THE BEST THING ABOUT THE LAST SEVEN YEARS IS THE MASKS FALLING DOWN: Everything is in the open like it’s never been.
Once things are out in the open, they can be fought.
Archive for 2024
October 20, 2024
October 19, 2024
OPEN THREAD: Enjoy!
TYPICAL EU — NOT MUCH SPACE PROGRESS, BUT A SPACE LAW. WHICH ALSO ISN’T MAKING PROGRESS. Further delays and hurdles for EU Space Law.
CHRISTIAN TOTO: Carlos Mencia: The Anti-Woke Warrior We Need.
You might assume a Latino comic would trash Donald Trump, his big, beautiful Wall or both.
If the comedian is Carlos Mencia, you couldn’t be more wrong.
Trump barely came up during Mencia’s epic set at Denver’s Comedy Works Friday. Instead, he summoned the unironic spirit of “Team America: World Police.”
“America … f*** yeah!”
The show, the second of two from the “Mind of Mencia” alum that day, found him defending the nation against its angry critics.
What other country has people trashing it 24/7 but never leaving? We have obese poor people and complain about the slightest indignities. Meanwhile, citizens from other nations endure life-or-death hardships.
To paraphrase fellow comic “Yakof Smirnoff” – “what a country!”
This wasn’t empty rhetoric or an attempt to woo Red State USA. It flowed from the comic organically, buttressed by insightful punch lines.
Mencia also raged against Cancel Culture (without name-checking the cultural scourge), begging audiences to laugh about our differences. That unites us, and we’re all the same at the end of the day.
This wasn’t Colbert-level clapter or a TED Talk masquerading as stand-up. You might not hear a funnier set this year than what Mencia uncorked.
Great to hear, especially when Jerry Seinfeld has been crumbling recently under the left’s unending pressure: That’s a Shame: The Woke Left Finally Got to Jerry Seinfeld.
THE CORBYNIZATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONTINUES APACE: Kamala Harris publicly agrees with protestor accusing Israel of genocide: ‘What he’s talking about, it’s real.’
“I’m speaking right now,” Harris said before launching into her now well-worn response to similar interruptions.
“I know what you’re speaking of. I want the ceasefire. I want the war to end. And I respect your right to speak but I am speaking right now.”
“But what about the genocide? What about the genocide though?” the protestor, wearing a keffiyeh, yelled.
The man was then escorted out of the hall while yelling, “19,000 children are dead, and you won’t call it a genocide.”
In the silence that followed his exit, Harris turned back to the audience.
“Listen, what he’s talking about, it’s real. That’s not the subject that I came to discuss today, but it’s real and I respect his voice,” Harris said.
The vice president has never previously suggested that Israel’s defensive war in Gaza amounts to a genocide of Palestinian people.
Why it’s as if Kamala is “The anti-Jewish candidate,” as Melanie Phillips warned in August.
As John Hasson tweets, “Protestors are important bc they force Kamala to go off-script And when she goes off her teleprompter, she accidentally says what *she* thinks, not what her handlers tell her to say.”
LIGHTNING DEAL: ThermoPro TP19H Digital Meat Thermometer. #CommissionEarned
ANALYSIS: TRUE. Dead Terrorists Are a Good Thing.
PHYSICAL GRAFFITI: A Total Mural Failure: Kamala Harris’s Campaign Hits a Brick Wall in Philly.
Watching the Kamala Harris campaign is like watching paint dry. Now, some sketchy surrogates of Harris have taken that truth to a whole new level in Philadelphia where they garishly graffiti-tagged a brick building with one word for their one-note candidate. While some say the mural is just flat-stupid, others say this latest AstroTurf attempt is all surface and no substance. It doesn’t take an art degree to know this brushwork is making some non-fans of the Democratic presidential hopeful bristle.
Here’s a look at the un-American graffiti.
But was it really ‘spotted’ or is something else going on here? You know they say a picture paints a thousand words but Kamala’s name isn’t the only writing on the wall.
So, let’s check the fine print … er, fine paint in this case.
Back in the 1930s, FDR’s New Deal created make-work projects for artists such as Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, and Ben Shahn. Today, Kamala’s election bid is commissioning graffiti, which speaks volumes about how the left’s cultural aspirations have fallen.
KINSLEY GAFFE: Lizzo Vows ‘The Whole Country Will Be Like Detroit’ if Kamala Harris Becomes President.
UPDATE: Lizzo is also pointing out America’s rapidly rising illiteracy rate (which apparently is uniquely high amongst sex workers) in her own inimitable style:
Kamala Harris’ latest celebrity campaigner is singer Lizzo.
“This is how a bad bitch saves democracy. You hoes couldn’t even spell democracy!”
Lizzo helped Harris campaign in Detroit. pic.twitter.com/pZrAe01YET
— Andy Ngo 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) October 19, 2024
RIOTS FOR THEE, BUT NOT FOR ME: WSJ Opinion Doc: “Get The Jew” — The Crown Heights Riot Revisited.
This 20-minute documentary sheds light on the worst antisemitic riot in American history, which occurred in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in 1991.
Triggered by a Hasidic man running a red light and accidentally hitting and killing a young black child, the riot led to attacks on Jews. Stores and police cars were burned and a Hasidic man was killed.
David Dinkins, New York’s mayor at the time, allowed the riot to go on for three full days, while the media downplayed the antisemitism at the heart of the violence.
The film’s interviews include Rev. Al Sharpton and then-Deputy Police Chief Ray Kelly as well as WSJ Opinion writer Elliot Kaufman. The current wave of antisemitism makes these events newly relevant and worthy of reconsideration.
Here’s more about the incident, a deeper look at Al Sharpton’s role, and lessons for today:
Hey, I know someone who isn’t learning a lesson from the new documentary:
Earlier:
● How Al Sharpton Inflamed The Crown Heights Riot And How The Media Lied.
● The Riots Are Part of the Plan.
● Kamala Harris praised ‘defund the police’ movement in June 2020 radio interview.
(Classical reference in headline.)
ANDREW SULLIVAN: Rachel Levine Must Resign: A case study in politics and ideology overruling science. With children as victims. “The broad contours laid out in the brief were already known. But, with discovery, the specific details of private, internal emails make this medical scandal even more vivid.”
LIMITED TIME DEAL: DEWALT 20V Max Cordless Drill/Driver Kit. #CommissionEarned
WHAT WENT WRONG IS, THEY DOUBLED DOWN ON DEI: NY Times: The University Of Michigan Doubled Down on DEI. What Went Wrong?
SPACE: Rocket Report: Bloomberg calls for SLS cancellation; SpaceX hits century mark.
Meanwhile, a friend writes:
Why this op-Ed now?
I’m sure we’ve all seen the Bloomberg attack on Artemis. Some folks who are concerned about expensive parts of the program like SLS have been praising his piece.
Bloomberg may or may not be wrong, but he has been pro-Dem, anti-Trump, anti-space and pro-China for years.
In 2018 his PAC targeted Dana Rohrabacher (CA), Steve Knight (CA) and John Culberson for elimination. All the most solid space supporters. All China hawks (that may have been his real goal). All friends of ours. He put in over $10m to take out Rohrabacher, who normally raised a few hundred thousand in his campaigns run by his wife, Rhonda.
He even funded ads attacking space spending specifically like this one:
Bloomberg has been a “friend of China” for years. His cringiest moment might have come a couple years ago when he apologized to Beijing over the UK PM calling China “authoritarian.” Bloomberg tweeted, “”Some may have been insulted or offended last night by parts of the speaker’s remarks referencing certain countries and their duly elected leaders … To those of you who were upset and concerned by what the speaker said, you have my apologies.”
Again, not an argument for SLS, but beware messengers with other agendas.
Good point. SLS is stupid and should be canceled, but. . . .
OVERSOLD: Meta-analysis reveals minimal cognitive gains from antipsychotic drugs. “A systematic review and network meta-analysis of 68 studies has found no clear evidence that any specific antipsychotic significantly improves cognitive function in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders compared to placebo.”
We kicked a lot of people — basically, all of them — out of residential facilities on the promise that drugs would fix them. They don’t. Some of that is because patients don’t actually take them consistently. Some of it is because the drugs don’t work.
GREAT MOMENTS IN COALITION BUILDING: Kamala Harris Mocks Audience Members for Proclaiming ‘Jesus Is Lord,’ Says ‘You’re at the Wrong Rally.’
At a rally in Wisconsin on Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris responded to hecklers saying “Jesus is Lord” by telling them they were in the wrong place.
Yikes!
That “clap back” as USA Today called it came the same day Harris chose to skip the Catholic Al Smith Dinner in New York City. The last Democratic nominee who did that was former Vice President Walter Mondale, who lost to Republican Ronald Reagan 49 states to 1.
While speaking about abortion at a rally the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse’s Recreational Eagle Center, Harris said, “We’re not gonna be gaslighted on this. We remember, Donald Trump hand-selected three members of the United States Supreme Court, with the intention that they would undo the protections of Roe v. Wade, and they did as he intended.”
The issue has now been returned to the states to decide, which Trump has argued is where it should stay. At the presidential debate last month, Harris would not say what restrictions on abortion she would support, if any.
Trump then asked the moderator to question Harris on whether she would allow abortions for any reason at the seventh month of the pregnancy and beyond, but the Democratic nominee again would not answer. Most nations set limits, with 12 weeks (3 months) being the most common, Time reported in 2022.
Some shouted in response to Harris’ Thursday rally abortion comments, “Jesus is Lord!” This prompted Harris to say, “Oh, you guys are at the wrong rally. No, I think you meant to go to the smaller one down the street.”
America’s Newspaper of Record reported the moment thusly: Kamala Harris Begins Melting After Rallygoer Says ‘Jesus Is Lord.’
Sadly, the damage was already done as Vice President Harris steadily melted. “This was a security failure of the highest order,” said aide Denise Thompson. “It is simply unconscionable that a man who believes Jesus is Lord was allowed to get so close to the Vice President. This sort of thing should never happen.”
At publishing time, the Democrats had reportedly replaced Harris with an actual witch, who immediately got a substantial bump in the polls.
Heh, indeed. But the Democratic Party is sure a long way away from JFK’s Catholicism and Jimmy Carter’s born-again Christianity. (Whatever their excesses in private.) Steve Hayward wrote in his 2012 obit of George McGovern: that “McGovern was unable to counter the image that Republican Senator Hugh Scott indelibly attached to him as ‘the candidate of acid, amnesty, and abortion.'”
But on the last issue—abortion—we can see how radical the Democratic Party has become since. McGovern’s position at the beginning of the campaign was that abortion was a matter that should be left to state legislatures (which is the default Republican position today), and although he resisted attempts at including a pro-abortion plank in the Democratic platform in 1972, he gradually conceded to the pro-abortion views of insurgent feminists. (Muskie and Humphrey, it is worth adding, both opposed abortion. “I am not for it,” said Humphrey. “It compromises the sanctity of life,” said Muskie. The Rev. Jesse Jackson had an even tougher opinion at that time, describing abortion “as too nice a word for something cold, like murder.”) While McGovern conceded under pressure from feminists, he wouldn’t embrace abortion-on-demand. There must be regulating legislation, McGovern thought: “You can’t just let anybody walk in and request an abortion.”
Flash-forward to 2024. As CNN reported last month: Harris puts abortion rights at the center of her campaign.
I DON’T THINK THIS HAS GOTTEN THE ATTENTION IT DESERVES: Will the XAI 19 Day Data Center Miracle Win the Future of AI?
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang knows exactly how long it takes most companies to build an AI data center using Nvidia GPUs. He describes how his Nvidia team worked with xAI and Elon Musk to build a complete AI Data Center with 100,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs in 19 days. Elon Musk has said it took 122 days from start to finish.
Jensen said this would normally take 4 years. It would take 3 years for the planning and getting the site and permits and then it would take one year to build it and get it working and everyone trained. This means XAI took about 103 days for the planning and other non-GPU planning and other tasks.
The removal of most of the 3 year planning and preparation requires leveraging Elon’s Tesla team and processes they have worked out for factories and the prior setup of 20,000 GPUs used for Grok 2. . . . Tesla can completely design, build and test and certify a car in one hour. Other car companies take a year or more. If xAI has converted the installation, building and testing of a 100k GPU cluster from a 365 days process into a 19 day process and shortened the planing and preparation from 3 years into 100 days then this could be an unbeatable level of speed for xAI and for Tesla AI.
Leftists: “Elon doesn’t do anything he just buys companies.”
Just enter the letters “ADHD” into a search box and you’ll see. It’s like spilling blood into the water around Amity Island. The sharks begin to circle almost instantly. For younger generations, it’s online influencers. The ADHD hashtag on TikTok has more than 20 billion views; #adhdawareness has nearly a billion. And views mean money. #ADHD delivers clips and survival tips; hot girls in a hot mess, and not just an explanation for your unreliability but a blanket excuse. Are you always late? Do you let your friends and family down? Don’t worry! Don’t sweat it! That’s just your ADHD. Nothing to be done. Only a fascist would hold you accountable.
For older adults, the sharks come in the form of tests and then tailored life plans delivered to your inbox — thanks Impulse! — for just (let me check) $39.98 a week. (Argh! What was I thinking?) The tests pop up everywhere now, on every internet page I visit. And I marvel at the speed with which they convert self-pitying curiosity into an established diagnosis in a few quick tick-box stages. 1) Find out if you have ADHD. 2) What’s your ADHD type? 3) Here’s how to manage your unique ADHD type. A little begging the question, a little sunk cost fallacy and Bob’s your direct debit.
All the age-old huckster tricks are deployed in the adult ADHD grift. A TIME magazine piece, while of course not skeptical, did at least note that approximately half the ADHD TikToks made assertions so vague almost everyone could feel they applied to them. “If you don’t like doing homework, you have ADHD”; “If you zone out during meetings, you probably have ADHD.” These are known as Barnum statements, named after the showman P.T. Barnum whose catchphrase was: “A sucker is born every minute.”
Britain’s National Health Service has been so overwhelmed by the rise in adult ADHD that it’s launched a new taskforce, and as I read about it, up popped an ad for another clinic: “The letter you see here defines your ADHD type!” “Only adults with ADHD can solve this problem!”
Related: Is ADHD overdiagnosed and overtreated?
Yes to both. Next questions?
READER FAVORITE: Apple AirTag. #CommissionEarned
SCHRODINGER’S PRESIDENT: Dems: Trump is Hitler! Also Dems: Democrats in tight Senate races run ads touting their work with Trump. “It’s not exactly the behavior you’d expect from candidates who believe their nominee is winning,” the Trump campaign said.
