Author Archive: Stephen Green
February 8, 2023
February 7, 2023
IT’S ALIVE! Drunkblogging the State of the Union.
WHY DO YOU KEEP DISAPPOINTING YOUR PRESIDENT? Biden Is Upset That We’re Not in Awe of His Lousy Economy.
SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE IS TAKING A MUCH-NEEDED BREATHER: Biden Admin Doesn’t Appear to Have Evidence of Trump-era Spy Balloons.
IN SOVIET AMERICA, THE FUTURE IS CERTAIN — IT IS ONLY THE PAST THAT IS UNPREDICTABLE: How Did Biden Admin Retroactively ‘Discover’ Chinese Balloons in the U.S During the Trump Years?
THESE PINPRICK ATTACKS DON’T AMOUNT TO ANYTHING BUT I SUPPOSE THEY’RE GOOD FOR MORALE: Possible Tu-141 Strike Deep In Russia Shows Repurposed Warhead. “Ukrainian officials have promised not to use weapons supplied by the west to attack inside Russian borders. But they’ve never made any such assertions about their own weapons, one of which apparently exploded Monday near the city of Kaluga some 200 miles northeast of the border and 100 miles southwest of Moscow.”
VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP: Now They’ve Gone and Ruined ‘Grease.’ “‘Grease’ is the word that you’ll never want to hear again after you see what Paramount+ is doing to the classic show.”
Plus:
- There’s pride, and then there’s whatever this teacher is doing.
- Congressman Jim Clyburn really knows how to damn Joe Biden with faint praise.
- This is not the civil rights protest you think it is.
So much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.
FALLOUT: U.S. considering 200% tariff on Russian aluminum, official says. “The Russian metal has also been targeted by the United States after being dumped by Moscow on the U.S. market below cost, harming American companies, the report said, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter.”
SO DARING, BADLY APING OZZY OSBORNE MATERIAL FROM 50 YEARS AGO: Singer Sam Smith Paid Tribute to Satan at the Grammys, and Zzzzzzzzz.
HOW TO MANAGE The Age of Decline.
The Age of Decline will pose a particularly difficult problem for countries like the United States that rely on younger workers to support retirees. The latest Census figures project that within the next seven years, net migration into the United States will exceed the country’s natural population growth, making us, for the first time in almost 150 years, dependent on immigration for our population growth. Even then, the Census projects that the US population growth rate will fall (permanently) below one-half of one-percent within the decade.
For decades we’ve known the implications for Social Security. In 1960, there were more than five workers paying into the system for each Social Security recipient drawing out. Today, it’s fewer than three. And that number is expected to fall to two within ten years. In short, we need today’s average worker to contribute to Social Security two and a half times what the average worker of three generations ago contributed.
Changing demographics are not only placing a greater burden on workers, but also making it less and less possible to institute needed changes.
The late, great Ben Wattenberg was warning about just this scenario 40 years ago or longer, for anyone who cared to listen.
No one in Washington cared — or dared? — to listen.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: We’re Painfully Aware of the State of Joe Biden’s Union. “Biden’s speech will be a real test of his staff’s creative writing skills. They will no doubt be trying to convince us that the United States economy is booming and that we should be grateful to President LOLEightyonemillion for all of the bounty we’re enjoying. That’s going to be a tough sell to citizens who are moving money out of their retirement accounts so that they can buy an egg.”
LEARN TO CODE, THEY SAID: I asked ChatGPT to write a WordPress plugin I needed. It did, in less than 5 minutes. “Overall, the code quality was clean. I’m only presenting the original response because otherwise it wouldn’t fit in the article. The program properly generated the WordPress header block and wrote the dashboard user interface for the plugin, as well as the plugin’s processing logic.”
Still irreplaceable: Living, breathing State of the Union Address drunkbloggers.
Accept no substitutes.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): As I’ve noted, plumbers are safe from the AI revolution in a way that coders are not.
ROBERT SPENCER: Pakistan Bans Hard-Left Wikipedia as ‘Anti-Islam.’
TO STOP FRETTING AND JUST BAN IT ALREADY? What the U.S. can learn from India’s TikTok ban.
A U.S. ban might seem unprecedented — but there’s a major precedent many overlook. In June 2020, TikTok had more than 200 million Indian users (then ByteDance’s largest market outside China) when the Indian government abruptly banned it, citing issues of privacy and national sovereignty. The decision came two weeks after Chinese military aggression in India’s northern border led to a high-octane tussle resulting in the death of at least 20 Indian soldiers. TikTok was one among over 200 Chinese apps that were blocked from operating within the country.
India’s experience with TikTok is particularly important as U.S. policymakers grapple with potential economic and political fallout from a ban. India’s ban really did result in a long-term split from Chinese technology, as some in the U.S. have worried. But otherwise, Indians have largely taken the restrictions in stride — and there’s been no meaningful political effort to overturn them. Some influencers still miss the joys of the TikTok era, but investors and consumers have largely moved on and adapted to alternatives.
“We haven’t faced any downside,” said Anand Lunia, founder of Indian venture capital firm India Quotient and a prominent tech critic. “I don’t think that anybody has really complained about missing TikTok.”
TikTok isn’t just spyware; it’s cultural malware.
THE WAR ON CHILDREN: Is Your Child Being Forced to Sit Through ‘Silent Lunch’ at School?
The next time someone warns me that homeschooled kids will never learn social skills, I’m going to bring up this story.
A mom I know posted on Facebook last week that her daughter received detention at school for talking during lunch. I kid you not.
The offending 4th-grader was cited for “excessive talking” after a boy asked if she wanted his fruit snack. The girl responded with a simple “no,” which was enough for the lunch supervisor to slap her with her first detention. Another parent responded to the post, saying that when she visited the school to have lunch with her kids, she was shocked to learn that they were forced to put their heads down on the table after they finished eating. Not only that, but at this school, the children are forced to sit in rows facing the front of the room and are not even allowed to choose their lunchmates. This is utter madness — and abusive.
Yes, it is. But there’s a chance that kids who have been schooled this way think it’s “normal,” and haven’t told their parents about silent lunch.
February 6, 2023
WENT WOKE, GOING BROKE [VIP]: The Fall and Rise and Fall of Disney. “This story isn’t really about Disney’s growing role in the cultural rot attacking our children at school, on streaming services, or in butcher-shop ‘medical’ clinics catering to teens with delusions of transness. This is the story of a company that’s been falling for a lot longer than most people may realize.”
IT’S CERTAINLY IMPORTANT TO THE BUYERS LOOKING FOR INFLUENCE IN THE WHITE HOUSE: Hunter Biden’s (Art) Dealer Claims His Artwork Is ‘Important.’
OH, CANADA: Trudeau’s internet censorship bill passes Canadian senate. “The text of the bill describes the plan by Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party to increase the government’s ability to censor controversial and unpopular speech on the internet, stating that the legislation would ‘specify that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission… must regulate and supervise the Canadian broadcasting system.'”
MIDDLE EAST EARTHQUAKE: ‘An Emergency Within an Emergency.’ “The massive earthquakes that hit Syria and Turkey over the weekend have killed at least 2,400 people but the death toll is sure to drastically rise with “tens of thousands of citizens… waiting under the rubble” in Hatay alone.”
Lots of video at link.
EMBARRASSMENT: The short life of the new USS Little Rock: Design flaws, setbacks lead to decommissioning.
Some 8,500 people turned out on Dec. 16, 2017, to watch the commissioning of the new $440 million USS Little Rock — draped in red, white and blue bunting — at Buffalo and Erie County Naval and Military Park.
That now appears to have been the ship’s only bright moment.
Not even six years later, the USS Little Rock will be decommissioned on March 31 at Mayport Naval Station in Florida, where it is stationed.
The 387-foot-long vessel was imperiled from the start with significant design flaws that the Navy has concluded cannot be overcome.
U.S. Navy officials first announced at a media briefing almost a year ago that nine Freedom-class littoral combat ships would be decommissioned as part of the 2023 fiscal year budget.
“It’s somewhat of an embarrassment,” said Paul Marzello, the Naval Park’s executive director.
“Embarrassment” is a pretty good word for the Navy’s surface ship procurement this century.
LEAVE THEM KIDS ALONE: DeSantis Goes After Foundation for Lewd Drag Show Event With Children Present.