WELL, IT’S NOT LIKE THE LIZ CHENEY STRATEGY WORKED WELL FOR LIZ CHENEY: ‘Uncommitted’ voters blame Harris ‘choosing path of Liz Cheney’ for their turn to Trump.
Archive for 2024
December 27, 2024
FIGHTING OVER H1B VISAS: Elon and Vivek Under Fire From the Right.
The real problem with H1B visas is that companies abuse the process to exploit workers and hold pay down. Here’s an IEEE report on the subject. I’ve seen some people characterizing this fight as the smart people versus the retarded rednecks, but I don’t think you can read this IEEE description of what’s going on and think of it that way. “This difference illustrates an important point about H-1B visas. While some companies pay their H-1B employees’ salaries equivalent to what American workers get paid, many companies do not. In fact, most H-1B visas are used, not by Facebook and other big tech companies, but by outsourcing and consulting companies. And the salaries paid by those companies tell a different story.”
Related:
Peter Thiel (Germany), Sacks (South Africa), Elon (same), Sergey Brin (Russia), Jensen Huang (Taiwan) many such cases, we can do this all day. OBVIOUSLY America benefits from skimming the cream. Simultaneously, it's obvious H-1B visa and chain migration have been exploited.
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) December 26, 2024
As a pro-worker President, Trump needs to fix these exploitative arrangements. He should also take on the treatment of another class of abused workers, adjunct professors in academia. “Academics seem to think that the business world is a feudal environment characterized by huge status differentials and abusive treatment of underlings. They think that because, to be honest, that’s a pretty good characterization of . . . the modern university, where serfs in the form of adjunct professors toil in the vineyards.”
UPDATE:
Love this. Now we can have an even healthier, informed conversation.
— justmytwosatoshis (@SirBootUSA) December 27, 2024
Plus: “The O-1 visa is intended for individuals who demonstrate extraordinary ability in their field — the kind of world-changing talent that any country would welcome with open arms. By contrast, the H-1B visa is often used to bring in foreign workers at lower wages, tied to their employers by a system that leaves them vulnerable to exploitation. While the O-1 visa focuses on attracting brilliance, the H-1B program has largely become a mechanism for cost-cutting at the expense of American workers and the foreign workers it ostensibly benefits.”
MORE:
Looks like somewhere from 10 to 20 million people either read or participated in a debate about H-1B visas. Impressive stuff. Only on X
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) December 27, 2024
It really is the global town square.
Plus, more thoughts, from Eric S. Raymond:
Today's big beef is between tech-success maximizers like @elonmusk and MAGA nationalists who think the US job market is being flooded by low-skill immigrants because employers don't want to pay competitive wages to Americans.
To be honest, I think both sides are making some…
— Eric S. Raymond (@esrtweet) December 26, 2024
IT LOOKED PRETTY BAD: That Russian Airliner Shoot-Down Was Even Worse Than It Looked.
THE CAMPAIGN WAS THE EASY PART: Roger Kimball: Trump was elected to change the status quo.
Meanwhile in every institution:
THE LIES DID THEIR WORK, EVEN THOUGH IT FAILED.
Now that Trump has won, they are revising all of their numbers during the Biden administration.
The govt initially reported Q2 of 2024 had 653,000 job gains. It was actually NEGATIVE.
There was also a revision of 800,000 jobs from last year. They falsified the data to try to… https://t.co/xnmayjjCKP
— Wall Street Mav (@WallStreetMav) December 25, 2024
COLD WAR II: Finland Boards Russian Shadow Fleet Tanker After Subsea Cables Go Offline.
Finland’s police and border patrol have boarded the Eagle S oil tanker, which is part of Russia’s shadow fleet while investigating the cause of an interruption of subsea power and data cables linking Finland with Estonia, Finnish police said on Thursday.
The tanker, Eagle S, was traveling in the Baltic Sea under the flag of the Cook Islands and was fully loaded with unleaded gasoline, the Finnish police and other authorities said at a news conference, as carried by Bloomberg.
The Eagle S was spotted to be missing its anchor and it could have been this missing anchor that has caused the damage to the subsea cable links.
The Estlink-2 power link went offline on Wednesday afternoon. By early Thursday afternoon investigations were ongoing in both Finland and Estonia on the cause of the damage.
Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna on Thursday discussed the incidents involving submarine infrastructure with Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen, Tsahkna said in a statement.
“Damage to critical submarine infrastructure has become so frequent that it is difficult to believe this is accidental or merely poor seamanship. We must understand that damage to submarine infrastructure has become more systematic and thus must be regarded as attacks against our vital structures,” the Estonian foreign minister said.
“Can’t rule out deliberate damage to the cable,” Tsahkna posted on X.
More:
UPDATE!
EAGLE S, vessel suspected of causing cable damage is at anchor in Finnish territorial waters.
A no-fly zone has been imposed on the area.
Finnish police and the Border Guard have boarded the ship, investigations are ongoing.
THIS is how you do these things! 💪🇫🇮
— Tomi 🇺🇦🇫🇮 (@TallbarFIN) December 26, 2024
And here’s a thread I found interesting on the Finnish Border Guard guys who got the job done.
Only tangentially related but still amusing: Sanctioned Russian LNG Cargo Ends Across-the-World Trip Without Finding Buyer. “After the journey from Europe to Russia’s Far East, Pioneer was spotted in December offloading the cargo in a Russian floating storage unit near Kamchatka, according to the vessel-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.”
LIGHTNING DEAL: AUXITO Car Vacuum Cleaner – Portable Handheld Vacuum Cleaner. #CommissionEarned
REPUBLICANS NEED TO PRAISE HIM A LOT SO DEMOCRATS WON’T LISTEN: Fetterman Emerging as the Dem ‘How to Handle Trump’ Voice of Choice.
IT’S (D)IFFERENT WHEN THEY DO IT: The Left Is Pushing Congress for an Insurrection on Jan. 6, 2025.
Remember how Democrats were outraged — Outraged! — that some Republicans objected to the counting of the Electoral College votes back in 2021 over concerns that voter fraud tipped the election results to Joe Biden in key battleground states? The very idea of disputing the election results was seen as blasphemy and anti-democratic.
Yet the left is once again pushing for Congress to block Donald Trump from taking office, despite his overwhelming victory in 2024.
Evan Davis, the former editor-in-chief of the Columbia Law Review, and David Schulte, the former editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal, argue in a joint column in The Hill that Congress not only has the power to block Trump from taking office but should.
Insurrection, straight up.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: How China’s satellite megaprojects are challenging Elon Musk’s Starlink.
FROM SARAH A. HOYT AND ON SALE FOR 99c:
The World Can’t Be Made Safe….
But it doesn’t mean Athena Hera Sinistra isn’t ready to try. Flying back to Earth Orbit from her asteroid home, leaving behind unresolved questions and turmoil, Athena becomes a new mother in orbit.
As is perhaps fitting, her daughter is born during battle with an unknown foe.
A battle that ends with Kit – Athena’s husband – missing, and Athena’s ship damaged.
So Athena names her daughter Eris, and goes to war.
What follows is a non-stop fight by a very angry mother, who wishes to make the world(s) safe for her newborn daughter, and other children too.
When the adventure is over, it is just the start of another, where children will be rescued, old tyrants brought to justice, and freedom restored.
If it can be.
BUREAUCRATIC MINDSET AT WORK: IF THEY’RE ACCESSIBLE PRANKSTERS WILL USE THEM AND THEN THEY’LL NOT BE OF USE: Public can’t access fire extinguishers in subway system — and MTA has no plans to change that after horrific murder of woman on F train.
SOMEHOW LEFTIST IDIOTS WILL BLAME THIS ON ISRAEL: Humanitarian aid stacks up at Gaza border as relief organizations won’t deliver out of fear of Hamas, violent looters.
DANG CRITICS – WHY ARE THEY ALWAYS RIGHT? Hochul signs NY law that will charge $75B to oil, gas and coal companies for climate change — but critics say customers will pick up tab.
BY THE ‘CHRISTMAS TRUCE’ OF 1914 VIRTUALLY ALL OF THE INITIAL BRITISH EXPEDITIONARY FORCE SENT TO FRANCE WAS HORS DE COMBAT: The lost legions of Christmas 1914.
A GOOD RECAP ON WHAT IS CURRENTLY KNOWN, AND WHAT IS NOT KNOWN, BOUT THE AZERBAIJAN AIRLINES SHOOTDOWN “SPECIAL AIRCRAFT INCIDENT”: Did Russia Shoot down Azerbaijan Airlines Flight J2-8243? [Video]
IT’S ONLY AN ACT OF REBELLION WHEN THE RIGHT DOES IT: Libs Demand Congress Do Something That Was Considered an Act of Armed Rebellion Not So Long Ago.
MOST LEFTIST WESTERNERS BLITHELY WEAR THE SYMBOL OF A MOVEMENT WHO WOULD GLADLY MURDER THEM WITHOUT A SECOND THOUGHT: The cult of the keffiyeh.
OH ARE WE SUPPOSED TO BE SCARED? 20 Big Cats at a Washington State Sanctuary Die of Bird Flu.