SHE ISN’T IN DENIAL. HER JOB AT MSNBC REMAINS WHAT IT WAS AT THE WHITE HOUSE, AND THAT’S SPINNING FOR BIDEN: Jen Psaki Is in Denial About Joe Biden’s Cognitive Health.
Archive for 2023
September 22, 2023
STARTED WOKE, ALREADY BROKE: Race Hustler Ibram X. Kendi’s Woke Center Lays Off Most Staff.
JUST IN TIME FOR THE ELECTION! Okay, maybe not this time. A newly identified virus emerges from the deep. “This week in Microbiology Spectrum, Wang and an international group of researchers report the discovery of a new virus isolated from sediment brought up from a depth of 8,900 meters. The virus is a bacteriophage, or a virus that infects and replicates inside bacteria, and bacteriophages are believed to be the most abundant life forms on the planet.”
FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: Kissin’ Cousins, Torchin’ Cars. “This week we have a love that we wish had not dared speak its name, how to celebrate open carry and only get shot a few times, and Indiana Man’s failed attempt at avoiding a DUI.”
FASTER, BIGGER, STRONGER: Elon Says Future Starships Will be 20% Longer. “The SpaceX Super Heavy Starship is already the largest and most powerful rocket ever built. Elon tweeted that future versions will be 10% to 20% longer. If the 20% longer development happens then the stacked rocket will be 144 meters long. Adding 24 meters would be over 60% of the length of the Space Shuttle orbiter which was 37 meters long.”
HARDBALL: Biden Lays A Booby Trap For The Next Republican President.
On Friday, the White House unveiled a proposed rule that would make it even harder than in the past for an incoming Republican president to wrestle control of the left-leaning federal bureaucracy and actually implement the conservative policies promised to voters.
Of the 2.2 million federal civil workers, only 4,000 are presidential appointees. The rest stay in their jobs, from one administration to the next, protected by rules that make it nearly impossible to discipline or replace them.
They overwhelmingly favor the Left. A staggering 95% of unionized federal employees who donate to political candidates give to Democrats, according to Open Secrets. Only a tiny 5% support Republicans.
Some federal workers in high positions slow-walk or even derail a Republican president’s agenda — and get away with it.
Why bother to vote if the left-leaning deep state stays in charge no matter who wins the presidency?
GOP candidates Donald Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis are vowing to conquer this obstructionism.
Everett Kelley, union president of the American Federation of Government Employees, claims GOP contenders want to “politicize routine government work.” Nonsense. We’re not talking about mail carriers. It’s time to make lawyers, PhDs and other top-level career bureaucrats implement the president’s agenda, not their own.
Previously: Two Cheers for Corruption!
COLOR ME UNSURPRISED: Artificial sweeteners in processed foods may raise risk of depression.
WELCOME HOME: Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson switches to Republican Party.
IT MEANS THAT CHINA WILL HAVE TO FUNNEL A LOT OF MONEY TO THE GREENS TO STOP IT: America Just Hit the Lithium Jackpot: The world’s largest known deposit was just discovered in Nevada. What does that mean?
HE CAN’T EVEN HIDE IT FROM NEW YORKERS: Biden Is Still Trying to Hide His Border Crisis From the Public.
JOEL KOTKIN: Blue-collar workers are our only hope.
TRUCK THIS: Why I’m Leaving the Long-Haul Industry.
More recently, environmental regulations requiring manufacturers to reduce emissions gave us the diesel particulate filter (DPF), an exhaust treatment system that replaces a standard muffler. While there is no current federal mandate requiring a DPF, the filters are required by the 2008 California Statewide Truck and Bus Rule, which has incentivized many nationwide fleets to adopt them. The problem with DPFs is the filter system clogs. A lot.
When DPFs go down, trucks roll to a stop. Truckers report having to have a DPF serviced as often as every 5,000 miles, which means lots of lost productivity and stranded cargo. I’ve had four breakdowns over the past two years, and three were due to my DPF. A tow truck driver I spoke to on one of those occasions told me half of his business comes from malfunctioning DPFs. Repairs are a specialized affair, and replacements can cost up to $2,000. When my truck isn’t moving, I’m not earning. And these regulators have required that my truck stand still far too often.
Next up on the government’s list of ways to make truckers’ lives miserable are proposed speed limiters. Pete Buttigieg, the Secretary of Transportation, wants to limit all tractor-trailers to the same speed. Imagine being stuck behind a pair of tractor trailers side by side, who can’t speed up to pass each other. It’s relatively rare right now, but it will become the norm. Every single interstate nationwide will be populated by moving roadblocks, inspiring road rage and blocking critical services. What happens when the fire truck or ambulance is stuck behind these unbreakable pairs?
However well-intentioned these rules and regulations might be, it’s clear that no one is consulting with the long haul truckers about the totally foreseeable bad outcomes.
Outcomes don’t matter. Only moral preening by the likes of otherwise useless functionaries like Pete Buttigieg matters.
READER FAVORITE: JiaSifu 40×60 High Definition Monocular Telescope with Smartphone Adapter. #CommissionEarned
IT’S A CRISIS BY DESIGN BUT THEY CAN’T SAY THAT: What Does the White House Call the Border Situation? KJP Won’t Answer That Question.
DECOUPLING: China just stopped exporting two minerals the world’s chipmakers need.
China produces about 80% of the world’s gallium and about 60% of germanium, according to the Critical Raw Materials Alliance, but it didn’t sell any of the elements on international markets last month, Chinese customs data released on Wednesday showed. In July, the country exported 5.15 metric tons of forged gallium products and 8.1 metric tons of forged germanium products.
When asked about the lack of exports last month, He Yadong, a spokesperson from China’s commerce ministry told a press briefing Thursday that the department had received applications from companies to export the two materials. Some applications had been approved, he said, without elaborating.
The curbs are indicative of China’s apparent willingness to retaliate against US export controls, despite concerns about economic growth, as a tech war simmers.
Nobody ever said weaning ourselves off the CCP would be easy.
SO SHUT DOWN AND BECOME A COMMUNITY COLLEGE: Bryn Mawr College rolls out 59-point plan to combat ‘privilege, oppression perpetuated at the college.’
Or don’t waste anyone’s time with hypocritical bullshit: Your students literally come to Bryn Mawr because they hope to perpetuate privilege, for themselves.
MERRICK GARLAND TRYING TO LOOK EVENHANDED BY INDICTING A DEMOCRAT THEY’VE BEEN TRYING TO GET RID OF FOR YEARS: Senator Robert Menendez Is Indicted in New York: Mr. Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, was charged six years after his trial in a different corruption case ended in a hung jury.
Which isn’t to say that he’s innocent, only that I don’t trust Sleazy Merrick.
HMM: China’s quest for human genetic data spurs fears of a DNA arms race.
Most of Europe was in lockdown in April 2020 when a plane arrived in the Serbian capital bearing a well-timed gift from the People’s Republic of China. Inside was a Chinese invention called the Fire-Eye, a sophisticated portable lab that could detect coronavirus infections from tiny genetic fragments the pathogen leaves behind.
And that, as Serbians soon discovered, was the least of its capabilities.
The Fire-Eye excelled not only at cracking the genetic code for viruses, but also for humans, with machines that can decipher genetic instructions contained within the cells of every person on Earth, according to its Chinese inventors. In late 2021, with the pandemic still raging, Serbian officials announced they were working with a Chinese company to convert the lab into a permanent facility with plans to harvest and curate the entire genomes, or genetics blueprints, of Serbian citizens.
Serbia’s scientists were thrilled, and the country’s prime minister praised China for giving the Balkan country the “most advanced institute for precision medicine and genetics in the region.” Yet now, China’s Fire-Eye labs — scores of which were donated or sold to foreign countries during the pandemic — are attracting the attention of Western intelligence agencies amid growing unease about China’s intentions. Some analysts perceive China’s largesse as part of a global attempt to tap into new sources of highly valuable human DNA data in countries around the world.
Communist China really has evolved the art of the Trojan Horse and in so many areas.