WHY PAY FOR OFFICES BUREAUCRATS REFUSE TO USE? That’s the question being posed by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) in her continuing effort to force some simple, basic common sense on the people responsible for the day-to-day operations of the federal bureaucracy. Since 75 percent of the Washington, D.C. region feds are still mostly working from home more than a year after the COVID-19 Pandemic ended, Ernst says there’s no reason to keep paying billions of tax dollars for leases, maintenance and related costs with maintaining empty or nearly empty office space.
Archive for 2023
August 29, 2023
GREAT MOMENTS IN OBJECTIVITY: Associated Press Coverage of Courts, Climate Bankrolled by Dozens of Left-Wing Foundations.
Related:
It's worth noting that the AP is bankrolled by left wing foundations including one founded by 1619 Project author Nikole Hannah-Jones, The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, Walton Family Foundation, the Rockefeller… https://t.co/OoYfGHU1Jh
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) August 29, 2023
NOW OUT: Kabul: The Untold Story of Biden’s Fiasco and the American Warriors Who Fought to the End. #CommissionEarned
SHOCKING NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE: Small bite of marijuana edible can sicken a child.
CHANGE: The end of the Googleverse.
Marwick said that within the internet landscape of the 2000s, Google was the thing that sat on top of everything else. There was a sense that as anarchic and chaotic as the early social web was out in the digital wilderness, what Google surfaced denoted a certain level of quality.
But if that last 25 years of Google’s history could be boiled down to a battle against the Google bomb, it is now starting to feel that the search engine is finally losing pace with the hijackers. Or as Marwick put it, “Google has gotten shittier and shittier.”
“To me, it just continues the transformation of the internet into this shitty mall,” Marwick said. “A dead mall that’s just filled with the shady sort of stores you don’t want to go to.”
The question, of course, is when did it all go wrong? How did a site that captured the imagination of the internet and fundamentally changed the way we communicate turn into a burned-out Walmart at the edge of town?
This is a long but fascinating piece. That the need to stand out on Google ended up homogenizing content is just one of several ironies.
But if you think homogenization was bad, wait until AI dominates.
NATIONAL ARCHIVES FINDS MORE THAN 5,000 EMAILS INCLUDING BIDEN’S SECRET EMAIL ADDRESSES: “Biden used the email addresses , , and to communicate at times during his vice presidency — including, on occasion, with his son.”
GOOD: Nothing To See Here: Intel-Hacktivist Media Stymied By Republican Govs Sending Illegal Aliens to ‘Sanctuary’ Cities and States. “We have bizarre claims about how awful the influx of illegals is (and it’s nothing compared to what border cities and towns have dealt with for decades) . . . without any acknowledgment of why there’s a problem or who’s to blame.”
I WAS SURPRISED THERE WAS ANYONE WHO DIDN’T BELIEVE THAT: The Number of Americans Who Believe Biden Is Too Old to Be President May Surprise You.
TO BE FAIR, THE ORGANIZATIONS AREN’T WHAT THEY USED TO BE: So Long, Organization Man.
Most white-collar workers subscribe to what Mr. Heckscher calls a “loyalist ethic.” They are loyal to the company as an organization, building their careers within its boundaries and by its rules. They respond with blank looks when he asks about professional ties, political or religious affiliations, or charitable endeavors. They have no such outside commitments, at least none that might trump company loyalty.
And they expect that loyalty to be repaid with paternalist care. “The loyalist majority,” writes Mr. Heckscher of one company, “had a set of expectations that involved what one called a ‘sense of entitlement’: entitlement to security and caring in exchange for competent work.” Layoffs of middle managers are traumatic even for loyalists whose own jobs aren’t threatened.
Loyalty. LOL. They learned better, alas.
NO BIG DEAL, IT ISN’T LIKE CHINA HAS BEEN MAKING ANY BIG MOVES IN THE MIDDLE EAST OR ANYTHING: Biden’s Top Candidate To Be Ambassador to Israel Leads Pro-China Think Tank.
BUT WAS THERE AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM? Videos capture bright meteor falling above Colorado.
RICHARD FERNANDEZ: The Woke Bazaar.
When economic, social, health and environmental imperatives jostle for top spot in virtue, how can they be ranked? Some have recently advocated the return of face-mask mandates. “We can certainly stop it making as many mutations by stopping it infecting as many people – if we block its transmission, if we wear a mask, if we get vaccinated, if we do social distancing,” a health expert said. But is it without cost? “Buy a mask and let his family go hungry, or buy food and go out into the crowded city without one – that is the stark choice facing Hayatullah Khan, an Afghan labourer whose daily earnings have fallen below $1.50 during the coronavirus pandemic,” one journalist observed about poor countries. Yet for some there are no resource conflicts: tax the billionaires and give Hayatullah Khan a free mask, free food, or, preferably, both. Welcome to Woke economics, where payments are made in intentions and virtue pays for everything.
Read the whole thing.
MEMORY-HOLED:
My point here is that there has been a concerted push across all platforms to disappear the story of the 13 American military heroes who were killed unnecessarily in Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. That’s because Biden’s poll numbers crashed afterwards and have never… https://t.co/plnzUw27KS
— Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) August 27, 2023
From the replies: You make a good point. A search of Abbey Gate for the past week returns mostly press releases by government officials and scant news articles.
You can see for yourself here.
BLOWS AGAINST THE EMPIRE: ‘Legal’ concerns halt NIH $154 million ‘false information’ program. “A federal court is considering a lawsuit brought by plaintiffs who allege the federal government colluded with Big Tech companies to silence their speech, often critical of COVID policies or the integrity of the 2020 presidential election.”
CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY: Joe Biden sent at least 5,400 pseudonymous emails as VP.
Related: Joe Biden’s email aliases reveal truth behind aw-shucks facade. “The only reason to run such an account is to make sure that the emails don’t get archived in official systems and aren’t available under the Freedom of Information Act, and to keep the communications out of the reach of critics, and possibly law enforcement.”
OH, CANADA: Kayla Lemieux and His Z-Cup Prosthetics Are Making an Oversized Comeback. “Now that Lemieux is returning to the classroom after such a brief paid vacation, it makes you wonder if his delusions of glandeur aren’t sincere.”
THAT’S BECAUSE, LIKE EVERYTHING WOKE, IT COMBINES VICIOUSNESS AND STUPIDITY IN NEW AND CONCERNING WAYS: Woke U.S. Diplomacy: Not 100% Popular Around the Globe, or at Home.
Conservative governments, including those of predominantly Muslim nations, are similarly negative. Kuwait, for example, sharply criticized the acting chargé d’affairs of the U.S. embassy for promoting Pride month in June via official channels on Twitter. In an official statement, Kuwait’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stressed to the U.S. “the need for the embassy to respect the laws and regulations in force in the State of Kuwait,” where public morality laws ban same-sex sexual activity.
In Hungary, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó clashed with U.S. Ambassador David Pressman, who is openly gay and publicly criticized the Hungarian government over LGBT issues. “[I]f he wishes to use his stay in Hungary to criticize the actions of a government elected by a clear majority of the Hungarian people and legitimized by the Hungarian people,” the foreign minister said, “he will have a very difficult job in working effectively to improve cooperation between the two countries.”
Elsewhere, the U.S. ambassador to Poland, Mark Brzezinski, and some 30 staffers participated in Warsaw’s Pride parade, despite Poland’s constitutional ban on both same-sex marriage and civil unions. In South Korea, where same-sex marriage is illegal, the U.S. Ambassador, Philip S. Goldberg, promoted Pride month and spoke at a “Queer Culture” event in Seoul.
Related: “But the truth is, when we’re engaged with the Chinese, we get an airport. And when we’re engaged with you guys, we get a lecture.”
I do think in many ways the most profound question for American foreign policy, and it’s one that very much implicates economic policy, is that as right and just as we feel we are, there are just a large number of countries that are not aligned with us or that are only weakly…
— Lawrence H. Summers (@LHSummers) April 16, 2023
CRISIS BY DESIGN: Over 40% of colleges closed since COVID-19 are Christian.
CHINA’S REPUTATION TAKES BIG HIT IN U.S.: Latest I&I/TIPP Poll indicates China’s reputation here in the U.S. is heading in the wrong direction, thanks to the rethinking more than a few Western corporations rethink being subject to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Hmmm, ya think???
HERE’S HOW THAT SPACE PROGRAM IS COMING ALONG: What is OSIRIS-REx? Everything you need to know about the 1st NASA spacecraft to land on an asteroid.
The OSIRIS-REx (short for the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) spacecraft was developed for NASA by Lockheed Martin. It is roughly the size of a van and, when fully fueled, weighs around 4,650 pounds (2,110 kilograms).
Besides folding solar panels, onboard cameras, and equipment to map Bennu’s surface, OSIRIS-REx is equipped with a 10-foot-long (3 meters) sample arm for retrieving chunks of rock from the asteroid.
After returning the samples to Earth, OSIRIS-REx is due to launch again in 2029 — this time, to the asteroid Apophis, another potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroid laden with intriguing subsurface materials.
OSIRIS-REx’s first target, Bennu, is an 85.5 million-ton (77.5 million metric tons) space rock that is on track to swoop within 4.6 million miles (7.5 million kilometers) of Earth’s orbit between 2175 and 2199. If Bennu, which is as wide as the Empire State Building is tall, were to slam into Earth, the estimated kinetic energy released would be 1,200 megatons — roughly 80,000 times greater than the energy of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.
Whether this collision will occur is unknown. The projected odds (the highest for any known asteroid) are slim, at just 1 in 2,700, but unpredictable alterations to Bennu’s orbit, made constantly by tiny nudges from starlight, could still shift it onto a collision course with Earth.
Much more at the link about an underappreciated NASA program.
DON SURBER: Trans activism is killing the Democrats. “Normal people are demanding a return to normal.”
WHY THE RADICAL TRANSFORMATION: Can people convince themselves that somebody they know to be evil is in fact a saint? Or that somebody who is certified dead is actually alive? That’s the issue at the heart of the critics’ claim Jesus’ disciples lied about the resurrection. Five scholars who have devoted their lives to studying, researching, thinking and debating this issue concisely present the evidence on HillFaith. Odds are good you will hear evidence you’ve never before encountered.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: AI Wants to Make Us Regret It Sooner Rather Than Later. “Now that AI is exploding much faster than I thought it would, there’s a creep factor that is making me regret not being a little more phased.”