June 24, 2024
USA TODAY: Is Joe Biden’s bizarre behavior a GOP ‘cheap fake’? It’s up to him to prove that he’s OK. “Despite evidence that all is not well with the president, the White House is demanding the American people suspend reality and believe that Joe Biden’s decline is a GOP conspiracy.”
The same people telling us the video is fake told us the laptop was fake.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Chang’e-6 heads for Earth with first-ever lunar far side samples. “The Chang’e-6 service module likely fired its engines for a trans-Earth injection around June 21. The spacecraft is now on the final leg of its complex, 53-day voyage involving a lunar landing, sampling, ascent and docking. A reentry capsule containing the unique samples will be released from the service module shortly before arrival at Earth early June 25.”
ANTISEMITIC MOB FORMS OUTSIDE OF LOS ANGELES SYNAGOGUE, VIOLENCE ENSUES: Yes, It Can Happen Here. “The fundamental issue isn’t about the so-called genocide of the Arabs of Gaza, Israel, Zionism, or even the Jews.”
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YOUR DEVELOPERS WERE SO PREOCCUPIED WITH WHETHER OR NOT THEY COULD, THEY DIDN’T STOP TO THINK IF THEY SHOULD: Microsoft’s Copilot will let you join 3 meetings at once, but experts say it misses the point: ‘No one has ever wanted to be in a meeting.’
In the ad, a user brags: “Can I be in three meetings at once?” “Watch me,” complete with a frowning woman at a computer. Actual office workers were not sold on the function.
“I’m not an expert on Microsoft Copilot, but what feature specifically is enabling this to work?” one tech worker said in an Instagram video reacting to the ad. “This is implying they got the AI sitting in the meeting for her, but I haven’t heard about that feature.”
“They are marketing this like crazy and I’m like how on earth is it going to be productive if like a third of the meeting attendees are just these AI stand ins,” another user commented. “Most meetings could be a well written email.”
“Copilot, enabling burnout, overwork, underpay and untimely death of people,” another said.
Meetings should be as short, small, focused, and infrequent as humanly possible.
On the other hand, if we wanted to cripple Skynet before it has a chance to get started, just keep all the AIs bogged down in artificial meetings.
GOODER AND HARDER: Illinois Bleeding Tax Payers Dry with $100K+ Salaries, Education Waste, and More.
“LIBERATION” FROM PARENTS IS SUBJUGATION TO THE STATE: Children need ‘liberation’ from parents, scholar argues.
AMERICANS WHO WON’T VOTE FOR BIDEN: DHS Docs Reveal Who the Biden Administration Really Sees as Terrorist Threats.
SNOBBERY GETS YOU NOWHERE: Maybe it was just “one of those days” and noted New Atheist Richard Dawkins just didn’t feel like responding to a sincerely posed inquiry. In this case, in HillFaith’s latest Testimonies post, Dawkins’ evasion was a crucial step in Peter Byrom’s journey from atheism to Christian faith.
I THINK IT HAD MORE TO DO WITH THE ARSON: Lawyer for UC Berkeley arson suspect decries ‘political investigation,’ says client was targeted for ‘beliefs in a free Palestine.’
EDWARD LUTTWAK: Who will win a post-heroic war? Neither side is prepared to fight.
The great question, of course, is why? Why is it that, with larger populations than ever before, our tolerance for casualties is increasingly low?
Back in 1994, I offered a simple theory: the wars of history were fought by “spare” male children. Even as late as the mid-20th century, the average European family had several children. In agricultural households, one male could inherit the family’s land, another might advantageously marry a land-owning wife, and one more might go into the Church — or off to war. If he failed to return, the survivors might miss him most intensely, but the family would not be extinguished. Today, however, with the average fertility of women across Europe less than two and still falling — the EU average was 1.46 in 2022 — there are no spare children.
The extreme case here is China, with its fertility rate of 1.1. President Xi is, by all accounts, a bellicose man who enjoys threatening war against Taiwan. And yet, curiously, in 2020 he took eight months to reveal that one PLA officer and three soldiers had died during the fighting on India’s Ladakh frontier. During that period of official silence, the families of the four were re-housed and provided with welfare payments or better jobs; the officer’s wife who taught piano in a village school was elevated to the Xi’an Conservatory of Music, with a new house to go with it. Each of the four also became the subject of dedicated media campaigns, which portrayed the youngest as cinematically good-looking and the officer as so conscientious that, up in cold Tibet, he would wake up before his soldiers to prepare hot-water bottles for them. Later, the names of the four were added to many highway bridges to remind all of their sacrifice.
Why the grand acts of remembrance? The answer is demographic. Thanks to China’s one-child policy, imposed in 1980 with the abundant use of forced abortions, the four deaths extinguished eight family lines.
China is just one example in a fascinating article filled with them — read the whole thing.
JOHN LUCAS HAS MORE THOUGHTS: U.S. Airbase Authorizes Troops To Wear LGBT ‘Pride Patch’ Alongside Real Badges Of Honor.
It will always be more career-enhancing to parrot the BS the powers that be want parroted than to get into the grubby details of doing your job.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Donald Trump Is the Republican Who Actually Wants to Win. “Trump’s willingness to swing hard in traditional blue states is what gives him a chance to beat the Democrats’ Magic Mail-In Ballot Machine. A lot of you are going to think I’m crazy when I say this, but: there’s only so much fraud they can commit. “
MY LATEST SUBSTACK ESSAY: Having a Salena Zito Moment.
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UNEXPECTEDLY: Delivery Drivers Got Higher Wages. Now They’re Getting Fewer Orders.
Food-delivery apps have responded to cities’ new wage-increase requirements for gig workers by ratcheting up fees. Now, they are contending with frustrated consumers, plunging restaurant orders and an exodus of delivery drivers.
Lawmakers in New York City, one of the cities where pay increases for delivery drivers recently were adopted, say that their changes have worked well for workers. Seattle, which implemented similar rules this year, is planning to roll them back because of “outcry from drivers and restaurants over its devastating” impact, Seattle City Council President Sara Nelson said.
The delivery companies — whose businesses are built on gig workers they don’t employ full-time — say they can only afford to pay so many workers under the two cities’ latest pay standards. The cities want the companies to pay couriers a minimum hourly wage based on the time they spend delivering orders and reward the most efficient workers. New York City now requires that the companies pay couriers at least $19.56 per hour before tips, up from an average of $5.39 per hour before its rules went into effect in December.
The actual minimum wage is always zero.
AND IT ONLY TOOK THEM SEVEN YEARS: Even Snopes Says That Joe Biden’s Favorite Talking Point Is a Lie.
ABOLISH THE IVY LEAGUE: A Harvard Dean’s Assault On Faculty Speech.
IT WOULD BE EASIER TO HOLD BEIJING ACCOUNTABLE IF HALF OUR POLITICAL CLASS WASN’T ON ITS PAYROLL: Holding Beijing responsible for its role in the fentanyl crisis: Nearly 14,000 Americans have died from fentanyl since the Select Committee published their report on the CCP’s culpability.
Whatever the case, the Post’s investigation into Winnett ultimately succeeded in dissuading him from taking the job. On Friday morning, Telegraph editor Chris Evansinformed staff that Winnett had decided to forgo the Post job and remain in his current post as Telegraph managing editor. “As you all know, he’s a talented chap, and their loss is our gain,” Evans wrote. Lewis later confirmed the news to the Post newsroom, “with regret,” and added that Winnett had his “greatest respect and is an incredibly talented editor and journalist.”
Lewis will now lead the search for a new editor. Murray, who is already installed at the helm of the Post newsroom, and much more well liked than his British contemporaries, may be on the list of candidates. And yet, it’s hard to imagine that Lewis would go through with another search if he was considering quelling this epic shitstorm by elevating an internal candidate. Also, for all his talents, it’s hard to imagine that Murray is capable of transforming the Post as Lewis and Bezos have designed, whatever they plan to do. (And by the way, whatever those plans are, Lewis is surely biting his tongue…)
The ideal candidate for the role, after all, was always Winnett—not just for Lewis, but for his boss, too. Indeed, Bezos had met with Winnett prior to his hiring and signed off on the plan to install him as top editor. Bezos has also made clear that his first goal for the Post is profitability. Coincidentally, while the Post lost $77 million last year, TheTelegraph, where Winnett has been described as “the engine of the newsroom,” is on course to make a £65 million profit this year, or about $80 million.
Exit question:
OK, taking bets: How many months before Bezos says, Jeez, this is too much of a headache. I'm selling the Post to some private equity assholes who will just strip it for parts.? https://t.co/sWCAaGTfWp
— Jim Meigs (@jamesbmeigs) June 22, 2024
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CYBERSECURITY: Kaspersky security software is banned in America: What you need to know.
In an announcement, BIS specifically listed five risks Kaspersky poses to national security. Kaspersky’s ties to Russia are a major concern. BIS states that Russia is a foreign adversary that poses ongoing threats to the United States. According to the agency, Kaspersky is under the jurisdiction and control of the Russian government, allowing it access to sensitive information from U.S. customers.
Other reasons given for the Kaspersky ban include the software’s ability to install malware. “Kaspersky software allows for the capability and opportunity to install malicious software and withhold critical updates,” says BIS. “The manipulation of Kaspersky software, including in U.S. critical infrastructure, can result in data theft, espionage, and system malfunctions. The products also threaten economic security and public health in the U.S., potentially resulting in injuries or loss of life.”
Kaspersky’s ban in the U.S. shouldn’t come as a surprise since the firm has been on the government’s radar for quite some time. In 2017, the U.S. banned the use of the Moscow-based cybersecurity firm’s products across all government agencies.
Buy American.
WHY IS THE GOVERNMENT PREPARING TO MAKE WAR ON ITS OWN CITIZENS? DHS Doc: Trump Supporters, Military, Religious People Most Likely Terrorists.
DISPATCHES FROM WEIMAR TEXAS: Doctors at biggest children’s hospital in US are manipulating parents into giving kids life-changing trans treatments, whistleblower nurse claims.
HOUSTON, Texas — A nurse at the nation’s largest children’s hospital says doctors pressured parents to give their kids hormone therapy and other transgender medicine interventions — warning that their children might kill themselves if they held off on treatments.
Vanessa Sivadge has worked at a Texas Children’s Hospital clinic where kids are given gender-affirming care since 2021. She said that doctors there are more driven by “ideology” than what was best for the youths, many of whom had additional underlying problems.
“Parents were manipulated by doctors with an ideological agenda to go down this path of medical transition for their child,” Sivadge told The Post in an exclusive interview.
Related: When does America get its equivalent of the Cass Review?
