Author Archive: Ed Driscoll
January 30, 2023
OLD AND BUSTED: Can Greeks Become Germans?
The New Hotness? Can Californians Become Germans?! They fire, we hire’ — Germany seizes on Silicon Valley’s woes.
Faced with a tight labour market and a shortage of workers with key software engineering skills, some German companies are looking at thousands of layoffs in Silicon Valley as an opportunity to recruit top talent.
The U.S. West Coast has always been the main destination for ambitious software engineers looking to work in the best-paid, most elite corner of their profession, but the mass redundancies have created a pool of jobseekers that Germany is eager to tap.
“They fire, we hire,” said Rainer Zugehoer, Chief People Officer at Cariad, the software subsidiary of automaker Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE). “We have several hundred open positions in the U.S., in Europe and in China.”
Spooked by inflation and the prospect of recession, Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL.O), Microsoft (MSFT.O) and Facebook owner Meta (META.O) have announced a combined almost 40,000 job cuts.
Other than the minor language issue, most uber-leftist denizens of Silicon Valley would consider transitioning to Germany to be a lateral move.
RELIGION OF PEACE UPDATE: Pakistan mosque suicide bomber kills 59, wounds over 150.
VDH: Anarchy, American-Style. The Left runs Oceania, and we work for their various bureaus.
Apple, Google, Facebook, and other tech companies are not 1980s and 1990s “alternative” media geeks and hipsters creating neat gadgets for the people. They are not Steve Jobs and his pugnacious Apple battling the evil Microsoft or IBM, or the Macintosh commercial of 1984 depicting a maverick throwing a hammer into Big Brother’s screen. They are the Orwellian screen.
The current generation of techies is effectively Stalinist. Big Tech now colludes with the FBI, the Democratic Party, and the bureaucratic state to suppress free expression, warp balloting, and serve as contractors of government surveillance. Currently, the most totalitarian people in America are likely to wear flip flops, have a nose ring or pink hair, and disguise their fascism with ’60s-retread costumes.
There are no “armies of the night” marching on the Pentagon. Would-be demonstrators see no need, since radical identity politics, and gay, woke, and transgendered agendas are fast-tracked by the Department of Defense.
There are no protests against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau or the “La Migra” anymore by advocates of illegal immigration, because the Left owns the border. And it has utterly destroyed it. There is no border, no border enforcement, and no meaningful immigration law. As many as 6 million illegal entries during the first two years of the Biden Administration are proof enough of that.
There are no cutting-edge Lenny Bruces or Mort Sahls fighting state censorship because entertainers accept that 1) there are no impediments to vulgarity or pornographic expression, but 2) no comic or commentator dares to take on the diversity, equity, and inclusion woke industry because he assumes he would be crushed, and his career ruined.
Question the woke status quo, and one is not canonized in Vanity Fair or Rolling Stone as a fighter against the “uptight establishment” or “the man” as in the past, but now demonized as a racist purveyor of “hate speech” and enemy of the people.
The Left does not despise the FBI. It lauds it. And the bureau is no longer consumed with tracking down violent criminals and terrorists. Instead, it has become an enemy of parents worried about school indoctrination, or a retrieval service for lost first-family classified papers, laptops and diaries, or a Washington, D.C., cadre knee-deep in big money politics.
FBI agents are praised on left–wing media—given they have been activist conspirators who sought to destroy conservative candidates, deleted subpoenaed data, lied to federal investigators or committees while under oath, colluded with Russian oligarchs, doctored court evidence, and paid foreign nationals to compile campaign dirt on American citizens.
QED: Pro-Life Activist Arrested by FBI Acquitted on Federal Charges.
EVERYONE IS CONSERVATIVE ABOUT WHAT HE KNOWS BEST: Lib NBA Star Stephen Curry Opposes Affordable Housing Near His $30 Million Mansion.
(Classical reference in headline.)
JERRY, JUST REMEMBER, IT’S NOT A LIE — IF YOU BELIEVE IT: Adam Schiff, who hates ‘misinformation,’ still believes ‘Russian Collusion’ happened.
JIM TREACHER: Louis CK Uncancels Himself. “Most people don’t have Louis’ resources. They can’t just go independent. If they get cancelled, that’s it. They gotta go find another way to make a living. When a talented person does something bad, it doesn’t suddenly make him untalented. It might change your opinion about his character, and you’re probably right. But if he’s still good at what he does, and if people want to pay him for it, they don’t care that you disapprove. You’re not as powerful as you thought you were. And that’s what actually rankles you. Cancel culture lost one. Louis CK defeated it, at great personal risk, through sheer force of will. If you’re angry about that, don’t worry. You’ll find someone else to destroy. You always do.”
January 29, 2023
RIP: Barrett Strong, Motown Artist and Temptations Songwriter, Dead at 81.
“Barrett was not only a great singer and piano player, but he, along with his writing partner Norman Whitfield, created an incredible body of work, primarily with the Temptations,” Motown founder Berry Gordy said in a statement. “Their hit songs were revolutionary in sound and captured the spirit of the times like ‘Cloud Nine’ and the still relevant, ‘Ball of Confusion (That’s What the World is Today).’”
Born in Mississippi on Feb. 5 1941 and raised in Detroit, Strong was one of Gordy’s earliest signees. He sang 1959’s “Money (That’s What I Want)” for Motown’s Tamla label, and it shot to Number Two on the U.S. R&B chart in 1960, going on to sell more than one million copies. The song has been covered by scores of artists, most famously the Beatles — who released it in 1963 as the final track on With the Beatles — but the list includes covers from the Flying Lizards, the Kingsmen, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Buddy Guy.
Putting Motown on the map and writing and recording a song that became a rock & roll standard; and then going on to co-write songs for the Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Gladys Knight, and Edwin Starr. That’s quite an accomplished career.
OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND: Council will BAN most cars from driving through 75% of its roads in enormous crackdown on traffic and pollution.
A Labour-run council is set to ban most vehicles from 75 per cent of its roads as it expands its network of low-traffic neighbourhoods.
Hackney Council has approved plans to introduce six more of the controversial schemes over the next three years.
The east London borough already has the highest number of LTNs in the capital with 19 and half of its roads restricted by traffic filters.
The plans will increase this to three quarters of its streets.
Flashback: Here Come the ‘Climate Lockdowns.’
ROGER KIMBALL ON THE TRUMAN SHOW: Stepping out into freedom.
Given the fire-hose disgorgement of revelations about the behavior of the FBI, the CIA and their infiltration of the mainstream media, there is ample justification for believing that we are living in some dystopian, distinctly unfunny version of The Truman Show.
In the movie, the gormless Truman Burbank grows up thinking he is living a normal, happy life in a normal, happy town. Only gradually does he realize that something is amiss. Slowly, piece by piece, the awful truth dawns on him: his entire social world is a fabrication, a gigantic product-placement concession with him as the unwitting MacGuffin.
The deception is played for laughs, mostly. There are not many laughs in our Truman Show, the one in which the FBI hatches a fake plot to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, enlists some pathetic lowlifes to participate, then blows the cover and arrests the saps who joined them. One was just sentenced to sixteen years in the big house, another to nearly twenty.
As Glenn wrote in November, “Both the SDS and the KKK used to say in the 1960s that the guy in your group calling for illegal activity was the FBI mole.”
WHAT DID WALLACE EXPECT? Megyn Kelly Lights Up Former Fox Colleague Chris Wallace For Complaining.
Then the topic of CNN+ hiring former “Fox News Sunday” anchor Chris Wallace was mentioned and Kelly tore into him.
“He was in last place every week, every year, every month. He was always in last, and they still paid him,” she said. Then she said when she was at Fox News she received an offer from Zucker and CNN.
“I considered going to CNN. CNN made me a huge offer. Huge,” she said. She did eventually land at NBC.
“I said no, Buck, because I knew: who is my fanbase going to be over there? I knew who my fans were and I knew that my Fox viewers were not going to follow me to CNN and that the CNN viewers were going to hate my guts,” she said, and she said she believes that Wallace is “suffering from that very problem right now.”
I hope his fan is enjoying his programs: Nobody’s Watching: CNN Ratings Plunge Even Further — For Good Reason.
GREAT MOMENTS IN PROJECTION:
Shot: Rashida Tlaib starts term in Congress accusing Israel advocates of ‘dual loyalty.
–The Jerusalem Post, January 7th, 2019.
Chaser: Tlaib erects Palestinian flag in Capitol Hill office, accuses Israel of ‘apartheid.’
JNS.org, Thursday.
THE PHILADELPHIA EAGLES WIN THE NFC CHAMPIONSHIP: After an injury to 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy, the Eagles’ defense shut down the 49ers in a 31-7 victory to advance to the Super Bowl.
UPDATE: San Francisco 49ers Try To Start Fight, Clear Bench As Eagles Advance To Super Bowl.
“GOD [IS] USING ME AS A VESSEL:” Damar Hamlin Breaks Silence With Video Message To Fans.
TO BE FAIR, WOULD YOU WANT TO BE BIDEN’S PRESS SECRETARY? Karine Jean-Pierre: Press Secretary And Rain Man.
PRESIDENT BIDEN GIVES HIS ‘WORD AS A BIDEN’ AND LOL:
President Biden has given his ‘word as a Biden’ that he’s feeling really optimistic about America’s future, despite his disastrous presidency.
High gas and grocery prices, 401k woes, border crisis, war in Ukraine, taking out a loan to buy eggs, civil unrest, but yeah, Joe, things are looking downright peachy!
Given the misadventures of Joe, James, and Hunter, I’m not sure why the Big Guy (and/or his ghostwriter) believes that’s a positive phrase for him to utter. As Stacey McCain wrote last march: ‘Simply Not True.’
Joe Biden believes he is honest, and that anyone who disagrees with him is lying, or is ignorant, or has been deceived by liars.
So deeply convinced is Joe Biden of his own honesty that he thinks his very name is synonymous with truth-telling:
“I give you my word as a Biden: I will never stoop to President Trump’s level.”
— Nov. 20, 2019“I give you my word as a Biden: If I am elected president I will do everything in my power to protect our children from gun violence.”
— March 10, 2020“I give you my word as a Biden: When I’m president, I will lead with science, listen to the experts and heed their advice, and always tell you the truth.”
— March 18, 2020When I first noticed him using this “my word as a Biden” phrase during the 2020 campaign, I was puzzled. Has the Biden family been so prominently associated with honesty that when Joe says this, most Americans say, “Well, that settles it”? Of course not. In fact, Biden’s first presidential campaign, in 1988, collapsed in disgrace specifically because of Joe’s dishonesty, when he was caught plagiarizing others — most notably British Labour leader Ne0l Kinnock — in his speeches[.]
And Joe’s multitude of additional lies and gaffes over the decades:
‘THERE’D BE NO CLIMATE CRISIS IF IT WASN’T FOR RACISM,’ JANE FONDA CLAIMS ON TALK SHOW: While wearing Tom Brady’s jersey, promoting her new film, 80 for Brady. So it’s worth exploring: How Much Energy Does The Super Bowl Use?
Overall, the Super Bowl costs almost $25 million in energy every year – quite a bill for one football game. It also requires nearly 75.5 GWh of energy, almost twice the equivalent amount of electricity that the entire country of Morocco can generate over the same five-hour period (given their 6.8 GW of capacity that existed in 2012).
Meanwhile, there’s Jane’s own energy consumption: An Inconvenient Truth: Hollywood’s Huge Carbon Footprint.
The movie industry is huge, complete with its own pollution. But this hasn’t stopped them from lecturing movie-goers on a wide range of issues including income disparity, social injustices, mining, and its new favorite — the environment. And if this sanctimony seems like a new trend, a quick browse through IMDB should set you right.
According to a 2006 two-year study by UCLA, the Hollywood film and television industry produces more air pollution in the five-county Los Angeles region than almost all of the other five sectors studied. In other words, Hollywood creates more pollution than individually produced by aerospace manufacturing, apparel, hotels, and even semiconductor manufacturing. Only the petroleum industry and its fuel refineries contributed more emissions.
The study also found that the industry produced 140,000 tons of ozone and diesel particulate emissions per year.
To coin an Insta-phrase, I’ll believe that global warming is a crisis, when the people who tell me it’s a crisis start to act like it’s a crisis themselves. In the meantime, I don’t want to hear another word about Glenn Reynolds’ carbon footprint.
But given Jane’s contribution to it, hasn’t she just admitted she’s a huge racist? What will she do to make amends?
GREAT MOMENTS IN SELF-AWARENESS: Rep. Ilhan Omar: “I Wasn’t Aware That There Are Tropes About Jews And Money.”
Related: You’re on Your Own. “Between the serious lapses in judgment, the regular anti-Semitic episodes, and the precedent justifying Republican actions, Omar does not have a serious case to make in her defense. She is not a victim of forces beyond her control. Republicans are amply justified in doing what they can to prevent Omar from having the power to pursue her conspiratorial ambitions. As they should.”
YOU’RE GONNA NEED A MUCH BIGGER BLOG: What other terms need to go after ‘LatinX.’
If other states were to follow Arkansas’ lead, a few more examples of loopy lingo ought to be tossed into the bin. For starters, it’s time to purge the newfangled ‘Q’ from LGBTQ. It stands for “queer,” and aside from being a slur that many gays and lesbians find offensive, queer is neither a sexuality nor gender identity but a fashion statement and cry for attention. While you’ll find plenty of middle of the road LGBTs and Hispanics, you won’t find many who identify as queer, or Latinx — and that’s a good barometer to determine if a word belongs in representative government, or is merely extremist mumbo jumbo.
The same can be said for the term “cisgender,” which translates to “not trans” and is a sort of a mind-control effort thrusted forth by the gender cult. It’s nice to be respectful of people’s differences—and we ought to try—but we don’t need to marginalize 99.5% of the population by inventing a new classification that no one asked for— or rarely uses.
Read the whole thing.