Author Archives: Dana Pico

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Journolists don’t like real journalism Reporting the unvarnished truth doesn't sit well with those who want to apply their own 'finish' to stories

No, that’s not a typo in the headline: the spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their objectivity. I use the term ‘journolism’ frequently when writing about media bias.

We have reported on, too many times to count, the fact that The Philadelphia Inquirer minimizes its reporting on homicides in the city, deliberately removing references to race in such stories. That I have frequently referred to as The Philadelphia Enquirer[1]RedState writer Mike Miller called it the Enquirer, probably by mistake, so I didn’t originate it, but, reminiscent of the National Enquirer as it is, I thought it very apt. does have its Freedom of the Press, and can report, or not report, on whatever it chooses. But it seems that the newspaper, or at least its long-time columnist, Jenice Armstrong, doesn’t like it when other members of the credentialed media exercise their Freedom of the Press! From Philadelphia magazine:

Fox 29’s Steve Keeley Under Fire From Reporters and Councilperson for Crime Coverage

“It’s embarrassing,” says one Fox 29 insider of Keeley’s reporting. Plus: What’s with my ridiculous PGW bill?

by Victor Fiorillo | Friday, March 10, 2023 | 9:13 AM EST

On Thursday, I reported on a new study about the Philadelphia media world. I pointed out that of the Philadelphia media outlets studied (and there were many), Fox 29 leads the charge by far in terms of the quantity of crime reporting on the network. I thought that would be the end of it, but then a curious thing happened.

Veteran journalists at well-established Philadelphia media outlets don’t generally stick their necks out to criticize one of their peers. (Though you may not consider me a veteran journalist or Philly Mag a well-established outlet, two points we can argue about over a PBR sometime, I’m an exception to this rule, because Philadelphia doesn’t have enough media criticism, and it needs it.) So I was surprised when two did just that.

First up was Cherri Gregg. She worked at KYW Newsradio for many years before switching over to Philadelphia’s NPR affiliate, WHYY, where you can hear her for several hours each day. Since 2021, Gregg has essentially become “the voice” of WHYY.

Gregg took to Facebook shortly after I published my story and wrote the following:

I rarely speak badly of news outlets — BUT Steve Keeley FOX 29’s coverage of crime — definitely makes me cringe. Crime coverage can be very harmful and scares people.

I have been working with my fellow Board Members at Law & Justice Journalism Project to train journalists to do better. Our crime coverage must be community centered — otherwise it can be harmful, sensationalized and disproportionate to what is really happening. AND who gets harmed?? Black and brown people… Black communities and Black men.

OK, I’m going to criticize Victor Fiorillo’s reporting here! He referenced Cherri Gregg’s Facebook statement, but a responsible reporter in an online article would have done something really radical like included the link to Miss Gregg’s posting. I was able to find it in less than a minute, screen capture it in less than another minute, and Mr Fiorillo obviously had it, so why didn’t he include the documentation?

Shouldn’t a media report on other media’s coverage not include documentation? Documentation increases credibility! And non-documentation is, to me, indicative of just plain laziness.

Meanwhile, veteran Inquirer columnist Jenice Armstrong, who previously worked for the likes of the Washington Post and the Associated Press, also had something to say. She wrote on Facebook: “His Twitter feed is also disturbing.”

Regrettably, I was unable to find that statement from Miss Armstrong, but I shouldn’t have had to have tried; Mr Fiorillo could and should have included the link.

Ah yes, his Twitter feed. Keeley’s Twitter account takes his doom-and-gloom, the city is going to hell, the junkies are everywhere approach to a completely different level. It is the Citizen app on steroids. Just have a look and you’ll see what I mean. It’s easy to see why Armstrong would find it “disturbing.”

Miss Gregg, further down in her Facebook post, told us why she was displeased with Mr Keeley’s reporting: he took it from police reports, and showed mugshots when available.

One wonders about her statement that “it is not good reporting to simply repeat police accounts/ narratives, center reporting on an alleged suspect,” when that is exactly what most Philadelphia Inquirer crime reporting — when they report on it at all — is, as I have documented here and here and here. The Inky’s own Helen Ubiñas noted the same thing, in December of 2020, though apparently before publisher Elizabeth ‘Lisa’ Hughes’ edict that the newspaper would be an “anti-racist news organization,” and the paper ceased noting the race of suspects and victims.

It’s not just Miss Gregg, or the Inquirer; a lot of media organizations have engaged in this censorship of the news that they don’t want to publish, as is the case with the McClatchy Mugshot Policy. But Steve Keeley and Fox 29 News are not censoring the news, at least not that part of it, and the liberals in the credentialed media are not at all happy about it. When Mr Keeley and Fox 29 report the unvarnished facts, Miss Gregg and Miss Anderson are appalled because they have told the whole truth, and they just can’t handle the truth.

Freedom of the Press includes the right not to read the Inky, not to listen to listen to Cherri Gregg on WHYY, not to watch Fox 29, and not to read Steve Keeley’s tweets. If someone doesn’t like the way Mr Keeley, or any of those media sources, reports the news, they are perfectly free to not read or listen or watch them. What Misses Gregg and Armstrong don’t like is that someone else is producing the information they’d like to keep hidden.

But I’ll tell another truth: while the Enquirer Inquirer deliberately censored the truth about the recent shooting of seven people in Strawberry Mansion, is there anybody who knows anything about Philly who didn’t “know” that the shooters and the victims were all black? Do Misses Gregg and Armstrong think that the people who read and listen to them don’t know what information they are trying to hide, even without Fox 29 and Mr Keeley’s tweets?

I’ll close with this thought: by withholding the information on race when it comes to crime in the City of Brotherly Love, are the liberal journolists not contributing to a perception that all crime in Philadelphia is committed by, to use the Inquirer’s usual formulation, “black and brown” people? While it’s certainly true that most crime occurs in those neighborhoods, not all crime does, and not every shooter or victim is black or Hispanic. Of the 294 shooting victims listed in the city’s shootings victims database, through Thursday, March 9, nine were non-Hispanic white males, seven were non-Hispanic white females, and two were Asian males. Yes, those are small numbers, just 6.12% of the total, but the number isn’t zero. In Philly right now, the perception is so bad that some people might think that the number for white and Asian victims is zero.

References

References
↑1 RedState writer Mike Miller called it the Enquirer, probably by mistake, so I didn’t originate it, but, reminiscent of the National Enquirer as it is, I thought it very apt.
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In which the credentialed media unwittingly destroy the transgender ideology

This was just a feel-good story in the sports section of The Philadelphia Inquirer, how a teenaged girl was competing, and having some success, in wrestling competition against boys.

Julissa Ortiz became the first girl to win a Public League wrestling title. She’s just getting started.

Julissa Ortiz was about 7 years old when her older sister wrestled a Catholic League rule to its knees. Now, at age 14, she just became the first girl to win a Public League wrestling championship.

by Aaron Carter | Friday, March 10, 2023 | 5:00 AM EST

Julissa Ortiz was about 7 years old when her older sister, Tatyana, then a freshman at Marianna Bracetti High School, inadvertently wrestled a Catholic League rule to its knees.

Last month, Julissa, who is now a freshman at Bracetti, became the first girl to win a Public League wrestling championship.

I will admit it: I sometimes wonder if these Inquirer articles for “paid subscribers only” are so restricted to keep people not exactly friendly to the newspaper’s editorial slant from seeing them. 🙂

“I feel like my sister went through a lot of roadblocks,” Julissa said before a recent practice. “When she was in high school, there were barely any girl wrestlers. When a guy saw a girl wrestler, it was like the end of the world.”

Later, she added: “I just learned to never give up and not listen to what other people say, because this is what I want to do. So I’m just going to stick with it.”

So, young Miss Ortiz has set a goal, has been working hard to achieve it, and has succeeded at some level.

Ortiz, 14, had hoped to compete in Sunday’s unsanctioned girls’ state championships at Central Dauphin High School. Last week, however, Ortiz was unable to compete in girls’ regionals after she weighed in one pound over for the 124-pound weight class.

Last month, with Tatyana, who is now 22, in attendance at the PIAA District 12 co-ed championships, Julissa won her first-round match but lost in the quarterfinals at St. Joseph’s Prep.

“For me just watching [Julissa] grow,” Tatyana said via phone, “it just makes me feel happy because I feel like I’ve done my job. I feel like I’ve shown her how to pave her own way. Even if you’re a girl battling against guys. It doesn’t matter, as long as you put the dedication in. I am so proud of her.” . . . .

And on Feb. 11, she won the Pub title in the 121-pound weight class, beating Central’s Henry Hunsicker via decision in the finals.

Hey, she beat a teenaged boy competing in the same weight class; good for her.

Also see: William Teach: GOP House Moves Legislation On Parental Rights And Banning Trans In Women’s Sports

But here’s where the Inky undermined their own agenda: the entire article on Miss Ortiz’s success is based on the fact she is a teenaged girl, occasionally wrestling against, and beating boys. In the ‘man-bites-dog’ reporting notion, her story merited a full-sized article in the sports section of the newspaper precisely because it was so unusual. It’s not as though the newspaper routinely covers high school athletics other than football and basketball, and even those infrequently.

Miss Ortiz’s competition and victories against the boys are newsworthy because no one expects it, because everyone knows that males have physical advantages over females, even of the same size, in sports requiring strength, endurance, speed, and quickness.

As of 4:08 PM EST, there was only one reader comment, one offering her congratulations. No complaints, no deleted comments noted.

UPenn Women’s Swim Team, via Instagram. It isn’t difficult to pick out the one man male in a women’s bikini top. Click to enlarge.

That certainly hasn’t been the case with the newspaper’s reports on Will Thomas, the male University of Pennsylvania swimmer who claims to be a woman and goes by the name “Lia.” As we have previously reported, the Inquirer was quick to censor reader comments — and there were several of them — which challenged the notion that Mr Thomas is a woman and should be competing against women in formal swim meets. The 6’3″ tall physically intact Mr Thomas absolutely destroyed the competition before he learned to hold back a little, to win races but not by such devastating margins.

It’s actually pretty simple: most conservatives don’t object to someone trying to step up against tougher competition, and we recognize that girls and women deciding to compete against boys and men in sports where males, overall, have a decided physical advantage over females, isn’t unfair to anyone. What we also realize is that males competing against females in women’s sports is different, is the taking advantage of male size, speed, endurance, and musculature, against women. The Inquirer would never publish an article about how some teenaged boy who wasn’t claiming to be a ‘transgender’ girl won a girls’ sports competition; the newspaper simply goes along with the ‘transgender’ ideology because the editorial and news staff are #woke journolists[1]The spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their … Continue reading who have swallowed the far-left line hook, line, and sinker.

But, every once in a while, they wind up reporting on something, something very much in the realm of common sense, which completely destroys the “LGBTQ+” meme without ever realizing what they’ve done. I am amused.

References

References
↑1 The spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their objectivity. I use the term ‘journolism’ frequently when writing about media bias.
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WW3 Watch: Plenty of good Americans are advocating sufficient NATO help for Ukraine for them to win the Russo-Ukrainian War

Patrick Frey, the Los Angeles County Assistant District Attorney who runs the blog Patterico’s Pontifications, the site which inspired me to get into blogging, is a very strong supporter of Ukraine and NATO assistance to Ukraine in its war against the Russian invasion:

Garry Kasparov Speaks on Ukraine at UCLA

Filed under: General — Patterico | Thursday, March 9, 2023 | 8:21 AM PST

The other day I had the pleasure of attending the Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture at UCLA. It was given by Garry Kasparov and addressed authoritarianism in general, and Putin and Ukraine specifically. Also in attendance were the lovely Mrs. P. and Dana — not this Dana, of course — and her husband, as well as my old friend David A. (David and Dana’s husband are somewhat less lovely on the outside but very lovely on the inside.) I also saw Eugene Volokh and my old neighbor from Marina del Rey. Everybody wanted to be there.

I wanted to highlight two things Kasparov said that I thought were important.

I responded to Patterico’s original, in a rather long comment, which I wish to use here as well to make my position clear. I have edited my comment slightly, but you can see the original here.

Our esteemed host used a line that he has previously used to criticize my position: Continue reading →

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The left say they are for democracy, but they’re really not We must do as Our Betters say, because it's for our own good!

It took a couple of Washington Post reporters to say the quiet part out loud. According to her Post biography, Lauren Weber joined newspaper in 2023 as an accountability reporter focused on the forces promoting scientific and medical disinformation. She previously investigated the decimated public health system and covid disparities for Kaiser Health News. Yeah, that’s the definition of an unbiased reporter! Joined by Joel Achenbach, they produced this gem:

Covid backlash hobbles public health and future pandemic response

Lawsuits and legislation have stripped public health officials of their powers in three years

By Lauren Weber and Joel Achenbach | Wednesday, March 8, 2023 | 6:00 AM EST

When the next pandemic sweeps the United States, health officials in Ohio won’t be able to shutter businesses or schools, even if they become epicenters of outbreaks. Nor will they be empowered to force Ohioans who have been exposed to go into quarantine. State officials in North Dakota are barred from directing people to wear masks to slow the spread. Not even the president can force federal agencies to issue vaccination or testing mandates to thwart its march.

Conservative and libertarian forces have defanged much of the nation’s public health system through legislation and litigation as the world staggers into the fourth year of covid.

If you hold your cursor on the title tab, you’ll see that the article was originally entitled “Covid lawsuits weakened public health, U.S. pandemic preparedness.” Reporters submit their articles, but editors frequently write the headlines.

But think about what Miss Weber and Mr Achenbach wrote: that “conservative and libertarian forces” — quite the liberal bugaboo there! — used “legislation and litigation” to “(defang) much of the nation’s public health system”. Legislation is the act of legislatures, the elected representatives of the people, and litigation is the use of the courts, the legal system, to bring to account actions taken which might be outside existing law. Are not both acts of democracy in a democratic system?

At least 30 states, nearly all led by Republican legislatures, have passed laws since 2020 that limit public health authority, according to a Washington Post analysis of laws collected by Kaiser Health News and the Associated Press as well as the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and the Center for Public Health Law Research at Temple University.

Health officials and governors in more than half the country are now restricted from issuing mask mandates, ordering school closures and imposing other protective measures or must seek permission from their state legislatures before renewing emergency orders, the analysis showed.

We have previously mentioned Governor Andy Beshear’s (D-KY) dictatorial orders concerning COVID-19 restrictions, and his refusal to involve the General Assembly.

Beshear was asked at Friday’s (July 10, 2020 — Editor) news conference on COVID-19 why he has not included the legislature in coming up with his orders. He said many state lawmakers refuse to wear masks and noted that 26 legislators in Mississippi have tested positive for the virus.

Though the Governor is supposedly very popular, and the public supposedly approve of his handling of COVID-19, the November elections increased Republican control over both chambers of the state legislature. The GOP increased their majority in the state Senate from 28-10 to 30-8, and in the state House of Representatives from 61-37 (with 2 vacancies) to 75-25. Both were, and again are, veto-proof majorities under the state constitution. Republicans campaigned in 2020 on reining in the Governor’s powers, and the voters of the Commonwealth apparently approved of their message.

The subsequent legislative elections, in 2022, further increased the Republicans’ majorities, to 31-7 and 80-20. As an act of democracy in the only polls that count, actual elections, it would appear that the voters approved the Republicans’ actions in the previous legislative sessions.

Of course, our Democratic Governor was appalled that the state legislature would rein him in:

Beshear has indicated he would like no approach at all. He has criticized the effort to restrict his ability to issue executive orders, painting it as a potentially “catastrophic” attempt to limit his ability to deal with COVID-19, and one that would hamstring future governors if another unforeseen emergency arrives.

“I hope when they show up, making a lot of noise, let’s take a breath, let me get on through this and afterwards, have at it,” Beshear told the Herald-Leader when asked about the legislature’s effort to limit executive power. “Then we can go to court or anything else.”

Also see: William Teach: All That Backlash To COVID Tyranny Will Make Next Pandemic Tough

As we have previously noted, the General Assembly passed the bills restricting the Governor’s emergency powers, requiring any executive orders to be approved by the legislature within thirty days or automatically lapse, which Mr Beshear vetoed, his vetoes were promptly and overwhelmingly overridden, and the Governor then went to his toady judge to file suit to overturn the legislature’s actions. It took 5½ months, but the state Supreme Court finally overruled Judge Philip Shepherd’s injunction and stated that the legislature acted within their authority.

All of that, even with the delays, was through the democratic action of a legally elected state legislature, and ruled on by legally elected judges.

That, of course, appalls Miss Weber and Mr Achenbach!

The movement to curtail public health powers successfully tapped into a populist rejection of pandemic measures following widespread anger and confusion over the government response to covid. Grass-roots-backed candidates ran for county commissions and local health boards on the platform of dismantling health departments’ authority. Republican legislators and attorneys general, religious liberty groups and the legal arms of libertarian think tanks filed lawsuits and wrote new laws modeled after legislation promoted by groups such as the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative, corporate-backed influence in statehouses across the country.

I just love that paragraph! The authors note a “populist rejection of pandemic measures”, “Grass-roots-backed candidates”, “Republican legislators and attorneys general, religious liberty groups and the legal arms of libertarian think tanks”, and “groups such as the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative, corporate-backed influence in statehouses”, all examples of public opinion in democratic action.

The Alabama legislature barred businesses from requiring proof of coronavirus vaccination. In Tennessee, officials cannot close churches during a state of emergency. Florida made it illegal for schools to require coronavirus vaccinations.

We were critical, from the very beginning, of the authoritarian dictates of so many of our nation’s governors when the COVID-19 scare first erupted.

On March 19, 2020 Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) unconstitutionally ordered all churches closed in the Bluegrass State. That order covered the Easter holiday, the most important day in the Christian calendar. When a couple of churches ignored the Governor’s order, he sent the Kentucky State Police to record license plates and vehicle identification numbers on vehicles in church parking lots, on Easter Sunday!

Two federal judges ruled against the Governor, allowing churches to reopen, but they did not rule until May 8, 2020.

The result, public health experts warn, is a battered patchwork system that makes it harder for leaders to protect the country from infectious diseases that cross red and blue state borders.

Well, it will certainly make it hard for dictators to take action! In states like Kentucky, the Governor can issue executive orders, but he has to call the General Assembly into a special session — if they are not already in session — to approve the orders if they are to extend beyond thirty days. That almost sounds, you know, reasonable!

“One day we’re going to have a really bad global crisis and a pandemic far worse than covid, and we’ll look to the government to protect us, but it’ll have its hands behind its back and a blindfold on,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. “We’ll die with our rights on — we want liberty but we don’t want protection.”

There was a rather famous Virginian by the name of Patrick Henry who said something about liberty.

There’s a lot more at the Post’s original, and if you are stymied by the Post’s paywall, you can read the whole thing for free here. But what you will be reading is a thinly-veiled defense of authoritarianism, of allowing Our Betters the power to tell us what we must do and cannot do in the event of the next panicdemic.

No, that’s not a typographical error: I spelled it to indicate exactly what I thought it to be.

The cited article is not listed as an opinion piece, but the authors’ opinions are very, very obvious. That quiet part they said out loud? That we must sit down and shut up, and be ruled by the left.
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Also posted on American Free News Network. Check out American Free News Network for more well written and well reasoned conservative commentary.

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There are still a few customers without electricity in Kentucky

We noted on Monday that thousands and thousands of Kentuckians were still without electricity following the previous Friday’s major windstorms. These weren’t in the mountains of Appalachia, but in the flatter, and wealthier, parts of central and western Kentucky.

Well, guess what? It’s Wednesday evening, and while the number of customers without electricity has certainly dwindled, it hasn’t reached zero yet.

Updated: Will power be restored in Kentucky on Wednesday? Here’s what KU says

by Christopher Leach | Wednesday, March 8, 2023 | 11:24 AM EST

Power restoration efforts in Fayette County along with all of Kentucky are expected to be mostly completed by Wednesday evening, according to Daniel Lowry with LG&E and KU.

The company previously said it expected to have power restored to everyone in Lexington and Louisville by 11 p.m. Wednesday. Lowry said there will likely be some customers without power Thursday morning but most everyone affected by Friday’s major windstorm should get power back by Wednesday evening.

Lowry added that if a resident doesn’t have power by Wednesday evening, it’s because the circuit they’re on was heavily damaged from the storm, which was determined to be the third largest weather event in LG&E and KU’s in the last 20 years, according to Lowry.

According to Lowry, 760 poles were broken from the storm. LG&E and KU also received reports of 3,400 wires down due to the storm.

There’s more at the original.

I probably wouldn’t have written on this, until I saw this story from William Teach of The Pirate’s Cove:

Surprise: Government Inefficiency Slowing Up IRA Spending On Electric Lines

By William Teach | March 8, 2023 | 10:30 AM EST

Not only is the Inflation Reduction Act not reducing inflation, it’s being jammed up because government is slow. And, guess which party is represented the most in the federal and state governments?

Biden’s climate chief: ‘Delays and bottlenecks’ slowing IRA spending

U.S. President Joe Biden’s top climate advisor says the United States needs to build electricity lines at double the current pace, blaming a sluggish permitting process for delaying vital arteries for the nation’s clean energy transition.

“On average, interstate gas pipelines that require environmental impact statements are approved nearly twice as fast as transmission lines requiring the same,” John Podesta told energy executives at the CERAWeek by S&P Global conference on Monday. “We don’t have that time.” (snip)

However, when it comes to building new electricity lines and other projects, he describes a permitting process “plagued by delays and bottlenecks.”

“Plenty of delays happen at the state and local levels, and those need to be addressed. But there is plenty that we can do and must do federally,” Podesta said, adding that he and U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm are tracking the pace of more than 20 key electricity transmission projects.

There’s more at the original.

While needing government permits to restore previously existing service isn’t slowing down Kentucky Utilities and Louisville Gas and Electric, I’m old enough to remember when rural electrification was still a thing. No one needed any stinkin’ permits, just string them wires up and get ‘lectricity to the country folks!

But now, as the Biden Administration wants us to electrify our utilities, to get rid of natural gas and propane and heating oil for heating, water heating, and cooking, and to replace gasoline-and-diesel-powered vehicles with plug-in electrics, were going to need a lot more electric capacity, both in generation and transmission. Yet since the 1960s, there have been federal, state, and local regulations designed to preserve nature as much as possible, and putting up power poles and stringing more wires is going to come into conflict with all of that. You can count on thousands of lawsuits seeking to delay additional transmission wiring from the usual suspects.

Unless the new wiring is put underground, a much more expensive and time consuming process, the new wires will be just as vulnerable to severe weather as existing service. We noted in Monday’s article that it wasn’t that cold in the Bluegrass State then, but the weather changed on Tuesday. Monday’s high in the mid 70s turned into highs in the lower 50s, and freezing temperatures overnight, temperature ranges which are normal for this time of year in the Bluegrass State.

Unless there are further problems, KU and LG&E should have power restored to all customers on Thursday, but that still leaves the problem that future storms will knock out power again and again and again.

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The Philadelphia Inquirer: using grammar to avoid telling the whole truth

Writers attempt to communicate with the written word, and decent writers should know at least something about grammar, to ply their trade most efficiently. One important concept in grammar is the difference between the comparative and the superlative.

Comparatives vs. Superlatives

Published October 7, 2019

Not all things are created equal: some are good, others are better, and only the cream of the crop rise to the level of best. These three words—good, better, and best—are examples of the three forms of an adjective or adverb: positive, comparative, and superlative. . . . .

There are a few irregular adjectives and adverbs. For those, you must memorize how these change the spelling of their positive form to show comparative and superlative degrees.

Some common irregular adjectives are good, better, best and bad, worse, worst.

Some have more than one option: little can become littler or less (comparative), and littlest or least (superlative). Many, some, or much become more in the comparative and most in the superlative.

It was this paragraph which caught my attention, in the main editorial in this morning’s Philadelphia Inquirer. Any decent writer understands that he shouldn’t use the same word twice in a sentence if possible, so when the Editorial Board wrote that “too many residents endure,” the following should be “where most, but not all, the shootings occur.” Continue reading →

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Killadelphia

I suspect that Philadelphia Inquirer staff writer Stephanie Farr doesn’t normally write the crime reports, but simply drew the weekend assignment. But the City of Brotherly Love had a bloody, bloody weekend, and Miss Farr wound up being the reporter who had to write about it. Then, when I saw her Inky bio at the bottom of the article, in which she wrote, “I write about what makes Philly weird, wild, and wonderfully unique,” I found the irony inescapable. But, I must at the very least, give her props for using the Oxford comma!

Five people were killed in seven shootings across Philly in an eight-hour span this weekend

A 14-year-old is among the weekend’s homicide victims. At least 76 people have been killed in the city this year in just 64 days.

by Stephanie Farr | Sunday, March 5, 2023

A 14-year-old walking with his friends in Overbrook and a mother whose young child brought a gun he found on the street into their home were among seven people shot in an eight-hour period between Saturday night and Sunday morning in Philadelphia, according to police.

Five of the victims died, including the teen. The mother, whose shooting appears accidental, remains in stable condition, police said.

The shootings come less than a week after activists held a march against gun violence in Strawberry Mansion, following the shooting of seven people, including five teens and a 2-year-old, on Feb. 23 near the James G. Blaine School.

As the Inquirer also reported, parents of students at Building 21, West Oak Lane High School, are incensed that those students have been reassigned to Strawberry Mansion High School due to an asbestos problem at Building 21. Nobody wants anything to do with Strawberry Mansion if they can help it, because it’s just plain unsafe. Another story Monday afternoon reported that only 28 out of 390 Building 21 students showed up at Strawberry Mansion.

As of Sunday afternoon, at least 76 people have been killed in Philadelphia this year in a span of just 64 days, according to police statistics.

Sadly enough, Miss Farr’s report is already out-of-date: the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page now has 79 homicides as of 11:59 PM EST on March 5th, 79 homicides in 64 days, or 1.2344 per day.

As a daily average, 1.2344 homicides per day yields ‘just’ 451 for the year, but in Philly’s deadliest year, 2021, the 83 homicides as of the 64th day worked out to ‘only’ 473 murders . . . and the city saw 562 killings that year. Warmer weather brings out more gunfire, and Philly is on a clear path to another year of more than 500 people being sent untimely to their eternal rewards.

Yeah, Philly’s law enforcement trio of Mayor Jim Kenney, District Attorney Larry Krasner, and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw are sure doing, to use a Kentucky expression from the 1960s, a fine, fine, super fine job!

“I also fight for Philly’s honor against all of its haters,” Miss Farr included in her bio. Well, Philadelphia’s haters are the ones roaming the city’s mean streets, killing other Philadelphians.

One of the comments was from someone styling himself only as T, who wrote:

Let me get this straight. The city got tore up for a career violent criminal, Walter Wallace. Got tore up for a career violent criminal, George Floyd. But when a 14 y/o presumably innocent kid gets murdered, the residents don’t even talk about it. Can someone make it make sense?

“(P)resumably innocent kid”? If the “residents don’t even talk about it,” perhaps they didn’t see him as all that innocent. With 27 rounds fired, this was clearly a targeted hit, and people get targeted for killing for real reasons. Those reasons may not make any real sense, but who knows what they are?

This, Miss Farr, is what leads people to trash Philadelphia. Philly is a wonderful and historic city, founded in 1682 by William Penn.

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The electricity is out in parts of the Bluegrass State

On Friday, March 3rd, a severe windstorm blew through the Bluegrass State. There was some serious damage in several places, but though we had some pretty high winds near where I live, our farm suffered no damage at all. The road leading to our farm saw some trees downed, and one of the parishioners at our church said that her son had seen the roof blown off of his farm equipment storage shed, but, overall, it wasn’t too bad for us.

Then I saw the tweet screen captured on the right.

We didn’t lose power at the farm. It flickered a time or two, but that was it. We did lose the internet for about half an hour.

When I saw Evelyn Schultz’s tweet, I figured that I’d get a more detailed story from what my best friend used to call the Lexington Herald-Liberal, so I went to their website. Following a real belly-laugh at the website opening, in which a daily, except for Saturday, newspaper had a heading which still said it was March 3rd, which I screen captured here at 8:10 AM EST on Monday, March 6th, I found this one:

Updated: Major power outages persist across Kentucky. KU explains long Lexington outages

By Taylor Six | Sunday, March 5, 2023 | 9:05 PM EST

More than 100,000 customers throughout Kentucky were still without power Sunday evening as a result of a Friday windstorm – which one power company labeled as the third most damaging weather event in 20 years for their services.

According to the Kentucky Utilities website, Friday’s weather impacted more than 300,000 customers across their service area and brought down 2,500 power lines. It also broke more than 230 utility poles. This windstorm ranks behind the 2009 ice storm and the 2008 windstorm in terms of the number of customers affected and total system impact.

“We have every resource responding to this event, including an additional 1,500 resources from other utilities,” KU said on its website.

As of 10:30 a.m. Sunday, 70,000 KU & LGE customers were still without power statewide, according to Daniel Lowry, a spokesman for KU. In Lexington, he said about 38,000 were still without power.

Read more here.

As I have mentioned several times previously, electricity is our most vulnerable-to-the-weather utility. Water, sewer and natural gas utilities are run through underground pipes, but electricity is delivered via overhead wires. Even in the newer subdivisions in which electric lines are buried, power comes to substations via overhead wires.

The propane fireplace that is our secondary heat source. It sure is nice on really cold days.

Now, it’s not that cold this morning; my weather station told me that it was 38.8º Fahrenheit at 8:00 this morning, but it was slightly below freezing yesterday, at 30.1º F. I’m guessing that by Sunday morning, the people without power and who depended on electric water heaters, weren’t able to enjoy hot showers in the morning, weren’t able to have a hot breakfast if they had an electric range, and were pretty heavily bundled up in their own homes if they depend on electricity for heat. That, after all, happened to me in early March of 2018,[1]Working from memory, I have previously said that it was January of 2018, but I recently looked at my 2018 diary, and found out that it was actually March 12-15, 2018. when the sparktricity failed for 4½ days following a heavy snow-and-ice storm. Since we were remodeling anyway, we added a propane range, water heater, and fireplace, so if the power fails again, we’ll still have heat, hot water, and cooked meals.

But remember: the Biden Administration wants people to get rid of natural gas utilities and depend exclusively on electricity, all to fight global warming climate change!

It’s March, and with the arrival of meteorological spring, temperatures aren’t bitterly cold in the Bluegrass State. But winter weather is still persisting in large parts of the United States, in the inland west, the northern midwest, and New England. people in those regions, when the power fails, can face life-threatening conditions. More, it isn’t always spring when the power is down; it can happen at any time, including the depths of winter. What the climate activists want is for people to just plain die, because that would be the result of a multi-day power outage in upstate New York or Minnesota or Denver if the left get their way. The truth is simple: they really don’t give a damn about the people!

References

References
↑1 Working from memory, I have previously said that it was January of 2018, but I recently looked at my 2018 diary, and found out that it was actually March 12-15, 2018.
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WWIII Watch: New York Times OpEd says only way for Ukraine to win quickly is for full NATO weapons and troops deployment

My good friend William Teach pointed me to an OpEd in The New York Times. And yes, I stole borrowed the image at the right from him!

America Is In Over Its Head

By Thomas Meaney | Thursday, March 2, 2023

The greatest blunder President Vladimir Putin may have made so far in Ukraine is giving the West the impression that Russia could lose the war. The early Russian strike on Kyiv stumbled and failed. The Russian behemoth seemed not nearly as formidable as it had been made out to be. The war suddenly appeared as a face-off between a mass of disenchanted Russian incompetents and supercharged, savvy Ukrainian patriots.

Such expectations naturally ratcheted up Ukrainian war aims. President Volodymyr Zelensky was once a member of the peace-deal camp in Ukraine. “Security guarantees and neutrality, non-nuclear status of our state. We are ready to go for it,” he declared one month into the conflict. Now he calls for complete victory: the reconquering of every inch of Russian-occupied territory, including Crimea. Polls indicate that Ukrainians will settle for nothing less. As battles rage across Donetsk and Luhansk, Ukraine’s leaders and some of their Western backers are already dreaming of Nuremberg-style trials of Mr. Putin and his inner circle in Moscow.

Can we tell the truth here? The only way that there could be “Nuremberg-style trials” of Vladimir Putin and his minions is if Russian forces were not only pushed all the way out of Ukraine, but Vladimir Putin’s government fell, and was completely replaced by, if not Western democrats, strongly anti-Putin forces. This means not just Ukraine retaining its sovereignty, but Russia being wholly defeated. Continue reading →