[ Shakes Glitter Out Of G-String ]

Heh.

Bear Naked Pole Dancing.

I know people who need this:

Accurate?

I’m not finding this fellow very refreshing, to be honest.
While not quite as skeptical as RC, I’m having trouble being encouraged by this as well. I’m a bit more forgiving, but I have a sneaking suspicion that were I a WP’r I’d be less so. I can believe what this guy says but, like many such people, I still think he’s lying to himself. If I hold out hope that people such as that can have their eyes opened, it’s mostly because it’s the only choice I have. Seems he should have woken up to some of this long before 2017. But then again, he was steeping in academia and thus protected from the real world. Though he does to some degree acknowledge that blind spot in the comments. What I find very unrefreshing is his repeating something that I pretty much already know, to wit:

If not actively taking part in ceaseless woke attacks as part of the small but highly vocal far left vanguard, the majority of academics, I’d wager even a super-majority of academics, have now been completely cowed into silence and complicity by the intersectional ideologues, burying their heads deeper in the sand, promising themselves that on some far-off future day, once the professional and social climate somehow improves, once someone else has stuck their neck out and cleared a safer path, once they achieve tenure, department head, emeritus status, enough grant money, etc. then the gloves will suddenly come off, then they will magically turn into a fire-breathing lion, then they will finally speak their minds.
If human psychology and human history are any guide, then the trend suggests that such a day will never come for such persons, since feeding that muscle of complicity and inaction only serves to strengthen it, and ‘tenure’ will most likely become swapped out with some new placeholder excuse to put off standing up and speaking the truth for just one more day. Maybe the cannibalization will somehow miss them if they just stay silent, just bend the knee, and just disavow long enough. The writings of Arendt, Niemoller, and Solzhenitsyn to name just a few, suggest the supreme folly and ultimate end-state of such a strategy of never-ending appeasement. This however, is the new normal within the ‘free market of ideas.’

While I have probably repeated such here often, actually seeing someone acknowledge it in this context is actually more disturbing. Given earlier context that I’d wager even a super-majority of academics, have now been completely cowed into silence and complicity by the intersectional ideologues, burying their heads deeper in the sand… I’d be more comfortable with the delusion that such people were blind than afraid. When they’re afraid, they are far more likely to join in by paying lip service to the system. Something I find far, far more contemptible than silence. Silence is forgivable. Not knowing everything about every single person’s specific situation, one can understand and even accept silence. What is contemptable is the traitor. And while I’m on a rant…one other thing, similar to the lip-service traitor act, is when those who keep their heads down show contempt for those who do find the courage to speak up. Most especially when the cowards protect their own egos by assuming that those with courage are somehow stupid. Because if those with courage were actually smart, they’d shut up and join the coward crowd. Sometimes I hate them more than the traitors.

For some reason Steve E.’s coat is on fire in the alley.

For some reason Steve E.’s coat is on fire in the alley.
Naah, unkind: if he can come up with “alpacapella”, I’ll forgive him almost anything.
[Note to Steve E: almost anything…]

As this is an open thread, just in case Facebook bans me for this I’d like to archive this somewhere that I can reference it later if necessary…

Interesting. I quoted this ABC news article, a short excerpt actually, word for word, added nothing to it except to preface “racist like this?” in a comment some time back. FB tagged it for “violating community standards”. FB does not provide me a context for my comment, nor a date. I do recall making it sometime in the past year or so. In the comment I provided the link to the story which I now see the ABC affiliate has removed. However the internet archive Wayback Machine has it archived here…
https://web.archive.org/web/20210225022547/https://www.wjla.com/news/nation-world/zimmerman-publicly-accused-sanford-police-of-corruption-in-2011-76322

Not sure how that got corrupted on post but the link should work if you copy paste and delete to just the underlined part (back to the 76322)

What happened to Hobbes?
Spice worm.

For some reason Steve E.’s coat is on fire in the alley.
Maud’Dib is always on point:

https://quillette.com/2021/06/18/what-are-dads-good-for/
An enjoyable read for Father’s Day.

Not sure if the headline writer was being a smartass.
Next week: The Awesomeness of Smoking 60 a Day!

Today in racism: electricity.

Today in racism: electricity.
I notice that the grounds for invoking “structural racism” include the fact that black customers are, on average, less likely to pay their utility bills. Though, inevitably, a more roundabout phrasing is used.

Invisible racism.
As we’ve seen many times, if you rely on “disparate impact” as grounds for invoking “structural racism,” and thereby demanding special favours and exemptions, where you end up can be alarming in its consequences and moral degeneracy.

Did this in-depth analysis of electricity bills take this kind of thing into account?
Of course not, that would go against the preconceived conclusion.

Did this in-depth analysis of electricity bills ”
Well, if one peruses said “report”, this tidbit does tend to cast a certain, well, light on the entire matter:
“of self-reported electricity expenditures” (page 2, Para 5)
“Self Reported” doesn’t ‘xactly give the highest confidence level…

Something for your trouble, David. Keep up the good work.

Well, if one peruses said “report”, this tidbit does tend to cast a certain, well, light on the entire matter:
Hmm, after reading the entire report, it is apparent that the article misrepresents it in order to condemn the electric grid as racist. For instance, the article claims that

Take, for example, this 2020 Berkeley study that, even after accounting for income, black families have higher electric bills. The analysis accounts for a variety of factors, including geography, income, and homeowner status and shows that Black households pay $273 more a year if they are renters and $408 more per year if they own the home.

Except that it doesn’t show that. The study covered

annual residential energy expenditures – defined as the sum of expenditures on electricity, natural gas, and other home heating fuels

(So the difference between my house and my neighbor’s would not be so great, taking into account my expenditures on propane.)
Furthermore, the report states that

Conditional on income, Black households are more likely to report that their home is drafty. They also report fewer Energy Star qualified appliances and home features, and are less likely to have received a rebate or tax credit for having upgraded an appliance. These differences exist despite the fact that Black households in the RECS sample are just as (if not slightly more) likely to have gotten an energy audit.

What part of that has anything to do with racism on the part of the electric company? Or, indeed, any company supplying energy to residences? Why assert that they are to blame in any way for what the report plainly states are due to other factors:

These differences in wealth, home ownership, income volatility, and credit access all serve as potential barriers to living in higher quality, more energy efficient homes or to making necessary energy efficiency upgrades.

It’s like Google deciding that, because they hire more male programmers than female, that must be due to sexism at Google as opposed to the experiences of men and women through their childhood and young adulthood which cause programmers to be disproportionately male. (Note that I don’t believe the differences are due to sexism, but if they were, they wouldn’t be due to Google’s hiring decisions.)
Apologies for the rant, David. I get frustrated by obvious lies in the service of oikophobia. I added a little to the tip jar to make up for it.

It is hard to find answers if we never ask the questions. How do we make the grid antiracist?
Surely this “hard” question answers itself?
We provide everyone with the appropriate amount of free electricity they might reasonably require, as determined by the Union of Concerned Fascists. And then cut off their supply.
And electrocute anyone who hasn’t used that required amount until they have.

Wasn’t it the Union of Concerned Scientists that originated the bogus 97% consensus on Global Warming®™ Climate Change®™ which then was repeated 38,671,934 times by the moron media and resulted in 27 trillion dollars of taxpayer money to be spent?

“The creative process taught Zack about generating novel ideas,” the candidate writes on his website.

In case anyone hadn’t already guessed from the article’s complete lack of mention of political parties, Mr. Weiner is a Democrat and running in the Democratic primary.

Welcome to the liberal idea of utopia:

A very elderly person said that he once tried to use the TV remote to make someone speak up: