BECAUSE IT’S HIGHLY INFECTIOUS (AND GENERALLY NOT VERY SERIOUS), ALLOWING POPULATIONS TO ESTABLISH HERD IMMUNITY IN SHORT ORDER. NEXT QUESTION? South Africa’s Omicron Wave Looks Like It’s Already Peaking. Why?
Author Archive: Stephen Green
December 20, 2021
ZERO IS THE NUMBER THE PRESS WOULD LIKE YOU TO REMEMBER: Allegedly, There Are Only a Few Americans Left in Afghanistan.
OPERATION CHOKEPOINT II: John Kerry’s Financial Crusade Against Oil and Gas.
The president’s climate envoy has been pressuring banks and financial institutions to reduce their commitments to U.S. oil and gas companies and join the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, which would hobble the ability of oil and gas companies to increase production. Citi, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase signed on to the alliance this year.
Mr. Kerry’s efforts didn’t go unnoticed. In April, members of the Senate Banking Committee sent him a letter expressing concern that he had “been pressuring banks to make extralegal commitments regarding energy-related lending and investment activities” that would result in “higher energy costs for American consumers.”
In May, 15 state treasurers sent a letter to Mr. Kerry observing that he and other members of the Biden administration are “privately pressuring U.S. banks and financial institutions to refuse to lend to or invest in coal, oil, and natural gas companies, as part of a misguided strategy to eliminate the fossil fuel industry in our country.” They urged banks and financial institutions “not to give in to pressure from the Biden Administration.”
Break up the big banks. Small, local banks would be more aligned with their local customers’ needs — and too many of them for a lone schmuck like Kerry to pressure.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Manchin Exposes Dems’ Ignorance of Flyover America. “Although Manchin is a Democrat, the state he serves is redder than red. Trump won West Virginia last year with 68.62% of the vote. When Manchin decides he can’t go along with the kind of legislative lunacy that progressives want, he is very much representing his constituency. Trust me, he doesn’t have a lot of explaining to do to the folks back home.”
FOREIGN COLLUSION: Amazon partnered with China propaganda arm.
Amazon.com Inc was marketing a collection of President Xi Jinping’s speeches and writings on its Chinese website about two years ago, when Beijing delivered an edict, according to two people familiar with the incident. The American e-commerce giant must stop allowing any customer ratings and reviews in China.
A negative review of Xi’s book prompted the demand, one of the people said. “I think the issue was anything under five stars,” the highest rating in Amazon’s five-point system, said the other person.
Ratings and reviews are a crucial part of Amazon’s e-commerce business, a major way of engaging shoppers. But Amazon complied, the two people said. Currently, on its Chinese site Amazon.cn, the government-published book has no customer reviews or any ratings. And the comments section is disabled.
Amazon’s compliance with the Chinese government edict, which has not been reported before, is part of a deeper, decade-long effort by the company to win favor in Beijing to protect and grow its business in one of the world’s largest marketplaces.
An internal 2018 Amazon briefing document that describes the company’s China business lays out a number of “Core Issues” the Seattle-based giant has faced in the country. Among them: “Ideological control and propaganda is the core of the toolkit for the communist party to achieve and maintain its success,” the document notes. “We are not making judgement on whether it is right or wrong.”
Hint: It’s wrong.
I COULD HAVE SWORN HE PROMISED TO SHUT THIS VIRUS DOWN: Biden Weighs Changing the Messaging as Omicron Spreads Rapidly. “Biden aides are pushing the president to alter the political messaging and highlight the number of severe cases rather than the number of infections. They are also speaking heresy by suggesting that Americans are going to have to learn to live with the coronavirus.”
VIDEO: No Exit. “Maybe you won’t watch all 25 minutes of this, but it’s worth watching the first six minutes to see how ordinary Americans who were sympathetic to early coronavirus restrictions have lost all patience with endless Covid Theater.”
December 17, 2021
OH, THAT WAR ON CHRISTMAS: Frat house cannot hang its own Christmas wreath, university insists.
IT’S GOOD TO BE THE NOMENKLATURA: DC bar restores status of convicted ex-FBI lawyer who deceived the FISA court during Russia probe. “Typically, a case like Kevin Clinesmith’s would end in disbarment, but not this time.”
WELL, HE’S RIGHT: Manchin yells at reporter: ‘You’re bull—-.’
“This is bullshit. You’re bullshit,” Manchin yelled at Arthur Delaney, a reporter for HuffPost Politics, who asked him to confirm the report that the child tax credit has become a major sticking point in talks with the White House.
“I’m done, I’m done,” Manchin fumed, his voice rising, after Delaney asked whether the senator could support continuing $300 monthly payments to families with young kids.
The testy exchange followed another contentious back-and-forth between Manchin and a group of reporters, including CNN’s Manu Raju.
Raju reported that talks between Manchin and Biden were not going well because Manchin wants to cut the child tax credit out of the bill.
Manchin denied the report and said members of the media are hearing “a lot of bad rumors.”
“I’m not opposed to child tax credit, I’ve never been opposed to child tax credit,” he insisted.
Manchin also made clear that he’s getting sick and tired of being grilled about his position in the negotiations with Biden.
A US Senator is being bullied by the press over a partisan vote. That is most certainly bullshit.
THIS IS A BIG DEAL: Researchers discover water in expansive canyon on Mars. “Alexey Malakhov, a researcher at the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences who co-authored a study on the findings, said in a statement that the unexpected amount of water is ‘very much like Earth’s permafrost regions.’ Water in these regions is stored in ice that permanently persists under the dry soil because of cold temperatures, he said.”
SOMETIMES I ENJOY TILTING AT WINDMILLS: Stick It to the Man: Get Yourself on Washington’s Terrorist Database. “It’s like something right out of George Orwell’s 1984 — if Oceana had bothered with niceties like buying a woman a drink before intimidating the hell out of her.”
THE METAVERSE IS TURNING OUT EXACTLY HOW I EXPECTED: Meta alerts 50,000 users to targeting by ‘surveillance-for-hire’ companies. “Targets included journalists, dissidents, critics of authoritarian regimes, families of opposition, and human rights activists, the post said. The surveillance was uncovered in a monthslong investigation in which Meta identified spying groups and removed them from the platform.”
KEVIN DOWNEY JR: ‘White Privilege’ Isn’t Getting People Killed, Democrats Are.
I’M OLD ENOUGH TO REMEMBER WHEN IRAN WAS BROKE AND INCREASINGLY BOXED IN: Iranian Newspaper Publishes a Map With List of Targets in Israel: ‘Just One Wrong Move.’
FOREIGN COLLUSION: NFL Marks Taiwan as Part of China. “The map, which introduced markets for 18 NFL teams in eight countries, shows Taiwan unlabeled and colored in as part of China. The erasure of Taiwan comes two months after President Xi Jinping gave a speech in October calling for the ‘reunification’ of the island nation with China, whether in a ‘peaceful manner’ or by ‘firm will.'”
Out: Standing for the national anthem.
In: Bending the knee for the CCP.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Thought Experiment — Imprison the Mask/Vax Mandate Nazis. “I could forgive government overreach at the beginning of the pandemic. Everyone was flying blind then. That didn’t stop Democrats and their flying monkeys in the media from blaming President Trump for everything at the time though. Now, however, Fauci and the elected Dems who revere him are just out of control and trying their damnedest to do a Soviet 2.0 thing here in the United States.”
DON’T BE EVIL: New Google Drive policy could restrict access to your files.
Google’s about to make some changes to the way you share Google Drive files. The search giant has announced a new policy that will restrict access to files violating its policies, and prevent them from being shared in the process.
Google announced this change in a blog post, revealing that restrictions may be put in place on files that violate Google’s Terms of Service or abuse program policies. While the owner will still have full access, this move means sharing privileges will be revoked — even if someone already has a link.
According to Google file owners will receive an email when files are restricted. Not only does that alert them to the fact it’s happened, it will also give them the opportunity to appeal the decision and request a review.
“The cloud” is just a fancy way of saying “someone else’s hard drive.”
So if it’s something you don’t want someone else to take away, lose, or look at, then don’t store it on somebody else’s hard drive.
THIS IS CNN: Another Day, Another (Alleged) Perv at CNN.
THIS IS NOT THE 21ST CENTURY I’D BEEN HOPING FOR BUT IT IS THE ONE I’VE COME TO EXPECT: The metaverse has a groping problem already.
Last week, Meta (the umbrella company formerly known as Facebook) opened up access to its virtual-reality social media platform, Horizon Worlds. Early descriptions of the platform make it seem fun and wholesome, drawing comparisons to Minecraft. In Horizon Worlds, up to 20 avatars can get together at a time to explore, hang out, and build within the virtual space.
But not everything has been warm and fuzzy. According to Meta, on November 26, a beta tester reported something deeply troubling: she had been groped by a stranger on Horizon Worlds. On December 1, Meta revealed that she’d posted her experience in the Horizon Worlds beta testing group on Facebook.
Meta’s internal review of the incident found that the beta tester should have used a tool called “Safe Zone” that’s part of a suite of safety features built into Horizon Worlds. Safe Zone is a protective bubble users can activate when feeling threatened. Within it, no one can touch them, talk to them, or interact in any way until they signal that they would like the Safe Zone lifted.
Facebook’s future is a whole lot like Facebook’s past, just creepier.