WOW: Netflix Subscription Cancellations Soar After ‘Cuties’ Controversy.
I’m working on a piece about the film for later today.
Author Archive: Stephen Green
September 16, 2020
PETTY: U.S. Think Tank Under Fire for Hosting Top Iranian Official.
The Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan U.S. think tank that employs numerous former government officials, is scheduled to host next Tuesday Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif, the regime’s top spokesman and architect of the landmark nuclear accord, for a virtual conversation on the Zoom meeting platform. The event comes just days after Iran tortured and executed popular Iranian wrestler Navid Afkari over his participation in a peaceful protest. The execution sparked outrage across the globe and is casting a shadow over the CFR event.
Trump administration and congressional officials who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon about the upcoming event expressed outrage that CFR would host Zarif after his government executed Afkari, who has since become a poster boy for Iran’s human-rights abuses.
The event also runs afoul of U.S. sanctions laws, according to a legal group. Under strict interpretations of the current law, Americans are prohibited from providing any services, including technology services like those used to host the event, to sanctioned individuals such as Zarif. The event could serve as a test for the Treasury Department as it determines how the law should be enforced. While Americans are permitted to meet with sanctioned individuals under the auspices of the United Nations in New York City, meetings of this nature remain in a legal gray area.
It looks to me like the CFR is sticking its thumb in Trump’s eye for undoing Barack Obama & John Kerry’s disastrous Iran Deal.
MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: DOJ to announce charges in computer intrusion campaigns tied to China.
JOE ROGAN: ‘Biden Has Dementia.’ “Rogan is interesting because he says what he actually thinks without caring about toning it down due to fear of condemnation from the Social Justice Warrior set.”
VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: Suppose They Made Peace But Democrats Wouldn’t Come?
Insanity Wrap needs to know: Remember when Democrats were for peace the Middle East?
Answer: ORANGE MAN BAD, hater!
Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.
- Pennsylvania judge goes nuclear on mostly violent rioters.
- John Kerry blows it. Again.
- Meet Kim Cast, Oregon’s citizen-hero.
And so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.
HMM: Air Force Shocks Defense Sector As Secret Fighter Jet Takes Flight. “The NGAD has come so far that the full-scale flight demonstrator has already flown in the physical world. It’s broken a lot of records.”
It’s an educated guess that whatever they end up naming the sixth-gen fighter — I like the sound of F-51 in honor of the WWII P-51 Mustang — it will be able to fly and fight either manned or unmanned.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Democrats Will Use Mail-In Ballots Scam to Throw Election Into Chaos. “Now, no matter the margin of victory should Trump prevail on Nov. 3rd, the Democrats will be caterwauling about counting the mail-in ballots for weeks, or even months. That’s where all of the fraud magic can be made, naturally.”
COMMUNIST FRONT CORPORATIONS: Chinese Communist Party Document Reveals Plans for Greater Party Control Over Companies.
At the top of the CCP’s list of how to compel tougher adherence to the party line, the CCP hopes to “improve the selection mechanism” for supporting business leaders and investing in their enterprises.
“We will raise and strengthen private enterprise figures and teams who staunchly and steadfastly walk together with the party, and develop as one heart and one mind,” the document reads.
The phrase “one heart and one mind” is standard CCP language used frequently throughout party speeches and documents. It is used to emphasize unified thought and action in Chinese leadership, shutting the door to differing opinions.
That sound you hear is the death rattle of innovation in Communist-run mainland China.
CHANGE: Stripe Workers Who Relocate Get $20,000 Bonus and a Pay Cut. “Stripe Inc. plans to make a one-time payment of $20,000 to employees who opt to move out of San Francisco, New York or Seattle, but also cut their base salary by as much as 10%, according to a person familiar with the matter.”
Moving from one of those cities to almost anywhere else, a 10% paycut will amount to a hefty payraise.
WELL, GOOD: America Is Going to Decapitate Huawei.
This being the New York Times, naturally it’s a bad thing:
Access to chips is crucial to any tech company — and Huawei has admitted it is already running out. Without chips, “What products can we still make?,” a Huawei employee has asked. The answer: not much. Fearing further pressure from the United States and seeing little hope for the future, some of Huawei’s top employees have already left the company. Huawei insists that it will soldier on. But it is hard to see how the company’s main products — like 5G equipment, network gear, smartphones and cloud computing services — will survive without access to chips.
China’s leading chip manufacturer, SMIC, is scrambling to build chips as small as 40 nanometers — billionths of a meter — without American technology. This might sound small, but today’s cutting edge is five nanometers. Even if China’s race to “de-Americanize” production at 40 nanometers succeeds, it will have built a chip as cutting edge as a flip phone.
Much as Beijing would like to, hardly any industry analysts expect China to wean itself off American tech soon. There’s just no way to create an entire industry from scratch, especially one that requires producing at the scale of nanometers. Beijing has no choice but to buy an estimated $300 billion worth of chips from abroad this year, more than it spends on any other product.
Huawei’s digital decapitation is a shocking display of American power. At the whim of the American president, any other Chinese tech company could suffer such a fate. Imagine if a foreign power could do the same to Google or Amazon.
Well, they can’t — and Trump aims to keep it that way.
September 15, 2020
YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: 12 Reasons Science Shows Conservative Women Have The Best Sex.
HMM: Chinese regulators may block Nvidia’s $40b Arm buyout.
The Nvidia-Arm merge brings together Nvidia’s leading artificial intelligence (AI) computing platform with Arm’s vast ecosystem to create a colossal computing company, helping Nvidia expanding into large, high-growth markets. SoftBank is expected to keep about 10 percent of Arm’s stakes.
Arm, which was acquired by SoftBank in 2016, is seen as an independent entity that gives equal treatment to all licensees, with its major customers including Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm and Huawei.
“As part of Nvidia, Arm will continue to operate its open-licensing model while maintaining the global customer neutrality that has been foundational to its success,” the US firm said in a statement.
However, the “neutrality” is in serious doubt as Arm will become part of a US firm, which means the Trump administration could contain China’s growing chipset industry from the design side, following its crackdown on Huawei, Ma Jihua, a veteran telecom industry analyst, told the Global Times on Monday.
“The acquisition will affect the development path of China’s chipset industry as most of its products are based on Arm architecture,” said Ma.
Squeeze Beijing until it hurts, and then squeeze some more.
COME SEE THE ANTISEMITISM INHERENT IN THE LEFTISM: 3 Synagogue Arsons in 1 Month in the Most Progressive US Cities.
I HAD BEEN ASSURED THIS WAS JUST A CONSPIRACY THEORY: Deputies investigating ‘suspicious fires’ in Linn County. “Deputies and fire crews responded to eight small fires within a two-hour period.”
Previously: Oregon man, freed after using Molotov cocktail to start fire, set six more.