Archive for 2023
August 22, 2023
UPGRADES: USS Zumwalt Arrives in Mississippi for Hypersonic Weapon Installation.
“USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000) arrived in Pascagoula, Miss., today to enter a modernization period and receive technology upgrades including the integration of the Conventional Prompt Strike weapon system,” reads a statement from the Navy provided to USNI News.
“The upgrades will ensure Zumwalt remains one of the most technologically advanced and lethal ships in the U.S. Navy.”
The ship arrived Saturday afternoon after leaving San Diego earlier this month.
“To the crew and families of the guided-missile destroyer USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000), we would like to extend the warmest welcome to the newest members of our shipyard community. It is an honor for us to serve you and the Navy by doing this important work,” Ingalls president Kari Wilkinson said in a statement.
The 16,000-ton warship pulled into Ingalls Shipbuilding for the availability that will pop off the existing twin 155 mm Advanced Gun Systems and replace them with four 87-inch missile tubes.
The tubes will each hold three Common Hypersonic Glide Bodies (C-HGB) – hypersonic missiles being developed jointly between the U.S. Army and the Navy – for a total of 12 missiles on the ship.
It’s a good thing, too, since there’s no ammo for the ship’s fancy five-inch guns.
READER FAVORITE: Merrell Men’s Moab 2 Vent Hiking Shoes. #CommissionEarned
JONATHAN TURLEY: Merrick Garland’s Theater of the Absurd: Why the Hunter Biden Scandal is No Longer a Laughing Matter.
Actually, it never was.
“SUPER EMITTERS”: Richest 10% of households are responsible for 40% of emissions in the US.
The study is being used to push a carbon tax and — surprise! — carbon-based systemic racism. But what I take away from it is that the people most likely to tell me there’s a crisis still aren’t behaving as though there’s a crisis.
HOW IT STARTED: CNN writer vexed by conservatives’ use of leftist terms.
CNN appears unwilling to admit that Americans have grown antipathetic to certain leftist terms on account of the loathsome and/or meritless concepts they signify.
Instead, to make sense of the ongoing backlash to leftist terms and concepts such as “woke,” “critical race theory,” and “equity,” senior CNN writer John Blake has penned an article explaining why Republican “verbal jiu-jitsu” is to blame.
Blake defined “verbal jiu-jitsu” as a “form of linguistic combat in which the practitioner takes a political phrase or concept popularized by their opponent and gradually turns into an unusable slur.”
An example would be the Biden administration and Democratic establishment‘s hostile use of the term “MAGA” as a modifier for those populist conservatives and Republicans whom they wish to mark as extremists.
Blake suggested that the adoption of new terms or turns of phrase by those with differing worldviews is a means to “avoid taking opposing arguments head on and instead redirect their opponents’ momentum to beat them.”
—The Blaze, yesterday.
How it’s going: Cuccinelli Calls Out CNN’s Hunt for Deceptively Editing DeSantis.
Former Virginia Attorney General and founder of the DeSantis-aligned Super PAC Never Back Down, Ken Cuccinelli confronted CNN’s State of the Union fill-in anchor for deceptively editing comments made by Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis during an interview with the Florida Standard to make it seem like he called Trump supporters “listless vessels.” Regardless of whom you support for the Republican nomination, everyone should be outraged at the media lying about one of the Republican candidates.
Setting up the dishonest clip, Hunt insisted “There was a pretty interesting moment in a recent interview where Governor DeSantis talked about Trump supporters. He used the words listless vessels.”
Cuccinelli jumped in to correct her: “He wasn’t talking about Trump supporters!”
—NewsBusters, Sunday.
Transcript at link, including Hunt’s response after getting caught: “Fair, Okay.” With absolutely no remorse, Hunt then continued to steamroll the conversation. Yet another “reliable source” at CNN!
BUT CAN ANYONE EXPLAIN THAT TO THEM WITHOUT GETTING BLOWN UP? UK Muslim Prof Says Taliban Are Misunderstanding Islam.
BETRAYING THE PUBLIC TRUST SHOULD CARRY CONSEQUENCES: Should the Philadelphia D.A.’s Office Have Been Sanctioned for Failing to Protect Crime Victims’ Rights?
NAH, TOO MANY OPPORTUNITIES FOR GRIFT: China’s Industrial Policy Is Failing. Will American Politicians Take Notice?
With the old model reaching its end, it would make sense for China to pursue another phase of liberalization, evolving toward a freer economy with a focus on consumer spending and service industries. But that clashes with President Xi Jinping’s vision. Instead, the government is scaling up another round of industrial policy focused on semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and direct government spending on cultural items such as sporting events.
“The leadership also worries that empowering individuals to make more decisions over how they spend their money could undermine state authority, without generating the kind of growth Beijing desires,” the Journal reports.
That line does a pretty great job of summing up what’s at stake in China. There’s no doubt that governmental stimulus spending can drive economic growth higher over the short term, but the bill eventually comes due in the form of higher debt and wasted resources. Sustainable, long-term economic growth doesn’t come from officials issuing edicts. It comes from the individuals’ power to pursue their own needs and desires in the marketplace—even if some of those desires aren’t aligned with what the government wants.
We watched Japan go through something similar in the ’90s — immediately following a decade of fear about “Japan, Inc.” surpassing the US. This time, though, Washington seems determined to relearn the lesson the hard way, if that.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: India hopes to be first nation to land on south pole of moon later this week.
SO THERE’S SUCH A THING AS Filipino-Style Spaghetti Sauce. I did not know that.
I suspect that this is more authentic, though. Whether I’d find it good is unclear to me.
BIDEN CRIME FAMILY UPDATE: Is This the Smoking Gun Proving That Biden Pressured Ukraine to Protect Himself?
TRUE: Many aging Americans live alone with cognitive impairment.
Last year I was pulling out of my dry cleaner’s, which is in a strip mall between a Kroger and an apartment building where a lot of old people live, and there was a guy in an electric scooter who was stuck. He was headed uphill in the parking lot, and his scooter had jammed up on a rain-deflector ridge and wouldn’t move. He had several bags of groceries in the baskets. The motor wouldn’t respond. He couldn’t really explain to me what was going on, but I figured out that he had tried to power over the bump until some sort of burnout-protection thing had stopped the motor. I turned the scooter off and back on, then pushed it over the bump and he was able to cruise on home. I followed him until he reached his building’s parking lot.
Maybe that guy should have been in some sort of assisted living facility, but he was shopping for himself and (mostly) getting around on his own. Is that bad? I’m not sure.
MY LATEST SUBSTACK ESSAY: Neurosis and the Curley Effect: The politics of mental health, and the mental health of politics.
UNEXPECTEDLY! 500,000 jobs could disappear in dramatic revision of US government data: report.
Bidenomics! Is there anything it can’t do?
YA THINK? Car Prices Might Be Unsustainable for Buyers.
For the average American, paying off a new car at current prices demands 42 weeks of income, according to data from Cox Automotive, up from around 33 before the pandemic.
Bargains have been hard to come by on the used-car lot as well, where the average vehicle listed for about $27,000—up more than 30% from prepandemic levels, according to Cox’s data.
Higher interest rates have made the situation more difficult for buyers. Today’s average new car loan has a monthly payment north of $750, with an interest rate of 9.5%. For used cars, the average rate is above 13.7%, according to Cox.
High interest rates are temporary, at least one hopes. But thanks to regulation, mandates, and decoupling (necessary but uncomfortable), high prices are here to stay — just like the housing market.
It’s almost as though someone wants to turn us into a nation of renters and bus-riders.
DECLINE IS A CHOICE: We will woke you! Classic Queen song “Fat Bottomed Girls” is mysteriously dropped from the group’s new Greatest Hits collection.
But will Sir-Mix-a-Lot be able to escape the PC police?
AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Hilary Makes Landfall, Destroying Over 30,000 Emails.
READER FAVORITE: Glocusent Upgraded LED Neck Reading Light. #CommissionEarned
WAS IT OVER WHEN JOE’S ‘67 VETTE BOMBED PEARL HARBOR? Biden Likens ‘Insignificant’ 2004 House Fire to Deadly Hawaii Wildfire.
Joe Biden likened the deadly Hawaiian wildfire, which has so far caused at least 115 casualties, to a 2004 house fire that almost cost him a cat and his ’67 Corvette.
“I don’t want to compare difficulties, but we have a little sense, Jill and I, of what it was like to lose a home,” Biden said. “Years ago, now, 15 years, I was in Washington doing Meet the Press. It was a sunny Sunday. Lightning struck at home on a little lake outside the home — not a lake, a big pond. It hit the wire and came up underneath our home, into the air condition ducts. To make a long story short, I almost lost my wife, my ’67 Corvette, and my cat.”
The Cranston Heights Fire Company, the department that extinguished the 2004 fire at Biden’s Delaware house, confirmed that the blaze was “an insignificant fire as it did not lead to multiple alarms and did not need a widespread incident response throughout the county,” adding that, “in the case for any homeowner, it was obviously significant at the time and was quickly responded to by the local firefighters.” The flames were confined to the kitchen, the fire chief said in 2004, and the fire was under control in 20 minutes.
Like his former bosses, all crises are an attempt, as Tom Wolfe would say, “Let’s talk about me!” Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth: Maui confronts the challenge of finding more than 800 missing people after the deadly wildfires.