Tag: oppression

Japan passes law protecting property rights in space

8:42 am

Japan’s legislature on June 15th approved a new law designed to protect the ownership of the resources private entities extract for profit in space.

Japan’s legislation is similar to provisions in the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Obama in 2015. That law grants U.S. companies rights to resources that they extract, but not property rights to celestial bodies, which would run afoul of the Outer Space Treaty. Luxembourg and the United Arab Emirates have since passed similar legislation.

All four countries are signatories of the Artemis Accords, which endorses the ability to extract and use space resources. “The Signatories affirm that the extraction of space resources does not inherently constitute national appropriation under Article II of the Outer Space Treaty, and that contracts and other legal instruments relating to space resources should be consistent with that Treaty,” the accords state.

Both Russia and China oppose such legislation, as well as the Artemis Accords, which have now been signed by eleven countries.

What this growing alignment of opposing sides means for future space operations by private companies is unclear, though it suggests these two countries will not honor those private property rights, which in turn suggests this legal disagreement is eventually going to lead to physical conflict in space.

4 comments

China’s Long March 2C rocket launches three military satellites

8:28 am

China today used its Long March 2C rocket to launch three military reconnaissance satellites into orbit.

The rocket’s first stage uses highly toxic hypergolic fuels, and is expendable. Since it is launched from the interior of China, that stage always crashes on land, sometimes near residential areas. No word on where it crashed today.

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

19 SpaceX
18 China
8 Russia
3 Northrop Grumman

The U.S. still leads China 27 to 18 in the national rankings.

4 comments

Today’s blacklisted American: NY accounting program for high school students bans whites

1:25 pm

The Civil Rights Act of 1964: repealed by the universities in New York.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964: unilaterally repealed by
the universities in New York.

Blacklists are back and New York’s got ’em! Until Campus Reform revealed its bigoted discriminatory policy, a New York accounting program for high school students specifically excluded whites from applying.

The first link above includes a screen capture of the program’s original application requirements, which included five categories, (1) Hispanic or Latino, (2) Black or African American, (3) Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, (3) Asian, (4) Native American or Alaska Native, (5) Two or More Races.

Notice what’s missing? If you are simply white and thus do not fall into these categories, you must go to the back of the bus. For example, my kids (had I any) would be Jewish, white, and of European descent, and thus under these definitions would be forbidden to even apply to the program. And the only reason they would be rejected would be because of their race and ethnicity, a criteria that is a blatant violation of so many anti-discrimination laws passed since the 1960s it boggles the mind.
» Read more

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New studies: Plexiglass does nothing; masks carry diseases; lockdowns destroyed 40% of all small businesses

5:11 pm

Modern science!
How modern politicians apply science!

Three new studies have once again confirmed what common sense and a hundred-plus years of medical research has consistently shown, that the measures mandated by foolish governments and health officials last year to supposedly “stop” or “slow” the spread of COVID-19 did nothing of the sort, and instead likely accomplished the exact opposite.

The studies specifically looked at three of the most popular and imposing actions mandated by either governments or corporations, the installation of plexiglass everywhere, the mandating of mask use, and the draconian lockdowns that shut down whole states for almost a year. In all three cases, the studies found them worse than useless.

First, the plexiglass barriers: Not only has there never been any research documenting the usefulness of the plexiglass barriers that restaurants, convenience stores, and almost all businesses have installed to isolate their workers and customers from each other and thus supposedly prevent the spread of COVID-19, a new study from Boston found that the plexiglass barriers likely increased the risk of infection, because it hampered the flow of air circulation.
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Wells Fargo blacklists Republican candidates for Congress

1:11 pm

Wells Fargo bans Republicans
Wells Fargo: Republicans blackballed from having bank accounts.

They’re coming for you next: In the past week Wells Fargo has unilaterally shut down the bank accounts of two past Republican candidates for Congress, in one case stranding the individual on a trip with no cash.

In both cases the action was taken without warning in a manner that denied the individuals access to a large amount of their own cash. And though Wells Fargo gave no explanation for its action, both individuals strongly suspect it had to do with their political positions.

First conservative activist Lauren Witzke discovered that her Wells Fargo bank accounts had suddenly been shut.
» Read more

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FAA, local Texas DA, and environmental group out to get SpaceX and Starship

10:16 am

Two news articles today suggest that a number of government officials, environmental groups, and some news media are beginning to team up to damage SpaceX and hinder its ability to succeed.

First we have this Verge article, aimed at suggesting that SpaceX violated its launch license and ignored FAA warnings not to launch during a December 9th test flight of the eighth Starship prototype.

Minutes before liftoff, Elon Musk’s SpaceX ignored at least two warnings from the Federal Aviation Administration that launching its first high-altitude Starship prototype last December would violate the company’s launch license, confidential documents and letters obtained by The Verge show. And while SpaceX was under investigation, it told the FAA that the agency’s software was a “source of frustration” that has been “shown to be inaccurate at times or overly conservative,” according to the documents.

The article generally takes the side of the FAA, suggesting that SpaceX was lax and nonchalant about the risks relating to weather and launch conditions, and proceeded with its launch even though FAA officials thought it unsafe. It also quotes Wayne Monteith, the head of the FAA’s space division, blasting SpaceX for showing “a concerning lack of operational control and process discipline that is inconsistent with a strong safety culture,” claiming that FAA software showed a risk to nearby buildings and homes should the rocket explode in the air.

However, buried far down in the article it also notes,
» Read more

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Brazil signs Artemis Accords

9:04 am

Brazil on June 15th became the first South American country to sign the Artemis Accords, designed to bypass the limitations placed on property rights created by the Outer Space Treaty.

U.S. policy requires any nation that wishes to participate in its Artemis program to go back to the Moon to agree to the accords. Brazil is now the eleventh country to sign, joining Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Ukraine, and the United States.

Russia and China oppose the accords, which causes a problem for Russia as it desperately needs to partner with someone because it can’t on its own afford to build much. It is negotiating possible partnerships with China at its new space station as well as building a base on the Moon, but those agreements are not firm. And continues to send out feelers, including statements by Putin, calling for continuing cooperation with the U.S. in space.

Whether the Biden administration will make an exception for Russia in regards to the Artemis Accords remains unclear. That twelve countries have agreed to the accords however gives the U.S. greater leverage with those countries that have not yet signed.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Business that makes American flags blackballed by Paypal, Facebook, and Shopify

11:22 am

Banned by Paypal, Facebook, and Shopify.
The American flag: Banned by Paypal, Facebook, and Shopify.

Persecution is now cool! A Tennessee businessman who specializes in making carved wooden American flags to order, with almost any message requested, has been blacklisted by Paypal, Facebook, and Shopify, preventing him access to more than $35,000 of his own cash and causing a 90% reduction in business.

It began when, the day after the January 6th protests in DC, all three big tech companies took action to destroy Your American Flag Store,, a small business owned personally by carpenter James Staake and his family.

This past January, PayPal decided to demonetize James and his business by freezing revenue due him. In total, PayPal is holding more than $35,000 of James’ money. Now, James finds himself in an impossible situation – unable to fulfill orders because PayPal is freezing, rather than transferring, funds from James’ customers to James.
» Read more

22 comments

Today’s blacklisted American: Black Congressman blacklisted by Congressional Black Caucus

11:31 am

Banned for not being black or lefitst enough
Congressman Byron Donalds, banned by the
Democratic Party’s Congressional Black Caucus
for not being the “right kind” of black.

Blacklists are back and the Democrats’ have got ’em! Congressman Byron Donalds (R-Florida) has discovered that simply being black is insufficient to qualify for the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). Apparently he must also be a Democrat and flaming leftist who supports Marxist causes and the racist agenda of Critical Race Theory.

From the first link:

“Since starting in Congress, our office and the Congressman have engaged with several CBC members expressing his interest in joining, but all we’ve gotten is the cold shoulder,” Donalds’ Communications Director, Harrison Fields, told the Daily Caller. The CBC is denying Donalds entrance, individuals familiar with the caucus’s plans reportedly told Buzzfeed News.

From the second link, this statement from the CBC gives their vague explanation why Donalds has been blackballed:
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Leftist academic suspended by college for expressing her opinions

1:20 pm

Today's modern witch hunt
Under modern leftist academic thought, soon everyone
will be witch who must be burnt.

Eating their own: Santa Barbara City College (SBCC) in California has suspended the vice president of its extended learning program, Joyce Coleman, because she made comments about the World War II Japanese internment camps that apparently offended some Asians.

Apparently Coleman, who only started her job at SBCC six months ago, made her comments during a March Equal Opportunity Advisory Committee meeting in connection with the formation of “a new campus affinity group on behalf of Asian-American Pacific Islanders.”

The complaint alleges Coleman, who is Black, reportedly greeted news of the new group’s formation with the words, “About time,” and then described having visited an internment camp for Japanese and Japanese American people during World War II and wondering why the prisoners there “did not just leave,” given how small the fence was. By contrast, Coleman allegedly noted, Black American slaves formed the Underground Railroad and actively resisted.

Some campus faculty and staff took offense to what they described as “victim blaming,” charging that she inflicted “great harm” by her words and actions.

My heart be still. Her words offended someone. What a tragedy! She obviously must be fired immediately and forbidden to work anywhere in America ever again. The suspension is certainly insufficient!

The irony here is that Coleman is herself a proud modern leftist who thinks all whites are bigots and must be punished. For example, during a presentation she gave at a college book club, she had the group watch…
» Read more

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“The Endless SLS Test Firings Act”

9:46 am

The Senate passes a law! In the NASA authorization that was just approved by the Senate and awaits House action was an amendment — inserted by Senator Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi) — that will essentially require NASA to build an SLS core stage designed for only one purpose, endless testing at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.

The Stennis-specific provision says NASA should “initiate development of a main propulsion test article for the integrated core stage propulsion elements of the Space Launch System, consistent with cost and schedule constraints, particularly for long-lead propulsion hardware needed for flight.”

So what exactly is a “main propulsion test article,” and why does NASA need one? According to a Senate staffer, who spoke to Ars on background, this would essentially be an SLS core stage built not to fly but to undergo numerous tests at Stennis.

My headline above is essentially stolen from the Eric Berger article at the link. Because this ground test core is not funded, at best it would likely not be ready for testing prior to ’27 or ’28, at the earliest. By then who knows if SLS will even exist any longer, replaced by low-cost and far more useful commercial rockets. Thus, if this Wicker amendment survives, Stennis might be testing a core stage endlessly for a rocket that no longer exists.

And even if SLS is flying, what point is there to test a core stage that never flies? None, except if you wish to create fake jobs in Mississippi for your constituents, as Wicker obviously is trying to do.

Fortunately the bill is merely an authorization, and has not yet passed the House. Much could change before passage, and even after passage money will need to be appropriated to create this fake testing project.

Unfortunately, we are discussing our modern Congress, which has no brains, can’t count, and thinks money grows on trees. I would not bet against this fake testing program becoming law.

9 comments

Today’s blacklisted American: College endorses segregation against whites, turning former coffee shop into blacks-only haven

11:21 am

The Civil Rights Act of 1964: repealed by Beliot College.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964: unilaterally repealed by Beliot College.

The new bigotry on American campuses: Beliot College in Wisconsin has decided to turn a former campus coffee shop into blacks-only haven, thus re-introducing Jim Crow segregation by treating blacks as a privileged race and all other ethnic groups and races as inferior and thus deserving of discrimination and second-class facilities.

In March, the private institution announced the Java Joint would be closed in order to become “a haven for Beloit College’s Black students.”

The gathering space was praised by Jada Daniel, the current Black Student Union president. “We hope to create a safe space for Black and Brown students, where we have a comfortable place to study,” said Daniel on the school’s website. “Daniel said BSU plans to host Soul Food Sundays, poetry readings, and other events during the year, following COVID safety guidelines,” the website says.

Meanwhile, when questions were raised about this clearly discriminatory policy, the school refused to comment, even as its own website said this:
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Leftist radical feminist Naomi Wolf

11:32 am

Persecution is now cool! Despite a thirty year career as a published feminist condemning the male patriarchy of American society while also working in the campaigns of both Bill Clinton and Al Gore, leftist radical feminist Naomi Wolf has found herself banned permanently by Twitter for daring to write posts condemning the lockdowns and mandates of the past year, while also raising concerns about the vaccines being offered to prevent COVID-19.

Twitter booted Wolf shortly before she intends to release her new book, Step Ten, that will explain how COVID-19 is being used by elites to grease the skids toward authoritarian fascism. “A much-hyped medical crisis,” Wolf argues, “has taken on the role of being used as a pretext to strip us all of core freedoms.”

The ironies here are endless. First, Twitter’s ban literally proves Wolf’s point. That Twitter executives don’t see that further illustrates their intolerance.

Second, the irony of Wolf’s banning might actually be somewhat amusing if it weren’t so suppressive to free thought. » Read more

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Tens of thousands of Georgia Biden ballots were likely just duplicate copies of one ballot

10:33 am

It appears the reason a Georgia judge decided to unseal all 147,000 mail-in ballots for close inspection were the affidavits from four poll workers stating that tens of thousands of mail-in ballots voting for Biden appeared to be mere photocopies of the same ballot, and should have been invalidated and were not.

Voyles [one of the poll workers] said she noticed that all of the ballots were printed on paper different from others she handled as part of a statewide hand recount of the presidential election.

She also said none were purportedly folded or creased, as she typically observed in mail-in ballots that had been removed from envelopes.

“All of them were strangely pristine,” said Voyles, who for 20 years has monitored elections in Fulton County, which includes much of Atlanta.

The watchdogs suspect as many as tens of thousands of the ballots may have been manufactured in a race that Biden won by just 12,000 votes, in large part because of the late surge in mail-in ballots counted after election monitors were asked to leave State Farm Arena in Atlanta.

This is the same issue that is suspected for many mail-in ballots in other states, thousands of fake ballots that appeared out of nowhere late in the vote counting, all of which were for Biden and all of which appeared very questionable.

If after inspection these allegations are found to be true , it very likely will invalidate the certified results in these states. At a minimum, it will show that the election of Joe Biden was fraudulent.

35 comments

Today’s blacklisted American: Veteran pilot under investigation by American Airlines for expressing his opinions

12:55 pm

Coca-Cola's bigoted company policy
Examples of Critical Race Policy materials that
were being used at Coca-Cola

Blacklists are back and American Airlines want ’em! American Airlines has instituted an investigation into the opinions of one of their pilots, Guy Midkiff, because he committed the “crime” of criticizing the introduction of the bigoted and Marxists program called Critical Race Theory (CRT) in his local schools.

The attacks against him by one group that supports CRT have been vicious and slanderous, as documented at this story. The members of this group, the Southlake Anti-Racism coalition (SARC), have repeatedly commented on American Airlines’ Twitter feed, accusing Midkiff of harassing students and women while calling him a racist, all without any evidence. Some examples:
» Read more

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China releases orbital image showing Zhurong on Mars

10:46 am

Zhurong on Mars
Click for original image.

China’s state-run press today released two images taken by its Tianwen-1 Mars orbiter showing its Zhurong rover on the surface of Mars.

Those photos are to the right. The top shows the location prior to the rover’s landing. The bottom, taken on June 2nd, shows the rover and its landing platform, as well as its entry capsule, heat shield, and parachutes.

In the image, taken by a high-resolution camera installed on the orbiter of Tianwen-1 at 6 p.m. on June 2 (Beijing Time), two bright spots are visible in the upper right corner. The larger one is the landing platform, and the smaller one is the Zhurong Mars rover, the CNSA said.

…The dark area surrounding the landing platform might be caused by the influence of the engine plume during landing. The symmetrical bright stripes in the north-south direction of the landing platform might be from fine dust when the landing platform emptied the remaining fuel after landing, the CNSA said.

The bright spots in the center of the image are the back cover of the entry capsule and the parachute jettisoned during the landing. Another bright spot in the lower left of the image is the heat shield of the entry capsule, the CNSA said.

Based on the second photo, it appears that Zhurong has barely moved far from the lander since it rolled off on May 22nd.

And that’s all we really know. The Chinese press release provides no details about how well the rover is functioning, where exactly this location is on the surface of Mars, nor anything else of interest. The rover might be in the region covered by the MRO photos I posted yesterday, but if so the resolution isn’t good enough for me to find the spot. I am sure however that MRO scientists are presently carefully comparing their highest resolution version with these Tianwen-1 images to pinpoint it. They will then follow-up with their own high-resolution images of Zhurong from MRO.

The rover has a planned mission length of 90 Martian days, which runs through the end of August. How much the Chinese government will reveal about its operations and results however remains completely unknown. If it functions as planned expect science papers published in about a year. If not we will only get silence.

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Today’s blacklisted American: College volley ball player blackballed for her opinions

12:29 pm

The Bill of Rights cancelled at Amazon
Doesn’t exist at the University of Oklahoma.

They’re coming for you next: A college volley ball player at the University of Oklahoma, Kylee McLaughlin, was blackballed from her team because she refused to endorse the agenda of Black Lives Matter and voiced her own conservatives opinions during a team discussion after viewing a left-wing political film about American prisons.

When she also expressed some of her conservative opinions on social media, her coach demanded she delete the post immediately and call all the team’s coaches and players to apologize.

The legal document says: ‘Although (McLaughlin) supports equality, social justice, and finds racism despicable, she disagreed with the WOKE culture and critical race theory advocated and practiced by two of her coaches who are the Defendants in this action.’

She said coaches and administrators later told her she did not fit in with the culture and gave her three options to continue at the university without playing time. She was given the choice of transferring, continuing on scholarship as a non athletic student or taking a redshirt year, keeping her scholarship and practice separately from the rest of the team. During the redshirt year, she was made to carry out more than 10 hours of online diversity and inclusion training, she said.

She didn’t say anything racist, she merely disagreed with the leftist agenda of the movie they saw. But since “one black teammate” was offended and determined without challenge that she was racist, the coaches decided they had to blackball her.

The good news? » Read more

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More evidence the COVID-19 panic was just that: an unwarranted panic

12:04 pm

The Scream by Edvard Munch
The Scream by Edvard Munch, the absolute wrong response
to any emergency, and sadly the very response Americans adopted
against COVID-19.

Three more stories in the past few weeks have proven once again what I and many others saw unequivocally more than a year ago: The panicky response to COVID was unwarranted and not based on the actual facts on the ground but on manipulated and unproven assumptions.

Those assumptions were touted for purely political reasons. Worse, too many Americans meekly accepted those assumptions without any of the kind of mature skepticism that is required of adult citizens in a democratic republic. The result: Our rights were violated and false and corrupt politicians gained power, power they eagerly abused.

First, officials in Alameda County in California revealed on June 4th that they have reduced the number of COVID deaths in that county for the past year by about 25%, from 1,634 to 1,223.

“There are definitely people who died from reasons that were clearly not caused by COVID,”said Neetu Balram, a spokesperson for the Alameda County Public Health Department. Balram couldn’t give specifics about the true cause of death for the 411 people removed from the COVID-19 data, but she said the cases were identified after reviewing codes entered by county coroners into CalREDIE, the state’s database for disease reporting and surveillance.

None of this is a surprise to anyone who was open-minded enough to pay attention. The federal government provided hospitals and doctors a bonus for claiming as many deaths as possible as caused by COVID. They thus inflated the numbers grossly. Moreover, encouraging a panic in 2020 over the Wuhan flu served the political ends of the Democratic Party (to which almost all health officials belong) because it then justified the illegal easing of election laws so that Democrats could commit election fraud in November with ease.

Thus, doctors had both financial and political incentives to inflate the COVID numbers, which apparently they did with glee.

Two research papers published in mid-May added further weight to these conclusions:
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Doctors fired and blackballed for calling for race-neutral policies in medicine

1:32 pm

Lysenko with Stalin
Trofim Lysenko preaching to Stalin. His policies destroyed
Soviet plant research, persecuted anyone who disagreed
with him, and caused famines that killed millions. And they are
all policies now being adopted by the American medical field.

Persecution is now cool! Last year, the University of Pittsburgh fired cardiologist Norman Wang because he wrote and published a peer-reviewed paper calling for race-neutral policies in medicine.

In addition, he was publicly denounced by the American Heart Association (AHA) and the journal retracted his paper, even though no one could cite any errors in his work.

As the criticism mounted, Wang was removed from his position as the director of a fellowship program in clinical cardiac electrophysiology at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and was prohibited from making any contact with students. His boss reportedly told him that his classroom was “inherently unsafe” due to the views he expressed.

Unsafe, eh? Can’t have those students hear any opinions or facts that might contradict the modern “woke” narrative!

Wang is suing both the AHA and the University of Pittsburgh for defamation and violating his first amendment rights. Whether he wins or not remains quite unknown, especially considering the increasingly intolerant nature of today’s society.

The article at the link however goes far beyond simply telling Wang’s story. First, it describes the cases of two other doctors who were forced to resign for similar reasons: they questioned the modern obsession with race and suggested that things would be far better if “race was taken out of the conversation.” The mob immediately rose up against both, and their medical organization, the American Medical Association (AMA), then moved to get them fired or removed.

The article then however goes even farther, outlining how this evil oppressive blacklisting culture is beginning to have a much wider and very negative impact on the practice of medicine and the treatment of patients.
» Read more

29 comments

Today’s blacklisted American: The American flag

12:44 pm

Banned by the NAACP
The American flag: Banned by the NAACP.

The local NAACP chapter at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) was badly triggered over Memorial Day weekend by the horrible sight of an American flag hanging from the end of a crane’s cable at a university construction site, and demanded the cable and flag be removed.

The NAACP claimed that what really upset them was the standard cable loop just below the flag at the end of the cable, which they immediately assumed was a noose!

Ronald Davis, president of the New Britain NAACP, told FOX 61 that “Regardless of what someone else says about that, what I see, as a black man? That’s a noose. Period. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Take it down.”

But one intrepid College Fix reader noticed there are several steel cable loops hanging from the crane, and the only one that appears to bother another is the one with the American flag on the end of it. He cites one image of the crane in which viewers can see three or four cable loops.

“I guess they noticed only the one holding the flag, which means that it’s the flag that triggers them,” the reader said. [emphasis mine]

It is clear that because he and the NAACP specifically focused on the one loop where the American flag hung tells us what really offended them. They really wanted the American flag removed. And I am sure if they had their way it would be banned forever.
» Read more

19 comments

Today’s blacklisted American: Right-of-center books banned by Amazon

1:17 pm

The Bill of Rights cancelled at Amazon
No first amendment on Amazon.

Blacklists are back and Amazon’s got ’em: Yesterday my blacklist column noted how Amazon has blackballed the live stream of a film biography of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

That however is not the only example of Amazon’s anti-free speech agenda and its desire to silence conservative thought. In recent months book authors and publishers have repeatedly discovered that Amazon has been either banning outright their books, or shadow-banning them from searches so that potential customers cannot find them.

The link gives about a number of examples, but a quick internet search finds numerous others (see for example here, here, and here).

Only rarely will Amazon admit to this censorship, and when it does, it does so by claiming vague rules about preventing “hate speech,” even though this giant online store has done nothing to remove books and products promoting Islamic terrorism, Nazi paraphernalia, and Antifa-supporting materials.
» Read more

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From masks to the origins of COVID, Anthony Fauci is a liar and a fraud

12:36 pm

Fauci: Washington's top liar
Anthony Fauci: Washington’s liar-in-chief

In the past few days a slew of 2020 emails by Dr. Anthony Fauci have revealed his dishonest, incompetent, corrupt, and political agenda during the entire COVID-19 epidemic.

The emails have revealed he lied about his connections with the Chinese Wuhan lab. They reveal that he knew all along that the virus was almost certainly leaked from that lab. They also reveal that he immediately worked to prevent these facts from being revealed publicly, lying if necessary to do it and successfully forcing publications to withdraw news stories based on his lies.

Of all these revelations, however, the one email that best illustrates Fauci’s dishonesty and venality was the one in February 2020 — before the epidemic had taken hold and before any shutdowns had been imposed — where he bluntly admitted what has been known for more than a century, that the general widespread use of masks by people who are not sick is pointless and will accomplish nothing.

In his words:

Masks are really for infected people to prevent them from spreading infection to people who are not infected rather than protecting uninfected people from acquiring infection. The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through the material. It might, however, provide some slight benefit in keep out gross droplets if someone coughs or sneezes on you. I do not recommend that you wear a mask, particularly since you are going to a vey low risk location. Your instincts are correct, money is best spent on medical countermeasures such as diagnostics and vaccines. [emphasis mine]

Less than two months later, Fauci had completely changed his tune, claiming that Americans needed to wear masks all the time. » Read more

15 comments

New Zealand government blasts Rocket Lab for employment violations, even as it waives its own strict COVID border rules for the company

9:41 am

Two stories today from New Zealand, both related to the American company Rocket Lab, help illustrate the often absurd and irrational nature of modern government rule-making.

First, New Zealand’s Employment Relations Authority attacked the company after ruling against it in a single employee grievance case. The case involved a fired employee who filed and won his grievance when he refused to sign the company’s offered settlement. Based on this single case, authority officials quickly and publicly blasted Rocket Lab as if it had committed numerous blasphemies:

Authority member Rachel Larmer found that the dismissal was “extremely unfair” and that the company “failed to comply with even the most basic and widely understood principles of procedural fairness”.

As the article noted, it “is unusual for the authority to be so overtly critical of an employer.” Yet, attack Rocket Lab it did, very bluntly and very publicly.

Yet, at the same time, this same New Zealand government has apparently been giving this evil employer routine waivers of its draconian border restrictions imposed to prevent the arrival of COVID.

More than 150 aerospace specialists have arrived on short term visas to work in New Zealand for the satellite launch service provider Rocket Lab since the country’s border closed. Immigration New Zealand said 156 foreigners were granted border exemptions as part of a government-approved programme for the company.

Rocket Lab spokesperson Morgan Bailey said the company had focused on bringing in essential workers for its launches, who would usually stay for two weeks after completing managed isolation.

Normally visitors to New Zealand need to quarantine for two weeks. Apparently, the government is allowing foreign workers for Rocket Lab to bypass that rule and make alternative arrangements.

So which is it? Is Rocket Lab a horrible slave-driver who must be watched like a hawk so that it does not abuse its workers, or is it a generous provider of work and business for New Zealand that is so valuable gives it a privileged position where some laws don’t apply to it?

In truth, New Zealand’s laws themselves are now simply being enforced somewhat randomly, based merely on whether a specific government official personally likes or dislikes the company. That is my impression at least.

But then, that is the impression given and now common throughout the western world. We no longer treat the law as sacrosanct, but instead use it for political purposes, which require its plain meaning to shift and change like Jello, depending on the personal and political motives of the individuals involved. And all for the sake of power.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas

12:10 pm

Clarence Thomas: Banned at amazon
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas:
Blackballed by Amazon Prime.

Blacklists are back and Amazon’s got ’em: During Black History month in February, Amazon decided it would no longer live stream on Amazon Prime the documentary on the life of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words.

In the midst of Black History Month, Amazon pulled a critically acclaimed and popular documentary on conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, the only black justice currently serving on the Supreme Court, from its streaming platform. The documentary, “Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words,” is “currently unavailable to watch in your location,” the website reads when the title is clicked. The outage appears to be nationwide, as reported by Breitbart.

Amazon appeared to drop the PBS documentary, while still promoting a wide range of films including “All In: The Fight for Democracy” with Stacey Abrams and two movies on widely discredited activist Anita Hill.

That was in February, a time period when Americans of all stripes are supposed to celebrate the achievements of all blacks, no matter their politics. Amazon however for reasons that remain unexplained removed the Thomas documentary at that very moment, and has not reinstated it to this day. You can buy the dvd at Amazon, but you cannot watch it on Amazon’s live streaming service, even though the film’s maker, Michael Pack, was never offered an explanation for its removal.
» Read more

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New Zealand signs Artemis Accords

8:47 am

On May 31st New Zealand became the 11th country to sign the Artemis Accords, designed to bypass the Outer Space Treaty’s limitations on property rights in space.

The full list, according to the NASA press release, now includes Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Ukraine, and the United States.

China and Russia have both said they oppose the accords. That such European nations as Germany and France have not joined in suggests their governments have not yet decided what direction they wish to go. Since U.S. policy now requires partners in the Artemis program to sign the accords, one would think that Germany and France and the European Space Agency (ESA) would certainly sign.

They have not, however. Instead, ESA has been in negotiations with China on the subject of space cooperation. If it signs a deal with China it could then become very difficult for it to partner with the U.S.

We might therefore be seeing here the first signs of a true and permanent political split in the alliance between mainland Europe and the United States.

Note too that these political winds signal bad news for Orion. The spacecraft relies on the ESA’s service module for its in-space journeys. If Europe does not sign the accords and instead partners with China, the U.S. will then be faced with either abandoning Orion or finding someone else to build its service module. I suspect that with the coming of cheap, affordable, and efficient private spacecraft, Orion will then die.

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Make Mine Freedom

6:01 pm

An evening pause: A 1948 cartoon, made at the start of the Cold War. It uncannily predicts quite accurately what is happening now, in America, because the Boomer generation and those who followed poo-pooed its lessons. They knew better!

I post it on Memorial Day because I wish to remember what once was.

Hat tip Lazarus Long.

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Today’s blacklisted American: High school group canceled by Democratic Party for criticizing Chinese government

10:11 am

Blacklists are back and the Dem’s got ’em: A conservative club at an Illinois high school was forced to disband after two local Democratic Party politicians demanded the school silence the club for putting up a poster that criticized the Chinese government.

The political attack, by state senator Lauren Fine and state representative Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz, caused the club’s sponsor to back out, forcing the club to disband.

“Upon learning of the context of the poster that Glenbrook South’s chapter of Turning Point USA submitted it was taken down, recognizing that it wasn’t in compliance with our policies and guidelines,” District 225 administrators told The College Fix via email through a media representative when asked about the Glenbrook South High School situation. “During the course of that investigation, the sponsor elected to discontinue his sponsorship and the District’s policies require there be a sponsor for all active clubs,” the school officials said.

When asked specifically what policies or guidelines were broken, the district said it took down the poster while there was an investigation and then the sponsor quit, meaning the group had to be disbanded.

The poster, at the link, is incredibly mild, but that’s not acceptable because these bigoted Democrats, Fine and Gong-Gershowitz, see everything through a racial lens. The population of China is almost all Chinese, and if you dare criticize them you must be a bigot, according to the modern Democratic Party.

And if they, on their sainted opinion, think you are a bigot they have the right to get you blacklisted, blackballed, cancelled, fired, and silenced.

Do you vote for such people? Then you believe in blacklisting and oppression and tyranny. Congratulations! You have proved to all that you are not an American.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Classic philosophy and literature banned at Howard University and across academia

11:57 am

No knowledge of Western civilization allowed!
Banned at Howard University.

They’re coming for you next: Though today’s victims of blacklisting are neither American nor even alive (some having passed away more than two thousand years ago), the decision last month by Howard University (in line with what many other colleges are doing) to dissolve its classics department and send to oblivion such thinkers as Socrates, Plato, Homer, Cato, and Cicero will do more harm than can be measured to Americans today and far into the future.

From the first link the announcement:

Howard University has decided to close the Department of Classics as part of its prioritization efforts and is currently negotiating with the faculty of Classics and with other units in the College as to how they might best reposition and repurpose our programs and personnel. These discussions have been cordial, and the faculty remains hopeful that the department can be kept intact at some level, with its faculty and programs still in place.

The cordiality of these classic scholars reminds me somehow of the Jewish leaders in the Warsaw Ghetto, who cordially worked with the Nazis in order to (paraphrasing the statement above) “keep their Jewish community intact at some level.”
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South Korea signs the Artemis Accords

9:15 am

On May 24 South Korea officially signed the Artemis Accords, joining nine other countries in the agreement designed as a work around of the Outer Space Treaty’s provisions in order to protect property rights in space.

By my count, that makes eight signatories, including Japan, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Luxembourg, the United Arab Emirates and Italy.

Essentially, the space-faring nations of the world are splitting into two groups, those who will follow these accords, and those who won’t, led by China and Russia. In a sense, we are seeing a renewal of the Cold War in space, with the western powers that believe in private enterprise and freedom aligned against those whose cultures are authoritarian and ruled from above.

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Today’s blacklisted Americans: No whites allowed during some events in Massachusetts school district

11:46 am

No whites allowed invitation at public school event

The new bigotry: The Wellesley public school district in Massachusetts has organized an event in which it expressly banned — in writing — the attendance of all whites.

A screen capture of the text of the invitation [pdf], taken from the legal complaint by a parents-rights group, is to the right, with the pertinent language highlighted.

Then, when parents complained, the district’s administration doubled down, justifying its racist policy with platitudes and dishonest rationalizations.
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