CIVIL WARS ARE NASTY: In Yemen, there is a lot more killing to be done.
Author Archive: Stephen Green
July 17, 2019
DECOUPLING: Apple to begin trial production of AirPods in Vietnam. “Apple will begin soon trial production of AirPods in Vietnam in an attempt to circumvent tariff fees imposed on Chinese-produced goods by Trump Administration.”
BUT OF COURSE: YouTube Removes More Firearms Channels from Its Partner Program. “Maybe it was because of his super-controversial ‘Top 7 Guns I Wish I Didn’t Buy,’ or ‘Top 5 Guns Not Worth the Money,’ but I doubt it.”
THAT’S A LOT OF HORSES: The first all-new Lotus in years will be a 1,971hp electric car.
COLD WAR II: After Chinese Trawler Sinks Philippine Boat, Duterte Calls On US To Send Seventh Fleet.
Duterte has certainly changed his tune on China (and the US), and Beijing has no one to blame but themselves.
WARNER TODD HUSTON: Since The Media Won’t Report it, Here are Dozens of Anti-American Statements by ‘The Squad.’
But don’t question their patriotism.
AOC DRAWS A CHALLENGER: A Black, Female, Jamaican, Republican Challenger.
DENNIS PRAGER: We All Wanted to Love the Women’s Soccer Team.
Rapinoe is a great soccer player. Other than that, she is unimpressive. She comes across as arrogant, a fool and a lowlife.
Why a fool? Because she thinks she has something important to say to the American people and that we need to hear it because she is a great soccer player. She is not alone in this conceit. Tom Steyer and other billionaires think the same thing about themselves: that because they are better at making money than almost everybody, they must be wiser than almost everybody.
People who excel in one thing are tempted to think they are smart about everything, but that is almost never the case. There is no reason at all to assume that people who excel in anything (other than wisdom) are wiser than anybody else. And here’s the kicker (no pun intended): People who think they are wise because they excel at something unrelated to wisdom are fools.
And when your pay is determined by ticket sales and ad revenues (not sexism), it’s beyond foolish to actively anger or annoy half of your potential audience.
GOODBYE, F-35. HELLO, SANCTIONS? Trump cuts off F-35 for Turkey. And lawmakers say sanctions are coming.
NETROOTS: Ex-CNN commentator at progressive summit: Major news outlets are ‘Zionist orgs.’
Former CNN commentator Marc Lamont Hill claimed that news outlets like NBC and ABC were “Zionist organizations” that produced “Zionist content,” during a panel on Friday at the annual Netroots Nation summit held by progressive activists in Philadelphia.
The summit describes itself as “the largest annual conference for progressives” and has long been a stop for Democratic presidential hopefuls, including this year.
Hill’s comments came less than a year after he lost his CNN perch after calling for a “free Palestine from the river to the sea,” during an appearance at the U.N. The statement was interpreted by many as a call for the elimination of Israel, something Hill denied.
He made his comments during a panel on “embedding Palestinian rights in the 2020 agenda,” which also featured statements that Israel was engaged in a “white supremacist” project.
But Trump’s the racist.
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Clean Up on Aisle Pelosi. “Is there anyone outside the beltway that cares about this soap opera? This is the ultimate exercise in political theater that feeds the rabid lefty base but means nothing to anyone other than the media and the idiots on Twitter with hot takes. Have the Democrats focused grouped this strategy, because it seems to me to be a very poor pathway to victory.”
SPOILER: THEY WON’T BUILD IT. Russia unveils yet another new aircraft carrier design. “Russia appears to do this every year and as most of you will be aware, the designs never progress further either due to a lack of will or resources on the part of the Russian military.”
Post-Soviet Russia lacks the logistical wherewithal to project hard power more than a few miles into neighboring Ukraine, yet continues designing aircraft carriers which will never sail farther than the drawing board.
Call it “projection envy.”
WINNING: Wave of Hispanic Buyers Shores Up U.S. Housing Market.
The homeownership rate for Hispanics has increased more during the past several years than any race or ethnic group, including whites. The rate, which hit a 50-year low in 2015, has risen 3.3 percentage points since then, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
The overall U.S. homeownership rate bottomed in the second quarter of 2016 and has grown 1.3 percentage points since then. For blacks, the homeownership rate has fallen to its lowest level on record in the first quarter of this year. This marks the first time in more than two decades that Hispanics and blacks, the two largest racial or ethnic minorities in the U.S., are no longer following the same path when it comes to owning homes.
Minorities bore the brunt of the 2008 housing bust and their return to homeownership has been mixed. Now, a growing population of young Latinos increasingly eager to buy homes offers fresh hope to a slowing housing market, where sales of existing homes have fallen on an annual basis for the past year.
Black homeownership not only failed to recover from the Great Recession, but is still hurting for reasons no one has made clear.
DECOUPLING: US senators seek to lock in limits on Huawei and keep it out of trade talks. “Bipartisan group of six are concerned that US President Donald Trump might swap the ban in negotiations with China.”
I NEVER DID RECYCLE PLASTICS: Why It’s Probably Better for the Planet to Throw Plastic in the Trash.
Starting as early as 2017, municipalities across the country, from Douglas County, Oregon to Nogales, Arizona to Broadway, Virginia, to Franklin, New Hampshire, began landfilling many recyclables or simply canceling their recycling programs altogether. The impetus for this disconcerting change? China.
For decades, the country was content to accept, process, and transform recycled materials from across the globe, but no longer. In July 2017, the government announced new policies that would effectively ban imports of most recyclables, particularly plastics. They went into effect last March. Considering that China has imported a cumulative 45% of plastic waste since 1992, this is a huge deal.
Where once China offered a market for the world’s plastic bottles, tubs, and other packaging to be turned into – for example – polyester clothing, now, that market is gone. This means that recycling costs have skyrocketed. A few years ago, Franklin, New Hampsire could sell recyclables for $6 per ton. Now, it costs the town $125 per ton to recycle that same stuff!
Municipalities across the country are facing this startling arithmetic, so hundreds are choosing the drastically cheaper option: throw most traditionally recycled materials in the trash, instead.
While that might sound horrifying, Thomas Kinnaman, an environmental economist from Bucknell University, says it’s actually a blessing in disguise.
“China’s ban may actually reduce the amount of plastic that ends up in the oceans,” he told NPR’s Planet Money podcast. “China was not very careful about what got into their oceans for a long period of time, and if some of the plastic piles were just too corrupted they could do whatever they wanted with it.”
China? Careless? That’s an understatement.
KRUISER: Awkward: BofA Sponsors Bank-Hating Bernie’s Interview with WaPo.
The video is priceless.
July 16, 2019
WELL, THAT’S A TAKE: The culture that put men on the moon was intense, fun, family-unfriendly, and mostly white and male.
The link just goes to the official tweet so that you can enjoy the replies without having to follow a WaPo link.
CRIME OF THE CENTURY: Colombian caught in Spain with cocaine under toupee.
TYLER O’NEIL: Kamala Harris Slams Epstein’s Law Firm — And Fundraises With Them at the Same Time.
But here’s the kicker, from a note Tyler sent to me: “I didn’t realize this until researching, but neither Bill Barr nor Jeffrey Rosen, whom Kamala said should recuse themselves from any Epstein case, worked at the firm when it handled the Epstein case.”
TO WHAT END — SERIOUSLY, TO WHAT END? Mark Sanford Considers Challenging Donald Trump for President in 2020.
CHRISTIAN TOTO: ‘No Safe Spaces’ – Our Last Chance to Save Free Speech?
“No Safe Spaces” reveals the Left’s plan to squash free speech as we’ve known it for 243 years.
That’s not hyperbole.
The evidence speaks for itself over and again in 90 riveting minutes. “No Safe Spaces” could have gone on for another hour, maybe two, had all the free speech attacks made the final cut.
The film will be released in the Fall, but one thing stands true following an early preview. It’s hard to imagine a more vital film hitting theaters by year’s end.
Read the whole thing. And see the movie in theaters.
IF YOU’VE EVER TRIED TO PARK IN SAN FRANCISCO, YOU KNOW WHAT MADNESS THIS IS: San Francisco plans to reserve parking lot for homeless living out of vehicles.