Author Archive: Stephen Green
July 5, 2024
ROCKY MOUNTAIN LOW: Colorado Republican officials submit petition to remove Dave Williams as state GOP chairman.
Among the reasons Republicans cite, he said, are Williams’ refusal to step aside as party chairman when he declared his congressional candidacy and the party’s decision to take sides in contested primaries this year, throwing its tradition of neutrality out the window.
“They didn’t just endorse people,” Watkins said, noting that Williams and his cohorts, including state vice chair Hope Sheppelmann and party secretary Anna Ferguson, openly attacked Republican candidates in the run-up to Tuesday’s primary.
While the state GOP passed a bylaws change last fall allowing the party to back candidates who met certain criteria in primaries, Watkins said the amendment was “so poorly written, it actually says the opposite of what they think it says. There are yoga instructors that wish they were as flexible as that sentence.”
Watkins said the state party’s track record endorsing in the primary underlined why he wants Williams to go.
He also used state party funds to support his losing primary race.
KRUISER: Sorry Lefties — We’re Not Fringy, YOU Are! “We are witnessing a repudiation of the establishment, but I also think that a lot of conservative ideas are being embraced around the world because they’re — SURPRISE! — good ideas. Those ideas are far more mainstream than leftists will ever admit, which is why so many people around the world are enthusiastically opting for them.”
STILL NOT READY FOR PRIMETIME BUT YOU’LL BE SADDLED WITH IT ANYWAY: AI drive-thru ordering is on the rise — but it may take years to iron out its flaws.
NIFTY: Meet the Air Force’s secretive long-range drone that flies for days. “The Air Force officially started buying ULTRA, which began under the DOD’s small business innovation research program (SBIR), in the 2025 budget request, and asked to buy four drones for $35 million, according to budget documents. The program was developed from DZYNE’s Long Endurance Aircraft Program, or LEAP, McCue said, a previously under wraps autonomous aircraft deployed since 2016 that can fly for up to 40 hours.”
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Another 4th of July That England Will End Up Regretting. “One party being in power that long is bound to give voters the urge to shake things up a bit, but this was a good old-fashioned butt whuppin’, well beyond what could be considered voter fatigue. This is closer to a mass hysteria event.”
DEFUND THE UN:
Call me crazy, but I think that the UN warning of an epidemic of aid workers sexually abusing women in Gaza is a PRETTY BIG DEAL.
From an April report:
Humanitarian actors must scale up their PSEA [Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse] and Safeguarding capacity to…— Elder of Ziyon 🇮🇱 (@elderofziyon) July 3, 2024
“Somehow, this didn’t make it into the @NYTimes or @CNN or @Reuters.”
What, the same outlets that hid Joe Biden’s increasing senescence for five years?
WHEN AFTER ALL, IT WAS YOU AND ME: Can You Guess Who White House Reporters Blame for Their Decision Not To Expose Biden’s Mental Decline?
WHOSE DATA IS IT, ANYWAY? AI trains on kids’ photos even when parents use strict privacy settings.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) continues to reveal how photos of real children casually posted online years ago are being used to train AI models powering image generators—even when platforms prohibit scraping and families use strict privacy settings.
Last month, HRW researcher Hye Jung Han found 170 photos of Brazilian kids that were linked in LAION-5B, a popular AI dataset built from Common Crawl snapshots of the public web. Now, she has released a second report, flagging 190 photos of children from all of Australia’s states and territories, including indigenous children who may be particularly vulnerable to harms.
It’s a serious story but you have to laugh at the last line which has a real “World to End Tomorrow — Women and Minorities Hardest Hit” vibe.
July 4, 2024
WOULD THEY ANNOUNCE THIS IF THEY WEREN’T EXPECTING IT WOULD NEED TO? Boeing’s Starliner can stay in space beyond 45-day limit, NASA says.
DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Why many illegal fireworks could be gone in California next July Fourth.
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT [VIP]: Biden Campaign Collapse Tracker: That Narrative Isn’t Going to Change Itself, Joe. “The Biden Cabal controls the DNC and Biden controls the overwhelming majority of delegates for the first vote — which the DNC might hold less than three weeks from now. If somebody is going to try some ‘really futile and stupid gesture’ to steal the nomination, the White House has made sure they won’t have much time to do it.”
AND NOW FOR SOME GOOD NEWS: Blue Bell is bringing back 2 retired ice cream flavors.
THIS SHOULDN’T BE A QUESTION BUT IT IS YET ANOTHER INDICATOR THAT THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH HAS GROWN FAR TOO POWERFUL: Who’s Really Running the Country?
MICKEY KAUS: The Pepcidammerung. “Like many people, I have a problem with acid reflux. I originally took Pepcid for it, then switched to Prilosec. Then I abandoned Prilosec when a well publicized study suggested that long term use (4 years or more) increased your dementia risk by 33%. Yikes! Various attempts were made to debunk the study–see, eg, this Vox piece. And it may be that with millions of people taking Prilosec and millions being diagnosed with cognitive decline, the personality types — i.e. anxious personality types—who’ll get themselves tested for the decline are also the types who’ll take antacids. It beats me–but Vox doesn’t totally knock down the Prilosec/dementia connection. Instead, it urges people to talk with their doctors. When I told my doctor I wanted to quit Prilosec, he didn’t try to argue me out of it. He suggested I switch back to Pepcid. I said, ‘Well, if the President takes it, how bad could it be?'”
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Happy Independence Day, You Whacky Freedom Lovers! “While I don’t mind working on holidays, I do hope that most of you have some quality grilling in your plans today. It’s supposed to be around 106 here in my neck of the Sonoran Desert, so I will be enjoying my classic Independence Day fare via an air fryer while wearing a new t-shirt that says, ‘The British Blew a Thirteen Colony Lead.'”
“ALLIES”: Beijing and Moscow Go From ‘No Limits’ Friendship to Frenemies in Russia’s Backyard.
When Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met on Wednesday in Kazakhstan a day ahead of a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional political and security bloc, both sides praised the state of their bilateral ties. Their relationship was “not directed against anyone,” said Putin, according to the Kremlin readout. Chinese state news agency Xinhua quoted Xi as saying that both sides should uphold “the unique value of China-Russia relations” given what he called an “international situation fraught with turbulence.”
But in Central Asia, which Moscow regards as its backyard, the friendship that both have declared as having “no limits” is colliding with Beijing’s global ambitions.
China has seized on the Ukraine invasion to chip away at traditional Russian spheres of influence. In Central Asia, as in the Arctic, Moscow’s reliance on Beijing to sustain its war machine forces it to acquiesce to the encroachments.
Across the strategically situated region, Beijing is drawing local economies into its orbit. Chinese investments are diverting the region’s young workers away from Russia. A Chinese-funded railroad promises to connect it with Europe, bypassing Russian territory. Chinese renewable energy projects are helping reduce its reliance on Russian gas.
Putin chose… poorly.
ICYMI: Oh, You Naughty First Amendment. “Since my managing editor won’t let me reply to Wu with any of Carlin’s seven words you can’t say on television — even though all seven would be appropriate and, I promise you, artfully arranged — I’ll have to resort to reasoned analysis.”
July 3, 2024
HMM: 2 injured, 1 missing after explosion at Arkansas defense weapons plant. “The Camden plant houses more than 880,000 square feet of manufacturing and storage space, and it supports military programs such as the Hellfire and Javelin missiles and various mortar munitions, according to the company’s website.”
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Oh, You Naughty First Amendment. “Since my managing editor won’t let me reply to Wu with any of Carlin’s seven words you can’t say on television — even though all seven would be appropriate and, I promise you, artfully arranged — I’ll have to resort to reasoned analysis.”