The Splendid and the
Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson
As a history buff, I have
read many books, including Churchill biographies, that covered the same ground.
But none so well. I literally couldn’t put it down. In a time when the future
seems bleak, it is well to remember a time when it seemed much worse. This book
will restore your belief in the ability of good people to triumph over
adversity and terrible odds. I highly recommend it.
Former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney Tweets That ‘Zionists’ Did 9/11
The Life and Impact of Thomas Sowell
Joe does it again.... another completely false statement
Unsettled: What
Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters by Steven E. Koonin
Dr. Koonin is the former undersecretary for
science in the US Department of Energy in the Obama administration.
If
someone wants to talk to you about climate change, no matter what side they are
on, ask if they have read this book. If not, they are at best poorly informed
about the science, what is real what is agenda driven, and what is not known.
Dr. Koonin gives a hard slap to those who deny that climate change has a
man-made component. He gives a harder slap to those, usually with no education
in climate like AOC, Greta and Gore, who say the climate is broken, disaster is
upon us and the world has only 12 years (or is it now 11). But his hardest slap
is for those who distort the science to sell newspapers or air time, to garner
votes, or to secure funding for their projects. You’ve seen the scare headlines
from the reports, usually mitigated by a section buried in the report. For example:
From the
National Climate Assessment issued by the US Government, 1916: “There has been
no significant trend in the global number of tropical cyclones nor has and
trend been identified in the number of US Land-falling hurricanes.” (P769,
appendix 3). He discusses what can and can’t be done, and why. I urge
everyone to read this book by a leading scientist.
Private Cannon Ownership in Early America
Working from home? You’re probably being spied on
Discovery of 'Dragon Man' skull in China prompts rethink of human evolution
I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.... because it says 29% of Americans still trust the news! Totally amazed to see a number that high, I would have thought (and hoped!) it'd be down to mayb 10% at best by now. Then again, at least 10% of the population have IQs down in the cellar, and others have been indoctrinated, so maybe that explains it.
UP Forced Conversion Racket: Differently Abled Children Were To Be Brainwashed And Used As Human Bombs, Reveals Report
Bob, I hope you post this whole essay/open letter. This may be the clearest, most powerful exposition of what's happening that I've read anywhere. Ever. The worst that can happen is someone'll hate us--but, they probably already do, so that seems minor.
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Do you remember the names Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying? I wrote one of my earliest New York Times columns about the bravery they displayed as tenured professors — words that do not typically appear in the same sentence — at Evergreen State College.
It was 2017 and the professors, both evolutionary biologists, opposed the school’s “Day of Absence,” in which white students were asked to leave campus for the day. You can imagine what followed. For questioning a day of racial segregation wearing the garments of social justice, the pair was smeared as racist. Following serious threats, they left town for a time with their children, lost many of their friends, and, ultimately, resigned their jobs.
But they refused to shut up.
They started a podcast called DarkHorse, where they suggested in April 2020 that Covid-19 could have come from the lab in Wuhan — a position that made them a laughingstock among so-called experts more than a year before Jon Stewart talked about it on The Late Show.
Their willingness to challenge conventional wisdom and take on third-rail subjects has drawn them a large audience: Last month, DarkHorse had almost five million views on YouTube. But speaking freely has come with a price. The couple’s two YouTube channels have each received several warnings and one official strike, which the company says was because of their advocacy of the drug ivermectin as a treatment for Covid-19. Three strikes from YouTube and a channel can be deleted. According to Weinstein, that would mean the loss of “more than half of our income.”
How have we gotten here? How have we gotten to the point where having conversations about important scientific and medical subjects requires such a high level of personal risk? How have we accepted a reality in which Big Tech can carry out the digital equivalent of book burnings? And why is it that so few people are speaking up against the status quo?
I can’t think of a person better situated to answer these questions than Abigail Shrier, the author of today’s guest essay.
You may have heard of Shrier. She is the author of Irreversible Damage, which the Economist named one of the best books of last year, and a dogged journalist who has taken on the difficult and thankless subject of the enormous rise of gender dysphoria among teenage girls.
I say thankless because it’s hard to capture the decibel of the vitriol that has met her work. To give you a taste: one of the ACLU’s most prominent lawyers said that “stopping the circulation of this book and these ideas is 100% a hill I will die on.” (The subject of how the ACLU came to favor book banning is taken up brilliantly here.) And this is to say nothing of the personal defamation of Shrier’s character, smears that bear zero relationship to my courageous friend.
You do not need to agree with Shrier about whether or not children should be able to medically transition genders without their parents’ permission (she is opposed), or for that matter with Weinstein and Heying’s bullishness about ivermectin (I had never heard of of the drug before they put it on my radar). That’s not the point. The point is that the questions they ask are not just legitimate, they are of critical importance. Meantime, some of the most powerful forces in our culture are conspiring to silence them.
That is precisely the reason it is so important to stand up and say: no. To say: progress comes only when we have the freedom to disagree. To say: It is outrageous that tech platforms are censoring such debates and that some journalists are cheering them on. To say, in public: enough. In my case, that means making sure to publish those voices who have been shut out of so many other channels that ought to be open to them.
— BW
One hundred and forty-six people in Halifax, Nova Scotia wait on a list to borrow a library book. A question hangs over them: Will activists let them read it?
The book is mine — Irreversible Damage — and it is an investigation of a medical mystery: Why is the number of teenage girls requesting (and obtaining) gender reassignment skyrocketing in the United States, Canada, Scandinavia and Europe? In Great Britain, it’s up 4,400% over the last decade.
Though it shouldn’t be, this has become a highly controversial area of inquiry. The book is an exploration of why so many girls would, in such a short timeframe, decide they are transgender. And it raises questions about whether they’re getting appropriate medical treatment.
The book is not about whether trans people exist. They do. And it is not about adults who elect to medically transition genders. As I have stated endlessly in public interviews and in Senate testimony, I fully support medical transition for mature adults and believe that transgender individuals should live openly without fear or stigma.
Yet since publication, I have faced fierce opposition — not just to the ideas presented, challenged, or explored — but to the publication of the book itself. A top lawyer for the ACLU called for it to be banned. Powerful organizations like GLAAD have lobbied against it and pressured corporations — Target and Amazon among others — to remove Irreversible Damage from their virtual shelves.
There’s a pattern to such censorship campaigns. A fresh example presented itself this past week at Science-Based Medicine, which bills itself as “a group blog exploring issues and controversies in the relationship between science in medicine.”
On Tuesday, one of the blog’s long-time contributors, Dr. Harriet Hall — a family physician and flight surgeon in the Air Force with dozens of publications to her name — posted a favorable review of my book. She examined the scientific claims as well as the medical ones and wrote that the book “combines well-researched facts with horrifying stories about botched surgeries, people who later regret their choices and therapists who are not providing therapy but just validating their patient’s self-diagnosis.” Dr. Hall not only shared my criticisms of “affirmative care” — that is, immediately agreeing with a teen’s self-diagnosis of gender dysphoria and proceeding to hormones and surgeries — but also noted that many physicians and therapists feel the same way but are afraid to say so.
Within a day, Dr. Hall’s article was flooded with nearly 1,000 comments, mostly, she says, from activists demanding the article be stripped from the site, but also from some readers expressing their appreciation. Angry emails from activists swamped the blog’s editors. Within two days, those editors had given Dr. Hall an ultimatum: retract, rewrite, or allow them to add a disclaimer.
“What surprised me was that my fellow editors attacked me, too. Basically what they said was that my article was not up to my usual standards as far as medicine, science and critical thinking went. And I didn’t feel that I did anything but what I always do. That surprised me,” she told me. Considering the editors’ ultimatum, she elected to have the editors who disagreed add a disclaimer to the website. “I told them I did not want it retracted. And the next thing I knew, they had retracted it.”
Let that sink in: a book review by a respected physician was bullie
Public figures who have watched the success of such campaigns — and they are now weekly if not daily — now know they risk their livelihoods by engaging heterodox views. Jordan Peterson, for example, chose to demonetize the interview we did on his YouTube channel to, in his words, “avoid attracting counterproductive attention by jackals who weaponize demonetization.”
It’s not only corporations facing this type of activist pressure. Public libraries now do, too.
Halifax Pride, the annual LGBTQ festival, announced late last month that it would cut ties with the city’s library system over its insistence on carrying Irreversible Damage, calling it “transphobic,” and claiming that it “jeopardizes the safety of trans youth” and “debates the existence of trans people.”
So far, the Halifax Public Libraries have resisted. Their position is straightforward and apolitical: libraries exist to expose the public to the widest array of views, “including those which may be regarded as unorthodox or unpopular with the majority.”
The Halifax Public Libraries tried to compromise with the activists by pasting a note inside the book’s cover, directing readers to a list of “trans-affirming” resources. But the activists were unappeased. No ties with the libraries were restored. They want the book gone from the library and scrubbed from existence. Two copies in a library of nearly 1.2 million volumes are two too many.
Not even the Nova Scotia Library Association or the Canadian Library Association has come to the library’s defense, though their standing orders explicitly require member libraries “to guarantee and facilitate access to all expressions of knowledge and intellectual activity, including those which some elements of society may consider to be unconventional, unpopular or unacceptable.”
Silent supporters stand alongside the Halifax Libraries. They sign up to borrow the book, now nearly 150 of them, and post supportive messages on Twitter usually under pseudonyms.They know that the activists waging this battle — over who gets to determine what we can read, what ideas adults are allowed to explore, will, at some point, come for ideas they favor, or causes they support.
But like too many individuals and institutions who try to hold fast to liberal values in the face of an intolerant and illiberal onslaught, the Halifax Libraries stand alone in the public square.
I know how they feel.
Half of Twitter seems to think I'm some sort of demon. But if you read my inbox, you’d think I was popular, awash as I am in secret fan mail and “silent supporter” notes.
Here is an entirely typical example — one of hundreds I’ve received over the last year:
Hi, Mrs. Shrier, I just wanted to drop you a quick note thanking you for your bravery. It might surprise you to know that I work for a prominent progressive politician (obviously I could never express my support for your work publicly). But it should be known that not everyone on the Left has totally lost their mind.
The author turned out to be a senior staffer for a popular 2020 Democratic presidential candidate. But the email itself was a version that I’ve come to expect: I agree with you, though I couldn’t possibly say so publicly. I have a job to think of, a reputation to uphold, children to put through college, a mortgage to pay, promotions to gun for, a spouse to please, friendships to maintain. All of the trappings of a comfortable life.
Child and adult psychologists and psychiatrists write to say they have witnessed a surge in transgender identification among teen girls who seem to be acting under peer and social media influence. Teachers write to say they believe that the phenomenon is plainly an example of social contagion within their classrooms. Surgeons and pediatricians and endocrinologists write to wonder aloud at what has happened to their profession.
There are lawyers who posit that lawsuits are on the way — brought by others, presumably. Professors who have come to hate their jobs — you can’t discuss your own research without trampling on a young generation’s vast neural network of sensitivities. Journalists at our most storied newspapers, TV networks, and literary magazines, even at NPR, write to tell me they liked my book, they agree with it, and to tut-tut the abuse directed at me. They assure me that the horrible accusations — from child predation to white supremacy and transphobia — accusations that will forever live on the internet, blackening my name, are things no one really believes. They wish — wish! — they could say so publicly. Each of these notes has touched or boosted me at times when I’ve needed it.
The fear these silent supporters express is rational. Even the most ordinary comments can get you branded as persona non grata, some flavor of ‘phobe’ or ‘ist.’ Hardly a week goes by without a story of some professor being reprimanded, a starlet losing a job, or a young reality TV figure abjectly apologizing for something he said that was completely obvious and true. Others have faced more profound threats — parents to the custody of their children, journalists and even editors of scientific journals to their physical safety. People I respect have lost livelihoods and marriages
And so, for over a year, I responded to those silent supporters with thanks and reassurance. You don’t have to speak out, just send me your documents — I will expose it for you. No need to stand up for me publicly, just tell me what you know. For a while, this seemed a decent bargain.
But then, a few months ago, a pediatrician reached out to say that she also thought it was insane that minors were self-prescribing testoste
The standard response didn’t cut it this time. I wrote back as politely as I could: That’s just not good enough. You are a doctor. We aren’t the same with regard to medical scandals. I can continue to seek and publish the truth. I can interview experts and report what they’ve said. But you can appeal to your own authority. You took a Hippocratic oath. If you see young patients in harm’s way, you have an obligation to do something.
The same is true for other professions. If you are a teacher, you entered the profession in order to expand young minds. If you are watching them being warped, it’s your responsibility to fight that. If you are a journalist witnessing lies being spread by your colleagues, it’s your responsibility to stand up for truth. If you are a professor, watching your colleagues being bullied — a med school professor watching hokum being peddled as fact, a scientist watching the corruption of research — there’s no one else to speak up but you.
Each of us knows this in theory. But why do so few oppose the pressure, lies, and the corrupting force of these bullying campaigns?
The silent supporters have each performed the same risk-benefit calculation and arrived at the same conclusion: Speaking up isn’t worth it. It could cost a job, reputation, peace and friends — it requires the assumption of risk and a willingness to sacrifice.
And it is easy to justify our silence. We tell ourselves that we are protecting our families by remaining quiet and in the short-term, and we may be. But we are also handing our children over to a culture in which freedom of conscience and expression are drowned out. We are teaching our children that truth shouldn’t be our primary concern — or at least, that truth is negotiable or subordinate to being agreeable. They are learning that it is more important to remain acceptable to the powerful than to be truly free.
Whether or not most people admit it, what keeps them from speaking up in the face of what they know is wrong is fear. Fear not primarily of unemployment, though that is a pressing concern, but fear of ostracism. This deep and ancient fear is behind our desperate reach for innocence and safety when we virtue signal. By contrast, we stand exposed when we speak unpopular truth. Within your tribe, there will be people who pull away from you, and if you think well of them — and sadly, even if you don’t — this causes pain.
The pain is measurable and real, as Professor Kip Williams, an expert on ostracism, told me: “When people say their feelings are hurt, or they're feeling heartbroken, or they're feeling punched in the gut because of what their partner did, then you think its a metaphor. But in fact, it's the same feeling physiologically. You're having the same effects. And the brain detects it as pain.” We feel real physical pain at being cast out by a social group.
So terrible is this fear and this pain that in ancient Rome, a person sentenced to death could opt for exile instead. The Romans understood that ostracism was a punishment as bad as death.
What can make it bearable? According to Professor Williams, getting yourself accepted by another group. This is also the way to confront most of life’s heartaches — surrounded by those you love. And there is no better way to gain respect from those you don’t already know than by being identified with truthfulness.
Fear of ostracism is rational. But we are now living in a world in which evolutionary biologists are threatened with losing their platforms for engaging in debate about the source and treatment of a deadly virus; in which prize-winning composers have been professionally ruined for saying arson is bad; in which authors are editing already-published books to placate online mobs. That should scare us far more than losing friends or status.
So look to the Halifax Library. Summon what faith you can in those things you know to be right and true: a person is not defined by her race; biological sex is real; scientific research requires ideologically unencumbered investigation; activists shouldn’t bully libraries; and books should not be banned.
The first hundred or so silent supporter emails meant the most to me. They made me feel less crazy and less alone. But the inescapable reality is that defeating this ideology will take courage. And courage is not something that can happen in private. Courage requires each one of us to speak up, publicly, for what we believe in. Even when — especially when — it carries costs.
Here's What the Chinese Defector Has Reportedly Given Us About COVID...But Also on Joe and Hunter Biden
A Chinese Lab Virus? So Now What?
Scientists Call for Investigation into Journals That Dismissed Wuhan Lab Theory
Donna Jackson: Better things to fight for than juneteenth
Random Thoughts for May
2021
Robert A. Hall
Feel free to post or forward.
Sorry this is so late. May was a challenging month.
Health update: Atter a postponement
on May 6, I finally had my hip replacement (total right hip arthroplasty) on
May 20th. So I have a DePuy Artificial Hip. Still a lot of pain but
it is getting better. Long drives really hurt. Tired all the time. Sleeping 12
hours a day. Stopped taking the OxyContin.
Here they come again! I Had a renal
Clinic on June 2. Seems the Tac I take to prevent rejection is deteriorating my
kidneys. Have to drink a lot of water and avoid caffeine. At 75 not looking
forward to dialysis or a kidney transplant, which may be in my future.
In light of all this, I have submitted my
resignation to the VA.
Andy Warhol was wrong. In the future,
everyone will be a victim for 15 minutes.
From Dave Blaska’s blog: “Name one
Democrat that stands up for policing.”
Anthony Fauci has put more taverns out of
business than Carrie Nation.
In 1944, the Democrats dumped VP Henry
Wallace from FDR’s ticket for being too far left. Today they would dump FDR for
being too far right.
Facebook censoring Trump probably helps
him rally his supporters. My senate floor leader, the late John Parker, used to
say, “It’s always an advantage to a public man to be the victim of an outrage.”
It is ironic that the 60's generation whose mantra was non-conformity,
spawned a generation which seeks collectivism and demands conformity with zero
tolerance for dissenting opinion. –John Bernard
9-year-old grandson: “Grandma, can I ask a question?”
GM: “Sure.”
GS: “What does this finger mean?”
GM: “Fuck you.”
GS: “Can I use it?”
GM: “No.”
Jim Crow was the racist construction of white supremacists. Critical
Race Theory is the racist construction of black supremacists and their white supporters.
Both are anti-freedom.
Our society used to honor and respect heroes, which is why a
large number of fake veterans are out there sporting purchased ribbons. Now
society honors the “courage” of victims and gives them recognition. Which is the
reason the number of fake victims is growing.
Show me just one case of a transsexual woman, who used to be
male, giving birth. Just one.
“Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks. Their
children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their
grandchildren are once again slaves.” –D. H. Lawrence.
A reminder: One need not hope in order to undertake, nor succeed in order to
persevere. --William the Silent 1533-1584
I cannot accept
your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable
presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other
way, against the holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic
responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends
to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always
bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when
you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is
no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. --Lord Acton
Prince Harry
reportedly said our First Amendment is bonkers. Not the first British Royal not
to understand our constitution.
From
Blaska’s Blog: Why is New York losing a congressional seat? In New York City, shootings and homicides
rose by 97% and 44%, respectively, in 2020, and felony assaults are up by 25%
this year. Yet seven of the eight candidates running in the Democratic primary
for Manhattan district attorney have pledged to cut the police budget or
prosecute fewer suspects—or some combination of the two. On Sunday, the New
York Times endorsed Kathryn Garcia for mayor who will address the city’s crime
wave by “reforming the New York Police Department,” which “begins with speeding
up and strengthening the disciplinary process” for officers. — The essential Jason Riley, Wall St. Journal.
Don’t let longing for what you once had ruin your enjoyment
of what you have now.
I’m so old I remember when the left would chant, “Power to
the People.” Now they want to eviscerate the Bill of Rights to take power from
the people.
Voting records: While Liz Chaney voted 92.0 % of the time
with Trump’s positions on actually issues, Rep. Elsie Stefanik did do only 77.7
% of the time. Source: Five-Thirty-Eight.
October 1, 2024, City Hall. Dear Sir,
Our algorithm has reviewed your voting patten for the last
three years and determined that your voting does not meet our community
standard. Therefore, you have been removed from the voter rolls and are now
listed as a resident, not as a citizen. I anticipation you would wish to appeal
we have submitted your voting pattern to three other algorithms and they have concurred
in the decision.
As a reminder: Only citizens may own firearms or hold
government or military jobs and residents may only buy gas or groceries at
stores that are open before 10 am. Thank you for your compliance with this
directive. It is, or course, for the good of everyone. Sincerely. The Central
Committee.
Get the collection! My
“Random Thoughts” from 2009 through July, 2013 are collected in this book: The Old Jarhead's
Journal: Random Thoughts on Life, Liberty, and Leadership by Robert
A. Hall
The Old Jarhead’s
Journal is a collection of Random Thoughts on politics and life and
Conservative Political Essays, mostly published on the author’s blog, including
the essay “I’m Tired” which went viral on the Internet in 2009, “The Hall
Platform,” “This I Believe,” and “Why I’m a Republican.” While they will be of
interest to conservative thinkers, they are collected here in book form as a
service to readers who wish to give a copy to favorite liberals and watch their
heads explode. All
royalties are donated to the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund.
*****
Robert A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam Veteran who served five
terms in the Massachusetts State Senate. He is the author of The Coming Collapse of the American Republic.
http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Collapse-American-Republic-prevent/dp/1461122538/ref=sr_1_5?s=booksandie=UTF8andqid=1304815980andsr=1-5
For a free PDF of Collapse, e-mail
him at tartanmarine(at)gmail.com. Hall’s twelve books are listed here: http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2010/07/new-book-published.html.
His blog of political news and conservative comment is www.tartanmarine.blogspot.com. He currently works
part-time as a writer-editor in the My Life, My Story program as the Madison VA
hospital, interviewing vets and writing up their life histories. During the
crisis he is working from home.
today is the anniversary of both the allied landings in France in 1944 and the WWI battle of Belleau where the Marines stopped the German advance on Paris and took more casualies in one day that in their history to day.
New York Times Publishes Photo of Girl Killed by Israelis Who Was Also Killed by Israelis in 2017
Trump Taps Newt Gingrich to Come Up With a New Spin on an Old Idea That Worked