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July 2022

P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

Who, exactly, gets offended by ‘cultural appropriation’? By Thomas Lifson

By on July 29th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/07/who_exactly_gets_offended_by_cultural_appropriation.html

We live in an age of mass stupidity, with totally ridiculous notions elevated to the status of self-righteous causes. But among the most absurd complaints that predominantly young wokesters embrace is the censure of what they call “cultural appropriation.” By this, they mean people of one ethnicity using cultural artifacts of another culture.

Having lived in Japan, which eagerly embraced Westernization more than 150 years ago, and where classical music is far more popular than in the United States, this seems an odd complaint. Cultural appropriation has made Japan rich, diverse, and happy. McDonald’s is the biggest restaurant chain, thiough sushi and ramen remain immensely popular too. It is a delightful mix of opportunities for fun in every realm of human endeavor, with all the world’s cultural achievements available for sa,p[ling on today’s Japan. 

The wokesters, of course, have no knowledge of such matters, and focus almost exclusively on complaining about Caucasians dressing, eating, singing, or otherwise sampling cultures which the wokesters have decided are victims.

But what they fail to understand is the cultural pride almost everyone feels when others find their own practices worthy of emulation.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Defining Recessions Down: Biden Tries To Gaslight America

By on July 29th, 2022

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/07/29/defining-recessions-down-bidens-attempt-to-defy-reality-wont-end-well/

‘For the first time in a decade, our economy is in recession. It’s not official yet – the group that dates recessions doesn’t act until after the fact – but there’s little doubt that we’re in the midst of a downturn.”

That was economist Jared Bernstein back in December 2001. He went on: “The downturn is already taking a toll on those who traditionally bear the brunt of recessions, blue-collar workers in manufacturing, minorities, and other less-advantaged workers.”

That year saw only two non-consecutive quarters of GDP decline. The unemployment rate never got over 5.7%. And when the year was over, GDP had climbed 1%. But it’s still listed on the recession roster.

Today Bernstein, who sits on President Joe Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers, is trying to argue that, despite two consecutive quarters of a shrinking economy, we aren’t in a recession right now.

“What is a recession?” he and CEA chair Cecilia Rouse asked in a blog post. “While some maintain that two consecutive quarters of falling real GDP constitute a recession, that is neither the official definition nor the way economists evaluate the state of the business cycle.”

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Biden is exacerbating America’s energy crisis Steve Milloy

By on July 29th, 2022

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/fairness-justice/biden-is-exacerbating-americas-energy-crisis

“I guarantee you — I guarantee you — we are going to end fossil fuel.”

So said then-candidate Joe Biden to environmental activists at a campaign rally in 2019. The president has yet to deliver on his promise to turn the entire U.S. energy system on its head, but given the record high gas prices at the fuel pump, he’s certainly made driving and powering homes punitively unavailable to low-income households.

The administration is keen on blaming the war in Ukraine for the hardships people are facing. This attempt is window dressing at best and blatant misinformation at worst. While European nations are heavily reliant on Russian gas in particular, the United States only used to get about 8% of its supplies from Russia. Most crude oil is imported here from Canada. Indeed, even Mexico is more important for America’s oil trade than President Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Another striking difference with most European nations is the fact that the U.S. has its own oil reserves. In theory, this would mean more energy independence. However, oil drilling permits have been cut by more than half since Biden came to office. Biden says oil companies should feel encouraged to increase capacity. But the industry has hit back by revealing how the Biden administration delays its activities through actions such as initially banning and then slow-walking lease sales on federal land or making drilling permits more difficult to obtain.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

State Department’s Middle East policy assessed Yoram Ettinger

By on July 29th, 2022

https://bit.ly/3zER3Ez

Conventional wisdom vs. evidenced-reality

According to the late Prof. John Kenneth Galbraith, “the notion of conventional wisdom… is commonly understood as knowledge that is accepted within a certain community or among the general public…. [They] tend to hold on to opinions and ideas that fit with their established worldviews. Accordingly, conventional wisdom provides an obstacle for the acceptance of new knowledge or novel and original thinking….

“To its adherents, conventional wisdom provides comfortable padding against inconvenient truths and the complexities of reality…. This is a prime manifestation of vested interest. For a vested interest in understanding is more preciously guarded than any other treasure…. Acceptable ideas are disinclined to change….

“In the struggle between what is correct and what is agreeable, conventional wisdom had a tactical advantage…. There are many reasons why people like to hear articulated that which they approve…. It serves the ego: the individual has the satisfaction of knowing that other and more famous people share his conclusions….

“The enemy of conventional wisdom is not ideas but the march of events [evidence].… The fatal blow to conventional wisdom comes when conventional ideas fail signally to deal with some contingency to which obsolescence has made them palpably inapplicable.… The concept of conventional wisdom accentuated the difference between established truths – fundamentally out-of-touch with contemporary challenges – and new knowledge….”

Yale University’s Prof. Harlan Krumholz adds: “In science, what seems obvious may not be true, and what is accepted as conventional wisdom, may sometimes be based on flawed assumptions.” 

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

“Donald Trump – Antihero?” Sydney Williams

By on July 29th, 2022

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Antihero is defined as a character who lacks qualities of a traditional hero – morality, courage, an obeisance to traditional rules of behavior. Wikipedia lists such fictional characters as typifying the antihero: Shakespeare’s Othello, John Milton’s Lucifer, Jane Eyre’s Edward Rochester, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby, and George MacDonald Fraser’s Harry Flashman. Do you, as does Wikipedia, see our former President among that group? I leave you to be the judge.

No matter one’s opinion, the word ‘antihero’ may make wince the large swath of Americans who see Mr. Trump as a villain – some for his character, which was revealed in his lack of positive response during the afternoon of the January 6 riots; others for his antiestablishment/anti-elitist credentials, which threatened official Washington, including members of January 6 committee. ‘Hero,’ even when preceded by ‘anti’ would not be to their liking.

Yet even those who despise him cannot ignore the fact he was (and is) a hero to his estimated twenty to thirty million die hard supporters, most of whom live in non-elitist communities and work in non-establishment jobs. His supporters, who encompass all genders and races, see big-city and suburban financial and cultural elites as sanctimonious, hypocritical, and uninterested in the social and economic mobility that has characterized the United States. In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, Joseph Epstein, wrote “My sense is that just as Mr. Trump gave us Joe Biden, liberal culture earlier gave us Mr. Trump.” I agree. Mr. Trump was thrust upon us, in reaction to those who derided American history, patronized minorites and who treated millions of white, working-class Americans as ‘deplorables.’  Those who now reject him most vehemently bear primary responsibility for his political rise.

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