In this follow-up to last Saturday’s post, Colin Furze chunks more stuff from his trebuchet:
The bearings finally gave out, but he says he’s going to rebuild it so he can make it even more powerful…
Colin Furze Tests His Trebuchet To Destruction
December 19th, 2020Everybody In California Is Moving to Texas
December 17th, 2020Regular BattleSwarm readers already know about Tesla, Elon Musk and Joe Rogan moving from California to Texas. It looks like those were just the first pebbles of the avalanches of companies and people looking to get the hell out of the formerly golden state. Eager to enjoy such rarefied amenities as low taxes, sane government, a sane regulatory environment, open restaurants and regular access to electricity, other companies that have recently announced they’re moving their headquarters from Texas to California include:
HPE Inc. is moving its headquarters from San Jose to the Houston area, the enterprise information technology giant announced Tuesday, citing “business needs, opportunities for cost savings and team members’ preferences about the future of work.”
The company’s new HQ will be at the new campus that has been under construction since the beginning of the year in Spring, Texas, just north of Houston. It’s the second time HPE has moved its headquarters in the last three years: In 2018, the company left Palo Alto for San Jose.
CEO Antonio Neri and several other senior executives plan to relocate to Houston, HPE spokesman Adam Bauer told the Business Journal.
The move will be a homecoming for Neri, who spent years as a Hewlett-Packard executive in Houston before the Palo Alto-based company split into HP Inc. and HPE.
“We intend to maintain a robust presence in our historical birthplace of Silicon Valley, including housing the headquarters of Aruba at our San Jose campus that opened in 2019,” Neri said in a statement. “There are no layoffs associated with this move, and we are committed to both markets as key parts of our talent and real estate strategies in a post-pandemic world.”
Some corporate roles will be given the option to relocate to Houston, but no one will be forced to move, Bauer said. One big cost-of-living lure for those who do decide to move to Houston: HPE won’t be lowering the salaries of employees who relocate.
Note that Hewett Packard Enterprise is a separate company from Hewett Packard, from which it split from in 2015. HP makes desktop PCs and laser printers, while HPE provides enterprise equipment, services, high performance computing, etc. Both own buildings in the Houston area from HP acquiring Compaq in 2002.
“We believe these moves best position Oracle for growth and provide our personnel with more flexibility about where and how they work,” Oracle said in a statement.
“Depending on their role, this means that many of our employees can choose their office location as well as continue to work from home part time or all the time.”
“While some states are driving away businesses with high taxes and heavy-handed regulations, we continue to see a tidal wave of companies like Oracle moving to Texas thanks to our friendly business climate, low taxes, and the best workforce in the nation,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said.
“Most important of all, these companies are looking for a home where they have the freedom to grow their business and better serve their employees and customers, and when it comes to economic prosperity, there is no place like the Lone Star State,” Abbott added.
Texas has no personal or corporate income tax.
Texas has ranked first for attracting California companies for more than 12 years, according to a report by Spectrum Location Solutions. Roughly 660 California companies moved 765 facilities out of state in 2018 and 2019.
“California companies leave because the state’s business climate continues to worsen, particularly with the harsh employment, immigration and spending measures that Gov. Gavin Newsom has approved,” said Joseph Vranich, the author of the study. “I foresee more exits because California politicians have a level of contempt for business that has reached epic lows.”
Unlike Musk, Oracle founder and CEO Larry Ellison won’t be moving to Texas, but will continue to work from his own private Hawaiian island. Can’t say I blame the guy.
Conservative media pundit Ben Shapiro didn’t move his California company to Texas, he moved it to Nashville. But his reasons why apply just as well:
This is the most beautiful state in the country. The climate is incredible. The scenery is amazing. The people generally are warm, and there’s an enormous amount to do.
And we’re leaving.
We’re leaving because all the benefits of California have eroded steadily — and then suddenly collapsed. Meanwhile, all the costs of California have increased steadily — and then suddenly skyrocketed. It can be difficult to spot the incremental encroachment of a terrible disease, but once the final ravages set in, it becomes obvious the illness is fatal. So, too, with California, where bad governance has turned a would-be paradise into a burgeoning dystopia.
When my family moved to North Hollywood, I was 11. We lived in a safe, clean suburb. Yes, Los Angeles had serious crime and homelessness problems, but those were problems relegated to pockets of the city — problems that, with good governance, we thought eventually could be healed. Instead, the government allowed those problems to metastasize. As of 2011, Los Angeles County counted less than 40,000 homeless; as of 2020, that number had skyrocketed to 66,000. Suburban areas have become the sites of homeless encampments. Nearly every city underpass hosts a tent city; the city, in its kindness, has put out port-a-potties to reduce the possibility of COVID-19 spread.
Police are forbidden in most cases from either moving transients or even moving their garbage. Nearly every public space in Los Angeles has become a repository for open waste, needles and trash. The most beautiful areas of Los Angeles, from Santa Monica beach to my suburb, have become wrecks. My children personally have witnessed drug use, public urination and public nudity. Looters were allowed free reign in the middle of the city during the Black Lives Matter riots; Rodeo Drive was closed at 1 p.m., and citizens were curfewed at 6 p.m.
To combat these trends, local and state governments have gamed the statistics, reclassifying offenses and letting prisoners go free. Meanwhile, the police have become targets for public ire. In July, the city of Los Angeles slashed police funding, cutting the force to its lowest levels in more than 10 years.
At the same time, taxes have risen. California’s top marginal income tax rate is now 13.3 percent; legislators want to raise it to 16.8 percent. California also is home to a 7.25 percent sales tax, a 50-cent gas tax and a bevy of other taxes that drain the wallet and burden business. California has the worst regulatory climate in America, according to CEO Magazine’s survey of 650 CEOs. The public-sector unions essentially make public policy, running up the debt while providing fewer and fewer actual services. California’s public education system is a massive failure, and even its once-great colleges now are burdened by the stupidities of political correctness, including an unwillingness to use standardized testing.
Still, the state legislature is dominated by Democrats. California is not on a trajectory toward recovery; it is on a trajectory toward oblivion. Taxpayers are moving out — now including my family and my company. In 2019, before the pandemic and the widespread rioting and looting, outmigration jumped 38 percent, rising for the seventh straight year. That number will increase again this year.
I want my kids to grow up safe. I want them to grow up in a community with a future, with more freedom and safety than I grew up with. California makes that impossible.
What Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Chuck DeVore said of his own exodus from California remains true:
As with most of the tens of thousands of Californians who have moved to the Lone Star State annually in recent years, we did so for opportunity borne of greater freedom: lower taxes, greater private property rights and less government to tell you what to do.
Before the move, our household had also grown as we took in my wife’s parents. Lifelong New Yorkers, they were in declining health and clearly could no longer live on their own. With four adults and two children in an Irvine home designed for a smaller family, it was clear the arrangements could only be temporary.
But the supply of housing had been constrained for so long in California that prices were simply out of reach. This was largely due to restrictive zoning, heavy environmental regulatory burdens and lawsuits. If we were going to take care of my in-laws, it was likely not going to be in California.
Snip.
So we sold our house in Southern California and moved to Texas, settling in the Hill Country about 25 miles southwest of Austin. Our new home was 70 percent larger (with 12 times the property) than our California home, and it had a swimming pool — all for $110,000 less. Most importantly, the ground floor had two extra bedrooms and a bathroom for my in-laws — not having to walk upstairs was a significant factor in our home search.
We’ve found Texans to be a friendly, liberty-loving bunch. Though where we moved, it seems half the neighborhood hails from California, with the number of friends we have from the Golden State moving to the Lone Star State growing by the year.
California still has great weather and a beautiful coastline, but the remaining advantages it had over Texas (dynamic high tech and entertainment industries, great restaurants, etc.) are all eroding away due to gross Democratic Party mismanagement.
Let’s hope that Californians fleeing the state for Texas leave their dysfunctional politics behind.
Jimmy Flannigan Goes Down In Flames
December 16th, 2020A tiny glimmer of hope in Austin’s winter of discontent: Liberal city councilman Jimmy Flannigan was defeated by Mackenzie Kelly:
Conservative challenger Mackenzie Kelly beat incumbent Jimmy Flannigan in the Austin City Council runoff election Tuesday, earning 677 more votes in District 6. Meanwhile, voters re-elected incumbent Alison Alter in District 10. She beat challenger Jennifer Virden by 587 votes.
Kelly’s election will change the solidly progressive makeup the council has had the past two years. The positions she campaigned on are significantly more conservative than those of her fellow council members and she is the only council member to have an endorsement from the Travis County Republican Party.
Snip.
For the past two years, all eleven members of the Austin City Council — while they may have differed intensely on certain policy issues — have been generally progressive and unified in their ideals.
This council approved a repeal of Austin’s ban on public camping in 2019 in an effort to decriminalize homelessness, an action that spurred heated debate in the community over how best to address homelessness. It has drawn statewide attention and criticism from the state’s Republican leaders, including Gov. Greg Abbott.
This council also unanimously approved the city’s budget for the 2020-2021 fiscal year, which will ultimately move around $150 million dollars from the Austin Police Department.
Snip.
elly, who will be a newcomer to the council, ran on her experience as a volunteer firefighter and president of Take Back Austin, which is pushing to reinstate the ban on public camping in Austin.
“From standing courageously behind our law enforcement community to demanding safer conditions for our homeless population to fighting for transparency at City Hall, the voice of Northwest Austin is has been heard,” Kelly’s campaign said in a statement. “Considering the stark differences between my campaign’s priorities and the platform of the incumbent, their united voice is resoundingly clear this evening!”
Maybe with one sane voice on the Austin City Council, we can at least break up the groupthink. It’s a start.
(Hat tip: Dwight.)
Speaking of Austin’s homeless problem, Texas Scorecard made me aware of the SeeClickFix to report things like trash on property, graffiti, etc. Maybe we should start taking pictures of every trashed transient camp and report it on that tool, every day, until action is taken.
China’s Military: A Paper Tiger?
December 13th, 2020Is China’s military a paper tiger that will fail miserably in real combat? So argues this video:
The narrator claims that some of the formidable picture we have of the Chinese military is due to China’s successful propaganda machine. He outlines three reasons to believe China’s military is weaker than it appears:
- Both former and current People’s Liberation Army personal feel extremely disgruntled by their treatment at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party, and their loyalty would not be assured in a serious crisis. They’re also not well-trained, and got their asses kicked by Indian Ghatak reconnaissance troops in the most recent border clash. “Reports indicated they snapped the necks of at least 18 Chinese soldiers.”
- China’s air force is ill trained and badly equipped. “The Chinese pilots have very limited exposure when it comes to real battle in the skies or exercise like Red Flag. Unlike American, French, Russian, or Indian pilots they have not been exposed to different tactics implemented by different air forces and air defense battalions.” The Chengdu J-20 fighter, made with stolen American tech, is not particularly stealthy, has no export customers, and China is still buying Russian Su-35s. “Chinese avionics, sensor technology, and electronic warfare capabilities are generations behind American or European ones.”
- China’s navy has multiple problems. Chinese subs are loud and easily tracked, and the Shenyang J-15 carrier plane (a copy of the Russian Su-33) “uses indigenous Shenyang Li Ming WS-10H engines which are underpowered.” I’m not sure how valid the last point is, as there are reports that Shenyang FC-31 carrier plane just started mass production.
China is seldom as strong, or as weak, as it appears to be. The video only touches on a few aspects of China’s military, so it’s hard to making sweeping statements based solely on the points presented. Still, it does provide additional data points.
Colin Furze Builds A Trebuchet
December 12th, 2020Everyone’s favorite insane British inventor has constructed quite a large trebuchet and used it to fling heavy objects considerable distances.
Here’s the build video:
The trebuchet looks to be about 10 meters high, which seems to be a fairly common height for medieval trebuchets. Here it is chunking stuff:
The largest trebuchet ever built was Warwolf, at a whopping 300-400 feet tall, built at the order of King Edward of England in 1304 for the siege of Stirling Castle in Scotland.
I’ll tag this with “Military,” because siege engine…
Texas Election Fraud Lawsuit Rejected
December 11th, 2020Well, so much for that hope of overturning massive election fraud:
The Supreme Court on Friday evening rejected a suit brought by the state of Texas seeking to challenge election results in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Georgia.
The Court wrote in an order that the lawsuit was denied for “lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution.
The lawsuit claimed that voting procedures in those four states were marred by irregularities that led to the election of Joe Biden as president. A group of 126 House Republicans, including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, signed on to an amicus brief in support of the lawsuit.
“Texas has not demonstrated a cognizable interest in the manner in which another state conducts its elections,” the Court ruled. “All other pending motions are dismissed as moot.”
I doubt any other lawsuit has a chance to stop the steal at this point, so we’re looking at the overwhelming likelihood Joe Biden will be sworn in as 46th President of the United States on January 20.