Good morning.
1. Update! The teachers and the principal responsible for the cruel “award” for the autistic boy (discussed here) are in the process of being fired.
Good.
2. This is what happens when a country doesn’t have a First Amendment…A law goes into effect in Great Britain making it illegal for advertisements to include “gender stereotypes which are likely to cause harm or serious or widespread offense.” Complaints will be assessed by the Advertising Standards Authority. British broadcasters are bound by the terms of their licenses to comply with its rulings.
The aim, we are told, is not to ban all gender stereotypes, just the harmful ones, because, said a spokesman, “put simply, we found that some portrayals in ads can, over time, play a part in limiting people’s potential.”
Right.
Observations:
- This also shows why progressives in the U.S. see the First Amendment as an impediment to their objectives.
- Writes Jazz Shaw,
These guidelines don’t provide much to go on. They make reference to images that might suggest women do most of the housework and men being clueless about similar tasks. So I guess you’re no longer allowed to hire a female actress for any advertisements involving vacuuming, filling the dishwasher or operating the washing machine? This should indeed provide new employment opportunities for male actors, but somehow I don’t think that’s what they were going for here. Besides, won’t you just raise a new generation of kids who grow up thinking only men do chores around the house?
Oh, the unintended consequences of controlling what ideas and norms the pop culture can put into people’s heads are marvelous to behold.
- The best part, you see, is that “authorities” get to decide which portrayals of stereotypes are “harmful.” In the U.S., such a law would be void for vagueness.
I like to keep these kinds of stories within reach when someone arguing for nationalized health care or a death penalty ban uses the “the U.S. is the only first world country that…” tactic. Yes, the U.S. is different.
3. Signature significance for a sociopath. Alternate title: “One more reason to stay away from Twitter.” O.J. Simpson has joined Twitter, saying in a video link,
“Hey Twitter world, this is yours truly. Coming soon to Twitter you’ll get to read all my thoughts and opinions on just about everything. Now, there’s a lot of fake O.J. accounts out there, so this one @TheRealOJ32, is the only official one. So, it should be a lot of fun — I’ve got a little getting even to do.”
And you know what O’J’ does when he decides to get even…
This is signature significance. A normal person in O.J.’s circumstances just doesn’t act like this. Then again, no normal person murders his ex-wife and her boyfriend with a hunting knife.
I don’t understand how O.J. can be active on Twitter and still hunt down the real killer, though…
4. Unethical Quote Of The Month That Doesn’t Deserve The Prominence Of A Stand-Alone Post: Newly Elected Denver City Council member Candi CdeBaca.
“I don’t believe our current economic system actually works. Um, capitalism by design is extractive and in order to generate profit in a capitalist system, something has to be exploited, that’s land, labor or resources. And I think that we’re in late phase capitalism and we know it doesn’t work and we have to move into something new, and I believe in community ownership of land, labor, resources and distribution of those resources. And whatever that morphs into is I think what will serve community the best and I’m excited to usher it in by any means necessary.”
“By any means necessary.”
Yes, she’s a communist. Imagine: Nearly all the communist nations ended up with their economies in ruins, with the larger ones engaging in murder and political oppression on an epic scale, and this woman proclaims that system superior to capitalism while calling the failed ideology “new.” What kind of American votes for someone like this?
Ethics Alarms 
Great Britain seems to be using 1984 as an instruction manual. Advertisers had better not use the wrong pronoun in those ads: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-surrey-47638527
So refreshing to see one of these Obama era community organizers called a Commie. Let’s forget this social democrat or justice democrat baloney. If the poorly made, over-priced, rationed government-designed and approved, shoe fits, wear it. The Democrats are worried about Russians interference in our elections but they’re getting Commies elected to city councils and Congress?
“The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming! Everybody to get from street!”
Reminds me of what someone once observed about Denmark: “If Sharia Law were on the ballot, the Danes would vote for it.” I’m pretty convinced if Communism were placed on the ballot in the U.S., the citizenry would vote for it. What’s not to like about free stuff? Why lift yourself out of poverty when you can vote to make everyone poor?
From each according to his abilities to each according to what the government thinks he needs.
From each that the government can compel. To each the minimum of what the government needs to give to stay in power.
1. As a longstanding Anglophile, I have to admit the reasons for my respect (their literature, WWII and Churchill especially) are being reduced significantly. What are they thinking?
2. OJ. He actually DID get even — by committing two murders and being acquitted. A dangerous sociopath. His old pal Kardashian (who must be rolling over in his grave because of his daughters’ behavior — no one in the world would know who they are if it wasn’t for OJ) would certainly regret that particular friendship.
3. Boulder’s Communist Candi also needs to learn to WRITE: “Capitalism is extractive… blah, blah.” I saw too much of that meaningless — but impressive! — BS working in a think tank. Someone should ask her to name just one, just one, communist system that has succeeded, without eventually moving toward at least a form of capitalism. What a load of bullshit. And of course all the rich liberals will support her until their own millions are a stake. Where do we find these people?????
They’re everywhere, E2. Decades worth of college graduates have been marinaded in this stuff. My kids are in their mid forties. I’m sure they’re on board with a lot of this Commie stuff. I thought their minds would be changed by having to work for a living and pay taxes and raise kids, but that doesn’t seem to be working with the young these days. I really think the Commies are going to take over at the ballot box. Bernie may be right. Scary. People are so sanguine about Communism. Venezuela? What Venezuela? Cuba and Vietnam are exotic workers’ paradises you can travel to. Cool.
Well, Candi CdeBaca, has a name that sounds like a stripper who has aligned herself with AOC and all of the other “progressives” who thinks that capitalism is evil and they are on the right side of history so we can have our socialist/communist utopia. I notice that she’s excited to make this happen “by any means necessary.” All power to the Soviets!
“What kind of American votes for someone like this?”
Off the top of my head I’m thinking 16 year-olds, convicted felons, and those here illegally…?
“What’s not to like about free stuff?”
free /frē/ adjective:
1–Without cost or payment
2–At the expense of others
verb:
1-to exempt or deliver (from effort, work).
2-to relieve or rid (of payment/obligation)
3-to disengage; clear (of responsibility).
You would be wrong. She stole this Conservative Republican’s vote through the sin of omission on the second round. She never acted or talked like a Communist. Therefore, we never specifically asked. I have never felt so betrayed in all my 52 years. My friends and I even researched this woman and came up with nothing suggesting she was a full-on commie. We are only now seeing Comrade CdeBaca’s true colors. For the record, the other candidate wasn’t any better. The entire process of voting and the candidates themselves in this particular election were a rape of personally held conservative convictions. You were damned if you did and damned if you didn’t.
”You would be wrong.”
Yikes! THAT’S unpalatable on a lot of different levels, not the least of which would my embarrassing failure to adequately evaluate the whims of the Denver electorate.
“I grew up at a time when [church] deacons were in the KKK. I don’t disrespect the Bible because of those guys,” [O.J.] Simpson told the Buffalo News, the hometown paper of his former team, the Bills. “The flag shouldn’t be disrespected because of what cops do. The flag represents what we want America to be.”
Here is another item of interest worth discussing.
https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/dunbar-ortiz-the-second-amendment-is-rooted-in-white-supremacy-racism-and-genocide/
I’m sure all those people living on the frontier just imagined bears, wildcats and wolves….
Indeed.
Here is an interesting comment on that blog post.
https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/dunbar-ortiz-the-second-amendment-is-rooted-in-white-supremacy-racism-and-genocide/#comment-4274119
Wait til she learns that the Indians had guns, too…..
Regarding the Commie — I keep thinking that Americans can’t be so stupid to vote these people into office when they blatantly tell us what their agenda is. Are we sure the voting is not totally rigged? I don’t want to believe we are that far gone yet, but it’s becoming apparent that we, as in the US people, have been dumbed down to a critical point.
They’re not dumbed down, Peg. They’re woke. And proud of it. They’re on the right side of history. Every communist country becoming a dumpster fire notwithstanding. Just ask Michael Moore. He’s a film maker! He should know! A really wealthy one, come to think of it.
This was a city council runoff election. That means virtually nobody voted. I just looked it up, and CdeBaca (that name has to be missing a vowel or something) got 8412 votes, beating her opponent by 787 votes. Thanks to voter apathy, it doesn’t take very many lunatics to elect one of their own in a municipal runoff election.
In 1968, Harvard was completely turned upside down and inside out when the SDS occupied the administration building in Harvard Yard (to protest Harvard’s ROTC program). The college had them removed in a dawn raid by police, students sided with the students, the whole student body was radicalized, classes were closed down. he university has been headed down and to the Left ever since.
One of my friends was present when the SDS students, chanting and holding their anti-Vietnam signs, called for a vote of students in the Yard, maybe a hundred or so, regarding whether they should “take” the building. The proposal was overwhelmingly defeated. Then all the non-SDS members drifted away, and the remaining 20 or so, the hard core, took another vote, and the occupation was approved. And they took the building.
1. When I first read the thought it was just about the one boy. Apparently, it was worse. There were two of those awards given out.
1) Reading the linked article, the story gets much worse… the principal refused to meet with the mom, refused to allow her to speak with the special ed teacher, and basically threatened to have her arrested if she went to a classroom to look for a teacher. In front of witnesses. She took steps to throw the teachers under the bus, but did did not mention her direct responsibility in the matter. (Don’t worry, the teacher’s union is closing ranks)
She also lied to the school investigation, and those witnesses seemed happy to throw her under the same bus… maybe because they saw her duck responsibility and scapegoat others. If she would do it to one, no one is safe…
I believe there’s a special word in the English language for a person who does not own his own labor. I think it started with an ‘s’.
You can expect the following to be their catch phrase:
ARBEIT MACHT FREI
Re #4: Knowing someone who did vote for her, I can answer this, at least for a specific vote, though this person and her politician husband seem to have many syncophants, so I believe this will cover a significant number of the reasons. Please note that the woman whom these quotes (well paraphrases really, as the exact quotes get too lengthy and obnoxious to post) come from thinks that AOC is a genius, Buttigieg deserves the Oval Office because he’s young and gay and it’s time for the young to take power and remove the old racist white men, and Trump is evidence that too many people are racist, sexist, etc (add the appropriate -ist/-phobic term of the week).
It is a crime that people in the richest nation do not have adequate food, shelter, and medical care. Only greed would allow this. I am not greedy. I don’t mind paying a few extra dollars to guarantee equal access to food and medicine for all if only the rich would pay their fair share. – regarding government health care
This is the richest nation in the world. We can and must allow people who only want a better life for themselves and their children to come here. Greed and racism is the only explanation for denying these people entry into our nation. I care, unlike you, if you claim any law has anything to do with this. – regarding illegal immigration
Look at this clown, destroying our democracy. Did you see that Mueller said he was not innocent? Let me repeat this for those of you who only watch Faux News. Mueller said, here in this link, that Trump was not innocent. Man I miss President Obama, who was without scandal. We need to get it together and elect someone more like the greatest President (Obama) in all levels of government. – Trump and the Mueller investigation
Colorado, especially after the legalization of marijuana, has become rabidly progressive. As a note, all the money that was supposed to support the schools from this was never realized, organized crime has increased, not decreased, and the prospects of twenty-something’s, rather than improving by not having drug charges, has declined probably due to the likelihood of decreased motivation (something studies have started strongly correlating from increased marijuana usage). People are in absolute denial of these facts, declaring Colorado to be a haven for all, the closest thing to a utopia currently available, especially since it finally overcame any “red” and pushed totally to “blue.” Really, the further from reality your campaign gets, the more likely you are to get elected. She’s been elected because Colorado has lost it’s mooring in reality.
Sarah, as an oldster (68), I can’t help thinking the progressives are really young people, forty and under, who are simply saying, “Out with these old people, it’s our turn, and we want to run the country in a totally different way. We know best. If you’re old, you’re an idiot and a menace.” It’s really a storming the Bastille kind of thing. They have no idea how crucial a functioning, healthy, motivating economy is for everyone’s well being. The arrogance of youth. But they’re not that darned young. When did forty become young? Or thirty-seven or twenty-nine. They’re adults. Or should be.
Other Bill,
I am sorry to disillusion you. My aunt, whom I quote, and her second husband and many of their followers are 55+. They are closer to your generation than mine, I’m sorry to say. Youth and ignorance go hand in hand, but this? He’s a professional politician, so his opinion is no surprise, but she’s a CPA, who should know better.
I think that, rather than just age, it has to do a great deal with feeling, not thinking, or thinking, not with logic, but with emotion. We all use emotion more often than we’d like to admit, but she cannot tell the difference between fact and opinion, because how you feel is more important that what the data says, in her opinion (which is of course, fact). As an example, when we were debating abortion, she gave her opinion on what defines a baby based on no criteria other than what supported her view. I quoted the dictionary and an Obstetrics textbook. She told me my opinion didn’t matter compared to her facts. I then got out a biology textbook for her next point, proved that she was defying currently understood data and she laughed at me and claimed that because that felt wrong, it was an opinion, and her feelings defined what the facts were, as she was compassionate, whereas I was cruel. If we are nice (superficially, not necessarily practically), our path forward is best.
The difference includes, not age, but how we deal with data. Many of us struggle with dealing with data that goes against our stances. I personally look for errors in the data, the reporting, the methodology. I look to see if it is statistically significant or if there is more data showing that it is an outlier, or even if there is a hypothesis that fits the data better that still doesn’t compromise my view. She simply says, if it doesn’t fit my world view, it is an incorrect opinion, not data.
You wonder why many Progressives don’t view a functioning economy as a boon (or necessity) for us all. An economy cannot function, in her view, unless everyone is rich, there is no global warming, women get paid as much or more than men, blacks are compensated for any ill that may have been done to their long-dead ancestors, no woman is ever raped or harassed, no man displays any masculine trait, no LGBT+ is ever harassed (even if it was by another LGBT+ in the same drug ring and had nothing to do with the LGBT+ issue), etc. Unless everyone in the whole world gets the same salary, doing what they love to do, never being miserable in the slightest, the economy has failed. This is why we love the”from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.” This isn’t a case of growing up, it is a totally different view of the world, one that, in my opinion (backed by quite a few examples) is disconnected from reality.
Sarah, you’ve put your finger squarely on the other mystery I’m flummoxed by: how can people my age that I went to high school or college with be such loony, barking seal lefties on Facebook? These are people who have lived their lives and they are completely Trump deranged. They could recite your paraphrase of the city council woman’s blather verbatim. Some of them, I can understand because they are New Yorkers and upper class New Yorkers hate, hate, hate Trump with a visceral passion that knows no bounds. I just don’t get it. You’d think they at least would be concerned about social security remaining solvent, or something. Maybe it’s the baby boom’s refusal to grow up. Maybe in their hearts, they still think it’s 1969 or so. Power to the people. Stick it to the man (even though you are, you know, kinda the man?). Right on. Make love not war. Forever young. Forever idiotic. Of course Bernie Sanders is the poster boy for this crew, much as Lizzy Warren is on the distaff side. Old hippies, I guess. Bummer, man.
And thanks for your detailed description of your attempt to speak with the CPA. Eloquent and COTD worthy.
I also salute you for engaging with these people. I don’t have the patience for it. Too old, I guess.
I engage with her (the CPA who I paraphrased in the first post and discussed in the second) because she is my aunt. I keep hoping she will see the reality in front of her instead of living in a dream world. It is significantly harder to engage someone whom I have not know my whole life.
I no longer engage with my only SON on politics. He’s completely Trump deranged. He just texted me some article from the NYT about Trump not being told about some cyber warfare the Defense department is engaging in against Russia because the un-named sources for the article consider Trump a security risk. This out of the blue while we’re texting about going to an indoor go kart facility with his son, my grandson. It’s been a nice half year or so being politics free. I guess that’s over. Depressing. But I refuse to engage any more.
O.J. Simpson is a hardened sociopath with a cold heart and a dead soul. He’ll fit right in on Twitter.
Seriously, though, Twitter is going to eat him alive. He has no idea what he’s getting himself into. The mob over there is relentless. Smart money says he stops tweeting before the end of the year.
Re: No. 3; OJ and the Knife-wielding Twitterer:
I checked his Twitter page. What is more disturbing? That OJ has a Twitter account or more than 672,000 followers?
jvb
I don’t do Twitter, but I have the impression of it as a medium that is far friendlier to lies than to the truth. So I think of “number of followers” as a kind of fake-news “poll.” Especially where the number applies to someone like OJ Simpson. Makes me wonder what kind of numbers Ted Bundy would have had, if he’d lived in the times of Twitter. Still, I am convinced that the overall number of “un-pre-crimed” sociopaths and psychopaths in this society is at an all-time high. I shouldn’t have written that. Now I have to commute home!
Jeff beat me to the same prediction about OJ using Twitter – by just a few hours.
Blonde women using Twitter had better be especially on-guard about OJ.
Ouch! Harsh but fair.
#3 – after watching South Park’s episode “Butters very own episode” I will always link OJ Simpson, Gary Condit, and John Ramsey.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butters%27_Very_Own_Episode
At the time of the creation and airing of the episode, public opinion was that all three of them were guilty of murder. In the episode, they show up to support Butter’s mother as “the wrongly accused looking for the real killer.”
How ironic when DNA testing exonerated both Gary Condit and John Ramsey. It almost makes you wonder if OJ is innocent too…
Nah, gulity as hell.
A tweet about O.J.
2–You want British Morons? I’ll give you British Morons!
British Police Propose Fighting Domestic Violence By Distributing Less Pointy Knives.