Female law professor breaks down crying while working on constitutional law syllabus because conservatives now win cases at the Supreme Court.
Your Moral And Intellectual Superiors
It was a company built on the sizzle and BS of founder Shane Smith, who dressed like one of the Blues Brothers and sold a great story to “traditional” news executives. Its pitch: Vice understood the secret sauce of capturing the next generation of news consumers, the ones fleeing mainstream media. […]
An early, important investor was my ex-boss, Rupert Murdoch, whom Smith reportedly told, “I have Gen Y, I have social, I have online video. You have none of that. I have the future; you have the past.”
It worked. Murdoch invested $70 million in 2013, pushing Vice’s valuation to $1.4 billion.
A few months later, I noticed a problem. At the time, I ran FoxNews.com and was looking to boost our social media presence. Analyzing other media outlets, it became apparent to me that Vice’s Facebook numbers were inflated to the point of nonsense. The company had millions of supposed followers, but its posts generated a tiny number of comments and interactions. It was a clear sign of either bot accounts or, more likely, overseas “users” who would follow a Facebook page for pennies.
Since the boss had just dropped $70 million, I thought I should give him a heads-up. After a meeting, I mentioned what I had found to Rupert, summarizing it as “they’re full of s**t.”
I expected him to be perhaps a tad bit worried, but that wasn’t in Rupert’s DNA. He just chuckled and said, “Of course they’re full of s**t.”
The next year, a venture-capital firm and A&E invested $500 million, raising Vice’s valuation to $2.5 billion. By 2017, another $450 million investment pushed its worth to nearly $6 billion.
Money like that buys a lot of video production, articles, and audience. With it, Vice spawned two feature film studios, a publishing arm, a cable TV channel, and more.
All gone.
More via Ed Driscoll.
“Bad Therapy takes a sledgehammer to every article of therapeutic parenting and pedagogical faith. “
UnHerd- Bad therapy is stunting our kids Abigail Shrier’s book paints a devastating picture
Bad Therapy argues that far from helping, these practices make everything worse. The children and young people raised by boundary-negotiating, feeling-validating, trauma-exploring, “talk it out” parents and educators, marinaded in the therapeutic worldview are not, as hoped, happier, more confident, and more emotionally literate. They’re neurotic, anxious, and self-absorbed; alternately fearful of the outside world and adept at exploiting soft-authoritarian therapeutic institutions for personal advantage; above all, they are profoundly unhappy.
About that walk in the snow… SaskEnergy minister takes a walk in the rain
Justin Trudeau may not have taken a “walk in the snow,” like his father did 40 years ago on this day, but Dustin Duncan took a walk in rain in front of Parliament, and decides we’re not remitting carbon tax to the feds.
This is the guy who, by a recently passed law, gets to be sacrificed on the cross for our carbon tax sins.
(The decision was clearly made before, but it makes good political theatre.)
No forecast for snow in Ottawa today, unfortunately. Maybe the federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change changed the climate?
Ve Ave Vays
Oops…
Daily Sceptic- Covid Vaccine Mandates Ruled Unlawful by Supreme Court in Australia
In a decision handed down on Tuesday, Justice Glenn Martin of the Queensland Supreme Court found the Queensland Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll’s direction for mandatory Covid vaccination, issued in December 2021, to be unlawful under the Human Rights Act.
Wuhan, Manitoba
Two scientists at Canada’s high-security infectious disease laboratory – Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng – provided confidential scientific information to China and were fired after a probe concluded she posed “a realistic and credible threat to Canada’s economic security” and it was discovered they engaged in clandestine meetings with Chinese officials, documents tabled in the House of Commons reveal.
Dr. Qiu, who worked at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, was dishonest when confronted with her actions, making “blanket denials” and “half-truths, and personally benefited from the arrangement,” the documents state, noting that she repeatedly lied to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and “refused to admit to any involvement in various PRC [People’s Republic of China] programs.”
The two infectious-disease scientists were escorted out of the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg in July, 2019, and later had their security clearances revoked. They were fired in January, 2021. Their whereabouts are not known.
Xiangguo Qiu an Keding Cheng’s connections to China are outlined in detail in a CSIS security assessment from Jan. 8, 2021, marked secret.Governor General’s Innovation Awards; Excerpt from CSIS report
CSIS, in a Jan. 8, 2021, report marked secret, said its findings call “into question Ms. Qiu’s loyalty to Canada and her reliability as it relates to loyalty.”
[…]
Dr. Qiu and her husband had an undisclosed bank account in China’s Commercial Bank, the documents reveal, and she had conducted research connected to the People’s Liberation Army. CSIS said it found an unfinalized work agreement for a talent program with Hebei Medical University that stipulated she would be provided with funding worth the equivalent of $1.2-million Canadian between 2018 and 2022.
The agency said it found an application from her to the program that said she would work for China’s Wuhan Virology Institute for at least two months every year.
As part of her enrolment, CSIS said, Dr. Qiu committed to “building the People’s Republic of China’s biosecurity platform for new and potent infectious disease research.”
The CSIS investigation found Dr. Qiu led a project at Wuhan Virology Institute that would assess cross-species infection and pathogenic risks of filoviruses – work that the service said suggests “gain-of-function studies were possibly to take place.”
Just ended: Pierre Poilievre comments on Winnipeg lab documents
Follow the Xience
At Frontiers in Psychology, it seems that users on X are now part of the peer review process.
On January 4th, the paper “Meta-analysis: On average, undergraduate students’ intelligence is merely average,” was accepted to the journal. That same day, the abstract was published with the notice that the “final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.”
Soon thereafter, the paper went viral, quickly accruing over 54,000 views, wide discussion on X and Reddit, and coverage in popular media (including RCS). It garnered this attention for its intriguing yet simultaneously obvious finding: over the past 80 years, as a far greater proportion of North Americans attended college, the average IQ of college undergraduates dropped from around 120 to 102, just slightly above the average of 100.
As the authors, Bob Uttl, a psychologist and faculty member at Mount Royal University, and his students Victoria Violo and Lacey Gibson, noted, “The decline in students’ IQ is a necessary consequence of increasing educational attainment over the last 80 years. Today, graduating from university is more common than completing high school in the 1940s.” College students no longer come solely from the ranks of the highly intelligent and privileged, they come from all corners of society. Uttl and his colleagues noted that this has implications. For example, academic standards and curricula might have to be adjusted. Moreover, employers can’t assume that applicants with university degrees are more capable or smarter than those without degrees.
A little over a month after Uttl, Violo, and Gibson’s paper was accepted and the abstract published, they were abruptly notified by email that it was rejected. They were apprised that Specialty Chief Editor Eddy Davelaar, a Professor of Psychology and Applied Neuroscience at Birkbeck, University of London, overrode the three peer reviewers who approved the paper and even his own handling editor. His reasons were subsequently forwarded to Uttl and his colleagues.
Down The Primrose Path
A follow-up to the Taibbi piece of yesterday. Read it first if you missed it.
BURN NOTICE: The most interesting fact was the CIA’s obvious decision to burn its vast, unimaginably-expensive, militarized, networked, anti-Russia intelligence operation in Ukraine.
Do you think Trump was briefed on the CIA’s massive network of bases and its captive army in Ukraine? Could that have been what Trump was trying to figure out when he called Ukraine’s president, a call the deep-state immediately leaked and impeached him over? Was the great quid-pro-quo-ing of Trump really intended to send a message: keep your hands off Ukraine, or else?
Is that what Chucky Schumer meant when he gleefully warned Rachel Maddow the CIA has six ways from Sunday to get back at you?
Greenwald: You’ll notice that no NYT reporters are being arrested or put on trial for this supposedly sensitive disclosure.
(h/t LindaL)
Oh?
Telegraph- The economic case for mass migration has finally collapsed
Rather than turbocharging growth, immigration is placing near-unbearable pressure on public services, housing and infrastructure
Telegraph- Rishi Sunak demands 80 extra police patrols a week in ‘hotspots’
DEI On The Operating Table
The chief diversity officer of Columbia University’s medical school, Alade McKen, plagiarized extensively in his doctoral dissertation, lifting huge chunks of material without attribution.
Two pages in the dissertation come directly from Wikipedia.
So long, spinny things in front of mountains!
Don’t block our mountains or mess with good farmland: #Alberta releases renewable power rules. And reclamation is going to be paid up front. This story is the full meat, potatoes, gravy and carrots on Wednesday’s wind and solar announcement.
And what’s the pool at for Trudeau resigning today? It’s 40 years to the day since daddy took his “walk in the snow.”
Your Moral and Intellectual Superiors
Jeffrey A. Tucker has recently published a stinging rebuke of the WEF cretins and their supporters who have been stuck on stupid for years:
More and more, it’s obvious what a disaster this was. And yet no one has apologized. Hardly anyone has admitted error. The big shots who wrecked the world are still in power.
The rest of us are left holding the bag, and paying very high repair bills for cars that are non-optimal for driving from one town to another and back again in the cold weather that was supposed to be gone by now had the “climate change” prophets been correct. They turn out to be as correct as those who promised us that we would no longer need “fossil fuels” and that the magic inoculation would protect everyone from a killer virus.
What astonishing illusions were born of this nutty and destructive period. At some point, not even corporate CEOs will be tricked by the experts.
h/t James MacMaster
The Libranos: ArriveScam
It is right on his LinkedIn that ArriveCAN contractor David Yeo, President of Dalian, works for the Department of National Defence. He has worked for the DND for *37* years – since 1987.
They just figured out he’s a federal employee that also won massive contracts? For real?
To complete the trifecta of corruption, enter Chief Big Screen TV.
The Globe and Mail first reported that the company presents itself as Indigenous-owned and together with another company, Coradix, worked on the ArriveCan app. According to the Globe, the two companies are in receipt of $400 million in government contracts.
Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu yesterday announced a review of how it awards contracts to Indigenous-owned businesses. The government’s policy is that five percent of the total value of government contracts go to Indigenous businesses by 2024.
They Implode Gradually, Then Suddenly
Societies do not always collapse from a lack of wealth, invasion, or natural catastrophes. – Victor Davis Hanson
Today In Islam
Adir, the second of my three sons. Islam is running Britain. Islamic justice in Pakistan. Interfaith relations in Iran. Don’t upset the Muslims in Somalia.
Thursday On Turtle Island
Population Replacement News: Ireland is burning. The economic case for migration.
Blackie’s Canada: Justin’s bought and paid for media. A migrant in Canada. Liberal MP trashes the unvaccinated.
Dementia Joe’s America: A video shows the truth about the trans teen’s death. A grotesque death. Old Joe gives money to a Chinese company.
Your morning meme. Another meme. A cartoon.
February 29, 2024: Reader Tips
On this very unique day of the year, we present a unique video: Born to Be Wild – Steppenwolf, played by 1,000 musicians
Do share your best tips for this last day of the month!
Honey, I Finished The Internet
The North Hollywood shootout of Feb 28, 1997.
Short version from CNN.
Obama’s CIA Had Foreign Intel Spying On Trump Campaign (Bumped)
The revelation that the U.S. intelligence community, under the Obama administration, sought the assistance of the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance to surveil Donald Trump’s associates before the 2016 election is a chilling reminder of the lengths to which the Deep State will go to protect its interests and challenge its adversaries. (The Five Eyes countries are the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.) This bombshell, reported by a team of independent journalists, exposes a dark chapter in American political history, where foreign intelligence services were reportedly mobilized against a presidential candidate.
The alleged operation against Trump and his associates, which predates the official start of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation, is a stark example of political weaponization of intelligence. The involvement of foreign allies in surveilling American citizens under the pretext of national security raises serious questions about the integrity of our democratic processes and the autonomy of our nation’s intelligence operations.
The narrative that has been pushed for years, that the investigation into Trump’s campaign began with an Australian tip about a boastful Trump aide, now appears to be a cover for a more extensive and coordinated effort to undermine Trump. If reports are accurate, British intelligence began targeting Trump on behalf of American intelligence agencies as early as 2015, long before the official narrative claims.
Compliance Costs
If I were a Minnesotan, supposedly I would sleep at lot easier at night knowing that the state was ready to protect me from all those unscrupulous house painters out there.
The legislation, which was posted online February 15, would restrict the “sale of certain solvent-based paint materials to licensees; [establish] a paint contractor board; [and require] licensing for paint contractors and journeyworker painters.”
So regardless of their motivations, Minnesota lawmakers are at best offering an immoral “solution” to a problem that doesn’t exist. At worst, they are weaponizing the law to benefit special interests.