Farewell 2020

This is Fountains of Wayne a couple of weeks after 9/11, expressing the sentiment we all share today as well: 

Maybe 2020 is going out on a high note

I have to relay this non-political story because it's been maybe a year since I laughed so hard.  On my commute home today, there was a white Subaru being just an absolute a-hole on the road.  Weaving in and out of traffic on I-291 outside of Springfield, MA, but then getting caught up in the bottleneck of single-lane roads through Chicopee and Granby.

Just by sheer happenstance, I caught up to this car because it simply couldn't pass any other cars on the single lane with oncoming traffic.  The white Subaru was behind an F150 going around the speed limit and I knew we were all coming up to straight section near farmland that also happened to be a double-yellow line (as in, you can't pass).

Sure enough, as soon as we were on the straight, the Subaru blew through the double line and passed the pickup.  THEN, the car BEHIND me sped up, crossed the double yellow and got behind the Subaru.

Then TURNED ON HIS LIGHTS.  It was an unmarked police car that just happened to be in the right place at the right time, if you're a fan of street justice.

I laughed all the way home.

Think different about slave labor

The Corner: "Apple Supplier Charged with Exploiting Uyghur Forced Labor."

I understand that corporations are not altruistic angels, but no company huffs on their own sweet farts like Apple.  They have a commercial running right now with Lady Gaga and Lisa Simpson that strongly implies the Apple Macbook is responsible for all artistic creativity and world-changing activism in the world.

But, but, the science

California is back on top of the state with the most per capita covid cases.  Scientists are baffled: "Locked-down California runs out of reasons for surprising surge."  

I think at this point it’s pretty clear that Californians ignored the public health guidance and engaged in inside, maskless, “singing, chanting and shouting” at their Thanksgiving gatherings while Floridians actually listened to their nonexistent gathering restrictions pic.twitter.com/00OyFmI8zf

— IM (@ianmSC) December 24, 2020

This is mental illness

Victory Girls: "The Moral Repugnance Of Cancel Culture." - "Jimmy Galligan has no character. His glee over ruining the life of one of his classmates is sickening. He has demonstrated cancel culture at its most morally repugnant iteration." 

Shame on the University of Tennessee for capitulating to the mob.

I think I fixed our refrigerator

Whenever I'm able to score a minor victory by figuring out how to fix a car or appliance, I like to post about it just in case somebody out there is in the same predicament.  So if you have a 27-year-old Amana refrigerator that won't cool down, today's your lucky day.

On Christmas day (naturally), the refrigerator got warm even though the bottom freezer was fine.  (That was nice on the one day a year you can't buy ice anywhere).  A couple of searches online and some YouTube videos later, I found that the most likely cause is that the coils behind the freezer are not going through a defrost cycle, thereby blocking the flow of cold air to the upper refrigerator section.  The repairman videos show them completely removing the ice maker and the back panel of the freezer to access the coils.  But then I noticed this red knob down at the base of the fridge:

This red knob only turns clockwise and I suspected it was a manual control and/or timer to cycle between the cooling (compressor running) and the defrost stage.  So I turned it clockwise until the compressor - which had been running non-stop - turned off and let the fridge sit for two hours.

After that time, I turned it clockwise again until the compressor kicked in and cold air started to come out of the vent in the refrigerator.  Now it's likely that this timer is either broken or just got stuck in the cooling cycle, which means every couple of hours I'll have to manually set it into defrost mode.  But this beats putting everything on the backyard deck in camping coolers.

Oh that's not news

Breitbart: "New York Times reporting blackout on Eric Swalwell - spy ties continues." - "The New York Times has continued its reporting blackout on ties between Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and suspected Chinese Communist regime spy Christine Fang — not reporting on those ties for more than two weeks after they came to light." 

Peace on Earth

Big Government: "Netanyahu: 'Many, many more Arab states' to normalize ties soon." - "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday promised that “many, many more countries” would be signing normalization agreements with Israel “a lot sooner than people expect,” and lauded the Trump administration for consistently “defending the truth and defending the State of Israel.” 

Brexit is a go

Fox News: "Boris Johnson says UK has 'taken back control' after securing post-Brexit trade deal with EU."  

It's funny because it's true

Babylon Bee: "Americans Excitedly Anticipate Getting Paid With Their Own Money." 

But it's a December to remember!

This is a great spoof of those insufferable Christmas commercials:

New York needs taxes

Reason: "Determined To Kill Businesses That Survived Lockdowns, New York Plans Minimum Wage Hike Later This Month - New York's unemployment rate is nearly 10 percent and roughly one-third of small businesses in New York City may have closed forever. Seems like a great time to make it more expensive to employ people, right?"

New York City in particular needs tax revenue from baristas to make up for the $34 billion they've lost from fleeing citizens.  

Memory-hole that headline

Via Instapundit, some headline-scrubbing at the Gray Lady:

Finished binge-watching "Dexter"

I didn't think the finale was as awful as people described.  There I said it.

And then a miracle occurred

Federalist: "Corporate Media Are Ignoring Trump’s Role In Developing A COVID Vaccine" - "The press scoffed at Trump's vaccine timeline. They said it would take a 'miracle.' The miracle came, and the press just shrugged."

If history is any precedent, that means Joe Biden will win the Nobel Prize in Medicine this year. 

Maybe Cuomo can write another book about the fine job he did

His first one worked out great:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo continues to insist a new shutdown is not inevitable, even as the state set a new single-day case record Friday (along with a record number of tests) and Mayor Bill de Blasio continues to insist that another round of restrictions is not only necessary in New York City but needs to come soon.

We've used every tool in the toolbox from lockdowns to more lockdowns.

There are two great tragedies that will forever be the legacy of this pandemic: the loss of lives, of course, and the loss of livelihoods brought about by lockdowns that may not have even helped.

If any of what the petty tyrants have been peddling about masks and staying at home were true, then California would be one of the safest places on Earth right now.

Instead, it’s just a tragic place dealing with a rapidly growing population of people who are both sick and broke, thanks to all the science and helping.

It's so depressing, you just want to go out to your local wine bar and sip some Merlot.  

Listen to the scientists

Fox News: "California doctor calls lockdowns ‘failure of imagination,’ as state becomes epicenter of outbreak."

Despite enacting some of the country’s toughest measures to combat the coronavirus pandemic, California is emerging as the latest epicenter of the U.S. outbreak.

On Thursday, the state reported a staggering 52,000 new cases in a single day — equal to what the entire U.S. was averaging in mid-October — and a one-day record of 379 deaths. More than 16,000 people are in the hospital with the coronavirus across the state, more than triple the number a month ago.

So the empirical data indicates that the lockdowns don't work.  The masks don't work.  The only scientists who seem to know what they're doing are the vaccine developers.  

"The fault belongs to you, and so does the debt."

Federalist: "Mike Rowe: I Don’t Want To Pay For Your Useless College Degree." 

It's absolute insanity to ask blue-collar workers to pony up for your gender studies degree.  

The Left hates free speech, a continuing series

Reason: "New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo Bans Sale of Confederate Flags, Despite Knowing This Has First Amendment Problems."

"Problems" is a slight euphemism for "glaringly unconstitutional."  

Insurers to Portland: LOLGF

Ace: "Insurers balk at insuring Portland businesses; exclude future damage related to civil unrest."

Do you remember a few months ago during the peak of the BLM/Antifa rioting when Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) were either silent about the violence, or they actually praised property destruction and looting? As for the lives and businesses destroyed, they just dismissed the damage as harmless because “insurance will pay for it.”

NPR actually spent your tax dollars to advocate for looting, publicizing Vicky Osterweil’s book “In Defense Of Looting” and effectively endorsing the book with its tongue-bath of an interview.

You’ll never guess what happened next.

Actually you will, if you're an American with the vaguest notion of how property rights work.

Speaking of property rights in Portland, Matt Christiansen how one family refused to pay for their home, squatted for years, and now suckers are rewarding their rank lawlessness by paying their debts.  At Matt notes, if this is "systemic racism" then sign me up: