FINGERS CROSSED! Joe Biden Is Really Screwed Now. “Those who are advocating for Trump or another Republican are asking the wrong questions. It’s not about if Trump can beat Biden, if DeSantis can beat Biden, or even if Trump is too toxic to win; it’s about whether Biden can beat any of the Republicans running for the nomination.”
Archive for 2023
September 7, 2023
WHY? First Look: Rossi Brawler Pistol: A single-shot, single action pistol that serves more than a single purpose. “It is well-suited to dispatching varmints or dangerous animals such as venomous snakes or it can also be simply used to plink and have fun out on your property.” Seems imperfectly fitted to either purpose.
Even the cool-but-not-terribly-practical Diablo 12 gauge pistol seems more useful. Certainly better suited for the name “brawler,” anyway!
SPOILER: DEMS ARE HAVING A PSYCHIC MELTDOWN, NOT THAT THAT’S NEWS: How not to have a psychic meltdown when you see new Trump-Biden poll numbers. “In The Wall Street Journal’s latest poll of the 2024 election, President Biden and former president Donald Trump are locked at 46% each. Other recent polls have shown essentially the same thing. While there will be many twists and turns before next November, at this point the race is a toss-up.”
UNION POLITICAL SPENDING ‘ONLY’ $54 MILLION? Think again, friends, because a new analysis by the National Institute for Labor Relations Research (NILRR) uncovered substantial evidence that when all is said and done, Big Labor spent upwards of $25 billion during the 2022 campaign cycle. That $54 million figure is just for how much union-affiliated PACs reported spending.
PRIVACY [VIP]: It’s Been a Good Week for Keeping Bossy Busybodies From Spying on Your Phone. “Hi, Apple? This is Jerry from the FBI. Yeah, we’re going to need you to scan everybody’s photo libraries for MAGA hats near the Capitol building on or around January 6, 2021. And next month we’re going to have you start sending us location data from gun stores. Kthnxbi.”
XI’S GOTTA HAVE IT: How China Demands Tech Firms Reveal Hackable Flaws in Their Products.
For state-sponsored hacking operations, unpatched vulnerabilities are valuable ammunition. Intelligence agencies and militaries seize on hackable bugs when they’re revealed—exploiting them to carry out their campaigns of espionage or cyberwar—or spend millions to dig up new ones or to buy them in secret from the hacker gray market.
But for the past two years, China has added another approach to obtaining information about those vulnerabilities: a law that simply demands that any network technology business operating in the country hand it over. When tech companies learn of a hackable flaw in their products, they’re now required to tell a Chinese government agency—which, in some cases, then shares that information with China’s state-sponsored hackers, according to a new investigation. And some evidence suggests foreign firms with China-based operations are complying with the law, indirectly giving Chinese authorities hints about potential new ways to hack their own customers.
Today, the Atlantic Council released a report—whose findings the authors shared in advance with WIRED—that investigates the fallout of a Chinese law passed in 2021, designed to reform how companies and security researchers operating in China handle the discovery of security vulnerabilities in tech products. The law requires, among other things, that tech companies that discover or learn of a hackable flaw in their products must share information about it within two days with a Chinese agency known as the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The agency then adds the flaw to a database whose name translates from Mandarin as the Cybersecurity Threat and Vulnerability Information Sharing Platform but is often called by a simpler English name, the National Vulnerability Database.
For the last few years, I thought maybe I was being too paranoid, checking the national origin of apps before downloading. But is there such a thing as too paranoid anymore?
This story doesn’t just apply to apps developed in China but it certainly applies to all apps developed in China.
‘TONIGHT SHOW’ STAFFERS CLAIM JIMMY FALLON IS ‘ERRATIC,’ SEEMS DRUNK AT ‘TOXIC’ WORKPLACE.
On a show produced by Lorne Michaels, who enabled John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Garrett Morris and Chris Farley? I’m shocked, shocked!
THIS IS NOT THE HANDMAID’S TALE I WAS PROMISED: Despite Curbs, Abortion Rose in Most States This Year.
SEEMS LIKE LOW-HANGING FRUIT: Elon Musk’s X is going to take on Microsoft-owned ‘cringe’ platform LinkedIn to make hiring ‘cool’ again.
WHEN WE WERE YAMNAYA: Indo-European origins in 2023.
SOME VICTORY: Russian general warns Putin will ‘inevitably’ fire ‘nuclear weapons’ to claim victory in Ukraine.
Major-General Alexander Vladimirov, 78, who is the author of the “war bible” and also wrote the General Theory of War said in an interview that a nuclear bomb will be dropped.
He told pro-war pundit Vladislav Shurygin on the VK social media platform that “only one thing is needed” and that is to press the button which will be a “political decision by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief,” Putin.
The Kremlin official said, “The goals of Russia and the goals of the West are their survival and historical eternity.
“And this means that in the name of this, all means of armed struggle available to them will be used, including such a tool as their nuclear weapons.”
General Vladimirov added, “I am sure that nuclear weapons will be used in this war – inevitably, and from this neither we nor the enemy have anywhere to go.
Russia has a stable of ultra-nationalists who go on TV to drum up war support but it isn’t clear how many Russians still care.
During the Obama years, “unexpectedly” appeared in so many headlines that it became a punchline — an expression of the journalistic class’s childlike wonderment in the world around them and their disappointment over their encounters with unmet expectations…This pattern of astonishment became a joke because conservatives were never as stupefied by the news as its chroniclers. The Obama administration’s efforts to catalyze an economic recovery ensured it would be sluggish, relying as it did on inefficient stimulus spending, counterproductive regulations of labor and financial markets, and marginal tax increases to cover existing federal obligations and a handful of pricey new obligations. The outcomes these policies produced were not “unexpected” to students of sound fiscal policy.
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“Federal deficit unexpectedly set to double this year,” read an Axios headline on Thursday. “The federal deficit is expected to nearly double this year, from about $1 trillion last year to $2 trillion for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30,” the report observed. “There’s no precedent for deficits this large, as a share of the economy — outside war, deep recession or pandemic.”
Axios cites Washington Post journalist Jeff Stein’s reporting, who joins the “Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget” in assigning the blame for this unfortunate circumstance to rising interest rates on America’s rapidly ballooning debt obligations and declining tax revenue. “A strong economy usually reduces the deficit,” Stein wrote. “Not this time.”
What is this “strong economy” you speak of? Mortgage rates could hit 8%, economists say, citing a worrying sign not seen since the Great Recession.
WELL, THAT’S COMFORTING, TECH GUYS: FORMER GOOGLE EXEC WARNS AI COULD CREATE A DEADLY PLAGUE: “WE ARE WORKING WITH DANGEROUS THINGS.”
I see all the tech eco-activists asking “how do we create a plague to destroy all the useless eaters while leaving we masters alive?”
TRAGIC MAUI FIRE HAS OPRAH’S BRAND UP IN FLAMES:
Only Oprah Winfrey’s problem seems to be one of self immolation by association vice actual flames tickling her toes.
For such a carefully cultivated image after all these decades, old girl’s been coming apart at the seams these past few weeks, with jarring, insensitive gazillionaire misstep after misstep.
The things that might have passed unnoticed otherwise have been magnified by the enormous loss of life and property, the scope of the overall devastation, parcity of the emergency and relief response, and miserable performance of elected officials.
Let’s face it – Maui residents are pissed off.
They might have been a little torqued that the billionaire on the island escaped unscathed while they were wiped out. That festered some – even to the point of accusations of hiring firefighters for her estate making USA Today.
Didn’t her associations with Obama, Harvey Weinstein, and the New York Times’ ‘1619 Project’ set Oprah’s brand alight long before 2023?
BOOK OF THE DAY: The Chicken Health Handbook, 2nd Edition: A Complete Guide to Maximizing Flock Health and Dealing with Disease. #CommissionEarned
“SHOCKING?” YOU KEEP USING THAT WORD. I DO NOT THINK IT MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS: A Shocking Number of Illegal Aliens Flagged as National Security Risks.
LIFE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: Scientists grow whole model of human embryo, without sperm or egg.
ONE WIN AT A TIME: One Soros DA Gone, Another Targeted. “One Soros-backed DA resigned rather than face a recall vote.”
DISPATCHES FROM WEIMAR AMERICA: Military Allows ‘Barbie’ Movie, Not ‘Sound of Freedom.’
NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG:
Nobody is talking about how absolutely screwed the electric grid in the US is right now, there's a massive transformer shortage, both at distribution and transmission levels. Even losing a few in a concentrated area will create power outages for months on end.…
— Aaron Slodov (@aphysicist) September 5, 2023
ASHLEY MCCULLY: Exploiting Transgender Kids as Emotional Support Animals. “If the criminal justice system is inclined to ‘follow the science’ and apply the law differently for those who have been proven to make bad decisions based on a scientifically immature brain, then why are we not applying the same logic to the kabuki theater that is prevalent with gender dysphoria?”
Read the whole thing, and give Ashley a nice welcome to PJ Media.
DAMAGE CONTROL: Liberty Safe issues apology, change in policy after handing backdoor access to the FBI.
UPDATE:
— Not the Bee (@Not_the_Bee) September 7, 2023
NICE, BUT IT NEEDS TWO MORE ZEROS: Mother, Daughter to Receive $100,000 Settlement in Landmark Secret Gender-Transition Case.