Day: February 9, 2020

A Yale architecture professor is convinced that the Trump administration’s plan to avoid spending taxpayer money on ugly, fake-modernist architecture is a prelude to genocide:

This may not seem like the most dangerous thing we face, but it’s one of the warning signs of fascism and…wait for it…genocide. The cult of antiquity & the imposition of monuments to a nation’s mythical glorious past precede both of those disasters. https://t.co/4eyMfqK3FD

Remember how I told you about the ugliest building at Yale being the one that houses architects? This is what happens to them when they stew in the ugliness long enough.

I know somebody who is like this professor. Used to be a wonderful, bright person. And then in 2016 it’s like he caught a virus. Went completely nuts. It’s all genocide this and Nazism that.

Is it possible there’s really something viral here? Something physiological? So many people suddenly losing their minds like this. Perfectly normal people suddenly start braying non-stop about genocide. Seriously, what if it’s something physical?

I just turned on Fox News and discovered Bernie, looking amazing and answering at length good, important questions. His answers are interesting and not rushed.

I know I’m supposed to be some sort of an insane bigot for watching the channel but I’m enjoying this program.

On another note, I still can’t begin to imagine any other candidate even remotely standing up to Trump in a debate. Biden can’t deal with some kid asking a question without losing control. Buttigieg is another Marco Rubio, and we remember what that looked like.

I wonder if he’s going to be charged with a hate crime:

A man has been arrested after allegedly deliberately driving a van into a tent full of Trump supporters who were working to register new voters at a shopping center parking lot. The incident occurred on Saturday afternoon in the Kernan Village Shopping Center in eastern Jacksonville, Florida, when a man, later identified by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office as 27-year-old Gregory Timm, allegedly drove a van through a tent where people were working to register voters. The driver narrowly missed several people in the tent and fled the scene after the incident by car.

I’m glad he missed and it didn’t turn into another tragedy like Heather Heyer’s death.

The US carbon dioxide emissions are the lowest in 3 decades, even with the booming economy, and projected to keep dropping.

I don’t think there’s a Grinch who can say this is bad news. You can say it’s insufficient, but it’s still a good development.

A brilliant article on socialism by Kevin Williamson:

The destructive nature of socialism comes not from its tendency to trample on democracy (though socialism often does trample on democracy) but from its total disregard for rights — rights that are, in the context of the United States and other liberal-democratic systems, beyond the reach of mere majorities. We have the Bill of Rights to protect freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the free exercise of religion, etc., not because we expect that majorities will reliably support and protect these rights but because we expect that majorities will be hostile to them.

And more:

Socialists coopt the language of rights by introducing positive rights rather than negative rights — they will speak of the right to a job or the right to housing — but not the right to be left alone, which inherently contradicts democratic socialism.

And the worst among these positive rights are the right to respect, the right to inclusion, and the right to feel recognized and valued. These are all great things, of course. But they can’t be a right. Because they can only be granted through exercising control over thoughts and feelings. And since that’s not possible, a lot of coercion is needed to force people to pretend they feel the correct way.

Did you, folks, see Biden’s attack ad on Buttigieg? The one about colorful lights and decorated sidewalks?

Loved it. I’m planning to vote for neither of these neoliberal suckers but I loved the ad.

If you ever feel like your colleagues annoy you, imagine that you could be working with Sunny. Compared to Sunny, every nightmare colleague is a gift from God.