75000.html
https://dailyheadlines.com/obamas-rebels-snap-selfie-with-captured-little-boy-before-they-behead-him-2/
https://rightwingtribune.com/2019/10/10/trump-just-signed-media/
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2020/02/australia-muslima-writes-from-prison-about-beautiful-beheadings-of-infidels-is-set-free
https://www.lifenews.com/2020/02/25/baby-born-alive-at-23-weeks-gasped-for-air-abortion-clinic-threw-the-baby-in-a-biohazard-bag/
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/radical-islamist-officials-find-home-in-white-house/
https://www.unz.com/sbpdl/her-name-is-madison-harris-white-teenager-murdered-by-five-blacks-in-biloxi-mississippi/
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/02/harvard_virtuesignals_doj_brief_finds_that_45_of_its_black_and_latino_applicants_got_in_on_race.html#ixzz6F4tN4icw
https://www.theepochtimes.com/trump-administration-starts-enforcing-public-charge-immigration-rule_3249047.html
https://caldronpool.com/twitter-says-pedophiles-are-permitted-to-discuss-attraction-towards-minors-and-share-some-depictions-of-nude-children/
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/02/23/bernie-sanders-fidel-castro-wasnt-so-bad/
https://sportsgalahub.com/2020/02/25/chuck-schumer-slams-president-trump-its-racist-to-only-allow-citizens-to-vote-2/
https://thedcpatriot.com/new-cbs-poll-shows-most-voters-expect-trump-will-be-reelected/
https://www.wlbt.com/2020/02/25/eight-elected-officials-announce-party-switch-join-mississippi-republican-party/
Dream?
Disappeared?
A man in a motel called for a prostitute.
The pimp replied, "$50 for an ugly one, $500 for a pretty one."
The man wanted an ugly one.
She arrived and undressed herself and was told to sit naked on the sofa overnight.
In the morning, she asked "Why did you call me to come here? "
He replied, "There are too many mosquitoes here."
*.*
Former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein will spend a minimum of five years in jail after being found guilty of two charges of third-degree rape.
A warden quickly tapped up Weinstein to become the lead producer of the prison’s popular theatre troupe ‘The Sure Shank Players’.
‘Harvey has so much experience with being a movie producer that we thought this would be an excellent role for him,’ the warden told us.
However, upon hearing who their new producer would be, every single actor left the group, forcing it to disband.
"As much as I love acting, I have standards," said one prisoner.
While another told us: "I’ll be damned if I have to audition in front of that pervert in just his robe."
Weinstein could now be forced to work kitchen duty, where he’d be expected to peel potatoes and toss a lot of salad.
*.*
Responding to his owner Matt affectionately calling him a “good boy” for fetching a stick, local Calvinist canine Rupert reportedly reminded him that “according to the Scriptures, nobody is a good boy.”
“We’ve been over this, Matt. We’re all corrupted—every one of us,” Rupert reportedly said to his owner after stopping mid-stride to address the glaring theological error. “How can you call me a good boy when we have all been marred by the effects of sin?”
According to witnesses, the dog went on to lecture his owner for several hours, stressing how easy it is to forget who we really are in light of God’s blinding holiness and our desperately fallen nature.
*.*
An Englishman and an Irishman go to a bakery. The Englishman steals three buns and puts them into his pockets and leaves. He says to the Irishman: “That took great skill and guile to steal those buns. The owner didn’t even see me.”
“That’s just simple thievery,” the Irishman replied. “I’ll show you how to do it the honest way and get the same results.”
The Irishman then proceeded to call out the owner of the bakery and says: “Sir, I want to show you a magic trick.” The owner was intrigued so he came over to see the magic trick.
The Irishman asked him for a bun and then he proceeded to eat it. He asked two more times and after eating them again the owner says: “Okay my friend, where’s the magic trick?”
The Irishman then said: “Look in the Englishman’s pockets.”
*.*
A priest, a minister and a rabbit walk into a blood bank
The rabbit says I might be a type o.
Quote of the Times;
“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.” - Frankl
Link of the Times;
https://www.westernjournal.com/god-help-us-41-dem-senators-vote-protecting-already-born-babies-legally-murdered/
Issue of the Times;
Milwaukee Mass Shooter is a Black Elizabeth Warren Supporter by Paul Joseph Watson
Wow, this disappeared from the discussion quickly.
The Milwaukee man who killed five co-workers at a beer company’s corporate office is a black Elizabeth Warren supporter, providing a clue as to why the mass shooting disappeared from the discussion so quickly.
51-year-old Anthony Ferrill showed up at the MillerCoors facility from where he had been fired earlier in the day wearing his uniform and carrying a silenced gun.
He proceeded to gun down five colleagues before turning the weapon on himself.
It subsequently emerged that Ferrill was an African-American Elizabeth Warren supporter (presuming that Ferrill shared the same political beliefs as his wife, who took a selfie with Warren at a rally last year).
“Ferrill’s wife posted photos of her family and expressing liberal political views,” confirms Heavy.com. “In July 2019, Ferrill’s wife attended a speech by U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren at South Division High School Gym in Milwaukee. Following the speech, Ferrill’s wife took a photo with the Massachusetts senator.”
Despite being the worst mass shooting in Wisconsin’s history, the incident has largely disappeared from headlines and discussion, with online outrage noticeably dampened in comparison with other mass shootings.
“I hope it’s clear to everyone that if political capital can’t be made off a tragedy it will get memoryholed faster than the Jussie Smollett hoax,” commented one Twitter user.
If the culprit had been white, one suspects the media and Democrat politicians would be talking about white supremacy and gun control all week, but they seem oddly reserved on this occasion.
News of the Times;
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/british-politicians-covered-child-sex-abuse-decades-200226095332809.html
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/02/infowars-crew-member-attacked-and-left-bloodied-by-crazed-leftists-at-bernie-sanders-rally/
https://hermancain.com/bloomberg-accidentally-admits-bought-house-reps-rein-trump
https://humansarefree.com/2020/02/in-2020-more-people-are-enslaved-on-earth-than-ever-before-in-human-history-1-in-4-are-children.html
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/hillary-clinton-harvey-weinstein-contributed-to-every-democrats-campaign
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2217286/Global-warming-stopped-16-years-ago-reveals-Met-Office-report-quietly-released--chart-prove-it.html
https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/natural-gas-is-crushing-wind-and-solar-power-why-isnt-anyone-talking-about-it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbmYWmgDZ64
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/02/24/30-injured-after-car-deliberately-driven-into-germany-carnival-parade/
https://www.infowars.com/white-lives-dont-matter-signs-appear-in-canadian-city-media-ignores/
https://www.conservativedailynews.com/2018/02/obama-hillarys-16-year-plan-destroy-america/
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/02/guilty-as-charged-schumer-admits-to-spending-over-8600-on-cheesecake/
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2020/02/sweden-muslim-migrants-brutally-beat-swedish-girl-stomp-on-her-head-one-screams-kill-her-i-swear-to-allah
https://www.axios.com/trump-memos-deep-state-white-house-ce5be95f-2418-433d-b036-2bf41c9700c3.html
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ohio-democrat-tried-to-trade-votes-for-cash-could-get-50-years-in-prison-authorities-say
The pimp replied, "$50 for an ugly one, $500 for a pretty one."
The man wanted an ugly one.
She arrived and undressed herself and was told to sit naked on the sofa overnight.
In the morning, she asked "Why did you call me to come here? "
He replied, "There are too many mosquitoes here."
*.*
Former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein will spend a minimum of five years in jail after being found guilty of two charges of third-degree rape.
A warden quickly tapped up Weinstein to become the lead producer of the prison’s popular theatre troupe ‘The Sure Shank Players’.
‘Harvey has so much experience with being a movie producer that we thought this would be an excellent role for him,’ the warden told us.
However, upon hearing who their new producer would be, every single actor left the group, forcing it to disband.
"As much as I love acting, I have standards," said one prisoner.
While another told us: "I’ll be damned if I have to audition in front of that pervert in just his robe."
Weinstein could now be forced to work kitchen duty, where he’d be expected to peel potatoes and toss a lot of salad.
*.*
Responding to his owner Matt affectionately calling him a “good boy” for fetching a stick, local Calvinist canine Rupert reportedly reminded him that “according to the Scriptures, nobody is a good boy.”
“We’ve been over this, Matt. We’re all corrupted—every one of us,” Rupert reportedly said to his owner after stopping mid-stride to address the glaring theological error. “How can you call me a good boy when we have all been marred by the effects of sin?”
According to witnesses, the dog went on to lecture his owner for several hours, stressing how easy it is to forget who we really are in light of God’s blinding holiness and our desperately fallen nature.
*.*
An Englishman and an Irishman go to a bakery. The Englishman steals three buns and puts them into his pockets and leaves. He says to the Irishman: “That took great skill and guile to steal those buns. The owner didn’t even see me.”
“That’s just simple thievery,” the Irishman replied. “I’ll show you how to do it the honest way and get the same results.”
The Irishman then proceeded to call out the owner of the bakery and says: “Sir, I want to show you a magic trick.” The owner was intrigued so he came over to see the magic trick.
The Irishman asked him for a bun and then he proceeded to eat it. He asked two more times and after eating them again the owner says: “Okay my friend, where’s the magic trick?”
The Irishman then said: “Look in the Englishman’s pockets.”
*.*
A priest, a minister and a rabbit walk into a blood bank
The rabbit says I might be a type o.
Quote of the Times;
“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.” - Frankl
Link of the Times;
https://www.westernjournal.com/god-help-us-41-dem-senators-vote-protecting-already-born-babies-legally-murdered/
Issue of the Times;
Milwaukee Mass Shooter is a Black Elizabeth Warren Supporter by Paul Joseph Watson
Wow, this disappeared from the discussion quickly.
The Milwaukee man who killed five co-workers at a beer company’s corporate office is a black Elizabeth Warren supporter, providing a clue as to why the mass shooting disappeared from the discussion so quickly.
51-year-old Anthony Ferrill showed up at the MillerCoors facility from where he had been fired earlier in the day wearing his uniform and carrying a silenced gun.
He proceeded to gun down five colleagues before turning the weapon on himself.
It subsequently emerged that Ferrill was an African-American Elizabeth Warren supporter (presuming that Ferrill shared the same political beliefs as his wife, who took a selfie with Warren at a rally last year).
“Ferrill’s wife posted photos of her family and expressing liberal political views,” confirms Heavy.com. “In July 2019, Ferrill’s wife attended a speech by U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren at South Division High School Gym in Milwaukee. Following the speech, Ferrill’s wife took a photo with the Massachusetts senator.”
Despite being the worst mass shooting in Wisconsin’s history, the incident has largely disappeared from headlines and discussion, with online outrage noticeably dampened in comparison with other mass shootings.
“I hope it’s clear to everyone that if political capital can’t be made off a tragedy it will get memoryholed faster than the Jussie Smollett hoax,” commented one Twitter user.
If the culprit had been white, one suspects the media and Democrat politicians would be talking about white supremacy and gun control all week, but they seem oddly reserved on this occasion.
News of the Times;
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/british-politicians-covered-child-sex-abuse-decades-200226095332809.html
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/02/infowars-crew-member-attacked-and-left-bloodied-by-crazed-leftists-at-bernie-sanders-rally/
https://hermancain.com/bloomberg-accidentally-admits-bought-house-reps-rein-trump
https://humansarefree.com/2020/02/in-2020-more-people-are-enslaved-on-earth-than-ever-before-in-human-history-1-in-4-are-children.html
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/hillary-clinton-harvey-weinstein-contributed-to-every-democrats-campaign
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2217286/Global-warming-stopped-16-years-ago-reveals-Met-Office-report-quietly-released--chart-prove-it.html
https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/natural-gas-is-crushing-wind-and-solar-power-why-isnt-anyone-talking-about-it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbmYWmgDZ64
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/02/24/30-injured-after-car-deliberately-driven-into-germany-carnival-parade/
https://www.infowars.com/white-lives-dont-matter-signs-appear-in-canadian-city-media-ignores/
https://www.conservativedailynews.com/2018/02/obama-hillarys-16-year-plan-destroy-america/
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/02/guilty-as-charged-schumer-admits-to-spending-over-8600-on-cheesecake/
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2020/02/sweden-muslim-migrants-brutally-beat-swedish-girl-stomp-on-her-head-one-screams-kill-her-i-swear-to-allah
https://www.axios.com/trump-memos-deep-state-white-house-ce5be95f-2418-433d-b036-2bf41c9700c3.html
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ohio-democrat-tried-to-trade-votes-for-cash-could-get-50-years-in-prison-authorities-say
Military?
My friend is a Jehova’s Witness.
He got pissed when trying to tell me a knock knock joke and I ignored him.
*.*
Knock Knock.
Who's there?
Dishes.
Dishes who?
Dishes Sean Connery.
*.*
An Irishman in Dublin walks into the bar for the first time.
He orders three pints of Guinness and sits in the back room of the bar, drinking a sip out of each one of the pints in turn.
When he finishes the three pints he heads back up to the bar and orders three more pints. The bartender tells the man that the beer would be fresher if he ordered one pint at a time.
The man replies, "Well, you see, sir, I have two brothers. One is in America, one is in Australia, and I am the only one still here, in Dublin. As we all left to go our separate ways we promised that we'd drink this way to remember the nice days that we had and the times we drank together."
The bartender nods approvingly and before long the man becomes a regular at that bar, always drinking in the same manner: three separate pints, and drinking them in turn.
One day in late February the man comes into the bar and orders only two pints.
The bartender and the other regulars notice the missing pint and speculating on its significance, become silent. When the man returns for the second round, the bartender says, "I don't want to interrupt you in your time of sorrow, but since you are such a faithful customer, I feel that I should offer my condolences."
The man looks momentarily confused then says, "Oh no, that's not it, there's no cause for grief, laddie. It's jest me, I've given' up drinking."
*.*
The bride came down the aisle and when she reached the altar, the groom was standing there with his golf bag and clubs at his side.
She said:" What are your golf clubs doing here"?
He looked her right in the eye and said, "This isn't going to take all day, is it?"
*.*
What do you call a bunch of homosexuals on fire?
LGBBQ
Quote of the Times;
The older the fetus the more money to be made. Why do you think they are fighting for late term abortions?
Link of the Times;
https://infogalactic.com/info/Baizuo
Issue of the Times;
Leftist Ideology and the Corruption of the American Military by William Boyd
Liberal ideology holds the American military in a vice grip, squeezing the very lifeblood of warlike virtue from its veins. Nowhere is this spiritual corrosion more evident than in the integration of women into our armed forces. Like the Marxists before them, the contemporary Left dismisses reality out of hand. “Nature we will teach—and freedom we will reach.”
Winning wars be damned.
What follows is a compendium of my own personal observations as a Marine Corps officer, as well as an exploration of official policies that reveal the Leftist corruption of our military institutions.
Like academe and the mainstream media, the American military bows before the altar of political correctness, offering up sacrifices of its very being and purpose in order to satisfy this jealous god. The indoctrination into the sacred rites begins early in a marine’s career. For me, it started at The Basic School (TBS), the 6-month initial training for newly commissioned Marine Lieutenants. Throughout the course, the new officers attend a variety of social mixers with senior Captains and Majors in different occupational fields in order to discern which job they wish to be selected for at the end of the training.
The staff of TBS and the Infantry Officer Course (IOC) set aside one of these mixers for women and minorities only, so they could plead with these groups to join the combat arms—artillery, infantry, and tanks. While the staff fêted the “oppressed,” the white males returned to barracks to clean.
After the mixer, the Commanding Officer of IOC made an appeal to our class as a whole to join the infantry, while reiterating the need for women and non-whites as platoon commanders for the grunts. In his words, “Without diverse leadership that looks like America, future marines would not respect their officers.”
This kind of favoritism for “marginalized peoples” was manifest throughout my entire instruction. The treatment of women was especially egregious. Female marines rarely carried squad or platoon gear such as radios, machine guns, or batteries. They were more likely to fall out of hikes. Their injury rate was higher overall. During one hike, I witnessed a male Lieutenant, one of the largest in our platoon, carry not only his pack but that of a diminutive female officer who had been injured in the course of the march. While she limped along in tears, he plodded with her gear on top of his own in order to prevent her from falling out.
At one point, I witnessed a fellow officer holding the hand of one of his female peers during a hike in order to keep her with the platoon on a steep hill. On another occasion, two male officers physically stopped a female from falling out so that she would not fail the event. The Marine Corps is, quite literally, pushing women through some of its toughest physical training in order to ensure the “correct” level of diversity.
Basic School instructors, mine included, liked to say that in the Marine Corps “there is only one standard, the Marine Corps standard.” This is a lie. There are two standards: one for men and one for women. Thus, on the annual Physical Fitness Test, required of all marines, a perfect score for a 21-year-old male is 23 pull-ups, 110 crunches, and a 3-mile time of 18 minutes. For a female of the same age a perfect score is 9 pull-ups, 105 crunches, and a 3-mile time of 21 minutes.
Women also receive special benefits for family life. After giving birth, female marines receive 42 days of non-chargeable leave and can take an additional 12 weeks of maternity convalescent leave. “Secondary caregivers”—that is, fathers—only get 14 days. Female marines can take the 12 weeks of leave at any time in the year after giving birth. Although their duties are interrupted by taking leave, that cannot be used as a factor in determining whether women shall be promoted.
I am not unsympathetic to the needs of new mothers. The plain truth, however, is that women are utterly out of place in the military. Heather Mac Donald, in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, notes that:
In September 2015 the Marine Corps released a study comparing the performance of gender-integrated and male-only infantry units in simulated combat. The all-male teams greatly outperformed the integrated teams, whether on shooting, surmounting obstacles or evacuating casualties. Female Marines were injured at more than six times the rate of men during preliminary training - unsurprising, since men's higher testosterone levels produce stronger bones and muscles. Even the fittest women (which the study participants were) must work at maximal physical capacity when carrying a 100-pound pack or repeatedly loading heavy shells into a cannon.
Our tasks are demanding, and debasing the standards we must meet, including providing special treatment, is not in the national interest—rather the contrary. Further, though Mac Donald makes a strong case, the problems wrought by “gender equality” are even worse than she describes. For what passes for “gender equality” is frequently the opposite. One marine told me that he knew of a female counterpart who got promoted before he did even though he deployed repeatedly into combat in the Middle East, while the female never left her desk job back in the States. Female marines have their own grooming and uniform regulations. They can wear earrings, make-up, and nail polish in uniform. They are not required to cut their hair in the military style. Official policy allows them special uniforms, including those for pregnancy.
Not only does the Marine Corps bend over backwards to accommodate women in the ranks; it requires annual training on Equal Opportunity to ensure that all male marines develop the appropriate sensitivity toward their female counterparts. Battalions are required annually to fill out climate surveys that ask anonymously whether any marines have heard language deemed degrading or offensive to women and minorities.
First Lieutenant Virginia Brodie, one of the first female artillery officers in the Corps, demonstrates this zeal for language policing in her article for Task and Purpose, “Hey! You Shouldn’t Address A Bunch of Marines As ‘Gentlemen’ When the Group Includes Female Marines.” Brodie slams her former Battalion Commanding Officer for addressing a group of marines as “gentlemen” when females were present. Of course, for a Lieutenant to make such a public denunciation of a Lieutenant Colonel, and her own CO to boot, would usually be a career disaster. And yet, in the current climate, it was the Battalion Commander who might well have feared for his career. Improper deference is a sign of heresy. The Marine Corps has no room for the heterodox. As Brodie explains, “He knew I was there, but it seemed as if my presence was being disregarded. A commanding officer is responsible for setting the tone of the entire unit and, without words, he made women feel unwelcome.” A mortal sin indeed.
Dedication to political correctness and equality, says Brodie, demands that the vast majority of marines change not only the way they speak but also the way they think: “This year marks 100 years of women in the Marine Corps. For the marines who served their entire career in units with only men, the habit of only saying ‘gentlemen’ must be broken. Words matter.” Brodie’s strident feminism show why women should not be in the Marine Corps in the first place. She says that she feels “vulnerable” correcting men for not using the right language, going on to explain that she relies on her Platoon Sergeant—a man—to correct other men when she feels “powerless” and “disregarded.”
To repeat, this female officer is of such a moral fiber that she feels helpless when called by the wrong greeting. Our enemies surely quake at the news.
If only the Marine Corps cared as much about winning wars as it does about policing language—then we might actually have something to show for the last two decades of blood and treasure spent in the Middle East!
The double standards and censorship wrought by the Left evidence the corruption their ideology inflicts in our ranks. The Marine Corps, like the rest of the American military, no longer places winning wars and defending the nation at the top of its priorities. If it did, how can we explain the insistence on special privileges for an entire class of physically and spiritually inferior “warriors?”
Consider the effort required to place female sailors on the aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower in the 1990s. In his book Men, Women & War, Martin Van Creveld writes that on the first mixed gender cruise 39 women, 10% of the total amount, became pregnant. All of them had to be returned home via special flights. This trend continues today. Though the phenomena are rarely noted outside the military, those who have served at sea know only too well that both sex and pregnancy are common occurrences aboard naval vessels, as they are throughout the military. Sex and pregnancy, along with women’s greater healthcare needs in general, cost the military a good deal of money, with no gain in performance to justify it.
Such a state of affairs belies the supposed seriousness of our armed forces. As Van Creveld suggests in his book, the very presence of women throws into question the purpose of having such a large and expensive military at all. Since 1945, no two nuclear-armed powers have fought a conventional war. The possibility of annihilation makes such a conflict singularly undesirable. Thus, absent real necessity, America’s armed forces have become the playground of social justice. To argue America needs women to fill roles that men will not is patently absurd. This is not Germany in 1945, when 60-year-old men were forced into the Volksstrum to fight off ravaging hordes of Soviets. The attempt to shoehorn women into a naturally male profession is the result of ideological enthusiasm, not rational policymaking.
Despite the absence of conventional threats, the United States still faces the possibility of serious conflict. As our misbegotten adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrated, we can be defeated. By forcing women into a male domain, the Left eviscerates the culture of war so necessary to success in battle. How is the military supposed to concentrate on inculcating the necessary hardness of soul required to face death in war if it is more worried about ensuring female Lieutenants always feel included by public greetings?
The advent of the nuclear age did not spell the end of war. Conflict did not go away; it merely changed forms. Today, our wars are abroad. We can afford defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan. The 1st Taliban Camel Division is in no danger of seizing DC. But this relative peace shows signs of ending. The ongoing populist backlash in Western nations signals that the state itself faces a crisis of legitimacy.
This crisis, if not resolved, could lead to ruinous conflict. A Distant Mirror, Barbara Tuchman’s excellent study of 14th century France after its defeat at the Battle of Poitiers, gives historical precedence for what such a breakdown of social order might look like. If anarchy comes to our nation, the armed forces will be needed, not for foolish wars of empire around the globe, but to preserve America itself. With its slavish appeasement of “marginalized peoples,” women especially, our military has shown that it is unable to think clearly and confront serious threats.
If we do not reject the ideological insanity brewing in our military institutions, we may lose more than our martial virtue; we may lose America itself.
News of the Times;
http://stuartschneiderman.blogspot.com/2019/12/europes-humiliation.html
https://thefederalist.com/2017/06/09/bernie-sanders-doesnt-think-christians-fit-public-office/
https://www.borderreport.com/hot-topics/ice-defies-california-law-arrests-people-at-courthouse/
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/480968-gop-lawmaker-wants-us-to-commit-to-planting-33-billion-trees
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2020/02/france-120-knife-attacks-reported-per-day-linked-to-mass-muslim-migration
https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/san-fran-da-dismisses-18-felonies-against-man-caught-sex-trafficking-13-year-old-girl/
https://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/judaism/2004/12/did-the-exodus-really-happen.aspx
https://www.nraila.org/articles/20190329/breaking-federal-court-finds-california-magazine-ban-violates-the-second-amendment
https://www.foxnews.com/us/new-york-bail-reform-law-nyc-subway-thief-thanks-democrats-139th-arrest
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/02/indiana-university-holds-three-day-sex-fest-featuring-bdsm-demos-sex-toys-kink-workshop/
https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/sources-dhs-whistleblower-on-obama-administration-found-dead/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/o8x6gsb0wp/north_korea_prisoner_guard_escape
He got pissed when trying to tell me a knock knock joke and I ignored him.
*.*
Knock Knock.
Who's there?
Dishes.
Dishes who?
Dishes Sean Connery.
*.*
An Irishman in Dublin walks into the bar for the first time.
He orders three pints of Guinness and sits in the back room of the bar, drinking a sip out of each one of the pints in turn.
When he finishes the three pints he heads back up to the bar and orders three more pints. The bartender tells the man that the beer would be fresher if he ordered one pint at a time.
The man replies, "Well, you see, sir, I have two brothers. One is in America, one is in Australia, and I am the only one still here, in Dublin. As we all left to go our separate ways we promised that we'd drink this way to remember the nice days that we had and the times we drank together."
The bartender nods approvingly and before long the man becomes a regular at that bar, always drinking in the same manner: three separate pints, and drinking them in turn.
One day in late February the man comes into the bar and orders only two pints.
The bartender and the other regulars notice the missing pint and speculating on its significance, become silent. When the man returns for the second round, the bartender says, "I don't want to interrupt you in your time of sorrow, but since you are such a faithful customer, I feel that I should offer my condolences."
The man looks momentarily confused then says, "Oh no, that's not it, there's no cause for grief, laddie. It's jest me, I've given' up drinking."
*.*
The bride came down the aisle and when she reached the altar, the groom was standing there with his golf bag and clubs at his side.
She said:" What are your golf clubs doing here"?
He looked her right in the eye and said, "This isn't going to take all day, is it?"
*.*
What do you call a bunch of homosexuals on fire?
LGBBQ
Quote of the Times;
The older the fetus the more money to be made. Why do you think they are fighting for late term abortions?
Link of the Times;
https://infogalactic.com/info/Baizuo
Issue of the Times;
Leftist Ideology and the Corruption of the American Military by William Boyd
Liberal ideology holds the American military in a vice grip, squeezing the very lifeblood of warlike virtue from its veins. Nowhere is this spiritual corrosion more evident than in the integration of women into our armed forces. Like the Marxists before them, the contemporary Left dismisses reality out of hand. “Nature we will teach—and freedom we will reach.”
Winning wars be damned.
What follows is a compendium of my own personal observations as a Marine Corps officer, as well as an exploration of official policies that reveal the Leftist corruption of our military institutions.
Like academe and the mainstream media, the American military bows before the altar of political correctness, offering up sacrifices of its very being and purpose in order to satisfy this jealous god. The indoctrination into the sacred rites begins early in a marine’s career. For me, it started at The Basic School (TBS), the 6-month initial training for newly commissioned Marine Lieutenants. Throughout the course, the new officers attend a variety of social mixers with senior Captains and Majors in different occupational fields in order to discern which job they wish to be selected for at the end of the training.
The staff of TBS and the Infantry Officer Course (IOC) set aside one of these mixers for women and minorities only, so they could plead with these groups to join the combat arms—artillery, infantry, and tanks. While the staff fêted the “oppressed,” the white males returned to barracks to clean.
After the mixer, the Commanding Officer of IOC made an appeal to our class as a whole to join the infantry, while reiterating the need for women and non-whites as platoon commanders for the grunts. In his words, “Without diverse leadership that looks like America, future marines would not respect their officers.”
This kind of favoritism for “marginalized peoples” was manifest throughout my entire instruction. The treatment of women was especially egregious. Female marines rarely carried squad or platoon gear such as radios, machine guns, or batteries. They were more likely to fall out of hikes. Their injury rate was higher overall. During one hike, I witnessed a male Lieutenant, one of the largest in our platoon, carry not only his pack but that of a diminutive female officer who had been injured in the course of the march. While she limped along in tears, he plodded with her gear on top of his own in order to prevent her from falling out.
At one point, I witnessed a fellow officer holding the hand of one of his female peers during a hike in order to keep her with the platoon on a steep hill. On another occasion, two male officers physically stopped a female from falling out so that she would not fail the event. The Marine Corps is, quite literally, pushing women through some of its toughest physical training in order to ensure the “correct” level of diversity.
Basic School instructors, mine included, liked to say that in the Marine Corps “there is only one standard, the Marine Corps standard.” This is a lie. There are two standards: one for men and one for women. Thus, on the annual Physical Fitness Test, required of all marines, a perfect score for a 21-year-old male is 23 pull-ups, 110 crunches, and a 3-mile time of 18 minutes. For a female of the same age a perfect score is 9 pull-ups, 105 crunches, and a 3-mile time of 21 minutes.
Women also receive special benefits for family life. After giving birth, female marines receive 42 days of non-chargeable leave and can take an additional 12 weeks of maternity convalescent leave. “Secondary caregivers”—that is, fathers—only get 14 days. Female marines can take the 12 weeks of leave at any time in the year after giving birth. Although their duties are interrupted by taking leave, that cannot be used as a factor in determining whether women shall be promoted.
I am not unsympathetic to the needs of new mothers. The plain truth, however, is that women are utterly out of place in the military. Heather Mac Donald, in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, notes that:
In September 2015 the Marine Corps released a study comparing the performance of gender-integrated and male-only infantry units in simulated combat. The all-male teams greatly outperformed the integrated teams, whether on shooting, surmounting obstacles or evacuating casualties. Female Marines were injured at more than six times the rate of men during preliminary training - unsurprising, since men's higher testosterone levels produce stronger bones and muscles. Even the fittest women (which the study participants were) must work at maximal physical capacity when carrying a 100-pound pack or repeatedly loading heavy shells into a cannon.
Our tasks are demanding, and debasing the standards we must meet, including providing special treatment, is not in the national interest—rather the contrary. Further, though Mac Donald makes a strong case, the problems wrought by “gender equality” are even worse than she describes. For what passes for “gender equality” is frequently the opposite. One marine told me that he knew of a female counterpart who got promoted before he did even though he deployed repeatedly into combat in the Middle East, while the female never left her desk job back in the States. Female marines have their own grooming and uniform regulations. They can wear earrings, make-up, and nail polish in uniform. They are not required to cut their hair in the military style. Official policy allows them special uniforms, including those for pregnancy.
Not only does the Marine Corps bend over backwards to accommodate women in the ranks; it requires annual training on Equal Opportunity to ensure that all male marines develop the appropriate sensitivity toward their female counterparts. Battalions are required annually to fill out climate surveys that ask anonymously whether any marines have heard language deemed degrading or offensive to women and minorities.
First Lieutenant Virginia Brodie, one of the first female artillery officers in the Corps, demonstrates this zeal for language policing in her article for Task and Purpose, “Hey! You Shouldn’t Address A Bunch of Marines As ‘Gentlemen’ When the Group Includes Female Marines.” Brodie slams her former Battalion Commanding Officer for addressing a group of marines as “gentlemen” when females were present. Of course, for a Lieutenant to make such a public denunciation of a Lieutenant Colonel, and her own CO to boot, would usually be a career disaster. And yet, in the current climate, it was the Battalion Commander who might well have feared for his career. Improper deference is a sign of heresy. The Marine Corps has no room for the heterodox. As Brodie explains, “He knew I was there, but it seemed as if my presence was being disregarded. A commanding officer is responsible for setting the tone of the entire unit and, without words, he made women feel unwelcome.” A mortal sin indeed.
Dedication to political correctness and equality, says Brodie, demands that the vast majority of marines change not only the way they speak but also the way they think: “This year marks 100 years of women in the Marine Corps. For the marines who served their entire career in units with only men, the habit of only saying ‘gentlemen’ must be broken. Words matter.” Brodie’s strident feminism show why women should not be in the Marine Corps in the first place. She says that she feels “vulnerable” correcting men for not using the right language, going on to explain that she relies on her Platoon Sergeant—a man—to correct other men when she feels “powerless” and “disregarded.”
To repeat, this female officer is of such a moral fiber that she feels helpless when called by the wrong greeting. Our enemies surely quake at the news.
If only the Marine Corps cared as much about winning wars as it does about policing language—then we might actually have something to show for the last two decades of blood and treasure spent in the Middle East!
The double standards and censorship wrought by the Left evidence the corruption their ideology inflicts in our ranks. The Marine Corps, like the rest of the American military, no longer places winning wars and defending the nation at the top of its priorities. If it did, how can we explain the insistence on special privileges for an entire class of physically and spiritually inferior “warriors?”
Consider the effort required to place female sailors on the aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower in the 1990s. In his book Men, Women & War, Martin Van Creveld writes that on the first mixed gender cruise 39 women, 10% of the total amount, became pregnant. All of them had to be returned home via special flights. This trend continues today. Though the phenomena are rarely noted outside the military, those who have served at sea know only too well that both sex and pregnancy are common occurrences aboard naval vessels, as they are throughout the military. Sex and pregnancy, along with women’s greater healthcare needs in general, cost the military a good deal of money, with no gain in performance to justify it.
Such a state of affairs belies the supposed seriousness of our armed forces. As Van Creveld suggests in his book, the very presence of women throws into question the purpose of having such a large and expensive military at all. Since 1945, no two nuclear-armed powers have fought a conventional war. The possibility of annihilation makes such a conflict singularly undesirable. Thus, absent real necessity, America’s armed forces have become the playground of social justice. To argue America needs women to fill roles that men will not is patently absurd. This is not Germany in 1945, when 60-year-old men were forced into the Volksstrum to fight off ravaging hordes of Soviets. The attempt to shoehorn women into a naturally male profession is the result of ideological enthusiasm, not rational policymaking.
Despite the absence of conventional threats, the United States still faces the possibility of serious conflict. As our misbegotten adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrated, we can be defeated. By forcing women into a male domain, the Left eviscerates the culture of war so necessary to success in battle. How is the military supposed to concentrate on inculcating the necessary hardness of soul required to face death in war if it is more worried about ensuring female Lieutenants always feel included by public greetings?
The advent of the nuclear age did not spell the end of war. Conflict did not go away; it merely changed forms. Today, our wars are abroad. We can afford defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan. The 1st Taliban Camel Division is in no danger of seizing DC. But this relative peace shows signs of ending. The ongoing populist backlash in Western nations signals that the state itself faces a crisis of legitimacy.
This crisis, if not resolved, could lead to ruinous conflict. A Distant Mirror, Barbara Tuchman’s excellent study of 14th century France after its defeat at the Battle of Poitiers, gives historical precedence for what such a breakdown of social order might look like. If anarchy comes to our nation, the armed forces will be needed, not for foolish wars of empire around the globe, but to preserve America itself. With its slavish appeasement of “marginalized peoples,” women especially, our military has shown that it is unable to think clearly and confront serious threats.
If we do not reject the ideological insanity brewing in our military institutions, we may lose more than our martial virtue; we may lose America itself.
News of the Times;
http://stuartschneiderman.blogspot.com/2019/12/europes-humiliation.html
https://thefederalist.com/2017/06/09/bernie-sanders-doesnt-think-christians-fit-public-office/
https://www.borderreport.com/hot-topics/ice-defies-california-law-arrests-people-at-courthouse/
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/480968-gop-lawmaker-wants-us-to-commit-to-planting-33-billion-trees
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2020/02/france-120-knife-attacks-reported-per-day-linked-to-mass-muslim-migration
https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/san-fran-da-dismisses-18-felonies-against-man-caught-sex-trafficking-13-year-old-girl/
https://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/judaism/2004/12/did-the-exodus-really-happen.aspx
https://www.nraila.org/articles/20190329/breaking-federal-court-finds-california-magazine-ban-violates-the-second-amendment
https://www.foxnews.com/us/new-york-bail-reform-law-nyc-subway-thief-thanks-democrats-139th-arrest
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/02/indiana-university-holds-three-day-sex-fest-featuring-bdsm-demos-sex-toys-kink-workshop/
https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/sources-dhs-whistleblower-on-obama-administration-found-dead/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/o8x6gsb0wp/north_korea_prisoner_guard_escape
Accomplished?
What do a midget and a dwarf have in common?
Very little
*.*
Me; "Why did the chicken cross the road?"
8yo cousin; "To get to the idiot's house."
Me; "Oh..uh..yeah good one haha."
8yo cousin; "Wanna hear another one? Knock knock"
Me: "Who's there."
8yo cousin; "The chicken."
*.*
A 90 year-old Jew is on his deathbed. Summoning his last bit of strength, he lifts his head and whispers: "Is my beloved wife Sarah here with me?" And Sarah says, "Yes, I am here."
He then says: "Are my children - my wonderful children - are they here with me?" And they reply, "Yes father, we are here with you to see you breathe your last."
And he says: "Are my brothers and sisters here with me as well?" And they too tell him that they are here.
So the old man lays back quietly, closes his eyes, and says, "If everybody is here... why is the light on in the kitchen?"
*.*
My teenage son asked me if I ever fell in love with a high school teacher.
"In fact, I did. She was gorgeous! I couldn't take my eyes off of her! I dreamt of a life together with her day and night!"
"Wow! What happened with that, dad?" he excitedly asked.
"Your mom moved you to another school."
*.*
Lately my wife looks at me like I’m just a piece of meat.
And it wouldn’t bother me if she wasn’t a vegan.
Quote of the Times;
A man was sentenced to 15 years in prison after setting fire to an LGBTQ pride flag. Another man was granted bail after driving his van into a group of Donald Trump supporters in a Wal-Mart parking lot with the intent to cause bodily harm.
Link of the Times;
https://www.homesteadandprepper.com/preppers/
Issue of the Times;
Emissions Accomplished by Daniel John Sobieski
After three years of apocalyptic wailing and gnashing of environmentalist teeth over President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the job and economy killing Paris Climate Accord, it is ironic that the one country that faces the brunt of criticism from climate change zealots such as Greta Thunberg is leading the world and the European Union in lowering emissions and promoting cleaner energy, such as natural gas, all the while not hurting the economy:
Despite shrieks of terror from the left about how President Donald Trump’s presidency threatens the existence of Earth and thus mankind, the fact is that under his leadership, America continues to lead the world in total emissions decline.
“The United States saw the largest decline in energy-related CO2 emissions in 2019 on a country basis - a fall of 140 [million tons], or 2.9%, to 4.8 gigatons],” the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) revealed in a report Tuesday.
The entire European Union, which consists of 28 nations, meanwhile only lowered emissions by 160 million tons total, or roughly 5.71 mt per nation.
This achievement by the United States occurs amidst an economic boom led by President Trump's unshackling of the fossil fuel industry, including ending the war on coal. While the European Union achieves its reductions through draconian energy mandates and economic stagnation, the U.S. has unleashed hydraulic fracturing or fracking to produce abundant oil and natural gas, a fossil fuel that has made our emission reductions happen without laying waste to the economy with job-killing regulations as the Europeans have done and Democratic Socialists like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and, yes, Michael Bloomberg want to do.
After Fukushima, Germany turned its back on emission-free nuclear power, committing to a phase-out by 2022 But if the planet is really nearing extinction from climate change , isn’t the risk of an occasional, even rare, reactor leak worth preventing planetary doom? European energy policy is not risk-free, just plain stupid. As Drew Johnson notes in the Washington Examiner:
European countries have not had much success using regulation to fight climate change. Germany recently spent 150 billion euros on an aggressive campaign to lower emissions by mandating across-the-board fossil fuel reductions. As part of this quest for renewable energy, Germany foreswore cleaner-burning fossil fuels such as natural gas. But because solar and wind don't generate enough consistent power, this means that Germany must rely on coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, to generate 40% of its electricity. As a result, Germany is projected to fall short of nearly every national and European Union clean energy standard this year Germany's experience is typical for bureaucratic climate policies, and it stands in sharp contrast to the American experience. The U.S., though heavily criticized for not signing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, is curbing emissions today much faster than any country that actually did sign the agreement…
… U.S. carbon dioxide emissions have hit 30-year lows, even as global emissions have increased by 50% during the same period. And since 2005, natural gas has done more to reduce power sector dioxide emissions than all renewable energy sources combined, according to the Energy Information Administration.
The United States, with fracking and without the Paris Climate Accord, is leading the world in economic growth with wages that are rising fastest among lower incomes, soaring household median incomes, fatter pensions and 401-K retirement funds thanks to a Dow nearing 30,000, and record unemployment, especially among minorities, record labor force participation as millennials get off their parent’s basement couch and others that couldn’t find work under Obama’s environmental and regulatory straitjacket find jobs. Those who have jobs have no fear in looking for better ones, as we have more jobs than skilled applicants to fill them.
The 2020 Democrats would take all this away from us, including the record-setting emissions reductions. One gigaton is a lot of stuff and a number equivalent to the gigadollars Bernie et all would spend on climate change and free stuff.
Paying for anything without the economic growth and energy independence led by fracking, which Democrats would ban entirely, is impossible. All that would be left is economic desolation. A microcosm of the choice we face on November 2020 is seen in the northeastern United States, much of which sits astride the Marcellus Shale Formation, a layer of porous prehistoric rock from which fracking has produced abundant oil and emission-reducing natural gas.
Pennsylvania fracks, but not Bloomberg’s New York, Sanders’ Vermont, or Warren’s Massachusetts. New York is in economic decline while hemorrhaging population. Pennsylvania is enjoying a renaissance thanks to its embrace of fracking, but Democrats want to reduce Pennsylvania to economic rubble for the sake of the environment, destroying its shale oil boom:
In fact, it was shale development that carried Pennsylvania through the depths of the Great Recession at the turn of the last decade.
Hard-working Pennsylvanians realize energy savings of $1,100-$2,200 per household, according to Public Utility Commission data, as wholesale electricity and natural gas prices have plummeted thanks to our abundant supply.
As clean, domestic natural gas maintains its position as the largest electricity production source, carbon emissions tied to the power sector continue to fall, according to new federal data, soon to reach levels not seen since the Reagan administration. This sustained improvement in air quality has saved more than 26,000 lives since 2008, according to new University of California San Diego research.
Misinformed policy positions from some presidential candidates to ban the safe, responsible use of hydraulic fracturing are alarming. Should such a ban be enacted, more than 600,000 Pennsylvanians would be out of work and our state’s economic output would take a $261 billion hit, according to a U.S. Chamber of Commerce report. It is no wonder voters “fear the economic impact,” a Rasmussen Reports survey found, of such a ban.
Put Pennsylvania in the Trump column as Democrats seek to save the planet by killing the nation’s economy, a policy that will lead to electoral disaster.
Fracking doesn’t cause earthquakes but it does save lives by reducing emissions and it also saves jobs, families and their dreams Trump’s energy policies have produced a true green new deal - the green of dollars flowing into family bank accounts and retirement plans.
Wealthier societies are healthier societies and by relying on American technology and not liberal ideology we save both the environment and the economy.
News of the Times;
https://deathcas.es/
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/02/04/sweden-only-6-1-per-cent-new-migrants-non-subsidised-jobs-2019/
https://victorygirlsblog.com/women-should-never-vote-for-a-democrat-candidate/
https://www.inverse.com/science/nasa-brings-voyager-2-fully-back-online-11.5-billion-miles-from-earth?
https://nypost.com/2020/02/06/corey-feldman-says-pedophilia-is-hollywoods-biggest-problem-not-metoo/
https://www.theepochtimes.com/nearly-55-injunctions-against-trump-admin-since-president-took-office-doj_3223265.html
https://nationalfile.com/british-man-yusef-ali-throws-girl-off-balcony-for-rejecting-him-stabs-two-not-attempted-murder/
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/derek-h-burney-enough-is-enough-clear-the-blockades-restore-the-rule-of-law
https://www.illinoisreview.com/illinoisreview/2020/02/chicago-area-red-light-camera-company-sales-rep-indicted-in-bribery-conspiracy.html?
https://bigleaguepolitics.com/demographic-collapse-u-s-fertility-hits-all-time-low/
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/02/somali-community-leader-drops-bombshell-ilhan-omar-did-marry-her-brother-to-get-him-papers-to-keep-him-in-us/
https://archive.is/g85sz
https://taphaps.com/george-steward-fire-veteran/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVeDKuHPDK8&feature=youtu.be
https://www.spectator.com.au/2020/02/the-fury-of-the-left-explained/?
Very little
*.*
Me; "Why did the chicken cross the road?"
8yo cousin; "To get to the idiot's house."
Me; "Oh..uh..yeah good one haha."
8yo cousin; "Wanna hear another one? Knock knock"
Me: "Who's there."
8yo cousin; "The chicken."
*.*
A 90 year-old Jew is on his deathbed. Summoning his last bit of strength, he lifts his head and whispers: "Is my beloved wife Sarah here with me?" And Sarah says, "Yes, I am here."
He then says: "Are my children - my wonderful children - are they here with me?" And they reply, "Yes father, we are here with you to see you breathe your last."
And he says: "Are my brothers and sisters here with me as well?" And they too tell him that they are here.
So the old man lays back quietly, closes his eyes, and says, "If everybody is here... why is the light on in the kitchen?"
*.*
My teenage son asked me if I ever fell in love with a high school teacher.
"In fact, I did. She was gorgeous! I couldn't take my eyes off of her! I dreamt of a life together with her day and night!"
"Wow! What happened with that, dad?" he excitedly asked.
"Your mom moved you to another school."
*.*
Lately my wife looks at me like I’m just a piece of meat.
And it wouldn’t bother me if she wasn’t a vegan.
Quote of the Times;
A man was sentenced to 15 years in prison after setting fire to an LGBTQ pride flag. Another man was granted bail after driving his van into a group of Donald Trump supporters in a Wal-Mart parking lot with the intent to cause bodily harm.
Link of the Times;
https://www.homesteadandprepper.com/preppers/
Issue of the Times;
Emissions Accomplished by Daniel John Sobieski
After three years of apocalyptic wailing and gnashing of environmentalist teeth over President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the job and economy killing Paris Climate Accord, it is ironic that the one country that faces the brunt of criticism from climate change zealots such as Greta Thunberg is leading the world and the European Union in lowering emissions and promoting cleaner energy, such as natural gas, all the while not hurting the economy:
Despite shrieks of terror from the left about how President Donald Trump’s presidency threatens the existence of Earth and thus mankind, the fact is that under his leadership, America continues to lead the world in total emissions decline.
“The United States saw the largest decline in energy-related CO2 emissions in 2019 on a country basis - a fall of 140 [million tons], or 2.9%, to 4.8 gigatons],” the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) revealed in a report Tuesday.
The entire European Union, which consists of 28 nations, meanwhile only lowered emissions by 160 million tons total, or roughly 5.71 mt per nation.
This achievement by the United States occurs amidst an economic boom led by President Trump's unshackling of the fossil fuel industry, including ending the war on coal. While the European Union achieves its reductions through draconian energy mandates and economic stagnation, the U.S. has unleashed hydraulic fracturing or fracking to produce abundant oil and natural gas, a fossil fuel that has made our emission reductions happen without laying waste to the economy with job-killing regulations as the Europeans have done and Democratic Socialists like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and, yes, Michael Bloomberg want to do.
After Fukushima, Germany turned its back on emission-free nuclear power, committing to a phase-out by 2022 But if the planet is really nearing extinction from climate change , isn’t the risk of an occasional, even rare, reactor leak worth preventing planetary doom? European energy policy is not risk-free, just plain stupid. As Drew Johnson notes in the Washington Examiner:
European countries have not had much success using regulation to fight climate change. Germany recently spent 150 billion euros on an aggressive campaign to lower emissions by mandating across-the-board fossil fuel reductions. As part of this quest for renewable energy, Germany foreswore cleaner-burning fossil fuels such as natural gas. But because solar and wind don't generate enough consistent power, this means that Germany must rely on coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, to generate 40% of its electricity. As a result, Germany is projected to fall short of nearly every national and European Union clean energy standard this year Germany's experience is typical for bureaucratic climate policies, and it stands in sharp contrast to the American experience. The U.S., though heavily criticized for not signing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, is curbing emissions today much faster than any country that actually did sign the agreement…
… U.S. carbon dioxide emissions have hit 30-year lows, even as global emissions have increased by 50% during the same period. And since 2005, natural gas has done more to reduce power sector dioxide emissions than all renewable energy sources combined, according to the Energy Information Administration.
The United States, with fracking and without the Paris Climate Accord, is leading the world in economic growth with wages that are rising fastest among lower incomes, soaring household median incomes, fatter pensions and 401-K retirement funds thanks to a Dow nearing 30,000, and record unemployment, especially among minorities, record labor force participation as millennials get off their parent’s basement couch and others that couldn’t find work under Obama’s environmental and regulatory straitjacket find jobs. Those who have jobs have no fear in looking for better ones, as we have more jobs than skilled applicants to fill them.
The 2020 Democrats would take all this away from us, including the record-setting emissions reductions. One gigaton is a lot of stuff and a number equivalent to the gigadollars Bernie et all would spend on climate change and free stuff.
Paying for anything without the economic growth and energy independence led by fracking, which Democrats would ban entirely, is impossible. All that would be left is economic desolation. A microcosm of the choice we face on November 2020 is seen in the northeastern United States, much of which sits astride the Marcellus Shale Formation, a layer of porous prehistoric rock from which fracking has produced abundant oil and emission-reducing natural gas.
Pennsylvania fracks, but not Bloomberg’s New York, Sanders’ Vermont, or Warren’s Massachusetts. New York is in economic decline while hemorrhaging population. Pennsylvania is enjoying a renaissance thanks to its embrace of fracking, but Democrats want to reduce Pennsylvania to economic rubble for the sake of the environment, destroying its shale oil boom:
In fact, it was shale development that carried Pennsylvania through the depths of the Great Recession at the turn of the last decade.
Hard-working Pennsylvanians realize energy savings of $1,100-$2,200 per household, according to Public Utility Commission data, as wholesale electricity and natural gas prices have plummeted thanks to our abundant supply.
As clean, domestic natural gas maintains its position as the largest electricity production source, carbon emissions tied to the power sector continue to fall, according to new federal data, soon to reach levels not seen since the Reagan administration. This sustained improvement in air quality has saved more than 26,000 lives since 2008, according to new University of California San Diego research.
Misinformed policy positions from some presidential candidates to ban the safe, responsible use of hydraulic fracturing are alarming. Should such a ban be enacted, more than 600,000 Pennsylvanians would be out of work and our state’s economic output would take a $261 billion hit, according to a U.S. Chamber of Commerce report. It is no wonder voters “fear the economic impact,” a Rasmussen Reports survey found, of such a ban.
Put Pennsylvania in the Trump column as Democrats seek to save the planet by killing the nation’s economy, a policy that will lead to electoral disaster.
Fracking doesn’t cause earthquakes but it does save lives by reducing emissions and it also saves jobs, families and their dreams Trump’s energy policies have produced a true green new deal - the green of dollars flowing into family bank accounts and retirement plans.
Wealthier societies are healthier societies and by relying on American technology and not liberal ideology we save both the environment and the economy.
News of the Times;
https://deathcas.es/
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/02/04/sweden-only-6-1-per-cent-new-migrants-non-subsidised-jobs-2019/
https://victorygirlsblog.com/women-should-never-vote-for-a-democrat-candidate/
https://www.inverse.com/science/nasa-brings-voyager-2-fully-back-online-11.5-billion-miles-from-earth?
https://nypost.com/2020/02/06/corey-feldman-says-pedophilia-is-hollywoods-biggest-problem-not-metoo/
https://www.theepochtimes.com/nearly-55-injunctions-against-trump-admin-since-president-took-office-doj_3223265.html
https://nationalfile.com/british-man-yusef-ali-throws-girl-off-balcony-for-rejecting-him-stabs-two-not-attempted-murder/
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/derek-h-burney-enough-is-enough-clear-the-blockades-restore-the-rule-of-law
https://www.illinoisreview.com/illinoisreview/2020/02/chicago-area-red-light-camera-company-sales-rep-indicted-in-bribery-conspiracy.html?
https://bigleaguepolitics.com/demographic-collapse-u-s-fertility-hits-all-time-low/
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/02/somali-community-leader-drops-bombshell-ilhan-omar-did-marry-her-brother-to-get-him-papers-to-keep-him-in-us/
https://archive.is/g85sz
https://taphaps.com/george-steward-fire-veteran/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVeDKuHPDK8&feature=youtu.be
https://www.spectator.com.au/2020/02/the-fury-of-the-left-explained/?
Evidence?
Yesterday, I changed a light bulb, crossed the street, and walked into a bar.
My life is a joke.
*.*
A wife went in to see a therapist and said, "I've got a big problem, doctor."
"Every time we're in bed and my husband climaxes, he lets out an outrageous yell."
"My dear," the doctor said, "that's completely natural. I don't see what the problem is."
"The problem is," she complained, "It wakes me up!"
*.*
A decorated war veteran, fresh off the bus, is looking for a place to stay.
He hears that room and board is available from the three old spinsters at the edge of town, but is advised they are very picky in letting strangers stay there.
He decides to chance it, and limps on up to the front door.
His knock is answered by Gladys. "What do you want, sonny?" she asks him.
"Ma'am, I'm just looking for a hot meal and a room for the night," he answers.
The other two old spinsters gather around the door. "Who's out there? Does he look decent?" they ask.
Gladys says, "It's a soldier, and he's got a Purple Heart on."
The other two heard-of-hearing spinsters giggle and say, "The hell with what color it is... let him in!"
*.*
A Man walks into a bar with a newt on his shoulder.
The bartender says “What an interesting pet, what’s his name?”
“Tiny” the man replies. “What an odd name, why do you call him Tiny?”
"Because…, He’s my newt.”
*.*
My son asked, “What are condoms for, Dad?”
I replied, “Ideally, conversations such as this.”
Quote of the Times;
Now, let’s compare the estrogen hormone in an impossible whopper to the whopper made from hormone implanted beef. The impossible whopper has 44 mg of estrogen and the whopper has 2.5 ng of estrogen. Now let me refresh your metric system. There are 1 million nanograms (ng) in one milligram (mg). That means an impossible whopper has 18 MILLION times as much estrogen as a regular whopper. Just six glasses of soy milk per day has enough estrogen to grow boobs on a male. That’s the equivalent of eating four impossible whoppers per day. You would have to eat 880 pounds of beef from an implanted steer to equal the amount of estrogen in one birth control pill.
Link of the Times;
https://www.zachvorhies.com/
Issue of the Times;
Evidence That Conservative Students Really Do Self-Censor by Conor Friedersdorf
Is free speech imperiled on American college campuses?
I’ve argued before that campus speech is threatened from a dozen directions, citing scores of incidents that undermine the culture of free expression and dialogue needed to seek truth and learn.
The academic Jeffrey Adam Sachs has staked out a contrasting position at the Niskanen Center. A small number of anecdotes “have been permitted to set the terms of public debate,” he once wrote. He has also argued that “rather than collapsing into chaos, 2018 was a year of relative quiet on campuses. There were fewer deplatformings, fewer fired professors, and less violence compared to 2017. There was also more dialogue, greater respect for faculty free speech rights, and increased tolerance on both the right and the left.”
Sachs and I watched the same controversies unfold on various campuses and drew very different conclusions about their implications for campus life.
Now there’s new evidence in the debate.
Last spring, three professors at the University of North Carolina surveyed undergraduates to get a sense of the campus climate. Rather than focus on discrete controversies, such as the time in 2015 when UNC student protesters seized control of a room where a journalist was speaking, or the time in 2019 when a UNC student assaulted a sign-carrying anti-abortion activist, they sought to understand day-to-day undergraduate experiences. The results of the survey, distilled from more than 1,000 responses to email questionnaires, can’t be applied to every college in America, but the findings do illuminate what’s happening at a highly selective public institution in a swing state, where more than 20,000 undergraduates are enrolled.
The good news: In classes where politics comes up, large majorities of self-identified liberal and conservative students say that instructors encourage participation from both sides and want to learn from different perspectives, suggesting that concerns about faculty-indoctrination efforts are unfounded. Indeed, students reported that they worry less about censure from faculty than from peers.
That brings us to the bad news:
• While majorities favor more viewpoint diversity and free-speech norms, an intolerant faction of roughly a quarter of students believe it is okay to silence or suppress some widely held views that they deem wrong.
• Students across political perspectives engage in classroom self-censorship.
• Students harbor divisive stereotypes about classmates with different beliefs, and a substantial minority are not open to engaging socially with classmates who don’t share their views.
• Disparaging comments about political conservatives are common.
To measure student tolerance for views with which they disagree, the researchers chose matters of ongoing controversy on campus––the fate of a Confederate statue, affirmative action in admissions, immigration, health care, climate change, and whether Christian bakers should be compelled to make cakes for gay weddings against their will––and presented students with mainstream positions that a liberal or conservative classmate might hold. Respondents were asked to indicate which among those positions they found most objectionable.
Next they were asked: If confronted with an especially objectionable viewpoint, how appropriate would it be to take a series of actions, such as asking a tough question, publishing a dissent, or more extreme measures? An alarming 25.5 percent of survey respondents said it would be appropriate to “create an obstruction, such that a campus speaker endorsing this idea could not address an audience.” This authoritarian view was held by about 19 percent of self-identifying liberals, 3 percent of moderates, and 3 percent of conservatives. More than 3 percent of liberals and 1 percent of conservatives thought it would be appropriate to “yell profanity at a student” for endorsing the objectionable idea.
Also troubling were the undergraduates who reported having kept an opinion to themselves in the classroom, even though the opinion was related to the class, because they were worried about the potential consequences of expressing it. Almost 68 percent of conservatives censored themselves in this way, along with roughly 49 percent of moderates and 24 percent of liberals.
Expressing unpopular views “can reveal critical blind spots in prevailing thought patterns,” the authors of the report note, and even when a view is wrong, its refutation allows both parties “to better apprehend why the correct view must be true.” But “a substantial proportion of respondents fear social sanction, or even outright grading penalties, for sharing their views.” What’s more, almost a quarter of conservative students reported being more than slightly concerned that peers would file a complaint against them for speech related to a class they are in together.
Among students who self-identify as liberals, some 10 percent said they hear “disrespectful, inappropriate, or offensive comments” about foreign students at least several times a semester, 14 percent said they hear disparaging comments about Muslims, 20 percent said they hear such comments about African Americans, 20 percent said they hear such comments about Christians, 21 percent said they hear such comments about LGBTQ individuals, and 57 percent said they hear such comments about conservatives. Among moderates, 68 percent said that they hear “disrespectful, inappropriate, or offensive comments” about conservatives at least several times a semester.
Out conservatives may face social isolation. Roughly 92 percent of conservatives said they would be friends with a liberal, and just 3 percent said that they would not have a liberal friend. Among liberals, however, almost a quarter said they would not have a conservative friend. Would UNC be a better place without conservatives? About 22 percent of liberals said yes. Would it be a better place without liberals? Almost 15 percent of conservatives thought so.
“Self-identified conservative students do in fact face distinct challenges related to viewpoint expression at UNC,” the authors conclude. They urge “a conversation about how the campus can become more accepting of conservative students as well as more willing to hear and engage with conservative ideas.” After all, they ask, “who would dispute that universities should be places where each idea is considered on its own terms, and not prejudged? Where sincerely held conclusions can be offered up for vigorous and civil contestation? Where students are assumed to be arguing in good faith and where they feel valued and respected, even should they turn out to be wrong?”
As important, the authors correctly emphasize that “the wrong way to interpret our report would be to see it as pitting liberals against conservatives,” not only because many liberals and moderates harbor similar anxieties about sharing earnest views, but also because even though “political hostility emerges disproportionately from the political left at UNC,” that hostility comes from a minority, not a majority, of liberals. Tolerant students belong to a cross-ideological majority. While divided in their politics, both are ill-served by the minority faction of intolerant censors.
Self-censorship is among several significant reasons to believe that free speech remains under threat on American campuses, harming undergraduate education. I try to avoid talk of “crisis,” because I believe that free speech is perpetually threatened and requires constant vigilance to sustain. But however we label the status quo, America’s professors ought to be aware of these problems.
The UNC study’s authors warn that well-intentioned instructors:
could easily fail to perceive important free-expression issues that might not be immediately evident in their courses. Student concerns about expressing political views are quite prevalent, and a common coping mechanism is to withdraw and self-censor. Thus, a classroom silence that an instructor might perceive as tacit agreement (or perhaps lackadaisical indifference) might, at least for some students, actually come from apprehension about the consequences of expressing specific viewpoints.
Thus they counsel that UNC instructors should be more intentional and explicit about their approach to free expression, so that students unaware of faculty support for it are better informed. Perhaps UNC is somehow anomalous. But its size, its student profile, and my years of reporting on different campuses lead me to suspect that it is somewhat representative of the selective colleges whose students wield disproportionate influence across society after graduation.
Free-speech advocates have had success in recent years in making the case for free-speech norms, reforming speech codes, protecting events, and reducing the number of disinvited speakers. More studies can help these advocates identify which campuses are in particular need of their attention, and assist them in empowering tolerant students in their conflicts with intolerant classmates.
News of the Times;
https://pjmedia.com/trending/5-times-barack-obama-protected-his-allies-from-justice/
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/its-time-ask-again-what-really-happened-ukraines-missing-gold
https://www.newsweek.com/mother-teresas-charity-being-investigated-child-trafficking-1027780
https://gawker.com/5893793/did-robert-downey-jr-really-just-accuse-kirk-douglas-of-a-brutal-rape
https://dailycaller.com/2020/01/07/cnn-settle-covington-catholic-student-nick-sandmann/
https://thenextweb.com/apps/2019/11/12/facebook-camera-ios-iphone/
https://thetruthrevolution.net/dead-body-of-lara-prychodko-who-worked-for-george-soros-found-in-huma-abedin-and-anthony-weiners-garbage-chute/
https://www.lifesitenews.com/mobile/news/gay-scottish-politician-who-backed-pro-lgbt-school-programs-caught-grooming-16-year-old-online
https://hangthebankers.com/photos-from-a-1972-rothschild-illuminati-party/
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/half-amsterdam-women-are-intimidated-street-says-mayor?
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2019/12/26/commerce-dept-companies-brought-1-trillion-back-to-u-s-under-trump-tax-cuts/?
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/globalists-openly-admit-population-control-agenda-and-thats-bad-sign
https://ktla.com/2020/02/04/mexican-migrants-sent-home-record-36-billion-in-remittances-in-2019/
https://conservativeus.com/voting-machines-in-a-sanctuary-city-are-the-same-as-the-voting-machines-that-turned-venezuela-into-a-socialist-wasteland/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/10/russian-anti-fascist-group-network-jail
My life is a joke.
*.*
A wife went in to see a therapist and said, "I've got a big problem, doctor."
"Every time we're in bed and my husband climaxes, he lets out an outrageous yell."
"My dear," the doctor said, "that's completely natural. I don't see what the problem is."
"The problem is," she complained, "It wakes me up!"
*.*
A decorated war veteran, fresh off the bus, is looking for a place to stay.
He hears that room and board is available from the three old spinsters at the edge of town, but is advised they are very picky in letting strangers stay there.
He decides to chance it, and limps on up to the front door.
His knock is answered by Gladys. "What do you want, sonny?" she asks him.
"Ma'am, I'm just looking for a hot meal and a room for the night," he answers.
The other two old spinsters gather around the door. "Who's out there? Does he look decent?" they ask.
Gladys says, "It's a soldier, and he's got a Purple Heart on."
The other two heard-of-hearing spinsters giggle and say, "The hell with what color it is... let him in!"
*.*
A Man walks into a bar with a newt on his shoulder.
The bartender says “What an interesting pet, what’s his name?”
“Tiny” the man replies. “What an odd name, why do you call him Tiny?”
"Because…, He’s my newt.”
*.*
My son asked, “What are condoms for, Dad?”
I replied, “Ideally, conversations such as this.”
Quote of the Times;
Now, let’s compare the estrogen hormone in an impossible whopper to the whopper made from hormone implanted beef. The impossible whopper has 44 mg of estrogen and the whopper has 2.5 ng of estrogen. Now let me refresh your metric system. There are 1 million nanograms (ng) in one milligram (mg). That means an impossible whopper has 18 MILLION times as much estrogen as a regular whopper. Just six glasses of soy milk per day has enough estrogen to grow boobs on a male. That’s the equivalent of eating four impossible whoppers per day. You would have to eat 880 pounds of beef from an implanted steer to equal the amount of estrogen in one birth control pill.
Link of the Times;
https://www.zachvorhies.com/
Issue of the Times;
Evidence That Conservative Students Really Do Self-Censor by Conor Friedersdorf
Is free speech imperiled on American college campuses?
I’ve argued before that campus speech is threatened from a dozen directions, citing scores of incidents that undermine the culture of free expression and dialogue needed to seek truth and learn.
The academic Jeffrey Adam Sachs has staked out a contrasting position at the Niskanen Center. A small number of anecdotes “have been permitted to set the terms of public debate,” he once wrote. He has also argued that “rather than collapsing into chaos, 2018 was a year of relative quiet on campuses. There were fewer deplatformings, fewer fired professors, and less violence compared to 2017. There was also more dialogue, greater respect for faculty free speech rights, and increased tolerance on both the right and the left.”
Sachs and I watched the same controversies unfold on various campuses and drew very different conclusions about their implications for campus life.
Now there’s new evidence in the debate.
Last spring, three professors at the University of North Carolina surveyed undergraduates to get a sense of the campus climate. Rather than focus on discrete controversies, such as the time in 2015 when UNC student protesters seized control of a room where a journalist was speaking, or the time in 2019 when a UNC student assaulted a sign-carrying anti-abortion activist, they sought to understand day-to-day undergraduate experiences. The results of the survey, distilled from more than 1,000 responses to email questionnaires, can’t be applied to every college in America, but the findings do illuminate what’s happening at a highly selective public institution in a swing state, where more than 20,000 undergraduates are enrolled.
The good news: In classes where politics comes up, large majorities of self-identified liberal and conservative students say that instructors encourage participation from both sides and want to learn from different perspectives, suggesting that concerns about faculty-indoctrination efforts are unfounded. Indeed, students reported that they worry less about censure from faculty than from peers.
That brings us to the bad news:
• While majorities favor more viewpoint diversity and free-speech norms, an intolerant faction of roughly a quarter of students believe it is okay to silence or suppress some widely held views that they deem wrong.
• Students across political perspectives engage in classroom self-censorship.
• Students harbor divisive stereotypes about classmates with different beliefs, and a substantial minority are not open to engaging socially with classmates who don’t share their views.
• Disparaging comments about political conservatives are common.
To measure student tolerance for views with which they disagree, the researchers chose matters of ongoing controversy on campus––the fate of a Confederate statue, affirmative action in admissions, immigration, health care, climate change, and whether Christian bakers should be compelled to make cakes for gay weddings against their will––and presented students with mainstream positions that a liberal or conservative classmate might hold. Respondents were asked to indicate which among those positions they found most objectionable.
Next they were asked: If confronted with an especially objectionable viewpoint, how appropriate would it be to take a series of actions, such as asking a tough question, publishing a dissent, or more extreme measures? An alarming 25.5 percent of survey respondents said it would be appropriate to “create an obstruction, such that a campus speaker endorsing this idea could not address an audience.” This authoritarian view was held by about 19 percent of self-identifying liberals, 3 percent of moderates, and 3 percent of conservatives. More than 3 percent of liberals and 1 percent of conservatives thought it would be appropriate to “yell profanity at a student” for endorsing the objectionable idea.
Also troubling were the undergraduates who reported having kept an opinion to themselves in the classroom, even though the opinion was related to the class, because they were worried about the potential consequences of expressing it. Almost 68 percent of conservatives censored themselves in this way, along with roughly 49 percent of moderates and 24 percent of liberals.
Expressing unpopular views “can reveal critical blind spots in prevailing thought patterns,” the authors of the report note, and even when a view is wrong, its refutation allows both parties “to better apprehend why the correct view must be true.” But “a substantial proportion of respondents fear social sanction, or even outright grading penalties, for sharing their views.” What’s more, almost a quarter of conservative students reported being more than slightly concerned that peers would file a complaint against them for speech related to a class they are in together.
Among students who self-identify as liberals, some 10 percent said they hear “disrespectful, inappropriate, or offensive comments” about foreign students at least several times a semester, 14 percent said they hear disparaging comments about Muslims, 20 percent said they hear such comments about African Americans, 20 percent said they hear such comments about Christians, 21 percent said they hear such comments about LGBTQ individuals, and 57 percent said they hear such comments about conservatives. Among moderates, 68 percent said that they hear “disrespectful, inappropriate, or offensive comments” about conservatives at least several times a semester.
Out conservatives may face social isolation. Roughly 92 percent of conservatives said they would be friends with a liberal, and just 3 percent said that they would not have a liberal friend. Among liberals, however, almost a quarter said they would not have a conservative friend. Would UNC be a better place without conservatives? About 22 percent of liberals said yes. Would it be a better place without liberals? Almost 15 percent of conservatives thought so.
“Self-identified conservative students do in fact face distinct challenges related to viewpoint expression at UNC,” the authors conclude. They urge “a conversation about how the campus can become more accepting of conservative students as well as more willing to hear and engage with conservative ideas.” After all, they ask, “who would dispute that universities should be places where each idea is considered on its own terms, and not prejudged? Where sincerely held conclusions can be offered up for vigorous and civil contestation? Where students are assumed to be arguing in good faith and where they feel valued and respected, even should they turn out to be wrong?”
As important, the authors correctly emphasize that “the wrong way to interpret our report would be to see it as pitting liberals against conservatives,” not only because many liberals and moderates harbor similar anxieties about sharing earnest views, but also because even though “political hostility emerges disproportionately from the political left at UNC,” that hostility comes from a minority, not a majority, of liberals. Tolerant students belong to a cross-ideological majority. While divided in their politics, both are ill-served by the minority faction of intolerant censors.
Self-censorship is among several significant reasons to believe that free speech remains under threat on American campuses, harming undergraduate education. I try to avoid talk of “crisis,” because I believe that free speech is perpetually threatened and requires constant vigilance to sustain. But however we label the status quo, America’s professors ought to be aware of these problems.
The UNC study’s authors warn that well-intentioned instructors:
could easily fail to perceive important free-expression issues that might not be immediately evident in their courses. Student concerns about expressing political views are quite prevalent, and a common coping mechanism is to withdraw and self-censor. Thus, a classroom silence that an instructor might perceive as tacit agreement (or perhaps lackadaisical indifference) might, at least for some students, actually come from apprehension about the consequences of expressing specific viewpoints.
Thus they counsel that UNC instructors should be more intentional and explicit about their approach to free expression, so that students unaware of faculty support for it are better informed. Perhaps UNC is somehow anomalous. But its size, its student profile, and my years of reporting on different campuses lead me to suspect that it is somewhat representative of the selective colleges whose students wield disproportionate influence across society after graduation.
Free-speech advocates have had success in recent years in making the case for free-speech norms, reforming speech codes, protecting events, and reducing the number of disinvited speakers. More studies can help these advocates identify which campuses are in particular need of their attention, and assist them in empowering tolerant students in their conflicts with intolerant classmates.
News of the Times;
https://pjmedia.com/trending/5-times-barack-obama-protected-his-allies-from-justice/
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/its-time-ask-again-what-really-happened-ukraines-missing-gold
https://www.newsweek.com/mother-teresas-charity-being-investigated-child-trafficking-1027780
https://gawker.com/5893793/did-robert-downey-jr-really-just-accuse-kirk-douglas-of-a-brutal-rape
https://dailycaller.com/2020/01/07/cnn-settle-covington-catholic-student-nick-sandmann/
https://thenextweb.com/apps/2019/11/12/facebook-camera-ios-iphone/
https://thetruthrevolution.net/dead-body-of-lara-prychodko-who-worked-for-george-soros-found-in-huma-abedin-and-anthony-weiners-garbage-chute/
https://www.lifesitenews.com/mobile/news/gay-scottish-politician-who-backed-pro-lgbt-school-programs-caught-grooming-16-year-old-online
https://hangthebankers.com/photos-from-a-1972-rothschild-illuminati-party/
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/half-amsterdam-women-are-intimidated-street-says-mayor?
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2019/12/26/commerce-dept-companies-brought-1-trillion-back-to-u-s-under-trump-tax-cuts/?
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/globalists-openly-admit-population-control-agenda-and-thats-bad-sign
https://ktla.com/2020/02/04/mexican-migrants-sent-home-record-36-billion-in-remittances-in-2019/
https://conservativeus.com/voting-machines-in-a-sanctuary-city-are-the-same-as-the-voting-machines-that-turned-venezuela-into-a-socialist-wasteland/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/10/russian-anti-fascist-group-network-jail
Several animals were savagely beaten in the making of this page, including but not limited to; kittens, rabbits, zebu, skunks, puppies, and platypus. Also several monkeys where force fed crack to improve their typing skills.
And someone shot a duck.
An Images & Ideas, Inc. Service.
No Vegans were harmed in the making of this site. We're looking for a new provider.
And someone shot a duck.
An Images & Ideas, Inc. Service.
No Vegans were harmed in the making of this site. We're looking for a new provider.