Wednesday of last week, having been at a couple in-person protests before deciding not to do any more, I got myself tested for COVID-19. A couple days ago my doctor called to tell me the result was negative.

This Fathers' Day, Give More Than a Tie

For Fathers' Day, please watch this video and then consider supporting the launch of a Canadian Center for Men and Families in Vancouver! Introducing CCMF Vancouver https://youtu.be/L4jt2QMujr4 via @YouTube

A Foolish Thing to Do, and a Wrong-Headed One Too

Krystal Ball: "Relying on the courts as the sole focus of your political project is a very foolish thing to do." Progressives, take heed! . https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1SJSBHip780&t=608s . It's not just that justices won't reliably vote the way you expect them to. It's that they shouldn't do so, and it's undemocratic to try to rig the courts so that they will. And that sort of mischief has major knock-on effects: it can be held largely responsible for the escalation of the US culture wars of recent decades, because nothing gets people riled up more than the sense that their democratic choices have been nullified by unelected judges acting as legislators. That polarization has in turn played a big role in retarding the development of working-class consciousness by keeping people distracted with cultural issues. . At the ultimate root of this politicization of the courts is our archaic first-past-the-post voting system, which pushes people into just two parties, each of which inevitably sees judicial appointments as an issue it can campaign and win elections on. I don't think it's coincidental we don't hear about comparable levels of political polarization or complaints about judicial activism in the countries of continental Europe, which all employ some variety of proportional representation instead of first-past-the-post winner-take-all elections.

Self-Improvement vs. Social Improvement -- or Self-Improvement FOR Social Improvement?

Coleman Hughes asks, "Is it racist to observe that whites are more likely to drive drunk than blacks are?"

Communicative impotence isn't the Right's only problem here, however. The more fundamental one is its hostility, not only to clientelist non-solutions, but also to universalist real solutions of either a reformist social-democratic or a revolutionary socialist variety. The greatest value of constructive behavioral advice is that it not only helps people to do better within the present system, but helps them build capacity for organizing to replace it with something qualitatively better.

https://quillette.com/2018/07/19/black-american-culture-and-the-racial-wealth-gap/

Media Misinformation, Police Union Edition

Mark Twain famously said, "A lie can get halfway around the world while the truth is lacing its boots on." Here's one of those cases.

A union decides it won't provide legal services for its members, but rather than let the public know this it defames them.

Thanks to the YouTube channel Political World for bringing this story to my attention.

EXCLUSIVE: Two Buffalo Police ERT members say resignation was not in solidarity with suspended officers
 
https://remarkboard.com/m/exclusive-two-buffalo-police-ert-members-say-resignation/1eppt3powikaz

Media McCarthyism

 1. Exclude elite-disapproved information and views from a country's elite-owned, state source-dependent major media.

2. Now creative a threat narrative by labeling the only news source with comparable resources that offers alternative information "foreign state media."

3. Use the threat narrative to discount the alternative information as "foreign propaganda." Presto!

This is how McCarthyism works.

https://www.rt.com/usa/490860-yahoo-correspondent-ruptly-livestream