Archive for 2024

CNN reporting that “At least five people were killed and 10 others injured when airdropped aid packages fell on them in the Al Shati camp west of Gaza City, according to a journalist on the scene.”

DEI’S NEW WEAPON: ‘CULTURAL TAXATION.’ DEI ideology demands members of minorities act in their capacity of members of the group instead of individuals. This results in more work for those people, which DEI labels “cultural taxation” without pointing out that the DEI pushers are the tax collectors. DEI pushers’ solution: everyone else should compensate the victims for the damage the DEI pushers caused. Which, of course, would enable them to make more DEI demands of people. Nice “work” if you can get it…

FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: They Drove It Like They Stole It — at Gunpoint. “Time for your much-needed break from the serious news, and this week we have an important lesson in strip club etiquette, an even more important lesson in understanding your limitations as a driver, and Texas Man doing his best Blues Brothers imitation.’

HMM: Asian American women are getting lung cancer despite never smoking. It’s baffling scientists and leading to more research. “According to a California study, lung cancer rates are dropping for every group except nonsmoking Asian American women — for whom they’re actually increasing by 2% per year. While lung cancer is traditionally associated with cigarettes, as many as 20% of U.S. cases happen in never-smokers every year. Among Asian American women who have lung cancer, more than 50% have never smoked.”

I had a Japanese ex-girlfriend who died of lung cancer at the age of 33, having never smoked.

THEY WENT WOKE AND YOU KNOW THE REST: Victoria’s Secret Falls Most Ever in Faltering Turnaround.

Underscoring the retailer’s struggle to gain relevance with customers, the company said Wednesday it expects net sales of $6 billion this year, weaker than last year. Thursday’s share decline is Victoria’s Secret’s largest since its July 2021 initial public offering, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The company’s pledges to improve sales “did not come to fruition,” JP Morgan analyst Matthew Boss wrote in a note Wednesday, downgrading the stock to underweight from neutral.

Victoria’s Secret has been working to attract and retain customers through initiatives like a rebranded fashion show and the expansion of swim and apparel categories, but the efforts have yet to pay off.

VS used to sell much more apparel — my wife loved their boots and oversized sweaters before they quit selling them more than ten years ago. But VS got out of apparel to focus on lingerie, which they then insisted on advertising using unattractive models.

After confusing and alienating their core buyers for so long, I’m not sure they can ever win them back.

IT’S THE SUPER-NARROW ARMRESTS THAT ARE THE REAL PROBLEM: Southwest defends new seat redesign after social media backlash. “Enthusiasm has been delayed for the redesign and new seating, with nearly 20,000 negative comments on a TikTok video revealing a first-look at the new RECARGO seats, many of them criticizing the lack of space.”

They thought RECARGO was a good name for a passenger seat?

THE JOURNOLIST IS HOPPING: A 1-Word Talking Point for Biden’s SOTU Has Gone Out and the Media’s RUNNING With It.

And how. This is the current result for typing those words into Google News:

At least the optics weren’t as bad as September 2022, when his handlers inexplicably decided to go full Riefenstahl:

UPDATE: “President Steroids Shouts His Way through the State of the Union,” Jim Geraghty writes. “Taken as a whole, Biden’s speech started to sound like Howard Beale’s monologue from Network. But keep in mind, the number of Americans who watched the whole speech, beginning to end, is considerably smaller than the number who will see brief excerpts on the television news, or YouTube, or other social media. By shouting through almost the entire speech, Biden maximized the odds that any clip or segment that went viral would have him looking fired up and impassioned rather than like the sleepy, whispery, mumbling octogenarian that Americans have soured on so thoroughly.”

MORE: “Media Falls In Love All Over Again With ‘Feisty,’ ‘Fiery’ Biden,” Ed Morrissey adds.

WE TOLD YOU SO, WE TOLD YOU SO, WE TOLD YOU SO: Amid explosive demand, America is running out of power.

A major factor behind the skyrocketing demand is the rapid innovation in artificial intelligence, which is driving the construction of large warehouses of computing infrastructure that require exponentially more power than traditional data centers. AI is also part of a huge scale-up of cloud computing. Tech firms like Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft are scouring the nation for sites for new data centers, and many lesser-known firms are also on the hunt.

The proliferation of crypto-mining, in which currencies like bitcoin are transacted and minted, is also driving data center growth. It is all putting new pressures on an overtaxed grid — the network of transmission lines and power stations that move electricity around the country. Bottlenecks are mounting, leaving both new generators of energy, particularly clean energy, and large consumers facing growing wait times for hookups.

The situation is sparking battles across the nation over who will pay for new power supplies, with regulators worrying that residential ratepayers could be stuck with the bill for costly upgrades. It also threatens to stifle the transition to cleaner energy, as utility executives lobby to delay the retirement of fossil fuel plants and bring more online.

Regulators will do anything to alleviate the crisis except anything that might work.

BIDENOMICS IS WORKING: US salaries are falling. Employers say compensation is just ‘resetting.’

The tightening labour market has left US workers with fewer options than just years earlier. Beginning 2020, employers boosted salaries to new heights to attract talent to a deluge of open roles. But amid an uncertain economy, employers have pulled back from new hires and cut jobs.

“There is now less competition to hire workers – and therefore less need to boost wages,” says Nick Bunker, US-based director of North American Economic Research at Indeed. “Job postings have dropped quite a bit, while the supply of workers has grown.”

Previously: Jared Bernstein, member of Biden’s Council of Economic Advisors: “One thing we learned in the 1990s was that a surefire way to reconnect the fortunes of working people at all skill levels, immigrant and native-born alike, to the growing economy is to let the job market tighten up. A tight job market pressures employers to boost wage offers to get and keep the workers they need. One equally surefire way to sort-circuit this useful dynamic is to turn on the immigrant spigot every time some group’s wages go up.”

WHY IS HIGHER EDUCATION SUCH A CESSPIT OF ANTISEMITISM? (CONT’D): Middlebury College faces federal antisemitism investigation.

One of the alleged instances of antisemitism referenced in the complaint involved a vigil organized by Jewish students on campus to honor lives lost in the October 7 attacks that university administrators purportedly “attempted to prevent and then to limit the Jewish students’ request for a police presence,” according to the complaint.

The complaint further alleges that campus officials told the students “to not display any Israeli flags during the event and to remove the word ‘Jewish’ from all literature for the event.”

The complaint also alleged Middlebury ignored complaints from Jewish students who alleged members of the campus Students for Justice in Palestine chapter intimidated students by blocking entrances to the dining halls.

Another incident mentioned in the complaint involved a Jewish student who allegedly faced disciplinary action after reporting a resident assistant in a campus dormitory for having the words “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” posted on their door.

Though the statement is generally understood to refer to the destruction of Israel, many college students do not understand what it means.

The StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice has initiated legal action against other universities as well.

Make them pay.