EVERYTHING IS RACIST: ‘Racist’ Is the Mainstream Media’s Latest Sad Attempt to Smear Ron DeSantis.
Author Archive: Stephen Green
September 4, 2023
Since Vladimir Putin launched the invasion in February 2022, emigration out of Russia has exploded, with some estimates putting the exodus at 1 million people. A recent analysis from the policy platform Re: Russia narrowed the number to 817,000-922,000.
That’s contributed to a record labor shortage, with 42% of industrial firms unable to find enough workers in July, up from 35% in April.
The composition of Russia’s exodus also points to the best and brightest fleeing the country. While a barrage of Western sanctions incentivized many to leave for economic reasons, others fled to avoid military service, skewing the numbers toward younger Russians.
Workers under the age of 35 now account for less than 30% of the labor force, the lowest on record going back 20 years.
More: “In fact, the Atlantic Council estimated that Russia’s GDP, as measured by purchasing power parity (PPP), will fall behind Indonesia’s in 2026, nearly two years earlier than would’ve been the case had Putin not launched his war on Ukraine. By then, they will switch places as the world’s sixth and seventh largest economies by PPP.”
“Banana republic with nukes” has never been more appropriate than right now.
FUNNY, HE DOESN’T LOOK SUPREMACIST: Vivek Ramaswamy Now a White Supremacist™ According to Democrat Party.
GERMANY: Germany is the ‘sick man of Europe’ — and it’s causing a shift to the right, top economist says. “The ‘sick man of Europe’ moniker has resurfaced in recent weeks as manufacturing output continues to stutter in the region’s largest economy and the country grapples with high energy prices. The label was originally used to describe the German economy in 1998 as it navigated the costly challenges of a post-reunification economy.”
The difference then is Germany was going through the expensive process of lifting the formerly Communist east into affluence. Now Berlin is trying to smother the whole country with eco-communism.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Labor Day Jimmy Buffett Blues. “Yes, we will always have the music, but Buffett’s lighthearted spirit sure would come in handy for the next year or so.”
September 1, 2023
I DO WHAT I CAN: Just 12% of Americans — mostly men — are eating half of our beef supply.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): I’m making burgers tonight! Later this weekend: Ribeyes!
FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: Frankenduck vs the Newsweasels. “Florida Man Friday is your much-needed break from the serious news but, before we get started, a quick shoutout to the first responders working their Florida booties off after Hurricane Idalia.”
REMOTE HEALTHCARE: At-home saliva test detects cancer with 90% accuracy.
An AI-based home screening test to detect oral and throat cancers from saliva samples is now available in the United States with the hope of transforming oral and throat cancer detection.
Based on a technology approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a “breakthrough device,” the saliva test can detect early symptoms of oral and throat cancer with more than 90 percent accuracy.
Due to a lack of effective diagnostic tools, these cancers often go undiagnosed until they have reached an advanced stage, resulting in low survival rates.
More like this, please.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The broke-woke-stroke convergence: Why professors lower standards.
“Broke” colleges and universities “scramble to attract and retain students, whatever their intellectual readiness,” they write. Faculty are under pressure to please the customers. If too many switch to an easier major, the professor could lose his or her job.
“Woke” sensibilities have politicized student performance disparities, especially by race, they write. A Boston University teaching guide on the “hidden curriculum” suggests it “may not be fair or even valid” to hold marginalized students to such expectations as doing the readings, arriving to class on time, participating in class discussions or using “standard English.”
“Stroke” refers to the need to stroke the egos of “students viewed as increasingly likely to push back for higher grades or others perceived as too vulnerable to receive stringent appraisals of their work.”
The corrupt universities and the crybully students deserve one another.
CANADA: No human remains found 2 years after claims of ‘mass graves’ in Canada.
After two years of horror stories about the alleged mass graves of Indigenous children at residential schools across Canada, a series of recent excavations at suspected sites has turned up no human remains.
Some academics and politicians say it’s further evidence that the stories are unproven.
Minegoziibe Anishinabe, a group of indigenous people also known as Pine Creek First Nation, excavated 14 sites in the basement of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows Catholic Church near the Pine Creek Residential School in Manitoba during four weeks this summer.
The so-called “anomalies” were first detected using ground-penetrating radar, but on Aug. 18, Chief Derek Nepinak of remote Pine Creek Indian Reserve said no remains were found.
Well, good — but you can be sure certain people will be upset by the good news.
THE ROT GOES ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP: Emails Show Hunter Biden Had Close Ties to High-Level Obama Officials.
A REMINDER THAT SANCTIONS RARELY WORK AND EVEN LESS OFTEN AS INTENDED: Russian LNG exports to Europe surge. “Just yesterday, we looked at how the sanctions on Russia largely seem to be failing and potentially backfiring, at least thus far. Now, more evidence of this trend is coming to light. One of the biggest issues involved in waging economic warfare against Russia has been the complications caused by Russia’s position in the global energy market. Energy exports are a huge part of the Russian economy, so cutting them off would put significant pressure on the Kremlin. But as one of the world’s leading suppliers, particularly when it comes to natural gas, there aren’t enough replacements for those products available so we’ve largely had to leave them alone. As a result, not only are Russian exports failing to be dampened, they’re actually increasing and the country is on track to set an all-time record for Liquified Natural Gas exports.”
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Need to Report a UFO? There’s a New Government Website for That. “Washington being Washington, there has to be an office for everything, and every office must have all the excitement of a mandatory-attendance retirement dinner for the Second Assistant to the Deputy Director of the Deluth Field Office for the Interior Department’s Agency for the Protection of Super 8 Movies of Barns.”
MEMORY-HOLED: The great cancellation: why megabucks TV shows are vanishing without a trace.
Two years ago, Nautilus was big news. A vast, expensive Disney+ prequel to Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Nautilus promised to tell the early story of Captain Nemo as he embarked on an epic submarine adventure, seeking revenge on his former captors the East India Company. A colossal replica submarine was built. Several soundstages on Australia’s Gold Coast were given over to it. Hundreds of crew members were hired alongside hundreds of extras. Filming took almost a year. The Queensland government claimed that the series would inject A$96m into the local economy. It looked certain to be a hit; an exciting new big-budget spectacle, underpinned with contemporary themes, based on a legendary piece of intellectual property. Nautilus couldn’t go wrong.
Except nobody is going to see Nautilus because, even though it has already been made, Disney+ has decided not to stream it. Clearly, this is unusual. The television industry has a long history of dropping previously announced shows for a variety of reasons – 2004’s animated Popetown was canned by the BBC after complaints from Catholics, 2017’s The Cops was axed after reports of creator Louis CK’s sexual misconduct came to light, and 2021’s Ultimate Slip ’N Slide was cancelled after the crew all came down with a highly infectious variant of explosive diarrhoea that can be spread through tainted water. But Disney+ has a different reason for getting rid of Nautilus: it was axed as a cost-cutting exercise.
In May, Disney+ announced a content removal plan designed to cut US$1.5bn worth of content, meaning it substantially reduces the company’s value, giving it a lot less tax to pay.
There’s also this angle: Investors Sue Disney Over Alleged Chapek Era “Cost-Shifting Scheme” to Hide Streaming Losses. “The suit claims that company executives hid the expense and difficulty of maintaining subscriber growth as it suffered “staggering costs” to create content. In an effort to hide losses, the complaint claims, former chief executive Bob Chapek, his lieutenant Kareem Daniel and former CFO Christine McCarthy aired The Mysterious Benedict Society and Doogie Kameāloha, M.D. — which were supposed to be Disney+ originals — on the Disney Channel to make the streaming service appear more successful than it actually was.”
Whatever you think is going on at Disney, the truth is probably worse.
EVERYTHING GETS HACKED: Hackers have discovered a loophole to ‘jailbreak’ Tesla’s paywall-blocked driving features, saving them thousands.
SDVs basically mean that some Tesla features, which are already built into the cars, are locked behind a paywall, requiring customers to pay extra if they want to use them. Some features in this category include a heated steering wheel, footwell lights, an “acceleration boost,” or the brand’s $15,000 Full Self-Driving feature.
Now, a group of hackers has discovered a way to “jailbreak” those paywalled features, and it looks like Tesla can’t do anything about it.
The team of hackers from Germany — a security researcher and three Ph.D. students — figured out a way to trick Tesla’s Media Control Unit (MCU) into thinking that certain purchases had already been made.
The reason that Tesla is powerless to stop it is that the MCU operates using a computer processor made by another company, called AMD. The hack targets AMD’s technology instead of Tesla’s proprietary tech.
In order for Tesla to stop this hack from spreading, it would have to physically swap out the MCUs in its cars with a new type of processor. That said, it’s possible the practice could invalidate warranties or other software updates if ever detected by Tesla, as is often the case with mobile phone and video game hardware.
If you ever took a jailbroken Tesla into the dealer for service, you’d definitely have some ‘splainin to do.
THAT WOULD BE FUN: Trump Says He Might Join GOP Primary Debates.
YOU DON’T SAY: The Fed’s preferred inflation measures are back on the rise.
After finally declining in June, giving the Federal Reserve hopes of pulling off a soft landing at last, one of the central bank’s preferred inflation measures was back on a precipitous rise in July. Headline PCE inflation rose by 3.3% in the year ending in July, up from 3% in June. For the first time since January, core PCE inflation, perhaps the most important inflation measure for the Fed, increased to 4.2%, more than twice the Fed’s maximum target of just 2% inflation on an annual basis.
Dig into the details, and the data only becomes more disappointing. Core services sans housing, a favored inflation measure of both the Fed and the White House, accelerated to a staggering 4.7% in the 12 months ending in July, up from 4.1%. This defies the claim of Raphael Bostic of the Atlanta Fed that “stubborn (and lagging) housing services prices” are solely responsible for core inflation not falling to the Fed’s benchmark.
Anybody who lives and shops in the real world isn’t surprised by any of this.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Team Biden Continues Two-Pronged Assault on 2nd Amendment and Small Businesses. “As we examine the story further, it’s important to remember that Democrats have contempt for small business owners. People who can’t be forced into unionizing and stuffing the coffers of the Democratic Big Labor slush fund are useless to them.”
Save America, the leadership PAC founded by former President Donald Trump, has less than $4 million cash on hand, after siphoning over $101 million to pay legal fees for Trump and his allies since the beginning of 2022, reports the New York Times.
Mid-year tax filings for PACs provide awareness about presidential campaign funding and how those funds are being used. In Save America’s case, money that could be going to necessary campaign needs or political work, is being spent overwhelmingly on the former president’s and his associates’ pending legal cases.
According to its mid-year Federal Election Commission (FEC) filing, the Save America PAC has spent approximately $25 million in the first half of 2023, $21.6 million of that went to legal fees.
This is the direct (and intended) result of the Democrats’ coordinated legal campaign against Trump.
MAKE AMERICA PLAY NICE WITH OUR ENEMIES AGAIN: Biden Regime’s Clueless Military Has Former Official of Government That Chants ‘Death to America’ Address Symposium.
INSTAPUNDIT READERS KNEW THIS AT THE TIME: Philadelphia Fed GDPplus Measure Sure Looks Like Recession Started in 2022 Q4. “In 100 percent of the cases, with no false signals, no misses, and no lead times more than two quarters, every time GDPplus had two consecutive quarters of negative growth, the economy was in recession.”
Lots of data and charts at the link, if you’re into that kind of thing.