Archive for 2022
July 21, 2022
AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Brutal: Biden Contracts COVID Just One Day After Miraculous Recovery From Cancer.
OLD AND BUSTED: Sharks with Frickin’ Laser Beams Attached to Their Heads.
The New Hotness? Robot dog with machine gun hints of a dystopian future.
The design of the robot looks a lot like Go1 robot dog Unitree Robotics makes. For example, the back side of the device in the video exhibits a distinct pattern on a plastic covering between its hind legs. A similar design is visible on devices in Unitree’s promotional material.
The Hangzhou-based company is selling the Go1 model of the robot for $2,700 on its website, a fraction of over $75k that American-made Spot would cost its owner.
While the robot doesn’t seem to handle recoil very well with the gun on ‘burst fire’ mode, switching to a ‘semi-automatic’ setting allows the robot to hit targets without moving around too much.
The robot in the video has patches on its surfaces with insignia associated with the Russian military: a Russian flag on one side and what seems to be a Wolf, which Russian special forces use.
Cкайнет улыбается.
SLOWLY ROASTING IN HEATWAVE BRITAIN:
There’ll always be Rome, Barcelona, Athens — but chances are you haven’t considered [vacationing in] Manchester, the northern English industrial powerhouse that inspired Karl Marx to write The Communist Manifesto and gave the world the Smiths, Joy Division and Oasis (you know, the ones who wrote “Wonderwall”).
Yet as I write from the downtown offices of the Mill, the city’s up-and-coming quality local journalism newsletter, the windows are wide open, two fans are working overtime, the desk plants are shuffling off the mortal coil and the thermometer reads “36 degrees Celsius” — which translates to 97 degrees Fahrenheit.
I know what you’re thinking — “97 degrees? Is that it? No wonder those lily-livered limeys wilted when faced down by Founding Fathers.” In the US, 97 degrees is code for “turn the AC up, dip in the pool and put the extremely watery light beer in the cooler.”
But Manchester was not built for this heat. Buildings here don’t come equipped with air-conditioning units — no one has ever needed them — and in the two local cafes I sampled this afternoon, the baristas were clearly rookies at making iced coffee.
Naturally Britain has been brought to its knees: schools closed early and trains are being canceled (though frankly this happens all the time anyway). The H&M on Market Street is sold out of sunglasses. If you tried to order an AC unit on Amazon Prime on Monday, it likely wouldn’t be with you until Friday. Down in Oxfordshire the Royal Air Force halted flights after the runway at their Brize Norton base “melted.” That makes this the perfect time for President Biden’s allies in Ireland to invade.
Meanwhile, let’s check in on Germany:
JOE MANCHIN IS SAVING DEMOCRATS, YET THEY HATE HIM FOR IT:
Manchin properly represents his constituents in a state where Donald Trump defeated Joe Biden by 39 points; he’s also preserving the party and country when no other Democrat tries.
Seemingly apathetic to soaring inflation crushing hardworking Americans, Democrats kept pushing massive spending. Manchin and Republicans have been proven correct to oppose it, while the Sanders wing is wrong.
And yes, the lifelong West Virginian supports the fossil fuel industry because he represents an energy-producing state, and his voters, like most Americans, want cheaper fossil fuels.
He’s also served the Mountain State for decades in various leadership capacities. He knows he holds a valuable seat that will be in Republican hands for generations once he retires, perhaps in 2024 at age 77.
Sanders does not care about Biden’s agenda; he’s irked because Manchin is undermining his totalitarian goals.
Earlier: Robert Reich: Perhaps it’s time to kick Joe Manchin out of the Democratic party.
Yes, your terms are acceptable:
SCIENCE, UNSETTLED: Huge New Study Suggests Depression Isn’t a Serotonin Imbalance After All.
AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM: A unique stone-skipping-like trajectory of asteroid Aletai.
ANTI-GAY TELESCOPE TYRANNY! Homophobic Telescope Reveals First Hi-Res Images of Deep Space.
As Rod Dreher responds to the above headline, “You think: that just has to be the Babylon Bee, right? Nope — it’s part of the Microsoft News network, same as MSNBC:
Because really, when you think about it, the only thing significant about a scientist’s life is how he felt about gay people in the 1950s. NPR, naturally, tried to warn the space agency last fall to turn back from its gay-bashing ways, but NASA for some reason wouldn’t listen.
When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez becomes our Woke Cromwell, they will rename the Webb telescope the Big Freedia Space Telescope, or, alternatively, they will blow it up so our vision of deep space isn’t tainted by homophobe emanations.
Not only was James Webb homophobic, I’m told he had terrible taste in shirts as well.
READER FAVORITE: DeskCycle Under Desk Bike Pedal Exerciser. #CommissionEarned
AP AND NPR SUDDENLY NOTICE: Corruption concerns involving Ukraine are revived as the war with Russia drags on.
COLOR ME UNSURPRISED: Surgery risks mount if anesthesiologist faces heavy workload, study warns.
QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED:
● Shot: Biden Wanted an F.D.R. Presidency. How’s He Doing So Far?
—The New York Times, October 26th.
● Chaser: First Case of Polio in United States in Almost a Decade Reported in New York.
—Mediaite, today.
THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE: Department of Defense establishes office to track UFOs in space.
The Department of Defense has created an office to track unidentified objects in space and air, under water, or even those that appear to travel between these domains.
UFOs, or as they are now known, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) have been receiving newfound levels of government scrutiny not seen in decades. Multiple hearings and classified briefings have taken place in the halls of the U.S. Congress in recent months, and many lawmakers have expressed concern that America’s airspace may not be as safe as we think due to the many sightings of unidentified objects military aviators and other armed forces personnel have reported.
With that in mind, the Department of Defense (DOD) announced the creation of this new office in a statement (opens in new tab) published Wednesday (July 20). The office is known as the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, and was established within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security. The new office will be led by Sean Kirkpatrick (opens in new tab), who previously served as the chief scientist at the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Missile and Space Intelligence Center.
America is so behind the times. Didn’t England already do this 42 years ago?
SNOWFALLS ARE NOW JUST A THING OF THE PAST: One Simple Graph Shows Why Biden’s ‘Climate Emergency’ Would Be Worse Than Useless. The president is considering drastic action that would actually accomplish almost nothing.
What does a president do when Congress won’t pass the legislation he wants? Grab a pen and try to cram it through via executive order, apparently—at least if that president’s name is Joe Biden.
Congress just shut down Biden’s hopes of passing major legislation intended to address climate change through massive taxpayer spending, subsidies, and regulations. But the president isn’t giving up.
Rather, the White House is planning on issuing several executive orders taking unilateral action to supposedly halt climate change. And the president is even reportedly considering declaring a “climate emergency” to unlock more emergency powers Biden could use to impose climate policies without actually going through the democratic process of legislation.
These efforts are constitutionally suspect, economically unsound, and politically unwise. But more than that, if he does go through with it, President Biden’s “climate emergency” would be worse than useless, accomplishing next-to-nothing despite its many downsides.
With the Covid panic now in many Americans’ rear-view mirrors, Team Biden needs a “new” crisis (see our headline above) to justify the left’s century-old organizing principle, the moral equivalent of war. Not to mention they don’t know what else to do:
CHRISTIAN TOTO: Peele’s ‘Nope’ Might Be Year’s Worst Film.
Jordan Peele, meet M. Night Shyamalan.
The “Sixth Sense” director was once the toast of Hollywood before his films devolved into tortured “gotcha” exercises. Shyamalan has never been the same, creatively speaking, even if he occasionally teases a return to form a la 2016’s “Split.”
Can we expect a similar arc with Peele following his third film, “Nope?”
Ouch.
KNOWN WOLF: Uvalde shooter exhibited ‘almost every warning sign,’ expert says.
We don’t have a “gun violence” crisis. We have a mental health treatment crisis.
WORKING CLASS HERO: Bruce Springsteen Fans Complain About Steep Ticketmaster Prices.
Hey, those polo ponies and that 384-acre horse farm don’t pay for themselves, you know.
VDH: The Left Should Be Happy with Biden.
The Left should be ecstatic that Joe Biden has given them everything they wanted.
The Left likes inflation. It reduces the value of old money by printing lots of new money. Those richer who have it, lose the value of their money; those poorer who don’t have any money, suddenly do.
When combined with low interest rates, inflation roars even louder. Not since Jimmy Carter has a Democrat been so insistent on inflating the money supply.
For decades, the Left has amplified former Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s 2008 dream that the government must spike fuel costs up to European levels. That was seen as the best way to force unsophisticated Americans to quit burning gas and transition to renewable energy. Biden took that sermon seriously.
He canceled federal energy leases. He shut down ANWR. He canceled pipelines and warned the oil industry its days were numbered. Biden has done more than any other Democrat to ensure fossil fuels were unaffordable, forcing America’s supposedly unthinking consumers to drive less or consider ditching their gas-engine cars altogether.
The hard American Left always wanted unlimited illegal immigration. Biden agreed and destroyed the southern border as we knew it.
The result is that in less than two years, nearly 3 million illegal aliens have surged into the United States. Nearly all of them arrived unvaccinated, untested, and unaudited at a time of a COVID pandemic.
Biden worries little that record numbers of Americans are dying from drugs that now pour across the border. Cartels became richer and more powerful than ever under his watch, while child traffickers were freed from worries.
Biden did more than any prior Democrat to ensure massive illegal immigration as part of the leftist dream of flipping red states blue by changing the demography.
Well yes, but illegal immigrants are now going to the “wrong” places:
● Texas Bussing Migrants: NYC Mayor Says City Being Overwhelmed.
Why, it’s as if: Libs ‘All for Open Borders’ Until Crisis Hits Home.
SMEARS AND HATE ARE THE HALLMARKS OF THE PELOSI CONGRESS: Today’s Congressional Agenda: ‘Blamestorming’ the Firearms Business and Demonizing Gun Owners.
GOOGLE: Whatever happened to ‘Don’t be evil’?
The motto ‘Don’t be evil’ was removed in 2018 from Google’s corporate code of conduct. In the words of Ross LaJeunesse, a former head of international relations at Google, this reflected the transformation of Google into a company consumed by the need to ‘chase bigger profits and an even higher stock price’.
Google has morphed into a quasi-monopoly that now controls over 90 per cent of the US, European and UK search-engine market. Gmail, meanwhile, has 1.5 billion monthly users, or about 75 per cent of the market for web-based email. Like many of its oligarchic counterparts, Google now controls a huge revenue base. As writer and academic Michael Lind puts it, Google now functions as a ‘toll booth’ company, acting like a digital feudal lord that charges fees to cyber-travellers. Shielded from competition, it benefits increasingly not from innovation but from finding new ways to leverage its dominant market position.
Google’s search engine, once noted for its impartiality and open sourcing, has become increasingly politicised. It is using its market power to stifle competitors – as shown by investigations in Europe, the UK and in the US. Indeed, the EU fined Google billions of dollars in 2021 for giving preferential treatment on its search engine to its own shopping service. One of Google’s few competitors, the much smaller DuckDuckGo, accused it earlier this year of manipulating browser extensions to drive customers from rival products. And this month, the UK state regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority, initiated its own probe into both Apple and Google.
LIVE AT 4PM EASTERN: ‘Five O’Clock Somewhere’ with Kruiser, VodkaPundit, Special Guest Kurt Schlichter.