MAKE THEM PAY: Political Discrimination Lawsuit Against Apple Can Go Forward. California law bans discrimination based on political stances or activity, which is going to be a problem for Big Tech.
Archive for 2020
December 9, 2020
I’LL JUST BE HAPPY IF SHE DOESN’T WIND UP ON CHINA’S PAYROLL AS A LOBBYIST: Jill Biden plans to continue work as professor if her husband is inaugurated. But of course, that’s a double standard: “Members of the Trump family were pressured into quitting their non-governmental work after President Donald Trump was inaugurated in 2017.”
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Still Searching for 1 CNN ‘Journalist’ Who Isn’t a Lying Scumbag. It is time once again to revisit my ever-growing dislike for the media company that is now permanently atop my Biased Evil list: CNN. CNN’s ascent to the top of the dirtbag pile has been an impressive one. The entire NBC News division — which includes the MSNBC prog squad — held the position for a very long time. Somewhere along the line, CNN decided that Jake Tapper, Don Lemon, and full time Trump Derangement Syndrome were a good idea and a new devil was born.”
GEORGE ORWELL COULD NOT BE REACHED FOR COMMENT: Dictionary.com changes its definition of ‘court packing’ to fit the Left’s current narrative.
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: ‘The canary in the coal mine?’ What teacher layoffs in one city could mean for U.S. schools. “With budgets battered by the coronavirus pandemic, state and local governments across the United States have laid off nearly 700,000 workers this year, according to U.S. government data, equal to 8.4% of the workforce. Advocates warn that Schenectady’s experience could become commonplace if Washington does not provide more help.”
No more bailouts.
THE INTERNET OF THINGS: Millions of smart devices vulnerable to hacking.
DISPATCHES FROM THE KAKISTOCRACY: LA’s New District Attorney Says He Won’t Prosecute Misdemeanors Including Criminal Threats, Drugs and Resisting Arrest.
ANOTHER SOROS-FUNDED PROSECUTOR: Newly elected Los Angeles district attorney plans to seek release of thousands of criminals.
DECOUPLING: New Australia Law Can Scrap China Belt and Road Accords. “Prime Minister Scott Morrison has new powers to veto or scrap agreements that state governments reach with foreign powers under laws that could stymie China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Australia and further inflame tensions between the trading partners.”
The Belt and Road Initiative is the most naked imperialism since the European powers met in Berlin in 1885 to carve up Africa.
WHY ‘HE’S THE REASON FOR THE SEASON,’ A REFRESHER: What Christmas is really all about. You know, in case the kids ask. Or a liberal acquaintance. Also useful for correcting your know-it-all brother-in-law. Perhaps you’ve even forgotten.
2020: Neal Katyal for Attorney General: Child Slavery Advocates Deserve a Voice in Washington. “If defending problematic corporations becomes anathema, there will be no one left to staff Democratic administrations.”
KINSLEY GAFFE: Sen. Dick Durbin Admits Democrats Turned Down Coronavirus Relief ‘Because an Election Was Coming.’
But we knew this already, as Byron York writes: “A clearly angry Pelosi lashed out at the journalist for his temerity. ‘Look, I’m going to tell you something,’ she said. ‘Don’t characterize what we did before as a mistake, as a preface to your question, if you want an answer. That was not a mistake. It was a decision. And it has taken us to a place where we can do the right thing without other, shall we say, considerations in the legislation that we don’t want.’ The short version of that was: Look, we waited Trump out. He lost. Now, we’ll act.”
ANTISOCIAL MEDIA: Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg once ‘threatened to pull’ UK investment in a private meeting with a minister.
The minutes describe how Zuckerberg said the U.K. is the “obvious territory” for Facebook to invest in Europe, but he claimed the company was looking elsewhere due to the criticism the company had been receiving in Britain.
According to the minutes, Zuckerberg said he supported the U.K.’s decision to regulate the internet but he was “worried about the tone.”
Hancock reportedly explained to Zuckerberg that he wanted to “use the decision to legislate as a new beginning for U.K. government relationships with the platform” adding that the “tone can shift from threatening regulation to ensure legislation is proportionate and innovation friendly.”
I’m old enough to remember when innovation meant building a better mousetrap, not encouraging users to increase screen time and hoovering up more and more of their personal data.
NOT EVERYBODY CAN BE A CHEERLEADER: Biden owes the Left but can he deliver and still lead effectively?
We’re all fundamentally the same. We want quiet enjoyment, mobility, access to technology, an education that won’t turn us into indentured servants, and the opportunity to find a job that isn’t overly dreadful. We want to live reasonably well in the time we have. And we’re not afraid to work hard to earn that living. But we also want serious men and women in power making good decisions. We want to feel there’s still a semblance of justice and decorum in the country and that we’re being represented. We all generally agree on this no matter our ethnicity or our politics, but even Democrats don’t agree on Joe Biden.
We’re facing social entropy, an economic prison, federal dysfunction, continued pandemic, people chosen not for their skill but for their capacity to be inoffensive, and endless identity strife. Biden didn’t create these things, but he rode them to power. And his transition choices are making us wonder whether they’re firmly on the docket for the next four years. We wonder whether he’s deliberately and unnecessarily trolling the right and mollifying the left with his cabinet picks instead of choosing people who will do the best job possible.
Trolling the right, you say? Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to serve as co-chair of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.
And with Whitmer as co-chair, this headline doesn’t sound very surprising: Biden inauguration to be 80% virtual, inaugural committee co-chairman says. “Clyburn said that he doesn’t believe President Trump is obligated to go to Biden’s inauguration but added that he believes the president should attend the event.”
That’s a curious statement, considering that in August, John Clyburn blurted out on CNN that “I Feel Very Strongly That [Trump] Is Mussolini, Putin, and Hitler.”
VITAMIN D UPDATE: Reader Stephen Goldstein sends this:UVB Activation of AMPs Production in the Skin and the Innate Respiratory Immunity. He writes:
I’m writing this evening about Vitamin D and the Covid virus. You’ve posted quite a few pieces on this subject, enough so that a while back I went back to taking a Vitamin D supplement even though I was not deficient by any measure . . . an abundance of caution, as they say.
My key takeaway: while there is very strong correlation between “better” Covid 19 outcomes and Vitamin D levels, the cause for these better outcomes is, likely, the availability of Antimicrobial Peptides (AMPs) that are produced along with Vitamin D in the skin on exposure to UV-B.
This is important because, if true, it means that Vitamin D supplements are not a substitute for sunlight, UV-B, in particular.
So, is the Covid case “spike” the result of citizens failing to wear masks and “social distance?” Or is it an example of the seasonal susceptibility commonly observed with respiratory viruses as some predicted this past summer.
I surely don’t Know but it seems plausible that lower exposure to sunlight (a combination of reduced daylight, lower sun and more cold weather clothing) contributes to the problem. Which, sadly, would mean that things could be quite bad for the next 90 days, or so.
To be fair, I sent the piece to a retired Pulmonologist friend. I asked him about these “AMPs” vs Vitamin D. He was not persuaded, reiterating the need to take the Vitamin D supplements.
I think it’s wise to embrace the power of “and” here. There’s been some reason to think that the process of making Vitamin D from sunlight has benefits distinct from those inhering in the Vitamin D itself, but Vitamin D also has benefits. And realistically, unless you’re a roofer or something it’s hard to get enough Vitamin D from sunlight. And the idea that the coronavirus has some degree of seasonality due to fluctuating Vitamin D levels seems plausible.
HERE’S WALKING, TALKING, CRIMINAL-RELEASING INSANITY: Liberty Unyielding’s Hans Bader assesses the many ways the newly elected Los Angeles prosecutor plans to set in motion what could become the worst crime wave in that city’s history. That this could involve releasing up to 20,000 convicted criminals, including murderers, rapists and burglars is only the most obvious indicators of leftist insanity at work.