Archive for 2023
January 30, 2023
20 YEARS AGO, ON INSTAPUNDIT:
“IT AIN’T DEAD YET:” DefenseTech warns that the TIA program hasn’t been killed, despite the contrary impression held by many.
Get a bigger stick, and whack it again.
I’LL BET THIS DENTAL WORK WAS VERY PAINFUL: A 17th-Century Aristocrat Had a Crafty Secret For Keeping Her Teeth. “A nice smile was particularly important for d’Alegre, a ‘controversial’ twice-widowed socialite ‘who did not have a good reputation,’ Colleter added.”
JAZZ SHAW: Where is the rest of the Tyre Nichols story? “But the actual story that’s driving all of this activity remains something of a mystery. What really happened on the night when five members of the now-defunct SCORPION police task force pulled over Nichols and beat him so badly that he succumbed to his wounds a couple of days later?”
GOOD QUESTION: Does ChatGPT mean the Technological Singularity is near? How would we know?
I had some related thoughts here.
RELIGION OF PEACE UPDATE: Pakistan mosque suicide bomber kills 59, wounds over 150.
SUSANNA HOFFS IS OLDER THAN ME, BUT DAMN:
THE FUTILITY OF WIND ENERGY: “Here’s the thing: If someone had taken a magic wand and instantly tripled the number of wind turbines in Kansas and Oklahoma this morning, it wouldn’t have made any difference. Calm winds mean no electricity. The problem was not confined to the USA. This morning, I learned of a wind farm that produced negative wind energy for two days in Canada. Really! Story below.”
VDH: Anarchy, American-Style. The Left runs Oceania, and we work for their various bureaus.
Apple, Google, Facebook, and other tech companies are not 1980s and 1990s “alternative” media geeks and hipsters creating neat gadgets for the people. They are not Steve Jobs and his pugnacious Apple battling the evil Microsoft or IBM, or the Macintosh commercial of 1984 depicting a maverick throwing a hammer into Big Brother’s screen. They are the Orwellian screen.
The current generation of techies is effectively Stalinist. Big Tech now colludes with the FBI, the Democratic Party, and the bureaucratic state to suppress free expression, warp balloting, and serve as contractors of government surveillance. Currently, the most totalitarian people in America are likely to wear flip flops, have a nose ring or pink hair, and disguise their fascism with ’60s-retread costumes.
There are no “armies of the night” marching on the Pentagon. Would-be demonstrators see no need, since radical identity politics, and gay, woke, and transgendered agendas are fast-tracked by the Department of Defense.
There are no protests against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau or the “La Migra” anymore by advocates of illegal immigration, because the Left owns the border. And it has utterly destroyed it. There is no border, no border enforcement, and no meaningful immigration law. As many as 6 million illegal entries during the first two years of the Biden Administration are proof enough of that.
There are no cutting-edge Lenny Bruces or Mort Sahls fighting state censorship because entertainers accept that 1) there are no impediments to vulgarity or pornographic expression, but 2) no comic or commentator dares to take on the diversity, equity, and inclusion woke industry because he assumes he would be crushed, and his career ruined.
Question the woke status quo, and one is not canonized in Vanity Fair or Rolling Stone as a fighter against the “uptight establishment” or “the man” as in the past, but now demonized as a racist purveyor of “hate speech” and enemy of the people.
The Left does not despise the FBI. It lauds it. And the bureau is no longer consumed with tracking down violent criminals and terrorists. Instead, it has become an enemy of parents worried about school indoctrination, or a retrieval service for lost first-family classified papers, laptops and diaries, or a Washington, D.C., cadre knee-deep in big money politics.
FBI agents are praised on left–wing media—given they have been activist conspirators who sought to destroy conservative candidates, deleted subpoenaed data, lied to federal investigators or committees while under oath, colluded with Russian oligarchs, doctored court evidence, and paid foreign nationals to compile campaign dirt on American citizens.
QED: Pro-Life Activist Arrested by FBI Acquitted on Federal Charges.
EVERYONE IS CONSERVATIVE ABOUT WHAT HE KNOWS BEST: Lib NBA Star Stephen Curry Opposes Affordable Housing Near His $30 Million Mansion.
(Classical reference in headline.)
OK, GROOMER: Salon Comes Out in Defense of Groomers, Because of Course They Do. “I have decided to spare you some of the other things I’ve found researching this column and others. But if I could please go the rest of my life without seeing another photo of a 15-year-old girl displaying her double mastectomy scars, gained in pursuit of trendy gender dysphoria conformity, that would nice.”
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Utah Educators and Union Officials Caught Boasting of Secretly Teaching CRT. A curriculum so good you have to lie about it.
MOTOR TREND: Road Trips in Our Long-Term EVs Have Been … Interesting. “Broken chargers, full charging stations, single-digit temperatures, and optimistic range estimates have tested our patience.”
THE NEW SPACE RACE: After a failure 4 months ago, the New Shepard spacecraft remains in limbo.
The rocket’s single main engine failed about one minute into the flight, at an altitude of around 9 km, as it was throttling back up after passing through the period of maximum dynamic pressure. At that point a large fire erupted in the BE-3 engine, and the New Shepard capsule’s solid rocket motor-powered escape system fired as intended, pulling the capsule away from the exploding rocket. The capsule experienced high G-forces during this return but appeared to make a safe landing.
Three days after this accident with the New Shepard-23 mission, the bipartisan leadership of the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics sent a letter to the Federal Aviation Administration, calling for a thorough investigation. In an interview with Ars later that month, the chair of the subcommittee, US Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), urged Blue Origin to be transparent.
“I’m heavily in favor of transparency, and I’m hoping that the FAA comes through pretty quickly with this,” Beyer said. “I would strongly encourage Blue Origin to be as transparent as possible, because that builds trust. It doesn’t have to be overnight, but it would be nice to keep people updated on the progress they’re making.”
The company has not heeded this advice.
For the time being, the New Space Race is pretty much Elon vs the World.
GET IN SHAPE: DMoose Forearm Exerciser. #CommissionEarned
COLD WAR II: China’s Nuke Lab Has Been Using US Chips, Despite Being Blacklisted. “The widely used chips were reportedly procured through resellers in China, and the blacklisted nuclear weapons lab had them used to model and simulate nuclear detonations. Nvidia says the chips used are for graphics and are general-use chips used in personal computers.”
THE COVID SHOTS WERE OVERSOLD: FDA seems sold on annual shots, but advisors call for a lot more data.
I’m sure Pfizer and Moderna want annual shots too, but given that most people have had Covid without getting terribly sick, I doubt they’ll be lining up for boosters.
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT [VIP]: We Are Not ‘At the Brink of World War III’ — At Least Not Yet. “Putin is stuck in a war he has so far been unable to win or quit. The longer this drags on, the more likely it is that Putin will try something truly desperate, or that some other spark — perhaps in Iran, for example — will light an even bigger conflagration.”
Don’t forget that VODKAPUNDIT promo code if you’ve been thinking of joining us.
A SMALL BUT ANNOYING NHS CUTBACK: Earwax removal no longer available at GP surgeries—leaving many struggling to hear. I had a doctor some years ago who said she loved to remove earwax because it was one of the few things she did where the patients left completely fixed. She said she’d treated one elderly lady whose family thought she was getting dementia, but after removing what seemed like several pounds of hardened wax it turned out that the old lady just couldn’t hear. With the wax removed she was fine.
THE LEFT’S WAR ON WOMEN: Ex-prisoner was ‘shaking with fear’ while sharing shower block with violent trans inmates at Scots prison. “The Scottish Government and Prison Service have been under fire over the decision to allow Bryson – a transgender double rapist – to be incarcerated at Cornton Vale Women’s prison.”
Most people who work remotely expect to be paid. Why should doctors be different?
JERRY, JUST REMEMBER, IT’S NOT A LIE — IF YOU BELIEVE IT: Adam Schiff, who hates ‘misinformation,’ still believes ‘Russian Collusion’ happened.