Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue –
1. Twitter
2. Moskva
3. Nurse
4. Ghost
5. Tires
6. ConCon
7. Threat
1. Twitter. The Battle of Twitter heated up nicely last week with the decision by the Twitter Board to reject Elon Musk’s attempt to acquire controlling shares in the company. In parallel, the corruptocrats in the SEC and Do(In)Justice announced plans to investigate Tesla for things that may or may not be illegal. The action by Harris – Xiden in all this are the height of government as a protection racket these days. Nice little car company you have there, would be a shame if anything happened to it.
- Musk’s offer was to purchase all remaining outstanding Twitter shares for $43 billion, around $54/share. Note that he only needs to purchase an additional 41%, around $21.5 billion at the offer to get veto-proof control of Twitter.
- In response, the Twitter Board unanimously adopted what has been called a poison pill. Under the plan, which will be in place for the next year, if any person or group acquires ownership of at least 15% of Twitter’s outstanding common stock without the Board’s approval, other shareholders will be allowed to purchase additional shares at a discount. Wall Street is involved in this, with Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan working with Twitter. Morgan Stanley is working with Musk.
- What options does Musk have at this point? One of the things Musk said publicly last week is that he is not sure he can pull this off, which is identical language he used with Starship and Tesla. Might even have used it with SpaceX. Musk always tamps down expectations a bit, which tells me that he has thought this through and is ready for contingencies. One avenue would be to work with a group of alternative investors, each purchasing a block of outstanding shares. At 15% chunks, he would only have to do 3 of these before getting control of Twitter. Finally, the Poison Pill adopted by the Board takes away a shareholder option without their consent. Twitter’s Board is claiming to protect their shareholders. If that were true, share prices would have skyrocketed. They didn’t, much like Yahoo’s poison pill in 2001. This opens the door for Musk to demand the entire mess be offered up to the shareholders for their vote, which has the potential to take down the entire house of cards.
- If this doesn’t work, what is a Plan B? One could be to simply destroy Twitter by telling conservatives to leave it. One of the things we have found the last couple years is that we can’t build a viable social media operation that doesn’t serve both sides of the political divide. There aren’t enough customers. This is why Trump’s Truth is having such a difficult time getting off the ground. If half of Twitter’s users leave and it turns into a leftist echo chamber, they are toast.
- More interesting has been the lightning speed the left has panicked, Harris – Xiden, and the Twitter Board responded to this. Every single action taken in opposition, from the SEC – DoJ protection racket threats against Tesla, to the Poison Pill resolution, to the screams of pain and outrage aimed against the acquisition all come in firm and permanent opposition to free speech, which is all Musk says he is trying to do. Kat Timph on Gutfeld last week asked what they are trying to hide. My guess is quite a lot, as Twitter, and other Big Tech platforms have done quite a bit to destroy the notion of free speech, as a way of enabling their current control of the system. They like the power. They enjoy wielding it. They have been successful using it. And they don’t want it to go away. Should Musk acquire Twitter, I do expect we will find out what they have been doing and it will water our eyes.
2. Moskva. Russia lost its Black Sea flagship, the guided missile cruiser, Moskva. Initial stories were completely in conflict, with the Russians claiming it sunk in a storm while being towed after an onboard fire. Ukrainians happily took credit for sinking it with missiles. Either story would work, as Russian ships (and landside bunkers and ammo storage facilities) have recently had a real problem with catastrophic fires. Even the USN lost the Bonhomme Richard July 2020 to what may or may not have been an intentionally set onboard fire while docked in San Diego. Fires on ships are deadly, as there is ammunition, propellent, igniters, and fuel all stored in close proximity to each other. On the Moskva, there were tubes for at least 16 large caliber long range cruise missiles on deck, 8 on each side. Torch anything, and Bad Things are not only possible but nearly impossible to stop. Earlier in this war, the Moskva participated in the battle of Snake Island, demanding the garrison surrender and being told to pound sand.
3. Nurse. One of the uglier stories comes out of the Wake Forest medical school a week ago with a 4th year medical student, one Kychelle del Rosario, bragged online about intentionally injuring a patient. The aspiring doctor is a trans rights advocate, whose commitment to the cause overrides completely the Hippocratic Oath insistence to do no harm. The woman was tasked that day to draw blood. She was wearing a pin with her preferred pronouns. The patient laughed at the pin. The wannabee doc intentionally missed the vein. Oopsie. And had to stick him a second time. She happily tweeted out her action. In the ensuing sturm und drang, she took down all her social media accounts. The medical school said they would look into the event but have not responded to any media requests for comment. The rest of the media did its level best to bury the story, which is why the first two links about the story along with photos of the medical student were in the UK Daily Mail rather than in mainstream US media sites. The Wake Forest medical school claims to have investigated the incident, finding that Del Rosario’s claims on Twitter afterwards were not true, as she apparently changed her story afterwards in an attempt to save her fledgling short but mediocre medical career. The school was roundly blasted for their groveling statement and suggestions that she would be back on rounds real soon. This is what happens when medical schools go woke, following the law schools down the ramp to the Seventh Circle of Hell as fast as they can. Del Rosario is a leader in something called Safe Zone for Medicine, whose goal it is to educate health professionals about the needs and disparities of LGTBQWTF healthcare. Apparently, this education includes intentionally injuring (punishing) patients who laugh at their foolishness.
4. Ghost. Lewis Carroll wrote the following exchange in Through the Looking Glass:
“‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master—that’s all.'”
The book, along with Alice in Wonderland was intended to be a satire, rather than a how-to manual or instruction book. Last week the Harris – Xiden regime exercised their inner Humpty Dumpty, by redefining gun part kits as firearms. The target this time around is 3-D printing of major firearms components without serial numbers, so-called ghost guns. The ban also applies to 3-D printers, supplies and instructions. The redefinition picks up on 80% complete firearms kits, defining them as actual firearms. Firearms built at home and sold to a pawn broker or other licensed dealer will have to have serial numbers created and applied by the purchaser. Lewis Carroll was right, “… which is to be master – that’s all.”
5. Tires. From the land of What Can Possibly Go Wrong?, comes the story about Adbusters, an international group of artists who has decided their new Calling in life is to deflate tires of SUVs. The call included instructions about how to wedge gravel and other things into the valve stem area to ensure deflation. Rationale for this? SUVs contribute to climate change, which is the most dangerous thing facing the species, demonstrating yet another reason these people are artists. The act includes leaving a flyer on the windshield of the targeted vehicle. They promise not to go after vehicles with handicapper tags but start with wealthy areas, probably because the wealthy are less likely to shoot them for screwing around with their vehicles. The group announced the campaign on Twitter, which allowed the tweet to remain public despite specifically violating Twitter’s terms of service prohibiting members from “… engage(ing) in the targeted harassment of someone, or incite other people to do so.” Rules continue to be only for the little people.
6. ConCon. There is growing interest here in Alaska and in the rest of the US for a constitutional convention. The first would rewrite the Alaska state constitution. The second would propose amendments to the existing US Constitution, perhaps going as far as the Founders did replacing the Articles of Confederation with what we have today. In Alaska, the question comes to the ballot every decade. The first time it was on the ballot shortly after statehood approved the convention. Someone took the question to state court, claiming voters didn’t understand what they were voting for. The AK Supremes agreed, ordering a second vote. The second time around one failed roughly 60 – 40%. Intervening elections generally defeat the question somewhere in the 2:1 range. This year, the question comes up again, and my sense is that it is much closer to passage than it has been in the past. I can see their point, if for no other reason than the Alaska courts have become lawless over the years, with neither governor legislature having the cojones to stand up to them. Last year, the AK Supremes found a budget cut to the state court system unconstitutional, handing themselves the power of the purse. I am conflicted in this. On the one hand, we MUST solve the problem posed by the lawless vermin on the state courts. If they want to be black-robed politicians, perhaps it is time to elect them. OTOH, Our Side finds it very difficult to get people to participate. The left turns out people in large numbers for every single thing they want to do. Our Side has to move heaven and earth to get a similar turnout. Most recent example was state redistricting. Over the last couple weeks, the State Redistricting Board had to revise a few newly drawn legislative districts to comply with a AK Supreme Court order. The Good Guys held a 3:2 majority on the Board. The left turned out the world, and tried very hard to hijack the entire process, using the order as an excuse to redraw the entire statewide map. They weren’t successful, but it was a good demonstration of their ability to turn out the masses at the drop of a hat.
7. Threat. Ran across a new blogger, Laughing Wolf. He sounds like yet another cranky oldster (there’s a lot of us out here these days apparently), thrashing his way back from what sounds like a stroke. Prayers for complete recovery and replacing half a century of slovenly habits with slightly less slovenly habits. Article entitled The Threat Horizon Expands caught my attention. It is a discussion of where we are in Ukraine today and where he thinks we are going. Better yet, it has multiple links from Trent Telenko who did a series on logistics. Our paths have crossed from time to time over decades. Trent is one of the Good Guys. Those of us with some sort of military stink, know that to fight you need to be good with your training and assigned system. To win, you MUST excel in logistics, first, last and always. And it appears the Russians choose to be terrible in logistics. So too, might the CCP, and for much the same reason (corruption and dilettantes running things as general officers). Today, most of the Russian military are civilians appointed as generals. This has aided the kleptocracy and by definition means Russian troops are understrength and undersupplied even at the best of times. Putin installed a guy named Dvornikov as his new General Officer in charge in Ukraine. It is one of the few Russian military GO’s with actual military experience. His came in Chechnya and Syria, both of which ended up being pretty brutal fights. The second of these is most important, as it means he is aggressive, and Will Not Blink at any order to use the full NBC weapons portfolio. Chemicals were most recently used in Syria. Depending on who you believe, they were also used in Chechnya. Laughing Wolf believes chemical release has already been discussed. As the kleptocracy and lack of logistics tail doomed the hoped for quick, decisive win, the Russians are well into Plan B, leveling everything in Ukraine, which will be a long, bloody slog. While Russia can throw sufficient numbers into Ukraine, he can’t hold it. Expect Putin to try to widen the war. Expect the Swamp Creatures on our side, the same ones who planned and executed the debacle in Afghanistan last year, to counter with some sort of idiocy like a no-fly zone. Doing either will expand the boundaries of this particular conflict far beyond that of Ukraine, not unlike how WWI unfolded. History never repeats. But it rhymes from time to time. Our job is to make sure the swamp can’t.
More later –
– AG