Excellently-written article dissecting Harris and her handlers. And introduces a new, perfect phrase to describe her.

Why Can’t Harris Answer a Simple Question?
washingtonexaminer | October 11, 2024 | David Harsanyi

… Harris is a thermonuclear platitude dispenser. Few people in American history have expended so many words to say so little.

Her turns of phrase are often so cartoonishly ludicrous they should be used in college textbooks to explain what a “tautology” is to students.

“I grew up believing that children of the community are children of the community.”

“It’s time for us to do what we have been doing, and that time is every day.”

Normal people don’t talk this way. Harris does. All the time.

In any event, let’s just say extemporaneous speaking isn’t Harris’s strong suit, either. The presidential candidate has an uncanny ability to respond to straightforward questions in circuitous, mind-bending arrays of irrelevant non-sequiturs.

 … if 2024 is really the most pivotal election in the republic’s history — or, as Harris might say, a “moment in time in which we exist and are present, and to be able to contextualize it, to understand where we exist in the history and in the moment as it relates not only to the past but the future” — why don’t we have candidates who reflect the significance of the moment?  

Because if you carefully listen to Harris’s words, you are confronted with a vapid, political creation in way over her head. Though, alas, if history is any guide, she has all the qualifications we expect of a president.

Guy on the right looks for all the world like he’s saying, “Get in the trunk.”

SpaceX launches rescue mission for 2 NASA astronauts who are stuck in space until next year
Boston.com | 09/29/2024 | Marcia Dunn

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — SpaceX launched a rescue mission for the two stuck astronauts at the International Space Station on Saturday, sending up a downsized crew to bring them home, but not until next year.

The capsule rocketed into orbit to fetch the test pilots whose Boeing spacecraft returned to Earth empty earlier this month because of safety concerns. The switch in rides left it to NASA’s Nick Hague and Russia’s Alexander Gorbunov to retrieve Needham native Suni Williams and fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore.

Because NASA rotates space station crews approximately every six months, this newly launched flight with two empty seats reserved for Wilmore and Williams won’t return until late February. Officials said there wasn’t a way to bring them back earlier on SpaceX without interrupting other scheduled missions.

By the time they return, the pair will have logged more than eight months in space. They expected to be gone just a week when they signed up for Boeing’s first astronaut flight that launched in June.

NASA ultimately decided that Boeing’s Starliner was too risky after a cascade of thruster troubles and helium leaks marred its trip to the orbiting complex. The space agency cut two astronauts from this SpaceX launch to make room on the Dragon capsule’s return leg for Wilmore and Williams.

Wilmore and Williams watched the liftoff via a live link sent to the space station, prompting a cheer of “Go Dragon!” from Williams, NASA deputy program manager Dina Contella said.

Williams has been promoted to commander of the space station, which will soon be back to its normal population of seven. Once Hague and Gorbunov arrive on Sunday, four astronauts living there since March can leave in their own SpaceX capsule. Their homecoming was delayed a month by Starliner’s turmoil.

Ms. Welch has been promoted to commander of the interns, who will soon be back to their normal compliments as well.

This made me laugh. C’mon, Hunter!

How sailors say they were tricked into smuggling cocaine by a British man
BBC | 9/30/24 | Colin Freeman

For Daniel Guerra, an aspiring Brazilian sailor keen to travel the world, the job ad was a dream come true.

A British yacht owner was seeking two deck-hands to help sail his boat from Brazil across the Atlantic, one of the great ocean journeys.

There would be no salary, but all expenses paid – and, crucially, Mr Guerra would gain some of the sailing experience he needed to qualify as a sea captain.

“My dream was to become a captain and go work in Europe,” remembers the 43-year-old, who saw the advert from an online sailing recruitment agency.

“So I was super happy, knowing that my path to my dream was beginning.”

[Ah, if only I had a dime for every time an intern has said that at IMAO.]

Things looked even better when Mr Guerra and his fellow recruit, Rodrigo Dantas, 32, met their new British employer.

They had feared he might be some snobbish yachtie or posing Instagrammer, who would make sure they knew who was boss.

But no. George Saul was a smiling, friendly figure, who did not insist on formalities. The sailors, he said, could even call him by his nickname – “Fox”.

….

The Cape Verdean police were even more thorough than their Brazilian counterparts, using specialist cutting equipment to open up the yacht’s innards.

Hidden inside below false floors, they found nearly 1.2 tonnes of cocaine – worth an estimated £100m ($134m) if sold on Europe’s streets.

You’re 43, and want to start your career as a sea captain? Mmmm-hmmm.

We all know about the donkey and the elephant. Meh. Elderly.

Trump’s symbol should be a cat on a countertop … With the establishment being a fishbowl on the edge of that counter.

We know there’ll be shards to pick up. But we’ll pick them up. Or not. Move on.

Great writer.

The Plague of Lonely Leftist Cat Women
Townhall.com | 9 October 2024 | Kurt Schlichter

…

They said something wrong about the situation with Haitians in Springfield, and when JD Vance corrected them, their allies labeled it “mansplaining.” Well, apparently, they needed a man to explain it to them because they either didn’t have any idea what they were talking about, which is pretty likely, or they were lying to the audience, which is equally likely. Regardless, lefteminists have this strange expectation that somehow women are both equal and hors de combat.

[pun probably intended. — Oppo]

They want to be just like the boys, but when the boys treat them just like the boys, they cry. Twitter was full of mediocre matrons whining about how JD Vance dared to talk over the mediocre moderators. Too bad, ladies. Welcome to equality. Thicken that skin and stop bawling every time someone points out how you’re lame.

… They don’t care about women being killed on military misadventures, and, given the chance, they will happily draft women as cannon fodder – only not their own special snowflake daughters. If you think you’re going to see Kamala Harris’s mutant stepdaughter or her clique in uniform, you’re gobbling psychedelic mushrooms. Dying overseas is what kids like yours do. Their kids get their student loans paid, also by you.

And, of course, there’s Kamala Harris’s slap-happy husband. He’s the guy that Jen Psaki announced was redefining masculinity. …

Anyway, we all know about the story of the second gentleman impregnating the nanny and then having her abort the kid. This is in line with a lot of Democrat heroes and their attitude towards women. Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton, John Edwards – every one of them was/is a feminist, and every one of them was/is a scumbag.

Harvard cancels over 30 courses; far-left History & Literature classes hardest hit
College Fix | September 28, 2024 | Dave Huber

Goodbye to ‘Marx at the Mall,’ ‘Global Transgender Histories,’ Dua Lipa

Harvard has canceled over 30 fall semester courses encompassing 20 departments, but the History and Literature department took it on the chin the hardest.

According to The Crimson, Hist-Lit Director of Studies Lauren Kaminsky said class offerings dropped from 19 to 13 classes after five lecturers either departed or chose to do something else.

The canceled Hist-Lit courses include “British Soft Power from Shakespeare to Dua Lipa,” “Marx at the Mall: Consumer Culture & Its Critics,” “Global Transgender Histories,” “Indigenous Genders and Sexualities in North America,” “The Making of Race across Latin America,” and “Global Histories of Capitalism.”

The course description for “Global Transgender Histories” noted students “will become familiar with some of the global vocabulary of gender identities beyond the binary and will understand the historical impacts of phenomena such as racism, imperialism, and [the] medicalization on gender identities.”

Students also would’ve “discovered” the diversity of “gender-variant people” via “religious texts, poetry, art, legal cases, travelogues, newspapers, films […] and oral histories.”

In “Indigenous Genders and Sexualities in North America,” students would have gained knowledge about the “foundations of settler colonialism” and the “resistance to it” via “poetry, memoir, speculative fiction [and] media.”

…

They also would “interrogate” various works in order to grasp “the anxieties, joys, and power that arise when Indigenous people embrace their bodies.”

Two Crimson editors expressed misgivings about the cancellations; Zion Dixon said he was “kind of disappointed” about not being able to attend “Global Transgender Histories,” while Angelina Ng was “very sad” about the axing of “British Soft Power from Shakespeare to Dua Lipa” — the short notice caused a “scramble,” she said.

The Harvard Salient reports there is still a smorgasbord of far-left course material to choose from at the premier Ivy (some of which, at present, may or may not still be available). “Feminism in the Age of Empire,” for example, “critically engages the possibilities and limits of liberation through the global history of feminist ideas of freedom.”

In “Indigenous Literatures of the Other-Than-Human,” students will read 20th and 21st-century Native depictions of “other-than-human beings” and (Natives’) relationships with such — which are “integral to Indigenous ways of understanding difference.”

And “Queering Education” looks into the alleged “hidden curriculum” in American schools which privileges heteronormativity, cisnormativity, and “gendered identities.”

Barf.

Giorgia Meloni tells court alleged deepfake porn videos of her are ‘form of violence’
The Telegraph | 08 October 2024 | Nick Squires

Italy’s prime minister appeared in court on Tuesday to demand punishment for two men who allegedly created deepfake pornographic videos of her and posted them online.

I was finally able to get the Skipper airbrushed out of this image. He’s always been too disruptive.