LinkSwarm for November 25, 2022

November 25th, 2022

Greetings, and welcome to a Black Friday LinkSwarm! If you want to avoid any local shopping riots, there’s still my cold weather gift/prepper guide.

  • “Republican Kevin Kiley Wins CA House Race, Increasing GOP Majority to 220.”
  • Soros-backed Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner impeached. Good.

    The Pennsylvania House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to impeach controversial Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner (D-PA).

    Five lawmakers, including three Republicans and two Democrats with constituencies in Philadelphia, formed a committee to investigate Krasner earlier this year. Members of the lower chamber voted by a margin of 107 to 85 in favor of impeaching Krasner, enabling the Pennsylvania Senate to remove the official with a two-thirds majority.

  • “Texas Democrats Blame Lackluster Midterm on 2021 Election Reform, Redistricting, and Poor Border Messaging.” Note that the word “policies” appears nowhere in the article…
  • The partisan index for Texas counties. Republican counties tended to get slightly more Republican while Democratic counties got slightly less Democratic.
  • “56% of Violent Crime Suspects Released in Dallas.”

    A study conducted by criminologist Michael Smith of the University of Texas at San Antonio shows that 56 percent of individuals charged with violent crimes or weapons law violations in Dallas are released on bail or their own recognizance. That figure includes about 75 percent of offenders charged with weapons law violations, about two-thirds of those arrested for aggravated assault, and 34 percent of those arrested for murder.

    Smith examined 464 arrests from 2021 and followed the cases through May 15 of this year. The dataset included all (109) arrests for murder, 25 percent (73) of arrests for robbery, 25 percent (154) of arrests for aggravated assault involving a family member, 10 percent (67) of arrests for aggravated assault not involving a family member, and 10 percent (61) of arrests for weapons law violations.

    Almost a quarter of those released were arrested again within the course of the study. The average length of time between release and the second arrest was 148 days.

    I don’t need to tell you that Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot is backed by George Soros, do I?

  • New Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to make welfare recipients work for a living.
  • The car market goes from sucking the moose to officially sucking the moose.
  • General Twitter amnesty starting next week. I hope I’m included…
  • Hollywood hates making anticommunist films. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Disney: Chapek fired, Iger returns.
  • Related: “Disney’s woke crusade is costing it dearly.”

    Disney shares are down 40 per cent this year, and last week’s quarterly report makes for grim reading. Disney’s expenses and operating losses are skyrocketing. Even the hugely popular Disney+, which continues to gain in subscribers, made an operating loss of $1.47 billion – more than double its loss last year. An internal memo last week announced job cuts and a hiring freeze.

    Perhaps it is no coincidence that Disney’s troubles arrive in a year when the company has been distracted by politics. Indeed, it seems to have gone into overdrive to promote woke causes, both on screen and off.

    Most infamously, in March, Disney waded into a bruising political battle with Florida governor Ron DeSantis, over his Parental Rights in Education Act. The law, now enacted, bans ‘classroom instruction’ on issues of ‘sexual orientation or gender identity’ for Florida schoolkids under the age of 10. Although the law has the overwhelming support of parents, from across the political spectrum, it sparked fury in media circles. Critics were quick to dub it the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law, arguing that it ‘marginalises LGBTQ+ people’.

    Disney was only too happy to join in the chorus of denunciation. The act ‘should never have passed’, said Disney in a statement. ‘Our goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts.’ Disney also pledged to donate $5million to organisations opposed to the law. But DeSantis hit back. He revoked a special tax status that Disney’s Florida theme parks had enjoyed since 1967.

    Disney’s growing reputation for championing woke causes is costing it more than just its tax exemptions. It is now clearly damaging its relationship with audiences. As recently as March 2021, Disney’s public-approval rating was 77 per cent. But a September poll finds approval for Disney has now fallen to only 51 per cent among all Americans. And it has fallen into negative territory among Republicans. As pollster Chris Wilson notes: ‘It is highly unusual for a family entertainment company to find itself outside the good graces of so many Americans.’

    (Hat tip: Real Clear Politics.)

  • Speaking of woke: NHL goes full tranny pander.
  • Leftwing journalists move to Mastadon, immediately start banning each other.
  • Greg Bear, RIP.
  • Some of the kit in Colin Furze’s new workshop is off the hook.
  • What Richard Hammond experienced when he was in a coma.
  • “Arizona Announces They Have Finished Counting And Calvin Coolidge Has Won Their 3 Electoral Votes.

    • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Budget, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Economics, Foreign Policy, Media Watch, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 4 Comments »

    William Shatner’s Annual Warning Not To Burn Yourself Frying A Turkey

    November 24th, 2022

    Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

    As is my annual tradition, here’s William Shatner telling you how not to burn yourself frying a Turkey:

    And here’s a message on that same theme from Uncle Sam:

    Be careful out there…

    Tags: , , ,
    Posted in video | 1 Comment »

    Pre-Black Friday Cold Weather/Christmas Gift Guide

    November 23rd, 2022

    This post serves a dual purpose: Channeling your money into Amazon kickbacks A.) Listing some basic cold weather prepping gear, and B.) Providing possible gifts for just about anybody. Who doesn’t need batteries or an extra flashlight?

    I’ve included Amazon links, but for some items (like batteries), Sam’s or Lowes tends to offer better prices.

    The Basics

    Here are some all-purpose tools everyone should already have, listed here for completeness sake.

  • First aid kit: There are a lot of different makes and models of these, and this is another one where Sam’s offers a kit that’s a bit cheaper than this one. Has a little bit of everything. A good thing to keep in your car for emergencies.
  • Smoke alarm: Everyone should already have these, but if you don’t, or want more, these are cheap, and it has a silence button so you can put it in your kitchen. This batch seems to be made in Mexico, but First Alert also makes stuff in China, so caveat emptor.
  • Carbon Monoxide detector. Doesn’t say, but I suspect it’s another item made in China. There are some combination carbon monoxide/smoke detectors, but I think you want to avoid the possibility of a single point of failure.
  • Fire Extinguisher: Every home should have at least one, and make sure it’s not expired. This is what I have (I think it’s made in Mexico), but fortunately I’ve never had to use it.
  • Water leak detector: A lot of people don’t have these, but I consider them essential basic gear, as they can save you hundreds or thousands of dollars in water damage. I had one of mine go off a week before the ice storm hit because a shutoff valve I had closed to plunge an overflowing toilet had started leaking. Usual made in China caveats apply, but it’s very simple tech (two parallel wires on the exterior that water closes the circuit and sets off when wet). That link goes to a 5-pack, because I recommend putting one behind every toilet, under every sink you use, under your water heater, and next to your washing machine (I’ve had mine start rocking for an unbalanced load that pulled the drain hose loose). (There’s an even cheaper five pack from another manufacturer (also made in China) that I have no experience with.)
  • Speaking of plunging toilets, I imagine everyone already has a plunger, but if you don’t, here’s one, and you might consider one for each bathroom, or at least each floor. Also, the black bell shaped ones are a lot more effective than the small old red ones.
  • Speaking of things everyone should already have more of, everyone needs flashlights. I have an old bulb-type Maglite, but here’s a pretty close equivalent with LEDs. As a bonus, it’s also heavy enough to conk someone out. I have flashlights in my bedroom, my kitchen and in my car’s glovebox. The highest rated flashlight on Amazon is the Streamlight 75458 Stinger DS, which is about four times as expensive as the Maglite. I assume it’s brighter and with a longer life, and maybe you have a use case that justifies the cost. And speaking of ridiculous lights I have no use case for…
  • The IMALENT MS18 is evidently so insanely bright that it has its own cooling fan. Here’s a video of how insane it is. And if you have flashlights, chances are you’ll also need…
  • Batteries. The Maglite takes D-Cells, and you’re going to want, at a minimum, enough to reload every flashlight twice, which should be enough to get you through a couple of evenings of power outages. Check your flashlights every six months when you check your smoke and CO detectors. Speaking of which, those and the water leak detectors take 9 volt batteries, and you want enough around to be able to change out every battery in your detectors as needed. Those links go to Duracells, which I’ve been pretty happy with.
  • Car jump starter: Much better than jumper cables, and can save you money when you have a dead battery, or because it’s just not cranking in the cold.
  • Gas And Water Emergency Shut Off Tool. The Orbit 26097 is a well-built tool that provides a water shutoff valve, a gas shutoff valve, manhole cover lift tool, and a rubberized grip. You need one of these for the same reason you need a water leak detector, i.e. it will greatly limit damage before the plumber gets there.
  • Sawyer Products Water Filtration System: If you’ve ever been under a water boil notice, the Sawyer system is Good Enough to get you through, even if it is a slight pain to fill and squeeze the bag enough times for my dogs and I to drink (but still less of a pain that boiling water and waiting for it to cool).
  • Duct tape is useful to have year-round, but especially during an emergency, to patch a small leak or keep something together until the emergency is over and you can replace it. Link goes to 3M all-weather duct tape, which is better than the generic stuff for outside tasks, like sealing around the edge of a faucet cover.

    • Cold Weather

    Here are some specific prep items for cold weather:

  • Faucet Covers. If you’re a homeowner, you probably already have those, but if not, here they are, and they seem to work better than a rag or dripping the faucet, and neither of my faucets busted in the ice storm. That link goes to the cheap Styrofoam version, but these plastic ones look a bit bigger and stronger.
  • O’Keeffe’s Working Hands cream: I walk my dogs 2-3 times a day pretty much every single day of the year, and I found my hands getting cracked and raw in the cold, even through gloves. O’Keeffe’s Working Hands fixed the problem. I frequently give this stuff out as Christmas gifts.
  • Carmex lip balm. A small, cheap jar that solves the chapped lips problem in winter. I know some people prefer Chapstick, but to me the main result of using Chapstick is that 30 minutes later you fell a need to use more Chapstick.
  • Kerasal Intensive Foot Repair for cracked and painful feet. Podiatrist recommended!
  • De-icing spray. You can stand there for 15 minutes ineffectually scraping your frozen windows like William H. Macy in Fargo, or you can keep a bottle of this in your trunk.

    • Tags: , ,
    Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments »

    The Ukraine War Is Crushing Germany’s Green Energy Delusions

    November 22nd, 2022

    The combination of pretending to transition to a green energy future combined with dependence on Russian gas and the fallout of the Russo-Ukrainian War has Germany looking at some very tough choices:

  • “Europeans have chosen to largely remove natural gas from their industrial space, and so we are seeing huge amounts of industrial closures across the entire industrial space.”
  • “Natural gas isn’t just part of their electricity system, it’s part of their petrochemical system, which is what makes their manufacturing sector possible. So in shutting all this stuff down the Europeans are choosing, maybe not consciously, but they are choosing a general de-industrialization trend for the entire continent.”
  • “No one is making nitrogen-based fertilizer in Europe anymore. No one is smelting aluminum anymore. A lot of the steel foundries are shutting down.”
  • And so far it’s a relatively mild winter in Europe. Next year will be worse.

    • Zeihan talks about how Germany “fudges” some of it’s green energy pledges. (In a previous video he mentioned some bit of legerdemain where they don’t count fossil fuel baseload power that spins up to take over for solar at night.) So exactly what has Germany’s much-vaunted green energy programs accomplished? Not much.

    In 2000, Germany obtained 84 percent of its energy from fossil fuels. By 2019, it was 78 percent. As Vaclav Smil pointed out a couple of years ago, at this rate, Germany would still be deriving 70 percent of its energy from fossil fuels by the year 2050.

    Sure, Germany hasn’t managed to transition away from fossil fuels, but they have managed to make their energy infrastructure expensive and unreliable…

    Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Crime, Elections, Foreign Policy, Global Warming, Guns | 12 Comments »

    China’s Rich Potemkin Socialist Village

    November 21st, 2022

    Much of China’s last two decades of apparent prosperity seems to be an illusion designed to fool both its own people and outside investors. But the Potemkin village of Huaxi takes China’s illusory prosperity to the next level.

    “Huaxi in east China, is a mysterious socialist town that once believed that the residents were entitled to extraordinary amenities, including free healthcare, education, luxurious homes, cars, and at least $250,000 in their bank accounts. The so-called richest village in China is now running into debt with villagers waiting in the rain to claim their money back from Huaxi.”

    Potemkin prosperity is a poor substitute for an actual productive economy.

    Tags: , , , , ,
    Posted in Communism, Democrats, Economics, Foreign Policy, video | 2 Comments »

    Why You Can’t Trust Crime Statistics

    November 20th, 2022

    Some leftists have asserted, despite all evidence, that crime rates in blue states are no higher than in red states. One for this illusion is that Soros-backed DAs game the statistics. Another is that in many deep blue cities, residents simply no longer report crime, because they know police won’t investigate the case or pursue suspects, and that even if suspects are apprehended, those same Soros-backed DAs will simply let them go without bail. Another is that, even if citizens try to make a complaint, the police will simply refuse to take it, believing it to be a waste of their time.

    Here New York City-to-Austin transplant Louis Rossmann talks about the decay of the Big Apple from it’s Rudy Giuliani broken windows policing heyday to its current state of disorder, and why you can’t trust the statistics.

    Tags: , , , , , ,
    Posted in Crime, Democrats, unions, video | 8 Comments »

    The Sky Warden: “An Up-Armored Crop Duster With Rocket Launchers”

    November 19th, 2022

    At first, I was not at all enthused about the Air Force’s new Sky Warden platform, a step back to a single-seat, propeller-driven combat aircraft not used since the Douglas A-1 Skyraider was retired in 1973. Some background:

    U.S. Special Operations Command on Monday announced it has selected the AT-802U Sky Warden, made by L3Harris Technologies and Air Tractor, for its Armed Overwatch program.

    The indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract will be worth up to $3 billion, L3Harris said in a release Monday. The initial program contract award is for $170 million.

    Air Tractor is an aircraft manufacturer from Olney, Texas, that typically makes firefighting aircraft and agricultural planes such as crop dusters.

    Initial production of the Sky Warden will take place at Air Tractor’s facility in Olney. L3Harris will then modify those planes into the Armed Overwatch mission configuration at its Tulsa, Oklahoma modification center, beginning in 2023. L3Harris said work will also take place at its other sites in Greenville, Rockwall and Waco, Texas and Nashville, Tennessee.

    Air Force Special Operations Command’s Armed Overwatch program aims to build a fleet of up to 75 flexible, fixed-wing aircraft suitable for deployment to austere locations, with little logistical tail needed to keep them operating.

    SOCOM is planning for the single-engine Sky Warden, as AFSOC’s Armed Overwatch plane, to be able to provide close air support, precision strike and armed intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions for counterterrorism operations and irregular warfare.

    When I heard that the Air Force was considering going back to a prop plane for a ground attack aircraft, I thought that: A.) This was a sign of their continuing disdain for the A-10, and B.) This was a role better suited for drones that manned aircraft, and thus the Air Force wanted it only to keep their institutional budget up, since anyone can fly a drone.

    However, if it’s specifically geared toward supporting special forces operations, then the move makes a lot more sense. In that case, you need the hyper-loiter capabilities, and larger drones can be of limited use if you’re out of line-of-radio-control (say, in mountainous terrain) and you don’t have them set up for satellite relay.

    Here’s a YouTuber who’s quite enthusiastic about it:

  • “That is an up-armored crop duster with rocket launchers on it. It looks like somebody maxed out the starter item in a video game.”
  • “It’s got bulletproof windows, a heavily armored cabin engine compartment, self-healing fuel lines [and] reinforced landing gear allowing you to land virtually anywhere. And it absolutely packed with ISR [intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance] equipment, [basically] making this a spy plane.”
  • “The standard payload is currently set to be 14 APK WS laser-guided Hydra rockets.”
  • “It’s basically an acoustic version of an F-22.”
  • It can loiter about 6 hours, as opposed to 1.5 hours for the A-10.
  • It’s also cheaper: “For every hour the A10 is in the air, there’s $20,000 in maintenance to be done. Compare that to the Sky Warden, which is less than $1,000 per flight.”
  • “Nobody wants to be the guy getting murked by a plane with a propeller in 2022. If you wake up dead, and you got to explain to all your buddies in the afterlife you got taken out by an A-10 Warthog, that’s respectable. You tell them you got taken out by a crop duster, they’re gonna talk shit for the rest of Eternity. ‘Hey guys, you hear that Groot over here got taken out by the fucking Wright Brothers.'”

    • The Pentagon is spending $3 million for the program, which is a lot of cheddar by normal people standards, but nothing by Pentagon standards. Being the biggest and baddest on the bloc means you can buy niche role weapons like this.

    While it remains to be seen if this is effective in modern combat, it’s hardly the first time the U.S. military has done this. In World War II, spotter pilot Charles Carpenter put bazookas on his Piper Cub and successfully took out panzers.

    (Trivia: The last P-51 used by the U.S. military was actually used by the army as a chase aircraft for helicopters in 1968.)

    Tags: , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Military, video | 12 Comments »

    Fired Twitter Employee Applies For A Real Job

    November 17th, 2022

    People who have never worked anywhere but Twitter might have a sharp learning curve ahead…

    Tags: , , , ,
    Posted in Media Watch, video | No Comments »

    FTXed Up

    November 16th, 2022

    Let me start out by explaining how cryptocurrency works: You exchange your money for digital strings of numbers based on math you don’t understand, for one of the following reasons:

    A. You believe those digital strings of numbers will be worth more money at some point in the future.
    B. You want to buy drugs online in a theoretically untraceable manner (said theoretical untraceability being a key property of the math you don’t understand).
    C. You want to place your money beyond the reach of your national government.

    There are exceptions to the above (say, you’re mining your own cryptocurrency, or you know enough math to understand exactly the mathematical properties of how blockchain-based cryptocurrency works), but I’m going to guess that one of the three above use cases apply to 95% people using cryptocurrency.

    I’m somewhat sympathetic to C, and even understand how A might be tempting (hey, crypto has dropped so much I might buy a couple thousand worth of Dogecoin, just for the hell of it, as a pure speculation play), but cryptocurrencies as a whole are not a proven store of worth on par with, say, a bar of gold, a share Apple stock, or a

    Is cryptocurrency money? Sort of.

    Cryptocurrency offers something that sometimes acts like money, offers anonymity like money, and offers an alternative to government-backed fiat currencies. Instead of being backed by the full faith and credit of the federal government, cryptocurrency is backed by the full faith of millions of technologically savvy individuals who believe the math is sound.

    The math may indeed be sound, but that didn’t save it from the loss of investor confidence of the Crypto Winter we’re now experiencing. And that winter is absolutely slamming the business models of people who sought to make crypto more like other forms of money.

    Enter Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX, whose crypto empire just collapsed.

    Here’s the 99 second summary.

    Here’s the story in a bit more depth.

    Amid all the jubilation and gloating by Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer and pals over the Democrats’ better-than-expected showing in the midterms comes a disturbing story that may explain something about how they won such a curious election.

    Biden’s second-biggest donor, cryptocurrency billionaire wunderkind Sam Bankman-Fried, a k a SBF, saw his business file for bankruptcy days after the election, but not before pumping $40 million into the Democratic Party to spend on “get-out-the-vote” and other shadowy ballot-harvesting mechanics for the midterms.

    The shambolic 30-year-old whiz kid, once said to have been worth $16 billion, had spent $10 million helping get Biden elected in 2020.

    SBF’s mother, Stanford law professor Barbara Fried, also is co-founder of left-wing political action committee Mind The Gap, which has raised a reported $140 million to help Democrats win elections through the same “get-out-the-vote” grift.

    Tree. Acorn. Distances.

    A more unlikely billionaire you could not find — and of course his money was built on thin air. A math genius with poor social skills, SBF reportedly lived in a “polycule” — a polyamorous relationship with multiple people — in a luxury penthouse with about 10 co-workers in the tax haven of the Bahamas, where his collapsed crypto exchange FTX was headquartered.

    Otherwise, he was sleeping on beanbags in his office, eating vegan fries and, according to his own Twitter feed, popping amphetamines and sleeping pills to regulate his chaotic sleeping habits.

    Just the sort of person you want to entrust billions in currency to!

    Now Reuters is reporting that between $1 billion and $2 billion of customer funds have vanished from FTX, conveniently after the Democrats safely spent his money.

    At last report, SBF and his mysterious co-founder, Gary Wang, were being held “under supervision” by Bahamian authorities after reportedly planning to flee to Dubai, according to fintech publication Cointelegraph.

    It is a stunning fall to earth. The financial media and big investors have feted the young billionaire as a saint who shunned earthly pleasures like Lamborghinis and Rolexes, but lived only to give away all his money and make the world a better place.

    He was the most famous millennial adherent of a cult known as “Effective Altruism,” which originated at Oxford University, found fertile ground in Silicon Valley — and now has gone down in flames along with him.

    “Indulgences! Buy your Social Justice Indulgences here!”

    EA is a disguised form of socialism, because all the “good” that is done just happens to match up perfectly with the left’s obsessions, whether climate change, social justice, equity, banning meat or his favorite, “pandemic preparedness.”

    In a Nas Daily online video, an awkward Bankman-Fried was featured this year as a role model of altruism for young people: “Sam is not a traditional billionaire because he believes in the concept of ‘earn to give’ … Next decade he will probably give away more than $10 million … He wants to get rich in order to impact the world and change it.”

    Some detail snipped.

    The sinister neo-socialists at the World Economic Forum (WEF) loved SBF so much, they made FTX a “corporate partner” — but that page on the WEF website has vanished in the last 48 hours, leaving an error message.

    Venture capital firm Sequoia was a big backer, investing over $200 million in SBF, a lot of which he then invested back in Sequoia, whose chairman and managing partner Michael Moritz is a big donor to the Dems as well as to anti-Trump hate group the Lincoln Project, and reportedly is a neighbor of Nancy Pelosi in San Francisco.

    It’s like a Voltran of Globalist Grift!

    One important part the Post piece leaves out is how Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried’s other firm, was trading billions of dollars from FTX accounts and leveraging the exchange’s native token as collateral, according to a source.”

    Embezzling, Ponzi scheme, security and exchange violations…it’s a rich, cross-hatched tapestry of fraud.

    Here’s Joe Rogan on the Brokeman-Fraud scandal:

    And here’s Ben Shapiro:

    Every generation gets the Bernie Madoff it deserves…

    Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Communism, Crime, Economics, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, video, Waste and Fraud | 11 Comments »

    « Older Entries
    Newer Entries »