Outrage of the day

The St. Paul Saints are the Minnesota Twins’ minor league affiliate across the river. Dating to 1992 in its current incarnation, the Saints were owned by Marv Goldklang, Mike Veeck, and Bill Murray and independent of major league baseball. The Saints have since become the top minor league Twins affiliate and, as of last year, been sold to Diamond Baseball Holdings. As you might guess from the Veeck and Murray names among the original ownership, there is a large element of show-business fun seeded in the team’s DNA: “We’re talking baby pig mascots, massages from nuns, a game with no umpires and bring your dog to the stadium night, among other things.”

Speaking of baby pig mascots, we are relieved to learn that the tradition continues under the Saints’ new ownership. The baby pig delivers baseballs and provide refreshments for umpires. The pig’s name is chosen by team staff in a contest sponsored by the Star Tribune. The name is part of the fun. Staff selected this year’s winning entry — OzemPig — from a record-setting field of 2,300 entries.

The team announced the winner in a light-hearted release that recounted names past. Students of history may appreciate this review:

During the previous 31 seasons, the Saints have had a pig mascot and each has had a unique name. Many of the names play on hot topics of the year, current events, or Minnesota legends. Last season, the Saints no-nonsense pig Mud Grant took the reins in the first half followed by the pig looking to take over the world, Squealon Musk. The first season of the two pigs was in 2022 with 867530Swine during the first half of the season followed by Chop Gun: MaveRib. In the first season as the Twins Triple-A affiliate in 2021 they found a pig that could fly, Space Ham. During the pandemic year they made sure the pig went into lockdown with This Little Piggy Stayed Home. In 2019 the championship drought ender was Daenerys Hoggaryen. In 2018 the Saints struck a chord with the younger generation with Porknite. The year before that they tested the political waters with Alternative Fats. In 2016 the Saints honored one of the most iconic artists with Little Red Porkette. During the first season at CHS Field [their new stadium] the Saints paid homage to Lowertown artists they went with Pablo Pigasso. In 2014 the Saints received the Colboar bump with Stephen Colboar. The 2012 season saw two mascots for the first time: Kim Lardashian and Kris Hamphries. Past names have included Mackleboar (2013), Brat Favre (2010), Slumhog Millionaire (2009), Boarack Ohama (2008), Notorious P.I.G. – Piggy Smalls (2003) and Kevin Bacon (2001).

OzemPig’s winning name has triggered outrage that the Star Tribune finds worthy of coverage, although it buries its sponsorship of the naming contest in its story on it. As the subhead puts it, “Commenters have accused the team of body-shaming on social media.”

That’s the kind of complaint that must strike deep at the Star Tribune. How insensitive can you get? The Pig Contest, as the Saints call it, may soon present a sponsorship opportunity for some enterprise that can withstand the heat generated by this controversy.

The Scourge of Whiteness

St. Louis Park, Minnesota, used to have very good public schools. I suppose it was a matter of demographics: the suburb was, at one time, referred to as “St. Jewish Park.” But those days are long gone. Today the St. Louis Park school district is in the hands of the same kinds of morons who generally run our public schools. Minnesotan David Strom has the story:

The Saint Louis Park School District, located in the suburbs of Minneapolis, is hiring an assistant superintendent to “examine the presence of Whiteness” in the district.

It’s a good gig, paying between $134,000 and $201,000.


But it would be more plausible to say that the problem is an absence of whiteness:

Enrollment of White students has been dropping, with only 53% of the students being White, and as they have fled to other districts, the problem of White Supremacy has gotten worse, leading to horrible test scores.

Funny how that happens. The fewer whites, the more white supremacy.

It’s a troubling thing, to see how Whiteness is harming minority students, and the district is working hard to root it out. As the student body and staff become less White, Whiteness has become an increasing problem.

No doubt testing is a White concept too, so perhaps eliminating measurement of student performance will help improve student success rates.

David isn’t kidding. That is exactly what left-wing school boards and administrators have in mind. This is how hard the district is trying to root out white supremacy:

[T]he job description indicates that the role will have a very particular focus. The first sentence of the position’s summary says, “the Assistant Superintendent proactively supports the Superintendent to create and communicate anti-racist structures and systems, works to interrupt systems of oppression, and serves as a role model for culturally relevant pedagogy.”

The school district continues its summary of the position by saying the assistant superintendent must be “unwaveringly committed to anti-racist actions and use data to adapt and sustain their efforts towards racial equity to plan, direct, and coordinate action to achieve the mission and strategic objectives.”

I will hazard a guess that the percentage of white students in the St. Louis Park public schools will continue to plummet, that as a consequence White Supremacy will be rampant, and the schools will get worse and worse. The only sane response is to flee the public schools.

A Story of Torture and Sexual Abuse

In the New York Times, an Israeli lawyer named Amit Soussana describes how she was kidnapped by up to ten Gazans, dragged into Gaza, and was tortured and subject to sexual abuse while held as a captive. It is now-familiar, but horrifying story:

The kidnappers attempted to restrain her by beating her and wrapping her in a white fabric, the video shows. Unable to subdue her, the attackers tried and failed to carry her by bicycle, she said. Finally, they bound her hands and feet and dragged her across the bumpy farmland into Gaza, she said.
***
After several minutes, they used duct tape to cover her mouth and nose, tied her feet, and placed the handcuffs on the base of her palms, she said. Then she was suspended, hanging “like a chicken” from a stick stretching between two couches, causing her such pain that she felt that her hands would soon be dislocated.

They carried on beating and kicking her, focusing on the soles of her feet, while simultaneously demanding information they believed she was hiding from them, Ms. Soussana said.
***
He dragged her at gunpoint back to the child’s bedroom, a room covered in images of the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants, she recalled.

“Then he, with the gun pointed at me, forced me to commit a sexual act on him,” Ms. Soussana said.

It is a long story, and some might be surprised that the left-wing Times is willing to print it. The Times reached out to Gazan authorities for comment:

A spokesman for Hamas, Basem Naim…cast doubt on Ms. Soussana’s account, questioning why she had not spoken publicly about the extent of her mistreatment.

Well, she has.

He said the level of detail in her account makes “it difficult to believe the story, unless it was designed by some security officers.”

A novel approach to evaluating witness credibility.

“For us, the human body, and especially that of the woman, is sacred,” he said, adding that Hamas’s religious beliefs “forbade any mistreatment of any human being, regardless of his sex, religion or ethnicity.”

Right. Actually, Gazans have publicly gloried in the abuse of Israeli captives. And the murders, rapes and other outrages committed on October 7 are well documented, largely by proud Gazans who filmed and boasted about them. So this falls into the category of lies that are strictly pro forma, and not told with any expectation that anyone will believe them.

America’s Dumbest Man? [Updated]

I know, I know. But let’s assume Joe Biden has been given a Lifetime Achievement Award and is no longer eligible. In that case, I think Pete Buttigieg is a contender:


By the way, the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge reminds us how fortunate we are that Buttigieg doesn’t have anything to do with transportation.

UPDATE: The Babylon Bee comments:

The Daily Chart: Immigration and Crime in Europe

From MSN:

Report Shows Higher Conviction Rates for Muslim Immigrants in Denmark Compared to Natives

Recent revelations based on data from Statistics Denmark shed light on a concerning trend: immigrants and their descendants in Denmark were convicted of violent crimes at a significantly higher rate than individuals of Danish origin between 2010 and 2021.

The statistics paint a stark picture, particularly for young men from predominantly Muslim nations in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). They emerged as the demographic most frequently convicted, with a glaring disparity in cases such as rape, where their conviction rate exceeded that of native Danes by over sevenfold. . .

Analysis conducted by the Patterns in Humanity Substack reveals alarming trends. Immigrants and their descendants from countries like Kuwait, Tunisia, and Somalia were, on average, eight times more likely to be convicted of violent crimes during the specified period in Denmark. Even after adjusting for demographic factors such as age and sex, this ratio remained strikingly high at six to one.

Here’s the chart:

Denmark is unique among European nations in having a classification system for immigrants based on their origin, categorizing them into “western” and “non-western” groups. Most governments don’t want to know this information, starting with our own.

Loose Ends (248)

• I have a vivid recollection of watching the first debate in the 2000 fall election between Vice President Al Gore and Gov. George W. Bush, when Gore made a claim about having visited Texas with the director of FEMA after a major wildfire. I noticed Gov. Bush suddenly had a puzzled look in his face, and I filed a mental note: “Gore just told a fabrication of some kind.”

Sure enough, Gore’s story was not even close to accurate. (And he didn’t have the excuse that he’s an elderly man with a faulty memory. . .) The media began reporting that Gore seemed to have a problem with the truth, and was guilty of frequent “embellishments.” The Washington Post reported at the time:

What might seem like a small discrepancy has been magnified because Gore has a history of similar embellishments. As long ago as 1988, Gore staff members urgently counseled him to stick to the precise truth in describing his accomplishments, and from that time onward, his opponents—Democrats as well as Republicans—have seen Gore’s storytelling as a possible Achilles’ heel. . .

This truth-telling issue first began to haunt Gore when he ran for president, at 39, in 1988. Reporters were struck by the fact that Gore, a senator and former congressman, described himself as a farmer and home-builder. The farm was a 20-acre patch in Tennessee, where cows were trucked in to provide a backdrop for his announcement speech, while the home-building enterprise was an investment he apparently spent little time managing.

I have several times before remarked on the neediness of liberals to exaggerate their status and awesomeness, and believe it is related to the poverty of their insatiable ideology and the psychology peculiar to liberals in public life. But right now I wonder: when is the mainstream media ever going to start reporting prominently that Joe Biden is—and always has been—a dishonest serial liar.

Monday Scott noted the Free Beacon report that one of Biden’s boasts about his early legal work is a certain fabrication, and yesterday, in commenting on the collision that brought down the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore overnight, Biden said he had been over the bridge many times commuting to DC from Delaware “by train or by car.” But the bridge doesn’t have any rail lines.

Victory over Communism!

Berkeley To Repeal Natural Gas Ban, Probably Because the Courts Are Forcing Them To

After a lawsuit for the California Restaurant Association, that group says the City of Berkeley is going to repeal their ban on natural gas in new buildings that went into effect in 2020.

Back in 2019, the City of Berkeley became the first city in the nation to ban natural gas pipelines in new buildings, and that law went into effect on January 1, 2020.

It did not stay in effect for long. The ban, which is largely characterized as a fight over emissions from gas stoves, but also involves furnaces and water heaters, was struck down by an appeals court last April.

The problem with satire, someone once said, is that it has to compete with the newspapers, and the newspapers are winning. This thought came to mind with Andrew Doyle’s (better known on X as “Titania McGrath”) latest post on his Substack, “The Prophecies of Titania McGrath.” Doyle notes one of “Titania’s” mischievous thoughts in the collection Woke: A Guide to Social Justice is:

“Capitalism, after all, is a singularly male phenomenon. The ultimate symbol of capitalism, the skyscraper, is nothing more than a giant cock on the horizon, fucking the heavens.”

Behold The Guardian 16 months later:

This isn’t the only example of Titania’s remarkable record of prophecy about where wokery would go next. Read the whole thing.

Sorry, wrong number

Karine Jean-Pierre dropped in for an outside-the-beltway visit on local radio in advance of President Biden’s rare joint appearance yesterday with Vice President Harris in Raleigh (White House text of their remarks here). In the audio clip below, KJP’s radio hosts ask about Biden’s mental decline and the obvious effects of Bidenomics. KJP treats the hosts with indignant incredulity before she abruptly hangs up. Was it something they said?