Western Massachusetts update

This is the top story in the Boston Globe today: "A Western Mass. lesbian bar required KN-95 masks. When it changed the rules, all hell broke loose. - Last Ditch Bar in Greenfield wanted to build community. They got a firestorm instead."

Five years after Covid, a lesbian bar in Greenfield decided to make masking optional.  Here are some of the very measured and reasonable comments made by some patrons:

“Just say you’re being complicit in a mass disabling event and get it over with,” wrote one commenter.

“people like you kill disabled people in the name of your own leisure and convenience,” posted another.

“I hope your venue gets firebombed for robbing my fellow immunocompromised people of their Saturday plans just to scrape extra revenue from ablists [sic],” wrote a third.

Fun times!

Extra - Ace copycatted me and posted the same story 20 minutes after me.  LOOK AT THE TIMESTAMPS.  His post is much longer and makes a great point I should have included.  The owner of this bar tried to apologize and just made it worse:

Now, you're not going to believe this, but it turns out that apologizing to an SJW does not appease them, but encourages them to become even more shrill and hateful in demanding further concessions.

She started to cry and the response was "save your tears, racist!" 

Trump Derangement Syndrome

Federalist: "Poll: Death Wish Dems Want Trump Dead Or Taken Out By Military Coup."

The papers here the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts are crammed with letters from insane people who are in a constant state of rage over every tiny thing Trump does.  They're incapacitated by the ballroom.  They seethe over "Lake America."

It's a mental illness, as this poll indicates.

Extra - PJ Media: "This Poll of Liberals Is Absolutely Terrifying." 

Gotta respect the commitment to the grift

Ace: "Nikole Hannah-Jones, Who Is Unaccountably Wealthy Due to Being a DEI Race Grifter and History Hoaxer, Sent Her Kids to Poor-Performing Schools As a Political Race Stunt."

As somebody noted, this is unintentionally the greatest advertisement for school choice.

Another reason to stay home

Red State: "Sigh: Ed Sheeran Caves to the Pressure From Left in New Statement About War in Gaza."

Let's just stay home

Washington Post: "How the surging cost of going out is changing American life - With the cost of concerts, sports games and restaurants far outpacing inflation, more people are staying home."

This story caught my eye because - just tonight - my wife and I were trying to figure out what to do for dinner after visiting Home Depot.  In the past, we would have gone to Chili's or some other fast-casual restaurant.  We ended up getting hot buffet meals at Whole Foods which, despite the Whole Foods cost, was (probably) cheaper than eating out and paying for drinks and tips.

Along the same line, it seems like we very rarely go to the movies unless there's a movie that needs to be seen on the "big screen."  We saw "The Odyssey" recently and before that was probably "Marty Supreme."  The movie industry is in a death fight against streaming and home-based theaters. 

Part of this is the detritus of Covid.  But part of this is that the value of eating out or going to events is no longer worth the cost.  I grew up on the outskirts of MetLife Stadium in New Jersey and it was really easy back then to get cheap tickets to a football game and then stop at McDonalds for a cheap meal.  Now?  I can't see spending a hard grand to travel to Foxboro just to watch Drake Maye throw interceptions.

Democrats for fraud

This Congressional vote was to establish a National Fraud Investigation Division in the Justice department: "What 72 Officials Would Oppose This?"

Unsurprisingly: all Democrats.  AOC was one of them which indicates the mindset.

But but global warming

Ars Technica: "This Atlantic hurricane season is about to do something that hasn’t happened in 175 years."

Last week, the Atlantic hurricane season blew through its traditional peak—which comes around September 10—with nary a tropical wave in sight, let alone a storm or hurricane.

I've been confidently told that a warmer ocean inevitably leads to more severe hurricanes and human disaster.

He's a 960 SAT kinda guy

Twitchy: "Gavin Newsom Helpfully Just Made It More Clear Than Ever That He's Insane (and a Liar)."

Dude is just plain weird and not very bright. 

Choosing Nashville

Ace: "Paramount/Skydance to California: Drop Dead." 

They're different for reasons

"Shut up," they explained.

Scott Jennings asked the CNN panel that if tariffs are taxes that get passed on to consumers then what are corporate taxes?  The screaming response from everybody else reveals all. 

What media bias?

Washington Free Beacon: "Dems Get Crazier, NYT Coverage Stays the Same - Every scandal left uncovered at the paper of record."

Most normal Americans would agree: This year's Democratic candidates are noticeably stranger and more radical than they've been in past elections. The New York Times, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have noticed.

For whatever reason—blind partisanship, most likely—the Times's coverage of these uniquely nutty and terrorist-adjacent cranks has been as flattering and credulous as ever. Scandals are downplayed or ignored, sketchy associations shrugged off. The past comments most Americans would consider genuinely insane are dismissed as old news. Business as usual.

It's exactly blind partisanship.  Sad to say but even if the New York Times wanted to cover these Democrats with the same scrutiny they apply to the other side, their readership would flee from their shattered echo chamber.

We're in a lot of debt

This YouTube channel is great, one of my favorites.  It explains somewhat complex economic topics with crude animation and funny commentary:

It's like playing chess with a pigeon

Twitchy: "Kash Patel Tries in Vain to Make Mazie Hirono Understand That He’d Replied to Their Letter."

No lies were told when Mazie was described as the dumbest member of the Senate.  You now have to wonder if her staff is purposely feeding her bad info.

Oops

Boston Globe: "Boston scraps overdue reparations report led by former Tufts professor accused of poor research." 

The kids at the Thanksgiving card table

Manhattan Contrarian: "The BRICS Coalition Meets In India."

My comments:  China is the one country that seemed to have figured out how to make big gains on U.S. economic dominance; but in the most recent years, under the increasingly tight control of Xi, it has begun to move in reverse.  India has begun to move up some, and has a big opportunity for future gains if it can resist the temptation to tighten its regulations and impede business growth.  The rest of these countries are huge lost opportunities.  Russia under Putin has stagnated and continues to be dragged down by the failed Ukraine adventure.  South Africa is moving rapidly backwards as its racial spoils regime takes increasing control.  

So, Mr. Modi, you can complain all you want, but you will have a bigger role to play on the world stage when you decide to behave like a grown up country. 

As the author notes, these countries want to pretend they can band together and counterbalance the economic power of the United States but they're so beset by infighting and outfighting that the end result is a lot of grandstanding.  You guys are cute, look at you with your fiat currency nobody wants to use.  Adorable.

Out of time

Washington Post: "Supreme Court blocks sweeping mail ballot restrictions for midterm elections - The Trump administration had said its new restrictions were necessary to prevent fraud."

It sounds like most of the Justices didn't want to take up the question because it's too close to the midterm elections and any remediation couldn't be implemented in time.

He's alive!

Fox News: "McConnell returns after months-long absence for crucial vote."

Some people stay in politics way past their expiration date.

It's not just the United States

Kids are getting dumber in Germany too: "As test scores hit record lows, US and Germany chart opposite paths in education."

BERLIN — German education officials faced a conundrum this year all too familiar in the United States: Student test scores had been sliding for more than a decade, fueling calls for sweeping reforms.

One prominent education leader from Hamburg, arguing for reforms, recently described the country’s learning trajectory as an “inverted smiley face” with gains in the early 2000s followed by a decade of decline that began before the pandemic. The test scores of American students have followed much the same path, as have those of their peers across much of the world.

You can't blame Covid.  Much of these declines coincide with the widespread availability of smartphones and the rise of social media.  Schools tried to leverage technology and it just made things worse.  Now Massachusetts is following the lead of Mississippi and Louisiana.

Damn....

I finally got around to seeing the Bill Maher video everybody is talking about: "Bill Maher Zeroed in on the Biggest Moral Cowards Post-9/11. It's Exactly Who You Think."