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Joe Biden spent the first half of his presidency enacting plans to steer at least $1.6 trillion to transform the economy and spur a clean-energy revolution — only to watch those programs become afterthoughts in the 2024 election.
Now the core of his domestic legacy stands unfinished, with hundreds of billions of dollars left to deploy, and imperiled as Donald Trump prepares to take office.
Keep in mind, essentially all the money mentioned above was appropriated back in 2021, with the rest coming via the Inflation Reduction Act of mid-2022. This wasn't a case of Biden simply running out of time because he passed an infrastructure bill six months before the election. The administration had years to expand broadband and build the electric vehicle charging stations it promised, but the actual results were disastrous. //
A $42 billion expansion made in November of 2021 to expand broadband has connected zero homes to the internet. Meanwhile, and this garnered several mentions during the 2024 campaign, $7.5 billion appropriated for EV chargers has produced just 47 stations nationwide. For context, the program promised 500,000 chargers.
What's so comical about this, though, is that the primary reason Biden's agenda fell flat is because of the very bureaucratic state he and his party created and protected. Much of the money was allocated to various government agencies that are staffed by far-left, career bureaucrats who wouldn't know efficiency if it punched them in the face. On the contrary, being as inefficient as possible represents job security for the bureaucracy. If they don't solve problems, then the money just keeps flowing.
Hilariously, in the case of the EV chargers, government DEI requirements played a role in stifling the program. //
There is an obvious lesson here, which is that the bureaucratic state is terrible for America and needs deep reforms to stop the waste and inefficiency that infests it. Will Democrats who are crying about Biden's agenda being hampered support that? Of course, they won't. Instead, they'll keep making excuses and protecting the bureaucracy as if it were one of their own children because it is currently their sole source of power. Still, it is deeply ironic that their sacred cow played a role in Democrats face-planting in 2024. It was well-deserved.
All types of resistors have their own resistor symbols which are used when a circuit diagram is drawn. This page will explain the different standards which are used for resistor symbols and display the most common symbols.
A female pygmy hippopotamus calf was born at the Metro Richmond Zoo in early December, marking the third calf of the endangered species to be born at the zoo in the last five years, officials said.
The mother hippo Iris gave birth to the yet-to-be-named calf on Dec. 9 and the zoo is currently holding a contest to name the new calf. //
The new baby had a neonatal exam and weighed in at 15 pounds, a mere fraction of the 600 pounds officials say fully grown pygmy hippos can boast. //
When the hippo was declared endangered in 2015, there were only about 2,500 mature ones left, and even then officials were pulling that from a 1993 population estimate, according to the Zoological Society of London.
The first human mission to land on the Moon is one of the only NASA mission patches that does not include the names of the crew members, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins. This was a deliberate choice by the crew, who wanted the world to understand they were traveling to the Moon for all of humanity.
Another NASA astronaut, Jim Lovell, suggested the bald eagle could be the focus of the patch. Collins traced the eagle from a National Geographic children's magazine, and an olive branch was added as a symbol of the mission's peaceful intent.
The result is a clear symbol of the United States leading humanity to another world. It is simple and powerful. //
With the space shuttle, astronauts and patch artists had to get more creative because the vehicle flew so frequently—eventually launching 135 times. Some of my favorite patches from these flights came fairly early on in the program.
As it turns out, designing shuttle mission patches was a bonding exercise for crews after their assignments. Often one of the less experienced crew members would be given leadership of the project.
"During the Shuttle era, designing a mission emblem was one of the first tasks assigned to a newly formed crew of astronauts," Flag Research Quarterly reports. "Within NASA, creation of the patch design was considered to be an important team-building exercise. The crew understood that they were not just designing a patch to wear on their flight suits, but that they were also creating a symbol for everyone who was working on the flight."
In some cases the crews commissioned a well-known graphic designer or space artist to help them with their patch designs. More typically they worked with a graphic designer on staff at the Johnson Space Center to finalize the design. //
In recent years, some of the most creative patch designs have come from SpaceX and its crewed spaceflights aboard the Dragon vehicle. Because of the spacecraft's name, the missions have often played off the Dragon motif, making for some striking designs.
There is a dedicated community of patch collectors out there, and some of them were disappointed that SpaceX stopped designing patches for each individual Starlink mission a few years ago. However, I would say that buying two or three patches a week would have gotten pretty expensive, pretty fast—not to mention the challenge designers would face in making unique patches for each flight.
If you read this far and want to know my preference, I am not much of a patch collector, as much as I admire the effort and artistry that goes into each design. I have only ever bought one patch, the one designed for the Falcon 1 rocket's fourth flight. The patch isn't beautiful, but it's got some nice touches, including lights for both Kwajalein and Omelek islands, where the company launched its first rockets. Also, it was the first time the company included a shamrock on the patch, and that proved fortuitous, as the successful launch in 2008 saved the company. It has become a trademark of SpaceX patches ever since.
if the deal goes through it would create the world's third-largest OEM in 2026. //
Beleaguered automaker Nissan is going to throw its lot in with Honda. The two Japanese OEMs want to merge by 2026, creating the world's third-largest car company in the process. In fact, earlier this year the two signed memorandums of understanding to create a strategic partnership focused on software and electrification. Now, the changing business environment calls for deeper integration, they say. //
Altaira Pilgram
This merger is about the rise of Chinese auto companies affecting their domestic markets and for now exports across Asia soon to be global. Over the last few years Chinese domestic auto manufacturers have gutted the sales of companies like GM, VW, and others in China and are now looking to aggressively reshape the international automobile markets. BYD for example is building factories Thailand, Hungary, and Brazil. Nissan, by its own estimates, has said at times it was unclear if it would last through 2027 if it stayed independent thus forcing it to seek out of desperation a strong partner. It also seems the Japanese government had a hand in propping up Nissan with this merger presumably with the goal of protecting its economy and jobs. The hope here is that the merged companies can pool R & D resources to develop not just finished cars but the myriad technologies and finished components that go into them in an timely manner, at scale and at costs that allow them to compete with the Chinese manufacturers. To me it is unclear that any of this is going to work. Saddling Honda with a duplicate but a worse company has to bog them down for years while they figure out what Nissan parts to keep and which parts to shutdown precisely when Honda needs to be nimble. The game of thrones, automobile edition, has begun in earnest.
December 23, 2024 at 4:46 pm
440-pound 1980s behemoth rescued from an Osaka restaurant days before demolition. //
For those who want the absolute largest CRT experience possible, Sony's KX-45ED1 model (aka PVM-4300) has become the stuff of legends. The massive 45-inch CRT was sold in the late '80s for a whopping $40,000 (over $100,000 in today's dollars), according to contemporary reports.
That price means it wasn't exactly a mass-market product, and the limited supply has made it something of a white whale for CRT enthusiasts to this day. While a few pictures have emerged of the PVM-4300 in the wild and in marketing materials, no collector has stepped forward with detailed footage of a working unit. //
Enter Shank Mods, a retro gaming enthusiast and renowned maker of portable versions of non-portable consoles. In a fascinating 35-minute video posted this weekend, he details his years-long effort to find and secure a PVM-4300 from a soon-to-be-demolished restaurant in Japan and preserve it for years to come. //
The full video includes lots of footage and details of the shipping and unboxing process, and confirmation that the TV still works after its incredible journey. Shank Mods also includes a breakdown of the internal design and processing hardware that went into such a uniquely large CRT and an extended discussion of the intricate process of calibrating and tuning the tube to deliver a sharp, color-corrected picture after years of magnetic and electron beam drift.
Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson are sheer perfection as an amnesiac former assassin and PI who foil a terrorist plot. //
Okay, so The Long Kiss Goodnight didn't exactly light up the box office when it was released, earning $95.4 million globally against its $65 million budget, despite mostly positive reviews. But it remains one of Davis's favorite roles, right up there with Thelma in Thelma and Louise (1991). (It's still Harlin's favorite of all his films.) Even Jackson told GQ in 2018 that of all the films he's been in, The Long Kiss Goodnight remains his favorite re-watch. Are you really gonna argue with Samuel L. Jackson? Just go add it to your holiday queue already!
The Long Kiss Goodnight is currently streaming on Prime Video. //
Emotion_ology Ars Centurion
4y
234
Davis: “Were you always this dumb or did you take lessons?”
Jackson: “I took lessons!”
Just needed to add my favorite line too. It’s an excellent movie.
A #DOScember surprise: fits on a single floppy, but has a network-capable package manager
China’s military buildup and cognitive strategies are clear indications of intent to defeat the U.S. and its allies by any means necessary. //
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is undertaking an unprecedented military buildup aimed at challenging America and its allies, particularly in the Indo-Pacific. And, like Nazi Germany’s buildup in the 1930s, the militarization program ordered by the Chinese Communist Party isn’t simply a great power buildup — it’s a weapon in service of a deadly ideology.
Catherine Pakaluk and Emily Reynolds’ new book, ‘Hannah’s Children,’ studies mothers of large families and concludes they may hold the key for solving many societal ills. //
While there is much to be said about the particular reasons people choose to have large families, Pakaluk writes that there is one beautiful commonality among these women:
I suppose it boils down to some sort of deeply held thing, possibly from childhood — a platinum conviction — that the capacity to conceive children, to receive them into my arms, to take them home, to dwell with them in love, to sacrifice for them as they grow, and to delight in them as the Lord delights in us, that that thing, call it motherhood, call it childbearing, that that thing is the most worthwhile thing in the world — the most perfect thing I am capable of doing.
Hannah
Pakaluk opens with the story of Hannah, a woman from a Reformed Jewish background whose search for meaning led her ultimately to procreation and the proliferation of family through child-bearing, what she called “this key to infinity.” At the time of her interview, Hannah had seven children, and described her choice to have a large family as a “deliberate rejection of an autonomous, customized, self-regarding lifestyle in favor of a way of life intentionally limited by the demands of motherhood.” //
The modern challenge to traditional and cohesive family roles has absolutely impacted family growth patterns, the book argues, and will likely continue to do so. And the declining population will impact future workforces, infrastructure, and entitlement programs far beyond basic demography.
“The political and economic consequences of these trends cannot be overstated,” Pakaluk writes. “Birth rates are falling because of tradeoffs women and households are making — tradeoffs between children and other things that they value.”
‘Home Alone’ isn’t just a funny Christmas movie. It displays a mother’s transformation from selfish, absentee parent to devoted loving mother.
In the unlikely persona of Donald Trump, the American ‘rabble’ have found an unlikely hero who stands up on their behalf to remind the ‘warped, frustrated’ old men inside the Beltway who it is that does most of the living and dying in this country.
As President-elect Trump prepares to take office, so-called public health activists are ginning up a new pandemic. This one is "bird flu." Not the bird flu that's been around for decades, but a new one that infects livestock and could possibly mutate into a killer virus much worse than COVID. //
Jessica Rojas 🇺🇸💪 @catsscareme2021
·
Farmers need to say NO, get off my property. Do not comply.
Deborah Birx Says We Must Test Every Cow in America (On a Weekly Basis) for "Bird Flu" using PCR.
6:08 PM · Aug 3, 2024
have been killed and disposed of since February 2022, according to USDA data obtained by Reuters showing culling and disposal methods through late June.
Bird flu is fatal in birds and the government requires entire flocks to be culled once the virus is on a farm. The deadliest year was 2022, but nearly as many chickens have been disposed of so far in 2024 as in all of 2023, the data shows.
An intriguing video from Feb. 2018 went viral over the weekend and had a lot of folks on the right talking because of something that actress Claire Danes said to talk show host Stephen Colbert and how he immediately interjected and changed the subject. When you hear it, you'll understand why.
Danes was sharing about how her "Homeland" show went to something of a weeklong "spy camp" because they knew someone in the CIA. There in Georgetown, they met actual "spooks," people in the State Department, and journalists. Colbert asked her, what was the most surprising thing that she learned from that experience? //
Danes said every year it was different, but that year it was "all about the distrust between the [Trump] administration and the intelligence world, and the intelligence community was suddenly kind of allying itself with journalists, which usually they're not..."
It was at that point that Colbert interjected and deflected to another point about when they had started shooting the season's episodes. //
Now, this may have slipped by in 2018. But after everything that has happened in the meantime, it certainly had people talking about how Colbert seemed to cut her off and what exactly she was talking about when she said they were "allying with journalists?" What were they doing? //
This was after New York Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer's comment in 2017, which even raised the hackles of the ACLU with what it intimated.
Western Lensman @WesternLensman
·
Replying to @WesternLensman
Shades of Chuck Schumer:
"You take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you. Even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he’s being really dumb to do this."
9:31 PM · Dec 23, 2024 //
There's another point I think that's interesting about the Danes video. Danes is talking about how the "spy camp" gave them thoughts. Maybe the CIA folks realized they had the opportunity to feed what they wanted to the show, perhaps to get out information that they might have wanted to get out there? Not saying they did, but this could have given them the opportunity.
As Trump comes into office on Jan. 20, is this intel community that was unhappy before going to calm down this time around, especially now that they know Trump will be bringing big changes to their agencies?
I wouldn't bet on it. One can only wonder what might happen next, between now and then.
We launched THE LONG DARK on Steam Early Access on September 22nd, 2014. Since then, we have updated the game over 150 times. Until now, everything but the most current update has been unavailable to our community.
We created the TIME CAPSULE to let you step back in history and play every major update since our launch. Think of it as a playable retrospective of how the game has evolved over the years -- based on developer vision tempered by player feedback.
Multiplayer mod for The Long Dark | Sky Co-op
By REDcat and 2 collaborators
In this guide, I will tell you about the mod itself and how to install it.
Convert, Edit and Prune Minecraft Worlds
From the creator of the first ever world converter and multi-platform NBT editor, the Pryze Software
suite of tools has been the go-to choice for millions of Minecrafters for over a decade.
Welcome to /r/Unturned - your one-stop destination for all things related to Unturned 2.0, 3.0, and Unturned II!
Analyst Chuck DeVore, chief national initiatives officer at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, penned an essay for The Federalist Friday and also appeared on "Fox & Friends Weekend" to warn that China is conducting a massive military buildup the likes of which we haven’t seen since the days of the Third Reich.
His conclusions are concerning:
"Now the big difference there, is that he really focused on land power, which frankly is pretty easy to build up pretty quickly," he added. "Navies are much more difficult to build up. And we are way behind. And not only do we need to catch up, but we also need to modernize our nuclear weapons, and we need to put a lot of effort into missile defense." //
DeVore also argues that Donald Trump is right to be concerned about the Panama Canal because while we’re busy woke-ifying our military, China is staying occupied with different concerns: //
DeVore continues, arguing that we need budget reform and we need to wake up to the fact that “China’s military buildup and cognitive warfare strategy are clear indications of its intent to defeat the U.S. and its allies by any means necessary.” //
Dr. Dealgood
2 minutes ago
tinfoil hat time: China bought Biden, who then weakened us monetarily and militarily thru useless sh*t like Ukraine.
This strategy also depleted and exposed Russia's weakness.
Two enemies, one big bribe. China gains Russian oil and possibly Siberia. The US gains squat from Ukraine, except hacking and making its corrupt gov't wealthy. //