Archive for 2024
June 20, 2024
THE EV BUBBLE IS DEFLATING: Why Americans aren’t buying more EVs.
OUT: “DEFUND THE POLICE.”
HACK GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEE UNION ENDORSES HACK GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEE: EPA’s largest union endorses Biden for president.
COLOR ME UNSURPRISED: Study: Heavy strength training at retirement age helps keep you mobile.
GREAT SHOE FOR WALKING OR RUNNING: ASICS Women’s GEL-NIMBUS 26 Running Shoe. You can get the men’s version here. #CommissionEarned I bought a pair of these in black and the pale mint and they are excellent. The toebox is roomy if you need that and there is a lot of cushion.
XI’S GOTTA HAVE IT: ‘Only Pirates Do This’: China Wields Axes and Knives in South China Sea Fight.
The Chinese coast guard came in small boats with axes, long knives and spears.
They used the crude weapons to slash and puncture the Philippine military’s rubber craft. One Chinese boat rammed a Philippine boat at high speed, severing the thumb of a Filipino seaman who was holding on to the side of his ride.
During Monday’s frantic events in the South China Sea, the Chinese coast guard crew also boarded a Philippine boat, smashed its outboard motor and communications equipment, and grabbed the Filipino crew’s cellphones. They seized seven disassembled rifles that were packed in cases for delivery to a Philippine outpost, the Philippine military said.
“Only pirates do this,” said Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., the Philippine military’s chief of staff. “Only pirates board, steal, and destroy ships, equipment and belongings.”
The incident, described by the Philippine armed forces, marked a sharp escalation in China’s use of forceful tactics and intimidation against a U.S. ally in the South China Sea. Its coast guard had never wielded bladed weapons and spears in its previous sea confrontations with the Philippines.
There’s hardly anyone around able to push back, so of course, they escalated.
CHANGE: Banks, Law and Consulting Firms Are Watering Down Their Diversity Recruiting Programs.
White-collar companies that once championed programs to recruit diverse employees are now tiptoeing away from them.
PricewaterhouseCoopers and JPMorgan Chase are among those that recently removed or altered descriptions of their programs for underrepresented students. The shift came after an “anti-woke” movement took aim at U.S. companies and a Supreme Court decision overturned affirmative action in college admissions.
Employers’ embrace of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives peaked in 2021, sparked by the death of George Floyd and the height of the Black Lives Matter movement a year earlier. In the years since, access to diversity programs has been slowly declining, a Glassdoor study in April found.
Howell Raines, who had the famous Freudian Slip in 2001 that the New York Times’ hiring campaign “has made our staff better and, more importantly, more diverse,” won’t like this news at all.
HOME VR TRAINING: ACE Virtual Shooting.
AMERICA’S PRAETORIAN GUARD: Secret Service Says They Destroyed a Tape of Biden’s Dog Splattering Agent’s Blood at the White House.
ERIC COWPERTHWAITE: Strong People Are Hard To Kill: Or Why Am I Killing Myself In The Gym Every Day?
FRAUD, BULLYING, INTIMIDATION:
This is where we are now: The Biden Administration sent two FBI agents to intimidate a nurse who told the truth about the child sex-change program at Texas Children's Hospital. The regime is mobilizing to threaten and imprison anyone who opposes "transgender medicine." pic.twitter.com/XbtZVnp5Kw
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) June 18, 2024
Full story here.
ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER DELAY: Is Boeing’s Cursed Starliner Going to Be Marooned Up There?
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Lawmaker says watchdog’s report on FDA handling of infant formula crisis confirms panel’s findings.
The report by the Inspector General of the Health and Human Services Department comes two years after the FDA’s investigation into the Abbott baby formula contamination that caused nine infant deaths and triggered a nationwide formula shortage in 2022.
“The long-awaited audit by HHS’ OIG confirms findings by the House Oversight Committee that the 2022 nationwide infant formula crisis was exacerbated by dysfunction and delay within the FDA,” said Rep. Lisa McClain, Michigan Republican and chair of the subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services.
“This audit confirms testimony by multiple former FDA officials before the subcommittee that the FDA’s failure to heed whistleblower warnings, failure to conduct adequate inspections, and slow responsiveness had serious implications,” she said.
Ms. McClain released documents obtained by the committee during a recent hearing with FDA Commissioner Robert Califf indicating that Biden administration officials knew about the infant formula shortage months before they took action.
Just some basic competence at something, every now and then, would be nice.
CONTINUING A LONG TRADITION OF DISCRIMINATION: Alabama college offers $75,000 in trade scholarships to women only.
MOST HILL AIDES WANT NEW FACE IN THE WHITE HOUSE: Overall, 77 percent of the congressional aides responded “Yes” to the question of would they name a new presidential candidate for their political party if given the chance. Interestingly, 88 percent of the Democratic staffers said that, compared to 70 percent of the GOP aides.
WHY DO COLUMBIA STUDENTS WANT ISRAELI CIVILIANS TO DIE: Columbia students criticize AOC for appearing to back the Iron Dome.
MOST TRUSTED NAME IN NEWS? I don’t think so. The Good Professor linked last week to a Volokh piece about a Florida intermediate appellate court holding that internal emails showed more than enough evidence of actual malice on CNN’s part to warrant that a libel case against them proceed.
But buried in the judicial opinion I noticed something else. Something that underscores the double-standard of modern media. Something that smacks of dishonesty.
By way of background, the story made factual (and purportedly false) allegations about Navy vet Zachary Young and his company, which was involved in rescuing people from Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. As mentioned above the court found as it did based on internal statements at CNN, such as:
“CNN employees called him a ‘s—bag’ and ‘a-hole’ and remarked they were ‘going to nail this Zachary Young mf—er.’ […] Marquardt [from CNN] referred to him as ‘f—ing Young’ and quipped, ‘it’s your funeral bucko.’”*
That’s the background. Here’s the double standard part: Buried in the ruling, the court mentioned that CNN had proffered the defense of constitutionally protected opinion.
Yes, you read that right. I have three questions:
- How can you claim to be “The Most Trusted Name in News” after saying — under oath and in front of God and everyone — that what you broadcast wasn’t news at all, but opinion? By definition, opinion is an unprovable expression not capable of being proven true or false;
- People We Are Not Supposed to Like were excoriated by left-leaning outfits for making the same argument, which was distorted wildly. NPR said “You Literally Can’t Believe The Facts Tucker Carlson Tells You. So Say Fox’s Lawyers.” But at the same time, here’s CNN mocking Tucker for doing the exact same thing they did this month.
- How can you square the utter hypocrisy of the leftist outfits who much earlier raised the same defense as Tucker, namely Rachel “All Panic, All the Time” Maddow? As far back as 2021 it took Glenn Greenwald to point this out, saying “A Court Ruled Rachel Maddow’s Viewers Know She Offers Exaggeration and Opinion, Not Facts.“
The part that bothers me the most is this is another example of the one-two-three punch of gaslighting, denialism, and projection.
*FOOTNOTE: Discovery is a bitch.
HIGHER EDUCATION IMPLOSION UPDATE: Emerson College announces layoffs amidst enrollment decline linked to campus protests.
The college is blaming the enrollment decline in part on “negative press and social media” from the pro-Palestinian demonstrations and subsequent arrests.
In the early morning hours of April 25, 118 student protesters were arrested by Boston police when officers swept through the pro-Palestine encampment at Boylston Place Alley, a public right-of-way that leads to the State Transportation Center.
President Jay Bernhardt wrote that he expects the enrollment decline to last only one year, but the effects will ripple through the budget for the next several.
“We attribute this reduction to multiple factors, including national enrollment trends away from smaller private institutions, an enrollment deposit delay in response to the new FAFSA rollout, student protests targeting our yield events and campus tours, and negative press and social media generated from the demonstrations and arrests,” Bernhardt wrote in an email shared with the Globe.
There was plenty of warning going back to 2017: Long After Protests, Students Shun the University of Missouri.
GOOD. After Indiana University Implemented DEI In Its Law School Curriculum, Professor Took His Concerns To State Legislature. “‘This class is guaranteed to further polarize and politicize the law school environment and represents yet another attempt by the academic Left to provide a platform for extreme idealogues to indoctrinate students who are essentially academic hostages,’ Hill wrote in his letter. ‘DEI is now “in” at the McKinney school….'”
WHEN DIVERSITY IS YOUR #1 PRIORITY: Two astronauts wait to come home as Boeing races to understand spacecraft issues. Here’s what’s at stake.
IT’S NOT CLIMATE IT’S JUST WEATHER: Australians wake to coldest June morning in almost 20 years. It’s only climate if it’s the hottest morning.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Nobody Is Really in the Mood for President Harris to Happen. “The thing about that very real prospect is that it doesn’t make anyone happy. It’s no secret that most Democrats are no more fond of Madame Vice President than Republicans are. I’m fairly certain that’s behind the feverish attempt to create the ‘cheap fakes’ false narrative.”