Archive for 2023
July 21, 2023
THERE GOES JOE BIDEN AGAIN, RESTORING MORE HONOR AND DECENCY TO OUR “DEMOCRACY”: Bombshell Bribery Revelations Prompt Calls to Impeach Biden.
OVER AT MY SUBSTACK: Some Notes on Fitness: My practice with weight lifting and yoga.. (Bumped).
TRUST THE SCIENCE: Medical mistakes kill, permanently disable 795,000 Americans a year, study finds. Compare to the relatively tiny number killed by “assault weapons.”
HOW’S THAT TWITTER-KILLER COMING ALONG? Threads User Engagement Continues to Drop, Adding Urgency for New Features.
For a second week in a row, the number of daily active users declined on Threads, falling to 13 million, down about 70% from a July 7 peak, according to estimates from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower.
The average time users spend on the iOS and Android apps has also decreased to four minutes from 19 minutes. The average time spent for Android users in the U.S. dropped to five minutes from a peak of 21 minutes on launch day, according to SimilarWeb, a digital data and analytics company.
Twitter’s daily active users remain steady at about 200 million, and average time spent is at 30 minutes a day, according to Sensor Tower estimates.
Threads’ user engagement peaked on its third day of operations at 21 minutes.
If you’re going to launch a competitor to an existing product, it had better have all the same features, plus something new, starting on Day One. Threads has nothing new, and is missing direct messages, hashtags, desktop availability, and its algorithm is geared to downplay “serious or political content” to make it “a friendly place.”
Other than the format then, Threads isn’t really a Twitter replacement at all.
SINCE WE ASSUME THAT PEOPLE INTEND THE NATURAL AND FORESEEABLE RESULTS OF THEIR ACTIONS, I assume that lefties intend for their policies to make everything worse. Banning background checks increases racial discrimination.
When people can’t treat individuals as individuals, they look for proxies. Race is an easily available proxy, and while it’s not a great one, it’s good enough to use in the absence of other data.
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: ‘If We Never Meet Again…’ Tony Bennett Passes at 96. “‘For my money, Tony Bennett is the best singer in the business,’ no less than Frank Sinatra told Life magazine in 1965. ‘He moves me. He’s the singer who gets across what the composer has in mind, and probably a little more.'”
BUMPED! Link was wrong before, now fixed.
THE EXPERTS ARE IN CHARGE, AND EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Millions of emails intended for US military sent to Mali instead because of typo. “The emails were intended for ‘.mil’ accounts, the internet domain owned by the U.S. military. The typo caused the emails to be sent instead to ‘.ml’ accounts, which is the email domain for the West African country of Mali. None of the emails are said to be classified, according to The Financial Times, which first reported the story. Details of the emails range from diplomatic documents, tax returns, passwords and travel details of senior military officials.”
WELL, THAT’S BECAUSE THEY’RE COMMIES: Ben and Jerry Co-Founder Blames NATO ‘Military Industrial Complex’ for Ukraine War.
DECOUPLING: Mexico/Canada – More Money & Less Hassle than China. “From the US Trade Representative,’The top five purchasers of U.S. goods exports in 2022 were: Canada ($356.5 billion), Mexico ($324.3 billion), China ($150.4 billion), Japan ($80.2 billion), and the United Kingdom ($76.2 billion). U.S. goods exports to the European Union 27 were $350.8 billion.’ Okay, no one is arguing that China doesn’t matter. $150 billion in purchases of US exports counts. But…….. and it’s a big one…. China’s population is aging and shrinking, while at the same time the Chinese government is turning inward and is not looking to expand opportunities for foreign companies in China, or for that matter foreign exports into their market.”
WELL, THAT WAS THE GOAL: Howie Carr: Covid Panic Infected Freedom of Choice.
One recurring theme on my show back then was the fact that to keep the Panic going, the Democrats were not telling the truth about COVID death statistics.
Remember the motorcyclist killed in an Orlando traffic accident – COVID, or so the “experts” claimed. Two people shot to death in Colorado – you guessed it, COVID.
In Pennsylvania, the state was putting out death stats by counties, and when a newspaper called a couple of the local coroners, they were told no one in their jurisdictions had in fact died of the Red Chinese flu.
The Democrats, namely Dr. Rachel (formerly Richard) Levine, had just made up the numbers out of whole cloth.
But the lies and hysteria served the purposes of The Party. The inflated numbers – the “grim milestones” – hurt Donald Trump. As Jane Fonda said at the time, COVID was God’s gift to the left.
Now, though, it’s time to move on. So the Democrats’ religious tract, The New York Times, has let the cat out of the bag. But only in the 17th paragraph of a story very few people read, about the declining number of deaths from the CCP-created virus.
“The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death.”
Now they tell us! In the 17th paragraph no less.
“Other CDC data suggests that almost one-third of official recent COVID deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions.”
Consider that after the collapse of the Russian collusion myth, the COVID hoax was Fake News’ top hoax to bring down Donald J. Trump, and to crush both the economy and the liberties of the American people.
Now state-run media say… never mind.
See, the press and authorities don’t lie. They just . . . time the truth according to convenience.
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Russia Says Patients Infected With Deadly Bacteria Have Escaped.
It sounds like the plot of an infectious disease thriller: on the arid plains of Siberia, a dinner party partakes of horse meat that secretly harbors a rare and deadly bacteria. Once guests start showing signs of an infection, they are sent to the hospital, but some escape their sick beds — panicking local officials who send out an alert.
That’s how it allegedly went down in Tuva, a republic in Russia’s southern Siberian region in late June, and the bacteria that made everybody sick is anthrax, according to TASS, a Russian state-run news agency.
Anthrax has a long shelf life but it isn’t really contagious the way a viral infection is.
NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: The White House Is Now Hiding Joe Biden’s Trips Up and Down Stairs on Air Force One.
“Trips” is the operative word here.
BOOK I WOULD READ IF I HAD MORE TIME: Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity. #CommissionEarned
THIS IS HOW THE HORROR MOVIE BEGINS: Computer chip with built-in human brain tissue gets military funding.
Last year, Monash University scientists created the “DishBrain” – a semi-biological computer chip with some 800,000 human and mouse brain cells lab-grown into its electrodes. Demonstrating something like sentience, it learned to play Pong within five minutes.
The micro-electrode array at the heart of the DishBrain was capable both of reading activity in the brain cells, and stimulating them with electrical signals, so the research team set up a version of Pong where the brain cells were fed a moving electrical stimulus to represent which side of the “screen” the ball was on, and how far away from the paddle it was. They allowed the brain cells to act on the paddle, moving it left and right.
Then they set up a very basic-reward system, using the fact that small clusters of brain cells tend to try to minimize unpredictability in their environment. So if the paddle hit the ball, the cells would receive a nice, predictable stimulus. But if it missed, the cells would get four seconds of totally unpredictable stimulation.
If you were experimenting with ways to build a resentful AI, this might be a good start.
Spoiler: Mocking the oppressor is not fascism. And these “scholars” are oppressors. Plus:
The Fix asked the authors how will this study improve students’ learning in regards to engineering, in what ways has the current engineering culture presented barriers on women, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ community and what was their “anti fascist and trans/queer” process like to transform malicious response into results that can help the researchers.
The Fix sent a follow up email on July 13. No one has responded.
Some of the listed negative responses, as determined by the scholars, also included “female” “trans male” and “nonbinary queer.” One person also wrote “male” for gender and “Puerto-Rican American” as their race.
The Fix emailed again on July 18 to ask for clarity on why answers including “female,” “trans male” and “nonbinary queer” were considered malicious.
Other responses criticized the survey for “ruining” science.
“I really can’t be bothered at this point. You’re ruining genuine scientific disciplines here,” one person wrote. “There are two genders, male and female. If an engineer creates a bolt and a nut but then whimsically labels them, then they’re not that great of an engineer.’’
Maybe the kids are alright.
I WOULDN’T LET A HOLLYWOOD STAR TRAIN MY KIDS IN ANYTHING: Leo DiCaprio teams up with UCLA to train kids as young as 4 to be ‘climate warriors’.
Or babysit them.
HMM: ‘Putin Fears Losing Power’ – Russians React to New National Guard Heavy Weapons Bill.
Russian lawmakers passed a bill on Wednesday, July 19, that would allow its National Guard to deploy heavy weapons – including tanks – on the streets of the country in the wake of the short-lived insurrection by the mercenary group Wagner.
Since it was formed in 2016 its original role, as a means of controlling and stopping public demonstrations has since taken on a broader role including, participation in Moscow’s full-scale war on Ukraine launched in February last year.
According to the legislation passed by parliament’s lower house, the force, which answers directly to Putin, will be able to be armed with military-grade weapons, including heavy weapons.
To be fair, beefing up the czar’s personal guard and slaughtering the occasional group of undesirables are standard Russian succession protocols.
LAWFARE CONTINUES: The Peach State prepares for potential Trump indictment and arraignment.
Related:
JRB to DJT after second arrest and nth investigation: 'why won't you just die?'
— wretchardthecat (@wretchardthecat) July 20, 2023
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Maybe 2024 Will Give Us Some Third-Party Madness Just for Fun. “We’re still approximately 1700 months away from the 2024 United States presidential election. I may be exaggerating a bit, but I think most people feel me. I’ve written on a few occasions that this election cycle is either going to be the worst slog ever, or the most entertaining hot mess we have ever had to enjoy in American politics.”
WELL, THAT’S ONLY BECAUSE OUR GLOBAL RULING CLASS SUCKS PRETTY MUCH EVERYWHERE: Don Surber: Trumpism expands to Europe. “Whenever I read ‘far-right’ in the media, I remember the time John Denver went on the Tonight Show and responded to every question from Johnny Carson with ‘far out’ in the reply. Maybe journos should put the bong down.”
Plus: “The biggest threat to socialism never is from outside but by the patriots from within. The destruction of the middle class is the first goal because the middle class is self-reliant and independent, and usually Christian. When the middle class gets fed up and finally fights back, the media acts surprised.”
Related: Why Team Biden might be purposefully grinding down the middle class.
Also: Donald Trump is a symptom of a new kind of class warfare raging at home and abroad.
UNEXPECTEDLY: Transgender Triple Murderer Harassing Women in California Prison, Inmates Say.
Dana Rivers shares a cell with several female inmates at Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, where he was incarcerated last month. Women in Rivers’s housing unit say he ogles them, speaks demeaningly to them, and demands they push him around in his wheelchair.
“Rivers has been a problem since he rolled in the door,” one inmate said in a message reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. “He is trying to control the women saying he gets to bypass everything—special treatment.”
California is one of several U.S. states, along with Connecticut, Maine, and Massachusetts, that have enacted laws in recent years presumptively incarcerating criminals based on their gender identity rather than their sex. Other states have encouraged, if not mandated, the practice even as a growing number of female inmates have spoken out to say the men make them feel unsafe and, in some cases, harass or assault them.
The greatest trick the patriarchy ever pulled was convincing the world they were feminists — and convincing women that they deserve the abuse.
THE DEMOCRATS ARE CHEATERS AND BULLIES AND LOTS OF PEOPLE DON’T LIKE THAT: Trump’s popularity grows with indictments, now 51%.
GOOD RIDDANCE: Stanford Diversity Dean Departs Law School Four Months After Protest Of Conservative Federal Judge.
Funny how these “diversity and inclusion” people are never actually about diversity and inclusion.