January 14, 2025
AGAIN A COMPLETELY PARALLEL UNIVERSE: Well, that’s a take.
ARE WE SUPPOSED TO BE TERRIFIED? AGAIN? YAWN: China Reports an Outbreak of Virulent Monkeypox Strain.
PARALLEL WORLD. HAS TO BE: Biden Claims He Brought Down Illegal Crossings, Wanted More ‘Secret Service’ on Border.
THAT’S ABOUT THE SIZE OF IT: Woke DEI + Green Nihilism = Dresden in California.
IF THEY DIDN’T KNOW THAT WAS GOING ON, THEY’RE TRUE FOOLS: Major blue city mayor silent after illegal immigrant uses shelter for criminal activity.
UNDERSTANDABLE, BUT WHAT ABOUT ALL THE HOUSES? THE NATIONAL GUARD CAN’T BE EVERYWHERE: California National Guard protecting designer boutiques from looters after LA fires.
ABOUT THAT SANCTUARY CITY THING? Fire and ICE: Fight Brews Over Criminal Illegal Alien Once-Suspected of Setting Blazes in California.
I HAVE VERY MIXED FEELINGS ABOUT THIS: Hamas expected to release 33 hostages in first phase of emerging ceasefire deal, Israeli officials say.
WE DON’T HATE THE CORRUPTOCRATS ENOUGH: The Abundance Choice, Part 9: Can Reservoirs be Part of the Solution?
January 13, 2025
LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE FROM DAVOS, IT’S MEANT TO: How the War on Farmers Threatens Western Values and Global Food Security.
OPEN THREAD: Monday, Monday.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Chinese sea launch sends 10 navigation enhancement satellites into orbit.
Abbott’s concern may well be that the left will conflate the symbology of commemorating the death of one president with the inauguration of another, and, in all candor, some on the left will certainly try to make that comparison. The president-elect certainly is; he took to his Truth Social platform to express that view:
President-elect Trump’s full post reads:
The Democrats are all “giddy” about our magnificent American Flag potentially being at “half mast” during my Inauguration. They think it’s so great, and are so happy about it because, in actuality, they don’t love our Country, they only think about themselves. Look at what they’ve done to our once GREAT America over the past four years – It’s a total mess! In any event, because of the death of President Jimmy Carter, the Flag may, for the first time ever during an Inauguration of a future President, be at half mast. Nobody wants to see this, and no American can be happy about it. Let’s see how it plays out. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
This has happened once before: Flags were at half-mast to mark the death of former President Harry Truman when Richard Nixon was inaugurated for his second term in 1973.
Given how that certainly foretold of worse things to come, I can understand Gov. Abbott’s decision.
I KEEP MEANING TO TRY THIS: Weighted Vests Are Making a Comeback – But Do They Really Work?
DOESN’T OHIO HAVE A REPUBLICAN GOVERNOR AND LEGISLATURE? Ohio State: The public college in a deep-red state that blows $13M on DEI and fighting ‘whiteness.’
BETTER ANTIBIOTICS NOW: Genetic Breakthrough Reveals How Superbugs Outsmart Our Defenses.
SHOCK: BIDEN NAMES AIRCRAFT CARRIER AFTER HITLER! Biden names Navy aircraft carriers after Bill Clinton, George W. Bush.
President Biden on Monday named Navy aircraft carriers after former Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush.
“I am proud to announce that the next two Gerald R. Ford-class nuclear-powered aircraft carriers will be named for two former presidents: Bill Clinton and George W. Bush,” Biden said in a statement on Monday.
“When I personally delivered the news to Bill and George, they were deeply humbled,” the president added. “Each knows firsthand the weight of the responsibilities that come with being Commander-in-Chief. And both know well our duty to support the families and loved ones who wait and worry for the safe return of their servicemember.”
Bush, Clinton and Biden attended funeral services for former President Carter last week, alongside the two other living presidents, former President Obama and President-elect Trump.
In his Monday statement on the aircraft carriers, Biden said construction on the two ships named for his predecessors is coming “in the years ahead.” Upon the ships’ completion, the president added, “They will join the most capable, flexible, and professional Navy that has ever put to sea.”
Chester Nimitz could not be reached for comment regarding that last statement, but it’s been hilarious to see first Kamala and now Joe rehabilitate Dick Cheney and George W. Bush and rescue them from the Fuhrerbunker they were trapped in from 2000 to 2008.
INTERESTING: Was Zuck Right about Chinese AI Models? Model censorship happens in the cloud. “The best case growth scenario is countries that actually prefer clouds that are good at censorship or control would want to work with a Chinese cloud vendor, in much the same way that some oppressive governments prefer to use Huawei or Sensetime for their telecom equipment or smart cameras. That is a limited, undesirable addressable market. . . . So was Zuck right in calling out all Chinese AI models as always censored and won’t answer questions about Tiananmen Square or Xi Jinping? No really. But he is not wrong about the undesirability of Chinese AI in general, when the albatross of censorship will always hang over otherwise very capable technology.”
TRUMP’S WORST NIGHTMARE: Jennifer Rubin Leaves Washington Post To Launch ‘Pro-Democracy’ Website.
Rubin, widely regarded as the most courageous and intellectually dynamic opinion columnist in the history of American journalism, finally “resigned” from the Washington Post on Monday and launched a “pro-democracy” website, the Contrarian, on Substack. In a note announcing her alleged resignation, less than a week after the Post laid off roughly 100 employees in an effort to stop losing $77 million a year, Rubin accused the paper’s owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, of sabotaging journalism’s “sacred mission” of “defending, protecting and advancing democracy.”
The Contrarian is built on a premise some would describe as delusional. In Rubin’s view, the mainstream media have been too soft on Donald Trump, if not openly supportive of his MAGA agenda. Mainstream journalists have been too afraid to criticize him and alert the public to the existential threat he poses to American democracy. They’ve been too polite to fight back by lashing out Trump’s voters for ignoring the experts and making the wrong decisions.
* * * * * * *
A press release circulated by the Dewey Square Group, a political consultancy founded by former Democratic operatives, heralded the list of contributors as “a broad range of respected voices in law, politics, foreign policy, and culture.” It’s actually a bunch of people you’ve never heard of with utterly predictable opinions about everything:
Esosa Osa, a former adviser to Stacey Abrams. David Litt, a former speechwriter and “comic muse” for Barack Obama. Ilan Goldenberg, a Middle East expert who helped John Kerry negotiate the Iran nuclear deal. Karen Agnifilo, defense counsel for Luigi Mangione. Mike Podhorzer, the former political director of the AFL-CIO. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a fascism expert from New York University. Kim Lane Scheppele, a Princeton professor at the University Center for Human Values. Nancy Gertner, a Harvard Law School professor and author of the book In Defense of Women: Memoirs of an Unrepentant Advocate.
And more! Are you not impressed?
In a VIP post at RedState, Brandon Morse adds: Jen Rubin’s Independent Move Is Living in the Future, But Her Mind’s in the Past.
Rubin’s anti-Trump nature is so rabid that she’s willing to flat-out say some crazy things that can make even people on the left cringe. In order to keep up the rage bait, she’s going to have to flat-out go so extreme that she ends up lying about situations or people. Back when Rubin was on top of the world and WaPo was a top player in the narrative game, she could get away this.
But as I wrote in my aforementioned article, that age is dead. Now, anything extreme Rubin or her people put out can immediately be debunked, and that debunking will be very, very public. The embarrassment will be constant, and this won’t be good for subs.
So while, Rubin is living in the future in terms of her craft, she’s operating on an old set of rules that don’t apply anymore. Rubin’s only hope is that Trump’s second term is a monumental failure, but it’s not shaping up to be. Time will tell, of course, but the odds aren’t exactly on Rubin’s side.
The anti-Trump audience is actually very small, and Rubin is trying to tap into a sentiment that not a lot of people share. Moreover, once Trump is gone, organizations like Rubin’s will have to find ways of tapping into a leftist base that will effectively be “anti-Republican” at all costs.
See also: the WaPo after Trump was on the losing side of the 2020 election: Washington Post traffic craters, loses $100M amid identity crisis as talent, readers flee: reports.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Space lettuce: NASA’s plans to grow nutritious plants on Mars.
NASA is examining ways to ensure explorers have nourishing produce, including fresh plants, on future space missions to the Moon and Mars. While sealed food packets get the job done, they can lose flavor and vitamins over time.
Cultivating leafy greens and vegetables on the space station could address this problem and give crews a happier mental state.
Efforts to grow plants such as lettuce, peppers, radishes, and tomatoes in microgravity have been underway, revealing new insights into how spaceflight influences plant genetics, water use, and flavor.
By the time NASA gets to Mars, astronauts will probably be able to pick up whatever they want at the Elon City farmers market.
LIMITED TIME DEAL: EF ECOFLOW Portable Power Station Delta 2. #CommissionEarned