DradisPing
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User ID: 1102
DradisPing
4mo ago
I'd recommend "The New Right" by Michael Malice, "Ship of Fools" by Tucker Carlson, and "The Case for Trump" by Victor Davis Hanson if you want to understand them.
One of the major issues is that the bureaucratic technocrat class has devoted most of their energy into setting up systems to prevent them from every having to face any serious consequences.
Pete Buttigieg is a great example. His Secretary of Transportation appointment was supposed to be an easy resume builder on his path to his Presidential run. He's been cocking it up, but everyone knows it won't hurt his political ambitions.
California should be the crown jewel example for bureaucratic Dems. But wherever competent management is needed you can see total failure. Electricity has been a disaster for over 20 years. The high speed rail project started planning in 1996 and has been a total failure throughout every step. Water planning is a disaster. Forest management to reduce fires is absent. The homelessness camps are entirely caused by mismanagement.
I could go on and on.
But to make it worse, DC is filled with people who have open contempt for the residents of "flyover states". They devote all of their energy to social signalling and fail at their actual jobs.
DradisPing
16d ago
That's the standard way for organized leftists to 1984 something from Wikipedia. Vote to merge the article in question with another semi-related article. Move over some of the content, redirect old links, delete the original article. Then vote to minimize and delete the moved over content as it doesn't really fit with the new article.
Every step can be argued as neutral, but the end result isn't.
DradisPing
5mo ago
Can you imagine being dumped by a girl because she wants a man old enough to buy her cigarettes? But you're 27?
It'll be interesting to see how the tobacco ban plays out for immigrants. I'm guessing that in 10 years the law just won't be enforced for PoC.
Weirdly, the usual weed legaliser types were in favour of the ban.
That's not surprising, the weed legalizers generally aren't libertarians. They just really really like weed.
DradisPing
2mo ago
2012 - 2016 is when the SF tech industry switched from "free speech and neutrality are critical for our growth" to "kicking around our political enemies is a whole lot of fun". I think Obama's re-election campaign was the turning point.
Ellen Pao was probably always more comfortable with censoring and control. But in her actions she was just following the prevailing winds in SF.
DradisPing
3mo ago
But back to the topic at hand; it's unclear what Abbott's actual game is; he's an accomplished constitutional lawyer(literally; that's how he became governor) and knows he's going to lose at court. He's also never been the reckless type and so it's unlikely he did this without thinking it through. Angling for a Trump cabinet seat, maybe? It also surprises me that he did this now; primaries are coming up in March, and Abbott endorsed a relatively wide array of candidates to try to shift the house in a more partisan republican direction; taking a political risk like this one is unlike him.
His problem was that he had to be seen as doing something. His credibility was low with the right.
He's been off side with the base regarding some recent legal issues. Alex Jones was getting railroaded by a far left judge in Austin and Abbott didn't even make a token comment about due process. A bunch of Bushies were upset about Ken Paxton beating George P Bush and teamed up with the Dems to impeach him in a process that abused the rules. After Paxton won Abbott sent out a press release congratulating him on winning a fair trail instead of admitting the problems with the process.
So Abbott needs to shore up his credibility with the right.
Picking a fight over the border is attractive for a number of reasons.
- Biden's border policies are extremely unpopular, to the point that his administration wants to avoid delineating them. Forcing Garland to take them to court likely means forcing the Biden admin
- Under Trump the legal left took the position that States had a number of rights to defy federal immigration law and enforcement. This puts them in a position where they need to oppose their own legal briefs from five years ago.
- Any legal fight will take years and keep illegal immigration in the news for that time. If Biden tries to do something extreme it more of an opportunity for Abbott.
DradisPing
6mo ago
It's pretty well documented that university leftists will aggressively block hires and promotions for purely ideological reasons. They gang up on the farthest right person, get rid of them, then move on to the next farthest right.
Also many on the left, even the more moderate, have a "no enemies to the left" frame of view where they see anyone farther to the left as a harmless idealist who won't be dangerous if you don't aggravate them.
DradisPing
11mo ago
What's historically unprecedented is that so much of culture is owned.
It's natural and even desirable for writers to reuse existing characters. The audience doesn't need to be introduced to them and you can get on with the story.
Traditionally writers used gods, demigods, saints, historic figures, etc.
Nowadays everyone is locked down by copyright and trademarks. Studios like that. Re-using old characters is also good for keeping out foreign competition.
It's hard to imagine a new Star Wars (the original) or anything like it coming out today - a big, bold, truly original vision with a budget.
The original Star Wars had a relatively low budge for the time. No one else was pushing VFX at the time so Lucas could recruit top talent cheaply. Also he understood the technology and built his script around cool shots that were possible.
DradisPing
7mo ago
I'll be honest about my feelings towards unions: I don't get it at all, and I think I'm missing something.
There's a lot of history there and a lot of competing interests. It's probably worth reading this: http://www.paulgraham.com/unions.html
I think you'd be insane to not just fire anybody who joins a union on the spot. I don't get how places can "vote to unionize". Why does the employer not simply fire the people doing the organizing?
There are explicit laws against that. Unions in general have a lot of laws to protect them. Read up on Pinkerton strike breaking.
The owner of the "Giant Tiger" chain of stores in Canada likes to joke that "you don't get unions unless you deserve them". I don't think that's entirely true, but early unions were created in response to genuinely horrible treatment.
Are the people running factory machines inside of Ford and GM (or starbucks, or a hollywood writers room) really that highly skilled?
More or less yes. Starbucks isn't terribly high skilled, but a key part of the atmosphere is the preppy gayish vibes they curate in their employees. They needed to do a lot of careful hiring and firing to get that while staying within the bounds of the law.
Hollywood is actually a case of very functional unions. Each production is a new company, so everyone is fired afterwards. The union can't force anyone to employ low performing employees. So standards are enforced by constantly having to be rehired and treatment is enforced by the union. Writers getting royalties makes a lot of sense. Without them writers would save all of their best ideas for a time when they were co-producers and could share in the profits that way.
Skilled autoworkers do deserve decent pay and are difficult to replace. One issue is that the janitorial staff will often get better contract than they deserved, and the union representing them is stuck fighting for raises on top of an already overpriced salary.
Autoworkers and old industry are very interesting. Their golden age has passed, but a lot of unions still expect generous contracts.
Unions are often overly adversarial in the US. I have a controversial explanation for this -- the culture was strongly influenced by soviet spies who wanted to sabotage US industry. The KGB was certainly trying, and had a lot of connections on the left. I admit I can't prove they succeeded.
But countries closer to the iron curtain tended to have more reasonable unions. Germany has national unions based on job type instead of local unions for each company. That makes them more accepting of contracts that are in line with industry standards even if they don't offer big raises.
American unions will bankrupt a company then shrug and say they were just representing their workers, who are now all unemployed.
Unions in the US (and Canada) also like to start taking over management roles, which creates conflicts of interest. Controlling shifts and vacation dates. Sometimes people need a way to protect themselves from an abusive union rep. As far as I know no one has managed to organize a sub-union to curtail union abuses, but I think it could happen.
DradisPing
10mo ago
But I would expect people on the right - and I mean all those talking heads, think tanks and high-flying politicians - be interested in figuring out whether DIE actually makes the army stronger - and if not, pushing that fact hard. I don't think I am seeing this.
One of Biden's first orders was to implement political purges in the military to establish firm left wing control. So the right isn't so keen on having a functional military at the moment.
The red tribe has been refusing to sign up since that announcement was made.
The right already lost much easier cases. Women in combat. Women on ships. Trans soldiers on hormone treatments know to cause suicidal thoughts. Female soldiers don't have to meet the strength standards men do and have to find men to help them move heavy equipment. I've heard of navy ships crippled from having to send home large numbers of pregnant women.
It's forbidden for officers to have sex with women under their command, but pregnancy tests are never done.
The immigration fast track for services isn't obviously terrible, so the right has no chance of winning the fight.
Also I believe it's actually an expanded version of an already existing program. I remember hearing about it circa 2012 or so. It's possible it was just being proposed.
DradisPing
10mo ago
Part of the issue is that Shakespeare is public domain so anyone can do whatever they want with it.
Tolkien products are all licensed. These race swapped cards mean that fans will never get a card game with a book accurate Aragorn.
Additionally activists tend to see these swaps as permanent and will demand black Aragorn in all future adaptations.
DradisPing
6mo ago
Dems in safe seats (Biden+30) in congress are all ideologically on side with the base. The ones who make cross floor deals are in more marginal seats that they are afraid to lose.
The Reps in congress are very different. A lot of them in safe seats try to keep their public profile low and vote to keep the Rep DC power brokers happy in the hopes of lining up a lucrative job post office.
They form a decent chunk of the R congressional congress but their views have no electoral support. They lie at election time and they'll lose if they are exposed. However they are used to running things in DC (on the R side) without any questions from the base and expect that arrangement to continue.
So this is a precursor to cleaning up the house caucus. Ken Buck has upset local supporters so much that he lost his sweetheart deal for his congressional office and is being evicted.
I'm not particularly concerned about congress being locked up. When it's "functional" it's just going to dump billions into things I don't want it to while performing pantomime investigations so they can claim they are holding Biden accountable.
DradisPing
6mo ago
SF voted to ban homeless tents on streets years ago, a judge stepped in and forced them to allow it.
These sort of things aren't decided democratically in California. The bill will fail but then a left wing group will get a friendly judge to mandate it's major points.
DradisPing
3mo ago
E Jean Carroll's account is inherintly less beliveable because she has no evidence of contact. It's just a claim that a random celebrity raped her in a store fitting room years ago.
Tara Reade at least had verifiable professional contact with Biden.
I have a problem with both accounts. Carroll comes off as a nutter. Reade looks like she's coming forward because of some other grevances. I think Reade could be exagerating.
DradisPing
3mo ago
I think Moldbug nailed it with his analysis. Researchers want to work on the most important problems in their fields. In viral research it's deadly airborne diseases. There's a shortage of deadly pandemic viruses to study, so they create them. That way they have something to write papers on.
DradisPing
4mo ago
"I'll repeal Obamacare and give everyone MUCH BETTER healthcare!"
This is always framed as a swipe at Trump, but it really shows how incompetent the establishment GOP is. They have hundreds, if not thousands, of people working for think tanks, policy assistants, lobbyists, etc who were supposed to be crafting a Republican alternative to Obamacare. They had multiple votes to repeal Obamacare before Trump was a political player.
It turns out they had no plan. Apparently they were just cashing paycheques and playing Candy Crush.
John McCain repeatedly voted to repeal Obamacare, campaigned in 2016 on repealing Obamacare, then cast the deciding vote to save Obamacare. He was hailed as a hero by the press for opposing Trump, but he knew that there was no plan to replace Obamacare for all of those votes and during his campaign.
Trump just assumed someone in GOP healthcare policy had done their job in the past six years.
Legislation is the job of the legislative branch. The President should have input, but he shouldn't be expected to go into more depth than broad strokes about ideas he supports and opposes.
DradisPing
9mo ago
I think schools should have libraries, but I admit I'm not sold on the importance of advanced degrees in library science.
DradisPing
1mo ago
Here's a big point you're missing:
Video games stole the action movie audience. These days if a young man wants to see some explosions, gun fights, and mild titillation he's not going to go to a movie theatre.
DradisPing
3mo ago
What does he provide over Desantis/Haley/Ramaswamy? He didn't build the wall the first time, why would he do it now?
He tried to build the wall but was blocked by Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell.
DeSantis is an old pal of Paul Ryan and has been getting campaign advice from him. He's likely to be talked into not doing anything on the border and only paying lip service to MAGA policy items.
Haley is funded by Bilderburg billionaires like Reid Hoffman. She would never ever try to build the wall. Her major goals would be American troops in Ukraine and Syria.
Trump did deliver economic gains for blue collar workers that DC types have been insisting were impossible for generations. He avoid starting new wars. He improved trade deals. For the "borders conservatism" voter he was the most successful President in a long time. He delivered some major wins in the face of intense opposition from the establishment.
Voting in an establishment friendly politician would be silly.
DradisPing
10mo ago
California officially banned racial quotas in universities in the mid-90s. Schools responded by doing detailed evaluations where the results just happened to exactly match the now banned quotas.
DradisPing
4mo ago
No sane country wants to risk getting their national power grid shut down any time the state department is upset with them.
Plenty of countries, including the US, will export nuclear reactors: https://oec.world/en/profile/hs/nuclear-reactors
Which countries are you expecting to be clients of this program?
DradisPing
5mo ago
On the other hand, I have heard a lot about the alleged "rise of the far right" in Ireland over the course of the last few years, and the fact that it happened so soon after Geert Wilders' election is certainly odd timing.
I think there are a few factors.
A big one is the CIA and State Department. They've traditionally viewed right wing parties in Europe as the enemy, and made efforts to keep them from winning. However they've been incredibly distracted the last few years by the Afghanistan withdrawal, China, and focussing on Ukraine / Russia as well as neighbouring countries in Eastern Europe. Note that the right wing party in Poland just lost.
Pro-Hamas protests have brought longstanding issues with integration of people from poor Muslim countries to the forefront. The excuse from the internationalist types has always been that they just need time, but after 20 years of hearing that people can see the situation has gotten worse, not better.
Another issue is a general economic decline in Europe. Things aren't awful, but they aren't great and there's less faith in the long term outlook. So people aren't feeling as generous as they used to.
DradisPing
7mo ago
There are a few reasons for the lack of candidates...
First the racial organizing that the Dems do. It's worked out well for them for the past 40 years, but there is a problem. It's hard to make a jump from being the top black organizer or the top hispanic organizer to being a leader of the entire state. So the ethnic organizers can't jump into leadership, but they are also too powerful and experienced to be thrilled about falling in line behind some white guy in his 40s. So boomer politicians (and earlier) tend to dominate because they have influence going back to before ethnic organizing was dominant.
So big rich blue states that should have deep talent pools have past their prime senators occupying space who can never launch a presidential run. To name some names, Dianne Feinstein, Dick Durbin, Chuck Schumer, Patty Murray. Old Republicans like Mitch McConnell tend to represent lower gdp states where a replacement won't have the resume to launch a presidential run.
Next the Obama effect. Obama was more popular than his policies, he was dragging them into power with his charisma. However at the state governor level he was toxic. Dem politicians without his charisma or ability to excite black voters had to run defending his policies. So purple states were not generating politicians that could make presidential runs.
There are other factors. The two Obama terms were expected to be followed by two Hilary terms, so anyone planning to run for president before 2024 just didn't get involved.
There's also a split between how left wing the press expects a D nominee to be and where the country is. Keep in mind that Obama campaigned in 2008 as a prays every day Christian who believed marriage was a union of one man and one woman.
DradisPing
11d ago
Apparently the arrest warrant just said "the court" without any reference to a specific court or case number so everyone involved should have known is was invalid. No criminal liability but they are going to be sued individually.
DradisPing
9mo ago
Disney's PR team is very very good at manipulating entertainment reporters and online forums. They no how to kick up a mob to attack a competing movie.
Reviewing films is actually quite hard. You get to watch them once and you need to come out with some kind of take based on your notes. You need to do this with multiple movies. Often they are watched without much of a break.
So there's plenty of room for a friendly PR person to offer some notes about other studios movies that are easy to string into an article.
My take is that Disney is upset about TSOF embarrassing the new Indiana Jones movie and in response they are kicking up a culture war storm. A lot of reporters are joining in the gang pile because it's fun and easy.
Beyond that, a lot of people in DC at places like the State Department see the cartels as useful. The CIA has most likely been co-ordinating & manipulating them quite a bit over the years.
Movies that paint the cartels as scary badasses who are just trying to make money getting cocaine to consenting adults are OK.
Movies that point to child exploitation or fentanyl deaths in the US make the CIA look bad by association, so they are attacked.
In the past I've heard a lot of jokes about "The People's Republic of Pennsylvania". I don't know much about the state, but the Secretary of Agriculture has been making news lately.
The latest evolving story is about Rusty Herr and Ethan Wentworth who ran a bovine reproductive services company called "NoBull Sires, LLC".
The dispute arose back in 2010 because the Ag Department sent them a cease and desist plus a statement of fine on the grounds that using an ultrasound was practicing veterinary medicine without a license. The counter argument was that the Ag Department was out of scope of the law. Routine checks don't meet the requirement of "diagnosis and treatment" for practising veterinary medicine, even if they involve an ultrasound machine.
Notably the Ag Department seems to have never filed the paperwork with a court, which is a prerequisite for enforcement. So they were likely aware of the legal issues. In 2020 the Pennsylvania Veterinary Medicine Association sent a complaint to the Department of State.
On April 10-11, 2024 they were arrested and sent to jail for 30 days for "contempt of court". The problem is that the Ag Department seems to have issued the arrest warrant on their own. The case has never been in court. They have not been before a judge.
So they are both in jail serving a 30 day sentence that didn't involve a judge and they haven't been allowed to see a judge.
There is a culture war angle here. The press seems to be reluctant to get involved for a few reasons. These days they like to defer to the bureaucracy, particularly when the Governor is from the right party. Plus Pennsylvania is in play for 2024 so they are reluctant to kick up a fuss that could help Trump.
I'm only finding coverage in the farming press right now and they don't really dive into the legal issues.
https://www.lancasterfarming.com/farming-news/news/livestock-ultrasound-operators-jailed-accused-of-unlicensed-vet-practice/article_39004570-fcd8-11ee-8396-1f8ec41b214f.html
https://agmoos.com/2024/04/17/pregnancy-is-not-a-disease-two-men-jailed-without-bail-for-repro-ultrasounding-of-dairy-cows/
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