Quotulatiousness

February 25, 2019

“Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [is] doing for America what Jeremy Corbyn has done for Britain”

Filed under: Economics, Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Alex Noble sings the praises of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as she does the heavy lifting to bring awareness of socialism to the American people:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaking at the Reardon Convention Center in Kansas City, on 20 July 2018.
Photo by Mark Dillman via Wikimedia Commons.

Good old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – she’s doing for America what Jeremy Corbyn has done for Britain. Much to the dismay of the secret socialists now entrenched in the Democrat Party, she is stripping away the protective layer of bullshit that socialism normally has to rely upon to keep people from understanding its inherent failings, and is thus laying it bare before the world.

Because she is too ignorant to understand them – she actually believes in socialism, and thinks that if only it is adequately explained to the rest of us, we will love it as she does.

She doesn’t know enough history to know that everyone over the age of forty has seen socialism tried a dozen times in their lifetimes. Her sales pitch is wasted on us – we’ve seen the results before.

So when she told Amazon that their particular brand of crony capitalism was not welcome in New York, she genuinely thought people would admire her.

Instead, even the crony capitalists on the Democrat side of the aisle (i.e those who understand how the game is really played) are very upset with her – she has driven away 25,000 jobs and all the votes economic benefits that would have flowed from them.

All because she thinks Amazon should pay more corporation tax.

Modern parenting – too many helicopters yield lots of snowflakes

Filed under: Britain, Health, Liberty, Media — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

It’s a commonplace assertion that children today have less unscheduled, unsupervised opportunities for play and exploration, and parents have been indoctrinated into the belief that the world has become a much more dangerous place and their kids need 24/7 protection from those myriad dangers. “Helicopter” parenting is a rational response to this indoctrination, but it comes with costs to the growth and maturity of the next generation. More than a decade ago, I posted this graphic showing how each generation has been more protective of their own children than their parents had been for them:

The problem has been getting worse over time, as Rob Creasy and Fiona Corby describe:

Children growing up in the UK are said to be some of the unhappiest in the industrialised world. The UK now has the highest rates of self harm in Europe. And the NSPCC’s ChildLine Annual Review lists it as one of the top reasons why children contact the charity.

Children’s mental health has becomes one of British society’s most pressing issues. A recent report from the Prince’s Trust highlights how increasing numbers of children and young people are unhappy with their lives, sometimes with tragic consequences.

This is a generation of young people that has been labelled as “snowflakes” – unable to handle stress and more prone to taking offence. They are also said to have less psychological resilience than previous generations. And are thought to be too emotionally vulnerable to cope with views that challenge their own.

[…]

Children’s lives are being stifled. No longer are children able to spend time with friends unsupervised, explore their community or hang around in groups without being viewed with suspicion. Very little unsupervised play and activity occurs for children in public spaces or even in homes – and a children’s spare time is often eaten up by homework or organised activity.

This is further impacted by the way children are taught in schools and how pressure to succeed has led to a taming of education. But if children are never challenged, if they don’t ever experience adversity, or face risks then it is not surprising they will lack resilience.

February 24, 2019

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Warners (Part 3/2)

Filed under: Books, Media — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Lindsay Ellis
Published on 20 Apr 2018

Nothing is pure.

From the comments:

Special Agent Washing Tub
2 months ago

Me; * watching this and feeling my childhood shatter*
“Why does it hurt so much?”
Lindsay: “BECAUSE IT WAS REAL.”

February 23, 2019

No matter which “global crisis” they cry up, their answer is always “more government”

Filed under: Environment, Government, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Alex Noble on the remarkable consistency of the proffered solution to any and all “global” problems:

Climatechangers are really just watermelons – green on the outside but red on the inside. You’ll notice that none of their ideas about how to prevent climate change involve anything other than bigger government.

For them, climate change is just a pretext – an irrefutable argument (“if you disagree that we need to save the planet you must want people to die!”) that enables them to demand more taxes and more power for them and their friends so they can set the world to rights.

And out here in the real world, they have their army of useful innocents – voters fearful of tackling the real world on their own without help from a cosseting State, all too ready to swallow any argument for bigger government.

Climate change largely consists of menacing them with stories about rising water and melting ice and starving polar bears, so they will allow our civil rights to be ridden over to keep us all safe. They demand it, in fact.

As H.L Mencken said, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”

The Hobbit: Battle of Five Studios (Part 2/2)

Filed under: Books, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Lindsay Ellis
Published on 3 Apr 2018

So we’ve looked into what the problems were with these movies, the question now is … why? What happened, Peter Jackson? WHAT HAPPENED?

From the comments:

app
5 months ago

That interview clip with John Callen near the end broke my heart. I also grew up with the hobbit and was bored to tears by the movies. But I never thought about the actors of the Dwarves and how important it was that they got pushed aside. The hobbit could have been amazing if it was this band of actors, dressed like dwarves, trying to reclaim their culture and finding out what that really means. It’s a pure idea, and ironically it was corrupted by greed… you reminded me what I loved about the book! :'(

QotD: “Toxic masculinity”

Filed under: Business, Media, Politics, Quotations — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

And then we have toxic masculinity. Is there toxic masculinity? Of course there is. Well, there is toxic and it can have a masculine expression. Because of obvious biological differences, the most toxic of women will have issues beating up people or raping them. It can be done, but it won’t be common.

Is masculinity toxic? Not more than femininity. The latest insistence on doing everything the feminine way has got us “feminine business” and “feminine politics” where everything is run on image, innuendo and gossip: the female version of toxicity. You’re either with the group or out, and if you’re out we’ll demonize you.

So blaming everything on men is bad-crazy.

I have a friend who has been trying to defend the Gillette ad as in “But they’re giving to causes that help raise boys who are fatherless” etc. I love her to death, but no. While that might be laudable, the fact is that that add is another brick in the wall of “If you’re a woman and your life isn’t perfect it’s a man’s fault.”

This bad crazy not only destroys marriages, it destroys GIRLS. You see that thing above “to succeed you must sacrifice?” If you infect females with the idea that they’re owed success and if they don’t get it, it’s men’s fault, you’re both undermining them and turning them into rage-filled screeching monkeys, who are exactly zero use to society. (Oh, but they vote for Marxists, so I guess there’s that.)

Worse, this bad crazy is riding on other bad crazy. Which like most bad crazy since the twentieth century has its origins on the insane crazy of Marx.

The question is, WHY was this ad made at all? It certainly doesn’t sell razors. So, why?

Because for decades we’ve taught our children their most important role in life is the crazy cakes “change the world” or “make a difference” and the difference they’re supposed to make is in the class-war (or race war, or sex war now) sense of bringing about the Marxist paradise. We tell them they’re supposed to speak for the voiceless, then tell them the voiceless are the “designated victim classes” (whom frankly we can’t get to SHUT UP.) We tell them this is what gives meaning to life. We tell them through school, through entertainment, through news narratives, through the people who are being lionized.

And this is bad crazy. Really bad crazy. By itself it is a wrench that will take society apart. We have publishers, writers, journalists, and probably taxi drivers, policemen, engineers and who knows what, increasingly convinced their highest calling is not doing their job, but “educating” or “improving” or “raising the consciousness of” other people.

Even for a credo that worked with humanity — say Christianity — when a society becomes convinced pushing the idea is more important than doing their job, the wheels come off. BUT when the credo is neo-Marxism, or actually “increasingly elaborate excuses as for the only thing Marxism brings about is death” it’s exponentially worse.

It’s also the explanation for why the wheels come off every field that gets taken over by the left: because the people in those fields stop understanding what their actual job is.

And it’s everywhere. At such a deep level that most people — even those mad at Gillette — didn’t see that the actual problem is that no one involved in the damn ad understood it had NOTHING to do with SELLING the product.

It’s bad crazy. There’s a lot of bad crazy running in the world. And we must stop it — and build under, build over, build around — or it will kill society.

Sarah Hoyt, “Bad Crazy”, Libertarian Enterprise, 2019-01-20.

February 22, 2019

The Hobbit: A Long-Expected Autopsy (Part 1/2)

Filed under: Books, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Lindsay Ellis
Published on 27 Mar 2018

In which we look back at The Hobbit trilogy and try to give it a fair shake.

Twitter: @thelindsayellis
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/loosecanon

From the comments:

J Girl
9 months ago

Who else is waiting for the next video to be titled “part 2/3” as a slap in the face to the fact that they switched it from two movies to three

February 21, 2019

Dune – Plots and Plans – Extra Sci Fi – #2

Filed under: Books, Media — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Extra Credits
Published on 19 Feb 2019

On the surface, Dune appears to be a peak demonstration of “the competent man” trope so popular in Golden Age science fiction, but Herbert deconstructs this by carefully demonstrating how all of the characters make bad assumptions on faulty premises…

February 20, 2019

Here’s the Thing… we all worked with Sun Yat Sen!

Filed under: China, History, Humour, Media — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

TimeGhost History
Published on 19 Feb 2019

Mao Zedong, Wang Jingwei, and Chiang Kai-shek – the Snap, Crackle, and Pop of 1920’s China.

Indy decided to write some lyrics about them, God alone knows why … but it’s a concise analysis of those three comrades and comrades in arms of Sun Yat Sen.

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory

A TimeGhost interlude produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH

For context, I’ve posted a series of videos from Extra History on Dr. Sun Yat Sen, and TimeGhost is currently covering the history of China’s post-monarchy period (see the next video for more of that). I also have tags for Mao Zedong (aka Mao Tse-tung in my youth) and Chiang Kai-Shek, should you want to dig a bit deeper. I also denounce myself for laughing-out-loud at the Rice Krispies joke in the description.

What to do when you’re suddenly the star of the latest online witch-hunt

Filed under: Business, Liberty, Media, Technology — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

At Reason, Nancy Rommelmann gives a handy guide to what you need to know when a social media witch-smeller points at you and the masses start baying for your blood:

I am a pro-choice, aqua-haired, middle-aged liberal living in Portland, Oregon. I probably disagree with Nicholas Sandmann on every major issue. But we have something in common. In the last month we have both endured what is fast becoming an American ritual: our 15 minutes of hate.

Sandmann’s crime was a smirk while wearing a MAGA hat. Mine was a YouTube series I launched in December with another journalist in which we discussed the excesses of the #MeToo movement. This and the show’s name, #MeNeither, inspired an ex-employee of my husband’s coffee company to send an email to staff, characterizing the series as “vile, dangerous and extremely misguided” and adding that it “throws into question the safety of Ristretto Roasters as a workplace.”

She also sent an email to the media.

Within days, a quarter of the Ristretto staff quit and the company lost major accounts. I was repeatedly called a c*nt and was challenged to at least one fist fight. My husband was told to leave his wife or lose his business.

As someone who covers this stuff, I thought I knew how rough it might be to get dragged in public. It’s different when it’s tearing up your life.

If you do not think this can happen to you, you have not been paying attention. Here’s a guide for how to survive it…

QotD: Conservakids

Filed under: Media, Politics, Quotations, USA — Tags: — Nicholas @ 01:00

For some unfathomable reason, conservatives always seem to get excited when a moderately articulate post-puberty pundit comes along and parrots some simulacrum of conservative doctrine – except it almost always ends up like when my retriever-corgi mix tries to walk on her stubby back legs and we gasp in delight, “Look, Bitey thinks she’s people!”

This is not a criticism of young people; it’s a criticism of us grown-ups, and a recognition of reality that keeps biting us on the Jeb. We need to dispense with the cute kid conservative novelty acts and understand that our ideology – unlike liberalism – is not based on feelings and preferences but is instead drawn from a wisdom and understanding of human nature that comes only from hard-won life experience. That’s not to say young people should sit down and shut up – far from it. They have valuable insights we need to hear, especially from worlds they uniquely inhabit, like colleges or the company-level military. Sometimes they have done in-depth study and reporting on specific issues, including writing books. That’s earned expertise, not some mere knack for viral ranting, and that’s not what we are talking about here.

It’s our own fault for letting them represent us to the world – maybe we do it because they flatter us by offering a dim reflection of what we believe. But when they recite conservative chapter and verse for us, that’s all they’re doing – reciting. It’s not ingrained, it’s not seared into them through study and experience. It’s a stunt, a parlor trick. One of several reasons we conservatives need to stop putting them out there is because most conservatives have a youthful liberal phase and the kid who delights us today by mimicking our views will likely take a misguided off-ramp or two along the road to adulthood.

Kurt Schlicter, “Enough of the Precocious Conservakids!”, Townhall.com, 2017-03-23.

February 19, 2019

QotD: Internal contradictions of political correctness

… there was an article in the magazine arguing, on what might loosely be called philosophical grounds, for an end to the separation of men and women in sports. Women tennis players, for example, should compete against men, even if this means (as it does) that no woman could ever again make a living as a tennis player. In the name of equality of the sexes, one sex should be eliminated from a whole field of endeavor. Presumably, also, there should be no concessions for the handicapped, who would be forced to compete not against those similarly handicapped but against the fully fit.

Though this be madness, yet there is method in it: For the greater political correctness’ violation of common sense, the better — at least if its goal is power over men’s minds and conduct. In this sense it is like Communist propaganda of old: The greater the disparity between the claims of that propaganda and the everyday experience of those at whom it was directed, the greater the humiliation suffered by the latter, especially when they were obliged to repeat it, thus destroying their ability to resist, even in the secret corners of their heart. That is why the politically correct insist that everyone uses their language: Unlike what the press is supposed to do, the politically correct speak power to truth.

One of the strange things about the politically correct is that they never seem to become bored with their own thoughts. And this leads to a dilemma for those who oppose political correctness, for to be constantly arguing against bores is to become a bore oneself. On the other hand, not to argue against them is to let them win by default. To argue against rubbish is to immerse oneself in rubbish; not to argue against rubbish is to allow it to triumph. All that is necessary for humbug to triumph is for honest men to say nothing.

Theodore Dalrymple, “Two Forms of Mass Hysteria”, Taki’s Magazine, 2017-03-11.

February 16, 2019

The state of play in the SNC-Lavalin affair

Filed under: Business, Cancon, Law, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

If you happen to have misplaced your Libranos scorecard, Daniel Bordman has a quick summary to bring you up to date:

So here is how the accusation stands: The PMO put pressure on the AG to the benefit of SNC-Lavalin, she refused and was shuffled out of the AG position.

This led to a massive public outcry from the Conservatives, NDP and the 10 or so Journalists left in the mainstream media. The original plan was for the new AG, David Lametti, to explain to the public why this story is overblown and there was no need to look any further into the allegations.

His plan: he went on TV and explained to the public that he had spoken to Justin Trudeau and he had denied the allegations, so no investigation was needed. Brilliant! If only Bruce MacArthur and Alexander Bissonnette had known of this expert legal strategy of denying what you were caught doing, they could have escaped justice.

It is also important to note that the Prime Minister admits to having “rigorous conversations” with Jody Wilson Raybould over the SNC-Lavalian case.

After the Shaggy “it wasn’t me” defence failed to convince anyone outside of the CBC editorial board of Justin Trudeau’s innocence, a new plan was formed.

Plan B seemed to be, have everyone smear Jody Wilson-Raybould and act like it was her scandal not the PMO’s.

While she was remaining silent due to attorney-client privilege (which is a debatable position), Trudeau continued to speak for her. Again, it should be pointed out that Trudeau could have waived this at anytime to let her tell her side of the story, he didn’t.

This all came to a head when Trudeau claimed that “her presence in the cabinet speaks for itself”. The next day she resigned.

Off to Plan C, which seems to have been concocted by new Liberal strategist, Kim Jong Un.

A committee will be constructed to investigate these accusations, which of course will have a majority of Liberals and be headed by Liberal MP, Anthony Housefather, who has already added his flare to the investigation suggesting the reason that Jody Wilson Raybould was shuffled out of the AG position was because she didn’t speak French.

Remember, he is the impartial leader of Liberals investigating an allegation of Liberal corruption. It is also important to point out that both of the ministers in charge of immigration matters, Ahmed Hussain and Bill Blair, can’t speak a word of French between them.

February 15, 2019

“Blood of Bannockburn” – Sabaton History 002

Filed under: Britain, History, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

Sabaton History
Published on 14 Feb 2019

Sabaton’s song “Blood of Bannockburn” is about the First War of Scottish Independence and one of its key figures, Robert the Bruce. He fought the English King Edward who invaded Scotland when Bruce’s revolutionary force forced all Scottish nobles to join his cause or lose their lands. Edward moved on Bruce’s army while they were besieging Stirling Castle, but his plans to overwhelm the Scottish was opposed by Bruce.

Support Sabaton History on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/sabatonhistory

Watch the official lyric video for Blood of Bannockburn here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xp-Rk…

Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Markus Linke and Indy Neidell
Directed by: Astrid Deinhard and Wieke Kapteijns
Produced by: Pär Sundström, Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Executive Producers: Pär Sundström, Joakim Broden, Tomas Sunmo, Indy Neidell, Astrid Deinhard, and Spartacus Olsson
Maps by: Eastory
Edited by: Wieke Kapteijns
Sound Editing by: Marek Kaminski

Eastory YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEly…
Archive by: Reuters/Screenocean https://www.screenocean.com
Music by Sabaton

‘Photo young Sabaton’ ©Dalarnas museum, foto: Susanne Nyhlén – The National Portrait Gallery https://www.npg.org.uk

An OnLion Entertainment GmbH and Raging Beaver Publishing AB co-Production.

© Raging Beaver Publishing AB, 2019 – all rights reserved.

From the comments:

Sabaton History
1 day ago (edited)

Hey!! We’re leaving the modern times (which instantly that answers a frequently asked question about if we’re just sticking to WW2) and will enter the Medieval Era. The 3d animated maps are made and researched by Eastory (check his channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCElybFZ60Hk1NSjgCf7I2sg). As the battle took place long ago, there is little documentation about it and there are several possible reconstructions of the events of the battle available. We had to prefer one version and proponents of others may criticise it. The most risky decision was to add the effects of land rise and make the Forth river larger as a result. This is absent from most of reconstructions, but Eastory studied some old maps and according to them the sea level in 15th and 16th centuries was far higher in the region.

Enjoy and STAY AWESOME! 🤘🤘

Dune – Origins – Extra Sci Fi – #1

Filed under: Books, Media — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Extra Credits
Published on 12 Feb 2019

Frank Herbert’s epic novel Dune began as a photograph of the Oregon coastline — literally, the dunes themselves. From there it grew into a poem, then three books, then a serial in John W. Campbell’s Analog magazine, and then at last… a car repair manual publisher?

If you’re curious, check out our earlier episode on John W. Campbell here, a notable magazine editor in the history of science fiction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ctpvd2VvukQ

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