Friday Ephemera (775)

Attention, all foreigners.

I can’t believe these people get hired and taken seriously.

Readers may recall Ms Prescod-Weinstein, a self-styled “thought leader,” insisting that we must have deaf and disabled astronauts, supposedly in the name of fairness and inclusion. Because space exploration just isn’t difficult enough and dangerous enough as it is. And presumably on grounds that choosing astronauts with hearing problems, poor eyesight and motor-control issues will make things much more equitable, and exciting.

That Ms Prescod-Weinstein, whose practised fatuity is a thing to behold, has been employed to influence funding decisions in science is, as you say, darkly comical. 

There was a video, now sadly deleted, embedded in the post linked above, in which Ms Prescod-Weinstein and her peers were hailed as a panel of “experts” – again, “thought leaders” – on science, astronomy and space exploration – yet they struggled with any question regarding even the most basic practicality. They showed zero expertise of any relevance, and indeed zero interest. It was all so beneath them.

At the end of the video, they were asked what they thought was the “right stuff” for modern astronauts. The kinds of temperament and qualities required of the job. The panel had no ideas at all, none whatsoever. There was simply an awkward silence, fifteen seconds of it, and a look of smug disdain. As if the question were insufficiently progressive, something one shouldn’t ask, or even think about. 

Eventually, instead of answering the question, they badmouthed “whiteness” is if it were an obvious malady, something to fix, and made some quip about Mr Trump, and then asked how a mission to Mars would benefit Black Lives Matter. 

You couldn’t, as they say, make this shit up. 

Ticking wouldn’t be a problem. The ratchet sound however. . .

No. I’m afraid ticking is a deal-breaker for me. A watch should be slim, stylish and silent. Those are the rules. A watch the size of a tennis ball and which sounds like a defective fax machine would send me over the edge. 

the “professor” rambles without a single original thought, 4 minutes and 55 seconds of recitation of SSDD leftist gospel.

At some point – somewhere around there, I’d say – what you’re seeing isn’t driven by politics, in the sense of a misapprehension that one might contest and refute. It has little to do with reality. Instead, it’s driven by pathology, a weird psychological orientation. And so, attempting to engage in rational, factual correction, any marshalling of facts, is pretty much pointless.

You just have to slap the demon out of them. 

On that famed progressive empathy.

Again, that weird psychological orientation.

Woman noted only for having taken down a flag treats us to a geography lesson.

That standard deviation can really bite you on the ass.

Useless people define “fairness” as jobs for useless people.

It’s a shame the video, uploaded by Janice Fiamengo, has since been removed. It really was eye-widening in what it revealed about Ms Prescod-Weinstein and her peers. Including their utter inability to address basic realities, or to answer even simple questions in their professed areas of expertise. The boggling levels of evasion and shamelessness.

That weird psychological orientation.

Speaking of practised unrealism – a thread.

Note madam’s use of “misogynist extraordinaire.” For his daring to note that little boys and little girls tend to differ in their behaviour.