Worth Knowing, Probably Not Quite Threadworthy 8/21

[SVPete]

QotD: George Bernard Shaw’s role as Stalin’s useful idiot

https://quotulatiousness.ca/blog/qotd-george-bernard-shaws-role-as-stalins-useful-idiot/

George Bernard Shaw stood in Stalin’s USSR in 1931, watching millions starve to death, and declared there was no famine at all. The Nobel Prize-winning playwright didn’t just stay silent about the horror unfolding around him. He actively promoted the lie that would help Stalin cover up one of history’s greatest atrocities.

Shaw toured Ukraine during the height of the Holodomor, when Soviet grain requisitions had stripped peasants of every scrap of food. Conservative estimates put the death toll at 3.5 million Ukrainians. Shaw saw the empty villages, the skeletal survivors, the mass graves. Then he signed a public letter praising Stalin’s “remarkable progress” and told Western journalists that reports of famine were capitalist propaganda.

Why would an intelligent man become Stalin’s useful idiot? Shaw believed in central planning with religious fervor. He thought brilliant intellectuals like himself could design society better than millions of individuals making their own choices. When confronted with central planning’s inevitable result (mass death), he chose to lie rather than admit his ideology killed people. Shaw preferred beautiful theory to ugly facts.

The NYT's Walter Duranty was not Stalin's only ghoulish liar-shill.

[RonE]

He thought brilliant intellectuals like himself could design society better than millions of individuals making their own choices.

An ongoing problem. What did Thomas Sowell say? An idea so stupid only an intellectual would believe it.

[SVPete]

Former Alabama player Kai Spears wins $9.25M from NY Times defamation case

https://www.tuscaloosanews.com/story/sports/college/2026/08/21/kai-spears-wins-9-25m-defamation-verdict-against-new-york-times/91402335007/

An Alabama jury has awarded former Alabama basketball player Kai Spears $9.25 million after finding The New York Times defamed him by incorrectly linking him to the 2023 killing of Jamea Harris in Tuscaloosa.

The eight-person federal jury reached its verdict Thursday following a nine-day trial.

Spears sued the Times in 2023 after the newspaper reported that he was a passenger in a vehicle involved in the shooting.

The report was wrong. The passenger was an Alabama basketball team member, not Spears.

The Times later corrected the story and acknowledged the error.

Setting my antipathy for the NYT on the shelf, this case is somewhat of a close call:

* The NYT corrected their error, though two months later and after Spears sued;

* The NYT published a single annoymorous claim, following publish now, correct later, "journalism"; Spears was - and still is - exposed to attack by persons angered by shooting who do not know - or care - that the NYT's initial report was wrong; if MSM outlets won't stop their publish now, correct later, "journalism" of their own accord - you know, honesty - it needs to become very expensive from cases like this.

Because this case is an example of a pattern of carelessness and dishonesty, I hope the NYT loses and loses lots of $$ in the process of losing.

[SVPete]

Angel Dad Joins ICE on a ‘Deeply Personal’ Mission

https://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2026/08/21/angel-dad-joins-ice-with-deeply-personal-mission-n4956385

A father who lost his daughter to an illegal alien criminal and faced total indifference from the Democrats who run the sanctuary state of Illinois is now joining Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to secure a national platform for spreading his message.

The ICE Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) office has a new leader in Joe Abraham, father of Katie Abraham. Katie was a college student who died with her friend Chloe Polzin in January 2025, when drunk Guatemalan illegal alien Julio Cucul-Bol caused a deadly accident. Since then, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Joe Biden, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), and other Democrats — who shriek and wail whenever the Trump administration arrests illegal aliens — have assiduously ignored or downplayed the suffering of the Abraham family.

So now Joe Abraham will be a voice — or VOICE — at ICE, speaking up for victims of illegal alien crime.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stated that there is “no one better” to head up ICE’s VOICE office than Abraham. As a “staunch advocate” for victims of sanctuary policies ever since his daughter died, Abraham “will continue to help families who have lost a loved one to a preventable tragedy caused by open-border policies,” DHS announced on Wednesday.

"Get over it, " doesn't happen. Hopefully he helps families get though their "it" as others at ICE work at "it" prevention.

[SVPete]

Boomity! US Government Fires Back for Censorship of Professor Who Exposed Arday

https://hotair.com/david-strom/2026/08/21/boomity-us-government-fires-back-for-censorship-of-professor-who-exposed-arday-n3818237

The Jason Arday story keeps getting worse, and better.

When the story first hit, I didn't expect to wind up writing a bunch of posts about it; to me, it was interesting because it exposed the fundamental corruption of DEI ideology and, of course, the institutions captured by it.

True enough, as far as that went, but as the story unfolded, the depth and breadth of that corruption just grew and grew, as did the efforts to defend the indefensible. I shouldn't be surprised, of course, because I write about these topics separately all the time, but just about every single issue I write about regularly, save gender ideology, is all wrapped up in this one tight little ball of a story.
...
Like Richard Dawkins, I find it especially noteworthy that this all took place at Cambridge University; if it were an obscure university or community college, it would have been a laughing matter. But Cambridge is at the top of the academic pyramid, and it declared Jason Arday at the very top of its pyramid of intellectual leading lights.
...
And the body that is dying is not Cambridge, which is merely a few cells in the grey matter of that brain. It is the entire academic elite, which is a subset of the cultural and political elite of Western society. Western culture itself is dying, and the cancer is Critical Theory.

There is now a movement to create "Arday's Law," which would punish people for discussing scandals like this too much, and it has the support of UK elites and backers like Amnesty International.

Thousands of protesters have gathered to celebrate the life and chant the names of his "accusers" to shame them for...telling the truth. Some are baying for blood, and Ghent University in Belgium has suspended the professor who originally revealed (in public) the plagiarism that set this in motion. I say "in public" because, in reality, all the major players already knew Arday was a fraud, and they helped him perpetrate it.

This is where the U.S. State Department comes in, and it is only doing so thanks to Marco Rubio having a backbone made of titanium and a moral sense that is usually absent in anybody who reaches the heights of power.

The United States Mission to Belgium condemns, in the strongest terms, Ghent University’s retaliation against an American scholar following his accurate whistleblower reporting on academic fraud.

The United States government regularly funds and supports research, academic exchanges, and other engagements with overseas universities.  Dishonest, corrupt institutions that engage in, or reward, scapegoating mob behavior are not desirable partners for us.  This is particularly true where the purpose and effect of the scapegoating is to punish accurate journalism unearthing academic dishonesty.  We are therefore reviewing any relationships we have with Ghent University.