Twitter files #9
This one’s about COVID information censorship.
The link to the twitter thread itself is here.
I may write more about this later tonight or perhaps tomorrow. Right now I’ll add that the clampdown was so widespread and so unreasonable even at the time it was happening that it was obvious something like this was going on. But I don’t think that back then I suspected the amount of direct government involvement in the social media censorship, although it would not have surprised me and does not surprise me.
One more thing – I think they should have paused for the holidays and waited till after New Years to drop this stuff. Christmas season is a very low traffic time.
[NOTE: I’m purposely keeping blogging a bit lighter than usual today. I plan to get back to the regular volume tomorrow. One of the issues I plan to write about tomorrow is the dismissal of Kari Lake’s lawsuit.]
Victor Davis Hanson on the FBI
Here’s another recommended article by VDH. There’s so much in it that it’s hard to select just a few quotes, but here are some of special interest to me:
The FBI is now, tragically, in freefall. The public is at the point, first, of asking what improper or illegal behavior will the bureau not pursue, and what, if anything, must be done to reform or save a once great but now discredited agency.
Consider the last four directors, the public faces of the FBI for the last 22 years. Ex-director Robert Mueller testified before Congress that he simply would not or could not talk about the fraudulent Steele dossier. He claimed that it was not the catalyst for his special counsel investigation of Donald Trump’s alleged ties with the Russians when, of course, it was.
Mueller also testified that he was “not familiar” with Fusion GPS, although Glenn Simpson’s opposition research firm subsidized the dossier through various cutouts that led back to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. And the skullduggery in the FBI-subsidized dossier helped force the appointment of Mueller himself.
While under congressional oath, Mueller’s successor James Comey on some 245 occasions claimed that he “could not remember,” “could not recall,” or “did not know” when asked simple questions fundamental to his own involvement with the Russian collusion hoax.
Comey, remember, memorialized a confidential conversation with President Trump on an FBI device and then used a third party to leak it to the New York Times. In his own words, the purpose was to force a special counsel appointment. The gambit worked, and his friend and predecessor Robert Mueller got the job. Twenty months and $40 million later, Mueller’s investigation tore the country apart but could find no evidence that Trump, as Steele alleged, colluded with the Russians to throw the 2016 election.
Comey also seems to have reassured the president that he was not the target of an ongoing FBI investigation, when in fact, Trump was.
Comey was never indicted for either misleading or lying to a congressional committee or leaking a document variously considered either confidential or classified.
While under oath, his interim successor, Andrew McCabe, on a number of occasions flat-out lied to federal investigators…
The FBI arguably interfered in two presidential elections, and a presidential transition, and possibly determinatively so…
To this day, the public has no idea what the FBI was doing on January 6, how many FBI informants and agents were among the rioters, and to what degree they knew in advance of the protests. The New York Times reporter most acquainted with the January 6 riot, Matthew Rosenberg, dismissed the buffoonish violence as “no big deal” and scoffed, “They were making this an organized thing that it wasn’t.”
“There were a ton of FBI informants among the people who attacked the Capitol,” Rosenberg noted. We have never been told anything about that “ton”—a topic of zero interest to the January 6 select committee.
Much much more at the link.
The day after
My Christmas Day was fine although very very quiet.
The following is an effort of mine from the past. That’s one of the advantages of having been a blogger for umpteen million years – you have a backlog of these sorts of things.
On Christmas Day—blog?
I’d rather have grog,
Or maybe eggnog,
Then go walk the dog.
Or watch a Yule Log,
And eat like a hog,
Then go for a jog.
Blogging’s a bog.
My mind’s in a fog,
Or maybe agog
From much dialogue.
I’ll return to the slog
Already, and blog.
[NOTE: On the words “the dog,” the link goes to an article on the type of dog we had when my son was little.]
Open thread 12/26/22
Merry Christmas!
Twas the blogger’s night before Christmas
[NOTE: This small poetic effort of mine has become somewhat of a holiday tradition at the blog. So here it comes again—just like the holiday itself.]
‘TWAS THE BLOGGER’S NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the ‘sphere
Bloggers were glad to see Christmas draw near.
Their laptops were turned off and all put away
The bloggers were swearing to take off the day.
Their children were nestled all snug in their beds
While visions of extra time danced in their heads
With a father or mom not distracted by writing
No posts to compose, and no links to be citing.
But we all know that vows were just meant to be broken
And the vows of a blogger can be a mere token.
There’s always a chance that some sort of temptation
Will rise up to make them of fleeting duration.
For instance, there might be found under the tree
A sleek Mac; well, what better sight could there be?
And who could neglect it and wait the whole day?
It cries to be tried out, one just can’t delay.
Or maybe somewhere there’s a fast-breaking story
Important, and possibly leading to glory.
It can’t be ignored, there’s really no choice,
So add to the din every blogger’s small voice.
And then there are some who may just like to rhyme
(I’m one who at times must confess to this crime),
And it’s been quite a while since Clement Clarke Moore
Wrote his opus (though authorship’s been claimed by Gore).
So it seems about time it was newly updated
And here’s my attempt – aren’t you glad you all waited?
Forgive if it sounds a bit awkward to read.
In writing, I set a new record for speed.
I had to get under the wire and compose it
Before Christmas Day. Now it’s time that I close it.
But let me exclaim (or, rather, I’ll write)
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!
Here’s a video of the original, with some 50s-type nostalgia for those who remember. There are a few odd anomalies (“safe in their beds” instead of “snug in their beds”). But it brought back memories of pincurls, and the days when parents were assumed to sleep in twin beds (even though I don’t recall that most people did).
I’m pretty sure I had the book on which this is based. The illustrations look very familiar:
And all through the house…
[NOTE: This is a repeat of a previous post.]
…a creature was stirring.
On Christmas Eve I was expecting a visit from my son, who was flying in as a rare treat. I had tidied up, and was putting on the finishing touches while waiting for him to arrive from the airport. As I was poised at the top of the staircase on my way down from the second floor, I saw a movement on one of the lower steps.
A dark shape. A small dark shape—very still, and then in motion again. With tiny little ears, and a long tail.
A mouse. Very much stirring.
I let out a shriek, like in the cartoons. Yes, I know that mice do not hurt people. But yes, they give me the willies when they startle me and scurry around—like—mice. The few times when this has happened before, they’ve always sought the little opening from whence they’d come and scurried away, hardly ever to be seen again.
But this mouse seemed to be lost and disoriented. Maybe because it was almost midnight on Christmas Eve, and no creature was supposed to be stirring. In the midst of my unreasonable fear was a sort of amusement. What was it doing here, this evening of all evenings?
The mouse was still on the staircase landing, and although I assumed that somehow it had managed to climb the three stairs to where it was, it appeared to be perplexed about how to get up or down from there. I watched it from what I considered a safe distance at the top of the stairs, and I could see it moving back and forth, back and forth, first towards the wall and then towards the edge of the step, but it could not seem to get the courage to make a break for it.
What did I do? I called my son and asked how far away he was. Forty-five minutes. And then I settled in, not for a long winter’s nap but for a long viewing from a good vantage point to monitor the mouse’s position till my son would arrive. For the moment, the mouse seemed quite well-contained on the stairs, but I didn’t trust that—and sure enough, slowly but surely, with many fits and starts, it managed to get back down those three stairs to the ground floor.
Now, it turns out that watching a mouse is actually sort of interesting. This one darted from stair-bottom to hall to bathroom to bedroom and back again (my place is built upside-down, with the bedroom and bathroom downstairs and living room and kitchen upstairs). I had a special horror of the mouse being in the bedroom—so after its one foray into the bedroom for five minutes and then out again, I slammed the bedroom door shut and placed a thick towel to block the crack at the bottom. The towel seemed to act as an effective barrier, like a small mountain range, and the mouse didn’t venture into that room again.
But back and forth it went—along the wall in the hall, into the bathroom, up a few stairs and then back down them again. I noticed that it seemed to get smarter and smarter; each time it climbed the stairs it was better at it, until it seemed as though it had been doing this all its little life.
And then by trial and error it found the molding along the side of the stairs, which then acted as a sort of ramp by which the mouse could easily climb all the way to the top. This filled me with dread. I was conceding the downstairs for now, but the upstairs was my territory! But what to do? That molding-ramp made it so easy; the mouse was coming up in a determined sort of way, till I could look into its beady little eyes and it could look into mine. I let out another involuntary yelp, stamping my feet and clapping my hands, trying to make enough noise to frighten it off.
I looked and sounded completely and utterly ridiculous.
And yet it was effective; the little thing stopped in its tracks, then turned and went back downstairs again, to my great relief. Then a few minutes later it came up the ramp-molding again, and I re-enacted the same stupid pantomime I had before. The mouse kept coming—up up up, light and fleet of foot, relentless and implacable. I actually thought of throwing something at it to head it off—perhaps my shoe, like Clara in “The Nutcracker.” But oh, for a platoon of tin soldiers like hers! (I’ve cued up this video to start at the right spot, although it’s mistitled because these are not meant to be rats, they’re mice):
But alas, we were alone, just the two of us, mousie and me. And I didn’t really want to hurt it, which I thought might happen if I threw my shoe, so I reached for a pillow—and at that moment I heard the key turn in the lock and my son walked in.
I’m always happy to see him, but perhaps never so happy as this time, as I stood at the top of the stairs in a semi-crouch, clutching a small pillow and making silly-yet-hopefully-scary noises at a mouse that was climbing a molding-ramp on the edge of the staircase.
My son managed to keep his disdain under control long enough to catch the mouse in a plastic container and escort it outside to be released, but not before we took a photo though the plastic. Yes, the mouse is kind of cute. But no, I don’t want him in my house, not on Christmas Eve or any other time.
Happy Chanukah!
[NOTE: This is a slightly edited version of a previous post.]
This is the seventh night of Chanukah, and I wish everyone a happy one. Chanukah is about a successful revolt and a miracle of light:
The miracle of the one-day supply of oil miraculously lasting eight days is first described in the Talmud, committed to writing about 600 years after the events described in the books of Maccabees. The Talmud says that after the forces of Antiochus IV had been driven from the Temple, the Maccabees discovered that almost all of the ritual olive oil had been profaned. They found only a single container that was still sealed by the High Priest, with enough oil to keep the menorah in the Temple lit for a single day. They used this, yet it burned for eight days (the time it took to have new oil pressed and made ready).
The words of this Chanukah song are in Yiddish—written in 1924 before the Holocaust and before the establishment of Israel—and they are not happy. But I didn’t know that when I first heard it, and I post it anyway because I think it’s very beautiful:
Here are the lyrics, loosely translated by Theodore Bikel:
O little lights of mystery
You recall our history
And all that went before
The battles and the bravery
And our release from slavery
Miracles galore.As my eyes behold your flames
I recall our heroes’ names
And our ancient dream:
“Jews were learning how to fight
To defeat an awesome might
They could reign supreme”“They would rule their own domain
When the enemy was slain,
The Temple cleansed and whole.
Once there was a Jewish land
And a mighty Jewish hand.”
Oh, how it moves my soul!O little lights of mystery
You retell our history
Your tales are tales of pain.
My heart is filled with fears
My eyes are filled with tears
“What now?” says the haunting refrain.
Written in 1924, and it seems prescient.
Bikel translated the song that way in order to make the rhymes come out in the English version. But a more literal translation of that last verse might be this [NOTE: that link isn’t working anymore, but here’s the translation I had found there]:
Oh little candles,
your old stories
awaken my anguish;
deep in my heart there
stirs
a tearful question:
What will be next?
Indeed.
I decided not to post about politics today
We all could use a break from it, right?
The storm here is over, it’s a sunny, cold, and apparently icy day. I haven’t been out yet but plan to emerge later to get some sunshine. Amazingly, I didn’t lose power yesterday except for about two minutes, although there were quite a few local outages and at least six text alerts from the power company.
Tonight is not only Christmas Eve but it’s also the next-to-last night of Chanukah. So over the weekend I’m planning to post some old favorites for the holidays. Having been blogging for so long, I have a nice little storehouse of them.
To everyone: Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, and speedy recovery from bad weather!
Open thread 12/24/25
Roundup
(1) Here’s the most ludicrous January 6th prosecution of them all. Not the worst, but the most ludicrous, and bad enough:
Antionne DeShaun Brodnax, who goes by the stage name “Bugzie the Don,” was charged with multiple misdemeanor counts after posing on top of a SWAT vehicle at the Capitol on the day of the now infamous events. He used the photo as the cover of his album, “The Capital.”…
Brodnax says he was in the area that day to shoot a video. As the rally intensified, the independent rapper decided to head towards the action in hopes of capturing video and photos…
The Justice Department asked for a sentencing enhancement that would have led to at least a 21-month sentence, asserting the artist deleted videos and photos from his phone after agreeing to forward them to federal authorities. They also pointed to Brodnax’s previous criminal history, one that includes charges for manufacturing a controlled substance, felony firearm possession, and probation violation. Federal authorities also claim he presented a litany of “disciplinary” issues while in custody.
Brodnax was sentenced to five months in prison and ordered to pay a $70 special assessment and $500 in restitution.
He’s probably sorry he didn’t burn down a building during the Floyd Antifa riots; he would have been A-okay.
The people in charge of these Jan 6 prosecutions are petty little tyrants drunk with vindictive power. They’re just toying with people.
(2) Pelosi had a major role in the inadequate security for January 6th.
(3) I haven’t yet covered the Biden Purple Heart tall tale, but here it is. Quite a whopper. And although the “fact-checking” sites all agree that it isn’t true, they are so delicate about the way they say it. Here’s a typical treatment [emphasis mine]:
U.S. President Joe Biden is an inveterate storyteller, but more than once has misstated the facts during the course of his stories and speeches, a pattern for which he has been criticized…
There are a number of inaccuracies in this story.
Good old Joe that great storyteller, just getting a few little details wrong. Like the entire story. Oh, but he did get one thing right: he had an uncle who served in the military during WWII.
(4) Here’s an article on rising “food insecurity” (how I hate this Newspeak!) due to inflation. I have no doubt it’s happening. I have enough money for food, but although I shop in the least expensive grocery store and have cut way back on big budget items like meat (I wasn’t a huge meat eater to begin with), my grocery bills are about twice what they used to be not long ago.
Twice.
(5) I recently got a clever scam email. It masqueraded as a note of Merry Christmas wishes, and came from the person’s real email address. But it was from a relative I pretty much never hear from, who didn’t greet me by name, and signed with her formal first name rather than the nickname she goes by. It also had a couple of odd misspellings uncharacteristic of this person, and the sentence right after the Christmas greetings was one that asked if I could do her a favor. I think the scam in this case involved having somehow gotten access to the email address, and then if the person targeted replied to the initial note, to follow up with a new email that contained some sort of suspicious link to click on, or a request for money. Needless to say, I didn’t reply.