2024-11-27

duck trucks rock, Walmart renouncing DEI, Google/DOJ arguments done, gambling on markets, sausage and government, Trump case dismissed, Israel / Hezbollah ceasefire, bird flu fear

etc

• Oldest US firearm unearthed in Arizona, a bronze cannon linked to Coronado

• Abandoned US Army 'city under the ice' imaged in serendipitous NASA find

  • NASA aircraft uncovers Cold War missile tunnels under Greenland ice sheet

• M6.4 quake hits central Japan, no tsunami warning issued

• Yes, It ‘Looks Like a Duck,’ but Carriers Like the New Mail Truck - The New York Times

  The new mail trucks — 10 years in the making — have started rolling into American neighborhoods, and the early reviews from letter carriers are positive. Many have complained for years that the mail trucks they have been driving, which were introduced in the 1980s, break down frequently and are stiflingly hot, as climate change pushes temperatures to greater extremes. The rear cargo space is so small, they say, that they have to crouch inside to grab packages.

Horseshit

• Deye reportedly disables all non-Sol-Ark-branded Deye inverters in the US

• Macquarie Dictionary names 'enshittification' as 2024 Word of the Year

  • 'Enshittification' Is Officially the Biggest Word of the Year

• The Future of Online Privacy Hinges on New Jersey Cops

• Cities cut red tape to turn unused office buildings into housing

• Reality eventually beats hope from us all A unified account of why optimism declines in childhood

• People around world associate rolled R with a jagged line, study finds

celebrity gossip

• Kim Dotcom Suffers Stroke (HN comments)

Obit

• Jim Abrahams, ‘Airplane!,’ ‘Naked Gun’ and ‘Hot Shots!’ Master of Mirth, Dies at 80

  • Jim Abrahams death: Co-creator of Airplane and The Naked Gun dies aged 80

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Bluesky boom worries Chinese media

Musk

• Elon Musk admits that X is strangling connections – effectively limiting people

• Cybertruck's Many Recalls

• Musk's Neuralink Launches Study of Mind-Controlled Robotic Arm

• Tesla Excluded from EV Credits Under California Gavin Newsom Proposal

• Elon Musk learns how EV charging works from Pete Buttigieg

• Elon Musk wants to block the transfer of InfoWars' X accounts to The Onion

• Elon Musk Just Turned Twitter into the Internet's Dead End

• FCC approves T-Mobile, SpaceX license to extend coverage to dead zones

Electric / Self Driving cars

• Tesla appears to be building a teleoperations team for its robotaxi service

• Northvolt goes from Europe battery promise to crisis

• The World’s Biggest EV Maker Has the Industry's Worst Human Rights Appraisal | WIRED

  The race to keep pace with EV development could be taking a dark turn. Amnesty International has released a report claiming the world’s leading EV makers are failing to adequately demonstrate how they address human rights risks in their mineral supply chains, which gather vital materials for making electric car batteries. The report, Recharge for Rights, alleges that BYD, Mitsubishi, and Hyundai had the worst human rights due diligence policies of 13 major EV manufacturers, ranked in a league table (the three companies did not respond to Amnesty on its findings). Other EV makers—such as Tesla, Mercedes-Benz, and Stellantis—were placed higher in Amnesty’s league table, but the organization alleges those companies could provide only a “moderate” demonstration of their human rights due diligence.

• Rivian gets $6.6B conditional loan approval to build Georgia EV plant

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Walmart, the nation's largest private employer, rolls back DEI under pressure

  • Walmart Nukes DEI As Anti-Woke Crusader Robby Starbuck Sends "Shockwaves Across Corporate America" | ZeroHedge

  • Walmart becomes latest – and biggest – company to roll back its DEI policies

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Judge blocks Louisiana law that requires classrooms to display Ten Commandments

• California's most neglected group of students: the gifted ones

• Popular NC State professor Marshall Brain dies, alleges retaliation for ethics complaints | News | technicianonline.com

  Questions are surrounding the death of a popular NC State faculty member, whom NC State police found dead in his office on Nov. 20. Police found Marshall Brain II, director of the Engineering Entrepreneurs Program, unconscious and nonresponsive in his office at Engineering Building II on Centennial Campus at 7:00 a.m. NC State Police Public Information Officer Conner Hartis confirmed police found Brain deceased upon their arrival. The Wake County Simulcast showed Brain’s wife called for a welfare check at 6:40 a.m. No cause of death has been released. Hours before Brain’s death, he sent an email to colleagues saying two University department heads retaliated against him after he filed several ethics complaints months before his death. University spokesperson, Mick Kulikowski, said the University has no comment on the allegations or Brain’s death. The University has also not issued a public statement on Brain’s death.

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• U.S. Says Google Is an Ad Tech Monopolist, in Closing Arguments - The New York Times

  The arguments conclude U.S. et al. v. Google, an antitrust suit that the Justice Department and eight states filed against Google last year. (More states have joined the suit since then.) The agency and states accused the internet giant of abusing control of its ad technology and violating antitrust law, in part through the acquisition of the advertising software company Doubleclick in 2008. Next, Judge Brinkema will decide the merits of the case in the coming months.

  • Opinion | Don’t Break Up Google - The New York Times

  Breaking up Standard Oil in 1911 created firms too small to be as efficient as their predecessor was, which coincided with an increase in the price of gasoline mainly caused by increased demand. And breaking up United Shoe Machinery in 1968 was followed soon after by that firm’s closure as an independent entity. In his earlier ruling, Judge Mehta concluded that Google’s monopolization of the market owed in part to the fact that it pays hardware makers large sums to ensure its products are the default option on their products. But if people were completely free to choose, Google would likely be the most popular option regardless — in the European Union, where Google’s Android system is required to ask users to select from a choice of browsers, most of them choose Google search.

  • Why the US wants to force Google to sell Chrome

  • The 'Rocket Docket' Judge Who Will Decide the Fate of Google's Ad Technology

  • DOJ wraps up ad tech trial: Google is "three times" a monopolist

  • US Dept of Justice's cure for Google could inflict collateral damage

• Google's iOS app now injects links on third-party websites that go to Search

  • Google is inserting search links into webpages in the Google App now

• Meta faces April trial in FTC case seeking to unwind Instagram merger

• YouTube users report their recommendations are suddenly a total mess

• Supreme Court wants US input on whether ISPs should be liable for users' piracy

• Threads is testing the option to choose your own default feed

• Ubisoft Pressuring Steam to Remove Player Count Tracking After Star Wars Flop

• USPTO petitioned to cancel Oracle's JavaScript trademark

• The influencer lawsuit that could change the industry

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• Nvidia Fugatto: "World's Most Flexible Sound Machine"

  • Nvidia claims a new AI audio generator can make sounds never heard before

• Kodak pauses all film production in November to 'upgrade manufacturing plant'

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• OpenAI blamed NYT for tech problem erasing evidence of copyright abuse

• Job seekers doubt AI's promised productivity gains

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• Odor from Russian spacecraft leaves scientists baffled

• Rocket Engine Fire Stalls Japan's Ambitions to Launch Satellites

Crypto con games

• Bitcoin Is Surging, and the IRS Is Watching

• Crypto miners must register with state, reveal power usage under new Texas rule

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Starbucks, Other Retailers Hit by Ransomware Attack on Tech Provider

• Gamblers Are Sinking Billions into a Leveraged Market Fringe

  The buy-everything mania that greeted Donald Trump’s election is cooling in the tried-and-tested world of stocks and corporate credit. Yet on Wall Street’s speculative fringes, the risk-taking frenzy is only getting bigger by the day. Heavy trading — and big price moves — in everything from crypto to leveraged exchange-traded funds was the story in a week where swings in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 finally started to abate. Ground zero for the casino crowd: The $140 billion complex of amped-up exchange-traded funds tracking the likes of Big Tech stocks, Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin proxy MicroStrategy Inc., and more. Gamblers are flocking to vehicles that boost gains and losses across indexes and companies including the Magnificent Seven darlings. Single-name leveraged products have been trading $86 billion this week — a record.

• Is the U.S. Shale Boom Losing Steam?

• GM Under CEO Mary Barra Is an Undeniably Soulless and Dishonest Company

• Three Nvidia customers have each spent $10B on chips this year

• Qualcomm's Intel interest has reportedly cooled

• Lattice Semiconductor Considers Offer for Intel's Altera Unit

• Leica Just Recorded the Highest Revenue in Its Entire 100-Year History

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Regulating Sausages

  The act goes on like this for many, many pages. All to regulate sausages. Sausage making, once an artisan’s craft, has become a compliance exercise that perhaps only corporations can realistically manage. One can certainly see that regulations of this extensiveness lock-in production methods. Woe be to the person who wants to produce a thinner, fatter or less salty sausage let alone who tries to pioneer a new method of sausage making even if it tastes better or is safer. Is such prescriptive regulation the only way to maintain the safety of our sausages? Could not tort law, insurance, and a few simple rules substitute at lower cost and without stifling innovation?

• How a French Whale Made $85MM Off Election Win on Polymarket

• No Labels goes after opponents of third-party presidential bid in court.

• Intel awarded $7.9B from the CHIPS Act

  • Intel Gets Up to $7.9B Award for U.S. Chip-Plant Construction

• US senators propose law to require bare minimum security standards

• DEA to Hold Hearing on the Rescheduling of Marijuana December 2, 2024 at 9:30am

Trump

• Trump vows 25% tariff on all products from Mexico, Canada, 10% on China imports

  • Trump vows 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada and deeper tariffs on China

  • Trump targets Mexico and Canada with tariffs, plus an extra 10% for China

• Judge dismisses Jan. 6 case against Trump as prez-elect calls prosecution ‘political hijacking’: ‘Low point in the History of our Country’.

  • Jack Smith’s End Of Lawfare Charges Against Trump Proves It Was A Political Witch Hunt.

• Congress’s Jan. 6 Investigation Looks Less and Less Credible – JONATHAN TURLEY

  The House Select Committee to investigate January 6 was comprised of Democrat-selected members who offered only one possible view: that January 6 was an attempt to overthrow our democracy by Trump and his supporters. The committee hired a former ABC News producer to create a slick, made-for-television production that barred opposing views and countervailing evidence. The members, including Republican Vice Chair Liz Cheney, played edited videotapes of Trump’s speech that removed the portion where Trump called on his supporters to protest “peacefully.” The committee fostered false accounts, including the claim that there was a violent episode with Trump trying to wrestle control of the presidential limousine. The Committee knew that the key Secret Service driver directly contradicted that account offered by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson.

  While the Democrats insisted that Trump’s speech constituted criminal incitement, he was never charged with that crime — not even by the motivated prosecutors who pledged to pursue such charges. The reason is that Trump’s speech was entirely protected under the First Amendment. Such a charge of criminal incitement would have quickly collapsed in court. Nevertheless, the Washington Post, NPR, other media and the committee members called Jan. 6 an “insurrection” engineered by Trump. Figures such as Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) insisted the committee had evidence that Trump organized a “coup” on Jan. 6, 2021. That evidence never materialized.

• Pete Hegseth lawyer demands release of file on sex assault claim that may indicate accuser made ‘similar false allegation’ against another man.

• Trump Eyes AI Czar

• Joni Ernst Sends DOGE 'A Trillion Dollars' Worth of Ideas to Gut Gov't Spending

Left Angst

• Trump Orders Republicans to Kill Journalism Shield Law They Had Supported

• Medicare proposes covering weight-loss drugs, teeing up clash with RFK Jr

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Police departments across U.S. are starting to use AI to write crime reports

• DEA passenger searches halted after watchdog finds signs of rights violations

• One of FBI's most wanted caught in Wales after more than 20 years on the run

  Daniel Andreas San Diego, 46, was one of the FBI's "most wanted terrorists" for two bombings in the San Francisco area in 2003. According to the FBI, San Diego has ties to "animal rights extremist groups"

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• US to reportedly sanction 200 more Chinese chip firms

• White House Osprey Grounded After Witness Reports Engine Flames

World

• Corning offers Gorilla Glass concessions to settle EU's antitrust case

• Pakistani Protesters Press into Islamabad as Police Fire on the Demonstrations

• Ford to cut 14% of European jobs, blaming EV shift and rising competition

• Prosecutors have rescued people from slavery in Brazil

• South Korea court convicts man for dodging military draft by gaining weight

• Former Taiwan leader was due to visit UK for two days in October, leak shows

• Australian House passes bill to ban children under 16 from social media

Israel

• An Iranian Ballistic Missile Hit Israel. We Got a Peek Inside Its 'Brain'

• Israel Agrees to U.S.-Backed Ceasefire in War against Hezbollah in Lebanon

  • President Biden announces ceasefire to end fighting between Israel and Hezbollah

  President Biden announced Tuesday that the U.S. helped secure a ceasefire deal in Lebanon, which would end fighting between Israel and Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah. His announcement came as Israel's Cabinet approved the ceasefire after urging from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The war between Israel and the Iran-backed group has killed almost 3,800 people in Lebanon over the last year and left about 16,000 others wounded. "Today, I have some good news to report from the Middle East," Mr. Biden said on the White House South Lawn. "I just spoke with the prime minister of Israel and Lebanon. I'm pleased to announce that their governments have accepted the United States' proposal to end the devastating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. I want to thank President Macron of France for his partnership in reaching this moment." Under the deal reached, the ceasefire will be effective as of 4 a.m. Wednesday local time and fighting across the Lebanese-Israeli border "will end," Mr. Biden said. But as Mr. Biden noted, the ceasefire does not apply to the ongoing fighting between Israel and Hamas. "This is designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities," he added. "What is left of Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations will not be allowed, I emphasize, will not be allowed, to threaten the security of Israel ever again."

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Russian deserter reveals war secrets of guarding nuclear base

• UK Sent Ukraine More Storm Shadows Ahead of Strikes in Russia

• Europe Can't Make Ukraine Enough Weapons–So It's Paying Kyiv to Do It

China

• China's Police Are Preying on Small Firms in Search of Cash

• Starbucks has been outclassed by local rivals in China

Health / Medicine

• Trial of Controversial Alzheimer's Drug Halted After Disappointing Results

• Study: ED meds associated with reductions in deaths, CV disease, dementia

• 'Sitting is the new smoking' myth busted? Scientists expose wellness flaw

• Nobody knows why ultra-processed foods are bad for you

• Why you should never kiss a baby on the head

• Colorado nurse fights to keep medical licence after saving a mother's baby

• Why “fart walks” after meals are good for you, experts say

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• Utah Culls More Than 100,000 Turkeys After Detecting Bird Flu | The Epoch Times

  Utah culled a large number of turkeys recently after confirming the presence of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) and is taking action to prevent the infection from spreading, according to the state’s Department of Agriculture and Food. “Between November 10 to 19, 2024, three turkey farms in Piute County totaling 107,800 turkeys and one backyard flock of 253 birds in Salt Lake County were confirmed positive for HPAI,” a Nov. 22 update from the agency stated.

• Modern Warfare Is Breeding Deadly Superbugs. Why?

• Opinion | I Ran Operation Warp Speed. I’m Concerned About Bird Flu. - The New York Times

  As Donald Trump gets ready to return to the White House on Jan. 20, he must be prepared to tackle one issue immediately: the possibility that the spreading avian flu might mutate to enable human-to-human transmission. I was the Biden administration’s chief science officer during Covid-19. I was co-leader of Operation Warp Speed, which began in Mr. Trump’s first term to accelerate the development of Covid-19 vaccines. I worked on the purchase and rollout of hundreds of millions of vaccines and on developing antiviral treatments. One of my jobs was to assess the trajectory of the virus. Now I am back at my job teaching at the medical school at the University of California, San Francisco. I have been monitoring the spread of bird flu, also known as H5N1, and discussing the situation with colleagues around the country. My concern is growing.

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Quantification of record-breaking subsidence in California's San Joaquin Valley

• Biorefining process could make grass digestible for pigs, chickens, and fish

• Former coal mine land to host 5.5GW of solar as Peabody partners with RWE

• Collapse of Earth's ocean circulation system is already happening

• Chemists find easier way to produce biodiesel from waste oil

• Enormous Cache of Rare Earth Elements Hidden Inside Coal Ash Waste