I WISH THIS WERE MORE SATIRICAL THAN IT IS: Putin Impressed With American System Of Prosecuting Political Opponents.
Archive for 2023
March 24, 2023
R.I.P., A TECH LORD FAR SUPERIOR TO MOST OF THE CURRENT CROP: Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, author of ‘Moore’s Law’ that helped drive computer revolution, dies at 94.
Technically, Moore’s Law was more a description than a driver, mostly.
THREATS ARE CHEAP AND XI IS OLD: A US destroyer navigated the South China Sea and China is threatening ‘serious consequences.’
If they were serious they would have sunk it.
And yeah, Xi looks like a spring chicken next to Biden, but big deal. Who doesn’t?
Also, these island fortresses will do about as well as the ones operated by another Asian power in the last war. At best.
WHERE DOES GIORGIA MELONI GO FOR HER APOLOGY?
In a scathing speech receiving global attention, Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni tore into one of her colleagues this week for evincing something less than zeal in support of Europe’s efforts to help Ukraine fend off the Russian invasion. . . .
Meloni added that her more “irresponsible” colleagues advocate policies that would sacrifice “a sovereign nation” and “a free people” as well as “international law.”
Italy’s prime minister doesn’t just talk a good game. This week, Meloni vetoed a deal that would allow the Russian tech giant Yandex to assume control over an Italy-based cloud-services provider. Her government has approved arms transfers to Ukraine including sophisticated air-defense systems, and she has proposed the recognition of Stalin’s Holodomor atrocities as a “genocide.” Meloni has even savaged her predecessor and former boss, Silvio Berlusconi, for blaming the invasion of Ukraine on Volodymyr Zelensky’s refusal to accept the legitimacy of Moscow’s forceful capture of the Donbas.
All this must be profoundly confusing for the members of the Western foreign-policy establishment who insisted that Russia was the “big winner” of the election that Meloni’s coalition won.
The usual gang of idiots has been labeling everyone they don’t like as a Putin stooge, mostly, I suspect, to distract from how many of them are Xi stooges . . . .
OPEN THREAD: Ring in the weekend with joy and verve.
This was a group of self-described experts in an utterly fictitious “anti-disinformation” discipline who were so sure it was okay for them to tell you whom not to vote for, one of them sang about it. This, despite the fact that of the ones whose names we know, like Jankowicz, many were open swallowers of the dumbest Russiagate hokum, like the Alfa-Server story.
I spent a long time covering the 2008 Wall Street crash, which meant devoting large amounts of energy to some of the world’s most unredeeming people. These were swindlers who sold snake-oil mortgage products that put millions out of their homes and wiped out retirement funds of people who spent decades working as toll operators, firefighters, teachers. Such predators were awful, amoral people, but all the same, I occasionally found myself writing with something like admiration. These crooks were creators of truly ingenious schemes who did what they did out of lust, greed, jealousy, and other (at least identifiably human) forms of depravity.
These [name redacted] would-be censors are different. They have no sense of humor, no imagination, and exactly one distinguishing characteristic: they know what’s best for you. Anti-disinfo work suits them because they all have a Poppins streak that quietly gets off on binning your digital dirty bits (after the voyeuristic thrill of logging on to watch them in secret, with special credentials, which they rub with pleasure in evenings). They’re the vilest kind of snobs, and when they finally were forced to show their real selves to the public — and here I feel safe in thanking Elon Musk for making that possible, via the #TwitterFiles — the public rightfully recoiled from these arrogant power-worshipping mediocrities.
“Arrogant power-worshipping mediocrities” is a good summary of our ruling class, who can’t even rule themselves and have no business ruling anyone else.
Plus: “General Mark Milley just said on a podcast that armies may be fully robotic in 15 years, arousing general neoliberal giddiness (Milley quoted Dylan). These people need tech, because you know what they don’t have? Friends. Organic support. Or, ways to win them, like art, music, literature, or comedy.”
NOTE TO THE DONALDS, SR. AND JR.: You have to beat DeSantis in the primary if you want the nomination. But you can’t attack him like you did Jeb, or for that matter Hillary. You have to show why you’re better, not just try to tear him down. He’s been a very successful governor, and his instincts on Covid were better than yours (or mine). The slash-and-burn stuff just makes you look desperate.
And now he’s punching back and it hurts. But you punched first and it was an unforced error. The Democrats are the enemy, not the two of you, and they’d like to see nothing better than a brutal primary battle that leaves the winner weakened.
THERE’S A LOT OF COMPETITION FOR THAT SLOT: Minnesota’s Gov. Tim Walz: America’s Worst Politician?
BIDEN’S NOT SENDING THEIR BEST. OR WORSE, MAYBE HE IS: WATCH: GOP Senator Stumps Biden Judicial Nominees Again, and Again, and Again.
TROUBLINGLY DECENT JOB:
@digitalresonator Midjourney's interpretation of We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel Lots of requests for this one. @musicawakener #ai #art #aiart #aiartist #aiartcommunity #midjourneyart #midjourney #aimusicvideo #fyp #foryoupage #billyjoel #wedidntstartthefire #80smusic #80srock #classicrock ♬ We Didn't Start the Fire – Billy Joel
AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Trump Exploits Little-Known Legal Loophole Where You Avoid Indictment By Not Committing A Crime.
So tricky, this one.
DID I SLEEP THROUGH IT AGAIN? A ‘time traveler’ predicts our future: Aliens will conquer earth on March 23.
WHY ARE HIGHER ED, AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, SUCH CESSPITS OF RACISM? Behind the scenes of the Harvard affirmative action case, a joke about Asian applicants.
THE PATH TO BOLOS: SIG Sauer Acquires General Robotics.
Sure, in the original Keith Laumer novels BOLOs were produced by GM. But nowadays that’s the least believable part of that future.
Related: Communist Front Group Organized Shout-Down of Conservative Judge at Stanford.
UPDATE: Bad link before, fixed now. Thanks!
HOW’S THAT SPACE PROGRAM COMING ALONG? Large asteroid coming close, but zero chance of hitting us.
FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY: Ever Dance With the Devil in the Pale Security Video Light? “This week we have the strip joint bouncers who might have prevented a massacre, the least-candid candid camera, and the world’s bravest Amazon delivery guy.”
BE PREPARED: Rain-X 5079281-2 Latitude 2-In-1 Water Repellent Wiper Blades. #CommissionEarned
I’M NOT FRETTING: Ford Loses $3 Billion on EV Business Unit, Don’t Fret Yet.
JONATHAN TURLEY: The National Archives Just Torpedoed Biden’s Sgt. Schultz Defense. “The National Archives has released emails that show that then-Vice President Joe Biden approved an official statement in December 2015 about Hunter Biden’s position on a Ukrainian energy company’s board.”
READER FAVORITE: GTHUNDER Digital Night Vision Goggles Binoculars. #CommissionEarned
THE NEW ANTI-RACISM LOOKS AND AWFUL LOT LIKE THE OLD RACISM: ‘Woke’ DOD official Kelisa Wing reassigned after GOP highlights anti-white tweets.
PLANETARY DEFENSE: Why scientists are studying the clouds of debris left in DART’s wake.