Category Archives: KooKoo

Animal’s Daily Racist Assumptions News

Be sure to catch the latest in the Allamakee County Chronicles over at Glibertarians!

Now then:  Note to the Smithsonian:  This is actually racist.  Not to mention stupid.  Excerpt:

Witness last week’s contretemps at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. The museum, which bills itself as “the only national museum devoted exclusively” to educating the public on these topics, recently debuted the online guide “Talking about Race.” The guide included a chart cataloguing the “aspects and assumptions” of “white culture” that “have been normalized over time and are now considered standard practices in the United States.”

What are these sinister aspects of “white culture,” you ask? Well, according to the Smithsonian, values like “hard work,” “self-reliance,” “be[ing] polite,” and timeliness are all a product of the “white dominant culture.” Indeed, it turns out that conventional grammar, Christianity, the notion that “intent counts” in courts of law, and the scientific method and its emphasis on “objective, rational linear thinking” are all proprietary to “white culture.”

There are several things that might be said about all this. But the place to start may be by observing just how insidious it is to teach black children to reject intellectual and personal traits that promote personal and civic success — in the U.S. or anywhere else. After all, in what land are students well-served when they’re encouraged not to work hard, make decisions, think rationally, or be polite and on time? Among the extraordinarily accomplished people honored by the museum, those such as Frederick Douglass; Harriet Tubman; Jackie Robinson; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Toni Morrison; John Lewis; Oprah Winfrey; Michael Jordan; Condoleezza Rice; and Barack Obama might be surprised to learn that hard work and rational thinking are somehow alien to black culture.

Don’t take my word for it.  Here’s the actual chart:

What a condescending pile of crap.  Let’s look at a couple of the most egregiously stupid bits:

  • Self-reliance

As opposed to what?  Dependence?  On whom?  Or what?  This is particularly demeaning, as it implies that “people of color” (whatever that means) are somehow less capable of self-reliance.  That’s utter horseshit.

  • Objective, rational, linear thinking

As opposed to what?  Subjective, irrational, scattered thinking?  That’s not thinking at all.  That’s just feeling.  That’s no way to live a life, and it’s sure as hell no way to decide a policy at any level of government.

  • Plan for future, and
  • Delayed gratification

As opposed to what?  Disregarding the future and only doing what feels good now?  These two items are critically important life skills.  Especially if one ever harbors any notions of a peaceful retirement.

Most of the attributes listed in this aggregation of racist horseshit aren’t “white” values.  Most of them are values of responsible, thoughtful adults.  They apply evenly and equally to everyone who takes responsibility for their own lives.

The Smithsonian should be ashamed of themselves for putting out this crap.

Animal’s Daily Fauxcohantas News

Princess Lieawatha is doubling down on her dumpster fire of a campaign, leading our good friend Robert Stacy McCain to weigh in on the whole thing.  Excerpt:

My only question is, what can I do to encourage Warren and her advisers to double-down on this far-fetched scenario? This is every Trump supporter’s wet dream, and please forgive me for using the phrase “wet dream” in a post about Elizabeth Warren. Anything that prevents the Democratic primary campaign from becoming a head-to-head contest between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders is good, in terms of helping re-elect Trump. Mike Bloomberg wasting millions of dollars to run a three-minute nationwide commercial on Sunday night? Perfect.

If Bloomberg’s campaign has any positive impact, it will be to help convince us that billionaire oligarchs like him should not exist. It’s bad enough that an oligarch can buy up airtime; to do so in order to exploit a pandemic for your presidential campaign is disgraceful.

What percentage of the Super Tuesday vote will Bloomberg get? Hopefully, enough to prevent Biden from winning several states, and thus moving Democrats closer to the brokered-convention scenario that the Warren campaign is fantasizing about. Of course, a comeback victory for Biden can’t be ruled out, but nobody on the Republican side should worry about that, either, as it has become apparent that Biden is completely senile. The best-case scenario, in terms of Trump’s re-election, is for Sanders to get this close (holding thumb and forefinger half-an-inch apart) to the nomination, only to be cheated out of it by a backroom deal at the convention. Whatever happens to the Democrats, however, the most likely scenario in November is that Trump wins:

About half an hour into his speech Saturday afternoon at the 48th annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), President Trump spotted a familiar face in the crowd. “My friend over there — you are the greatest,” the president said, and urged the man to stand. “Look at him … Does everybody know Jeffrey? Jeffrey Lord” (38:10).

The Dems that drop out of the race, as they inevitably fall one by one, are endorsing daffy old Groper Joe Biden as they do so, inasmuch as they’ve endorsed anyone; that helps Fauxcohantas excuse staying in the race, as she’s competing not with Groper Joe and his ever-increasing senile dementia, nor for Little Mike Bloomberg or any of the other supposed “moderates,” but instead with the daffy old Bolshevik from Vermont.  They are two of a kind, and one wonders if Lieawatha is just staying in the race to try to clinch the Veep spot.

Today’s Super Tuesday, True Believers.  By evening we’ll have a pretty good idea how this whole thing is going to shape up.  And it’s going to be popcorn-worthy, no matter what happens. Hold on to your butts!

Rule Five Divestment Friday

Here’s a story from last week that should be repeated hundreds of times a week:  Stupid college student makes stupid demands, professor rams the stupid demands down the stupid student’s throat.  (Original story sadly hidden behind a paywall.)  Excerpt:

Professor Andrew Parker of St John’s College at Oxford University is my new favorite person. The Times of London reports that a group of students wrote to Professor Parker to discuss demands being made by student protesters about fossil fuel divestment. His response wasn’t what they were expecting:

Two students at St John’s College wrote to Andrew Parker, the principal bursar, this week requesting a meeting to discuss the protesters’ demands, which are that the college “declares a climate emergency and immediately divests from fossil fuels”. They say that the college, the richest in Oxford, has £8 million of its £551 million endowment fund invested in BP and Shell.

Professor Parker responded with a provocative offer. “I am not able to arrange any divestment at short notice,” he wrote. “But I can arrange for the gas central heating in college to be switched off with immediate effect. Please let me know if you support this proposal.”

One of the students wrote back and said he would present the proposal but he didn’t think Parker was being appropriately serious. Professor Parker responded to that note saying, “You are right that I am being provocative but I am provoking some clear thinking, I hope. It is all too easy to request others to do things that carry no personal cost to yourself. The question is whether you and others are prepared to make personal sacrifices to achieve the goals of environmental improvement (which I support as a goal).” The best part of the story is the response from the organizer of the protest:

Fergus Green, the organiser of the wider protest, who is studying for a master’s degree in physics and philosophy at Balliol College, said: “This is an inappropriate and flippant response by the bursar to what we were hoping would be a mature discussion. It’s January and it would be borderline dangerous to switch off the central heating.”

To the young Mr. Green (hah) I can only say this:

“You stupid, stupid boy.  This is not an inappropriate response; it is a perfectly appropriate response to your idiotic demand; flippant it is indeed, only because your childish, petulant whine deserves no more than that.

You have been shown up for what you are; a deluded, immature hypocrite.  Not only are you not willing to put your money where your mouth is – although I’m betting you are perfectly willing to put other people’s money where your mouth is – you are incapable past seeing past the end of your own nose.  Do you honestly think that heating and utilities are the only use to which petrochemicals are put?

Unless you are willing to continue being (rightly) viewed as a whiny little wanker, as they say on your side of the Atlantic, they you’d better be damn well prepared to give up more than your comfortably heated classroom.  You had damn well better give up your laptop and smartphone, too, as well as the electricity to power them.  That bus you rode to school today?  Forget it; get used to walking.  That bus is not only fueled by petrochemicals, the lion’s share of its construction, from tires to plastic body parts, are based on petrochemicals, as is the asphalt on the road it runs on.

The future you envision would include cold food (and damn little of it), cold houses, no university learning, no technology; it would be a cold, bleak existence of the sort most of humanity has known throughout the vast majority of human history.

Your professor was far more polite to you than you deserve.  Were you to have framed your ignorant, childish whine my way, my response to you would have been two-fold:

‘Demand in one hand, shit in the other, and see which hand fills up first,’ and ‘Fuck off, slaver!’

It’s sad to think the Brits are wasting a university “education” on this little wankstain.

Animal’s Daily Lady Stalin News

Know how the far left defines a “gaffe?”  It’s when one of them accidentally says what they really mean.  Case in point.  Excerpt:

It has been clear ever since the creation (and later the fall) of the Soviet Union that socialism is an inherently dictatorial, tyrannical ideology. Only those who worship the state and power want to have anything to do with it. Which is why it makes perfect sense that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a passionate Marxist.

As Madam Tyrant put it herself recently:

“To be ethical, if you’re a billionaire today, the thing that you need to do is give up control and power,” Mrs. Stalin said. “So I don’t want your money as much as we want your power,” she went on to say while quickly changing the “I” into “we.” “The people, not me,” she added.

Haha, of course not!

“That’s gonna be cut in clips,” she said after the gaffe.

You hope.

Here, True Believers, is the naked face of a would-be tyrant.  (Or tyrantita.)  This stupid, stupid girl, who supposedly has a degree in Economics and yet was working as a bartender before the people in her district stupidly put her in Congress, would cheerfully confiscate the property of thousands, maybe millions, of Americans.  Not just billionaires; if she got her way, she could confiscate the property of every billionaire in America, and it still wouldn’t pay for her Utopia.  And that’s assuming that not one of those billionaires – people with, you know, the resources of a billionaire – fled for less repressive shores.

And when her failure became obvious, she’d look next to millionaires – then the “very wealthy”, whatever that means – then to you and me.

There can only be one response to this:  Fuck off, slaver!

Rule Five Fleecing the Rubes Friday

Programming note:  At the moment this post goes live Mrs. Animal and yr. obdt. will be aloft in the Friendly Skies, off to a brief yet fun-filled adventure; watch this space next week for details.

Moving along:  As documented by ArsTechnica, our old nemesis Gwyneth Paltrow is back with a new Netflix series, and she’s just as batshit crazy as ever – or is she?  Excerpt, with a few comments:

In Netflix’s own words, the show intends to guide “deeply inquisitive” (my ass) viewers through “boundary-pushing wellness topics,” such as “energy healing and psychics.” The show—like Goop—appears to be largely aimed at women, and the trailer’s release was accompanied by an image of Paltrow appearing to descend into an artist’s rendition of a vagina.

Goop critics were quick to decry the show, arguing that—like the brand—it actually intends to guide exploitable viewers (read “exploitable” as “stupid”) through unproven and potentially dangerous health practices, such as the same garbage Goop has been promoting for years. And the show—like Goop—claims to “empower” women only by convincing them to try dubious treatments and products.

Critics on Twitter have been particularly merciless at trashing and mocking the show (and Goop) all day. The announcements of the show’s trailer have been bombarded with disapproving memes, viewers noping out, and messages scolding Netflix for getting involved with the notorious business. (The responses were overwhelmingly negative, but there were some solid puns in there, too.)

Despite the swift backlash online, the most cutting and concise critiques of the show seem to appear in the trailer itself. As the teaser notes, the unproven wellness practices and products shown are “unregulated” and simply “dangerous.”

In one clip, Paltrow herself asks one of the show’s guests “what the fuck are you doing to people?”

Yet, the trailer also offers Paltrow’s justification for the show’s—and Goop’s—existence. In an apparent rejoinder to the unspoken-yet-blaring question of “dear lord, why?”, Paltrow explains: “We’re here one time, one life. How can we really milk the shit out of this?”

Note that last quote from Ms. Paltrow.  Here it is again:

Paltrow explains: “We’re here one time, one life. How can we really milk the shit out of this?”

Well, let’s give her some points for being unintentionally honest for once.

I’ve long said that there is some point at which fools and their money deserve to be parted, and make no mistake, those are precisely the kind of fools that are Gwyneth’s target audience for this latest outpouring of woo.  And as a staunch minarchist, I can only reaffirm that caveat emptor applies here, and stupid people will usually get what’s coming to them.

But, as I’ve mused before, I have to wonder about Ms. Paltrow’s motivations here.  Is she really dumb enough to believe in the ridiculous snake oil she hawks?  Or is she, as she unwittingly let slip, just milking the shit out of this for big fat sacks of cash?  Honestly, is Gwyneth a simpleton, or is she secretly thinking “I can make huge bags of cash off these morons?”

And what the fuck, Netflix?  Why on earth would you give a platform to this enormous outpouring of absolute, steaming horseshit?  How much is Gwyneth paying you for another opportunity to sell jade vagina eggs and $85 plastic water bottles with healing crystals in them?

ArsTechnica concludes:  With the new show, Paltrow remains steadfast. In a statement to Cosmopolitan, Paltrow said that the show takes the same “open-minded approach that we’ve cultivated at Goop and applied a different, visual lens with Netflix.”

This, True Believers, is a textbook case of folks’ minds being so open that their brains have actually fallen out.

Animal’s Daily Urban Outdoorsmen News

Denver police are going to resume enforcement of the city’s camping ban, in spite of its overturn by an activist local judge.  This is good news, a commodity that is in short supply regarding public policy in Colorado these days.  Excerpt:

The Denver Police Department will resume enforcing the city’s urban camping ban, the Denver City Attorney’s Office confirmed Monday evening. A county judge struck down the ban in late December. 

The judge, Johnny C. Barajas, argued the ban violated the Eight Amendment.

“The County Court ruling related to the ordinance did not overturn or prohibit enforcement,” the city attorney’s office said of the judge’s decision.

The city attorney’s office did not say when enforcement would resume.

Since the ban was struck down, the homeless community has set up tents in public places previously off-limits to camping, such as Civic Center Park.

The city attorney’s office says an appeal of the judge’s ruling has not yet been filed, but a notice of appeal has been submitted in district court.

Here’s where the stupid creeps back in:

(Notorious leftist)  Councilwoman Candi CdeBaca said last week that she wants to repeal the ban through City Council.

“When you’re a city and starved of public dollars, and you have a ruling that a law you’re enforcing is cruel and unusual, you should repeal that law,” CdeBaca said.

It’s certainly more cruel and unusual to leave these bums on the streets.  Forget about the possibility of harm to themselves; they made choices that led them to this status, and nobody else is responsible for their predicament.  Many, if not most, of them have mental health and substance abuse issues, and they pose a direct threat to the urban environs they infest.  Look at Los Angeles, where they have had outbreaks of various communicable diseases among their urban outdoor population, including leprosy – leprosy, for crying out loud!

Allowing bums to camp in city parks does no good to anyone; not to the people of the city, not to public sanitation, and, no, not to the bums themselves.  If we are going to have city property, then the city should keep the bums out of it.  Denver’s appeal will almost certainly result in the ordinance being upheld, and that (hopefully) will be a rare victory for common sense in our courts.

Animal’s Hump Day News

Happy Hump Day!

Programming note:  Trying a new format for the Wednesday links posts.  If I decide I like it, I may expand the format to the rest of the week.

On to the links!

The daffy old Bolshevik from Vermont steps on a rake.

Barack Obama got a Nobel prize for existing.  Now he’s getting an Oscar nomination for existing.  Talk about phoning it in.

Spartacus Drops Out.  Are we under a dozen yet?

Reporter in Australian taken in by old drop-bear gag.

Cocaine Mitch says Nancy Pelosi has struck out.  He’s almost certainly right.

The correct answer is “who gives a shit?

Austin, TX has a case of California Disease.

Goose. They are the Hate Birds, the Birds That Hate.

Duck!

Duck!

Goose!

We’re not stuck in here with you.  You’re stuck in here with us.

Coming soon to a blue state near you.

This week’s idiots:

This week’s selection of idiots is wide-ranging.

Bloomberg’s Francis Wilkinson is an idiot.

Casey B. Mulligan explains why many financial “experts” are idiots.

Andrew Yang is an idiot.

I have no idea who Eric Benet is, but he’s an idiot.

The stupid, it is strong in this one.

DNC Chair Tom Perez is an idiot.

And now…

It’s been an interesting week so far, and it’s going to get more interesting.  Things in the Imperial City right now are like the Energizer Bunny on crack; they just keep getting dumber, and dumber, and dumber.

And on that note:  We return you to your Wednesday, already in progress.

Animal’s Daily Time Travel News

Make sure to check out the latest in my series on the thirty-something rifle cartridges over at Glibertarians!

Ever wanted to travel back in time?  Astrophysicist Ron Mallett thinks you might be able to.  Uh huh.  Excerpt:

Joining the ranks of movie inventors like Doc Brown of “Back to the Future” are a few real-life scientists currently trying to realize the dream of turning back the clock to travel to the ultimate destination.
Among them is Ron Mallett, an astrophysicist who has dedicated much of his adult life to the notion that time travel is possible. He’s come up with the scientific equations and principles upon which he says a time machine could be created.

While acknowledging that his theories and designs are unlikely to allow time travel in his lifetime, for years he’s been working in parallel to a respected academic career to fulfill his dream of venturing back in time to see his beloved father again.

Mallett was aged 10 when his father died suddenly, of a heart attack, an event that the scientist says changed the track of his life forever.
“For me, the sun rose and set on him, he was just the center of things,” he tells CNN Travel. “Even today, after all of these years, there’s still an unreality about it for me.”

Mallett’s father, a TV repair man, instilled in his son a love of reading, and encouraged his budding passion for science. About a year after his father’s death, a grieving Mallett stumbled across an illustrated version of the classic sci-fi novel “The Time Machine.”

“The book that changed my life,” he says.

Color me skeptical.  Not necessarily on Mallett’s personal story; but rather on his assessment of the possibility of traveling back in time.  Now I’m not an astrophysicist, nor do I play one on television, but I do read a lot about a variety of topics.  Time travel into the future is possible; we all do it, every moment, at the rate of one minute per minute.  You can speed that up; all you have to do is go out into space and buzz around at nearly the speed of light for, say, a year, then come back to find several years have passed on Earth.

But backwards? I don’t believe that.  I’ve never read anything credible that suggests it’s possible.

I feel for Ron Mallett and the loss of his father.  I lost my own father not too long ago, and it’s not something you can ever really recover from; it’s still hard for me when it hits me that the great, solid, immovable, stable boulder at the center of my young life is gone now.

I haven’t launched into flights of fancy over it.  But, I suppose, whatever brings a body some measure of comfort and peace of mind, eh?

Although…  If this ever did work…  Anyone up for a safari into the Cretaceous?  I think I could find room on a wall for a tyrannosaur head.

Rule Five UFO Kookery News

Now the Washington Examiner’s Tom Rogan has gone full-blown UFO conspiracy batshit.  Selected excerpts, with my comments:

The United States government makes it very hard to figure out what and where UFO-related stuff is going on.

Is that because the government is behind some great conspiracy to cover up the proof of alien visitation to Earth? Is it because the government is in cahoots with alien species to create human-alien hybrids?

Perhaps, but I suspect not.

Perhaps?  Perhaps?  How about “hell no?”  This isn’t even up to the standards of the X-files.

What I believe is really going on here is that the few individuals in the U.S. government who know about this issue believe the phenomena might be a threat. And that they don’t know how to deal with it.

Tom, you’re an idiot.  There isn’t anyone in the U.S. government with three brain cells to rub together (note: this exempts most of Congress) that believes UFOs are a threat.  Why?  Because they don’t exist.

This isn’t to say that these UFOs are hostile (although it must be noted that the diverging shapes, behaviors, and capability patterns of UFOs suggest more than one originating source). On the contrary, UFOs appear to be quite friendly, except when rather ill-advised Russian aircrews attempt to engage them.

Oh, for the luvva Pete.  The “UFOs” aren’t hostile, or friendly, or anything.  Attributing intent to an optical illusion is just plain stupid.

But pretend you’re a senior military or intelligence officer.

You see the nuclear connection point, and you’re struck by something odd going on. Now, add to the nuclear issue that some UFOs are intelligently operated machines capable of instantaneously reaching hypersonic speeds. Oh, and that they’re also anti-gravity and invisibility capable, and they have been tracked moving in and out of Earth orbit, the atmosphere, and underwater. Suddenly, you have something that is making the U.S. military’s most advanced capabilities, and those of every other military on Earth, look like an absurd joke in comparison.

You’re left with an unpleasant conclusion: If whatever is controlling these things intends harm, we don’t have a chance.

Anti-gravity and invisibility capable?  What the hell have you been smoking, Tom?  You’re attributing all of these science-fiction capabilities to fuzzy, half-glimpsed lights and objects that may or may not have been lens flares or some other optical artifacts.

Again, put yourself in the military officer’s shoes. Something has repeatedly shown it can easily find carrier strike groups, which are designed and operated to be hidden in the far oceans, and to find nuclear ballistic missile submarines running near totally silent deep under the water. Something can penetrate the most securely guarded areas of the most important areas in the U.S. military and render our most critical deterrent platforms improbable. For Pentagon planners, this is Armageddon-level stuff.

But the truth is clear: If it wanted to, something strange could defeat America without raising a sweat.

Not something strange, Tom; just something stupid.  As in, burning up bandwidth speculating about this kind of stupidity.

The Washington Examiner isn’t exactly the most credible news source out there, but honestly, this sort of hooraw is just beyond the pale.  This kind of crap would be more at home in the Weekly World News than in the Examiner.

Tom Rogan should be dismissed, and so should the editor that allowed this nonsensical woo to be published.

Animal’s Hump Day News

Happy Hump Day!

On to the links!

Apparently Barney Google-Schiff has a “guiding philosophy” he’s using for impeachment.  Who knew?  Well, probably not Schiff; he almost certainly said this because he thought it sounded cool.

Want to know which industry isn’t feeling the effects of the Trump boom?  The media.  Surprised?

CNN’s S.E. Cupp is an idiot.

The New Yorker‘s John Cassidy is an idiot.

Business Insider‘s Michael Gordon is an idiot.  By way of evidence, from the linked article:  Ask any middle schooler about the basic role of government and they will answer – correctly – that it is to represent the views and ideas of the American people. Policies supported by a clear majority deserve action.   I searched through the Constitution for some mention of rule by the majority, and couldn’t find it.  Can anyone help out here?

Fort Collins, Colorado, breaks a record for smooches.   There’s worse things to be known for.

ManBearPig is the next logical step.

Sanders and Warren supporters want jail time for “hate speech.”  Here’s some hate speech for them:  Fuck off, slavers.

Here’s something new: The Bongino Report.  I’ve seen Dan Bongino on the news once in a while.  He’s a hoot.

Liberal Democrat and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz says House Democrats are acting like the KGB:  Show us the man, and we’ll find you the crime.

Fuck off, slavers.

Russia has been banned from the Olympics and the World Cup for four years.  Whoops.

Geraldo Rivera tells David Frum to fuck off.  Heh heh heh.

Boy, it sure is a good thing Mexico has such strict gun control.

File this under “terminally clueless”:  Her Imperial Majesty Hillary I, Dowager Empress of Chappaqua, is still the first choice among Democrats to oppose President Trump next year, presumably so she can lose worse than she did in 2016.

And on that sagging, elderly note, we return you to your Wednesday, already in progress.