2024-01-06

• Our Jan6 Journal is up! Extracts from personal logs for the week of Jan 6 2021; the prequel to these Daily News pages.

Worthy

• (2006) Gramscian damage – Armed and Dangerous

  • Why must Star Wars be made "to make men uncomfortable?" Because people found meaning in it.

etc

• Multigenerational Living Often Makes Sense. That Doesn't Make It Easy

• Deep sword geekery: Collections: The Journey of the Roman Gladius and Other Swords

• Evidence that we have been living in an increasingly risk-averse culture

• Japan earthquake death toll crosses 100

• Fire strikes New Jersey's historic Singer sewing machine factory

Horseshit

• How to avoid the cognitive hooks and habits that make us vulnerable to cons

• Most Americans Are 'Dying Broke'

• Cheap and They Don't Snitch: Drones Are the New Drug Mules

  • HN comments

• Certain ways that "try harder" can be a bad strategy

• Get ready to hear more about "pre-internet" times

• Fired Comedian Ordered to Get Day Job Back After Jokes Ruled 'Simply Funny'

• A week with a Ford F-150 Lightning: This truck is too big for city life

• EV Market Shows What Happens When Companies Heed Planners Instead of Consumers

• Ford loses $66k on each EV it makes

• Boeing wants FAA to exempt MAX 7 from safety rules to get it in the air

  • HN comments

• Driverless Truck Companies Plan to Ditch Human Copilots in 2024

• Unpredictable but Possible Events That Could Throw 2024 into Turmoil

• Americans living in their cars are finding refuge in 'safe parking lots'

• Aliens at a Miami mall? Police say 'lol'

celebrity gossip

• Oscar Pistorius released on parole

• "Tampa Bay Rays shortstop" Wander Franco Accused of Paying Thousands in Hush Money to Teen Victim’s Mom

• Cher Claims Son, Elijah Blue Allman, Is Missing Ahead of Conservatorship Hearing

Epstein

• Numerous people have realized "This is not the client list", it is the testimony of a couple working girls (of hundreds) and who they said they saw and did not see while working for Epstein.

  Which raises the question "what is it they dont want us talking about?" That this can be discussed now means there's something more substantive that officials would rather we didn't look at.

• Who Is and Isn’t on Epstein’s List, and What does it Mean? We’ve Got the Names.

  Most of the people mentioned aren't accused of committing any crimes. That said, the list is chock-full of wealthy, left-leaning elites who allegedly had sex with young girls, according to one victim's testimony.

  Jimmy Kimmel, the vaccine-pushing Fauci bumlickee who went full-on attacking those of us who refused to bend our knees and raise our sleeves during the pandemic, was not mentioned in the first release of names.

  Donald Trump's name is on the list, but, to the disappointment of libs everywhere, he is accused of nothing.

  Bill Clinton is accused of nothing beyond the testimony that he "likes them young," but his numerous flights on Epstein's Lolita Pedo Express aren't a good look.

  • IP thread

• Stephen Hawking at Epstein Island

• Prince Andrew 'spent weeks' at Epstein home - witness

Obit

• Starsky and Hutch actor David Soul dies, aged 80

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Democratic Megadonors Bankroll Media Matters, Leaked Donor List Shows.

• "The social media platforms represented by NetChoice seem to have spread their legal work across almost all of the substantial law firms in the United States, and therefore many lawyers who are inclined to file amicus briefs on the other side have been conflicted out."

• Discussion and discovery is great! When everyone can play. Shitposting is a blessed epistemic mode. Or how I started caring about shrimp welfare

• China Using AI to Create Anti-American Memes Capitalizing on Israel-Palestine

• Posters Promoting Illegal Drug Use Pop Up in Downtown San Francisco

  • HN comments

• Substack's Nazi Newsletters

• Lights Out in America

  The value of Bennet’s essay about the Times lies in its revelation of how great the damage inflicted by the cancellers has become. When journalists at America’s liberal paper of record can get a senior editor dismissed for publishing a column by a sitting US senator, it has a catastrophic effect on the media’s claim to be a pillar of democracy. These should be men and women dedicated to the illumination of public policy from every side; instead, they are behaving as the stewards of acceptable discourse, and see it as their duty to turn out the lights.

Musk

• Getting Root Access On A Telsa

  were able to unlock Tesla’s driving assistant by inducing a two-second voltage drop on the processor which allowed root access to the Autopilot software. Referring to this as “Elon mode” since it drops the requirement for the driver to keep their hands on the steering wheel, they were able to access the full self-driving mode allowing autonomous driving without driver input.

• Tesla Model Y range estimate reduced by 6%, becoming more realistic

  • HN comments

• What We Lost When Twitter Became X

  • HN comments

• SpaceX sues US labor board, claims agency structure is unconstitutional

• Tesla keeps recalling its cars. Here's the list of all its recalls so far

Trump / War against the Right / Jan6

• A quarter of Americans believe FBI instigated Jan. 6, Post-UMD poll finds.

• Steve Friend: "Since the pipe bomb contained training materials from the Department of Homeland Security, maybe @FBIWFO should ask @DHSgov for potential suspects?"

• Was "January 6" A Manufactured Crisis? Media Icons To Clash In ZeroHedge's No-Holds-Barred Debate | ZeroHedge

• ‘Sympathy’ surging for Jan. 6 rioters, 43% agree ‘they had a point.’

• 3 Years Ago His Wife Was Killed On Jan. 6, Now Aaron Babbitt's Mission Is Clear | ZeroHedge

  • Ashli Babbitt's family sues U.S. government over her Jan. 6 shooting death

  • Jan. 6 participant Ashli Babbitt's husband, conservative group file a wrongful death suit

• Five truths about what happened three years ago that Trump wants you to forget | Robert Reich

• Enough with the Big Lie

• Ballot Cleansing: Democrats are Moving to Bar Republicans from Ballots Nationwide – JONATHAN TURLEY

• Trump Wants Jack Smith Held in Contempt of Court in DC Criminal Case: “All substantive proceedings in this Court are halted. Despite this clarity, the prosecutors began violating the Stay almost immediately.”

• CNN's inaugural Road to 270 shows Trump in a position to win the White House

  • HN comments

• Can Trump Be Barred From the 2024 Ballot? What to Know About the Law

• The 14th Amendment plan to disqualify Trump, explained

• Supreme Court Will Consider Trump Section 3 Disqualification Case: The justices will hear the case on an expedited schedule, and could potentially consider all the issues it raises.

  • Supreme Court Will Hear Case on Whether Trump Can Run for President - The New York Times

  The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to decide whether former President Donald J. Trump is ineligible for Colorado’s Republican primary ballot because he had engaged in insurrection in his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

  The case, which could alter the course of this year’s presidential election, will be argued on Feb. 8. The court will probably decide it quickly, as the primary season will soon be underway.

  • Supreme Court Takes Up Trump Ballot Disqualification Case

  • Supreme Court Agrees to Take On Trump Ballot Ban in Explosive Decision

  • Supreme Court takes up Colorado's decision to kick Trump off its primary ballot

  • Supreme Court to rule if Trump can run for president

• Jack Smith warns if Trump is re-elected he could use the State of the Union address to incite his supporters to kill opposing politicians

• Judge Tosses Wyoming Attorney's Attempt To Keep Trump, Lummis Off Ballot | Your Wyoming News Source

• Trump tells supporters to 'get over' Iowa school shooting and 'move forward'

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• The missing data that could prove whether the covid ‘vaccines’ are safe.

• COVID class-action splurge continues: GWU university near White House pays $5M for shutting down class.

• "Invest in our new drug" Novel compound protects against infection by virus that causes COVID-19, preliminary studies show | Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

• Deaths induced by use of hydroxychloroquine during first Covid wave: an estimate

• State of the Pandemic

  Without any current ability to directly track the number of new cases, wastewater is the only reliable metric that we have to work to derive estimates. Jay Weiland has been closely following the Biobot.io and CDC wastewater data and modeling the number of infections that data represent.

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• The Mongol Hordes: They’re Just Like Us | The New Yorker

  the Pope came prepared. Speaking to diplomats, cultural leaders, and the Mongolian President, he celebrated the religious freedom protected under the Mongol Empire during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries—“the remarkable ability of your ancestors to acknowledge the outstanding qualities of the peoples present in its immense territory and to put those qualities at the service of a common development.” He also celebrated “the Pax Mongolica,” the period of Mongol-enforced stability across Eurasia, citing its “absence of conflicts” and respect “of international laws.”

• Wayne LaPierre announces resignation as NRA chief.

  • NRA director to step down ahead of corruption trial

  • Wayne LaPierre: the man who remade the NRA as the ‘good guy with a gun’

  • Gun Lobby Leader Resigns Days Before Corruption Trial

• Researchers use Earth's magnetic field to verify event in Bible's Book of Kings

• A History of Feminist Antisemitism

• Musk and far-right figures seize on Iowa shooter's possible LGBTQ identity

• Ohio Governor Bans All Gender-Affirming Surgeries For Minors

  • Ohio Governor Orders Restrictions on Transgender Care After Vetoing Ban

  • Ohio’s GOP Governor Vetoed an Anti-Trans Bill. Then, He Made It Worse.

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Education Dept. investigates university for condemning Oct. 7 Hamas attack.

• Student loan repayment issues frustrate borrowers, prompting federal response

  • Student loan borrowers face long hold times and inaccurate bills

  • Education Department withholds $2.1M in payments to 3 loan servicers

  • Federal agency: Student loan company errors could 'pose serious risks' to borrowers, the economy

  • 758,000 more student-loan borrowers didn't receive on-time billing statements in the fall — and they won't have to make payments yet

  • Three Student-Loan Processors Punished for Late Billing Notices

Gay Hahvahd

• Harvard Corporation under fire for keeping secrets to protect Claudine Gay: ‘Must not be published’.

• Opinion | Harvard Couldn’t Save Both Claudine Gay and Itself - The New York Times

• The Claudine Gay Affair | American Enterprise Institute - AEI

  most interesting to me, is what Gay shows about how insular elite higher education has become. I mean, when she was named president, Harvard bragged “Claudine consults widely; she listens attentively . . . she invites collaboration and resists complacency.” Yet, through all her troubles, not a single right-leaning voice spoke up on Gay’s behalf. Indeed, during the past month, I didn’t talk to a single Republican on the Hill or around D.C. who had any kind of relationship with Gay. You might ask how Harvard’s president could have so few relationships. Didn’t Gay do any bridge-building? Well, here’s what I know. A year ago, when she was named president, I sent a congratulatory note and invited her to come deliver a keynote at AEI, at a date of her choosing. I suggested it might be an opportunity to address the divide between elite higher ed and its conservative critics. And? We were casually blown off, without even a “thanks for asking.”

  Higher ed doesn’t have many friends on the right. In my experience, elite college leaders aren’t all that bothered by this (some seem perversely proud of it).

• Claudine Gay: the great DEI grift exposed

  Now that Claudine Gay, Ibram X. Kendi, and Nikole Hannah-Jones, among others of their ilk, have been exposed for all to see as the wealthy charlatans they are, we just might be in a position to put a dagger in the heart of DEI. Hell, even the acronym is a con. There’s little substantive diversity in DEI, the equity component is patently racist, and inclusion only applies to people who are onboard with the rest of the nonsense.

• Bill Ackman says he'll review all MIT professors for plagiarism

  • Investor Who Pushed for Harvard President’s Exit Sees His Wife Accused of Plagiarism

  • Bill Ackman's Wife, Neri Oxman, Apologizes for Plagiarism in Her 2010 Dissertation

  • Academic celebrity Neri Oxman plagiarized from Wikipedia, scholars, a textbook, and other sources without any attribution

  • This person wasn't the head of a school, didn't explain to Congress that "Its OK to be white" is hate speech while "Death to all Jews" was protected free expression... right?

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• Microsoft Pulls the Plug on WordPad

• Netflix Considers Ways to Make Money from Videogames in Possible Pivot

• MSI's Steam Deck competitor has leaked, and it's powered by Intel Meteor Lake

• Ask HN: If I buy a physical book why is the eBook not free?

• A complete (so far) Star Citizen ship collection now costs $48,000

• U.S. moves closer to filing antitrust case against Apple

  • HN comments

• LinkedIn becoming an unexpected dating site

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Huawei Teardown Shows 5nm Chip Made in Taiwan, Not China

• (2018) Open Source Maintainers Owe You Nothing

• Oldest known ancestor of MS-DOS rediscovered

• I do not have a "windows" key, and the lack has never troubled me. Copilot key will eventually be required in new PC keyboards

  • HN comments

• Tell HN: This month, job seekers outnumber job openings on HN | Hacker News

• Celebrating 30 Years of Blender

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• OpenAI Turmoil Pushes Customers to Diversify

• Midjourney Allegedly Scraped Magic: The Gathering Cards for Material

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• First US moon lander since Apollo prepares to blast off on Monday

• Biden Administration to Consult with Navajo About Human Remains on the Moon

• A rocket a day keeps the high costs away (1993) | Hacker News

• Sample Return from the Surface of Venus

• China completes new commercial launch pad to boost access to space.

Crypto con games

• Wait, Is Bitcoin Going to Die?

  The price of Bitcoin crashed nearly 10% on Wednesday, falling from $45,000 to below $41,000 in mere hours, hurting crypto’s best bull run in a year. But what, or who, could have been the culprit behind the crash? The day before, CNBC’s host of Mad Money, Jim Cramer, directed his powerful investing advice towards Bitcoin. “You can’t kill it,” said Cramer on CNBC Tuesday, referring to the remarkable rally Bitcoin had last year. “It’s here to stay,” he said, just a day before the biggest crypto crash of the new year.

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 216,000 in December

  • The U.S. added 216,000 jobs in December, much better than expected

  • U.S. Labor Market Ends Year with a Bang, Adding 216,000 Jobs

  • The Welfare-Industrial Complex Is Booming - WSJ

    Drill into the nation’s 3.7% unemployment rate, and you’ll find a growing welfare-industrial complex beneath the seemingly strong labor market. Government, social assistance and healthcare account for 56% of the 2.8 million net new jobs over the past year, and for nearly all gains in blue states such as New York and Illinois.

  • Just how strong was Friday’s jobs report?

    the unemployment rate was unchanged from the prior month’s, at 3.7 per cent. But that masked a substantial monthly decline in the number of employed people in the household survey (down 683,000), offset by a decline in the size of the civilian labour force (down 676,000). Prior months’ job markets also look weaker after the BLS’s usual data revisions. With those adjustments, Amarnath found that the three-month pace of job creation has declined to 174,000 per month from 206,000 per month

  • Inside The Catastrophic Jobs Report: Record 1.5 Million Crash In Full-Time Jobs, Multiple Jobholders Soar To Record, Native Born Workers Plunge And Much More

  • The U.S. economy added 216,000 jobs in December, the Labor Department said, capping a year of steady gains

  • Biden calls 2023 a "great year for American workers" after solid December jobs report

  • From a worker perspective, the US December jobs report shows the Fed is winning the inflation fight

  • Unemployment holds under 4%, job gains higher than expected in final 2023 labor report

  • 10-year swings back above 4% after December jobs report

  • Strong US jobs report dampens talk of rate cuts

  • U.S. added 216,000 jobs in December, beating Dow Jones estimates

  • The U.S. added 216,000 jobs in December, much better than expected

• West Coast shipping rates surge as Red Sea fallout goes global.

• German Inflation Rebounds in December

• Apple Card Savings Account Receives Another Rate Increase

• Home equity loan dos and don'ts to know

• California judge rules Snap must face lawsuit over children's fentanyl purchases

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Note From the Campaign Trail - by Matt Taibbi - Racket News

  I try to bring an open mind to campaigns and not let concepts like “fringe” or “viable” color observations. This was once a misdemeanor offense, as press colleagues were so sure they could suppress candidates like Dennis Kucinich or Ron Paul, they didn’t mind if the occasional oddball let it slip somewhere they were connecting with audiences. Now, forget journalism, just as a citizen I want to see what all the candidates look and sound like in person, what they say and how crowds react, because I can’t believe anything I read.

• Bay Area legislator proposes combining all 27 local public transit agencies

• Retiring GOP Lawmaker: $174,000 Isn't Enough Money for Us

• Vivek Does It Again, Flips Script on NBC Reporter As She Has Meltdown on Camera – RedState

• High-end sex ring in Boston and D.C. areas was 'honeypot' scheme by Russia, China, South Korea or even Israel - to ensnare US officials, intelligence experts believe | Daily Mail Online

• Burisma, the Ukraine gas giant that paid Hunter Biden millions, just lawyered up

• House Republicans ready contempt of Congress charges against Hunter Biden

  • House GOP plans first step toward holding Hunter Biden in contempt

  • House Republicans Move To Hold Hunter Biden In Contempt Of Congress

• US supreme court allows Idaho’s strict abortion ban to stand pending hearing

  • The Supreme Court’s new, nightmare abortion cases, explained

• Florida Officially Has the Signatures to Put Abortion on the Ballot

  • Florida Collects Enough Signatures To Put Pro-Choice Initiative On November Ballot

• Johnson's new problem: Growing House GOP interest in a shutdown fight over the border

  • Speaker Johnson floats meeting with Biden on border crisis

• Haley dogged by Civil War controversy: 'I had Black friends growing up'

  • ‘The View’ Shreds Nikki Haley’s ‘Black Friends’ Defense: ‘Tokenism'

  • Nikki Haley Really Just Used the “Black Friends” Card to Defend Herself

• Haley hits hurdles in challenge to Trump

  • Haley features conservative general's endorsement in New Hampshire ad

• Marjorie Taylor Greene Hit With Federal Fine for Illegal Fundraising

  • Florida Resort Abruptly Cancels Marjorie Taylor Green’s Jan. 6 event

Biden v Trump / MAGA

• Biden Will Detail How Trump is Supposedly a ‘Threat to Our Democracy’ at Valley Forge on Jan. 6.

  • Watch Live: President Biden Marks Jan-6 Anniversary (By Calling Trump A Threat To Democracy & Freedom)

  • Biden to deliver first campaign speech in Pa. pushed ahead by bad weather

• Clashing Over Jan. 6, Trump and Biden Show Reality Is at Stake in 2024

• Biden Targets Trump in Speech Defending Democracy as ‘Sacred Cause’

• Biden vows to protect US democracy from ‘Nazi’ Trump

• Biden warns against Trump reelection after Jan. 6 Capitol riot, a day 'we nearly lost America'

• In Valley Forge speech, Biden calls Trump a threat to democracy

• Biden Targets Trump in Speech, Defending Democracy as 'Sacred'

• Biden slams Trump for Capitol riot in 2024 campaign speech

  • Biden: 'Is democracy still America's sacred cause?'

• Trump accuses Biden of 'fearmongering' with Jan. 6 speech

• Biden attacks Trump as grave threat to democracy in rousing 2024 speech

• Trump 'Willing To Sacrifice Democracy,' Biden Declares In Forceful Speech

• Joe Biden Swipes at Fox News While Calling Trump a ‘Loser’

• Biden Says 'Democracy Is on the Ballot' While Democrats Try to Remove Trump from Ballots

• Biden Marks Jan. 6 by Putting Threats to Democracy at Center of 2024 Message

• Trump fires back at Jan. 6 criticism, says Biden is a 'true threat to democracy'

• Americans Don’t Care About Democracy? Well, Democrats—Make Them Care

• Three years later, Jan. 6 hangs over the presidential contest.

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• FBI ‘Aware’ of Hoax Bomb Threats at Various State Capitols.

• What We Know About the Iowa School Shooter

• TSA Is Rolling Out an Airport Checkpoint Where Passengers Can Screen Themselves

• Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton Swatted « Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog

• New questions over potential warning signs missed before Iowa school shooting

• Elijah McClain case: Colorado officer jailed over black man's death

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• B-1 Bomber Crashes at Ellsworth; Crew Ejects Safely

• Worthy: Revitalizing US Navy Shipbuilding - Austin Vernon's Blog

• Blinken Returns to Middle East as Tensions Grow With Israel

  • Blinken opens latest urgent Mideast tour in Turkey as fears grow that Gaza war may engulf region

  • Blinken Begins Middle East Tour in Turkey for Gaza Talks

• Taiwan Strait crisis still a top US threat

World

• India Wanted a Manufacturing Boom. Its Workers Are Back on the Farm Instead

• The Netherlands is suffering due to international prohibitionist policies

• North and South Korea conduct provocative military drills along their boundary

  • North Korea Fires Hundreds Of Artillery Rounds Toward South's Border Islands

• Striking doctors in England say hospitals haven’t shown an urgent need for them to return to work.

• Volcanic activity get people hot and bothered. And there's not much else to do in winter. Iceland's population to reach 400k this year, 26 years earlier than projected

• First-Time Voters Could Swing Taiwan’s Election

Israel

• Your Tax Dollars Helped Hamas Hide Their October 7 Planning From Israel’s Intelligence Services.

• Freed Israeli hostage says she endured ‘psychological warfare’ during 50 days of Hamas captivity.

• Shark Tanks: VCs Invest in Israeli Startups That Use Gaza as Testing Ground

• Inside Israel's torture camp for Gaza detainees

• Defense Minister Says Israel Won't Assert Civil Control Over Gaza Post-War, In Bow To US Pressure

• Many ideas, but little agreement, over what a postwar Gaza could look like

• Hezbollah Fires Rockets at Israel in Response to Assassination in Beirut

  • Hezbollah Launches Rocket Strike on Israel

• Israel’s war on Gaza: List of key events, day 92

• Hamas Took More Than 200 Hostages From Israel. Here's What We Know.

• Hezbollah’s Leader Says It Would Not Negotiate Peace With Israel Until War in Gaza Ends

• Hezbollah says death of Hamas’s al-Arouri leaves Lebanon exposed

• Gaza’s Vexing Tunnel Network Pales Beside Hezbollah’s Land of Tunnels

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Russian hackers were inside Ukraine telecoms giant for months

China

• Apple’s suppliers have so far spent $16 billion to move from China.

• China's back at it with its balloons

Health / Medicine

• Human beliefs about drugs could have dose-dependent effects on the brain

• My Parents' Dementia Felt Like the End of Joy. Then Came the Robots

• Florida Is First State Allowed to Import Drugs from Canada

  • FDA approves first state request to import drugs from Canada

• Chemicals that may cause cancer, infertility ‘widespread’ in packaged products like Cheerios.

• Ozempic, Wegovy don't raise risk of suicidal thoughts, study finds

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

• Why everything you know about wolf packs is wrong

• Seaweed: Should we be eating more of it?

• Novel food regulations are a barrier for edible insects

• The neglected clean heat we flush down the drains

• Oil industry veteran to lead next round of Cop climate change summit

• Critical Infrastructure Is Sinking Along the US East Coast

• Berlin's plan for driverless magnetic trains derided by climate groups

• I thought most of us were going to die from the climate crisis. I was wrong

• Germany's emissions hit 70-year low as it reduces reliance on coal

• Beaver dams == good; human levees == bad ... Watching beavers from space can help drought-ridden areas bounce back

• Winter storm expected to blanket Northeast with heavy snow