Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue –
1. Adams
2. Greenland
3. Powell
4. Clintons
5. Pyramid
6. Evacuation
7. Fake News
8. Somaliland
9. Emirates
1. Adams. Yet another Disturbance in the Force Tuesday morning as we lost Scott Adams to an aggressive and fairly nasty prostate cancer. Over the decades, Scott, who started out as the Dilbert cartoonist, something he did continuously until the end, morphed himself into an expert in persuasion a decade ago which is where I started listening closely to his continuing education morning podcasts. His early books were reprints of Dilbert cartoons, branching out into commentary on management. One of his early claims was to have killed off the burgeoning business management industry of the 1990s. Reason? It is difficult to respect something you are laughing at on a daily basis. And pointy haired bosses everywhere, you know who and what I am talking about. As he drifted into persuasion, his publications changed and became more powerful, ending with the spectacular Reframe Your Brain, essentially a book of magic spells, designed to change individual approach to literally every problem, mental ju-jitsu to help survive and prevail in an unexpected world. Earlier persuasion books include a rewritten God’s Debris (a first stab at the Simulation), Win Bigly (persuasion) and How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big. All are available on Amazon, but be careful, as there are a lot of knock-offs floating around. I started listening to his morning podcasts about a decade ago because he was the only one I know of who not only predicted Trump’s 2016 win, but described what he was doing on a daily basis, why it worked, and what he was going to do next, all from the perspective of persuasion. At the time, my experience with persuasion was limited to viewing it as a black art, as foreign as quantum physics or string theory. I am slightly less clueless about persuasion after a decade. Progress, perhaps. While not a conservative (Adams used to describe himself as a Bernie-bro in the social side of the political wars), he was inexorably tied to Trump simply by explaining how, why and next to a growing audience. This made him a target of the Biden-era Trump / conservative / Republican purge. The left cancelled him Feb 2023 for noting that you shouldn’t hang around with people who hate you. The political left managed to turn that into a racist rant. Adams reframed the problem and turned it into a personal and professional win, regaining control of all his intellectual property in the process. I listened to Limbaugh for nearly 30 years, Scott Adams for a decade, and feel much the same loss with Scott’s passing as I did with Rush. Godspeed, Scott. You will be missed. And yes, you were useful and will continue to be useful for a very long time.
2. Greenland. I have been scratching my head about what is driving Trump’s interest in Greenland. While there is usually some strategic importance for Trump’s geopolitical moves, this one wasn’t immediately obvious. In fact, given that all the Usual Suspects (the EU, Euro elites, democrats, RINOs) were squealing like stuck pigs, I wondered if it was Boob Bait for Bubbas, a shiny object dangled to get their attention while he was focused on something else more important. Turns out that was wrong, though only in degree, I suppose. A piece in No Parasan over the weekend suggests that Trump is reacting to a CCP attempt to establish bases of operation in Greenland as far back as 2017. The piece starts out calling Danish politicians liars for claiming that American worries about CCP or Russian threats are delusional. This reprises leftist Soviet apologist claims during the Cold War that the US was just as bad as the Soviet Union. In fact, Greenland’s Prime Minister flew to Beijing in 2017 asking China to bankroll new airports. To their credit, Denmark stopped that particular show. If anything like that happens again, Denmark will be a US protectorate. China is in an expansionist phase, using their Belt and Road initiative to build infrastructure worldwide. They are also starting to call themselves an Arctic nation. Given there is no available land on their part of the Pacific (Russia, Japan and the US), a lightly defended Greenland makes a tempting target, though the supply lines are long and require nuclear submarines under the Arctic Ocean. History of this is interesting. Secretary Seward orchestrated the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867. At the same time, he was pursuing purchase of the Virgin Islands and Greenland. The US eventually purchased the Virgin Islands from Demark in 1917.
3. Powell. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell is under DoJ criminal investigation for misleading congress (lying to congress is bad, especially when a Republican does it) about cost overruns for the Fed’s $2.5 billion building renovations. The hearing took place in June. Powell took to the media, claiming subpoenas and a criminal referral by Rep Anna Paulina Luna were political intimidation of the supposedly independent Federal Reserve. The presser triggered the desired reaction with retiring Senator Thom Tillis (R, NC) promising to hold all Trump nominees to the Federal Reserve. “Experts” and leftists reflexively took the position that Fed independence means it can spend without oversight and complete lack of accountability, a newly created doctrine by Somali fraudsters in Minnesota. Powell is playing a dangerous game, though not unexpectedly. I think he is approaching alligator mouth and hummingbird backside-land. We will see.
4. Clintons. Speaking of alligators and hummingbirds, we have the Clintons who ignored a House subpoena to testify to testify before the House Oversight Committee regarding their dealings with Jeffery Epstein. The committee is likely to send a criminal referral to DoJ for both Clintons. Under the old rules, the Clintons, like democrats did for nearly two centuries, could ignore demands to appear before congressional committees with impunity. Their problem is those rules changed during the Biden regime, when Republicans who did the same thing (Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon) were arrested, tried, convicted and jailed. It will be most interesting to see if the Clintons are forced to play the game under their new rules.
5. Pyramid. The RFK, Jr HHS published the first major revision of the Food Pyramid in 60 years. It essentially flipped the version foolishly adopted in the 1960s, recommending meats, cruciform greens, dairy, and fats. Whole grain, which was the base of the old version, is relegated to a very small part of the new pyramid. From here, the new pyramid is a lo carb / high fat / keto-based recommendation. The surprise is not the recommendation, for it essentially re-adopts obesity diets from the beginning before they were upended in the 1960s, but the almost complete public silence at its adoption. Opposition either went underground, hoping to do its dirty work with checkbooks and job offers, or has been beaten in the political wars by the lo carb / hi fat / keto world (unlikely, but nice to think about).
6. Evacuation. NASA evacuated Crew-11 for unspecified medical reasons from ISS last week. This is the first ever medical evacuation from space. The crew reached ISS in August and returned about a month early. A crew of three remain on ISS today and will be replenished with another Dragon launch mid-February or so. The medical issue was identified in preparation for an EVA a couple weeks ago which was cancelled. The cancellation and subsequent analysis led to the decision to terminate their stay early. ISS crews operate as crews, and train, launch, operate and return as a crew. Modeling suggests a major medical issue on ISS should happen once every three years. In practice, they have been rare, as this is the first one that I can recall . NASA has been remarkably tight-lipped about the medical issue, though the speculation has been festive.
7. Fake News. Ran across a piece in Red State Jan 6 claiming that Jan 6 Capitol Police shooter Michael Byrd and his wife were running an “unaccredited” daycare center out of their MD home. Total income since it opened in 2008 is claimed to be over $190 million. The story was printed in Red State on Jan 6 (red flag #1) and picked up by social media in the typical breathless flurry (red flag #2). There was no follow-up in other media, even that on the right (red flag #3). The final red flag (#4) is that the story is just too perfect, with someone who helped congressional democrats create their Jan 6 = insurrection narrative being cut into their fraud machine as a payoff. Problem with that is that Jan 6 was in 2021 rather than 2008 when the daycare operation started. From all this, based on what I know and can see today, I am designating this one as fake news, but am open to additional information should it come out. The other thing is a disappointment that Red State is now dabbling in the world of fake news without posting either a correction or retraction, something I will remember. And so should you.
8. Somaliland. Speaking of reframing, how long will it be before someone on the political right starts reframing Minnesota as either North Somalia or Northern Somaliland? Given the democrat political machine in MN has fully embraced the 80,000 Somalis transplanted into the state, hooking them into the public money trough in return for their vote, can we expect anything else? Just as interesting is the 2024 revision of the MN state flag from a state seal on a sea of blue to a two-toned blue with an 8-sided star. The Somali flag is a single white star on a sea of blue. MN is one of those states that can’t seem to resist mucking around with the flag design, first adopted in 1983. It was simplified in 1957, updated in 1983, and underwent the substantial DEI remake in 2024. We here in Anchorage are undergoing much the same process with our municipal seal, ridding it of things like ships and aircraft which are somehow disrespectful of Alaska Natives. That is another story for another day.
9. Emirates. The United Arab Emirates will no longer sponsor students to study abroad in Britain out of fears that the students will be radicalized by Muslim Brotherhood operatives in the public schools and greater government. If the students want to study in Britain, it will be on their own dime. The UAE and several other Middle Eastern countries including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain have all designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terror organization. It has also been labeled by other Central Asian countries along with Texas and Florida. Several Muslim interest groups in Great Britain are suspected to be linked to Muslim Brotherhood (Hamas) ideology.
More later –
- AG