Archive for 2024
January 16, 2024
OPERATION CHAOS 2024 FAILS: Nikki Haley Flounders In Iowa Despite Democrats’ Best Efforts To Meddle On Her Behalf.
And as a result: Trump’s Historic Iowa Win Causes MSNBC Host to Completely Implode.
CHANGE: The Baltimore Sun purchased by Sinclair’s David D. Smith.
Through his purchase of The Sun, Smith said he aims to help turn around a struggling newspaper industry, a decline he blamed on the industry’s inability to adapt to a changing market and to the internet, which has upended consumption and delivery of news and advertising.
He said he believes he can grow subscriptions and advertising for The Sun and its other publications by focusing more heavily on local and community news and investigations, boosting the use of video and social media, and integrating technology in ways other print media companies have been unable to do.
Smith criticized “mainstream media” in general for focusing on issues he said affect only a few people as opposed to those affecting greater numbers, adding that he finds it “curious that the mainstream media in this town often chooses not to cover things that affect everybody,” in particular concerning problems and corruption in government.
He said his first step will be to meet with staff and management of The Sun and its affiliates Tuesday to begin to understand the publications’ mission and operations and start discussions around future vision.
If the media takes their own advice when pink slips in other industries appear imminent, we are likely witnessing the birth of a whole new generation of coders in Charm City:
This will either lead to a bunch of leftists quitting in protest or a bunch of leftists being fired for cause. https://t.co/cprCh5hcpu
— Derek Hunter (@derekahunter) January 16, 2024
For those who remain, the Sun has one of the greatest journalistic role models in history to study to learn their craft: Terry Teachout on H.L. Mencken: a real man — warts and all.
UPDATE: “Smith said he will be joined in the newspaper venture by one partner, with an undisclosed share of ownership: Armstrong Williams, a well-known conservative political commentator who hosts a nationally syndicated television show on Sinclair network affiliates.”
(Updated and bumped.)
THE NATION’S PALESTINIAN CORRESPONDENT SAYS ‘WE MUST NORMALIZE MASSACRES:’
The Nation magazine’s Palestinian correspondent is being investigated by the London Metropolitan Police after saying “we must normalize massacres as the status quo” during an anti-Israel demonstration last weekend.
Mohammed El-Kurd, who is described as the Nation‘s “first-ever Palestine Correspondent” on the left-wing magazine’s website, also denounced the existence of Israel and said “we must root [Zionism] out of the world” in his speech at the London rally.
The Metropolitan Police said it was “aware of the remarks” and was “assessing the matter and as part of that assessment will be seeking to speak to the individual concerned.” The U.K. has strict laws relating to discriminatory speech and incitement to violence.
El-Kurd initially mocked the police department and critics of his speech, but on Monday claimed that he misspoke and meant to say that “we should NOT normalise massacres” of Palestinians specifically.
The Nation did not respond to a request for comment.
El-Kurd’s comments came amid a spike in anti-Semitic crimes and attempted terrorist attacks. On Saturday, London police arrested six pro-Palestinian activists who were allegedly plotting an attack on the city’s stock exchange. The Anti-Defamation League has reportedly tracked over 3,200 anti-Semitic incidents since Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre of Israelis.
These sorts of things just seem to keep happening at leftist sites covering the Middle East. After the 7/7 London tube bombings by radical Islamists in 2005, the paper ran a column written by a “trainee journalist” who used the word “sassy” in an article full of moral equivalence over the attacks:
Today’s Guardian gives space to Dilpazier Aslam, a “Guardian trainee journalist” who suggests that one shouldn’t be shocked by Thursday’s suicide bombings – such a reaction would be inappropriate because, among other reasons:
“Shocked would be to suggest that the bombings happened through no responsibility of our own.”
Yes, ladies and gentlemen – we bear responsibility for the murderous actions of maniacal members of a religious cult. An apology is certainly called for – the queue forms to the right.
Needless to say, there are other reasons why shock is inappropriate. Mr. Aslam explains:
“Shocked would be to say that we don’t understand how, in the green hills of Yorkshire, a group of men given all the liberties they could have wished for could do this.”
Fortunately for those who still don’t quite follow, Mr. Aslam provides an explanation immediately, in the very next paragraph – which reads, in its entirety:
“The Muslim community is no monolithic whole. Yet there are some common features. Second- and third-generation Muslims are without the don’t-rock-the boat attitude that restricted our forefathers. We’re much sassier with our opinions, not caring if the boat rocks or not.”
Suicide bombing …. sassy!
Aslam was sacked a couple of weeks later, after an intense campaign from both sides of the aisle.
Similarly, CNN staffers drop the mask all too frequently on the topic:
- CNN Reporter Brands Group of Israelis as ‘Scum.’
- ‘One of Hezbollah’s Giants I Respect a Lot.’
- CNN Photo Editor Posted Vicious Anti-Semitic Tweets on Deaths of ‘Jewish Pigs.’
- Another CNN Personality’s Antisemitic Tweets Unearthed: ‘I Love You Hitler.’
Regarding that last item, the Middle East has a rather complicated relationship with the architect of WWII:
How the Arab world talks about the Holocaust: the Holocaust never happened, and the Jews deserved it. Hitler was a hero, and the Jews are the real Hitler.
How many in the West are talking about Oct7: 7/10 never really happened, and the Jews deserved it. Hamas are the heroes,…
— George Deek (@GeorgeDeek) January 15, 2024
THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX says propellant venting caused loss of second Starship.
On that Nov. 18 launch, the Starship upper stage, or ship, was nearing the end of its burn to place it on a long suborbital trajectory when contact was lost. Hosts of the SpaceX webcast said it appeared the automated flight termination system was activated, but did not give a reason why, and the company provided few details since.
At a recent event at SpaceX’s Starbase test site in Boca Chica, Texas, video of which SpaceX posted on social media Jan. 12, Musk said the failure was linked to venting liquid oxygen propellant near the end of the burn. That venting, he said, was needed only because the vehicle was not carrying any payload.
“Flight 2 actually almost made it to orbit,” he said. “If it had a payload, it would have made it to orbit because the reason that it actually didn’t quite make it to orbit was we vented the liquid oxygen, and the liquid oxygen ultimately led to a fire and an explosion.”
They won’t make the same mistake on the third launch attempt, tentatively set for next month.
ARMY STAFF: WHITE PEOPLE ARE THE PROBLEM. ALSO ARMY STAFF: Army Staff ‘Baffled’ By Sharp Decline In White Recruits In Last Five Years.
Related: The US Army discovers woke doesn’t win wars — but is it too late?
STILL NOT READY FOR PRIMETIME: The Biggest Evidence for the Folly of the EV Push May Be Happening Right Now.
WOEING: What’s Gone Wrong at Boeing.
Harry Stonecipher, who had been CEO of McDonnell Douglas and was CEO of Boeing from 2003 to 2005, said: “When people say I changed the culture of Boeing, that was the intent, so that it’s run like a business rather than a great engineering firm.”
Corporate culture can be a notoriously squishy topic—too readily subject to broad generalizations. And, of course, all big companies are interested in making money and boosting their stock price. But even if corporate cultures are hard to characterize accurately, they’re still real. As the management theorist Edgar Schein defined it, the essence of corporate culture is “the learned, shared, tacit assumptions on which people base their daily behavior.” In the old Boeing, the people who dictated those assumptions were the engineers. In the post-merger Boeing, the people who did so were more likely to be accountants.
For some businesses, a shift to a greater emphasis on bottom-line considerations might not have mattered that much. But manufacturing airliners in large numbers is not one of those businesses. That’s because making big aircraft is an unreasonably difficult thing to do. A plane like the 737 Max has, by some accounts, more than half a million parts. Boeing now outsources much of its production, leaving assembly as its main job, so those parts are made by at least 600 suppliers (many of which, in turn, rely on subcontractors). Supervising the reliability of the manufacturing and quality-control processes at all of those different suppliers, while ensuring the reliability of Boeing’s own assembly processes, requires a maniacal attention to detail, a willingness to spend freely on reliability and safety, and a culture that tolerates the reporting of mistakes and the investment of serious resources in fixing them.
That ethos is hard to instill using only financial incentives or the threat of firing. What’s really needed is a culture of perfectionism—and that’s what Boeing seems to have lost over the past 20 or so years.
One of Beoing’s problems is that it isn’t even run like a well-run business, much less like the engineering firm it used to be and ought to be.
MAKE THEM PAY: White professor’s ‘hostile work environment’ claim can move forward: judge. “De Piero’s attorneys argued that mandatory diversity trainings and race-based grading constituted a ‘hostile work environment, in violation of Title VI and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,’ that forced De Piero to resign, according to the ruling’s summary.”
LEFTISTS. NEXT QUESTION? First Plagiarism, Now Lying: What’s Happening to America’s Universities?
I’ve said for years that lefties will destroy any institution they can’t control, and discredit any institution they can’t control or destroy. But it isn’t like they do such a great job of running the institutions they do control.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: UC Davis brags about ‘advancing MLK’s legacy’ through DEI programs, still employs prof after homicidal, anti-Semitic rant.
CHICAGO VOTERS WENT 82%/16% FOR BIDEN OVER TRUMP SO THEY SHOULD KEEP GETTING IT GOOD AND HARD: Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker begs for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to stop sending migrants – as new census figures show 4,500 more asylum seekers arrived in Chicago than previously reported.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Nikki Haley — From Juggernaut to Jugger-Naught in Iowa. “Before we get to the other stuff, can I just say that it really seems like this Trump guy is going places?”
MICHAEL WALSH: Welcome Back to the Fight.
WELL, THIS SEEMS TO HIT THE NAIL RIGHT ON THE HEAD: Former Obama-Appointed US Attorney: Fani Should Resign.
NOW THIS IS MORE LIKE THE 21ST CENTURY I’D BEEN HOPING FOR: Japanese startup plans to vaporize space junk using ground lasers.
EX-Fusion stands apart because it is taking the ground-based approach, with the startup tapping its arsenal of laser technology initially developed in pursuit of fusion power. In October, EX-Fusion signed a memorandum of understanding with EOS Space Systems, an Australian contractor with technology for detecting space debris. EX-Fusion has announced its plans to install a powerful laser system at the EOS Space Observatory near Canberra.
The initial stage of this project will involve setting up laser technology to track space debris that measures less than 4 inches (10 cm). This size of debris has been traditionally challenging to target from the ground using lasers. During the second phase, EX-Fusion and EOS Space will use laser beams fired from the surface to remove space debris.
I bet they could remove a lot more than just debris.
ENEMIES OF CIVILIZATION: ‘We Must Normalize Massacres’: Anti-Israel Activist Earns Cheers From London Crowd; Critics Blast Police Response. I think you mean non-response.
Hey, it’s not like they were old ladies praying in front of an abortion clinic.
CAN HE STICK AROUND AND ABUSE THE PRESS FOR A WHILE LONGER? I ENJOYED THAT. Vivek Ramaswamy ends presidential bid following Iowa caucuses: Ramaswamy has thrown his support behind former President Trump.
LABOUR IMPORTED A LOT OF PEOPLE — VOTERS — FROM PLACES UNFRIENDLY TO JEWS (AND BRITONS, FOR THAT MATTER): Antisemitic Activist Gets Cheers in London After He Says, ‘We Must Normalize Massacres.’
SPEAKING OF ENEMIES OF CIVILIZATION: ‘Huge Economic Damage’: Anti-Semitic Activists Arrested Over Plot To Shut Down London Stock Exchange: ‘Palestine Action will not back down,’ group vows in statement responding to arrests. Deport ’em to Gaza.
THEIR PRINCIPLES ARE VERY FLEXIBLE:
The left really went from “Black Lives Matter” to “slavery can be excused in pursuit of anti-Zionism” in less than 4 years. https://t.co/LOI046lGze
— Joshua Davis (@byJoshuaDavis) January 15, 2024
AT AMAZON, Shop the Winter Sale. #CommissionEarned
JUST SAY NO TO GOVERNMENT-MANDATED RACISM: Federal Contracting Is the Next DEI Target: Companies are required to meet strict hiring ‘goals’ that would be illegal anywhere else.