GO TO THE COUNTRY: Pollution, city noise might harm fertility.
Archive for 2024
September 6, 2024
CHANGE: VW Has “One, Maybe Two Years” To Save Brand, Finance Boss Warns.
Antlitz explained to those present that the European car market had contracted since the pandemic and was unlikely to return to heady pre-Covid levels any time soon, Reuters reports. That drop in demand – and slower than anticipated EV take-up – means VW will sell around 500,000 fewer cars in a year, and gives it a maximum of two years to cut output and reduced costs to steady the ship.
Earlier this week VW informed its works council of plans to shutter two plants. They would be the first time the automaker has closed a factory in its entire history. One of the plants would be a carmaking facility and the other a parts plant, The Guardian says.
VW’s employees in Germany are naturally furious about the closure talk, and the IG Metall union has not ruled out strike action. But Europe isn’t the only region causing VW a headache.
“There are no more cheques coming from China,” Reuters reports CEO Oliver Blume telling those at the Wolfsburg meeting, a reference to VW’s struggles to compete with increasingly competent and well-priced rival EVs in the Asian country that was once a cash cow for Wolfsburg. But Blume insisted that a few job losses today could prevent a ton more tomorrow.
By the time China is done adapting or stealing Western tech and then selling it back to us at a discount, will the West on balance have made any money in China?
VOTING:
And the only people opposed to fraudulent ballots are those who expect to gain something from their use. That's it.
— Physics Geek (@physicsgeek) September 5, 2024
READER FAVORITE: Apple 2024 MacBook Air 15-inch Laptop with M3 chip. #CommissionEarned
THE GRIFTERS: Robin DiAngelo’s Plagiarism Exposes the Fraud Behind ‘Anti-Racism.’
Robin DiAngelo would never have registered at all in the American conversation about race except that she supplied such glib formulations of key elements in the great racial hysteria that broke out in full force after the death of George Floyd in police custody in May 2020. At that point, the demand for public excuses for riots and extortion exceeded the plausible supply. The general public had to be persuaded that it was a good idea to defund the police, decriminalize shoplifting and other urban sports, use prosecutorial discretion to let predators go free, and generally authorize a wide range of other assaults against justice and public order. That “general public” was not necessarily “white,” but it suited the narrative to describe it that way.
And that made DiAngelo’s book the gold standard of rationalization for racial violence and predation. To raise objections to the new disorder was to display “white fragility,” and therefore racism. Who believed this nonsense? Apart from the leftist agitators themselves, there were two categories who did so: the college students who were assigned White Fragility as a textbook of unquestionable authority and the white suburban women who supplied DiAngelo her core audience.
It remains to be seen how quickly DiAngelo’s standing will fade. Bogus books can have a long afterlife. I think of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchú’s memoir, long exposed as fraudulent, but still appearing on college syllabi as part of the indictment of American imperialism in Central America. The concept of “white fragility” will no doubt remain standard on the playlist of the “anti-racist” Left for many years to come. But DiAngelo’s credibility with the broader public is at the beginning of the end.
It is not that plagiarism itself is seen as an unforgivable sin. It is exactly that in academic circles, but the general public is largely indifferent to the matter. What will stick to DiAngelo, however, is her shameless exploitation of minority writers and black grievance for her own personal gain. The whole “anti-racism” project was a grift from the start. It enriched the founders of BLM; made Kendi rich; and propelled Hannah-Jones to fame and fortune. But what DiAngelo will be remembered for is creating a grift on top of that grift. It was a fragile proposition all along.
There will be more, however. As George Leef writes at the Corner, Peter Wood of the American Spectator “is somewhat optimistic that Robin DiAngelo’s big days are behind her. I hope so. But it’s also possible that someone else will just copy her method and become the Next Big Thing in the racial-grievance circus.”
I think depends upon how much the left have put the ghosts of 2020 behind them. I’m not at all confident they have.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Life On A Jupiter Moon? NASA And SpaceX Confirm Launch Plans — What To Know.
NASA and SpaceX have announced that their Europa Clipper mission, which will help planetary scientists determine if Europa could support life, will launch on Thursday, Oct. 10.
The mission will launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA confirmed in an email to media.
Europa—the fourth largest of Jupiter’s 79 moons—has intrigued scientists since a liquid ocean was discovered beneath its icy shell.
The Europa Clipper mission will help scientists determine if Europa, one of Jupiter’s icy moons, could support life. It will reach the Jupiter system in April 2030 and will spend four years studying Europa during at least 32 close flybys. It will photograph the moon’s icy surface in high resolution during each pass.
The largest spacecraft NASA has ever developed for a planetary mission, Clipper is about 16 feet tall and 100 feet wide—roughly the size of a basketball court—primarily thanks to its massive solar arrays.
Flybyes are fine. Just attempt no landing there.
HE LIKES HER… LAUGH? Vladimir Putin and Liz Cheney Endorse Kamala Harris and Other Never-Trump Insanity.
THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE: Tim Walz promoted research facility that partners with China’s Wuhan lab.
DEEP DIVE: Slow Burn: How Starliner’s crewed test flight went awry.
The future of Starliner after CFT is unclear. NASA said it would wait until after the spacecraft landed in early September to determine next steps. That included whether Boeing would have to perform another test flight, with or without astronauts on board, before NASA would certify it for flying astronauts.
Boeing, in quarterly earnings reports published July 31, revealed it took another charge against earnings of $125 million in the second quarter related to Starliner, citing delays in completing the CFT mission. The company has recorded about $1.6 billion in losses on Starliner throughout the program, mostly since a flawed initial uncrewed test flight in late 2019.
Those losses, likely to grow significantly in the aftermath of CFT, have raised questions about the company’s commitment to the program. Nelson said he spoke with Kelly Ortberg, Boeing’s new chief executive, and got assurances that the company would continue with Starliner.
“He expressed to me an intention that they will continue to work the problems once Starliner is back safely,” Nelson said of his conversation with Ortberg. However, Nelson said later there was no discussion about Boeing’s financial commitment, including a willingness to fly another test flight on its own dime. “It did not come up, nor would it have been appropriate.”
Asked at the briefing how certain he was Starliner would fly astronauts again, Nelson replied simply, “100%.”
It sure would be nice to have a backup for SpaceX’s Crew Dragon — Crew Dragon was originally supposed to be the backup for Starliner — but with so much uncertainty and so much red ink, the discussions within Boeing must be heated.
Related: Boeing Starliner hatch closed, setting stage for unpiloted return to Earth Friday.
DON’T GET COCKY: Election ‘Nostradamus’ Predicts Kamala Victory, but There’s a HUGE Problem. “Earlier this year, Lichtman’s model predicted that Joe Biden would win reelection, too.”
TELEGRAM FAQ SILENTLY ELIMINATES PRIVACY ASSURANCES. With founder Pavel Durov in French prison, Western governments are now openly using the “$5 wrench” method of circumventing encryption.
HMM: Ukraine’s top commander defends Kursk offensive.
Syrskyi told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that the Kursk operation “reduced the threat of an enemy offensive” and prevented a Russian attack, saying Moscow had amassed tens of thousands of troops in the region, including experienced airborne ones.
He also said that Ukrainian forces have stalled the Russian advance in eastern Ukraine, including around the strategic railroad town of Pokrovsk.
“Over the last six days the enemy hasn’t advanced a single meter in the Pokrovsk direction. In other words, our strategy is working,” he said. “We’ve taken away their ability to maneuver and to deploy their reinforcement forces from other directions … and this weakening has definitely been felt in other areas.”
ISW, which relies on open sources of information, reported Thursday that Russia was making modest advances in the direction of Pokrovsk.
Whatever you want to call Kyiv’s Kursk operation, it remains up in the air whether it will prove to be a benefit or a blunder.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: All of This Hunter Biden Stuff Might Have Been Helpful Four Years Ago. “I used the word ‘might’ in the headline because there is a very good chance that the Hunter Biden laptop October surprise wouldn’t have meant a thing because of something you all know I despise: early voting.”
LIMITED TIME DEAL: Carhartt Men’s Rugged Flex Relaxed Fit Canvas Work Pants. #CommissionEarned
JOBS: Private sector tallies lowest monthly job gain since January 2021. “ADP’s National Employment Report for August showed 99,000 jobs were added in the month, well below economists estimates for 145,000 and fewer than the 122,000 jobs added in July. The August data marked the fifth straight month payroll additions had slowed from the month prior.”
SHE BELIEVES SHE SHOULD BE PRESIDENT: Chris Cillizza: Does Kamala Harris Have Any Actual Beliefs?
Related: “Ma’am, I don’t need a teleprompter. I’ve actually got thoughts in my head, unlike Kamala Harris.”
THE NEW CENSORSHIP MUST BE PLAYING BADLY BECAUSE NOW THE NYT AND THE WAPO ARE BLAMING DONALD TRUMP FOR IT. “It has been only eight years since Donald Trump popularized the term ‘fake news’ as a cudgel to dismiss and attack journalism that challenged him.”
Well, if you guys would stop lying so much — *cough* Russian Collusion *cough* — and start reporting actual news — *cough* Hunter’s laptop *cough* — maybe he wouldn’t have gotten traction with that. But in fact you’re the guys trying to shut down reporting and opinion that run against your chosen storylines, which are often false. And now that people have noticed you’re trying to shift the blame. Stop trying to pretend that we have healthy, normal institutions. We don’t. You aren’t.
Related:
They should bear a little more of the burden from what has gone before.
— Don Wolt (@tlowdon) September 5, 2024
DILIGENT RESEARCHERS AT WUHAN INSTITUTE OF VIROLOGY CONTINUE TO SURPASS ALL TARGETS, COMRADES! Chinese lab linked to Covid leak may have also released ANOTHER deadly virus, new research claims.
The Chinese lab that the FBI believes likely leaked Covid-19 may have also released a ‘highly evolved’ strain of polio in 2014.
A bombshell new study suggests that this polio strain, which infected a four-year-old boy amid a wider viral outbreak in China‘s Anhui province, is ’99 percent’ identical to a polio variant that was stored 200 miles away, during that same time period, at the infamous Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Researchers at France‘s Pasteur Institute cannot say with certainty where this strain, dubbed ‘WIV14,’ originated. But they insisted two possibilities ‘must be explored’ — including the chance that WIV14 polio originated within the Wuhan institute itself.
‘The findings underscore the shocking unsafe state of global virology research,’ Harvard-trained molecular biologist Dr Richard Ebright, who was not involved with the research, told DailyMail.com.
Evergreen: State Department Memo: The Wuhan Institute of Virology Wasn’t Operating Safely.
ONE MINUTE INTO THE FUTURE: Click Here to Read Kamala Harris’s Next Flip-Flop Before It Even Happens!
WE NEED TO GO FULL MILLEI:
One solution to this crawling rot is to abolish everything that doesn't exist for a vital reason. If you can't tell who the bad apples are then on statistical grounds alone getting rid of 75% of the bureaucracy will eliminate 75% of the crooks, agents and grifters.
— wretchardthecat (@wretchardthecat) September 6, 2024
IT WILL UNTIL IT BLOWS UP IN THEIR FACES AND THERE ARE CONSEQUENCES:
Thread. Lawfare goes on. https://t.co/J92rm5VhG8
— Byron York (@ByronYork) September 5, 2024
CHANGE HIS LAST NAME TO FALZ: ‘He Did Not Complete the Degree Program’: Tim Walz Repeatedly Claimed He Was ‘Nearly Finished’ With Doctorate Years After He Disappeared from University. “Walz was only enrolled at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota until 2004 but said until 2011 that he was close to getting his doctorate.”
Related:
After Motorcade Involved In Fender Bender, Tim Walz Adds Purple Heart To Resume https://t.co/hckwMjGUNx pic.twitter.com/bZpQdne5QY
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) September 5, 2024