Author: Kate

A Clock-Drawing Test From The Presidency

CreepyJoeBiden Democrats 15 Comments

“I feel very strongly about the importance as a general matter of engaging in U.S. policy as it relates to foreign affairs in a way that we pay attention, of course, to the immediate concerns and threats if they exist, but that we also pay attention to 10, 20, 30 years down the line and what we are developing now that will be to the benefit of our country then,” Harris said.

When asked whether she felt prepared to take on the duties of the presidency, Harris said she was ready.

@LouDobbs – This should scare everybody—Marxist Extremists Alex Soros and Mega Dem Donors have an eight-hour meeting at incoherent, vapid VP Kamala Harris’ official residence, Marxist puppet Joe Biden appears to now be in cognitive freefall and she emerges from hiding to say she’s ready to take over for what is by any standard an illegitimate President. This only gets worse.

What’s The Opposite Of Diversity?

Children R Our Future The Tolerant Left 4 Comments

University.

Forty-four percent of Democrats surveyed “strongly agreed” that public four-year colleges and universities are for people like them, according to Varying Degrees 2023, the nonprofit New America’s seventh annual higher education survey.

Only 21 percent of surveyed Republicans “strongly agreed.”

Sarah Lawrence College political science Professor Samuel Abrams said he believes the findings are in part due to political polarization.

Polarization “is the phenomenon where individuals’ feelings and emotions towards members of their own political party or group become more positive, while their feelings towards members of the opposing party or group become more negative,” Abrams told The College Fix via email.

Because of left-leaning polarization in colleges and universities, “those on the right are increasingly disliked and viewed as enemies when they are on campuses today,” said Abrams, a fellow at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute.

Update: How college diversity statements got started as a way to weed out white and Asian job applicants

If It Looks Like A Rail And Smells Like Rail

Basic Dictatorship Let Them Eat Taser The Deplorables 22 Comments

It’s a railroad, Ma’am.

Hope that the trial of two Freedom Convoy organizers would last only four weeks may be dashed after the defence raised complaints about receiving heaps of new evidence three days after the trial began.

Justice Heather Perkins-McVey told the court there is a potential risk for the trial to go “off the rails,” if it continues to evolve in the way it has been going. She used the day of court time on Friday to try to “crystallize the evidence” for the remainder of the trial.

Before that, there was a sense of tension in the courtroom as Crown and defence lawyers sparred over the timing of the delivery of binders full of text messages.

The justice called a short recess to step away from the bench to “settle” herself after telling the lawyers she was “very unhappy” about the late-stage disclosure.

“This should have been done well before the trial,” she chided before leaving the courtroom.

Let That Sink In

CreepyJoeBiden Freespeechers Social Disease Surveillance State 13 Comments

National Review;

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that the Biden administration likely violated the First Amendment by pressuring social-media platforms to censor posts about Covid-19 and elections.

The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling says that the White House likely “coerced the platforms to make their moderation decisions by way of intimidating messages and threats of adverse consequences.” The panel of three judges found that the administration “significantly encouraged the platforms’ decisions by commandeering their decision-making processes, both in violation of the First Amendment.”

A lower court previously placed restrictions on the Biden administration’s communications with social-media platforms; those restrictions applied to a number of government agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services, the State Department, Homeland Security, and the U.S. Census Bureau.

After temporarily blocking the order, the Fifth Circuit judges have now modified the order to apply only to the White House, the surgeon general, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the FBI.

More here.

Plus, a blow by blow from Tracy Beanz: I want to stop for a second (again) and go over how monumental this actually is. This is the first time ever that a normal “user” or American has submitted evidence of social media censorship and had their concerns ADDRESSED at all by a COURT OF LAW.

Blog Notes: In The Shop For Repairs

Blogging 3 Comments


Update! The security audit and cleanup are complete, and we’re back in business. Many thanks to Graham at Wordfence for his tenacity and good humor, when he discovered he’d been tasked with a 20 year old site with 57,500 posts and 1.7M comments. There’s still work to do at our end, which should be complete by Monday. In the meanwhile, we have the green light to resume normal operations.

Thanks for your patience, everyone.

Kate

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Original post below
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The security audit interim report is in, and a number of problems have been uncovered. A big number.

To avoid interfering with the work, posting is suspended until I get the go ahead to resume – a break that will probably extend into the weekend. To that end, I’m also closing comments.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to cover the costs. Your generosity is being put to good use.

Our Chinese-Installed Government In Ottawa

Basic Dictatorship Shiny Pony The Libranos 36 Comments

THOSE DIRTY RUSSIANS: They’re already signaling the direction the so-called “foreign interference inquiry” will take.

After months of deliberations, the federal government is launching a public inquiry into foreign election interference in Canada, and has found a judge to lead it.

Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs Dominic LeBlanc announced Tuesday that Quebec Court of Appeal Justice Marie-Josée Hogue will serve as commissioner to lead the probe, which will look beyond China to other foreign meddling.

“Justice Hogue will be tasked with examining and assessing interference by China, Russia, and other foreign states and non-state actors, including any potential impacts to confirm the integrity of, and impacts on, the 2019 and 2021 general elections at the national and the electoral district levels,” LeBlanc said.

@AndrewJWHaynes – Justice Hogue practiced at the same law firm as Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chretien.

Blog Notes

Blogging 12 Comments

Posting has been slow as we’ve been fighting some stubborn security issues. Lance is taking a deep dive into the problem, but should that fail, we’ll be forced into an upgrade of our security support (again). If it comes to that, I may hold a mini-fundraiser to cover the costs. Many thanks to the readers who donate to SDA around the year – your support is very much appreciated!

Sept 7 Update: I did bite the bullet and have purchased a higher level of security monitoring and support. With luck, the problems we’ve been battling for the past few weeks will soon be resolved.

Many thanks to everyone who stepped up with donations. As you know, there are no ad links here, no envelopes of cash from political operatives, and no paywall subscriptions – nor will there be any. (Most of the book ads have long ago expired, I leave them up to support the authors). The blog is a volunteer effort, supported only by readers who drop a few bucks in the tip jar.

In a few instances my “thank you” notes bounce back (especially to those using gmail), so if you haven’t received one, let me thank you again here!

The Sound Of Settled Science

climategate Unsettled Science 38 Comments

Daily Mail;

A climate change scientist has claimed the world’s leading academic journals reject papers which don’t ‘support certain narratives’ about the issue and instead favor ‘distorted’ research which hypes up dangers rather than solutions.

Patrick T. Brown, a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University and doctor of earth and climate sciences, said editors at Nature and Science – two of the most prestigious scientific journals – select ‘climate papers that support certain preapproved narratives’.

In an article for The Free Press, Brown likened the approach to the way ‘the press focus so intently on climate change as the root cause’ of wildfires, including the recent devastating fires in Hawaii. He pointed out research that said 80 percent of wildfires are ignited by humans.

Brown gave the example of a paper he recently authored titled ‘Climate warming increases extreme daily wildfire growth risk in California’. Brown said the paper, published in Nature last week, ‘focuses exclusively on how climate change has affected extreme wildfire behavior’ and ignored other key factors.

Brown laid out his claims in an article titled ‘I Left Out the Full Truth to Get My Climate Change Paper Published‘. ‘I just got published in Nature because I stuck to a narrative I knew the editors would like. That’s not the way science should work,’ the article begins.

Good for him.

The Libranos: It Takes A Potemkin Village

Shiny Pony The Libranos 47 Comments

…Judith Robertson, cabinet’s $285,000-a year Commissioner responsible for the Agency, refused an interview.

When Central Planning Fails

Democrats Great Moments In Socialism 5 Comments

Find someone else to punish;

New York City has begun enforcing a 2022 law that restricts short-term rentals like Airbnb, $ABNB.

This action is anticipated to result in the removal of numerous listings from these platforms. It marks the latest and potentially the most significant development in the ongoing dispute between major cities and home-sharing companies.

The city contends that the widespread availability of short-term rentals on platforms such as Airbnb has contributed to rising rents and exacerbated the housing scarcity in New York City.

Airbnb has characterized these new regulations as an “effective prohibition” on its platform, while critics argue that the city is yielding to pressure from the hotel industry and eliminating affordable lodging options for visitors.

Under the new system, rentals shorter than 30 days are only allowed if hosts register with the city. Hosts must commit to being physically present in the home for the duration of the rental, sharing living quarters with their guest.

Related: The Roosevelt Hotel in NYC has 1,025 rooms and American taxpayers are currently paying for every one of those rooms to be filled by illegal immigrants – At a cost of $6,000 per family of illegals, per month.

It’s Probably Nothing

Democrats Great Reset 18 Comments

Redfin;

Investor home purchases fell 45% from a year earlier in the second quarter, outpacing the 31% drop in overall home sales. That’s the biggest decline since 2008 with the exception of the quarter before, when they dropped 48%. The decline comes as this year’s relatively cool housing and rental markets makes investing in homes less attractive than it was during the pandemic-driven homebuying frenzy of 2021 and early 2022. […]

This marks a retreat from a boom in investor activity during the pandemic, which was driven by record-low mortgage rates and huge homebuying and rental demand, creating opportunities for investors to make a lot of money.

“Offers from hedge funds have dried up; I haven’t received an offer from one in a long time, except unrealistically low offers,” said Las Vegas Redfin Premier agent Shay Stein. “From mid-2020 until early 2022 when interest rates started going up, hedge funds bought up a ton of properties and immediately turned them into rentals, pricing out local buyers. Now a big portion of our homes are owned by investors, but they’re not adding to their portfolios.”

In dollar terms, the drop in investor purchases is almost as big. Investors bought a total of $36.4 billion worth of homes in the second quarter, down 42% from a year earlier. That’s still above pre-pandemic levels, but dropping closer to it: Investors bought a total of $34 billion in the second quarter of 2018, and a total of $31.9 billion in the second quarter of 2019. The typical home purchased by investors in the second quarter cost $470,120, comparable with the $467,885 median price a year earlier.

Via @Wallstreetsil: Without transactions, many jobs that are commission oriented are seeing huge declines in incomes. Real estate agents, mortgage brokers, title insurance, home inspectors. All of the various categories are entering a depressions from lack of transactions.

Meanwhile in Canada…

The aggressive pace of interest-rate hikes is hitting mortgage books at Canada’s biggest banks, leading to slowing loan growth, longer amortization periods and a rise in impairments. Higher borrowing costs cut into mortgage growth, with would-be homebuyers sitting on the sidelines. At the country’s five largest lenders, including Royal Bank of Canada and Toronto-Dominion Bank, residential loan growth slowed to four per cent in the fiscal third quarter, compared with annual growth of 9.8 per cent a year earlier.

After Killing Saskatchewan’s Horseracing Industry

Equine 12 Comments

A city run by incompetent losers, top to bottom:

Plans to develop a multi-million-dollar soccer stadium and bring an expansion Canadian Premier League franchise to Saskatoon aren’t moving forward, Prairieland Park Corporation, one of the parties involved, announced on Tuesday. […]

In an email to the StarPhoenix, Kemppainen said since they don’t have a definitive date for when this project will be initiated again, “one could say that it is on indefinite hold.”

He said the timing just doesn’t appear to be ideal for “such an ambitious project,” citing interest rates, inflation and construction costs that have increased significantly since the work was started years ago.

“The pandemic interrupted the soccer plans and everybody is aware of the financial strain that has been inflicted on most businesses and governments as a result of this,” Kemppainen said in the email.

He reiterated that current economic conditions are the reason the project has been “adjourned.”

Flashback: “Saskatoon is ready for it. Saskatchewan is ready for it. No longer should we be a fly-over for some stuff. It’s time.”

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