SILICON VALLEY CONTINUING TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE: Survey: Do you trust Big Tech? 86% of Americans say ‘No.’
Archive for 2021
June 4, 2021
ALL BUBBLES POP: The NFT Market Has Officially Crashed. “On may May 3, the NFT market reached a peak with $102 million USD worth of Non-Fungible Tokens sold just that day. But looking at sales data from the last week of May, only $19.4 million USD in NFT sales was processed. Compared to the $170 million USD in NFTs transacted the week of the peak, the market saw a 90 percent drop.”
SO FAR: The Five Biggest Bombshells (So Far) From Fauci’s Emails.
Here’s one: “Fauci knew of the NIH’s ties to gain-of-function research abroad. . . . Fauci had publicly denied the NIH was funding gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
THE MORE THE ESTABLISHMENT TRIED TO CRUSH THIS IDEA, THE MORE CURRENCY IT GAINED: Most now believe China made virus and 24% say it was ‘released on purpose’.
China produced the Wuhan virus. Hundreds of thousands of Americans died. Our ruling class — politicians, tech oligarchs, news media — is in China’s pocket, and has been covering for them, while using the pandemic as an excuse to extend its own power.
What price will our ruling class pay for adhering to the Chinese government?
Related, from a friend:
Also:
LANNY DAVIS: A Darkness At Yale: The university offers little explanation for changing a 90-year-old governance policy.
Yale’s Latin motto is “Lux et Veritas”: “Light and Truth.” Yet the Yale Board of Trustees has acted in a way contradicting these two important values. The board’s May 24 decision to eliminate trustee nominations by alumni petition outside the board’s own processes is contrary to good corporate-governance principles, which aim to give all stakeholders a voice. And the process by which the trustees reversed the practice of allowing alumni petitions, which dates back to 1929—without notice, abruptly, without any input from alumni—is indefensible.
Trustee Catharine Bond Hill, a 1985 Yale graduate and former president of Vassar College, made matters worse when she announced the decision. She stated that the alumni petition process created divisive “issue-based candidates” and “cause-based elections.” But she presented no facts to support that conclusion.
Making matters worse, the letter was borderline insulting. It offered no justification for the secretive, abrupt process of announcing a reversal of a policy that had stood for nearly 100 years. Why? Shouldn’t the trustees have explained the reasons why this decision had to be made hastily, without open debate, immediately ahead of the next annual round of trustee nominations?
They don’t think they owe anything to anyone.
FINALLY: The Military-Industrial Complex Is Atoning For Its White Privilege. “The idea that what these merchants of death really need is another Ibram Kendi-inspired seminar should underscore yet again the reality here: critical race theory is post-Christian religious absolution for elites. Ultimately, though, we do need a military and we do need weapons contractors. And right now, those institutions are dysfunctional, overpriced, bureaucratic, unaccountable, and saddled in inefficiencies. Does anyone seriously think a little wokeness is going to make that better? The entire point of CRT is to diminish excellence and personal responsibility in the name of ‘equity’ by way of useless consultants. That’s about the last thing our military-industrial complex needs right now.”
NOW THAT THE TRUTH ABOUT FAUCI IS COMING OUT: Issues & Insights provides a handy roundup of the recent revelations that both demonstrate the federal government’s highest paid employee has a tenuous relationship with truth-telling and that his former commander-in-chief was right-on about him.
STAY ON TARGET: Steve Scalise Is Gunning for Dr. Fauci. “Americans deserve answers from the doctor whose every utterance was treated as that of an Olympian deity by the left and much of the media, and who benefited from social media censorship against anyone questioning him.”
FASTER? PLEASE! United Airlines is buying 15 supersonic aircraft from Boom Supersonic.
United Airlines has agreed to purchase 15 supersonic aircraft from Boom Supersonic, with an option to increase that order to 50 jets, the companies announced Thursday. That agreement, though, is still subject to change depending on the outcome of United’s safety testing and also Boom’s ability to deliver on its promises despite never having built or flown a full-scale supersonic jet before.
If Boom’s Overture jets pass inspection, the plan is for them to be rolled out in 2025, fly in 2026, and expected to carry passengers by 2029.
That’s a lot of ifs, depends, and expectations, but it will be at least interesting to watch how it pans out.
REALCLEARINVESTIGATIONS: How Biden’s Favored Unions Could Get Jammed in His Infrastructure Traffic. “President Biden repeatedly insists that his infrastructure plan will create millions of jobs and labor unions will be the big winners. But interviews with economists, union leaders, government officials and trade groups as well as basic math suggest otherwise.”
Biden: “It was my understanding that there would be no math.”
NEW CIVILITY WATCH: Journalist Andy Ngo Speaks About Being Attacked in Portland.
I inserted the J-word deliberately into the above headline:
THAT 70S SHOW: Under Biden, Brace Yourselves For ‘Shrinkflation.’ “Consumers are paying more for a growing range of household staples in ways that don’t show up on receipts — thinner rolls, lighter bags, smaller cans — as companies look to offset rising labor and materials costs without scaring off customers.”
That only works for so long.
JOEL KOTKIN: A Middle Class Rebellion Against Progressives Is Gaining Steam.
This new middle-class rebellion isn’t rejecting everything that progressives stand for; the Left’s critique of neo-liberal excess is resonating, as is the need for improved access to health care. But the current focus on “systemic racism,” coupled with a newfound and heavily enforced cultural conformism and the obsessive focus on a never-ending litany of impending “climate emergences” are less likely to pass muster with most of the middle class, no matter how popular they are with the media, academics, and others in the progressive corner.
And this new middle-class rebellion is being bolstered by a wide-ranging intellectual rebellion by traditional liberals against the Left’s dogmatism and intolerance. Indeed, what we’re about to see has the potential to reprise the great shift among old liberals that had them embracing Reagan in reaction to the Left’s excesses of that generation.
In a way, this should not be surprising. After all, the progressive base is limited: According to a survey conducted by the non-partisan group More in Common, progressives constitute barely eight percent of the electorate. The report also found that fully 80 percent of all Americans believe that “political correctness is a problem,” including large majorities of millennials and racial minorities. Our tech overlords at Google, Facebook, Amazon and the rest likewise regard their customers with contempt. And the people who run our news organizations are deeply impressed with themselves, though their brilliance is rarely in evidence.
The left knows it’s outnumbered, which is why its #1 priority is making sure, via its control of the media, tech, etc., that its opponents can’t get together and get organized.
BARI WEISS: What Happens When Doctors Can’t Tell the Truth? Whole areas of research are off-limits. Top physicians treat patients based on their race. An ideological ‘purge’ is underway in American medicine. “I’ve heard from doctors who’ve been reported to their departments for criticizing residents for being late. (It was seen by their trainees as an act of racism.) I’ve heard from doctors who’ve stopped giving trainees honest feedback for fear of retaliation. I’ve spoken to those who have seen clinicians and residents refuse to treat patients based on their race or their perceived conservative politics.”
FROM PATRICK CHILES: Frontier.
Marshall Hunter only wanted to fly: the faster, the higher, the better. But a life of rescuing wayward spacefarers and derelict satellites in the cislunar cruiser U.S.S. Borman is far from the adventure he’d imagined. But his fortunes change when a billionaire couple goes missing on their way to a near-Earth asteroid. Out of contact and on a course that will eventually send them crashing into Mars, the nuclear-powered Borman is dispatched on an audacious, high-speed interplanetary run to bring the couple home. As they approach the asteroid, however, the Borman itself becomes hopelessly disabled.
With the Borman suddenly out of commission and far beyond reach, cislunar space begins falling into chaos as critical satellites fail and valuable lunar mineral shipments begin disappearing in transit. Nothing is as it seems, and Marshall Hunter and the rest of the crew suspect none of it is by coincidence.
UP, UP & AWAY: On this day in 1783, the Montgolfier brothers publicly demonstrated their new invention—the hot-air balloon.
Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne were the sons of a prosperous French paper manufacturer. Of the two, Joseph-Michel is thought to have been the “obsessed inventor” type, while Jacque-Étienne was the steady businessman.
Not surprisingly, it was Joseph-Michel who first became intensely interested in aeronautics. Among other things, he was fascinated by the way laundry drying over a fire would billow upwards. He began experimenting with directing heated air into a paper or fabric bag, thus causing the bag to rise. He wrote to his brother, “Get in a supply of taffeta and of cordage, quickly, and you will see one of the most astonishing sights in the world.”
By June 4, 1783, they were ready to demonstrate their invention to a crowd of dignitaries in the town of Annonay. The 10-minute flight was unmanned and undirected, but it was said to have achieved an altitude of about 5200 feet. That’s not bad, especially when compared to the 12-second, 120 feet in distance achieved by the Wright Brothers on their second effort at heavier-than-air flight.
In order to really grab the public’s attention, Jacques-Étienne wanted their balloons to be beautiful. He collaborated with wallpaper manufacturer Jean-Baptiste Réveillon to produce a sky blue one with golden representations of suns and zodiac signs. On September 19, 1783, this balloon was launched from Versailles with Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in attendance. It had passengers of sorts—a sheep, a duck and a rooster. (more…)
GO, REAL AMERICA’S PAPER OF RECORD. SHOW THE DINGY LADY WHERE SHE GETS OFF: Lawyered-up Babylon Bee accuses New York Times of defamation, demands retraction.
OKAY, GUYS, I HAVE THIS AMAZING SERIES IN MY HEAD: Italian artist sells invisible sculpture for $18,000 that “only exists in his mind”.
It’s ten books, and it’s amazing. Who wants to buy it for 18k?
I wonder what the Remodern Review will think of that?
IT’S ALL A HORROR SHOW: Yet another official hobgoblin to frighten the citizenry.
JOINING CUOMO: Fauci Book Disappears From Online Pre-Sales.
WILL IT BE ENGLISH: Robert Mueller to Teach Class on Mueller Investigation.