The Bee Gees talk about taxes
And a few other things.
The segment I’ve cued up is only six minutes long, but if you want to hear just the tax part it’s from 7:02 to 9:14. This interview took place in 1978, when Barry was 31 or 32 and Robin was 28 (Maurice had the flu that day and didn’t appear). Note the cigarette, perfectly normal back then but anathema now.:
In the interview Robin predicted that the Brits would soon turn on Labour and vote them out of office for the next twenty years. That turned out to be pretty much the case.
Norway: the slings and arrows of outrageous mass murder
A bow and arrow attack in Norway has left five people dead, and there is reason to believe it may be some form of Islamic terrorism although the main weapon is unusual:
The suspect, a 37-year-old Danish citizen named Espen Andersen Brathen, had converted to Islam and there were fears he had been radicalised.
However a motive has not yet been determined.
Police in Norway don’t carry guns – something I first learned while researching the Breivik shootings in Norway. I wrote an article for PJ about it – an article I described and commented on in this post from ten years ago. But PJ has removed the piece that appeared there and so I can’t give a working link to that one, although I preserved all my PJ articles on my own computer because I thought they might disappear some day.
To refresh your memory, the gist of it is that because the police don’t carry weapons there, a SWAT team was summoned to the island, wasting precious time. In addition, there was no helicopter available to transport them (see this for the rather shocking facts – including that the police helicopters there were only for “observation” rather than transportation).
The Norwegian police policies were woefully inadequate to deal with that sort of violence, and it appears that little has changed during the ensuing years. For example:
The attack was first reported at 18:13 (16:13 GMT) on Wednesday. Police confronted the man six minutes later, but he shot several arrows at them and escaped. He was eventually caught about 30 minutes later.
It was during this time, between being first approached and then arrested, that the victims were killed, the police chief said.
A woman was also stabbed at a nearby intersection, witnesses told local media.
Police fired warning shots when he was eventually arrested, but it is not clear if officers were armed when they first came across the suspect. Norwegian police do not usually carry guns on them – weapons are stored at police stations or in their patrol cars.
The article then goes on to mention that this was the deadliest in Norway since Breivik’s attack in 2011.
And this is interesting: “After the attack, police officers nationwide were ordered to carry firearms as an extra precaution.” I’m going to assume this is a temporary directive.
If you want to follow the Kyle Rittenhouse trial…
…Andrew Branca is writing about it at Legal Insurrection.
Branca has been writing for LI for years and has covered many trials in great detail, in particular trials that involve the law of self-defense which is his specialty. The Rittenhouse trial certainly falls under that heading.
The Rittenhouse trial hasn’t yet begun – the opening date is November 1 – but Branca is writing about some pre-trial legal activity of interest. You can read his latest here and here.
I think the legal stuff is interesting. But in recent years the politics has often overridden everything else in these trials, especially in the case of Derek Chauvin. The Rittenhouse case involves a more sympathetic defendant in some ways, because he is a teenager and because there is so much evidence of self-defense. But the actions for which Rittenhouse is on trial occurred during the period of enormous turmoil post-Floyd (although the Kenosha riots were actually sparked by the shooting of Jacob Blake by police). Plus, Rittenhouse has been the victim of a remarkable amount of bad press. So I fear a jury pool will be highly tainted and I have great concern that the verdict will be political however strong Rittenhouse’s self-defense claim might be.
Katie Couric covered up what she thought were damaging statements from RBG
Katie Couric has admitted to ‘protecting’ Ruth Bader Ginsburg from public backlash by cutting out negative comments she made about people who kneel during the national anthem.
The former Today show host reveals in her new book that she let her personal political views influence her editing decisions after her interview with the late Supreme Court justice in 2016.
In new memoir, Going There, Couric writes that she edited out a part where Ginsburg said that those who kneel during the national anthem are showing ‘contempt for a government that has made it possible for their parents and grandparents to live a decent life.’
The published story, which Couric wrote for Yahoo! News in 2016, did include quotes from Ginsburg saying refusing to stand for the anthem was ‘dumb and disrespectful’, but omitted more problematic remarks.
What’s interesting about this? The first thing is that RBG said it in the first place. It reminds me of what liberals used to be like when I was younger – they were willing to praise America as a land of opportunity, and they weren’t against patriotism.
The second thing is that Couric and the MSM judged that simple statement of Ginsburg’s, which would have been non-controversial not so many years ago, to be “problematic” even back in 2016.
The third thing is that Couric – who always seemed to me to be mediocre at best, and that’s being kind – has reported this herself. I think she believes that what she did was quite okay.
Which brings us to the fourth thing: this is done by the MSM all the time. The news in general and interviews in particular are constantly edited to make the left look good and the right bad. The members of the MSM are the gatekeepers and they believe their judgment should be the thing that shapes events and the perceptions of those events for the proles who watch them.
I wonder why Couric has decided to tell this story now, about five years later. The simple answer is that she wrote a memoir and she thinks this sort of thing will sell. And perhaps the simple answer is best in this case.
Open thread 10/14/21
Gerard Vanderleun celebrates…
…the tenth anniversary of what he calls his “rebirthday.”
Roundup
Here we go again – too much news to do each bit justice. So some links and short discussions are in order.
(1) Inflation is high, as even CNN seems willing to admit, although it obviously pains them. Inflation is the sort of thing that voters notice, for obvious reasons.
(2) The CEO of Southwest Airlines has now announced that employees who refuse to be vaccinated will not be fired. That’s interesting, and seems to represent a change. He also denies that any flights were canceled because of the vaccine mandate – that is, he says there’s “no evidence” for it, which is not exactly the same thing.
(3) As part of the DOJ war against parents protesting woke education for their children, an altercation and arrest in Loudon Virginia was cited as though some guy just decided to get unruly for no particular reason. Now it’s come out that the guy in Virginia who got arrested at the school board meeting – Scott Smith – was actually enraged because he alleges his ninth-grade daughter had been raped in a school bathroom by a boy wearing a skirt (in other words, a biologically male student claiming to be a girl). See Ace for the details of the story., but the gist of it is that the man was dragged out and arrested, and that the school board covered up and denied evidence that his allegations were true. Loudon parents have demanded the school board chairman resign, as well.
(4) How Mark Zuckerberg influenced the 2020 election.
(5) Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections by Mollie Hemingway came out yesterday. The reviews there are split (predictably) between those on the right who love it, and those on the left who say it’s all lies. There’s also a summary of the book available if you’re pressed for time.
And all of that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
My computer woes
I’ve got a very old computer. By “very” I mean something on the order of seven years or so; I really don’t recall.
I get teased because many of the letters on the keys have worn off. I have a kit of handy sticker thingees you can use to remedy that, although I’ve been dragging my feet at actually fixing it. I touch-type anyway, and as long as I place my hands properly I don’t really run into any problems (in fact, when I learned to type in junior high, a class taught by a very strict teacher, we had IBM electric typewriters that had blank keys, to make sure we learned our stuff properly).
The problem is that my computer has accumulated the slings and arrows of time, and it’s gotten quite balky lately. Yes, maybe I could clean it or clear it, but I’ve become wary of such operations and when I read about them I become more wary. Also, although I use a computer a great deal, much more than the average person, and although I know lots of tricks to get what I want out of my computer, I’m not a techie in any way shape or form and I rely much more on habit. That’s why transitioning to a new computer or any computer change at all fills me with dread.
The cost is the least of it. It’s the decision – which one to get? And then of course the transfer of the information and the customizing of the settings, in addition to learning a new operating system. My computer has Windows 7, and I know that’s not “supported” any more, which might be part of the problem. But learning how to use the latest iteration? Arghhh!
I know all you computer-loving folks will have suggestions. I welcome them although I may not follow them.
ADDENDUM: I probably should have added that I use a laptop, and I travel with it so I don’t like it to be too heavy. However, at home I hook it up to a larger screen for ease of viewing.
I also hate “chiclet” keyboards so that limits it considerably unless I get a separate keyboard, and that’s bulky. In addition, I dislike Apple products. I used to have a Mac and I hated it the entire time i had it (4 years) and never ever got accustomed to it.
I’m not the easiest person when it comes to computers.
Jon Gruden, thoughtcrime, and technology
Until a couple of days ago I’d never heard of Jon Gruden. Now, of course, I’ve read of his resignation as Raiders coach in the face of the revelation of some private emails he sent some years ago that demonstrated “racist, homophobic and misogynistic comments.” He seems to have hit the politically incorrect trifecta there.
Several of his statements focused on football commissioner Roger Goodell. For example, he called him a “clueless anti-football pussy,” which I suppose is considered misogynistic? Or is it anti-gay? Or is it just anti-Goodell?
I don’t know, but I’m not interested in analyzing Gruden or his email sins. I’m far more interested in whether he’s been guilty of any discriminatory acts against anyone. Has he? Or is it all thoughtcrime from about three to ten years ago (which seems to be the approximate time frame involved)?
In fact, although Gruden’s old emails were against allowing gay players in the NFL, his actions were otherwise:
The email appeared to show a complete disconnect from Gruden’s messaging when his own player Carl Nassib came out as gay before the start of the 2021 season and became the first active openly gay NFL player.
Interesting, no?
I’m tired of this zero tolerance policy for any human being who’s ever expressed – or even thought – a nasty thought. I never liked policing that sort of thing. I’ll choose my friends, but other than that I cut people a lot of slack as long as they’re just talking amongst themselves and not doing anything to anyone. In that, I know, I’m quite outdated – but what else is new?
My more pressing interest is how it came to be that all these private emails were investigated. Apparently they were uncovered not because of any suspicion that Gruden had committed a criminal act or actually any offense at all:
The emails were reviewed as part of an NFL workplace investigation into the Washington Football Team. Gruden’s emails about Goodell were flagged in the investigation. Among them, were disparaging remarks about NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith.
So it was just some sort of fishing expedition? What’s that all about, and why is it okay? I don’t think it’s okay, at least not from what I’ve read so far.
Gruden denies being a racist, and adds:
I was in a bad frame of mind at the time [in 2011], and I called Roger Goodell a [expletive] in one of these emails too. They were keeping players and coaches from doing what they love with a lockout. There also were a lot of things being reported publicly about the safety of the sport that I love.
Doesn’t matter to those with a zero policy against thoughtcrime – until they themselves get caught, that is.
DeMaurice Smith had this to say:
The email from Jon Gruden – and some of the reaction to it – confirms that the fight against racism, racist tropes and intolerance is not over. This is not about an email as much as it is about a pervasive belief by some that people who look like me can be treated as less…
Actually, the fight against those things will never be over, because people are human and humans will be humans. That includes people of every race, ethnicity, and sex (all 500 of the latter, or however many there are at this point according to the left). The fight should be against what’s said in public and more importantly what is done to people, but since that fight is far closer to being over, other fights apparently must be fought, including those against thoughtcrime. That’s a dangerous game that will do more harm than good, and already has.
I also find this phrase interesting: “a pervasive belief by some that people who look like me can be treated as less.” How pervasive is that belief? I submit that it once was quite pervasive but no longer is at all pervasive and in fact is limited to a very few. What interests me most about the phrase Smith uses there is that he segues almost seamlessly from thought to action, without emphasizing that any action at all must be involved – from a belief (evidenced by insensitive and nasty remarks with a racial bent) to the way a person is actually treated.
Smith added this:
…[T]he news is not about what is said in our private conversation, but what else is said by people who never thought they would be exposed and how they are going to be held to account…
A purge?
As I said, I’d be curious whether there is any evidence that Gruden treated any black (or other minority) player worse than other players because of bigotry. I haven’t heard anything, but of course it’s possible. But I think it’s certainly possible to harbor stray bigoted thoughts that might be expressed in a moment of pique and yet never act out any such thoughts in actions. Surely if Gruden was such an awful bigot, such actions would be easy to demonstrate.
And then there’s the whole issue of emails. Along with other technology, they make it far easier than ever before to spy on people and go back in time to do so. It doesn’t take long to scan an enormous number of emails for certain words or phrases. Letters, on the other, hand, are far harder to obtain and search, and far less likely to even be saved.
When we first were using email, who ever envisioned these sorts of developments? Someone probably did, but that someone wasn’t me. I guess it all comes down to whether you value liberty – and liberty of thought, even if offensive – or whether you think it’s perfectly fine to snoop into people’s supposedly private communications in order to see whether their thoughts and expressions of those thoughts have always been sufficiently pure.
[NOTE: Some of the comments at that link are pretty clever. Here’s one: “Look at emails, etc. from all coaches, players in the NFL from the past ten years. Bet the NFL would have to shut down entirely. Problem solved.”]
Open thread 10/13/21
The strange case of Kamala Harris
You may have noticed I don’t write much about Kamala Harris. Early on, though – August 2019 – I pointed out that she is remarkably unlikable:
Have you ever noticed how voters can forgive a candidate almost anything if they like that person? One of Hillary’s big problems, for example—one Obama correctly sensed in the 2008 race, when she was his main rival—is that she’s “unlikable.”
So is Kamala Harris, IMHO.
It didn’t take long to perceive this about Harris. But as time has gone on, I will also say that she’s gotten much more strange. I don’t know whether this represents an actual change, or whether it’s just an impression that grows stronger and stronger with greater exposure.
But this video caught my attention as a good example of that strangeness. In it, she seems to be following a script (as are the kids), but her affect in certain parts of it is so fake and her over-acting so unctuous that it gives me a bit of the ceepy-crawlies:
Harris seems uncomfortable in front of the camera, uncomfortable in front of people, uncomfortable in her job as VP. I’m not sure why, although I’ve read a lot of speculation. Does she feel pushed out, is she upset that poll numbers are so bad, does she realize she’s out of her depth, is she frightened? Or is she just a strange, strange person?