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Open thread 6/22/22 — 36 Comments

  1. I have watched 5 hours of the Texas Senate Hearing on Uvalde, some good stuff about what should be and have been and excellent questions and answers from top law enforcement officials along with some grey area stuff. We have a lot of resources here in Texas for training and perhaps more of those will be utilized by more agencies and officers going forward. Lots of stuff I never knew and all of the responses in an active shooter situation should be go forward fast and into the gunfire. I would think that the three officers in the hall encountering the Uvalde shooter could have put enough pistol rounds in his direction fast to stop him before he entered the classroom if they were doing what they were trained to do. I have things to do this morning and later I will watch the rest of the hearing. Thank You Neo for the link you posted.

  2. Another comment in response to the open-thread invitation.

    Yesterday, in “The American Mind,” published by the Claremont Institute, David Goldman (aka Spengler) argues that “we have lost the trade war with China through a combination of incompetence and narcissistic self-delusion. Not only have we lost the trade war; we are losing the race to the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution (the application of broadband and A.I. to the entirety of economic activity).”

    Goldman’s solution to this problem is to greatly expand the role of government in setting industrial policy. This isn’t the first time that he’s made this argument, and I’m definitely not usually sympathetic to proposals for more government involvement in economic decisions, but I now have to admit that this brief essay makes a point worth considering. Maybe I’ve just been worn down by the facts.

    For anybody else with an opening American mind, here’s a link: https://tinyurl.com/w7828z2w

    P.S. I live in an area with lots of bears, and I know a few people who’ve had bears wander around their yards and look into their windows, but so far none have broken in. Maybe they were looking for a piano.

  3. This is what I understand about an issue-

    There was a lot of cancelled, airline flights, +and delayed flights, on father’s day, this year.

    I think Boston’s Logan airport, had- 100 cancelled flights, and 150 delayed flights.

    The Government’s Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg was not happy with the cancellations and delays.

    His solution was to order that- if the USA’s airlines companies don’t hire more people, more people to deal with these problems, he’s going to start [fining airline companies for not hiring more people].

    [This is NOT legal.]

    The airline companies in the USA are privately-owned companies.
    The US Government does not have 100% power over them.

    The Federal Government has no authority to tell private companies- how many people to hire.

    No law or regulation says- [that the Federal Government can tell a private company, how many people to hire].

    The airline companies might have the legal right to sue the government, for this type of action.

  4. they are having to shut down because of the vekakte vaccine mandate, he should go back on maternity leave, remember he was all in on the green nude eel, and he probably won the iowa primary, this is his consolation prize

    eh simon cowell, says the bear, what do you think

  5. TR suggested …

    “ … companies in the USA are privately-owned companies. The US Government does not have 100% power over them.”

    I have to ask what color is the sky on your planet?

    I agree that the US Government SHOULD NOT have 100% power over them.

    But, unfortunately, in our current culturally Marxist Amerika the US Government has arrogated that power to itself. And the RINOs in congress have actively participated in that grab.

    We seem to be living in the later phase of the Roman Republic. But this time with electronic entertainments. And better quality water. Mostly.

  6. Given all the talk about whether or not Biden “stole” the election in 2020, I decided to look at some numbers.
    Biden received more popular votes than Obama received in 2008 and 2012.
    Biden received more popular votes than Hillary Clinton when she ran against Trump in 2016.
    In fact, Biden received more popular votes than ANY presidential candidate in American history.

    You can see it here:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_by_popular_vote_margin

    This does not necessarily mean that the election was rigged, but it sure smells bad.

    Now combine that with the overnight “pause” in the counting of votes (where in fact, there was no pause and counting continued unobserved by republican observers) in some key states, subsequent to which tens of thousands of votes appeared in the biden column, and, miracle of miracles, just enough votes to put him ahead in key states.
    Geez, what a coincidence.
    The voting was paused in ONLY certain key states, but not in those states where it would not have made a difference in the outcome.
    Geez, what a coincidence.

    But then again, if you shuffle a set of playing cards, and lay out the cards on a table, the probability of that exact sequence re-appearing – anytime in the past or in the future – is 1 / 52! – that is, 1/52 factorial; or basically a big fat zero.

    Oh well, just because an event is a very, very low probability even, even one having a very near zero probability of occurring, it does not mean it will never happen.
    Especially when it comes to presidential elections.

    Speaking of elections; rest assured all those who voted in the past for Hillary or Biden, will once again vote for whomever the democrats nominate.

    And if it’s joke Bidet on the demokrat ticket, they will once again vote for him.
    After all, the inflation we are witnessing is the fault of Putin, Trump, climate change.
    greedy corporations and of course, Putin, Trump, climate change and greedy corporations.
    Am I missing anything?

    By the way, Columbia just elected a former narco-terrorist, and hard core leftist as their next president. I guess that the voters there realized how well things turned out in Venezuela and Cuba and desired to experience the same.

    As Winston Churchill once said:

    “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter;” (and with my brother).

  7. Goldman’s solution to this problem is to greatly expand the role of government in setting industrial policy.

    Goldman is a manufactory of panic porn. Go have a look at his posts at First Things ca. 2010 and compare them to what actually happened.

  8. Interestingly, in the neighborhood here, the baby bears came out almost exactly, to the day, when we first saw the baby pre-venisons (deer). We have a mini-dog, and she hasn’t figured out yet that deer are much bigger than she, and that includes their babies. So our walks are now more interesting, if not taxing for me. It’s a perspective thing. First, I have to keep my eyes open for deer, because when she sees them, she takes off like a rocket after them. And I have to keep my eyes open for the bears who just started showing up. I also carry my bear gun (10 mm G20 loaded with solid cast bear loads). She doesn’t understand that she is viewed as a delicacy by our ursine neighbors. But at our other house (in PHX), she didn’t understand that with the local coyote clan either.

  9. Years ago my wife and I were staying in Yosemite valley and we went for a walk at dusk with just a bit of light left. I had a flashlight but kept if off as we navigated the trails. Then I noticed that in the shadows of the trees there was large pure black space, … and it got bigger, … and it was moving. I hit the flashlight and it was two bears, and we had almost walked into them.

    We ran to the campground office and said, “There are two bears in the campground!” They said, “Oh, lucky you. You got to see some bears. Aren’t they cute?” OK, you can stop laughing now.

  10. Rufus T. Firefly,

    Yep. I think you’re right.
    And my response to the Fed. Government making this regulation is, [sarcasm follows- oh goody.]
    :p

    I wonder how many US airlines companies will decide to shut down their business(s), rather than hire more people.

    Oh well.
    Maybe I can get to Oregon, on my skateboard. ;D

  11. Margot Cleveland at The Federalist is on a role outlining the illegal changes to election procedure that may have tipped the election to Biden.

    https://thefederalist.com/2022/06/22/j6-committee-focuses-on-election-fraud-claims-while-ignoring-tactics-used-to-rig-the-2020-election/

    This follows another recent article.

    https://thefederalist.com/2022/06/17/jan-6-committee-ignores-clear-evidence-of-mass-illegal-voting-systematically-broken-election-laws/

    She has more relevant articles worth reading.

  12. Bears in Yosemite are particullarly adept at opening automobiles to root out food. The don’t need keys or door handles. Claws work quite nicely and quickly. Bears dont care about your car’s interior. They are cute that way.

    Using bear boxes and bear canisters is manditory in the park.

  13. “we have lost the trade war with China through a combination of incompetence and narcissistic self-delusion. Not only have we lost the trade war; we are losing the race to the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution (the application of broadband and A.I. to the entirety of economic activity).”

    I think he needs to pay a bit more attention to China’s demographic future.

    Mike

  14. And in today’s sign of either inescapable revolution or impending doom, Andrew Sullivan takes to Twitter to call Biden an “incompetent extremist” but still defends voting for him in 2020 over Trump.

    https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1539639735445925888?cxt=HHwWgMClldOL890qAAAA

    I’ve said it before but my biggest worry about 2024 is that millions of college-educated white Americans would rather slit their neighbor’s throat than admit they were wrong and vote for Trump.

    Mike

  15. RE Spengler: Back in 1990 or so Michael Crichton published Rising Sun, a very good book with the underlying message that we were gonna lose to the Japanese because they were able to get government, business and unions to work together seamlessly to capture markets. That, and they always knew us better than we could hope to know what motivated them. They were gonna build the fifth-generation computer and we would be slaves.

    And then Japan’s economy went into a 20 year stall. Their computer industry never did take over, or really, take off. It turns out that having all those parties in a room together sighing and not speaking because Japanese can speak six paragraphs with the slightest rise of an eyebrow, well, that’s good if you have a couple of decades to work your way into an industry. If, as it did after the 1980s, the economy stopped being about making cars and started being about making applications, then maybe a more nimble response was needed.

    I see China’s built themselves a new aircraft carrier. Can they make it work? A U.S. fleet carrier works because every guy on that flight deck knows his job, and absolutely trusts that every other guy knows his job also. Thus he can turn his back to the jet fighter thundering onto the deck 100 feet away, because those other guys have it in hand. And the carrier can launch and recover aircraft in foul weather at the same time.

    We can do that, as can the British, and the French. Can a low-trust society like China do that? The Russians never could.

  16. I wonder how Buttegieg thinks he can force airlines to hire pilots. Maybe the government shouldn’t have forced so many to be fired for not getting COVID shots, and I hear a lot of pilots retired a bit early.

  17. I work across a wide aisle from a just retired airline pilot who now enjoys selling heavy duty patio umbrellas. I told him Sunday that all of these flight cancellations were his fault, since he retired. He seemed fairly cheerful in his guilt. “Yeah, it’s all my fault. It’s not like we couldn’t see this coming since the early 1990s when the military cut way back, and they raised the number of hours you need to be hired by 600 percent.”

  18. The airline industry has always been heavily regulated. Slots at airports, routes, standards for maintenance and training, air traffic control, and much more are regulated by the government. At one time they even regulated fares. It has been a cooperative enterprise to some extent, but now that everything is politicized, it matters a lot who’s in the government. Those who favor more regulation, such as Buttigiege are going to try to micromanage the industry if they think it will score political points. The airline business has never been particularly profitable, so good old Pete may micromanage some right into bankruptcy.

    The pandemic has really disrupted our transportation system.
    Pilot shortages were looming anyway. Then the airlines furloughed and gave early retirement to many pilots. And some were fired for not taking the vaccine. It will take some years of rebuilding before the system, gets back to where it was in January of 2019.

    I flew a couple of times during the pandemic, and it wasn’t bad. The airlines had the capacity to meet the reduced demand. Now the demand has mushroomed, and they can’t meet it. As I understand it, flying is a real pain in the butt now.

  19. I missed this story of a couple weeks ago. It’s about the “suicide” of Clinton admin. insider Mark Middleton. It goes without saying that only conspiracy theorists would find this interesting.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10882101/Family-late-Clinton-advisor-Mark-Middleton-block-release-files-relating-suicide.html

    Chris Cox Heifer, a spokesman for Heifer International, said that ranch workers found Middleton’s car in the parking lot and notified the sheriff.

    The body was found shortly afterwards.

    Heifer told DailyMail.com: ‘He wasn’t invited to the property and staff became aware that he was there without authorization.

    ‘We have not found any connection [from Middleton] to Heifer.

    ‘The ranch is well known in the area and it’s possible that he could have attended something here but we couldn’t’ find any major links.

    – – –

    In an interview with RadarOnline – before he decided to clam up – Sheriff Montgomery said Middleton was discovered hanging from a tree with a shotgun blast to his chest.

    He reportedly used an extension cord as a noose and created makeshift gallows underneath the tree which appeared to be there as a failsafe in case the shotgun blast didn’t kill him.

    – – –

    Late last year, DailyMail.com exclusively revealed Middleton was among the Clinton advisors and aides who had let Epstein into the White House during the former president’s first few years in office.

    The late pedophile made at least 17 trips to the White House between 1993 and 1995, seven of which were authorized by Middleton.

    The Clinton aide was also one of the many passengers to fly on Epstein’s jet, known as the ‘Lolita Express’.

    Obviously, this is a sensible way to commit suicide because you never know if blowing a gaping hole in the center of your chest will allow for a lingering survival.

  20. @ JJ > “As I understand it, flying is a real pain in the butt now.”

    It always has been, but it’s especially painful since they shrank the seats to where some of us (ahem) barely fit between the chair arms.

    But, things could be worse.

    https://nypost.com/2022/06/15/double-decker-airplane-seats-could-make-flying-coach-hell/

    Also, “The airline business has never been particularly profitable”

    This video explains something I hadn’t known, and apparently is the result of the evolution of frequent-flier miles, on steroids.

    “How Airlines Quietly Became Banks”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggUduBmvQ_4
    “Airlines are credit card companies that fly planes as a side hustle.”

    It’s kind of like movie theaters making more money off of concessions than tickets.

  21. Bruce Hayden,
    When I used to walk my dog in bear country (British Columbia), like everyone else, I wore a ‘Bear Bell’. They don’t want to run into us anymore than we want to run into them!

  22. NASA jumps on the UAP/UFO bandwagon.

    Everybody seems to be agog at the fact that NASA has announced that it, too, will be studying UFOs.

    However a closer look discloses that their study is more apparent than real, and they won’t actually be studying UFOs, rather, they will be looking for sources of data on UFOs.

    NASA claims that there is a “paucity of observations” (presumably of the quality that they demand) and, therefore, their study–of only 9 months duration and only funded to the tune of “up to $100,000,”–will “identify available data,” “determine the best way to collect new data,” and “determine how NASA can then use that data.”

    So where will the people performing this NASA study look for this “available” data?

    It seems to me that there are tons of data that has already been collected, and new data is coming in all the time.

    There is data gathered by civilian organizations like MUFON and the National UFO Reporting Center and, then, there is data that has been gathered by DOD, for instance by ATIP, and Lou Elizondo has said that there are new observations coming in from military sources every day.

    (It is said that DOD actually has 70 years worth of UFO observations, hidden away somewhere. True?)

    According to what has been said about the contract research Robert Bigelow’s aerospace company was doing for DOD in the AAWSAP program, one thing they did was to create a very sophisticated database, one that was international in scope, and contained 200,000 UFO reports. What about this data?

    No mention in the NASA announcement of tapping classified data so, where will they look, and will their standards for what constitutes “data” be so high that nothing available today will qualify as “data.” *

    * As an aside, Avi Loeb says that the Galileo Project is taking the approach that they do not want to look at any classified government or other previously collected data but, instead, want to collect their own data, using their own instruments, and will make their results public.

  23. }}} In fact, Biden received more popular votes than ANY presidential candidate in American history.

    Even more telling, Trump received more votes than any PREVIOUS candidate in US History.

    Also seems pretty relevant:
    Trump had no issue getting people to come to his rallies.

    Biden usually managed no more than a handful.

    Also seems relevant:
    Analysis of many precincts that seemed hinky showed that, despite those precincts being shifted towards republicans since 2016+ (i.e., hypothetically, for illustration: 2016 — Makeup was 54% dem, 42% GOP. 2020 — Makeup was 48% Dem, 49% GOP — the precinct had many more GOP than before). Despite that shift in many places, Biden got more votes than Hillary in 2016. And this is in those “disputable” areas such as Pennsylvania in particular.

    None of this is proof. But, as Thoreau said: “Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.”

    The preponderance of “Things that make you go, ‘Hmmmm…'” in this last election is, all totaled, enough to make anyone with an open mind go, “Holy MACKEREL!!”

  24. AesopFan, that’s interesting about the loyalty programs. I knew they were moneymakers for them but didn’t realize how big they’ve become.

    When the airlines were deregulated in 1978, the management at my old airline were from the hotel industry. They immediately put variable fares into effect – just like the hotel industry. That’s why two people sitting side by side on an airplane can have paid as much as $1000 difference in their fare. They called it “yield management.” I call it a scam. It opened the door for fare assemblers like Katak, Priceline, etc. to purchase tickets in bulk up to six months before the flight and resell them at a profit, yet less than the airline is charging. It’s a crazy business that has never made reliable money. Back when I started in the business (1968) mail contracts, cargo, and regulated fares were heling the airlines stay in business – barely.

    Deregulation turned the business into a real crap shoot. You could start an airline with leased aircraft, contract maintenance, and low-cost pilots. Those airlines could undercut the legacy carriers, but as they grew, they began to have to accumulate the same kind of overhead as the legacy outfits. Only a few (Southwest and Spirit) have had staying power. It’s a tough business.

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