Megan McArdle idiot times two

This is a post I put up in February last year, way before the election: Megan McArdle – idiot. This is what I told her then:

And with the media filled with shrews and scolds like yourself, doing things, even the kinds of things people would like done on immigration, will not be as easy as all that.

Oh yes indeed. And now she’s back again with this: The Case for Dumping Trump Rests With His Supporters. Examine her post for policy concerns and none you will find. This is what you find instead:

I think there’s a case for removing Trump on the grounds that he is clearly not competent to execute the office — not that he has committed “high crimes and misdemeanors,” but that he simply lacks the emotional and mental capacity to do the job. But preserving the very norms he’s destroying requires that removal not be undertaken until things have reached such a state that most of his followers recognize his problems. So those of us who believe that the competence of the executive matters — that there are things worse in a president than “more of the same,” and that what we are now seeing is one of them — will simply have to hope like heck that his supporters come to the same conclusion we have before he damages much more than his own reputation, and the hopes of the people who elected him.

She is such a dunce that it aggravates no end to see her quoted at Instapundit where at least she is treated as the numbskull she is. The first five comments voted as the best:

Meh, more Trump-bashing. If there was anyone who was unfit for the office of president, it was the previous one.

I assume McCardle is wrong on every topic until proven otherwise.

The sad Cri du Coeur of wanna be elitist Megan McCardle. No one will listen to their betters anymore!! Go to hell Megan. Your tears and gnashing of teeth are lovely.

There’s no case for dumping Trump, sweetie. He’s the duly elected President and he’s not going to be impeached no matter how sweaty your fantasy is, so time to move on to fixing the country’s problems. P.S., we Trump supporters still support him.

My 8 year old was asking me yesterday, “Daddy, what if Trump set off a nuclear bomb in Washington?” Might be a reasonable trade for his being impeached. Let me say right here and now: If the GOP cooperates in getting rid of Trump, I’m never voting for another Republican so long as I live. The whole party can just crawl away and die.

Logic and coherence are definitely not her strengths.

Lies, damned lies and the media

FURTHER SATURDAY LATE AFTERNOON UPDATE: Picked up at Drudge but from The Oz of all places: Journalists drink too much, are bad at managing emotions, and operate at a lower level than average, according to a new study.

Journalists’ brains apparently show a lower level of executive functioning, which means a below average ability to regulate their emotions, suppress biases, solve complex problems, switch between tasks, and show creative and flexible thinking.

These are the results of a formal study and thus THE SCIENCE IS SETTLED.
________________________

Two classic examples of the media being unable to see why no one with any sense believes a word they say. First from America. Having backed for the past eight years and to the hilt the biggest liar in American political history, they now come up with this.

It would be the ultimate irony if Trump now faces a crisis in which his lifelong strength turns into a fatal weakness. His rich and checkered history of salesmanship, his exaggerations, fudges and falsehoods, leave him in a situation now where, even if he is right on this one, people will have a hard time believing that this one time Donald Trump is finally telling the truth.

Warning Donald Trump about crying wolf! What a bunch of clowns! The media are the most disgusting, disgraceful, dishonest crew whose take on nothing can be trusted. It would certainly be the case that if the media told the actual truth about something important one day – it could happen – who would take their word for it other than their fellow leftists who only want to hear what they want to believe?

And it’s not just commission but omission. This from Andrew Bolt is truly astonishing. And the more I dwell on it, the more astonished I become. It truly is incredible.

After years of hearing only the alarmist view on the warmist ABC, a listener put in an FOI request [with the link to a Catallaxy comment that should be read in full]. This is Andrew’s summary:

He asks:

The document I seek is a list of links to articles related to “global-warming”, “climate-change”, “CO2” and “coral bleaching” that represent the sceptical view of those respective debates – as presented by the ABC on all its platforms.

I have listened, viewed and searched for years and I’ve not found any sceptical articles on the ABC’s platforms.

The ABC’s response:

I have taken reasonable steps to identify and locate all relevant documents. My search for these documents involved contacting the following relevant people, who in turn consulted with relevant managers and staff within their respective teams:

• Director News• Manager Editorial Policies, News.

I requested that searches be conducted of all hard and soft copy records for documents which fall within the scope of your request. As a result of those searches, no documents were identified.

Quite clearly the responder at the ABC has no idea how bizarre this reply is. The gotcha is that they cannot find a single example not that they might have found a few. The null response is the scandal. On one of the most important public policy issues of our time, the ABC can provide not a single example of having discussed the sceptical side of the issue. That they cannot see how incredibly dishonest this is – not even recognising that this is how it would look to people such as us- is a massive example why the entire public broadcasting enterprise needs to be wound down. They are blind to their own lies and are unwilling to facilitate public debate on any issue it has already pre-judged.

CONFIRMATION FROM A MOST UNLIKELY SOURCE: Harvard Study Reveals Huge Extent of Anti-Trump Media Bias. Read it all, even if you know what it says already. It is that it is being said that is interesting, though you won’t find any news reports in the morning. This is how it starts.

A major new study out of Harvard University has revealed the true extent of the mainstream media’s bias against Donald Trump.

Academics at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy analyzed coverage from Trump’s first 100 days in office across 10 major TV and print outlets.

It found that the tone of some outlets was negative in as many as 98% of reports, significantly more hostile than the first 100 days of the three previous administrations:

Is that really it?

From Ann Coulter today;

The big secret Trump allegedly revealed is that Muslims might try to blow up a plane with laptops.

It is true that I had not seen what Trump had supposedly said to the Russians, but if that is what it is, the left are deranged beyond measure and its media hacks borderline insane. Outside the football scores, you cannot believe a single thing you read in the papers or see on the news. It is a sickness, but what is the cure?

Young whippersnapper tells old people how to live

An interesting article but not really at the heart of the issue: How to Reverse Aging and Become Whoever You Want to Be. He should remind himself of the Hawthorne Experiment before going on about such things in the way he does. I liked this comment especially:

Sorry, Ben, you aren’t old, which means you have no idea what being old is really like. “Most people fail to realize that they get to choose their stage, who they will be, and how they will act.” In fact, much as we contemporary Americans hate to admit it, the body rules. And no matter what good care we take of our bodies, eventually the system winds down.

I speak from experience. I’m a 77-year-old woman who fully embraced the idea that I could control who I am for years. I write, teach and edit full time. I walked at least 2 miles a day for forty years and have lived healthy habits. Nonetheless, a kneecap broken while hiking brought me house-bound for three months and a hard upper respiratory virus caused coughing that tore a back muscle. I haven’t bounced back as I once did. For now, I can walk eight blocks — though I believe that walking those eight blocks is strengthening me for future forest trail hikes.
Having said that, I’d like to point out to you that ageism is possibly the greatest ism in American society. No matter how much I treasure myself, I’m treated as a charming old lady when I go out into the world. It is infuriating. Here’s a little education for you.

May I suggest that you save your advice for us old people until you are old?

My most frequent experience in striking up a conversation with old people I meet is how they instantly transform from inward and sullen to engaged and upbeat. They also become younger looking though not of course young looking. I can see that for anyone less than 50 I am old, and with my arm in a sling and carrying a cane as I now do, all this is emphasised. It however doesn’t make people want to speak to me, only to give me their seats on the tram which is not really my need or wish.

“Wage growth is stuck in the doldrums”

The fact of the matter is that no one using modern economic theory could explain this: PAY GAP: Australian wages growth is stuck at record lows, and running behind inflation. Certainly you don’t find an explanation in the story which has only this:

With wages currently growing at an annual pace of less than 2%, and given evidence that it’s been hard to stoke wage pressures in other developed nations even with recent improvements in labour market conditions, it’s little wonder that some remain sceptical about a sharp turnaround in wages, particularly to levels back above 3%.

“The fact that wage growth is stuck in the doldrums comes as little surprise given the deterioration in Australia’s labour market, with the jobless rate climbing from 5.7% to 5.9%,” said Tom Kennedy, economist at JP Morgan, following the release of the report.

“We expect wage growth to remain unimpressive for some time given significant slack remains in the labour market.”

The problem has been obvious for almost a decade but only for those who have been classically trained.

The Da Vinci Viol

Played like a piano, sounds like a string quartet and invented by Leonardo da Vinci in 1470 though never built by him. From the youtube notes:

The invention of Da Vinci brought back to life in Krakow!

Viola organista was designed by Leonardo himself. The instrument seemed outstandingly promising, it fascinated Liszt and Bach’s son composed some works especialy on it. But then it misteriously vanished in mists of time… Until one Cracovian rebuilt it.

Whose side are they on?

What really gets me is that I cannot even identify an actual good that comes from this frenzy to undo Trump. The latest episode in a series of articles and posts, more or less in random order.

Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minister and ambassador

Analyzing the Trump/Russia Intelligence Story

Washington Post Creates Fake News Timed-Release Story Intended to Capture Evening News Lede…

The Media-Democratic Party Suicide Pact

The Irrationals: Trump’s Opponents Are His Greatest Asset

Trump Supporters Still Support Trump – And It Drives the Haters Nuts

National security chief denies classified info was shared with Russia

Trump is allowed to reveal classified intel

Liberals Are An Inferno Of Flaming Crazy And We Should Pour Gasoline On The Fire

No, I Am Not a Moron but Half the Country is Deranged

The Mass Media Cult Goes Pathological

Deep State Leaks Highly Classified Info to Washington Post to Smear President Trump

Violence And Intimidation Against Republicans Are Becoming The New Normal

Whatever Trump might have done, I would assume it was for the benefit of the West and as part of an attempt to maintain our way of life. This is something I never believe about the left. Nothing they do ever makes me think they are out to preserve what we have or is intended to benefit the society in which I hope to continue to live.

Facing tons of backlash

Here’s the headline: BREAKING: Clint Eastwood Makes TRAGIC Announcement – Fans Devastated. This is what he’s done.

In the liberal world of Hollywood, it’s rare to find any celebrity who is brave enough to defy the mainstream media’s pro-Muslim agenda. That’s why liberals are furious with director Clint Eastwood this week after he announced that his next film will not be submitting to their ridiculous demands.

Eastwood is reportedly facing tons of backlash after it was announced that his next film will focus on the terror attack that occurred on a French Train in August of 2015. The legendary director plans to use the film as a tribute to the three brave men who stopped the attack and took the terrorist down.

Americans Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos and Briton Chris Norman were on a train from Brussels to Paris when a terrorist entered a bathroom and came out with an AK47. The three men immediately jumped to action, risking their lives to take the terrorist down before he could kill anyone.

Eastwood believes that this is a story that needs to be told, but liberals are livid that the film would portray a Muslim in a negative light. SHARE this story if you support Eastwood and his latest film!

It will make millions, but can such a film any longer be made anywhere in the world? We shall see. I might add that even though they published the story they were obviously unwilling to say out loud in their headline what the story is about. You might also, with good reason, accuse me of the same.

Further marriage advice

It’s been a very long time since I;ve had to date, now into grandfathering so my post on Marriage Advice for Millennials may be very out of date and dangerous. This is an article on sexbots replacing women which seems to appeal to quite a few since it avoids having to mix it up with the modern woman of our own time. This is the central point of the article:

Women have lived too long in a monopoly economy and so let down quality. It used to be that men had jobs and money, and women had that, so they married to let each get some of what the other had. The woman had to be agreeable as a selling point. Now women have jobs and don’t need men, or to be pleasant. Some are nice anyway, but it’s no longer a design feature. Of course they often end up old and alone with a cat somewhere on upper Connecticut Avenue, but they don’t figure this out until too late. Anyway, they stopped being agreeable. They learned from feminists that everything wrong in their lives was the fault of men.

It is a real problem: American women are inoculated from birth with angry misandry insisting that men are dolts, loutish, irresponsible, and only want sex. (To which a response might be, “Uh…What else have you got?”)

I have no real idea how right or wrong this is, but the cost of separation is so massive that you do have to wonder. N’ertheless you need real woman to have children and a date for New Years. It is also the death of civilisation, but every civilisation dies. Maybe this is how our’s will go.

Also see here to feed your pessimism further.

LET ME JUST ADD THIS: This is Camille Paglia: Prominent Democratic Feminist Camille Paglia Says Hillary Clinton ‘Exploits Feminism’. And it’s hardly just Hillary. A bit from the interview but the part about Trump:

Donald Trump’s retro style of confident masculinity (which dates from the Frank Sinatra/Hugh Hefner period) was surely a major factor in his victory and represents what was probably an inevitable and necessary course correction in American gender relations. The delirious excesses of unscientific campus gender theory, translated into intrusive government regulations by elite school graduates saturating the Obama administration, finally hit a wall with the electorate. The mainstream big-city media too have become strident echo chambers of campus gender dogma, as demonstrated by last year’s New York Times fiasco, where two wet-behind-the-ears reporters fell on their faces in trying to prosecute the Trump of his casino days as a vile sexist. I mercilessly mocked that vacuous article in my Salon.com column and stand by every word I wrote.

Fake news trolling

What shall we say about this which is a comment from OK, but what have you done for me lately??

As well as having a cool Christian name, ‘Malcolm’ is right to slam Kates’ simplistic rants – such as ‘you either agree with my view that Trump is omniscient, or you are a deluded leftist dunce’ etc etc. Let’s not forget Kates’ idiotic worshipping of probably the worst conservative leader – in terms of completely discrediting a small government agenda – Australia has had for some time: Tony Abbott. Kates’ political commentary is so absurd and juvenile that it really belongs in a MAD comic book.

Or this?

Steve Kates used to be a sound economist. Recently he has embraced crony capitalism and protectionism / mercantalism. He no longer deserves to be called an economist. He is a polemic writer that’s all.

Or this which is yet another:

By the way, since Trump’s victory, I have become even more convinced that he was the wrong person for the job. The world would have been better off with Hillary Clinton, even though she is terrible.

Or finally this:

If you are grateful that Trump is president, you are, whatever you may personally believe about yoursefl, a non-card carrying member of the left.

Exactly. The only difference between Trump and Obama is that Obama was ideologically coherent while Trump has no political ideas of any kind and just swings left by default as most people who don’t know anything about politics do.

These are, to put it mildly, inane. Let me start with the last of these. What my post actually says is this:

If you are not grateful that Trump is president, you are, whatever you may personally believe about yourself, a non-card-carrying member of the left.

Not quite “exactly” is it. This is just trolling, and my guess is that these are quite possibly people who visit sites like this as part of whatever line of work they do. They are filled with empty clichéd parody statements purporting to be representative of what someone on our side of politics ought to believe. These are “fake news” comments. It is a form of Alinsky Rule #4:

“Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”

They make up quotes and spray accusations but never provide a principled statement of what they mean. In particular, they do not add specifics about what Trump should or should not be doing. If I have actually “embraced crony capitalism and protectionism/mercantalism [sp!!!]” it’s news to me. But since these are apparently boo-words, even if they don’t know how to spell them, off they go.

Trump is not perfect, and not everything he does is what I would do myself. But if you are not pleased to see him President given the real-life would-have-been actual alternative, you really have nothing of value to say. I am forever sent things from friends and relations from the NYT, WAPO or whatever which I almost always read since I am interested in the kinds of things that convince others. But this inane juvenile trolling feels insincere. It is like the fake news you see everywhere in the MSM, with the core aim to cause doubt among those who really do like Trump’s agenda. Reading these people is like reading the American press.