BIDEN CLAIMS A LOT OF THINGS WITH NO CONNECTION TO REALITY: Biden Claims We Are In Competition With China, Not Conflict.
HIRING FOR ANY REASON OTHER THAN COMPETENCE, OVER TIME DESTROYS COMPETENCE: Competence is dead and diversity killed it.
WE’LL SHOW THEM PRECISELY THE RESPECT AND DECORUM THEY SHOWED TRUMP. PRECISELY: Democrats and Media Suddenly Care About Decorum and Respect After Biden SOTU Address.
WHAT? REGULATE AND TAX? Congress Looking to Create New Regulations, Taxes for Marijuana.
Now there’s an effective war on drugs.
THEY DON’T LIKE CHILDREN ANYHOW: The Baby Formula Shortage Crisis Continues.
REPARATIONS TO PEOPLE WHO WERE NEVER SLAVES PAID BY PEOPLE WHO NEVER OWNED SLAVES: Boston Mayor Michelle Wu Assembles Reparations Task Force.
February 8, 2023
THE ATTACKS ON DESANTIS ARE A BIG MISTAKE FOR TRUMP. THEY’RE NOT CONNECTING, AND THEY MAKE HIM LOOK SMALL AND OUT OF TOUCH.
BREAKING: DeSantis responds to Trump ReTruth accusing him of being a "groomer"
"I'd just say this. I spend my time delivering results for the people of Florida and fighting against Joe Biden […] I don't spend my time trying to smear other Republicans." pic.twitter.com/Ddj9Mb1MYj
— Florida’s Voice (@FLVoiceNews) February 8, 2023
An InstaPundit commenter says “Trump feels like the modern day Tom Brady or Madonna. Their time has passed and they’re the last to know.” Harsh, but fair. I’d vote for Trump if he were the nominee, and I wish he’d won in 2020, but he seems to have lost a step.
OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND: Riffs and tutus: Black Sabbath ballet to be staged in Birmingham.
A ballet soundtracked by the music of Black Sabbath will premiere in September, Birmingham Royal Ballet’s director Carlos Acosta has announced.
Billed as “the world’s first heavy metal dance experience”, the three-act ballet will feature eight songs by the Brummie band, including Paranoid, Iron Man, War Pigs and the eponymous Black Sabbath, re-orchestrated for the Royal Ballet Sinfonia – with added drums and electric guitars. The rest of the score will be newly composed, inspired by the band’s music.
Ever since Cuban ballet star Acosta joined Birmingham Royal Ballet as artistic director in 2020, his aim has been for the company to reflect its home city, both in the diversity of its dancers, and the subject matter of its ballets. They previously staged City of a Thousand Trades, about the city’s history of immigration and industry.
“Black Sabbath is probably Birmingham’s biggest export, the most famous, and infamous, cultural entity to ever emerge from the city,” said Acosta, “so I was naturally drawn to the idea of a collaboration between what most people might think are the most unlikely of partners.”
Spinal Tap, call your office! The parody of this, with all of the backstage antics, would be a hoot to watch.
UNEXPECTEDLY! Disney To Cut Thousands Of Jobs To Save Money As DeSantis Set To Take Control Of Company’s Orlando District Under New Bill: Report.
The announcement comes after newly released legislation by Florida Republicans this week will allow Governor Ron DeSantis to appoint all five leaders of Disney’s tax district in Orlando and will officially rename the district.
The bill will turn the Reedy Creek Improvement District into the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District and will deliver on DeSantis’ promise last year to take over the district.
DeSantis’ office said that the special tax district, which has allowed Disney to govern themselves since 1967, turned the theme park into “an unaccountable Corporate Kingdom.”
“Florida is dissolving the Corporate Kingdom and beginning a new era of accountability and transparency,” DeSantis’ office said. “These actions ensure a state-controlled district accountable to the people instead of a corporate-controlled kingdom.”
Also a possibility for Disney? A hostile takeover: Thwarted Meetings, a Sailing Trip Excuse and an Angry Investor: Why Activist Nelson Peltz Threatens to Disrupt Bob Iger’s Disney Comeback.
The Critical Drinker drinks all of Disney’s self-inflicted chaos in and laughs:
INTEL, PARKERVISION SETTLE CHIP PATENT LAWSUIT DURING TEXAS TRIAL:
Chipmaking giant Intel Corp (INTC.O) on Tuesday settled a patent lawsuit brought by wireless technology developer ParkerVision Inc (PRKR.PK) on the second day of a West Texas jury trial in the case, court records showed.
A ParkerVision filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday said it would receive $25 million in a settlement that also includes a patent licensing agreement.
An Intel spokesperson confirmed that the companies settled but declined to provide further details. A ParkerVision spokesperson declined to comment. ParkerVision stock was down 48% Tuesday afternoon.
Related: ParkerVision still pursuing claims.
ParkerVision has no products on the market and is focused entirely on its patent infringement claims against Qualcomm and other companies. However, the company, founded in 1989, has offered several products over the years.
When the company went public in 1993, it was marketing an automated video camera control system that allowed consumers to take home movies without having to stand behind the camera. It also was developing that technology for videoconferencing systems.
It expanded that technology to create a complete television studio system called PVTV, which allowed one person to operate all the cameras and the control room for a broadcast.
Meanwhile, its researchers developed radio frequency receiver technology that the company said delivered superior performance for wireless devices, the technology that has become the focus of its legal fights.
ParkerVision sold off the camera control systems by 2004 to focus on the wireless technology.
The company launched and abandoned several consumer products with its wireless technology, including an in-home Wi-Fi device called Milo introduced in the fall of 2017.
The company discontinued the product in April 2019 after disappointing sales.
That left ParkerVision with just the patent infringement lawsuits.
As a personal aside, despite living almost 70 miles away from Waco, I was summoned to sit on the jury for the case in the first link. I arrived at 7:30 in the morning on Monday at the courthouse, and was out the door at 9:02 am. Finally, my background in writing for Instapundit, PJ Media, and prior to that numerous computer, consumer electronics and home automation magazines (and being married to a veteran Silicon Valley and ASIC chip design attorney) really pays off!
MITT ROMNEY IS TONE POLICING A FELLOW REPUBLICAN: ‘You Ought to Be Embarrassed:’ Romney Scolds Santos at State of the Union.
Representative George Santos (R., N.Y.) and Senator Mitt Romney (R., Utah.) traded some choice words last night just minutes before President Joe Biden addressed the nation.
Multiple camera angles captured Romney confronting Santos as he walked down the center aisle in the House chamber. The veteran lawmaker scolded the freshman for claiming one of the sought-after seats near the president’s path to the rostrum.
“You don’t belong here,” Romney can be seen telling Santos, adding “you ought to be embarrassed.”
* * * * * * * *
“He’s a sick puppy, he shouldn’t have been there,” Romney told NBC News. “Given the fact that he’s under ethics investigation he should be sitting in the back row and being quiet instead of parading in front of the president.”
Setting aside Santos’ many woes, if only Romney had that level of passion over Obama, Candy Crowley, and the rest of the DNC-MSM, 2012 might have turned out very differently for him.
JOHN PODHORETZ IS TONE POLICING THE NEW GOP CONGRESS: The Goons of the Right.
Go ahead, call me—a conservative journalist for more than 40 years and speechwriter to Ronald Reagan—a RINO if you like, but I’ve never been more embarrassed to be associated with the Republican party than in the middle of the State of the Union when House members started openly heckling the president of the United States.
They screamed “liar and “bulls—” in the House chamber when Biden said there were Republican proposals to “sunset” Social Security and Medicare.
In point of fact, Biden is narrowly correct here. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida issued a weird proposal to make all federal legislation sunset after five years. That would include Social Security and Medicare. It was a stupid and ill-considered proposal, in part because it opened up the GOP to exactly the attack Biden staged last night.
And these barbaric House members fell right into Biden’s trap. Rather than shaking their heads, as Speaker Kevin McCarthy did behind Biden, they behaved goonishly. That’s exactly what Biden wanted. In yelling at him like drunken attendees at a WWF match who seem not to know the proceedings are fake, Marjorie Taylor Greene and her hearty band of repellent maniacs provided Biden and the Democrats with visuals and sounds they can use for the next two years to rally their own troops—and independent voters sickened by the bad behavior of politicians generally—against Republican crassness and incivility.
However: GOP congressman scoffs at complaints about ‘lack of decorum.’
Biden claimed during his State of the Union address that some Republicans wanted to sunset Social Security and Medicare every five years.
“That means if Congress doesn’t vote to keep them, those programs will go away,” Biden said. “Other Republicans say if we don’t cut Social Security and Medicare, they’ll let America default on its debt for the first time in our history.”
His remarks were met with loud disapproval from the Republican side of the House Chamber, including several members who accused him of lying. Media reports following the State of the Union address referred to the GOP caucus as “animated,” “rowdy,” “unruly” and lacking decorum.
[Freshman GOP Rep. Andy] Ogles dismissed the characterization, asserting that the GOP’s response was completely appropriate given Biden’s claims.
“He levied false accusations trying to scare seniors,” Ogles said. “And look, we are going to take care of our seniors. We’re not going to get rid of Medicare and Social Security and anyone who says that is not being truthful. And so I was offended by it. I was disappointed in it.”
Naturally, the left feigns surprise at the slippery slope from Nancy Pelosi’s performance art during Trump’s last State of the Union speech: Nancy Pelosi fans complain Republicans have no decorum.
But then, as Noam Blum of Tablet, then still tweeting under his “Neontaster” handle wrote in 2017:
UPDATE: The time Joe Biden proposed sunsetting every federal program — even Medicare.
In the summer of 1975, U.S. News & World Report informed its readers about a new breed of Senate Democrat.
That week, Biden proposed his budget reform: S. 2067, “A bill to limit the authorization of new budget authority and to require comprehensive review and study of existing programs for which continued budget authority is proposed….”
Biden took to the Senate floor to deplore the size of the federal budget and its growth rate. “It took this country 185 years to reach an annual expenditure from the federal budget of $100 billion,” Biden explained. “Just nine years later, we had reached the $200 billion level, and after four more years, we have exceeded $300 billion.” (Adjusted for inflation, that would be $544 billion, less than 10% of our current federal expenditures.)
Biden called for reform: “One thing we have all observed is that once a federal program gets started, it is very difficult to stop it … regardless of its performance in the past. It is time for us to require, on a regular and continuing basis, that both the administrators of these programs and we legislators who adopt the programs examine their operations with care and detail.”
His bill, he explained, “limits to 4 years the length of any spending authorization for a program. … The purpose is to assure a uniform scrutiny of all programs on a regular basis.”
U.S. News & World Report lauded this bill, cosponsored by Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield and Pat Leahy of Vermont. “It gets to the heart of the problem of Big Government.”
This happens to be very similar to the proposal of Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) that Biden made the centerpiece of his partisan attack in his State of the Union.
I’m sure it’s different when Democrats do it — even back in the ’70s.
HMM: People with one of the type A blood groups are more likely to have a stroke before the age of 60 compared with people with other blood types, research shows. The increase is small, though, making this mostly of academic interest.
HMM: Chinese surveillance balloon part of massive program over 5 continents.
We started such a program after World War Two, when we decided we had to be a global superpower.
GET WOKE, GO BROKE: Disney Layoffs Will Cut 7,000 Jobs.
VITAMIN D UPDATE: Vitamin D supplements may help ward off Type 2 diabetes.
EVERY INSTITUTION HAS BEEN CORRUPTED: Visitors Sue Over National Air & Space Museum’s Alleged Demand That They Remove “Rosary Pro-Life” Hats. “We are a museum that promotes equality, and your hats do not promote equality.”
I would like to believe that this never happened, but given other behavior by our cultural institutions it’s all too believable. Plus: “These are of course just allegations in a Complaint, but the Smithsonian has admitted that the ejection was improper.”
IT’S NOT A TERRIBLE IDEA: Should There Be Three-Judge Panels for National Injunctions.
SOMEONE SHOULD FILE A CIVIL RIGHTS SUIT: Congress is set to expose what may be the largest censorship system in U.S. history.
THE JUDICIARY’S CLASS WAR: NY Times: The Road To A Supreme Court Clerkship Starts At Three Ivy League Colleges; ‘You Can’t Scrub Your Undergraduate Degree With An Elite Law Degree.’
No really, you could write a book on the class politics of the judiciary.
(Bumped.)
DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HISTORY: Boston task force appoints TWO 11th graders and a BLM-supporting college student to decide how much money to pay black community.
Previously — way previously: Boston, hotbed of anti-slavery.
DEAL OF THE DAY: Donner Acoustic Guitar Kit for Beginners. #CommissionEarned
FOLLOW THE SCIENCE: A Scientific Review Shows the CDC Grossly Exaggerated the Evidence Supporting Mask Mandates. “These findings go to the heart of the case for mask mandates, a policy that generated much resentment and acrimony during the pandemic. They also show that the CDC, which has repeatedly exaggerated the evidence in favor of masks, cannot be trusted as a source of public health information.”
FASTER, PLEASE: Company using drones to deliver food makes Texas debut in Granbury.
A crazy futuristic new delivery option for food and retail is making its debut in Texas — in little old Granbury.
Flytrex, which specializes in on-demand, ultrafast delivery for food and retail, is bringing food and grocery orders via drone to front and backyards.
According to a release, the service will be based in Granbury, in a partnership with restaurant chain Brinker International, home of Chili’s Grill & Bar, Maggiano’s Little Italy, and two virtual brands: It’s Just Wings and Maggiano’s Italian Classics.
The service is operating in cooperation with longtime partner Causey Aviation Unmanned under a newly granted Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) waiver allowing a delivery radius of one nautical mile – reaching thousands of potential homes. Eligible households can order food via the Flytrex app.
Their focus is on the suburbs, where on-demand delivery has previously been viewed as commercially unviable, since traditional couriers can make only two deliveries per hour in such areas. They have a video showing a drone at work on YouTube.
Well, this is the 21st century you know, to coin an Insta-phrase.
IT PROBABLY SHOULD: AI Is Making Voice Actors Nervous.
AI voices are usually good enough for listening to audio books, and I suspect most video games, too.
SEPSIS UPDATE: Standard sepsis-ID systems miss cases in trauma patients.
UNEXPECTED HEADLINES: Portland anarchists attack goat refuge as revenge over homeless encampment removal.
I ORDER SHARK IN RESTAURANTS SOMETIMES, SO THAT EVEN IF ONE OF THEM EVENTUALLY GETS ME, I’LL STILL BE AHEAD: Number of unprovoked shark bites worldwide drops to 57 in 2022.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Hormone shot kisspeptin may improve low libido.
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS AS THURSTON HOWELL III:
Chaser:
FACT CHECK: Biden Says COVID Caused The 2020 Crime Spike. “These trends come amid a revival of jailbreak liberalism. Soros-backed prosecutors have let violent criminals off easy in Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and countless other cities. The Democrat-dominated D.C. Council voted in January to reduce sentences for car-jacking, robberies, and gun-related felonies. Obama era civil rights policies have made schools reluctant to discipline and flag potentially dangerous students, which may be why a Virginia elementary school ignored warnings that a six-year-old was brandishing a gun.”
DEAL OF THE DAY: GORNEL Wireless Meat Thermometer. #CommissionEarned
SOMEBODY SET UP US THE BOMB: Shock as unknown blues singer beats Beyonce, Adele, Taylor Swift, to win Song of the Year Grammy.
Bonnie Raitt appeared gobsmacked as she scooped the Song of the Year award at the Grammys on Sunday, beating a star-studden field that included superstars Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Adele and Harry Styles.
The 73-year-old singer’s ‘Just Like That’ beat Swift’s (All Too Well (10 Minute Version), Lizzo (About Damn Time), Styles (As It Was), Steve Lacy (Bad Habit), GAYLE (abcdefu), Beyonce (Break My Soul), Adele (Easy On Me), DJ Khaled (God Did), and Kendrick Lamar (The Heart Part 5) to take home the coveted prize.
Related: “Twenty million albums sold” and, “Earlier in the evening, [Raitt] earned two additional trophies: best American roots song for ‘Just Like That’ and best Americana performance for another song, ‘Made Up Mind,’ giving her a total of 13 Grammy wins over the course of her career, including a lifetime achievement Grammy in 2022…In 2000, Raitt was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”
HARD DIPLOMATIC TRUTHS: The reality that Europe can’t (or won’t) stand on its own.
IT’S COME TO THIS: Bruce Springsteen’s ticket prices are so high that his fan site Backstreets is shutting down after 43 years.
Springsteen’s team has defended the prices as being in line with what is charged today by many of his peers. Like many artists, he says he’s annoyed when unscrupulous ticket brokers — not the musicians — benefit from high markups.
Ticketmaster has said the vast majority of fans were able to buy tickets at face value, which averaged $202. The tour began Feb. 1 in Tampa, Florida.
Many Springsteen fans have been with him for decades, appreciating his working class New Jersey roots, and can remember when a ticket for a four-hour, high-energy show on the “Darkness on the Edge of Town” tour in 1978 could be had for $7.50.
That’s not reality anymore. Springsteen hasn’t backed down, telling Rolling Stone magazine that fans unhappy with the price after seeing the show can have their money back.
“You certainly don’t like to be the poster boy for high ticket prices,” he told the magazine, but said you have to own your decisions and do your best.”
[Former publisher Christopher] Phillips wrote that many Backstreets readers have lost interest because they can’t afford to go to the show.
Just say goodbye, it’s Independence Day.
THIS KINDA SURPRISES ME, BUT GOOD: Yale students vote overwhelmingly in support of democratizing trustee elections.
The Corporation holds significant power at Yale, ruling on issues ranging from budget oversight to administrative appointments and long-term University priorities.
In May 2021, the University took unilateral action to jettison the long-standing alumni fellows petition process, which allowed Yale alumni to petition for candidacy in the annual trustee election. Now, only candidates nominated specifically by the University may appear on the ballot.
Many students and alumni have renounced the decision over the past two years. In addition to alumni petitions and student government resolutions condemning the change and imploring the University to reinstate its former election process, Victor Ashe ’67 and Donald Glascoff ’67 sued Yale for the change, arguing that the new policy violates Yale’s legal obligations to its alumni.
“One of the reasons students and alumni feel unhappy is because they feel unheard,” Ashe said. “They have no seat at the table, and the University has demonstrated little interest in listening to them.”
Ashe said that he was not surprised by the overwhelming student support for a more democratic trustee election process. He said that if the University were to conduct a similar referendum for alumni, he would expect the alumni — like students — to vote overwhelmingly for democratization.
Ashe argued that this is why the Corporation scrapped the petition process unilaterally rather than with an alumni vote.
“There’s a huge divide between what the administration thinks and what students and alumni think,” Ashe told the News. “Alumni are treated as useful for donations, but otherwise as a nuisance.”
Victor, who I’ve known for years, is a very smart man — and a very effective gadfly.
WE’D BETTER: Can the US bring nuclear power back?
And if the greens actually cared about the planet, they’d be the ones pushing it.
FORMER SOCIALIST “IT GIRL” STILL TRYING TO GENERATE PR: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Suggests Border Patrol Agents Should Be Fired for Working With SPLC-Designated ‘Hate Groups.’
COLD WAR II: China Has More ICBM Launchers Than U.S., American Military Reports.
“The number of land-based fixed and mobile ICBM launchers in China exceeds the number of ICBM launchers in the United States,” the commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, which oversees nuclear forces, wrote the Senate’s and House’s Armed Services Committees on Jan. 26.
The notification comes as the U.S. is facing the challenge of deterring Russia’s substantial nuclear forces as well as China’s growing nuclear arsenal. U.S. lawmakers are involved in an increasingly heated debate about how best to counter Beijing, including the Pentagon’s response to the Chinese surveillance balloon that recently traversed the U.S. and hovered over Montana, where a portion of the American military’s ICBM arsenal is deployed.
The U.S., which is modernizing all three legs of its land, sea and air based nuclear arsenal, has a much larger nuclear force than China.
Also: The Russians Aren’t Complying With the New START Nuclear Arms Control Treaty — Now What?
Previously: Don’t Look Now, But There’s a Nuclear Nightmare A-Brewing.
TESTED AND FOUND WANTING, INDECISIVE, AND IN THE END, DISHONEST ABOUT IT: Biden’s Empty Threats to China Underscore His Weak Response to Chinese Spy Balloon.
CDR SALAMANDER: Our Navy at its Best: ‘Yeah, we can do that.’ “Over at DVIDS, a nice series of pictures that represents one part of our Navy that doesn’t get to see the light of day often enough. Those who have served know it, probably been part of it, and nothing is more memorable that being right in the crunch of it all.”
SOMEBODY’S GETTING READY TO GO OUT ON THE ROAD WITH ROGER WATERS: Joe Rogan Slammed for Saying Jews Are ‘Into Money.’
THAT’S NOTHING. YOU SHOULD SEE WHAT HE MADE WHILE STILL A PUBLIC SERVANT: Unindicted COVID Warlord Fauci Making $100K Per Speech.
WHY IS HIGHER EDUCATION SUCH A CESSPIT OF RACISM AND HATRED: Anti-white, anti-cop activist headlines UChicago racial justice event.
CHANGE: Microsoft announces new Bing and Edge browser powered by upgraded ChatGPT AI. “Microsoft says it’s using conversational AI to create a new way to browse the web. Users will be able to chat to Bing like ChatGPT, asking questions and receiving answers in natural language.”
But: “The new Bing is live today ‘for desktop limited preview,’ but it appears users are only able to ‘ask’ one of a number of preset queries and receive the same results each time. There is also a waitlist to sign up for full access in the future.”
I’m not sure if the limitations are because of the horsepower required to run AI queries, or whether Microsoft doesn’t fully trust ChatGPT out in the wild.
LIGHTNING DEAL: FAIRWIN Men’s Ratchet Web Belt. #CommissionEarned
WHO WAS THAT MASKED DEFENSE OFFICIAL? “The Free Beacon’s Chuck Ross reports that the Department of Defense won’t identify the senior Pentagon official who told the press on background this weekend that the Trump administration let Chinese spy balloons transit the United States at least three times. The senior defense official omitted the critical fact that these incidents went undetected by the defense and national security establishments. Ross links to the Pentagon transcript of the call here and notes that reporters reporters from CNN, the Associated Press, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CBS, Fox News, and Reuters were those invited to participate on the briefing held by conference call. What is the point? The identity of the senior defense official would let us determine the level at which the Pentagon is working the public relations issues raised by the Chinese spy balloon in the service of the Biden administration. . . . Whoever he is, he is in effect lyin’ for Biden. That by itself should be news. And he must be lyin’ because the truth hurts so bad.”
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Hear Me Out — Let’s Scrap the State of the Union Address. “A gifted orator the man never was. Now he’s just the weird uncle at the Thanksgiving table who everyone is waiting to do something that makes them all uncomfortable.”
THAT’S DIFFERENT BECAUSE SHUT UP: When trans-activists stomp into a capitol building, aren’t they kinda insurrectiony, too?
WHY DOES THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION NOT CARE ABOUT THE MURDER OF A BLACK COUNCILWOMAN? Family of Murdered New Jersey GOP Councilwoman ‘Haven’t Heard Anything’ From the Police: Authorities, including the FBI, are tight-lipped.
KOREA UPDATE: China gets a reality check.
NATO: US approves $10 bn sale of Himars rocket launchers to Poland.
Poland announced a sharp increase in defense spending in late January to four percent of gross domestic product, with the prime minister saying the country needed to arm itself “faster” in light of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Warsaw had spent the equivalent of 2.4 percent of its GDP for the military in 2022, the third highest percentage among NATO countries, according to figures from the transatlantic alliance.
Other European nations have also announced increases in the budgets for their armies since Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year.
Poland and the Baltic States are leading and showing the way for the rest of NATO. No surprise, given their proximity to Russia and long memories of Russian occupation.
PROFILES OF THE FUTURE: Five Technologies That Five Billion Will Use by 2050. New video from Reason TV:
Note this section:
Since Amazon founder Jeff Bezos unveiled plans for delivery drones a decade ago, progress has been slow.
Today, there are only a few thousand delivery robots currently operating in the U.S. But that’s about to change: In December, Prime Air successfully completed commercial deliveries in College Station, Texas, and Lockeford, California.
On the other side of the world, Meituan and Alibaba have just started rolling out this service to customers.
In the U.S., delivery drones have been hindered by the Federal Aviation Administration’s approval process, and it’s the same regulatory story in China. But I predict that won’t be true much longer because of the overwhelming benefit this service brings in terms of convenience for customers and in reducing the traffic problems caused by delivery trucks clogging up our streets.
By 2050, I’m confident that the urban skyline will be buzzing with what will look like a swarm of carrier pigeons bearing books, spatulas, bottles of vinegar, or whatever else you might order on Amazon—not to mention, hearts and kidneys racing toward hospitals.
The guys at the “Birds Aren’t Real” parody* conspiracy theory Website are going to have a field day over that.
* Well, that’s what they want you to think…
DON SURBER: The Real State of the Union. A must-read.
ANALYSIS: TRUE.
YOU’RE GONNA NEED A MUCH BIGGER BLOG: Four misleading claims in Biden’s State of the Union address.
HOT!: My colleague J. Christian Adams discusses Americans’ civil right to be free from violent crime (and how the progressive members of the Commission on Civil Rights’s thwarted our efforts to look into rising crime).
MARK JUDGE: To solve the journalism crisis, honor is more important than objectivity.
With that crowd, I think honor is even harder to achieve than objectivity, which is basically impossible.
SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS’ RESPONSE: She Killed It. “I have never paid too much attention to Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Not for any particular reason, other than the fact that she was overshadowed by the looming presence of her boss Donald Trump. So it was a revelation to me when she gave the first watchable response to the State of the Union address that I have ever seen. I have no idea how many people watched it, but I am pretty sure that clips from the speech will run for days in the media and on Twitter.”
THIS SORT OF THING HAS A TENDENCY TO END BADLY: Boston’s mayor just appointed two high school students to the city’s Reparations Task Force. What do you suppose their role will be?
Two members of Boston’s “Reparations Task Force” are high school students. Exactly what is the mayor thinking?https://t.co/YEjG9DmyMP
— Gail Heriot (@GailHeriot) February 8, 2023
DENVER: Rocky Mountain High to Rocky Mountain Hellhole.
In 1963, an unknown singer named Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr was urged to change his name if he wanted to pursue a musical recording career. “He took his stage name from the beautiful capital city of his favorite state, Colorado. Later in life, Denver and his family settled in Aspen, Colorado and his love for the Rocky Mountains inspired many of his songs.”
The rest is history. What would John Denver think of his namesake now? Would he still, “See it rainin’ fire in the sky, the shadow from the starlight softer than a lullaby”? Probably not. Now it’s raining crime, drugs, homelessness, illegal immigrants, and many other big city urban blights.
The Chronicle, noted above reports, “Crime in the Mile High City is now worse than New York City or Chicago, and growing increasingly dangerous as the new year begins.” This includes violent crime, where on a scale of 1 to 100, Denver outranks NYC by 2.5 points, and property crime where Denver surpasses Chicago by 4.5 points. Bet you haven’t heard that on the news.
“Auto theft is now an epidemic in Denver and the second highest in the nation”, according to Denver Police Department data. Nearly 100 vehicles are stolen every day in Denver and rather than “rainin’ fire in the sky”, Colorado is raining car thieves, now leading America in auto thefts per capita.
Other statistics are not flattering. Ranking, “U.S. cities for home and community safety, natural disaster risk, and financial safety”, Denver falls between Little Rock and New Orleans. For home and community safety, Denver sits between Baltimore and Fort Lauderdale. Not a flattering position for the Mile High City.
Gooder and harder, Denver.
ONLY MORONS THINK OTHERWISE: No, slavery didn’t create capitalism.
Despite all these failures — or in some cases, if you’re a Democrat, smashing culture war successes — Americans were treated to an evening-long, real-time revisionist take on our state of affairs from President Joe Biden. It was long. And it was ultimately a lie.
Yet in one single sentence of her response speech, Arkansas’ first-term Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders summed up the state of our union better than Biden did in nearly an hour and a half:
While you reap the consequences of their failures, the Biden administration seems more interested in woke fantasies than the hard reality Americans face every day.
For an increasing number of Americans, everyday life in 2023 is precisely that: a hard reality. Talk to any dedicated nurse who slaved through the height of the pandemic and was thanklessly fired for declining an experimental shot. Ask any professor who was dragged through the mud for refusing to instill racial division or deny basic biology. Speak to any parents who religiously pled with their school board to keep pornographic books out of their kids’ library and boys out of their daughters’ locker rooms. “Biden and the Democrats have failed you,” Huckabee Sanders summed it up. “They know it. And you know it.”
Exit quotes: “‘The dividing line in America is no longer between right or left. The choice is between normal or crazy,” and “At 40, I’m the youngest governor in the country. At 80, he’s the oldest president in American history.”
It’s not the years, Sarah. It’s the Trunalimunumaprzure.
JEFFREY CARTER: Never Trust A Politician With Your Money: They Don’t Understand Economics.
This past week, a giant in the accounting professorial profession passed away. Roman Weil was a Chicago Booth prof. I never took him for a class, but my friends did. He was a maniac. He had a gong in front of the class, and like John Houseman in the “Paper Chase”, he’d grill people in his class. He was old school.
One piece of his research was that the financial literacy that corporate board audit committee members have is surprisingly weak and that the gains in shareholder wealth accompanying improvement in such financial literacy are both significant and large. I would have loved to see him research politicians because, in my experience, most of them are pretty dumb.
Here is a recent tweet about the price of eggs from Nevada Democratic Senator Carol Cortez Masto. It’s so ignorant, it is offensive.
Well, consider the source.
THEY’RE CULTISTS WHO DON’T UNDERSTAND MATH OR PHYSICS: LA Time editorial delusional about fossil fuels.
NEWS FROM 2015. IT’S ALMOST LIKE WHAT THEY HATE IS COMPETENCY: MARSCON- DAVID WEBER WEIGHS IN.
I’d say I don’t find the science fiction squabbles funny anymore, but I never did. Stupid, however, the left continues to be.
BEHOLD! MY SHOCKED FACE: Sea Level Is Stable Around the World… The Good News the Media Don’t Want Us to Hear.
A MEDIA OUTLET FABRICATING CORRUPTION CLAIMS? THAT’S HARD TO BELIEVE! I MEAN, IT’S NOT AS IF HE WERE A REPUBLICAN: Boston-area reporter ‘fabricated corruption claims’ against mayor, lawsuit says.
WHEN DEMOCRATS TALK UNITY THEY MEAN “REMEMBER YOUR PLACE, PEASANTS!”: Biden to call for unity in State of the Union — after year of White House bashing the GOP.
AT THIS POINT, WE NEED ALTERNATIVE LEARNING INSTITUTIONS: Today’s blacklisted American: Leftist professor fired by university for questioning its racist agenda.
THAT MEMBERS OF A PSYCHEDELIC ROCK BAND SHOULD TURN OUT TO BE UNSTABLE IS A SHOCK: Pink Floyd and the Gilmour-Waters spat: even crazier than I thought.
Behold, my shocked face.
Look, kids, we’re not going to show you videos of frying eggs. We’re not millionaires. But drugs are bad, m’kay?
WHEN EVERYTHING IS RACIST: Another racist plot.
Nothing is.
EW. NOT EVEN UFOs WOULD PROBE THAT: House Republicans to Probe Climate Czar John Kerry’s Negotiations with China.
Oh, his negotiations. Not him.
Fine, fine, fine. Add him to the Disney container ships.
AGAIN, GUYS, IT’S GOOD BUSINESS TO SEND PURCHASERS WHAT THEY BOUGHT: Disney Cartoon Pushes Claim America is Racist, Repeats ‘Hands Up, Don’t Shoot’ Lie.
Send Disney to China. Add the Obamas, Bidens and Pelosis to make up the weight. Oh, and Fartswell too.
DEPART FROM US IN PEACE. AND LET US FORGET YOU WERE EVER WORTHY OF FREE MEN: Disney Pulls Simpsons Episode in Hong Kong Due to Line About China’s ‘Forced Labor Camps’.
Or, IOW, send Disney to China in container ships. All of it. Remember to punch air holes in the containers. No reason for needless cruelty.
However, I believe in giving purchasers what they bought.
FOR THE LOVE OF BOB. THE LEFT TOOK OVER PUBLISHING ALMOST 100 YEARS AGO: The left took over an important cultural institution while you weren’t looking.
And little golden books have had leftist overtones as long as I’ve known them.
The left is just less competent now, so it’s more obvious.
IT STARTS WITH FALSIFIED ELECTIONS: Denver – Rocky Mountain High to Rocky Mountain Hellhole.
Also, quoting from The Puppet Masters: They’re too stupid to keep slaves.
February 7, 2023
HE’S SHOWING MORE BACKBONE THAN I HAD EXPECTED: McCarthy to U.S. Chamber: Of course you realize, this means war. “This is not your Uncle John Boehner’s Kindly Congress, and the two Republican House leaders aren’t playing, period.”
Well, good.
HARSH, BUT FAIR:
Helping a senile old racist eat applesauce everyday isn’t quite “teaching full time.” https://t.co/aQNkxeyfDP
— GayPatriot (@GayPatriot) February 8, 2023
IT’S ALIVE! Drunkblogging the State of the Union.
I HOPE WE’RE NOT TOO MESSIANIC, OR A TRIFLE TOO SATANIC: CBS Deletes ‘Ready to Worship’ Tweet After Blowback.
Turns out, one of America’s biggest TV networks saying it was “ready to worship!” right before a literally Hellish performance didn’t go over so well. The blowback was quick, with the normal criticism from the left of those who dared to object to what was considered objectionable. Apparently the whole “my feelings are more important than your rights” schtick is a one-way street for leftists. Who would’ve thought it?
But the pressure from those who found CBS’ tweet about Smith’s performance to be unbecoming worked, because by Tuesday morning CBS had deleted its tweet:
Since 1964 at least, I’m sure a certain number of conservatives have viewed CBS as having Satanic leanings. It’s good to see them finally confirm them, if only for a few hours or so. But this nostalgia is even older than that depicted in CBS’s 1970s series, The Waltons. That was a show set 40 years prior, during FDR’s Depression. Smith’s satanic posing has roots dating back over half a century!
UPDATE: Speaking of which:
(Updated and bumped.)
IT’S COME TO THIS: North Dakota town rejects Chinese project near US military base after Biden administration refuses to act.
A small city in North Dakota rejected a Chinese government-linked agricultural project located right near a key U.S. military drone base after the Biden administration refused to act against the “significant threat to national security.”
Early last year, Fufeng Group, a massive agricultural company with strong ties to Beijing, purchased 370 acres as a location for its new wet corn mill near the Grand Forks Air Force Base.
After months of consideration, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States declined to block the project despite urging from North Dakota’s Republican senators and other congressional Republicans on Capitol Hill. However, the Grand Forks City Council stepped in on Monday to unanimously block the Fufeng project from moving forward. The vote came just days after a Chinese spy balloon was allowed to traverse the U.S., including floating over a Montana military base, before being shot down off the coast of the Carolinas.
* * * * * * * *
The Grand Forks base is one of the key locations for the RQ-4 Global Hawk drone, a “remotely piloted aircraft with intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities” used by the U.S. around the world.
Last year, dozens of House Republicans also warned top Biden Cabinet secretaries about the “alarming” efforts by the Chinese government-linked company.
When the sale was first announced last year, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, also a Republican, initially told the Grand Forks Herald that “with Fufeng in Grand Forks, it will be North Dakota — not China — that reaps the benefits of the jobs, facilities, economic activity and tax revenue.”
And the spying and sabotage from the CCP as well.
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