Category: Uncategorized

In Which Hinderaker… Wildly Miscalculates, About One Elon Musk / Twitter.

~ condor ~ Leave a comment

Really nothing new — almost all of John’s hot takes have been, for almost fifteen years running now… deeply ill-informed.

Here, he cheers Musk as his (and Tangerine’s) savior — for hateration (hate speech), misogyny and lies — on Twitter.

What Hinderaker doesn’t realize is… this is all part of Musk’s grand green plan. A plan to profit wildly, by going to electrification. [In this case, Musk will push local governments in sunny and/or windy counties at least, to adopt laws requiring a 2032 or earlier complete switch-over to home heating by electric only. And he will be the dominant seller of solar solutions, off grid — along with the dominant battery supplier in both the single-family home, and small to large business arenas.]

That is why he needs a bully-pulpit.

In sum, to prove Hinderaker’s falsely sanguine climate claims are as… stupid as Hinderaker is. John missed the Musk/Dorsey memo — on building mega solar and wind energy off-grid mines, in West Texas — as a proof of the economics, here.

John is going to be cursing the day he praised Musk, and very shortly so.

Hilarious. But now, let us enlighten Hinderaker — with our reporting from another property — let us… educate him:

Welp. Elon’s amended Schedule 13D is on file now, at the SEC. As I said last night, between his sh!t-posting on Twitter itself over the weekend, and the complications he made for himself, in not promptly disclosing his creeping street sweep of about nine per cent, at the SEC. . . Twitter is lucky to have this as the (even temporary) outcome.

Sure — he may spend another ~$3 billion to get north of 15 per cent of Twitter — but I don’t think that is his aim. So, so far — he’s bought a ~$3.5 billion NFT called “The Twitter Chucklehead Prize“. Someone didn’t advise him well, or more likely, he didn’t seek advice — as normally, one would want at least four seats on the board, for that kind of a down-stroke.

The guy is, in many ways… an “emotional intelligence level” infant (like Martin Shkreli is). I would expect Twitter will be fine — and Elon will not seek out a group, to go hostile for Twitter. He will make noise, but who cares, really? The whole thing mostly demonstrates he’s been… outplayed. Here’s his amended disclosure of a few moments ago, in full:

…Pursuant to the April 4, 2022 letter Agreement, the Reporting Person was invited to serve on the board of directors (the “Board”) of the Issuer. On April 9, 2022, the Reporting Person informed the Issuer that he is not joining the Board.

The Reporting Person [Elon Musk] holds the Common Stock of the Issuer for investment purposes. Depending on the factors discussed herein, the Reporting Person may, from time to time, acquire additional shares of Common Stock and/or retain and/or sell all or a portion of the shares of Common Stock held by the Reporting Person in the open market or in privately negotiated transactions, and/or may distribute the Common Stock held by the Reporting Person to other entities. Any actions the Reporting Person might undertake will be dependent upon the Reporting Person’s evaluation of numerous factors, including, among other things, the price levels of the Common Stock, general market and economic conditions, ongoing evaluation of the Issuer’s business, financial condition, operations and prospects, the relative attractiveness of alternative business and investment opportunities, investor’s need for liquidity, and other future developments.

From time to time, the Reporting Person may engage in discussions with the Board and/or members of the Issuer’s management team concerning, including, without limitation, potential business combinations and strategic alternatives, the business, operations, capital structure, governance, management, strategy of the Issuer and other matters concerning the Issuer. The Reporting Person may express his views to the Board and/or members of the Issuer’s management team and/or the public through social media or other channels with respect to the Issuer’s business, products and service offerings….

Except as set forth above, the Reporting Person has no present plans or intentions which would result in or relate to any of the transactions described in subparagraphs (a) through (j) of Item 4 of Schedule 13D [seeking a change of control]. However, the Reporting Person reserves the right to change his plans at any time, as he deems appropriate, and in light of his ongoing evaluation of numerous factors, including, among other things, the price levels of the Common Stock, general market and economic conditions, ongoing evaluation of the Issuer’s business, financial condition, operations and prospects, the relative attractiveness of alternative business and investment opportunities, Reporting Person’s need for liquidity, and other future developments….

Vanguard will be the adult in the room, now over 10 per cent — and a steady state investor. There will now be others, to insulate Twitter from these “Musk-ian” gyrations. That’s my take on it. Smiling into a new week, here… eldest baby girl off to England, then Morocco and Portugal — come Wednesday, for a few months. We will miss her… smile.

नमस्ते

Philadelphia Will Reinstate Indoor Mask Mandates, Starting Next Monday — BA.2 Spike Cited… Right Thing To Do.

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It was always sort of inevitable — even though it seems deaths aren’t spiking (yet), with BA.2 the variant, at least not like they did with Omicron and Delta — some wise city’s leaders would put momentary, minor discomfort in second place, behind widely documented, and now clearly-increased… safety — particularly for the immune compromised, and elderly… in their city [in this case, the City of Brotherly Love — apt, at that].

The local Philly papers have it all well covered:

…By resuming the indoor mask mandate, city officials hope to stave off another surge in hospitalizations and deaths that could accompany the current case increase that appears to be caused by the BA.2 omicron subvariant.

“If we fail to act now, knowing that every previous wave of infections has been followed by a wave of hospitalizations and a wave of deaths, it’ll be too late for many of our residents,” Health Commissioner Cheryl Bettigole said during a briefing Monday.

Bettigole noted that 750 Philadelphians died in three months over the winter during the omicron wave….

And now… you know. Better safe than… sorry (or… dead). Onward, to a better tomorrow.

नमस्ते

More Proof That USDC Judge Drew Bruce Tipton, Down In Texas, Has Opened A Can Of Worms He Cannot Understand — Let Alone… Control.

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We note that the intrepid would-be jurist has taken “under advisement” what he calls “post trial briefs” from the States of Texas and Louisiana — and (of course) the Biden Administration’s Deputy AGs’ Offices. And as regular readers know, we’ve long pointed out that he has no jurisdiction here; and should never have held a trial, at all.

In fact, the Fifth Circuit (the circuit that covers his own trial court, for appeals), in a case eerily similar to his (on an executive order related to a matter of plenary Executive Branch powers) — on appeal, dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, as we detailed last week. He should take note of that… and dismiss this one. [Generally excellent Biden Administration brief here — from mid last week.]

But he won’t. He took the case to be able (primarily) to make political speechs, from the bench — in the form of written rulings (likely to be handed out in his future run for state- or national elected office, of one kind or another). But his clerks are allowing into the record… obvious falsehoods, in these “post-trial” briefs — and are in real danger of copy-pasting them into whatever final opinion he issues. So the Biden Administration pointed this out at the end of last week, in a one page follow up reply brief:

…Defendants provide this reply to address the States’ incomplete and misleading picture about ICE’s detention operations. See Pls.’ Resp. at 9 (ECF No. 231). As explained in Defendants’ proposed findings of fact, ICE book-ins were greater in each month from October 2021 through February 2022, as compared to October 2019 through February 2020. Defs.’ Post-Tr. Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law ¶ 60 (ECF No. 222). A greater share of book-ins, however, resulted from CBP arrests, rather than interior enforcement, as a result of increased enforcement at the border. Id. (citing Declaration of Peter Berg ¶ 18, AR_DHSP_00006029).

Further, in their post-trial response brief, the States cite a news article for the proposition that there was a large drop in removals in Fiscal Year 2021, which predated the effective date of the September Guidance. See Pls.’ Resp. at 9-10. But that news article fails to account for the fact that between January 2021 and July 2021, DHS expelled more than 600,000 noncitizens covered by the CDC’s public health Order, which was not issued until the middle of Fiscal Year 2020….

It is… exhausting to keep track of these sets of specious litigation matters, in Texas… as they should long ago have been put under a granite headstone captioned “Dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.” But so it goes… we will grin through it all — because this, this — is what winning looks like. Even if ugly — it is still… winning.

नमस्ते

More Hate-Filled Hinderaker-isms — On Asylum Seekers.

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There is scant reason to go into a detailed dismantling of his slap-dash non-coherence on the arrival of undocumented humans, and issues surrounding them.

That is so, because (in addition to being based on patently false premises)… we have done this dance more than a hundred times before, here. Just search “Flores” or “Ms. L” or “East Bay”, in the search box at right.

You’re welcome. G’night to all of good will… which plainly excludes the liar Hinderaker.

Out.

Ooh… Project… Much, Hinderaker?!

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Here we see John simply copy-pasting a Horowitz hate belch.

John headlines his copy / paste as “progressivism is a criminal enterprise.” Or some such.

That’s… hilarious. From the guy who has advocated for a new confederacy — Texas/Florida to try to be its own whyte homeland. [Problem is… too many brown and black people already live in this new confederacy. You can’t make up… dumb shite, like his.]

Advocated for the removal of First Amendment rights to peacably assemble — but only if the crowd is progressive or left-leaning.

Advocated for more freedom to open carry AR-15s with hollow-point rounds… at your local Wal-Mart. Advocated for no psych-eval before letting AR-15s with bumpstock magazines loose in local communities. Also a “no” — to mandated training in safe use of them is appropriate he says.

Advocated for repealing free press / speech rights, in newspapers of general circulation — but only to the extent that the paper is critical of hard right GOP views and party members.

Advocated for denying abortions in the case of incest or rape — but promptly wants to dump brown babies — once born to poorer families — on the streets.

And… all of that is BEFORE we get to his defense of four and a half years of felony graft by the Trump family at the White House. Selling the US government off, to the highest bidders, in COVID relief, voting machine trademarks, hotel and apartment leases, private space endeavors and many other matters.

I could go on, but why — really? It is clear which one… is the party of crime: GOP.

Like Steve Hayward… his is all simply… projection — of his own lawlessness, and immorality.

Cheers.

[U; Bumped To 2022] A Merck Nobel Prize — For River Blindness Cure; Pacific Trade Pact Reached [Originally Posted In October 2015.]

~ condor ~ 1 Comment

Updated: 04.10.2022 — Yes. I know that Candace Owens’ staff uses duck-go-go to search for material which yields the connection to my work documenting Merck’s decades long role in eradicating the scourge of river blindness, in Africa.

And yes. I know they are trying to make the case that using animal medicines might cure COVID-19 — and I am aware that the latest studies find no decrease in hospitalizations or deaths, from using the above. So, sadly — I need to deface this fine seven year old… post, reprinted below as it seems Tennessee — where Owens presently calls home — is poised to make ivermectin an “over the counter” (non-prescription) “homeopathic” type remedy… inside the Volunteer State. That’s… deplorable — steer clear, you good people of Tennessee. Good Lord [will the Tennessee state house next bring back blood-lettings?!].

All of this is largely the result of dangerous mis-information, from Candace Owens-Farmer (who holds no medical qualifications of any sort, and though I wouldn’t ordinarily mention it — didn’t even complete college; yet she acts as a medical adviser to the least educated in the Tangerine/Q-GOP, on the regular).

I do wish FDA would send her a warning letter, as it did Jim Bakker, for his snake-oil / colodial silver COVID-19 cure claims.

Out. End update.

[Published October 5, 2015:] Delivered in round-up fashion — the bigger news first: Dr. William C. Campbell (depicted at right), during a 33 year Merck career as a bio-science researcher (since retired), along with two others, has won a Nobel Prize in Medicine — for work on Ivermectin, the drug largely responsible for nearly eliminating river blindness in sub-Saharan Africa. Kudos!

In addition, as we mentioned late on Friday, the Trans-Pacific Trade treaty has this morning been agreed by all involved nations. Now begins a 90 day waiting period in the US, while Congress studies the pact. Then (because Congress cannot prevent it), Mr. Obama will sign it.

Here is the bit on Dr. Campbell — via the Gray Lady:

…William C. Campbell and Satoshi Omura won for developing a new drug, Avermectin. A derivative of that drug, Ivermectin, has nearly eradicated river blindness and radically reduced the incidence of filariasis, which causes the disfiguring swelling of the lymph system in the legs and lower body known as elephantiasis….

So much is new — and to be hopeful for — just as though new life… is arriving. Onward!

नमस्ते

Steve Hayward Seems To Think No One Knows… He Is An Invenerate, Shamelessly… Endless Liar.

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So, this Palm Sunday morning, Hayward tells a long litany of lies, both about federal government reports, and the state of the US electorate… all so he can deliver this punchline:

…but with increasingly loud calls from the left, to normalize pedophilia….

That is… risible — and deeply ironic, all on one. If anything, I think he means… Matt Gaetz (R., FL), the Tennessee GOP members seeking to rid the state statutes there of the requirement that a woman or man be of a certain age, to legally wed (in other words, in the most common cases, to allow men 30 or more years older than their 14 year old prey… to sign them into a life-time of indentured sexual servitude — as one rural Tennessee lawmaker seems to have already accomplished)… or, the former 45th prez., Tangerine himself… a well-documented predator — around the teen-age contestants at his supposed “beauty pageants” in the 2000-2010 time-frames.

So — yet again, the psychological studies documenting the phenomenon of “projection” is here applicable: Steve plainly blames “the left” for things he is uncomfortable about, in his own party — if not his own psyche.

Onward — just look at these malevolent whyte fools — old, dying, decrepitly embittered fools, all. They’ve been… unmasked, for the world to see.

And, they are being assigned to the ash-bin of US history, as we write.

[Power-Alley:] Ebola Therapeutics: Solid “In The Field, During An Outbreak” Data Supports The Thesis That Ebanga® (ansuvimab) And/Or Inmazeb® (REGN-EB3) Is A Highly Effective Therapy…

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We haven’t looked in on the still-unfolding, ever-evolving learnings here in months — related to the scourge that is… Ebola.

And given that there is no present outbreak in Sub-Saharan Africa (all quiet there, thankfully), and it is a sunny, quiet Sunday morning — I decided to read up, a bit. This is very encouraging news, from The New England Journal of Medicine: in the daunting, generally non-sterilized environmental conditions that prevail in Équateur-, and Kinshasa- Province, Congo, a seven fold decrease in risk of death was seen in the most recent prior (eleventh) outbreak in Congo, for patients who could be reached with a complex cocktail of biological therapies (in truth, not entirely unlike the Regeneron and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics cocktail-based therapy given Tangerine, when he had an acute COVID bout at Walter Reed in 2020).

The Regeneron monoclonal antibodies approach does seem to work well against a widening array of viral outbreaks, from SARS to COVID to Ebola. That is very encouraging, even if the price point is fairly astronomical. Here is the March 2022 NEJM abstract:

…[T]he surveillance teams recorded 119 confirmed and 11 probable EVD cases in Équateur Province; 72 of the patients (55%) were male and 30 (23%) were 18 years of age or younger (Table 1). The mean (±SD) baseline nucleoprotein cycle-threshold value on polymerase-chain-reaction testing among the 117 patients with confirmed EVD was 27.0±3.5. A total of 20 patients (15%) reported previous receipt of the rVSVΔG-ZEBOV-GP vaccine….

After written informed consent had been obtained, EVD-specific treatment was given to 32 patients with confirmed EVD under an expanded-access protocol approved by the ethics committee of the University of Kinshasa (17 patients received ansuvimab and 15 received REGN-EB3); 98 patients did not receive any EVD-specific treatment. In total, 55 deaths were recorded (42% of the patients). The percentage of patients who died was lower in the group that received EVD-specific treatment than in the group that did not receive such treatment (6% [95% confidence interval {CI}, 1 to 21] vs. 54% [95% CI, 44 to 64])….

The NEJM data is embedded in the image at upper right. Click to enlarge if you like. But this is an extraordinary moment in human history — we are lucky to be alive to witness it — as bit by bit, the curtain is being drawn back, in our expanding understanding of how naturally occurring human proteins may be the best route to blunting dangers to cells of all sorts, from viral loads to cancers. Onward, smiling widely, now… be excellent to one another… as a butterfly takes wing... under a bridge on the Chicago River, at Michigan Avenue… this morning, and just nine years ago, on that fateful morning.

नमस्ते

Yes, Hinderaker: It Is… “None Of Your Business” — To Criticize The Pope, On HIS Faith.

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As a former officiant, in what was known as Catholicism in Boulder and later in Chicago (though, in truth I’ve renounced both versions…) I can authoritatively say John knows nothing of the Catholic faith.

Catholics uniformly eschew evangelism — or “trying to convert”, as he inartfully puts it.

But that is among the smallest of things he gets wrong about Pope Francis.

He told his Vatican guide some years ago that he shouldn’t offer his opinion of the Catholic Church.

He should have stopped right there. We have long known John doesn’t understand the social gospel. Or more likely, he despises what it asks of him. See John 25:31-46.

So I’ll stop there before opining any more on what he regards as his faith.

Out, grinning. After John the XXIII, the current Pope is among my favorites — as far as that goes.

The Crypto-Millennial CEOs… Are Generally… Pretty Feckless. Y A W N.

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This guy, Powell, as I’ve said at my other property, repeatedly… is no exception.

A very mediocre 40-something white guy, with a pretentious pony-tail… running a ones and zeros “exchange”… he actually “makes”… nothing, but ones and zeros.

To be sure, he loved it when he first settled in San Fran a decade ago… but now… is mightily annoyed, by being pan-handled, around the Market Street offices.

Charming. But let’s be clear: that is about all this is. None of his business visitors have been “murdered” or even “robbed”. No, they only had to suffer the indignity of saying no to a homeless person… likely one with mental health-, and likely personal hygiene- issues.

There was a time, when public company CEOs acted as stewards to their cities, and to the shareholders, as well.

For this man, Powell — and his now dying Ayn Randian philosophy… that time has ended. He wants all the benefit of unregulated capitalism for his crypto-exchange, but is unwilling to constructively engage, in helping out — helping a city and her leaders, which gives him so much — an arts life, a highly skilled work-force and gorgeous bay views… with much of anything really.

Sad — but predictable.

See ya’ young Powell — wouldn’t want to be ya’.

Out.