VIDEO: Schweizer Exposes More Joe Biden Corruption — It’s ‘Going to be a Central Issue’ in 2020. “Corruption is being globalized.”
Author Archive: Stephen Green
August 27, 2018
YOU CAN’T STEAL EXPERIENCE AND KNOW-HOW: The Problem With China’s Powerful Air Force.
This problem is starkly illustrated by China’s ongoing difficulty in producing a high-quality indigenous jet engine.
The problem of technology mismatch, at its root, is that the thief lacks trade secrets and human capital associated with the manufacturing and assembly of a system. At the very least, this absence can make the replication of foreign systems a costly and time-consuming process, as the thief needs to develop manufacturing procedures from scratch. At worst, it can lead to seriously substandard components that reduce the capabilities and reliability of a system. Chinese efforts to reverse engineer certain Russian jet engines during the 1990s and 2000s invariably produced engines with extremely short lifespans, and without the power of their Russian counterparts . Even today, jet engines remain an obstacle for PLAAF fighter modernization, with its early 5th generation prototypes notably underpowered.
Russian engines are less powerful and shorter-lived than their Western equivalents, and Chinese copies aren’t as good as Russian originals.
SCRAPPLEFACE: 4-in-5 Democrats Would Elect McCain President Now.
I think this is satire, but these days you can’t be too sure.
NEW SOCIALIST “IT GIRL” CONTINUES TO PAY DIVIDENDS: “McCain’s record does represent the views Ocasio-Cortez has defined herself, and the fight she’s leading, against — does that fight pause for R.I.P.s?”
Don’t be silly. Of course it doesn’t.
UNEXPECTED HEADLINES: Thousands of Turks escaping Erdogan’s crackdown find an unlikely haven in Greece.
After spending 10 years in maximum security prisons in Turkey — including stints of isolation and torture — Turgut Kaya, a prominent local journalist and dissident, decided it was time to flee.
Like thousands of his fellow Turks in recent years, his destination was nearby Greece, which has traditionally had a complicated and wary relationship with its neighbor across the Aegean.
“It’s not just me,” the 45-year-old Mr. Kaya, recently given asylum after a 55-day hunger strike, said at an Athens cafe. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “is attacking students, academics, teachers and many other people that have no relations with any of the organizations he considers his enemies.”
“They don’t have any proof to go after me or these people — even judges are now in prison or exile,” he said.
Sultans gotta sultanate.
BJORN LOMBORG: How the war on climate change slams the world’s poor.
Activist organizations like Worldwatch argue that higher temperatures will make more people hungry, so drastic carbon cuts are needed. But a comprehensive new study published in Nature Climate Change led by researchers from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis has found that strong global climate action would cause far more hunger and food insecurity than climate change itself.
The scientists used eight global-agricultural models to analyze various scenarios between now and 2050. These models suggest, on average, that climate change could put an extra 24 million people at risk of hunger. But a global carbon tax would increase food prices and push 78 million more people into risk of hunger. The areas expected to be most vulnerable are sub-Saharan Africa and India.
Trying to help 24 million people by imperiling 78 million people’s lives is a very poor policy.
It’s great statism though.
THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY I HOPE TO COME TO DEPEND ON: A coffee delivery drone could predict when you need a caffeine boost.
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Jacksonville Shooting and Much, Much More. “The anti-gun posse were out in force immediately before waiting for any facts to be released.”
IT SEEMS TO ME THEY COULD JUST PUBLISH WHAT PEOPLE POST WHEN THEY POST IT, AND STOP MUCKING EVERYTHING UP: Twitter CEO, other tech execs to address social-media ‘bias’ against conservatives at Capitol Hill hearing.
A QUIET WEEKEND IN RAHM EMANUEL’S CHICAGO: 23 shot in Chicago since Friday evening.
GOOD LORD: New Mexico compound suspects allegedly planned to attack Atlanta’s Grady Hospital.
New court documents revealed these and other details in the case against five adults who lived in squalor with 11 starving children in a ramshackle New Mexico compound.
In a case infused with allegations of abuse and terrorism, prosecutors this week asked a judge to reconsider an order granting bond to all five adults arrested at the compound.
As part of the request, prosecutors on Friday cited not only the death of three-year-old Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj at the remote site but also plans by the defendants to attack law enforcement and “specific targets such as teachers, schools, banks and other ‘corrupt’ institutions.”
The dead boy’s father, Siraj Wahhaj, 40, and his partner, Jany Leveille, 35, have been charged with abuse of a child resulting in death, a first-degree felony with a penalty of up to life in prison, according to court documents. They were also charged with conspiracy to commit child abuse, also a first-degree felony.
The couple and three other adults — Wahhaj’s sisters, Hujrah Wahhaj and Subhannah Wahhaj; and Lucas Morten — were previously charged with 11 felony counts of child abuse.
The 13-page motion filed Friday said items found at the compound included the “Phases of a Terrorist Attack” document.
A secret compound, child abuse, a dead body, conspiracy, terrorism — this has all the makings of a much bigger story, and yet I have to go hunting for updates.
SOCIALISM IS NOT HEALTHY FOR CHILDREN AND OTHER LIVING THINGS: Misery of mothers fleeing with young babies amid Venezuela’s collapse.
We found 25-year-old Elisabeth Hernandez at the back of a church food-distribution centre in the Colombian border town of Cucuta.
She was sitting eating a free meal handed out by the church along with her four very young children.
She told us she had fled Margarita Island in Venezuela, hitchhiking by boat and then vehicle before crossing the border into Colombia by foot at Cucuta.
She has already been in Colombia for a month.
Looking at her four tiny children – the youngest is eight months old and still being breastfed and the eldest is six – we’re staggered how she’s managed to do this long journey on her own.
The father of the children left Venezuela a few months ago, abandoning her and the other children, taking their eldest child, eight, with him to Peru. That’s her intended destination too.
Because racism, I suppose.
KARA SWISHER: How and Why Silicon Valley Gets High. “Everyone’s hoping a little LSD can lead them to the next billion-dollar idea.”
While the use of mind-altering substances here is nothing new, I spoke to just over a dozen people who all said consumption was increasing once again. Obviously, there are major problems with addiction to opiates and alcohol here, as elsewhere. But people in Silicon Valley tend to view drugs differently from those in places like, say, Hollywood and Wall Street. The point is less to let off steam or lose your inhibitions than to improve your mind.
“No one can afford to lose a step here anymore, so they want to hack the experience to make it work for their time-constrained schedules,” said one techie. “You want to be super lucid now.”
Another tech executive compares it to what Bradley Cooper did in the movie “Limitless,” about a man who uses a mystery drug to become much smarter than anyone else. “It was a terrible movie, but the idea of a having a heightened sense of awareness and also being totally functional appeals to people now,” he said. “Whatever can get you to that place without a lot of downside — like addiction — is preferred.”
That is why everyone he knows microdoses, saving the longer-acting drugs like Ecstasy for the rare occasions when they want to party and relax. As always, Adderall is often used to plow through work.
And marijuana, he told me, had become more like drinking a glass of wine, noting that he sees people openly vaping at tech events. Why? “No one does a stupid tweet on weed like they might on alcohol,” he said. “The most that happens is that you get lazy and eat badly.”
It is all, another tech worker said, about the “intellectualizing of drug use as a stimulant for the brain.”
While I can’t think of any actual, successful tech products or services which were developed while tripping, some of this attitude might stem from Steve Jobs advocating that everyone try hallucinogens like he did as a young man. But mostly I’m reminded of the musicians who thought that heroin was the secret to Charlie Parker’s genius, and ended up following his path to self-destruction.
CHANGE: Democrats strip power away from superdelegates.
So-called superdelegates – members of the Democratic National Committee, elected officials, and other party elders who are allowed to support any presidential nominee they choose – will now be barred from voting on the first ballot to select the nominee at the 2020 Democratic convention unless a candidate has already earned enough pledged delegates through the state caucus and primary elections to secure the nomination. Superdelegates will only be allowed to weigh in on the first ballot if no candidate has earned a majority of pledged delegates and a second ballot is required to choose a nominee – though no convention has gone to multiple ballots since 1952.
The aim of the reforms, DNC Chairman Tom Perez wrote in a letter to DNC members, was to address a “perceived lack of transparency in our presidential primary process” and “perceptions of undue influence in favor of particular candidates.” He was referring to frustrations voiced by those who supported Sanders that the vast majority of superdelegates – who represented about 15 percent of the total delegates – publicly backed then-candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016. They did not ultimately change the outcome of the election, but Clinton needed those delegates to clinch the nomination.
The way is cleared for a “democratic” socialist to have a real shot at the Democratic nomination in 2020.
WELL, GOOD: U.S. Set to Reject Palestinian Fantasy of ‘Right of Return.’ “The change in policy will be a splash of cold water on Palestinian illusions.”
August 24, 2018
GOOD GRIEF: Max Boot Cites Cromwell’s Military Coup In Call To Oust Trump.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): On the one hand, it’s been evident for a while that Boot’s gone more or less literally crazy with Trump Derangement. On the other hand, more publicity for my paper on military coups in America. Maybe this’ll get it past 10,000 downloads!
ANOTHER UPDATE (FROM GLENN:) Only 67 to go to make the 10,000 mark!
MORE (FROM GLENN): Success!
NOT INTERESTED UNLESS IT INCLUDES A WORKING COPY OF “SPACE CADET” PINBALL: Windows 95 is now an app you can download and install on macOS, Windows, and Linux.
BLUE CITY BLUES: Under Progressive Mayor Kenney, Philadelphia Has a Stabbing Problem.
SPENGLER: Art Laffer’s Chinese Curve Ball.
If you want to compare the debt position of the United States and China, consider that the United States has run up $21 trillion in government debt, and has nothing to show for it but future obligations to pay entitlements. China has run up a similar amount of debt, but has used it to build infrastructure. It now has dozens of brand new cities designed for self-driving cars, 30,000 kilometers of high-speed trains, excellent roads, and brand new airports. The US has collapsing infrastructure, a rail system that is a national humiliation, and airports look like Third World leftovers
I’ve been saying for a while now that if the broad American public ever catches on to just how badly Washington has ripped us off and for how long, that the reckoning will be ugly.
And do read the whole thing.
PATRICK POOLE: USAID Food Support Went to Syrian Al-Qaeda.
DAVID HARSANYI: There Is Nothing ‘Illegitimate’ About The Brett Kavanaugh Nomination. “Democrats keep creating a make-believe constitutional order.”
But much like their ideal Supreme Court, Democrats have set about fabricating brand new extra-constitutional standards that happen to always align with their partisan aims. Their latest concocted stipulation states that anyone nominated by a present under suspicion of criminality becomes “illegitimate.”
Democratic Sens. Mazie Hirono and Ed Markey canceled meetings this week with prospective Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Markey said the nominee was “illegitimate” because the president was “all but named as a co-conspirator.” A similar sentiment was repeated by many Democrats and liberal pundits. The Supreme Court itself, contends The New York Times’ Paul Krugman, would become “fundamentally illegitimate.”
Much of this, of course, is typical Trump-era hyperbole. None of these senators were going to vote for Kavanaugh anyway, and none of these pundits are going accept the validity of the Supreme Court that adheres to the Constitution as written. Yet, it’s still worth noting the vacuosness of their arguments.
Turns out there’s a lot of vacuity worth noting, so you’ll want to read the whole thing.
HEH: Horrified Progressive Suddenly Realizes Mike Pence Next In Line For Presidency.
It’s the Babylon Bee so it’s supposed to be satire, but there do seem to be an awful lot of people who think that they’ll get President Hillary if Trump is removed from office.
IT’S A SHORT PATH FROM “PUNCH A NAZI” TO THIS: L.A. Antifa Group Calls For ‘Revolutionary Violence Against the Enemies of the People.’