Measured by its impact, the BDS campaign to isolate Israel has been about as successful as the Charge of the Light Brigade, say, or the theatrical run of Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate, or any other cataclysmic failure that still inspires us, decades later, to ponder the bottomless depths of human ineptitude. And now, not content with their floundering boycotts, the champions of the anti-Israeli left have found a new villain: J.K. Rowling.
Why? Because Rowling is an outspoken critic of the anti-Semitic Jeremy Corbyn and his anti-Semitic Labour Party, a thought crime among those moral and intellectual degenerates who refuse to condemn hatred of Jews when it comes, as it so frequently does these days, from their side of the aisle.
National Socialists were not just socialists, which they were, but also vile and murderous anti-semites. It is obviously a thought process that is easily replicated in an entirely new era with entirely new circumstances. Socialist and anti-semitism seem to be a twin-set that will just never end.
There are two kinds of knowledge in the world, Crossword Puzzle Knowledge and then there is Knowing How Things are Done. As an intellectual with a social sciences background, I have the first kind of knowledge, where just about nothing I know or know how to do would be of any use to someone living either a hundred years ago, a thousand years ago or at any time besides the present. And then there are the genuine kinds of knowledge, which are based on the development of our scientific understanding of the natural world that surrounds us, the kinds of people who not only know “germs” cause disease, but are able to turn that knowledge into practical outcomes in real time for real people. Which brings me to this, whose title I have amended to this: Why Intellectuals Hate Trump. Here the focus is on why going even beyond the demented socialists of the left, even among those on the right there is a disdain for the American President.
The anti-Trump right-wing intellectual bristles at a political system that does not “appropriately” value their “expertise” and “superior” knowledge and which, consequently, elevates a “buffoon” like Trump to the presidency—and on the shoulders of millions of those “deplorables,” no less. Anti-Trump right-wing intellectuals traffic in information, the gold standard in today’s world, something upon which we are ever-more reliant. Yet, in this arena, the American electorate defied them and their harebrained “proposals,” offered coercively, not through persuasion. Brazenly so. Thus, they resent the man who smashed their pretensions of politics-as-white-paper-drafting-session and roundly repudiated their perceived “right to rule.
These people are the Crossword Puzzle (CWP) brigade, who know a million things like what’s the capital of Morocco, but not how to actually get things done. The President, who in fact knows quite a lot of CWP forms of knowledge, also knows how things work and knows how to get things done. And the resentment of the CWP types for those who know how to get things done is immense. But sickening.
President Trump visited the troops in Iraq at Al Asad Air Base on Christmas. Sarah Sanders announced on Twitter: “President Trump and the First Lady traveled to Iraq late on Christmas night to visit with our troops and Senior Military leadership to thank them for their service, their success, and their sacrifice and to wish them a Merry Christmas.” President Trump himself tweeted out the video below.
I’m sure we’ll be hearing about it if he said anything to question the existence of Santa Claus during his visit. Otherwise, maybe not so much. The video warmed my heart. I thought readers would find it of interest.
Quotable quote (Trump via the linked Politico article): “We’re no longer the suckers, folks. We’re respected again as a nation.”
Except by all the mongrels, Dems and #NeverTrumpers.
Aug 18, 2016: AP reporter gets Obama spokesman to admit on camera that $1.7 billion they gave Iran was quid pro quo for hostages.
Dec 25, 2018: AP publishes factcheck saying Trump is "recycling familiar fictions" by tweeting money was a quid pro quo for hostages. pic.twitter.com/CWeEdNSAaj
Such a sanctimonious fool. If she were really willing to be unpopular she would oppose the stupidities she is mouthing in relation to the facts she is so ignorant about. Disgusting and beyond idiotic. Knows nothing about anything she needs to know. A 15-year nitwit who knows only how to get approval from the semi-adults she is surrounded by at every turn. Could she even repeat a single argument actually made by those who disagree with her, not the empty phrases she mouths that will turn her life upside down if they actually become policy. Repulsive in every way one can think. Our crisis is the crisis of socialism and ignorance.
Posted with approval by Nicholas Gruen with the following comment:
Democracy For Young People is, in my opinion a very compelling analysis of the ills of our democracy. It’s a very simple idea – which is that electoral democracy massively underrepresents three classes of people whose influence on democracy the great anti-democrats of the ancient world (i.e. all the thinkers whose work has come down to us in any substantial form) were most hostile to. The young, the poorly educated and the poor.
I thought the ‘solutions’ section would end up at selection by lot, but it moved right along from that to lowering the voting age (dramatically!). But then the conclusion on what to do was an afterthought, and not really the focus of the podcast. The analysis was compelling. It’s good points are that the ideas are very simple, clearly important. They’re also clearly right to some extent, though of course there could be very wide reasonable disagreement on that extent.
So I recommend it.
I recommend it too, in the sense of know thine enemy.
Peter Ridd was, until fired this year, a physicist at James Cook University’s marine geophysical laboratory.
With this caution noted, and bearing in mind that in regard to climate change, the science is settled and the last word has been written, we find this:
The science institutions deny there is a problem and fail to correct erroneous work. When Piers Larcombe and I submitted an article to a scientific journal suggesting we needed a little additional checking of Great Barrier Reef science, the response from many very eminent scientists was that there was no need. Everything was fine. I am not sure if this is blind optimism or wilful negligence, but why would anybody object to a little more checking? It would cost only a few million dollars — just a tiny fraction of what governments will be spending on the reef.
I know what he means. Keynesians have around 90-plus percent of the macroeconomic positions in the world and have been systematically dragging our economies down with their wilfully wasteful public spending. But that’s the way it has always been. I have just been reading about William Harvey who discovered the circulation of blood which contradicted the view that has been held for around 1500 years whose opinion on these matters was set in the second century AD. Before Harvey, there had actually been people burned at the stake for holding a different opinion, so Peter is coming off relatively lightly in our more enlightened times.
Of all things, there I was sitting in my favourite cafe and what do they play but the world’s most notorious Christmas song, Baby it’s Cold Outside. But let’s face it, that might work in America but it just won’t do for us here in Australia. I have therefore adjusted the words to suit. And if climate change becomes a reality, perhaps this is what they’ll have to sing everywhere.
Baby it’s Hot Outside
I really can’t stay (Baby it’s hot outside)
I gotta go away (Baby it’s hot outside)
This evening has been (Been hoping that you’d dropped in)
You do inspire (I’ll hold your hands they’re just like fire)
My mother will start to worry (Beautiful what’s your hurry?)
My father will be pacing the floor (Listen to the air conditioner roar)
So really I’d better scurry (Beautiful please don’t hurry)
Well maybe just a half a drink more (I’ll put some music on while I pour)
The neighbors might think (Baby it’s bad out there)
Say what’s in this drink? (No cabs to be had out there)
I wish I knew how (Your eyes are like starlight now)
To break this spell (I’ll take your hat, your hair looks swell) (Why thank you)
I ought to say no, no, no sir (Mind if move in closer?)
At least I’m gonna say that I tried (What’s the sense of hurtin’ my pride?)
I really can’t stay (Baby don’t hold out)
Baby it’s hot outside
Ah, you’re very pushy you know?
I like to think of it as opportunistic
I simply must go (Baby it’s hot outside)
The answer is no (But baby it’s hot outside)
The welcome has been (How lucky that you dropped in)
So nice and cool (why don’t you try the pool)
My sister will be suspicious (Gosh your lips look delicious!)
My brother will be there at the door (Waves upon a tropical shore)
My maiden aunt’s mind is vicious (Gosh your lips are delicious!)
Well maybe just a cigarette more (Never such a heat wave before) (And I don’t even smoke)
I’ve got to get home (Baby it’s 40 degrees out there!)
You’ve really been grand, (I feel when I touch your hand)
But don’t you see? (How can you do this thing to me?)
There’s bound to be talk tomorrow (Think of my life long sorrow!)
At least there will be plenty implied (If you had heat stroke and died!)
I really can’t stay (Get over that old out)
Baby it’s hot
Baby it’s hot outside
Okay fine, just another drink then
That took a lot of convincing!
And in case you are unsure of the tune, I am providing two more traditional versions so that you can sing along with the lyrics found above.
And in case you are worrying about the politically incorrect implications, of the song, there is also this.
And if I don’t make it back to the keyboard today, may you have a peaceful and happy Christmas shared with those you love and who love you.
Law of Markets 