KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Garland’s Goons Arrest a Journalist but Trump’s the Threat to Democracy. “The one upside to all of the projection that the Dems do these days is that we know what their plans are. That’s especially true when it comes to all of their caterwauling about Donald Trump and anybody who votes for him being a ‘threat to Democracy.’ It’s one of the main talking points of the stump speech that DOCTOR Mama Jill Biden is giving, as part of the updated Basement Strategy.”

HMM: Elon Musk Claims AI will run out of electricity and transformers in 2025.

“The constraints on AI compute are very predictable… A year ago, the shortage was chips; neural net chips. Then, it was very easy to predict that the next shortage will be voltage step-down transformers. You’ve got to feed the power to these things. If you’ve got 100-300 kilovolts coming out of a utility and it’s got to step down all the way to six volts, that’s a lot of stepping down.

“My not-that-funny joke is that you need transformers to run transformers. You know, the AI is like… There’s this thing called a transformer in AI… I don’t know, it’s a combination of sort of neural nets… Anyway, they’re running out of transformers to run transformers.

“Then, the next shortage will be electricity. They won’t be able to find enough electricity to run all the chips. I think next year, you’ll see they just can’t find enough electricity to run all the chips.

“The simultaneous growth of electric cars and AI, both of which need electricity, both of which need voltage transformers – I think, is creating a tremendous demand for electrical equipment and for electrical power generation.”

Wind, solar, and wishful thinking won’t cut it.

STAY TUNED: Supreme Court Could Rule Monday on 14th Amendment Challenges to Trump’s Eligibility.

OH, CANADA: Justice Minister defends house arrest power for people feared to commit a hate crime in future.

Justice Minister Arif Virani has defended a new power in the online harms bill to impose house arrest on someone who is feared to commit a hate crime in the future – even if they have not yet done so already.

The person could be made to wear an electronic tag, if the attorney-general requests it, or ordered by a judge to remain at home, the bill says.

Mr. Virani, who is Attorney-General as well as Justice Minister, said it is important that any peace bond be “calibrated carefully,” saying it would have to meet a high threshold to apply.

But he said the new power, which would require the attorney-general’s approval as well as a judge’s, could prove “very, very important” to restrain the behaviour of someone with a track record of hateful behaviour who may be targeting certain people or groups.

If “there’s a genuine fear of an escalation, then an individual or group could come forward and seek a peace bond against them and to prevent them from doing certain things.”

The peace bond could have conditions that include not being close to a synagogue or a mosque, he said. It could also lead to restrictions on internet usage and behaviour. “That would help to deradicalize people who are learning things online and acting out in the real world violently – sometimes fatally.”

Mr. Virani said the bill would strike a balance, though, and would mean that content that is “awful but lawful” would remain online.

“There’s a lot of bad stuff out there. But this is not about the bad stuff. This is a much higher level,” he said.

Well, to start.

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Another City ‘At the Brink of Disaster’ After Defunding Police.

FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: His ‘Fast & Furious’ Reenactment Hysterically Failed. “It’s time for your much-needed break from the serious news, and this week we have the world’s punniest madame, how not to pull over for a rest stop, and Gaza’s very own Master Thespian.”

MAKING AND SELLING CARS AT A PROFIT IS HARD BUT EVS ARE HARDER: Fisker warns it’s running out of cash and may not make it through 2024.

THE SAFE GUESS IS THAT’S WHAT EVERYTHING IS FOR THE NEXT EIGHT MONTHS: Was Google’s AI All About Election Interference to Stop Trump?

THAT’S MISSING SOME ZEROES: Joe Biden got $40K in China funds, brother James admits in bombshell impeachment interview.

KRUISER: Trump Derangement Syndrome Meltdown of the Week — Open Borders Because Ohtani or Something.

GEORGE MF WASHINGTON: The Era of the Joyless Blockbuster.

The root problem with the current era of blockbusters is that the movie studios, which were long ago subsumed by multi-national corporations which live and die by their stock prices, are focused on something other than great storytelling.

It’s a bit of a simplification, though not a big one, to say that if you wanted to make a movie in the 70’s, you only had to convince one man… Frank Yablans at Paramount, for instance, or Thom Mount at Universal. But here in the Era of the Joyless Blockbuster, before you can actually physically make a movie, you must convince what is called a studio “greenlight committee” to “greenlight” your movie.

The modern greenlight committee is composed of not just creative executives, but also executives from a bunch of other departments as well, including marketing, physical production, legal, consumer products and, of late, the local Diversity Equity and Inclusion Officer. These “non-creative” folk will care whether or not the movie is “good” only up to a point… what they’ll care about most is that the movie is something they can easily sell to audiences, that it pushes the proper “messaging”, that it’s something they can make on a sensible budget, or that it can generate multiple streams of ancillary income… preferably all four.

Over time, creative executives trying to get big summer blockbusters made have learned to lean into what the greenlight committee wants… which is to say maximum profitability, maximum “representation” and the need to deliver a “four quadrant product.”

To a large extent, storytelling has become a secondary consideration.

Read the whole thing.

CHRIS QUEEN: The Far Left Vs. Everybody Else: A Tale of Reactions to the Murder of Laken Riley.

MATT MARGOLIS: I Finally Tried the Apple Vision Pro. “My gut says it would eventually enhance my productivity, I’m not convinced it would improve it enough to justify the price tag. But that could be because of the limited things I got to experience in the demo. I’d need a few weeks of using it and learning how to take full advantage of it to know for sure, and to fully grasp what long term usage is like. Can I research and write multiple articles on it daily? Could I research and write another book with it? All the superficial and fun stuff is great, but not enough to get me to buy it.”

My impression is that Vision Pro is certainly the nicest computer you can wear on your face but still not productive or light or inexpensive enough to want to.

THE ONLY THING HE’S EVER SHOWN ANY APTITUDE FOR IS PLAYING OFF HIS FAMOUS NAME: Hunter Biden’s Explanation for Threatening Text to Chinese Exec Is Beyond Stupid.

I HAD BEEN ASSURED BY ALL THE SMARTEST PEOPLE THAT MAGA ATTENTION SPANS WERE TOO SHORT TO MAKE A BOYCOTT STICK: Bud Light boycott likely cost Anheuser-Busch InBev over $1 billion in lost sales.

The world’s largest brewer may have lost as much as $1.4 billion in sales because of the backlash to its brief partnership with a transgender influencer to promote Bud Light beer.

Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD) reported record revenues for 2023 Thursday but said its “full growth potential was constrained” by its US business, where sales were hurt by a boycott of Bud Light over a sponsored Instagram post with Dylan Mulvaney.

One more time: the boycott wasn’t about Mulvaney nearly as much as it was about Bud Light’s sneering marketing exec who put the promotion together and was caught on tape sneering at Bud Light drinkers.

THEIR CURRENT BOSS IS EMBARRASSING THEM: Border Patrol Union Slams Biden, Praises Trump.

JOANNE JACOBS: If you want to climb a mountain, don’t go two steps and ask, ‘How do I feel?’

In her new book, Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up, Shrier complains that social-emotional learning has gone far beyond teaching students how to disagree respectfully or “get a grip.” It’s become “a curricular juggernaut that devours billions in education spending each year.”

Teachers are encouraged to start the school day with an “emotions check-in.” At a conference for California teachers, counselor Natalie Sedano shared her check-in: “How are you feeling today? Are you daisy-bright, happy and friendly? Or am I a ladybug? Will I fly away if we get too close?”

Paying too much attention to feelings doesn’t help distressed children, psychologist told Shrier.

“I’d say: worry less. Ruminate less,” said Leif Kennair, an expert on the treatment of anxiety. “Try to verbalize everything you feel less. Try to self-monitor and be mindful of everything you do — less.”

The other thing we need a lot less of is education administrators who justify their existence with one worthless, non-education program after another.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Dem Denial Is Spiking in Unison With Illegal Immigrant Crime Spree. “We’ve now reached the stage that’s the surest sign that the Dems know they’re losing a grip on the narrative — the ‘Republicans are racist,’ stage, which is yet another permutation of denial. We’ve gotten here because of the rising incidences of violent illegal immigrant crime, which they’re also denying.”

PRIVACY: Retailers including Amazon and Walmart are selling unsafe knockoff video doorbells, report finds.

Eken and Tuck are not well-known brands in the video doorbell market, yet they are relatively strong sellers online. The doorbells appeared in multiple listings on Amazon, with more than 4,200 sold in January alone. Both brands are often touted as “Amazon’s Choice: Overall Pick,” CR stated.

“These video doorbells from little known manufacturers have serious security and privacy vulnerabilities, and now they’ve found their way onto major digital marketplaces such as Amazon and Walmart,” stated Justin Brookman, director of tech policy at Consumer Reports. “Both the manufacturers and platforms that sell the doorbells have a responsibility to ensure that these products are not putting consumers in harm’s way.”

The troubles uncovered by CR researchers include:

Exposure of a user’s home IP addresses and WiFi network names to the internet without encryption, potentially opening a user’s home network to malicious activity.

Ability of potential bad actors to take over the device by downloading the Aiwit smartphone app and entering the doorbell into pairing mode, allowing them to take ownership of the device, view camera footage and lock out the owner of the device.

Remote access to still images from the video feed and other information without authentication, by acquiring the serial number of the doorbell.

Lack of a registration code that must be visible on this class of product, under Federal Communications Commission regulations.

New rules are needed to hold online retailers accountable for vetting sellers and the product sold by their platforms, according to CR. It called on the Federal Trade Commission to stop the online sales of the doorbell cameras and on retailers to do more to ensure the quality of the products they sell.

I doubt if regulators can be trusted to protect our privacy but the real concern is how little concern consumers have for their own privacy. They’ll put up a lot of abuse just to get something cheaper.

DON’T GET COCKY: You Won’t Believe Which Group Just Jumped on the Trump Train.

BIDENOMICS IS WORKING: Key Fed Inflation Rate Confirms Bad News For Rate Cuts. “On a three-month annualized basis, the Fed’s primary core inflation rate picked up to 2.6% from an upwardly revised 1.6% in December. On a six-month annualized basis, core inflation ran at a 2.5% rate, up from a tame 1.9% in December.”

I REMEMBER WHEN LEFTIES WEREN’T SO COCKY AND AT LEAST PAID LIP SERVICE TO THE FIRST AMENDMENT: MSNBC Legal Lunatic Frets Over America’s ‘Deep Commitment to Free Speech.’

AN IMMODEST PROPOSAL: I Know How to Fix Our Political System. Hear Me Out.

HMM: NASA monitoring increased leak in Russian ISS module. “The leak is in a vestibule known as PrK between the docking port and the rest of the module. That section can be sealed off to minimize the loss of air from the rest of the station.”

PROBABLY, BUT A LOT OF PEOPLE LOVE ICE CREAM: Could Biden’s Love of Ice Cream Be Linked to Alzheimer’s?