Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue –
1. Cocaine
2. Censorship
3. COVID
4. Persuasion
5. Net Zero
6. EV
7. Farage
8. Reds
1. Big news of the week was discovery of a bag of cocaine somewhere in the WH. Over the course of the week, the location changed at least three times, finally ending up in a location that was under construction with the cameras unavailable. How convenient, as the WH can then blame construction workers who have been vetted and screened by the Secret Service for working in the WH. WH spokespeople fell all over themselves refusing to answer questions, pointing here, there and yonder for additional information. One even tried to hide behind the Hatch Act as an excuse not to respond. On the conservative side, suspicion immediately pointed to Hunter Biden, who is a known coke user with apparent free access to the WH in his role as Biden Crime Family bagman. The House announced a couple committees would be looking into the event while the media did their level best to pretend nothing happened. Politico was best at this, with a piece suggesting we might never know where it came from, a laughable position. Think of this from two other perspectives. The first would be what happens if this bag of white powder was actually a bag of Anthrax? Would we be seeing this sort of crawfishing, backside covering, dissembling, and lying? The answer is absolutely, for someone really screwed up allowing this stuff inside. The other answer is no, as a WMD attack on the WH is a Big Deal, and the actual story would quickly be released regardless of what Biden or his puppeteers want. The second perspective is the blatant security violation demonstrated in this stuff showing up in the WH. From a basic security perspective, this is a really big deal, an actually attack on the presidential home, something far more serious than anything that went on Jan 6 or anything unseen in boxes former President Trump removed from DC. And Jack Smith doesn’t seem to recognize the difference as he pursues Trump with an unlimited budget and Ahab-esque singlemindedness. In honor of the festivities, I propose the following theme song for the Biden reelection campaign, Eric Clapton’s epic, Cocaine.
2. Censorship. The presiding federal judge in the MO / LA case against federal sponsored censorship by social media companies gave the litigants, and the rest of us a real Fourth of July present. He issued a nationwide temporary restraining order (TRO) prohibiting members of the Biden regime from any future contact with social media companies during the ongoing trial. The judge was a Trump appointee. There were some exceptions for warnings of national security threats or criminal activity, exceptions the federally paid vermin will doubtless use to continue operation of the sprawling censorship enterprise. The judge previously ruled that former Biden spokesliar Jen Psaki could be deposed during the trial. The case is Missouri v Biden in the Western District of LA, No. 3:22-cv-01213-TAD-KDM. One of the things that fell out of the 155-page ruling was fear of retaliation by the government had the companies not complied. The government has threatened adverse consequences including but not limited to changes in Section 230 immunity, antitrust immunity / scrutiny / enforcement, increased regulations, and other unspecified measures if the companies refused to participate or comply. Nice business you got there, would be a shame if anything happened to it. Gangsta government at its worst. COVID censorship figured prominently in the complaint. A CNBC commentator was smart enough to ask out loud what happens if there is a Republican elected in 2024 and gets control of this censorship monstrosity?
3. COVID. The censorship TRO was not the only COVID-related news last week. First was a pointed warning by Justices Thomas and Alito to NY, who managed to set up race-based rationing of medical treatment for COVID. While the SCOTUS did not immediately take up the case, Thomas and Alito warned that NY’s state COVID therapeutic guidelines based on addressing “longstanding systemic health and social inequities” would not allow the State to deny a person medical treatment simply because that person is viewed by the State as being a member of the wrong racial or ethnic group.” The case was rejected on standing grounds. The next one may not be so fortunate. Racist garbage is sweeping medicine, particularly the public health field. Second COVID story was the CDC concealing references to the COVID vax on MN death certificates. The vehicle for this fraud is changing the ICD code for vax side effects to the causes of death listed. The complainant was able to grab death certificates for all deaths in MN from 2015 – present. Unsurprisingly, the CDC is not being entirely honest about US health or death data.
4. Persuasion. One of the reasons I listen to Scott Adams is as a graduate level course on persuasion. If you can weed out the Bernie-level social commentary and the Cali is Great worldview, it is time well spent. A week or so ago, he did a review of what he calls the path to American Success. That path is a combination of obstacles and strategies. How you approach each piece determines whether you are successful. Main obstacles include things like systemic racism, poverty, nutrition and crime. Main strategies are education (study), no drugs, obey the law. There are others in each category, but for this example, you get the idea.
It is how the system works that makes all the difference. If you spend all your time on your obstacles, essentially looking backwards, you never make any progress. For the most part, this is the approach by the left to blacks, particularly those in the racialist business. One must be reminded on a daily basis of all the awfulness that has ever befallen you, demand restitution (or reparations), and preferential treatment. Those who approach the problem in terms of strategies, get educated, stay away from drug use, obey the law, develop a talent stack that will over time make the obstacles melt away, completely disappearing. Asians typically do this. The difference in approach, which side of the problem you choose to work, makes all the difference. Sadly, there is big money to be made, and elections to be won by concentrating on the obstacles rather than the strategies, something we see all the time from democrats.
5. Net Zero. Net Zero is the notion that the global economy needs to be restructured so that there are a net zero CO2 emissions by 2050, some 27 years from now. This is the goal that informs the Biden energy and environmental policy, his ongoing war on appliances, vehicles, home living, literally every single thing we do. It is something Biden was very clear about during the campaign, the transition and in his appointees. It is something he is expected to continue based on a restive leftist political base, as he can at least keep the greens in line. Additionally, the greens are well organized (as usual) and have nearly unlimited financial resources. Note that even with RFK Jr, Biden is getting no pressure to move off this stance among democrats as RFK Jr is just as extreme on the environment. Other nations, particularly in Europe, are starting to wake up, albeit slowly and painfully. 2022 was an energy disaster in Europe. Over the last 20 years, over 100 nuclear plants have been closed as nations transitioned to solar and wind. Imports are providing a rising share of energy in Europe, with only 37% of natural gas and 25% of petroleum produced in Europe. Rising dependence on Russia is creating its own unhealthy dependency. There are at least 49 shale formations in Europe. The EU has chosen not to frac any of these, relying instead on wind, solar and imports. As a result, energy prices have soared, up by an order of magnitude over the last several years. While the EU overall still supports the net zero path, nations are stepping back now calling reactors and fracking environmentally sustainable. Germany is restarting shuttered coal-fired plants. Sweden just green lit reactors 40 years after deciding to phase out atomic power. Keep all this in mind as we start seeing net zero in upcoming political campaigns here in the US.
6. EV. Yet another demonstration that the road to very warm places is paved with good intentions comes with the news that Electric Vehicles (EVs) are heavy. Who knew? The extra weight is in the form of batteries, making the vehicle at least twice as heavy as an internal combustion engine (ICE) equivalent. Therein comes the new problem, wear and tear, stress on the road by the heavier vehicles. This study comes out of the UK, Leeds University, who found that an EV inflicts 1.95 – 2.32 x more damage to roads than the equivalent ICE vehicle. Batteries of EVs add at least half a ton to overall vehicle weight. Anyone else remember the half century long push to cut vehicle weights so as to meet arbitrary CAFÉ mileage standards? Apparently, the Biden regime just repealed those standards. This could be a fun outcome, as the EV owners, now having to fend off mileage taxes because they don’t purchase vehicle fuels, are about to be dunned with additional taxes for destroying roads with their heavier than normal vehicles. Yet another reason to hang on with your favorite ICE as long as possible.
7. Farage. One of the shiny new tools used by the fascist left is debanking of their political opponents. This is going on both in the US and Great Britain. Here in the US, state attorneys general are pushing back, with threats to banks participating in shutting down bank accounts, credit cards, debit cards, and automatic payments for disfavored individuals or organizations. JP Morgan Chase went after the National Committee for Religious Freedom, threatening to close its account unless the organization supplied detailed information about its donors and the criteria used to decide which political candidates to support. Chase went after a Republican event hosted by the Defense of Liberty non-profit, via WePay, a payment processing service. The excuse was the old standby, hate speech, intolerance, yada, yada, yada. Last week, Nigel Farage, central to Brexit and the Brexit party announced that he had lost his access to banking in the UK, when his bank of over 40 years shut down his account. He was unable to get banking services from any other bank in the UK. The banksters also targeted his family. There has been some pushback in the UK with banks participating in the fun having to pay fines based on their malfeasance. Unfortunately, while this is all going on, your cashflow is zero as is your ability to pay bills. It’s not paranoia when they really are out to get you.
8. Reds. Our premier outdoors writer, Craig Medred posted a piece on his blog entitled Plummeting Value. The piece discussed the crash in commercial prices for sockeye (red) salmon caught in Alaska, currently about half what it brought in 30 years ago. To give some idea about the ongoing crash, red prices in 1985 were $1.11/lb. In today’s dollars, that would have been $3.13/b today. Last week, public radio in Dillingham, on the north side of Bristol Bay reported commercial fishermen were expecting around $0.75/lb this year. Worse, processors couldn’t sell all the salmon caught in Bristol Bay last year and are still paying for frozen storage in Western AK, an expensive proposition. Lisa Murkowski and the rest of the Alaska congressional delegation has been trying to help, funding USDA purchases of salmon and groundfish (pollock), nearly $120 million for distribution through federal food assistance programs. Sadly, we are once again back to the decision to ban fish farming here in Alaska in 1991. This was a multiple edged weapon that was sold as a protectionist measure to save Alaskan commfish from international competition. The only thing protectionism protects is the ability to compete in the global marketplace now dominated by farmed salmon (75%+ of all salmon sold worldwide). The ban also propped up salmon prices worldwide for a while, allowing Norwegian fish farming operations time to figure out how to create a profitable operation. Couple that with the everything or nothing nature of Alaskan commfish, when all the fish are caught over the course of a few weeks to a month. What do we do with all that unsalable fish? We store it in freezers. Alaskan commfish were able to negotiate prices in 1991 because they were the dominant players in the worldwide marketplace. Today, they are mere bit players, being ground into economic oblivion. And it serves them right for adopting protectionism. They are sufficiently arrogant to blame their lack of economic foresight on anyone else wetting a hook, catching a salmon that was supposed to be theirs leading to our yearly fish wars between commfish and everyone else. The delegation is helping a little bit, but that help will not sustain an intentionally broken business model.
More later –
- AG