Archive for 2023
March 10, 2023
IDIOCRACY WASN’T INTENDED TO BE A HOW-TO GUIDE: ‘So You’re in This as a Threesome?’ Dem Congresswoman Humiliates Herself During Twitter Hearings.
BRING BACK TERPIN HYDRATE WITH CODEINE: As African children died, doctors fought to get toxic Indian cough syrup banned. “When completed with help from the World Health Organization (WHO), the tests showed the medicines contained extremely dangerous levels of the toxins and had been sold in bottles wrongly labelled as WHO-approved, Reuters found. Pharmaceutical experts have warned for years about lax oversight of drugs made in India, whose industry supplies nearly half of the generic medicines used in Africa. India’s health regulator says it found no fault with the medicines.”
I wonder who thought it was a good idea to have most of the world’s medicines made in places like India and China?
ALL YOUR CHICKS ARE BELONG TO US: UK Mandates Backyard Chicken Registration To Fight Bird Flu.
DEAL OF THE DAY: Fykee Cordless Vacuum Cleaner. #CommissionEarned
YES WE CAN AND YES WE DO: Trans activists tell straight, gay people they can’t have ‘genital preferences.’
SO THAT’S A NO, THEN: Cornell won’t say if students punished for disrupting Ann Coulter speech.
THE PEOPLE WHO PROCLAIM SANCTUARY CITIES NEVER EXPECTED TO HAVE TO PROVIDE ANY ACTUAL SANCTUARY: Mayor Eric Adams Surrenders New York City’s Title of ‘Sanctuary City.’
CONSENT IS VITAL, ALSO IF YOU DON’T CONSENT TO SEX STUFF YOU DON’T LIKE THEN YOU’RE A BIGOT: Trans activists tell straight, gay people they can’t have ‘genital preferences.’
“Do the letters F, O mean anything to you?”
DECOUPLING: China’s Cutting-Edge Chip Dreams Just Died.
The Dutch government has confirmed that it will stop the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing machines making their way to China and other countries viewed as an active threat.
As Politico reports(Opens in a new window), an agreement was reached between the US and Netherlands back in January to impose technology export restrictions, but it has taken until now for Dutch officials to work out the details. Yesterday, a letter was published(Opens in a new window) by Dutch Foreign Trade Minister Liesje Schreinemacher confirming export licenses will be required for certain categories of Dutch technology.
Although China isn’t mentioned specifically, the focus of the export controls is clearly on chip manufacturing, with Schreinemacher stating in the letter: “Given the technological developments and geopolitical context, the government has concluded that it is necessary for the (inter)national security to expand the existing export controls on specific manufacturing equipment for semiconductors.”
This will come as another serious blow for China’s semiconductor industry because the Netherlands is home to ASML, which dominates the market for producing the most advanced deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography systems. Without access to such technology, China can’t produce sub-10nm chips unless it finds an alternative manufacturing solution or partner. That’s unlikely in the short term considering the US and Japan are also restricting exports to the country.
But: “Chinese firms are currently filling warehouse with chip components and equipment.”
A FRIEND COMMENTS: “THEY THOUGHT THEY COULD IMPROVE STONER’S DESIGN!” The not-really Next Generation Weapons Program.
On all key technical measures, the Next Generation Squad Weapons program is imploding before Army’s very eyes. The program is on mechanical life support, with its progenitors at the Joint Chiefs obstinately now ramming the program through despite spectacularly failing multiple civilian-sector peer reviews almost immediately upon commercial release.
Indeed the rifle seems cursed from birth. Even the naming has failed.
Our military is mostly good at pronouns now.
Plus: “Starting from a highly dubious intellectual, strategic and tactical baseline, the NGSW program is now failing mechanically and ballistically at once. Army came out hard with the program’s aims and expectations, unreasonably so, practically declaring a War on Physics from the outset.”
Physics always wins.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Tucker Carlson’s J6 Video Gain Is the Dem Media’s Pain. “One of the things I’ve always enjoyed about Carlson is that he seems to have more fun than other cable hosts, most of whom look as if they could use double doses of Metamucil.”
THEY’RE CERTAINLY ALREADY IN A COLD WAR WITH US: We May Already be in a Cold War with China.
YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO FORGET IT: Forty haunting memories of Biden’s bungled Afghan pullout.
TIME FOR A LITTLE REALISM: A few years back, at a briefing held before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, a well-dressed man with Down Syndrome testified that he “wanted to have a job where I could wear a suit and tie and carry a briefcase and be a professional like my dad who was a teacher.”
It would have been cruel to tell him that he was not going to be a physician, a scientist, an engineer, a dentist, or a lawyer. Nor was he likely to end up in one of the many other challenging jobs where intellectual aptitude matters. No one in attendance would have dreamed of being that cruel.
He gave a speech that was almost certainly written by somebody else. In it, he said that, growing up, he had felt “segregated, devalued, invisible and not respected,” all of which may well have been true. After the briefing he was shuffled off by his minder. It was obvious he had not gotten to the Commission offices by himself. (On the other hand, it is important not to underestimate him or any other Down Syndrome adult. I thought he did quite well considering his situation.)
He was there on behalf of the Massachusetts Down Syndrome Congress. In that capacity, he was advocating for the repeal of a federal program that allows a limited number of employers to hire Down Syndrome and other severely disabled workers at less than minimum wage. This highly regulated program (Section 14c of the Fair Labor Standards Act) was created during the FDR Administration. It makes it possible for many otherwise unemployable individuals to find employment.
Some of those who argue for the program’s repeal are honest about it: They admit that many severely disabled workers will not be able to find jobs at competitive wages. The jobs they are currently doing will either disappear entirely or be filled by more efficient workers, probably recent immigrants with poor English skills and little education. Even so, those recent immigrants will likely be more productive than most of the severely disabled individuals who hold the jobs now. As far as I can tell, the biggest beneficiary of a repeal will be the SEIU.
Those who are honest about it further admit that states will instead have to expand their social services programs to include more daycare for the severely disabled. I don’t see how this solves the witness’s feeling of being “segregated, devalued, invisible, and not respected.” It seems to me it makes it worse.
That’s seems to be what the family members of these individuals think, too. While the Commission was working on the report, we were deluged with comments—almost 10,000 of them—of which 98% asked for the program be continued.
DON SURBER: Nixon and the Myth of the Southern Strategy.
I’ve blogged about that myth before:
Everyone knows that race has long played a decisive role in Southern electoral politics. From the end of Reconstruction until the beginning of the civil rights era, the story goes, the national Democratic Party made room for segregationist members — and as a result dominated the South. But in the 50s and 60s, Democrats embraced the civil rights movement, costing them the white Southern vote. Meanwhile, the Republican Party successfully wooed disaffected white racists with a “Southern strategy” that championed “states’ rights.”
It’s an easy story to believe, but this year two political scientists called it into question. In their book “The End of Southern Exceptionalism,” Richard Johnston of the University of Pennsylvania and Byron Shafer of the University of Wisconsin argue that the shift in the South from Democratic to Republican was overwhelmingly a question not of race but of economic growth. In the postwar era, they note, the South transformed itself from a backward region to an engine of the national economy, giving rise to a sizable new wealthy suburban class. This class, not surprisingly, began to vote for the party that best represented its economic interests: the G.O.P. Working-class whites, however — and here’s the surprise — even those in areas with large black populations, stayed loyal to the Democrats. (This was true until the 90s, when the nation as a whole turned rightward in Congressional voting.)
The two scholars support their claim with an extensive survey of election returns and voter surveys.
Just a reminder.
TWITTER’S MODERATION still having problems, leading to customer dissatisfaction.
WORKHORSE OR LUXURY VEHICLE? Truckpocalypse Now. “Assuming I was insane enough to buy a new Ford F-150 at the average selling price, and no down payment, I would be looking at $1,521 in monthly payments, or more than I was paying for my home mortgage until a few years ago.”
LIFE IN OUR KAKISTOCRACY: The dumbest five minutes of Congress, ever: Dems demand sources from journalists who exposed government-media censorship complex.
Sources are only sacrosanct when the targets are Republicans.
LIGHTNING DEAL: Gorilla Grip Heavy Duty Manual Hand Held Can Opener. #CommissionEarned
DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: A California County Went Full-Eliott Ness to Spy on a Church During COVID.
TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Accused sex groomer Andie Rosafort seen at her Connecticut home. “Wearing white sneakers, blue jeans, and a green sweatshirt, Rosafor only flashed a little grin when asked to comment on her situation.”