Althouse: At the Friday Night Café...

July 7, 2023

At the Friday Night Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

42 comments:

Kai Akker said...: "The global baby bust is worsening - and the problem is deepest in countries that relied most heavily on mRNA Covid shots.

"Most notably, several nations that had stable birth levels before the mRNAs were introduced in 2021 have seen sharp drops since. Sweden had about 115,000 births annually from 2012 to 2021. Last year, births plunged to 105,000. In 2023, they are tracking below 100,000. Germany has a similar trend."

https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/very-urgent-the-fertility-crisis; 7/7/23, 6:36 PM
Kai Akker said...: A couple more graphs if you didn't go to the link.

"East Asian nations with near-universal mRNA jab uptake among adults already had shriveling birth rates. But since early 2022, they have seen births fall to levels previously considered unthinkable.

"The crisis is most profound in South Korea, a country of 51 million that had barely 600 births a day in April. The South Korean birthrate is now barely one-third the level needed to keep the country’s population stable. Taiwan and Japan are barely in better shape. Japan had almost twice as many deaths as births last year."

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=6329595&postID=1857841330894663239&page=0&token=1688772966564; 7/7/23, 6:38 PM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: Via Reddit: scape Afganistán only to be killed in Washington DC

No comment.; 7/7/23, 7:08 PM
Narr said...: So a three year old kid in SE Mmephis went missing last night and prompted a big search. His body was found today in a lake.

The tot was a person of color, and I was expecting to see some footage of a low-rent, or worse, 'hood. Not a bit of it. The homes are multistory faux chateaux on sizable lots, and the lake belongs to the subdivision.

Half, at least, of the local news stories about shootings--which happen around the clock here--show some very nice settings for thuggery and mayhem.

Reminds me of the saying, "It wasn't a slum when I lived there."; 7/7/23, 7:09 PM
wild chicken said...: Apparently something happened at the Ninth Circuit today affecting homelessness - a decision? A refusal to hear a case?

We'll never be able to move these guys again. No more sweeps. They get to squat in the nicest parts of town, rivers, parks and greenways.; 7/7/23, 7:46 PM
Rabel said...: Just to get this hypothetical off my chest, or back, actually:

If I could find the one person most responsible (not really possible) for the current rules and regulations on opioid prescriptions (DEA, FDA, State Medical Board) which cause even spinal surgeons much less GP's to refuse to offer pre-surgery relief for extreme, rolling on the floor crying pain to an established patient with no history of either use or abuse and enough metal in his broken back to build a new suspension for an Audi TT and I could get alone in a room (also not possible) with him or her I would cut that Mother Fucker up into little pieces and feed him or her to the fucking hogs. Idiocy.

So there.; 7/7/23, 7:56 PM
wild chicken said...: Ehh, found the Grant's Pass case.; 7/7/23, 7:59 PM
readering said...: An interesting lawsuit was filed today against top mergers and acquisitions firm Wachtell Lipton in San Francisco State Court. By X Corp., the successor to Twitter. Over the huge payment Twitter made to Wachtell minutes before the closing of Musk's acquisition last year. $84M, a mixture of money owed on hourly billings and a success fee to take Twitter's matter payments to Wachtell to $90M in total, if I remember right. It appears that the fee agreement had not provided for a success fee, but that it was standard practice for Wachtell to receive fees in successful M&A deals commensurate with the fees to investment bankers in the same deals. One question I would have is the deal provision on the treatment of Twitter cash. Was there a representation on how much cash Twitter would be expected to have on closing, where it would go, and any provision for shortfall or excess in the represented amount? The complaint makes accusations of breach of fiduciary duty against Twitter officers and directors who approved the 11th hour plus payment. But that lawsuit would presumably have to be filed in Delaware, and exculpation clauses and insurance would be factors there. X Corp is represented by a relatively young Texas firm, with a local counsel who shows his home as his business address. But I have litigated against that lawyer back when he was at a major firm, and he is not to be underestimated. The complaint and many exhibits of were not filed under seal, but I foresee fights by Wachtell on confidentiality going forward.; 7/7/23, 8:13 PM
walter said...: https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/nih-reversal-covid-vaccine-injury-chd-foia-lawsuit/; 7/7/23, 8:31 PM
Mr. Forward said...: "Washington Week in Review" on PBS has shortened it's name to "The View".; 7/7/23, 8:58 PM
Gusty Winds said...: If you open Microsoft Edge on a new computer, the propaganda on the home page is amazing.

It's ALL left wing propaganda.

And there are a shitload of Americans, dumbed down by the education establishment that believe it. They no longer have the attention span to question it. Wait until AI tells them what to think.

I don't know if I've lost hope, or just accepted reality.; 7/7/23, 9:08 PM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: YouTube: A piece of music that is "not trying to be anything"

"What you DIDN’T KNOW about this MASTERPIECE"

I've heard it in a few films.; 7/7/23, 9:35 PM
Chuck said...: Lawsuits I hope will lose:

Elon Musk sues the Wachtell law firm. As counsel for Twitter during the Musk hostile takeover, Wachtell successfully forced Musk to abide by the agreement he undertook. Wachtell got a $90m fee. They earned it by skillfully holding Musk to the bargain he wanted to escape at the 11th hour. The $90m apparently included $60m in "success fees" that Wachtell negotiated. A $60m bonus, on a $44 billion dollar deal.

Would it be too simplistic to say this was like a 60-cent tip on a $44 meal? I don't know the details on this latest litigation. But we should recall that the fight over holding Musk to his agreement to buy Twitter at $54.20 per share required Wachtell to sue Musk, and to defend Musk's counter-suit. What Wachtell did, in securing the successful consummation of the deal was not exactly a legal miracle. Most experts predicted litigation success for Twitter at the time; but it was hardly guaranteed, and the benefit to Twitter shareholders (for whom the Twitter board was duty-bound to secure the best deal) was enormous. A really good deal for Twitter shareholders. End of story.

Old saying; "The only lawyer more expensive than the best lawyer in town is the second best lawyer in town." Although lawyers can't do much to help you, if your CEO is Elon Musk. Or, Donald Trump. How do you build a $10m company? You take a $400m company and let Donald Trump run it.; 7/7/23, 9:36 PM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: Jordan Peterson tweet:

"YouTube censored @RobertKennedyJr on my podcast

The @TheDemocrats second-runner

Who needs Russians to interfere in a presidential campaign?

You're traitors @YouTube"

Had I been JP, I would have left that last missive out.

But, at the same time, when you have been cast as lunatic fringe, for making sense, it may be nearly impossible to remain civil.; 7/7/23, 10:13 PM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: Bret Weinstein Tweet:

"If a person finds their sex and their sexual identity are out of sync, which transition makes more sense?

1. Change perception to match the body (a normal, automatic process for most).

2. Alter the body to (partly and only superficially) match the perception."

I guess I'm pro-choice now.; 7/7/23, 10:24 PM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: Something you ought to know... In case you want to join Zuck new (Twitter clone) Threads.

Via Reddit r/AssHoleDesign: "So apparently you’ll lose your IG (Instagram) account if you try & delete your Threads account"; 7/7/23, 10:48 PM
Lexington Green said...: The Sex Pistols cover of No Fun is thrilling for the first minute or two, then sort of falls apart.; 7/7/23, 10:53 PM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: Tucker talking about what the DC Capitol Police chief told him about J6 is an additional piece of circumstantial evidence, that the 2020 election was... you guessed it.; 7/7/23, 10:56 PM
Political Junkie said...: The Manson lady was freed. She served a long sentence and appears to have changed. But my soul wants her dead. And dead 50 plus years ago.; 7/7/23, 11:23 PM
Political Junkie said...: Know your old when realizing that the screen can be enlarged to enjoy Althouse comments makes you happy!!; 7/7/23, 11:25 PM
madAsHell said...: Ya’ know...........I have no idea what’s going on in the White House, but Joe Biden is not in control.........of anything.; 7/7/23, 11:50 PM
gadfly said...: Former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly said in a sworn statement that former President Donald Trump asked about using the Internal Revenue Service to go after Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, a pair of FBI officials involved in the investigation into his campaign's ties to Russia, reported the New York Times on Friday.

That fits nicely with Judge Amy Berman Jackson's ruling late Thursday that Strzok and Page can have Trump deposed in lawsuits claiming wrongful termination from the FBI. The ruling came after DOJ asked that Trump's deposition be blocked because TFG didn't personally say "You're fired."; 7/8/23, 1:57 AM
wendybar said...: Gird your loins, China may be buying up American land at an outrageous pace...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12277263/USAF-investigates-mystery-company-thats-bought-55-000-acres-major-California-Air-Force-base.html; 7/8/23, 4:41 AM
wendybar said...: Crystal Hope
@CrystalHope1979
·

Meanwhile, China is training children to be fully gun capable before graduation. We raise rainbow pansies as they are raising an army.

https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/07/is-the-military-still-interested-in-defending-america/; 7/8/23, 4:45 AM
Tank said...: “ Gusty Winds said...
If you open Microsoft Edge on a new computer, the propaganda on the home page is amazing”

Same with EarthLink.; 7/8/23, 6:06 AM
Gahrie said...: Former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly said in a sworn statement that former President Donald Trump asked about using the Internal Revenue Service to go after Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, a pair of FBI officials involved in the investigation into his campaign's ties to Russia, reported the New York Times on Friday.

Yeah, because the administration before him totally, never did use the IRS to go after their political enemies. And there is absolutely no reason to suspect that they may have been paid off by anybody to violate their oaths of office and sabotage Trump's efforts in any way. /s; 7/8/23, 6:40 AM
ga6 said...: Forget it Jake, its the Ninth Circuit.; 7/8/23, 6:59 AM
Owen said...: gadfly, you are well named. From Wikipedia: “Botflies, also known as warble flies, heel flies, and gadflies, are a family of flies known as the Oestridae.Their larvae are internal parasites of mammals, some species growing in the host's flesh and others within the gut. Dermatobia hominis is the only species of botfly known to parasitize humans routinely, though other species of flies cause myiasis in humans.”; 7/8/23, 7:42 AM
Drago said...: "Elon Musk’s SpaceX Now Has a ‘De Facto’ Monopoly on Rocket Launches

The company’s rockets are ferrying astronauts, launching satellites and dominating any competition.

Satellite operators and government agencies doing business in space are increasingly dependent on one company to help them reach orbit: Elon Musk’s SpaceX."

Wall Street Journal
Micah Maidenberg
Follow
Updated July 7, 2023 12:35 am ET

How can that be? LLR-democratical, Violent Homosexual Rage Rape Fantasist and Strong Pro-groomer Policy Advocate Chuck has been regaling us with tales of Musk's non-existent business acumen and The Hopeless gadfly literally claimed on this very blogsite there were no real rocket scientists at SpaceX!

Such is the abuse leftists will heap on anyone who hurts the ChiComs global position and fights for free speech against the dem/left/LLR-left/deep state's attempt to strangle free discussion.

And with that, we will leave our resident tiny brained leftists Banned Commenter Chuck and gadfly where they belong: to comtinue stewing in their politically driven Dunning-Kruger ignorance.; 7/8/23, 8:08 AM
tim in vermont said...: Hillary’s campaign manager owned 75K shares of stock in a subsidiary of Gazprom, for services rendered. The main purpose of this “green energy” company was to sop up “green energy” grants from the US government. Nancy Pelosi’s son Paul was also involved in a company like that, but based in Ukraine. That corporation did go to the trouble of re-filing its paperwork to scrub Pelosi’s name from the list of founders, though.

Trump’s crime was that he thought that ratcheting up tensions with Moscow on behalf of a corrupt regime in Kiev was a bad idea, and history has proven him correct.; 7/8/23, 8:25 AM
donald said...: I just bought a new HP Gusty Winds. I spent the first few hours deleting page after page after page of propaganda before I gave up.; 7/8/23, 8:29 AM
Jupiter said...: Hush, Chuck. Hush.; 7/8/23, 9:23 AM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Is this the day without a sunrise photo or its substitute photo?; 7/8/23, 9:56 AM
Gahrie said...: Satellite operators and government agencies doing business in space are increasingly dependent on one company to help them reach orbit: Elon Musk’s SpaceX."

This is as much to do with everyone else's failures as SpaceX's success. Everyone else has stopped building older, effective rockets before they have managed to fully develop new emerging rockets, all of which are going to be obsolete before they fly.

Just for the record, SpaceX's success is as much due to Shotwell's professionalism as Musk's enthusiasm.; 7/8/23, 10:28 AM
Jersey Fled said...: I’m doing everything I can to never use a Microsoft product again. Relentless liberal propaganda aside, you can’t use Windows for more than 5 minutes without Microsoft trying to sell you something or making your computer impossible to use unless you do.

I’m posting this on an I-Pad, even though I hate Apple almost as much as I do Microsoft. I found myself telling my daughter the other day that I think Google protects my privacy better than Apple does. I’ve pretty much transitioned from Office (or whatever they’re calling it these days) to Google Docs and Sheets. It’s kind of quirky depending on the platform you run it on, but it’s free and so far I’ve seen no evidence that Alphabet is using anything there for market purposes. They seem to reserve G-Mail and Google Maps for that.

My other daughter’s company switched to Google for all of their office suite stuff during the Covid Scam because they ran the company virtually for two years and Google collaboration software was so much better. She was the one who tipped me off to Google.

I can’t believe I’m saying all these nice things about Google.; 7/8/23, 10:30 AM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Is this the day without a sunrise photo or its substitute photo?; 7/8/23, 10:50 AM
Owen said...: Jersey Fled @ 10:30: I hear you and I empathize. You are probably far more tech-savvy than I, but my instinct is (as I think yours is) would allow us to retreat from this corporate panopticon; this unwanted bazaar where a thousand bots pluck at our sleeves, trying to ingratiate themselves or, simply, jam home a harpoon of dependency. The loss of agency is quite palpable.

Let us know if you find a safe haven. Right now, I despair.

The loss of privacy is a HUGE change in our social (and thus our political) relationships.

Privacy is power. It's where we as individuals confront and consult with ourselves, our deep values. When Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg can peer and paw in that space, we are remarkably diminished. In fact, I don't know what's left.; 7/8/23, 11:31 AM
Michael K said...: Trump’s crime was that he thought that ratcheting up tensions with Moscow on behalf of a corrupt regime in Kiev was a bad idea, and history has proven him correct.

Boy, is that true ! Hillary went from her "reset button", misspelled of course, to "Trump is a Putin stooge" in one nanosecond once Trump was the nominee.; 7/8/23, 11:44 AM
Drago said...: Gahrie: "This is as much to do with everyone else's failures as SpaceX's success."

Yes, the only guy only with the correct future vision for heavy space launch capacity, planetary expansion-focus and launch vehicle reusability combined with revolutionary rapid R&D iterative design manufacturing, who found the few "old space" types who could make the leap beyond "old space" thinking and partnering them with "new space" thinkers, and then gambled his not very substantial at the time fortune and then pressed ahead in the early going when SpaceX was possibly one more early launch test failure away from closing up shop....

...yeah, that guy owes his success to others failures?

Try again

Gahrie: "Everyone else has stopped building older, effective rockets before they have managed to fully develop new emerging rockets, all of which are going to be obsolete before they fly."

Keep making my case for me. Its relaxing.

Gahrie: "Just for the record, SpaceX's success is as much due to Shotwell's professionalism as Musk's enthusiasm."

LOL

"enthusiasm"

Yeah, thats all Musk delivers. Happy vibes.

Shotwell would still be over there hanging out wuth ULA or Boeing or LM as one of the old space gang without Musk, like everyone else.

Example: in the early '00's during the famous lunch between Musk and Vezos, Bezos spent the bulk of his time describing Blue Origin's rocket engine design strategy. Musk listened in disbelief as it was all simply more of the same old stuff and Musk told Bezos that strategy would not work.

Bezos didnt listen and ULA didnt listen and the rest is history for those cats.

And here we are...because Musk is merely enthusiastic.; 7/8/23, 12:21 PM
Rusty said...: Jupiter said...
"Hush, Chuck. Hush."
I don't even bother reading him anymore. Since he lies reflexively. Waste of time.; 7/8/23, 12:56 PM
Rusty said...: I was in Huntington Beach yesterday.70s, sunny. Very crowded but nice. They don't seem to have the rampant homeless problem that LA does. Walked the pier to watch the surfers and see how the pier fishing was. Then walked down to the Longboard for a drink and nachos. Good nachos. There are parts that still have that small town feeling and the people reflect it.; 7/8/23, 2:10 PM
Gahrie said...: @Drago:

You haven't been paying attention. I have been a bigger fanboi of Musk than you for a much longer time than you. I have stated here and elsewhere that if I was a woman I would be desperately trying to have Musk's children and that I think he's the most important man of the 21st century even though it has just begun.

Giving credit for other people's efforts (Shotwell) in no way diminishes Musk. Remember he's the one who hired her.

Neither does pointing out other people's failures.; 7/8/23, 11:47 PM