Archive for 2024
April 12, 2024
SCIENTIFIC BREAKTHROUGHS FROM YOUR GRANDMOTHER’S PANTRY: Expired Cans of Salmon From Decades Ago Reveal a Big Surprise.
PROBABLY NOT, SINCE THE PRESS DOESN’T REPORT ON LEFTY VIOLENCE: Did You Hear Who Planted a Bomb at an Alabama Republican’s Office?
HOW THE MEDIA TRY TO FOMENT RACIAL WAR:
This is how WaPo covered a story about a man who opened fire on police during a traffic stop. Let's break down the bodycam footage.https://t.co/jPS7392ZlChttps://t.co/jPS7392ZlC
— Not the Bee (@Not_the_Bee) April 11, 2024
LARRY TRIBE, reprehensible election denier?
THEN: EAT FISH, IT’S HEALTHY! Now: Study: High seafood diet may increase risk of exposure to ‘forever chemicals.’
IT’S ALWAYS A CRIME NOT TO COMPLY WITH THE DEMANDS OF TYRANTS:
Notice that nobody is citing any actual lies that Twitter is alleged to have spread in Brazil. The offense vs Elon is now "obstruction of justice".https://t.co/7o97Phz2pj
— wretchardthecat (@wretchardthecat) April 12, 2024
DAVID SOLWAY: Strikes and Balls: The Israeli Dilemma.
In “How to Do Things with Words,” philosopher J.L. Austin makes a useful distinction between two kinds of speech acts, the referential and the constative. The referential delineates an actual state of affairs; the constative establishes not a quality but a social function. Austin offers an analogy from baseball: the ball may travel knee-high across the center of the plate, a perfect strike, but if the umpire calls “ball,” that’s how it registers on the scoreboard and operates in the game.
For much of the world today, that is, for “umpires” engaged in the production of figments and bent on the reconstruction of reality, an Israeli “strike” will almost always count as a “ball.” The referential has been reconfigured as the constative, despite what a later replay may bring to light. Thus, the Israeli pitcher throws strikes; the Arab batter receives a base on balls. An intimate congruence has been performatively created between the report and the referent minus the slightest hint of the semantic distance that stretches between the two. The former remains parasitic upon the latter.
Read the whole thing.
THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: TOP MEN? US Navy Deletes Tweet of USS McCain Captain Shooting Backwards Scoped AR.
Related: Now-Deleted Navy Photo Is So Bad Even the Space Force Called It Out.
SOME PARTS OF AMERICA STILL WORK: SpaceX’s most-flown reusable rocket will go for its 20th launch tonight.
Pretty much every day, SpaceX is either launching a rocket or rolling one out of the hangar to the launch pad. At this pace, SpaceX is redefining what is routine in the space industry, but the rapid-fire launch rate also means the company is continually breaking records, mostly its own.
Friday night’s launch will break another one of those records. This first-stage booster, designated by the tail number B1062, has flown 19 times since its first flight in November 2020. The booster will now be the first in SpaceX’s inventory to go for a 20th flight, breaking a tie with three other rockets as the company’s fleet leader.
When SpaceX debuted the latest version of its Falcon 9 rocket, the Falcon 9 Block 5, officials said the reusable first stage could fly 10 times with minimal refurbishment and perhaps additional flights with a more extensive overhaul. Now, SpaceX is certifying Falcon 9 boosters for 40 flights.
This particular rocket has not undergone any extended maintenance or long-term grounding. It has flown an average of once every two months since debuting three-and-a-half years ago. So the 20-flight milestone SpaceX will achieve Friday night means this rocket has doubled its original design life and, at the same time, has reached the halfway point of its extended service life.
Plus this: “Remarkably, this will be the sixth Falcon 9 launch in less than eight days, more flights than SpaceX’s main US rival, United Launch Alliance, has launched in 17 months.”
READER FAVORITE: BULLIANT Belt for Men 2Pack. #CommissionEarned
FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: Dad Dishes Out Some Rough Justice at Disney World. “It’s time for your much-needed break from the serious news, and this week we have Florida Man’s well-deserved Disney World beating, the birthday girl who swears she only had one shot of tequila, and Ireland Man’s revealing court appearance.”
DECOUPLING: Apple doubles India iPhone production to $14 billion as it shifts from China.
As relations between the U.S. and China have soured, Apple has worked to diversify its supply chain by expanding production in countries like Vietnam and India. It’s a big shift for the iPhone maker, which has historically relied on China for manufacturing.
Apple now makes around 1 in 7, or 14%, of its iPhones in India, twice the amount it produced there last year, the report said. The manufacturer Pegatron assembled around 17% of those iPhones, while Foxconn produced around 67%, according to the report. Wistron built the rest.
In June 2023, Apple CEO Tim Cook and other tech executives met with India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, at the White House. Cook told CNBC after the meeting that India represents a “huge opportunity.” Apple opened its first retail stores in the country last year.
China remains a crucial market for Apple, but sales have been off to a rocky start this year. A Counterpoint Research report from March found that iPhone sales in China dropped 24% in the first six weeks of 2024. The firm said Apple faces significant competition from other smartphone vendors like Huawei.
It could also be that Chinese consumers are choosing to buy Chinese as Western firms ditch China.
YOU DON’T SAY: Divider-in-Chief: Voters Don’t Think Biden Has United the Country. “The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 70% of Likely U.S. Voters believe America is now more divided than it was before the 2020 election. That’s up from 66% when we asked the same question in April 2022. Just nine percent (9%) now think the country has become more united since Biden’s election, while 19% say it has remained about the same.”
BOTTOM STORY OF THE DAY: Toxicologist, nutritionist on what to know about potential health risks of Lunchables.
IF AT FIRST YOU HYSTERICALLY FAIL…: Move Over ‘Latinx’: There’s a New Fake Word No One Is Going To Use.
WHERE COULD ALL THOSE NEW CASES BE COMING FROM? CDC: Surge in U.S. measles cases threatens elimination status.
UNEXPECTEDLY: California just hiked minimum wage for fast food workers. Some restaurants are replacing them with kiosks. “The law also creates a fast food council, a first of its kind in the US, with representatives from both the restaurant industry and workers, who can increase the wage annually for the rest of the decade, in pace with inflation or up to 3.5%, whichever is higher. This council can also recommend standards for fast food worker safety, as well as work with existing state agencies to investigate issues like wage theft.”
It isn’t just becoming too expensive to hire human workers, it’s becoming too much of a pain.