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SEPTEMBER 11, 2022

THEY'RE CRAWLING OUT OF THEIR BUNKERS:  I call it the 48-hour rule.  Under that rule, it takes about 48 hours for the left to re-organize after a large event and make it its own.  Never let a good crisis go to waste, they say.

And so it is.  The death of Queen Elizabeth has given the left a new birth of wackdom.  Right at the top of the honor role is Christiane Amanpour, who could not resist.  Get this, from Fox: 

CNN’s chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour suggested Friday that King Charles III must address Britain's "colonial legacy."

Amanpour was live in London analyzing Charles III’s first public address as king and the conversation came around to how "different demographics" were listening to it for different reasons.

"I really do believe that we have to have this conversation right now, even at this moment," she said of British colonialism and pointed to the king's remarks.

"And look, what he said, ‘In the 70 years of her being on the throne, many cultures and faiths have flourished in these past seven decades,’" she paraphrased.

Amanpour appeared to suggest that this flourishing was overblown, "particularly in the wake of Black Lives Matter and particularly in the protests that erupted all over the world after what happened in Minnesota, here as well, in France and other parts of these nations that had colonial servants, let’s face it."

She recounted further that Britain, specifically, has a controversial imperial history, saying, "People were in service to this empire. The wealth of this empire was derived on the back of the people of their empire."

"What we’re saying is that there is the generation of multicultural and diverse Britons who want this answered, who want to see their monarch finally talk about what it means and, you know, potentially the idea of reparations, definitely justice, right? Justice," she said, warning that the citizenry of Britain has diversified and is looking to the King to address modern cultural issues with new policies.

She added further that "Prince William who’s the heir and the next king, he talked about it, having been criticized for a trip he made in the Caribbean - again, colonial legacy - that we must have this discussion, and it must be up to those countries. But it also has to be had in this country [England] as well."

During his first televised address as king after he inherited the crown from the late Queen Elizabeth II, Charles III addressed the increasingly diverse state of the U.K.

"In the course of the last seventy years we have seen our society become one of many cultures and many faiths. The institutions of the State have changed in turn," he noted. "But, through all changes and challenges, our nation and the wider family of Realms – of whose talents, traditions and achievements I am so inexpressibly proud – have prospered and flourished. Our values have remained, and must remain, constant."

COMMENT:  Oh please.  Give the lady a comfort pill.  First, the Royal Family does not make policy.  Second, British colonialism largely ended before Elizabeth even became queen.  Third, the Queen's passing is not the time to bring up events in Minnesota, a place not generally impacted by public policy.  Fourth, Britain has treated its new immigrants far better than most countries would. 

And reparations?  Britain is straining financially.  Its people have been through two world wars.  Its citizens today did not cause colonialism.  Reasonable respect for the past is fine, and sometimes apologies are appropriate, and maybe even gifts.  But this discussion is out of place as the sovereign's coffin is being moved.

The left always carries things too far.  It's a proud group tradition.

September 11, 2022       Permalink

SEPTEMBER 9-10, 2022

ACADEMIC SICKNESS:  There's pushback against wokeness on college campuses, but we are not yet winning.  From City Journal: 

Nature Human Behavior, one of the most prestigious journals for social science research, recently published an editorial titled “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans.” Though short, the article generated tremendous pushback among academics and intellectuals concerned about the spread of social-justice ideology into science. Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker said the journal was “no longer a peer-reviewed scientific journal but an enforcer of a political creed,” while Greg Lukianoff, the CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, described the journal’s statement as “an epistemic catastrophe.” What did the editorial say?

In short, it took the position that scientific truth should defer to politics. The journal now considers it appropriate to suppress research that “undermines—or could reasonably be perceived to undermine—the rights and dignities” of people or groups, as well as “text or images that disparage a person or group on the basis of socially constructed human groupings.” Researchers are urged to “consider the potential implications of research on human groups defined on the basis of social characteristics” and “to contextualise their findings to minimize as much as possible potential misuse or risks of harm to the studied groups in the public sphere.” Anything that could be perceived as disparaging is now fair game for rejection or retraction.

The implications on scientific inquiry and truth-seeking are clear. As the journalist Jesse Singal observed, an empirically flawless study could be retracted under the guise of social justice. “What’s most alarming is that unless I’m missing something, research that is perfectly valid and well-executed could run afoul of these guidelines,” he wrote.

But such behavior already occurs. Sometimes, studies that offend social-justice orthodoxy are assigned a “flaw” of some kind—usually one that would be treated as minor had the results been different—and rejected on that pretextual basis. The psychologist Lee Jussim has coined the term rigorus mortus selectivus to describe the widespread practice among social scientists to denounce research one dislikes using criteria that are ostensibly scientific but never applied to politically congenial research. Other times, studies that manage to penetrate the literature (despite the best attempts of ideological gatekeepers) are seized upon by observers who scrutinize every aspect of the research using unreasonable criteria. Because no study is perfect, it is always possible to find some limitation to justify a cancellation campaign.

Consider two recent examples. One study suggested that junior female scientists benefit from collaborating with male—as compared with female—mentors. The publication of this article in Nature Communications—another journal in the prestigious Nature franchise—resulted in a social-media firestorm and prompted angry demands for retraction.

Under growing pressure, the authors caved and “agreed” to retract the article on methodological grounds. As the psychologist Chris Ferguson noted, the issues discussed in the retraction note were limitations “typically handled in a comment and response format, where critics of the article publish their critiques and the authors can respond.” The authors of the mentoring study had published an earlier study in the same journal showing evidence that “ethnic diversity resulted in an impact gain” for scientific articles. This un-retracted study had used a similar methodological approach as the retracted one, but nobody objected...

COMMENT: Read the rest.  It is well worth it. How sad that our once-great scientific establishment is being eroded by the political left.  And yet, if you object, you're called either racist or anti-science.  Our opponents use words more effectively than we do.  And truth, to many of them, is not a requirement.

September 10, 2022       Permalink

FLORIDA INCREASINGLY RED:  Republican registration is way up in the nation's third most populous state.  From Breitbart:

Florida Republicans are continuing to grow their advantage over Democrats in the Sunshine State, now besting them by over 260,000 voters statewide, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) announced on Tuesday.

Speaking from Fort Myers this week, DeSantis highlighted the shift the Sunshine State has experienced in terms of voter registration in the last few years.

Roughly four years ago, when DeSantis was running for governor against Andrew Gillum, “there were like 275,000 more Democrats than Republicans in the state of Florida,” the governor said, noting that Florida never had more registered Republicans than Democrats in the state’s history.

However, that all changed in 2021, after the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, as Republicans finally overtook Democrats for the first time late in the year.

The figure continued to grow, as Republicans surpassed Democrats by 100,000 in March 2022. Then, in July, that figure doubled, with Republicans leading Democrats by 200,000 registered voters.

That trend is continuing, the governor said this week, as “Republicans have an advantage of 267,000” in voter registration.

“I’ll tell you the people that are coming to Palm Beach, they’re registering overwhelmingly as Republicans. You look at what we’re doing in Miami-Dade. It’s fantastic,” he said, likely referencing the gains Republicans have made, particularly with Hispanic voters as Republicans actually have the edge in Miami-Dade among Hispanic voters, leading by nearly 75,000 as of September 1.

“Part of it, I think, is because we’ve done a good job and people have responded to that,” DeSantis added. “But I do acknowledge some of that is because people look at Biden and they’re like, I don’t want anything to do with that.”

COMMENT:  Good so far, and another feather in the governor's cap.  But I want to see this advantage turned into actual votes on election day.  Right now the polls in both the Senate and gubernatorial races are fairly close, closer than we'd like.  The Florida Republicans will have to work day and night to put their registration advantage to good use.

September 10, 2022       Permalink

LET'S NOT FORGET THERE'S A WAR ON:  Ukraine has apparently won a victory.  From the New York Post: 

Moscow’s state-run TV outlet made a rare admission of battlefield losses Friday, with an acknowledgment that Ukraine had achieved a “substantial victory” in breaking through Russian lines this week.

“The very fact of a breach of our defenses is already a substantial victory for the Ukrainian armed forces,” Vitaly Ganchev, the head of Russia’s occupation forces in the Kharkiv province, said on Russian state TV. 

“The enemy is being delayed as much as possible, but several settlements have already come under the control of Ukrainian armed formations.”

The admission is also a notable indication of Russian surprise at the Ukrainian counterattack, given the Kremlin’s blanket ban on any war reports that break from official accounts.

The broadcast comes a day after Ukraine made a major advance from Kharkiv towards the contested Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. 

The surprise assault caught Russian troops off guard, as many of Moscow’s resources had already been shifted southward to block Kyiv’s much-telegraphed attempt to liberate Kherson in the south.

Ukrainian officials indicated the tactic was intentional, and that Kyiv’s publicized focus on Kherson was used to draw troops away from Russian supply lines in the north.

“We found a weak spot where the enemy wasn’t ready,” as Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych put it in a video posted on YouTube.

Ganchev said occupation forces were evacuating civilians from several cities in anticipation of further Ukrainian gains — including in Izyum, a northeastern city that has served as a resupply hub for Russian forces operating in the Donbas.

Arestovych said Friday that Russian forces in Izyum were almost cut off from the main Russian force.

The Ukrainian also claimed that hundreds of Russians had been captured and hundreds more killed in the few days of fighting.

The Russian Ministry of Defense released a video Friday that purported to show reinforcements rushing into the area to stem the Ukrainian tide.

COMMENT:  As Johnny Carson used to say, "How quickly they forget."  When Russia first invaded Ukraine, we had wall-to-wall TV coverage.  Now, people seem almost unaware that the war is continuing.  But it is, and it still poses a severe danger to world peace.  This is the first ground war in Europe since 1945.  If the Russians can get away with their Ukraine land grab, they may be tempted to strike elsewhere.  Countries in eastern Europe are clearly frightened.

We learned the hard way in the late 1930s and early 1940s the importance of stopping aggression early.  It's a virus.  If not stopped, it expands.  Then we will have our hands full.

September 9-10, 2022       Permalink