90 Miles From Tyranny

Friday, July 31, 2020

Speeding Backhoe Vs. Range Rover Vs. Motorcycle...

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Takeoffs And Landings...

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How Many Cars Can A Bus Take Out?

This Truck Took The Road Less Traveled - Right. Off. The. Bridge...

How Many Bodies Did This Truck Launch Into The Air?

Just When He Least Expected It..

I Wonder If That Tire Broke Her Back..

Watch This Truck Take Out This Overhead Highway Sign..

I Think I Found The Dumbest Girl In China....

This Truck Tried To Run Over This Chinese Guy But He Ran Away With His Superpowers ..

OH!!! She Almost Made It Too!!

Government Teachers’ Unions Unveil New COVID-19 Demand: Pay Us For Doing Nothing

The pandemic has left everyone with lots of give and take. In educating our children, however, don't let teachers' unions take from our children to give to themselves.

As the Wuhan virus pandemic persists and wild rhetoric along with it, teachers unions are threatening to strike if schools reopen, but they’re also pushing to limit online teaching. These unions have long incentivized all the wrong things in education, but demanding teachers be paid to do virtually nothing is a new low. As a New York Times headline announced this week, teachers are “Wary of Returning to Class, and Online Instruction Too.”

Public school teachers around the country are fighting for schools to remain closed longer, to implement more expensive safety measures, and to limit teachers’ responsibilities with online learning, the article explains. These same teachers are threatening job walkouts if they don’t get their way and protesting at state capitols and on social media.

The second-largest teachers’ union in the country this week permitted its state and local chapters to strike if their school districts don’t take satisfactory precautions, such as revamping ventilation systems and instituting mask mandates, before the kids come back to school.

While teachers’ unions play politics, parents are trying to make game-time decisions amid constant uncertainty. Whether getting back to work themselves is a factor in their education strategies, parents need better options for their kids, who were so grossly underserved in the spring. After schools started shutting their doors in March and parents began reeling, rearranging their lives to accommodate at-home instruction, countless young people across the country fell behind.

One Bronx mother, whose 18-year-old son has autism, said in just a month he backslid by a year. “We all know there’s a pandemic. It’s affecting everyone,” she said. “You can’t just keep saying you’re scared. We’re all scared.”

Keeping Kids Home from School Is Anti-Science

Meanwhile, as President Donald Trump and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos push for in-person instruction, partisan educators and unions are resisting, even in states that have control of the virus. Many teachers are griping that they don’t have enough funding and guidance, and that the government is prioritizing the economy over...

Hope The Fries Have Enough Salt...

oooh, it's a sunny day outside my window

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'Cancel Culture': Old Tyranny in New Bottles

If the progressives succeed, they will create what the Founders feared.

The last few weeks we’ve seen programmatically progressive media outlets purging their political bedfellows for deviating from the “woke” party line. Some, like erstwhile New York Times editor James Bennet, confessed and apologized for their alleged sins voluntarily, like an old Bolshevik apparatchik in a show-trial. Others, like Times editor Bari Weiss and Atlantic writer Andrew Sullivan, resigned before they were hustled to the guillotine, at least salvaging some self-respect.

And it’s not just today’s people and institutions that are facing the baying mobs of mostly callow millennials who pitch a fit over anything that challenges their fragile self-esteem and “smelly little orthodoxies.” For months we’ve watched two-bit anarchists and race-hustlers knocking down monuments from our history as a graphic repudiation of America and its defining principles––a 21st century version of the old Roman damnatio memoriae, in which enemies of the state or emperor were disappeared from history by removing any public reference to them in inscriptions, statues, or books.

Indeed, today’s “cancel culture” is nothing new. It is just the latest manifestation of tyranny: As Aristotle defined it, “arbitrary power . . . which is responsible to no one, and governs all alike, whether equals or betters, with a view to its own advantage, not to that of its subjects, and therefore against their will. No free man willingly endures such a government.”

Historically, the tyrant has achieved that power by violence, especially against anyone who appear to be a threat to his ambitions or power. Herodotus has a famous anecdote about the tyrant’s use of violence. In the 7th century BC, Periander, the tyrant of Corinth, deliberating over how to keep his power safe from rivals, sent a messenger to Thrasybulus of Miletus asking his advice. Thrasybulus led the messenger into a field of wheat, and as he questioned him during their walk, broke off the tallest ears of grain. Periander got the message: “Kill outstanding citizens.”

Today’s leftists haven’t yet descended into that level of political murder. Instead they practice character assassination, the destruction of their enemies’ careers and reputations. Their weapons are not daggers or poison, but the catalogue of question-begging epithets, particularly “racism”––after all, as they keep telling us, “words are violence.” What’s also typically modern about their purges is the emphasis on personal feelings and identity, and complaints not about actual crimes or injustices, but confected ones like...

Stay Away From These Filthy Infected Carriers!

Netherlands Refuses To Mandate Face Masks; Sweden Says They Are ‘Pointless’

“There is no proven effectiveness”.

The Netherlands has decided not to mandate the wearing of face masks in public, citing the fact that there is no scientific evidence to suggest they are effective against the spread of the coronavirus.

“From a medical perspective there is no proven effectiveness of masks, the Cabinet has decided that there will be no national obligation for wearing non-medical masks” announced Netherlands Minister for Medical Care Tamara van Ark.

The country’s National Institute for Health (RIVM) noted that it is aware of studies from other countries that purport to show masks slow the spread of disease, but will not be heeding them.

Indeed, RIVM chief Jaap van Dissel warned that wearing masks incorrectly, in addition to the effect masks have of eroding the perceived need for social distancing, could increase the risk of transmission because of a “false sense of security”.

“So we think that if you’re going to use masks (in a public setting) … then you must give good training for it,” he said.

Within the past week in the Netherlands, around 1400 new COVID-19 cases were reported, which equates to 342 more than the week before.

In Sweden, meanwhile, senior epidemiologist Anders Tegnell declared that there is “no point” in wearing masks in public.

“We see no point in wearing a face mask in Sweden, not even on public transport,” Tegnell said.

Sweden, which has not even instituted a lock down at any time, appears to be seeing a downward trend in cases.

At the beginning of this week, Sweden announced just 398 new cases, down from 767 the week before and...

The Commies That Want To Do Away With The Nuclear Family Unit, Hides Behind The Fake Moms They Want To Destroy.

6 Massively Misleading Answers from Big Tech CEOs to Congress

The most powerful tech CEOs in the country, representing Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook, appeared before the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel to discuss their market dominance and censorship yesterday. Here are some of the most misleading answers the CEOs gave Congress.

Yesterday, the CEO’s of major American tech firms Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook appeared before the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel to discuss the market dominance of their firms and issues relating to censorship on their platforms. During the hearing, the CEOs made a number of claims relating to their platforms and the competition they face. Each of the CEOs made extremely misleading statements, with Google CEO Sundar Pichai regularly misrepresenting how Google operates or the competition the tech giant faces.

Here are six instances where the Masters of the Universe stretched the truth:

1: Google’s Sundar Pichai Claims it ‘Faces New Competition Every Day’

During the hearing, Google CEO Sundar Pichai told Congress that the company faces intense competition, and that “new competitors emerge every day.”

Pichai stated: “Just as America’s technology leadership is not inevitable, Google’s continued success is not guaranteed. New competitors emerge every day, and today users have more access to information than ever before. Competition drives us to innovate, and it also leads to better products, lower choices, and more choices for everyone.”

However, while it is true that many companies may make an attempt to compete with Google, the chances of them being successful are extremely slim. For example, Google accounts for 90 percent of online searches according to GlobalStats, while competitors such as Microsoft’s Bing and the privacy-focused DuckDuckGo may attempt to compete with Google, the company faces no real threat or competition.

Google’s search dominance is one of the reasons that the company was able to suppress the search results of Breitbart News and other conservative news websites, essentially “purging Breitbart content from search results since the 2016 election,” according to Breitbart News’ reporter Allum Bokhari.

2: Google CEO Sundar Pichai: ‘We Don’t Approach Work With Any Political Viewpoint’

Pichai claimed during yesterday’s hearing that the tech giant does not approach its work with any particular political viewpoint, a concept disproved by Breitbart News’ extensive reporting on the company’s political bias. During yesterday’s hearing, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) addressed Pichai, stating:

You said something today different than you did with Ms. Lofgren, you confessed that there is a manual component to the way in which you blacklist content. It seems to be no coincidence that sites like Gateway Pundit, the Western Journal, American Spectator, Daily Caller, and Breitbart that receive the ire or the negative treatment as a consequence of your manual tooling.

And it also seems noteworthy that whistleblowers at your own comapny have spoken out. You said that one of the reasons you maintain this manual tool is to stop election interference, I believe it is in fact your company that is engaging in elction interference. You’re using your market dominance in search to accomplish that election interference.

Pichai responded:

I strongly disagree with that characterization.

We don’t approach this work with any political viewpoint. We do that to comply with law, known copyright violations, very narrow circumstances and we have to do that to comply with the law, and in many cases, those requests come [from] law enforcement agencies.

Breitbart News reported as far back as 2017 that political bias was rampant at Google, with senior management reportedly “on the verge of tears” following President Trump’s election. One Google insider told Breitbart News at the time: “After the 2016 election, we had an entire TGIF dedicated to the election result, in which several of our top management gave emotional speeches as though the world was going to end, and seemed to be on the verge of tears. It was embarrassing.”

Recently Breitbart News reported that Breitbart’s ranking in Google’s search engine had diminished significantly following our publication of a story in 2016 that at an internal meeting leaked to Breitbart News, top Google executives, including Sundar Pichai, Sergey Brin, and Kent Walker, expressed their anger over President Trump’s election and compared Trump voters to “extremists.” During the meeting, the executives discussed their desire to make Trump’s election and the populist movement a “blip” in history.

Breitbart News reporter Allum Bokhari writes:

Search visibility is a key industry measure of how findable a publisher’s content is in Google search. New data shows that Google has suppressed Breitbart’s search visibility by 99.7 percent since 2016.

On April 4, 2016, Breitbart ranked in the top ten search positions (i.e., on the first page of Google search results) for 355 key search terms; but now, as of July 20, 2020, Breitbart ranks in the top ten search positions for only one search term. And, on April 4, 2016, Breitbart ranked in the top 100 search positions for 16,820 key search terms; but now, as of July 20, 2020, Breitbart ranks in the top 100 search positions for only 55 search terms.

Moreover, organic Google search traffic to Breitbart (measured by unique visitors) is down 63 percent when comparing the first half of 2016 with the first half of 2020.

Breitbart News has repeatedly revealed Google’s political bias, yet the company’s CEO still attempts to claim that the tech giant does not approach its work “with any political viewpoint.”

3: Sundar Pichai Claims...

In June, St. Louis couple Mark and Patricia McCloskey defended their home when a roving band of leftist rioters broke down the gate to their home and ventured onto their property. Both are lawyers. They defended themselves with their legally acquired firearms. Of course, this set off a firestorm among liberal media types. It’s as if they just ignored the weeks of riots, arson, looting, and violence against police in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis in May.

The police have been unable to truly bring order to the situation. The McCloskey response was not illegal. It was not out of control. It was right. And yet, they faced the legal wrath of God from St. Louis Prosecutor Kim Gardner who charged them with brandishing. Their weapons were seized by police. Well, now Missouri’s Attorney General Eric Schmitt is stepping to stop what pretty much is a politically motivated legal action against the McCloskeys.

A couple in St. Louis defend their home with a firearm after protesters enter their neighborhood
pic.twitter.com/idmZO0nIpS
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) June 29, 2020

Before the attorney general’s intervention, the McCloskey’s attorney, Joel Schwartz, filed a motion to disqualify Gardner from pressing charges, citing remarks on her campaign literature (via CBS KMOV4 ):

In a court filing, Joel Schwartz claims Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner should not be allowed to prosecute their case because of statements made by her campaign regarding the incident. The McCloskeys were charged by Gardner's office after they were seen pointing guns outside their home in the Central West End last month.

[…]

According to Wednesday's court filing, in one email, sent out before charges were filed, Gardner's campaign literature read: "You might be familiar with the story of the couple who brandished guns during a peaceful protest outside of their mansion” and “...President Trump and the Governor are fighting for the two who pointed guns at peaceful citizens...” The literature contained links to donate to her re-election campaign.

The filing also states campaign literature was sent after the charges, again referencing the McCloskeys' case and links to donate.

Gardner and attorney Mary Pat Carl are facing off in the Democratic primary Tuesday. The winner is the presumptive circuit attorney for the next four years.

Alas, justice has prevailed. Disturbingly, the same could not be said for former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who remains in legal purgatory, as the DC Court of Appeals will...