Archive for 2024

DECOUPLING CUTS BOTH WAYS: China Intensifies Push to ‘Delete America’ From Its Technology.

The 2022 Chinese government directive expands a drive that is muscling U.S. technology out of the country—an effort some refer to as “Delete A,” for Delete America.

Document 79 was so sensitive that high-ranking officials and executives were only shown the order and weren’t allowed to make copies, people familiar with the matter said. It requires state-owned companies in finance, energy and other sectors to replace foreign software in their IT systems by 2027.

American tech giants had long thrived in China as they hot-wired the country’s meteoric industrial rise with computers, operating systems and software. Chinese leaders want to sever that relationship, driven by a push for self-sufficiency and concerns over the country’s long-term security.

The first targets were hardware makers. Dell, International Business Machines and Cisco Systems have gradually seen much of their equipment replaced by products from Chinese competitors.

Document 79, named for the numbering on the paper, targets companies that provide the software—enabling daily business operations from basic office tools to supply-chain management. The likes of Microsoft and Oracle are losing ground in the field, one of the last bastions of foreign tech profitability in the country.

I suppose the real test will be how many buyers outside of China will be willing to use CCP-approved software.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Biden’s Handlers Really Overshot His SOTU Uppers Dosage. “While it’s true that absurdism is integral to my brand of political opinion writing, I never wander far from the truth. Some people may think I’m talking about ‘uppers’ simply because I like to be merciless when writing about Joe Biden. I would remind everyone that I am an entertainer from the 1980s, so I have more than a passing familiarity with what people on high-end stimulants look and act like. POTUS was straight-up wired last night.”

THEY KEEP TELLING ME THE ECONOMY IS BOOMING BUT I KEEP FINDING STORIES LIKE THESE: Here’s how many Americans are having sex to save on heating bills amid surging utility costs. “Though electricity costs dropped more than 20% in 2023, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index, they’re still up 29% from January 2020. Northeastern households that use natural gas were expected to spend about $760 on heat this winter, according to the US Energy Information Center. That estimation rose to $1,700 for propane, $1,460 for electric heat and $1,850 for oil.”

That’s a pretty good excuse, if you and yours were looking for one.

MATT TAIBBI: America Enters the Samizdat Era. “The Internet, in other words, was being transformed from a system for exchanging forbidden or dissenting ideas, like Samizdat, to a system for imposing top-down control over information and narrative, a GozIzdat. Worse, while the Soviets had to rely on primitive surveillance technologies, like the mandatory registration of typewriters, the Internet offered breathtaking new surveillance capability, allowing authorities to detect thoughtcrime by algorithm and instantaneously disenfranchise those on the wrong side of the information paradigm, stripping them of the ability to raise money or conduct business or communicate at all.”

Tar, feathers.

IT’S A SCAM, A VERY WELL-PAID SCAM: University of Virginia Spends $20 Million On 235 DEI Employees, With Some Making $587,340 Per Year. “The University of Virginia (UVA) has at least 235 employees under its ‘diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)’ banner — including 82 students — whose total cost of employment is estimated at $20 million. That’s $15 million in cash compensation plus an additional 30-percent for the annual cost of their benefits.”

WHEN REALITY BITES:

And sooner or later it always does.

JOHN LUCAS: Guess Who’s Stumping for Trump?

Can you believe it? Bill Clinton — yes, ol’ Slick Willie himself — has spoken in support of getting rid of the President. Although he did not name names, his comments can only be regarded as support for Donald Trump. Who could’ve seen this coming?

Doubt me? Here is a verbatim transcript [with one minor edit in brackets] of former President Clinton’s comments to students at the University of California:

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“I think how different life looks in the road ahead for you than it did for me when I was your age. Our country is still a great country with so much good in it but we could do so much better.

“Most Americans who played by the rules for the last [four] years have been punished. The average family is working harder, spending less time with their children, paying more for their education and health care. Worried about losing their jobs, worried about the future of this nation.

“In California alone half a million jobs have been lost.

“Your state government is broke and while you’re building more jails, education is being cut and as you well know, tuition is being raised.

“The middle class in this country is declining, the poor increasing. Only the very wealthiest have done better. Your nation has fallen from first to tenth in the world in wages.

“What we got to do now is fight for real change. Change that will require us all to take on interest groups and big government. Change that will require us all to assume more responsibility. Change that will require us to move away from a country in which the top 1% control more wealth than the bottom 90% for the first time since the roaring ’20s.

“Change that will require us all to be one community again, to confront and impose on ourselves higher standards of responsibility, and to listen to one another again instead of just scream at one another. To sit down together, and learn from one another, and honestly try to change ourselves. If we’re going to rebuild America, we’ve got to create more opportunities. We’ve got to require more responsibility. We’ve got to permit more individual choice and strengthen our communities.

“How are we going to do it? I’ll tell you one thing you’ll never do any of it until you change the presidency.”

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OK, OK, time now for full disclosure: This is indeed a transcript of Bill Clinton talking to students at Cal, but it is from a campaign speech in 1992.

Heh.

THIS HAS BEEN GOING ON A LONG TIME:  The death of truth.