This is one of the more amazing things I’ve ever seen: View this post on Instagram A post shared by table_tennis_love_ (@table_tennis_love_) Read more →
Author Archive: Paul Epps
California’s a Brand-New Game
All the gold in California Is in the bank in the middle of Beverly Hills In somebody else’s name. So if you’re dreamin’ about California, It don’t matter at all where you’ve played before. California’s a brand-new game. — Larry Gatlin, “All the Gold in California” Read more →
Failing To Notify Parents When Their Child Changes Gender Is ‘The American Way’?
Dem Governor: Failing To Notify Parents When Their Child Changes Gender Is ‘The American Way’ — freebeacon.com The Democratic governor is Phil Murphy from New Jersey, who says that “outing” LGBTQ students to their parents is a violation of the child’s constitutional rights. Thus, opposing parental notification is “the American way.” “Listen, we took these actions because it’s the right thing to do,” Murphy said. “Let’s protect the rights of these precious kids. Let’s do things the right way, the American way.” I wasn’t even aware that constitutional rights apply to children. Without researching it, I suspect they don’t. I also don’t think that children have the cognitive maturity to make decisions on their own about sexuality and gender identity. Transgenderism, for example, is a mental disorder: gender dysphoria. It’s a diagnosis obtained via medical care and therapy, not obtained via the internet. There almost certainly is not someone at… Read more →
It Never Gets Old
View this post on Instagram A post shared by President Donald J. Trump (@realdonaldtrump) Read more →
Days of Wine and Roses
They are not long, the weeping and the laughter, Love and desire and hate: I think they have no portion in us after We pass the gate. They are not long, the days of wine and roses: Out of a misty dream Our path emerges for a while, then closes Within a dream. — Ernest Dowson Read more →
Missouri v. Biden
Here’s how federal judge Terry Doughty yesterday described the digital censorship controversy at which pundits a half-year now have repeatedly rolled eyes, dismissed, and mocked as a nothingburger: “If the allegations made by Plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.” — Matt Taibbi Read more →
National Math and Reading Scores are Plunging
National math and reading scores are plunging. In the new educational philosophy, test scores are just a racist measure of racist things. Parents who are pro–standardized testing are far-right hate groups. Obviously closing schools for years was really bad. You can see the scores drop off a cliff after 2020. But overall, the scores are actually lower than they were 40 years ago. We’ve made no progress in educating kids since 1980. There was progress till slightly after 2010 and then . . . What has happened in that time? I bet deciding that math and reading are racist didn’t help. And teachers being primarily tasked with gender-discovery journeys also did not improve scores. Midwestern public school teachers are trading tips on how to transition kids without telling parents. (I don’t know why these stories are only covered in non-US media.) Having teachers paint your son’s nails does not improve… Read more →
An Alternative Approach to Student Loan Relief
The Supreme Court just struck down Biden's disastrous student loan forgiveness program. We have a bad habit in America of paying people to do the exact opposite of what we want them to do: more $$ to stay at home than to work, more $$ to be a single mother than married, more $$… pic.twitter.com/kexfAig09l — Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) June 30, 2023 I knew Biden wasn’t allowed to do this. Here’s the good news. You can just flip those signs over, write a new begging message on the back, and go stand on a freeway offramp. Read more →
Supreme Court Kills Affirmative Action
The Supreme Court Has Killed Affirmative Action. Mediocre Whites Can Rest Easier. — thenation.com The author of that piece really hates white people. I don’t recommend reading it, you will not be a better person for having done so, as it consists solely of sweeping generalizations, broad judgments, unfounded inferences and racial insults. Even if five points (out of a possible 100) were deducted for each verifiable fact, it still scores at least a 95. Grammar and spelling are passable. The only “fact” I remember being cited in support of affirmative action is actually false: In California, which ended its affirmative action policies over 25 years ago, the studies show that, without affirmative action, Black enrollment plummets, Latino enrollment plummets, AAPI enrollment goes up a little bit, and whites flood the remaining opportunities. The article that the author links to doesn’t even say that. Black and Latino enrollment in the… Read more →
Diversity at Harvard
The Harvard University president, vice president, provost, and 15 deans signed an email reaffirming the institution’s commitment to diversity after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action on Thursday. The Supreme Court ruled that the race-conscious admissions policies practiced by Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The email states that “diversity and difference are essential to academic excellence” and “to prepare leaders for a complex world, Harvard must admit and educate a student body whose members reflect, and have lived, multiple facets of human experience.” Whatever that means. But what does race have to do with it? Why is race the deciding factor? I think it would be easy to find a young black person and a young white person who’ve lived very similar lives. Or to find two young white people who’ve led very different… Read more →
If Your House Burns Down and You Rebuild It, Did You “Create” a New House?
Over 13 million new jobs created.More Americans are working than ever.Record number of small business applications. Bidenomics is growing our economy. — Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) June 28, 2023 I love these Biden tweets on job “creation.” ChatGPT tells me that the COVID-19 pandemic caused the loss of more than 22 million jobs in the United States. The 13 million jobs that Biden “created” are those lost jobs coming back. But he’s still 9 million short. What happened to those people? The unemployment rate is low, which suggests that people have left the labor force for some reason. If COVID didn’t kill them all, then they may have retired, given up (not everyone wants to work at fast-food restaurants), or cobbled together a welfare package they can live on. The labor force participation rate (shown below) has never come back to pre-pandemic level, and people who have left the labor force… Read more →
Billionaires
The average billionaire in America pays 8% in federal taxes. Teachers and firefighters pay more than that. That’s why I proposed a minimum tax for billionaires. Republicans are against it, but I’m going to keep fighting for it. — Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) June 26, 2023 Reading Joe Biden’s Twitter is exquisitely painful, like a sore tooth that you can’t stop pushing on with your tongue. How do these things even go together? Americans are not taxed on their net worth, they’re taxed on their income. At least that’s what I think he’s talking about. Income tax. Although there are a lot of other federal taxes: self-employment tax, gift tax, excise taxes, etc. Is he talking about taxing people’s net worth? I don’t know. I can’t figure it out. I’m not a billionaire myself because I don’t know how to make that happen. If someone has figured out how to do… Read more →
Climate and Environmental Justice for Ignorant Bigots
When @KamalaHarris and I were elected, we vowed to enact the most ambitious climate and environmental justice campaign in American history. That’s exactly what we’ve done. — Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) June 25, 2023 “Climate and environmental justice”? What is that and how much does it cost? Are we being atmospherically sodomized by ignorant climate change deniers? Read more →
Doing What He Loved
Jim Tweto, the patriarch of a family aviation business in Alaska whose fame endured a decade after his somewhat reluctant star turn on television, died June 16 when the Cessna 180 he was flying failed to gain altitude after takeoff. — aopa.org “At least he died doing what he loved.” “He loved crashing planes?” Read more →
Censorship is Not “Misinformation”
YouTube says it has removed a video of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaking with podcast host Jordan Peterson for spreading what the company says is vaccine misinformation. https://t.co/lIVNxVBbpq — NBC News (@NBCNews) June 22, 2023 Vaccine misinformation has nothing to do with it. “Misinformation” is a meaningless but useful term because no one wants to just come out and say “We love censorship and we are silencing the views of anyone we disagree with.” Instead, under the guise of “misinformation,” they can say that certain content cannot be allowed, in the interest of safety and the Common Good. Google, which owns YouTube, donates vast sums of money to the Democratic party, and they are not going to have RFK Jr. clips on YouTube because if they do, people might decide to vote for him. The Democratic party doesn’t like voting, they don’t like elections, what they like is to just… Read more →
Progress on DEI
The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God. — Deuteronomy 22:5
Far-Right ‘Moms for Liberty’ is a Hate Group?
Moms for Liberty, the far-right parental group known for protesting at school board meetings, has been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a “hate group” for the first time ever. — msn.com “Far-right” is an empty phrase assigned to, as far as I can tell, people who do not subscribe to neoliberal orthodoxy and who question U.S. institutions of power, like government and teachers unions. And the lead paragraph, quoted above, indicates that “protesting at school board meetings,” which is actually a right protected by the Constitution of the United States, will earn you an SPLC designation as a “hate group.” The SPLC also labeled 11 other “right-wing ‘parents’ rights’” groups as extremist groups. The use of quotes in the story is noteworthy. The author has scare-quoted “parents’ rights” and labeled the parents’ rights groups en masse as right-wing, as though the idea that parents have rights is… Read more →
Definitions of “Woke”
A “woke” person, or “social-justice warrior,” is someone who believes that (1) the institutions of American society are currently and intentionally set up to oppress (minorities, women, the poor, fat people, etc.), (2) virtually all gaps in performance between large groups prove that this oppression exists, and (3) the solution to this is equity — which means proportional representation regardless of performance or qualifications. — Wilfred Reilly The attitude of a person who regards his or her opinions as so obviously correct and so profoundly enlightened that they may not legitimately be doubted or challenged, and that only hate or bigotry can explain others’ holding different beliefs. — Robert P. George At an American university, a conductor rehearsing a chorus said, “Now, ladies and gentlemen, please turn to Section B,” or whatever. A student reported him to administration. Administration gave him a warning. . . . My colleague… Read more →
Book Banning
Biden administration to appoint anti-book ban coordinator as part of new LGBTQ protections — cbsnews.com Oh, I’ve got the perfect candidate! This guy: Seriously though, what does LGBTQ have to do with book banning? Book banning has a long history completely unrelated to LGBTQ, and the book banning that is attributed to LGBTQ seems to be either fake or due to the age-inappropriateness of the material. Read more →