Dark Days Diary – 8jan22 (updated 12jan22)

George Rebane

The shameful declines of Scientific American and NPR.  In days of yore, both media outlets were posterchildren of professional and responsible journalism.  And during the last twenty years both have embarked on a shameful decline that shows no signs of stopping.  SA, published continuously since the 1840s, served as the periodic and apolitical compendium of scientific advances served up for the intelligent reader.  No longer.  Today it has subverted to a progressive propaganda organ that sees all aspects of science as being race-based, and promotes a fundamental change to scientific enquiry founded on Marxist class/racist principles (here).  We have already covered the decline of what is now National Propaganda Radio which serves as the publicly funded ($100M annually) voice of the Democratic Party, tilting daily more to its radically woke wing (here).  What pisses me to the gills is the amount of its taxpayer funding that the Republicans have been silent about for years.

Comparative corruption in global governance.  In an ongoing discussion with a friend and correspondent who is a retired international banker, we have focused on the existence of corruption in almost all governments, and which countries do better than others to actively control corruption.  My friend spent many years stationed in various countries and experienced first hand their inner workings which were very much in evidence through their baking and financial institutions.  Costa Rica is the standout anti-corruption posterchild in the otherwise terminally corrupt gaggle of Latin American nations.  Many thousands of American expatriates have retired to Costa Rica, and now call it their home while maintaining their US citizenship.  The chart below (compiled by the World Bank in its Worldwide Governance Indicators) provides a basis for that emigration over the years.  I am surprised to see that the US rated so high, given its recent decline from the rule of law (and constitutionalism), and the growth of an obviously corrupt ‘deep state’ bureaucracy.

[9jan22 update]  ‘More Good News on Ivermectin’ and more evidence that the politicization of the Covid-19 pandemic cost millions of preventable deaths.  So have the physicians and researchers of “the Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) been calling for widespread adoption of Ivermectin, both as a prophylactic and for the treatment of all phases of COVID-19.”  History will record that what has happened in the last two years across the globe has been one of greatest politically motivated mass murders on record.  And those complicit can never admit to their perfidy in promoting the proscription of this effective, readily available, and demonstrably safe medicine, for the adjudication of their criminality would require the empaneling of a Nürnberg-like court, and this will never happen.  Nevertheless, the record of this unrequited tragedy should always remain available.  Dark days indeed.

[10jan22 update]  Our housecleaner closed down after 30 years in the business.  She and her excellent crew have been part of our extended family for half of those years.  In her letter to us she cited the reasons for quitting as the usual litany of California’s war against entrepreneurship and capitalism – taxes, stifling regulations from all levels, varying Covid mandates, government checks for not working, and so on.  And sadly, she was not able to give us a reference to another local housecleaning business.  The reason?  In Nevada County she was the last holdout against the state’s anti-business winds, all of the other reputable housecleaners preceded her in pulling the plug.  More signs of the times.

North Carolina Lt Gov Mark Robinson on reparations.  This two minute video (here) of his last year’s speech to the state’s GOP is guaranteed to moisten your eyes and send chills down your spine, unless you are a Democrat doing plantation maintenance in the country’s urban areas.

[12jan22 update]  Government of the elites, by the elites, and for the elites.  More information continues to be made public about the large-scale perfidy promoted by various agencies of the federal government and gratuitously integrated into the radical progressive policies in practice and promoted by the Democratic Party through its control of the administration and Congress.  Project Veritas has obtained documents that shed more light on what our government has done in promoting overseas gain-of-function research and suppression of the demonstrated benefits of Hydrochloroquine and Ivermectin in the treatment of Covid in all its phases.  This lends further credence to the allegations that senior government officials like Dr Fauci have purposively misled the American public and contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions across the world.  H/T to reader.  (More here and here)

 

Comments

[Steven Frisch]

"We have already covered the decline of what is now National Propaganda Radio which serves as the publicly funded ($100M annually) voice of the Democratic Party, tilting daily more to its radically woke wing (here)."

The total annual budget of NPR in 2020 was $275.5 million. OF that budget revenue from federal government sources was 1% of their total funding. Another almost 10% came from local, state and federal government entities licensing their programing (which every media outlet public or private does).

https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/national-public-radio-npr/

https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances

I am not sure how you get your statistics, other than out of your ass, but the numbers sue appear to be $2.75 not the overly inflated $100 million you cite.

[Steven Frisch]

Of course that would be "$2.75 million." I apologize for any confusion.

[George Rebane]

StevenF 1208pm - Thanks for that pick-up. NPR funding has been a constant confusion over the years. I admit that conservatives tend to believe the higher estimates than do progressives. I suspect the true amount of NPR's public funding lies somewhere comfortably between $2.75M and $100M as described in the link below.
https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/national-public-radio-npr/

[Bill Tozer]

The issue here, IMHO, is not NPR funding. The real issue is the leftist garbage spewing machine NPR has turned into. Even their own employees are up in arms over the diversity of their work place. Move over white man and die. Die or move on down the road now!

Kill the Beast! Kill the ferocious White Buffalo and the mysterious White Wolf. And the Golden Eagle. And Western Civilization. The nail that stands up must be pounded down. It’s for the Common Good.

Speaking of the Golden Eagle, it is interesting to note that when our founding White dead men were considering the national emblem, the turkey was a first choice among the evil Colonialists. Upon reflection, the turkey fits right in with today’s NPR.

The Russians have always chose the bear.

[Don Bessee]

OOOps they let the cat out of the bag -

Cambridge peer-reviewed study suggests 'authoritarianism' might be necessary to fight climate change

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/cambridge-peer-reviewed-study-suggests-223749884.html

;-)

[George Rebane]

BillT 154pm - That was my point Mr Tozer, apparently poorly made.

[Don Bessee]

The socialist greens have one loyal constituency left -

Career Burglar, Arrested 11 Times in 2021, Calls Radical Criminal Justice Bail Reform Laws ‘Great’

https://www.breitbart.com/crime/2022/01/08/career-burglar-calls-new-yorks-radical-bail-reform-laws-great/

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cartoons-slideshow

;-)

[scenes]

How I think of NPR management.

https://imgur.com/gallery/rw4ds

Dunno that it needs public money. The big bucks for stupid, highly politicized causes seems to come from widows and ex-wives of the very very wealthy (Jobs, Gates, Kroc, Bezos) and the occasional Dr. Evil (Soros).

It's generally a way to play Risk at no risk from your comfy house in Switzerland or the South Bay.

To be fair, NPR isn't as awful as rightwing AM radio. Lars Larson, Hannity, Levin, are just the thing to make my mind's nictitating membrane shut. Luckily the world is filled with podcasts and youtube videos that are superior to a lot of commercial efforts. One more nail in the coffin for pro media.

[Gregory]

Frisch is lying through his teeth.

Public broadcasting funding is a big shell game, and I'm sure he knows that.

One of the shells is the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, who divvies up the cash theyget, primarily from the federal, and gets it spread around to their "independent" dependents in TV and radio.

Their expenses:
Programming:
Radio Program Fund 9,221,001
National program production and acquisition grants 23,721,381
System support:
Radio community service grants 69,859,426
Fiscal stabilization grants -
CARES Act 75,000,000 -
Public broadcasting interconnection 1,451,887
Department of Education - Ready to Learn 19,987,323
Other system support 27,424,071

Money gets poured around. All together, TV and radio, about a half billion bucks.

[scenes]

re: Gregory@4:48PM

It's not a thing I've looked into much.

Looking at this:
https://www.cpb.org/sites/default/files/aboutcpb/financials/audited/cpb_combinedstatements_fy20.pdf

I'm seeing on page 6, under 'Income', Federal Appropriations - General $445M

Am I reading that right? Can I infer that Congress wrote these guys a check for 1/2 billion dollars just for that one line item? Good Lord.

My gut tells me that the Corporation for Public Broadcast isn't a 'left wing' organization, but that it's a tool of the bureaucracy to get out the word, the approved word that is. It's just that the bureaucracy is left wing. Kind of a US BBC.

[George Rebane]

scenes 358pm - "to be fair", rightwing radio doesn't claim to be non-partisan, fair, and balanced. NPR does. There is a difference.

re Gregory 448pm - To be specific, NPR and its local outlets get government (i.e. taxpayer) monies at the state levels from multiple government sources and agencies in addition to the federal government. Its variegated funding sources make it difficult to calculate the final number for government funding of NPR outlets. But it's at least an order of magnitude more than what Frisch and his liberal comrades like to publicize to those who don't pay attention.

[Gregory]

yes, that's the money they get every year to support "public broadcasting".

If it's split 1/3-2/3rds between radio and TV, that would mean a cool 150 million a year from the FEDS to public/community radio from coast to coast... just from the CPB.

[Gregory]

"I am not sure how you get your statistics, other than out of your ass, but the numbers sue appear to be $2.75 not the overly inflated $100 million you cite."

Blow it out your ass, Steven. What bullcrap you fling.

[Don Bessee]

Then you have the 20 mill from the locals kicked back to the national and another 20 from the dept of ed. All in all quite the haul the limousine liberal wanted to minimize and deflect. Lets not forget the 75 mil for covid 'relief'. ROFLOL!

I guess thats what counts for number crunching at that truckee bastion of whiteness.

;-)

[Don Bessee]

A gift to the left from team 0 and dumb as a rock or just a lyin sack or perhaps a planned both? -

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/politifact-rates-justice-sonia-sotomayor-s-wildly-inflated-child-covid-claim-as-false/ar-AASzNCv?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531

;-)

[Bill Tozer]

Tucker has the receipts.

Tucker Carlson: NPR is destroying itself from within
NPR has changed completely and become unrecognizable

“NPR anchors were left-of-center, obviously, but more than anything they were self-consciously upmarket. They spoke in comically stilted voices designed to suggest deep erudition. You can imagine them reading a lot of Rilke in their spare time and having complicated opinions about wine. This is NPR, they would say, National Public Radio. It was all pretty amusing and easy to mock, but it was basically harmless. NPR didn’t call for violent revolution or denounce white people as demons. That did happen on some radical stations like Pacifica, but not at NPR. At NPR they were dopey, self-important liberals. The kind of dangling earrings and composting bins in their yards.

Not anymore. You ought to listen to NPR now. Actually, don’t listen. We pulled the transcripts for you. Keep in mind this is entirely real. All of it aired on NPR over the last few weeks: “

https://www.foxnews.com/media/tucker-carlson-npr-national-public-radio-destroying-itself

[Don Bessee]

Well of course he is or she/they/them/it/ameba/unicorn/cheeseburger etc. Investor in what? -

Peter Horn is a Charlotte native and a southern ex-pat for the greater part of the last decade. He currently lives in San Francisco and works as an investor and freelance writer.

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/real-danger-behind-juvenile-let-093000975.html

;-)

[Don Bessee]

Is there a socialist green who wants to defend the slaughter? -

https://www.foxnews.com/us/son-of-texas-woman-stabbed-to-death-by-man-arrested-67-times-and-out-on-bail-urges-change-no-accountability

;-)

[Scott O]

Don 7:42 - from the article: "...who are currently being driven out of the party with pitchforks and tiki torches..."
Looks like it invests in psychedelics.
And we remember when Trump was president the left was so respectful of him - never a naughty thought or word!

[Don Bessee]

The criminal gangsters know who to thank for their loot -

https://www.foxnews.com/us/chicago-police-investigating-whether-burglars-robbed-stores-dumped-cash-register-near-governors-home

;-)

[scenes]

re: Scotto@8:32PM

It's quite a cottage industry.

https://www.amazon.com/anti-trump-stickers/s?k=anti+trump+stickers

I wonder sometimes why newspaper print all of this overwrought opinion stuff. It might be fun to really go for it, some kind of multi-hundred word piece on how Hillary and Bernie and Pelosi and the league of superevil want to round up all the God-fearing Republicans and put them in ovens after gassing them. The adults turned into lampshades and the infants into wallets. Lots of New World Order stuff and backroom torture of conservatives at the Blue Mob Lubyanka.

I'm afraid it's mostly more mundane. Identity groups in it for the main chance and eating the Little Red Hen's bread, urban white symbol-manipulators and suburban white housewives getting that tingly feeling in their nether regions from the new religion. Not to say that you can't get to a bad place, but that's not their intention.

Why do the newspapers like the Charlotte Observer (or The Union) run this stuff? (A)It's free and they don't have enough 25 year-old interns to write the rest of the paper and (B)It drives outrage, eyeballs, responses in the comments section.

[Walt]

Morn'n Scenes,, Emery will spend his whole SSI check on those.

Yet most of those started out as anti Hillary & Biden stickers.

[show me kid]

scenes @ 3:58 PM....check out your post of the photo, entitled "...fat guy...". I think it not be a guy...

[scenes]

"I think it not be a guy"

That was my thinking, but the link was handy.

Hey, what's gender anyway? It's just a fiction invented by Victorian scientists and the last 385 million years of natural history.

[Scott O]

scenes 8:21 - The interesting thing is that although both sides sling mud, it's only the left that does their Paul Emery pearl clutching routine and acts shocked about the "incivility and coarseness" that was never, NEVER part of political discourse before Trump.
Hmmm...
Trying to remember what conservative ever advocated having a president's son subjected to anal rape.
And here this Peter Horn guy claims that "Let's Go Brandon" is 'dangerous'!
Please.
Get over yourself.

[Bill Tozer]

“BillT 154pm - That was my point Mr Tozer, apparently poorly made.”
Posted by: George Rebane | 08 January 2022 at 03:13 PM

You made your point very well, sir. It’s the comprehension of the reader who chooses to read the white on the page instead of those little black letters that is the problem. An unsolvable problem, no doubt. Sometimes we just have to live with problems of which there is no solution.

[Walt]

I do believe this fits under "dark days".
I'm pretty sure the headline says it all. DAMNED Sac Bee paywall.

Get ready for $500 PG&E bills because California has failed
6 hours ago — My utility bill made me hate PG&E. But California's clean energy failure is also to blame

[scenes]

Walt: "But California's clean energy failure is also to blame"

Oh well, it the same thing worldwide, not a US-specific kind of deal.

Green Policy -

. Get rid of 'dirty' sources of power.
. Hope that someone replaces them with something that's not 'dirty'.

Result? Hilarity ensues. Head for the exits toot sweet.

Generally, the 'green' in green policy is the color of money. There's profit to be made in shutting down energy (or anything else) and little on the other side. Start your own power company if you think otherwise.

Tearing down existing institutions can be both fun and profitable on the way down, it's a paradox of systems. If you think about it, economic parasites only have to keep the host alive, not healthy. In addition, a forgotten part of the evolutionary tale is that they compete with each other.

[Walt]

As far as PG&E is concerned, they say they are about to start putting power underground. That's all well and good. Guess who gets to PAY for that.. The rate payers. On average, it's about a million bucks a mile. Nope,, it's not like the Biden spending plan. "It won't cost a dime. That spending will be free"

A 500 dollar a month elec. bill will be cheap.

[Bill Tozer]

COVID was just the test run.....and Biden is just a placeholder.

‘Authoritarianism’ May Be Necessary to Fight Climate Change, Cambridge Study Argues

https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/-authoritarianism--may-be-necessary-to-fight-climate-change--cambridge-study-argues/

Hark! Dark Days approacheth.

[Bill Tozer]

Ok, fine. I will come out and say it.

'3,500 KIDS ARE IN HOSPITAL, NOT 100,000': CDC DIRECTOR WALLENSKY CORRECTS LIBERAL JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR'S WILDLY FALSE CLAIM THAT 'OVER 100,000 CHILDREN ARE SERIOUSLY ILL WITH COVID, MANY ON VENTILATORS'

[Bill Tozer]

You don’t say. What was your first clue? Humans are social beings. Been that way long before you were born, Dr. Fauci. It is not good for man to be alone. Ever wonder why there is a rash of unruly airline passengers being removed from the plane in handcuffs?Karens having meltdowns and psychotic fits all over the place. What exactly did you think would happen? There was no other possible outcome.

‘Fauci: On Second Thought, Isolation Probably Isn't Great for Society’

https://rumble.com/vrm0e3-fauci-on-second-thought-isolation-probably-isnt-great-for-society.html?

[The Estonian Fox]

George (10 Jan update),

For Mark Robinson's speech, there were only 64,000 views. A pitiful amount for a very moving and thoughtful speech. And you guys certainly should be able to claim Mark as your own - after all, he hails from NC.

[George Rebane]

Efox 249pm - If your report bears out, then I am again ashamed to be a Republican, the party of wusses and chickenshits. I'd like to hear some party leader or prominent politician explain why that video was not plastered all over the country on the party's websites, publications, and highway billboards.

[Bill Tozer]

Dark Days. This sounds like divisive rhetoric.

‘Disgraced FBI No. 2 Andrew McCabe Calls For Feds To Treat ‘Mainstream’ Conservatives Like Domestic Terrorists’

https://thefederalist.com/2022/01/10/disgraced-fbi-no-2-andrew-mccabe-calls-for-feds-to-treat-mainstream-conservatives-like-domestic-terrorists/

[George Rebane]

BillT 303pm - “Divisive” is the mildest interpretation of what really is the rallying cry from a tyrant in training.

[Bill Tozer]

Dr. Rebane @ 7:52 pm

Glad you caught my wry humor. Some don’t do sarcasm, irony, or nuance well in a black on white…..er…..in a black and white world view which there are no absolutes.

[scenes]

substack isn't too bad.

"A Tale of Two Authoritarians
The appearance of Dick Cheney in the House of Representatives on the anniversary of January 6th helped identify the true villain on the scene"

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/a-tale-of-two-authoritarians

"The Histrionics and Melodrama Around 1/6 Are Laughable, but They Serve Several Key Purposes"

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-histrionics-and-melodrama-around

[Bill Tozer]

Re: Jan 9 update, more good news

‘Biden bends to DeSantis, sends additional monoclonal antibody treatments to Florida’

https://justthenews.com/nation/states/biden-administration-releases-additional-monoclonal-antibody-treatments-florida-after

[Bill Tozer]

Good read.

‘Blue America’s Messaging Problem’

Fighting the impulse for national divorce with spousal abuse

https://americanmind.org/salvo/blue-americas-messaging-problem/

Explains why the Left will never let us go. Their entire ethos is subjection and they need people to subject. They are driven by the need to control…everything.

[George Rebane]

BillT 932am - I would add that their entire ethos also includes subjugation, and they need people to subjugate ;-)

[Bill Tozer]

Tanks, Dr. Rebane. Tanks a rock. Opps, typo. Tanks a rocket. :).

Let my people go.

[scenes]

"BillT 932am - I would add that their entire ethos also includes subjugation, and they need people to subjugate ;-)"

You can certainly find forces like that on the Right, although with the ascendancy of the MAGA crowd, there's a lot less of it. Dick Cheney is a 'Republican' after all.

BTW, I've got a couple of posts with links that appear to have gone in the typepad (world's worst software) hopper. If you could fish them out, I'd appreciate it. They reference s u b s t a c k, so maybe the typepad people run them through a spam filter.

(as an aside, I'd suggest moving to substack, even though unsolicited advice is cursed of Allah. I realize that you have a vested interest in a corpus of work, but I would think of that as a fallacy of previous investment).

[George Rebane]

scenes 1244pm - However, the "forces like that on the Right" are howling wolves on the fringe; for the Left it is now imbued in their mainstream and in all colorations of their radicals. Subjugation of a large population requires an enormous government and its subjugation apparatus - recall East Germany, USSR, etc. The Right is for lower taxes, fewer regulations, and smaller government. Not exactly an infrastructure compatible with subjugation.

Dug out your two comments from the spam folder. Hard to tell how bad TypePad is relative to other blog servers. I've heard similar complaints from bloggers on these platforms - WordPress, substack, ... And I do have a significant corpus on TypePad; wouldn't be surprised if I'm one of their longest suffering bloggers. In their favor, they've always been responsive and professional in responding to my complaints when they occur. Inertia abetted by stiction is a powerful force.

[The Estonian Fox]

12Jan22 update:

Too bad the Project Veritas information will be stored away for a few years. That assumes anyone in the federal govt. is interested. Even if the Republicans take the House & Senate this year, they would actually have to pursue indictments and prosecutions. They seem to be incapable of doing that. No mad-dog attorneys are ever available for the Rs. Who is forming a NORTHERN Poverty Law Center to support the cause of pursuing lawbreakers and keeping our republic intact, and keeping it on the 240-year-old road to continuing their dream?