Have You Met Amelia?

 

The socialist, Islamophilic British government, smarting from fresh criticism over arresting 12,000 of His Majesty's subjects for unlawful tweeting, launched a propaganda program aimed at British youth: 'Pathways', an online 'game' in which the main character, Charlie, is being subverted by a Goth chick, Amelia, (blue hair, black velvet choker, pink mini-dress, purple cardigan) into rejecting his new neighbors from third-world countries.   The game has students trying to help Charlie defend against the verbal assaults of the hateful poisonous far-right Islamophobic revanchist Amelia.

Oddly, reaction from the actual students to the program content seems to be that they consider Amelia's opinions and positions to be common-sensical.

Oops...

Overnight, content creators have materialized Amelia into a modern-day British equivalent to Joan of Arc, but the government can't burn this one.   To see what Babbage hath wrought, pop on over to YouTube and search for 'Amelia'.   Page after page of AI-generated videos of Amelia, appropriately costumed, delivering British patriotic anthems of ages past: 'Jerusalem', 'I vow to thee, my country', and more, pressing into service modern rock diatribes as well.   One video has Amelia confronting Keir Starmer: "How did we get all the way from Churchill to you, you git?"

This would be no story except for the fact that popular support for Amelia has gone into low Earth orbit.   'Off the charts' simply doesn't do it justice.   The British people, it now seems, have only been waiting for someone to give voice to their unspoken — and untweeted — thoughts.

Even better, there is now a Swedish version, Inga, and a German version, Maria, and there's said to be an Australian version, but I haven't seen it.   All over the Western world, Amelia has spread like an engineered virus.   Various governments are furiously trying to put the genie back in its lamp and failing, predictably.

If you had asked me three weeks ago what I thought of the UK, I would have told you that I was sure it was 'a lost cause' soon to be overwhelmed by third-world in-migration and becoming, itself, part of the third-world.   Now?   As Churchill once opined: "This is not the end.   It is not even 'the beginning of the end'.   But it may be the end of the beginning."

You go, Amelia!

 

Galatians 4:16

 

The hot news today is that Tucker Carson and FOX News have parted company.  The #1 most popular cable news host has, if we can believe what we're hearing, been fired.  Who does that?  Alienating their most prolific revenue producer?

People, my spouse among them, love to accuse Tucker of lying, but I have thus far seen no evidence of that.  I believe the more likely explanation is Galatians 4:16 :

Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?

If someone posits that Carlson orchestrated this parting, I would be hard-pressed to dispute that.  He is not 'one of', but usually the only FOX commentator covering certain stories.  It's because of him that the difference between 'conspiracy theory' and 'breaking news' is down to about three weeks.  In fact, that may be why he's the #1 most popular cable news host... in history.

For the longest time, I believed Carlson was not an actual FOX employee, and instead produced his own content and then sold that content to FOX.  Anecdotal evidence now suggests that impression was wrong.  According to Buck Sexton, Carlson wanted tonight's program focused on a defense of his part in the recently-concluded Dominion Voting Systems suit against FOX.  When FOX executives forbade Carlson doing that, Sexton said, "he quit".

That sounds more plausible than "he was fired", but it makes little difference.  Whether the rock hits the pitcher or the pitcher hits the rock, it's bad news for the pitcher.

The 'pitcher' in this case is FOX News.  They're about to find out how many eyeballs watch Hannity simply because they were already tuned to that channel.  If Hannity's Nielsen ratings take a serious hit, it means that FOX didn't simply lose Carlson's audience, but also Hannity's, and perhaps Laura Ingraham's and Gutfeld's as well.  Time will tell.

Dave Rubin recounted the time Tucker visited him and saw Rubin's garage-studio.  "You're livin' the dream!" Tucker exclaimed.  Tucker has been broadcasting from his Maine home for several years now, and I have no doubt his garage currently looks a lot like Rubin's.  If he's not already an independent content producer, what's to stop him now?

As for FOX, I think they're about to find out what happens when you kill a golden goose.

—==+++==—

Update 2023-05-30:  We can now opine with high confidence regarding the amount of traffic Carlson was providing to Hannity and Laura Ingraham.  It was substantial in the true meaning of the word.  FOX's 8pm primetime slot is now losing to both MSNBC and CNN, and the 9pm and 10pm slots are not faring any better.  FOX News has bitten down — hard — on a cyanide pill.

Liz Wheeler, several weeks ago, hypothesized that the FOX-Carlson break spells 'the end of cable news'.  It's looking now like she was ahead of the curve.

 

Now, This Is Funny

 

A guy in Ohio put up a FaceBook page that looked suspiciously like what the Parma (OH) PD might have for their public-facing... umm... face, except that any such official page that contained the stuff that was on that page would have gotten the Mayor and the Chief of Police ridden out of town on a rail.

Naturally, the police arrested him for mocking them.  Judicial activity ensued.  Lots of judicial activity.  So much that it is now wending its way toward The Supreme Court of the United States™ ®U.S.Pat.Ofc.

It is now at the stage of a petition for certiorari, and thus there are amicus curiae (friend of the court) briefs.

The Onion has weighed in on the issue with its own brief that you should go read.

The most serious part of the whole thing is this:

The petition for certiorari should be granted, the rights of the people vindicated, and various historical wrongs remedied.  The Onion would welcome any one of the three, particularly the first.

The rest of it is screamingly funny, and all of the citations and footnotes are true.

—==+++==—

Update Oct 29, 2022:  The Babylon Bee has added its voice to the hue and cry for a writ.  While not as funny (or as timely) as that of The Onion, It nevertheless makes some good points, especially that getting acquitted of such a criminal charge is both (a) "cold comfort", and (b) not guaranteed.

 

Free Speech

 

Recently, we have been witness to several instances where right-leaning speakers invited to address the student body at prestigious institutions of higher learning (Yale, Harvard, Princeton among others) have been shouted down by activist students to the extent that the speakers have been unable to do the task for which they had been invited.  In more than one case, police were necessary to ensure the safety of the speakers and whisked the visitors away from danger.  In response, this week a number of federal judges announced that they would henceforth not hire law clerks from the Yale population.  I suspect it's likely this prohibition will soon extend to other law schools as well.

Free speech is the sine qua non of a democratic society.  Without the ability to question dogma, progress halts.  This seems not to be a concept well understood by many current college students, and that flaw has not been eradicated by the faculties or administrations of those colleges.  One must assume, therefore, that the faculties and administrations share the activists' disdain for hearing opinions they find offensive.

If that is not true, those universities have precious little time left to salvage what remains of their reputations.  They may want to and yet be unable to imagine a path out of this swamp.  For any such institutions, here is a modest proposal for working your way clear:

1. Every student should be issued a picture-ID and be required to have that device visible on their person at all times while they are on campus, and to present it to campus police on demand.
   
   
2. No one can be admitted to any campus event without displaying their student ID or a visitor badge obtained for the purpose.
   
   
3. When campus police have to be called to the scene of a student riot — that's what these events are — the CPs collect the IDs of all the unruly participants.  Having your student ID thus confiscated must be seen as a prelude to expulsion.
   
   
4. Involved visitors should be cited for trespassing and permanently banned from the campus.

Until the management of these institutions make it clear that uncivilized behavior will not be tolerated, uncivilized behavior will occur.  It's as simple as that.  Colleges and universities must make the choice either to coddle their students or to preserve their reputations.

 

Media and banks as censorship tools

 

The government is forbidden, via the First amendment, to censor the speech (written or oral) of citizens.  Recently, there was an incident where some government operative suggested that the federal government ask prominent media companies (Google, Twitter, FaceBook, &c.) to put a stop to (that is: censor) 'misinformation'.  Opinion on this issue fell into two rough categories.  One side opined that this should be illegal since government was effectively doing an end run around the First amendment.  The other side asserts that those media companies are non-government corporations and are not bound by the First amendment, and can thus censor or not, as they see fit.

A similar public-private partnership involving banks and other financial operators was used during the Obama years to put the squeeze on gun manufacturers and sellers.

Which side do you come down on?

Back on February 3rd, I pointed out that corporations are 'creatures of the state' and have no more authority to censor anyone than does their creator.  When FaceBook demonetizes one of their users or when Twitter cancels a user's account for 'violations of the terms of service', they are exercising powers the state could never have granted them — because the state never possessed those powers to begin with.

Somebody with spine and bankroll needs to sue one of these companies and let the Supreme Court rule on whether they can or cannot censor — at the behest of government or without it.