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Gregory had an eye-opening experience in Kamala Harris’ office that none of us expected. For his sake, the month could not pass quickly enough.
Yet there is no question that California voters were deceived. Ten years later, the state is looking to roll back Proposition 47. //
Harris’s most consequential act in California leadership was her contribution to passing of Proposition 47 in 2014. The law is widely credited with the social collapse of once lovely cities like San Francisco.
Passed with nearly 60% voter support, the initiative reclassified many felonies as misdemeanors, such as, most notoriously, theft of under $950, including repeat offenses. This shift created the now familiar spectacle of thieves leisurely walking into stores and picking up $949 of merchandise — and then doing it again and again, in the plain view of bored security guards.
Proposition 47 decriminalized drug possession, taking away the instrument that allowed law enforcement to pressure addicts to enter rehabs. //
The measure required resentencing of prisoners previously convicted of felonies if under Prop 47 those felonies were reclassified as misdemeanors. What followed was the early release of many so-called justice-involved individuals.
That trend was picked up in 2016 by Proposition 57 that emptied out California prisons further via early parole. The two propositions created the notorious prison to homelessness pipeline of the former inmates, poorly prepared for challenges of everyday life, pouring into the homeless encampments. //
Although it goes without saying that not all of the unhoused are former inmates, California’s homeless population is growing. As reported in 2023, half of the nation’s homeless now live here.
Will America become a majority-childless society? A new Pew Research Center survey suggest that sadly may be the case. Such a direction would have alarming consequences for not just individuals but also for our nation.
When Pew asked Americans younger than 50 if they ever plan to have children, 47 percent—one-half of those polled—said “no.” That’s up 10 percent from just five years before. In fact, of those younger than 50, 57 percent said they never wanted to have children, even if they ended up doing so.
The reasons why? Pew writes: “Not having kids has made it easier for them to afford the things they want, have time for hobbies and interests, and save for the future.” But what kind of future are they saving for? It will quite likely be a lonely one. //
The Social Security Administration saw this coming in 2010, noting trouble ahead in its financial report because “birth rates dropped from three to two children per woman.” Previously, there had been a 4 or 5 to 1 ratio between workers paying into the system and retirees taking money out. That ratio has already dropped to almost two-to-one. With even fewer children in the future, the ratio will decrease further.
If exposing money behind Arabella-aligned organizations is the price for outing conservative donors, that’s a trade Democrat operatives would gladly make. //
All of this raises a question: If “dark money” is so beneficial to Democrats, why do the party’s leaders consistently push for new and expansive donor disclosure laws?
The answer may be simple: Even when the left outspends the right, the value of silencing conservatives far exceeds the value of spending by left-leaning nonprofits. //
By establishing nonprofit donor databases, the DISCLOSE Act would open the door for Democrats to potentially create target lists of conservative donors and businesses to harass and bully into silence. As Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer infamously put it years ago, the “deterrent effect” of disclosure “should not be underestimated.” //
Even if some left-leaning donors are exposed, leftist ideas would still receive enormous platforms in the media, entertainment industry, academia, and government bodies. Conservatives, despite being outspent by the left in recent election cycles, are uniquely dependent on their donors and nonprofits to support their intellectuals and promote their ideas; disclosure mandates would be akin to declaring open season on these conservative institutions.
Welker asked Vance: "How do you respond to that charge that Trump's tariffs would hurt the middle class?"
JD was ready with an answer — and more than eager to respond:
If you sit back a little bit, Kristen, there's this whole thing that Kamala Harris did at the convention where she made a bunch of claims about what would happen, and not enough ... reflection on what already happened, because Donald Trump already was president; he used tariffs to bring manufacturing jobs back to our country and I' think he'll do it again. He did it while keeping prices extremely low.
[I]f you go back to the Trump presidency, we had 12,000 factories that were built during Donald Trump's presidency, inflation never really ticked above two percent during his entire administration ... and was about one-have percent, most of the time. So when Kamala Harris says, 'If we do the thing that Trump already did, it's gonna be way worse than it was last time.' I just don't think that makes a lot of sense.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared on "Fox News Sunday" to talk about his plans to partner with Donald Trump to "Make America Healthy Again," and dropped some big truth bombs about the corruption and perverse incentives within the United States' public health agencies. //
"I wouldn't dismantle them. I would change the focus, and I would end the corruption. Right now, 75 percent of FDA’s budget is coming from pharmaceutical companies. That is a perverse incentive.
"In NIH, the - scientists and officials at NIH who work on drug development, incubate drugs for the pharmaceutical company, get to collect lifetime royalties from those products. These are regulators. They’re supposed to be looking for problems in those products.
"We have these agencies that have become sock puppets for the industries they’re supposed to regulate, so they're not really interested in public health.
"The most profitable thing today in America is a sick child. Everybody’s making money - the hospitals are making money, the pharmaceutical companies are making money; even the insurance companies make money.
"We need to end those perverse incentives, we need to get the corruption out of the FDA, out of NIH, out of the CDC, and make them function as they're supposed to function, which is to protect public health and to protect childrens' health.”
In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, the former president said he could now get the briefings if he wanted them but sensed a trap.
'I don't want them, because, number one, I know what's happening. It's very easy to see what's happening,' he said... //
'So the best way to handle that situation is, I don't need that briefing. They come in, they give you a briefing, and then two days later, they leak it, and then they say You leaked it.
'So the only way to solve that problem is not to take it, I don't want it, understood. I'll have plenty of them when I get in.' //
But it's a hell of a pass we've come to as a nation, when a presidential candidate, one of the nominees of a major political party, feels he needs to forgo national security briefings because he's worried - justifiably - about Democrats trying to trip him up somehow. //
This kind of irrational hatred began, at least, during the Reagan years, and has grown steadily worse. //
The internet, frankly, has made this a lot more visible, with people being able to hide behind a degree of anonymity. But something about Trump has tossed the left off the deep end. It's not just the internet; it's crap like Nancy Pelosi tearing up Trump's State of the Union speech, like a petulant child having a tantrum. //
DABA13
4 hours ago
Not to quibble too much, but the left has ALWAYS been off the deep end. It's just that Trump has caused them to drop the mask.
I. M. Conservative flatlander
4 hours ago
I think democrats, as a party, has always been this far gone, but they used to hide it. Now I believe they think they have put the work in to change 50.1% of the culture to support Marxism, so they are not hiding it anymore. They have been and always will be Marxists. They want Communism, with themselves, friends and families at the top, of course. They will get the houses, cars, trips, jewelry, fine clothes, etc., while the peasants will (finally) be equal.
JP1 I. M. Conservative
4 hours ago
I think JFK was an exception. He actually stood up to communism. And we all know how that ended.
Istandforfreedom
2 hours ago
“What Tim Walz says in that clip and the ignorance he shows…”
Tim Walz is NOT ignorant; he knows exactly what he saying. “Hate speech” and “misinformation” is ANYTHING that displeases Walz, Harrisand their Marxists regime and spells the END of Free Speech and Freedom asa whole.
While some might have some points of contention when it comes to whether he is truly fostering free speech, it is clear that X is not the same platform it was before he took over. I have my own criticism of some of the changes. But it seems clear that more right-leaning voices are able to make their views known without the rampant censorship that was happening under prior management.
Moreover, as I stated previously, none of the leftists who are whining about Musk allowing more right-leaning content to flourish on X had trouble with supposed “misinformation” when the left was dominating the platform. Very few of them criticized then-Twitter when it suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story. Almost none took issue with the content moderation team that targeted people with right-wing views.
The author’s criticism of Musk’s conflicts with governments over censorship also reveals the true motivation behind their complaints. These folks have no problem with the United Kingdom, Venezuela, and other countries suppressing content because most of their attacks on free speech go one way: Toward those expressing conservative views.
The notion that Musk is somehow turning X into a haven for right-wingers is silly. But on one level, it is understandable. To those who are accustomed to leftists having supremacy over social media, allowing more speech from both sides might seem like propping up right-wing content. When a playing field is not level, creating more balance might seem as if it is skewed toward the side that was previously suppressed.
The truth is that folks on the left have only themselves to blame for Musk inserting himself into digital media. The left created Musk like the Joker created Batman in the 1989 film starring Michael Keaton. There would have been no need for Musk to take over X if those in charge had not actively suppressed content based on political viewpoints.
Flowers, 1888Flowers, 1888 (Oil on Canvas), by Joaquin Sorolla by Joaquin Sorolla
Israel on early morning Sunday launched pre-emptive airstrikes against Hezbollah terrorist group after detecting imminent missile and rocket attacks from Lebanon.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) “identified the Hezbollah terrorist organization preparing to fire missiles and rockets toward Israeli territory. In response to these threats, the IDF is striking terror targets in Lebanon,” the military said in a press release early morning.
Around 100 Israeli fighter jets took part in the defensive strike, taking out thousands of Hezbollah rockets launchers. “In all, thousands of Hezbollah rocket launchers were struck simultaneously by some 100 IAF fighter jets in the preemptive attacks,” The Times of Israel reported.
Hezbollah appears to have launched a large-scale attack on Israel, firing hundreds of rockets during the early morning hours. The Israeli TV channel i24NEWS talked of a “[w]idespread Hezbollah assault launched against northern Israel.”
LY Corp's QA team struggled to manage projects while wading through prolix posts
Former Microsoft engineer Dave Plummer took a trip down memory lane this week by building a functioning PDP-11 minicomputer from parts found in a tub of hardware.
It's a fun watch, especially for anyone charged with maintaining these devices during their heyday. Unfortunately, Plummer did not place his creation in a period-appropriate case, and one might argue he cheated a bit by using a board containing a Linux computer to present boot devices.
Plummer's build started with a backplane containing slots for a CPU card, a pair of 512 KB RAM cards, and the Linux card – a QBone by the look of it. Also connected to the backplane were power, along with some halt and run switches.
The QBone is an interesting card and serves as an example of extending the original hardware rather than fully relying on emulation. ... In Plummer's case, he used it to provide a boot device for his bits-from-a-box PDP-11.
Once connected and with a boot device mounted, Plummer was able to fire up the computer with its mighty megabyte of memory and interact with it as if back in the previous century.
ridley
So to be able to use their spacesuits they need to fit a square peg into a round hole?
Best give Mr Lovell a call. //
Avoiding standard docking and space suit adapters seems like a good way of wasting money and time
The thing that most surprises me about this whole mess is why NASA would ever consider that having a different design of docking adapter and space suit for each type of American vehicle that is to dock with the ISS was a good idea..
That the Soviet G2S vehicles would use different docking adapters and space suit connectors is expected: the two parts of the original ISS design were always intended to use differing docking ports and space suit connectors from the get-go.
However, it beggars belief that NASA would not have specfied a common set of docking adapters for all American spacecraft as well as common space suit interface(s), if only to save costs and re-implementation effort by basing these interfaces on than the well-tested Shuttle docking and space suit connectors. AFAIK those never caused problems throughout their useful life. //
Re: Avoiding standard space suit adapters seems like a good way of wasting money and time
No, giving money to SpaceX was seen as a good way of wasting money and time.
REMEMBER: when this all started, Boeing was the shoo-in, and that goofy SpaceX startup was the complete waste of time and money.
Nobody expected SpaceX to actually ever reach Station.
It never entered anyone's mind that SpaceX would eventually have to rescue a Boeing crew.
The American docking adapters ARE standard.
https://www.internationaldockingstandard.com/
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/station/meet-the-international-docking-adapter/
American spacecraft, INCLUDING Shuttle, either dock to this, or are berthed by the robot arm to a standard pressure door, which allows larger cargo. //
Re: other good ways of wasting money and time
To ensure SLS block 1 would launch by 2016 congress decided to use an upper stage (Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage) based on Centaur which has been flying since the 60s. The wimpy ICPS massively restricts SLS capabilities so a new Exploration Upper Stage was ordered for SLS block 1B. SLS is assembled on a mobile launch platform in the vertical assembly building and the rocket and platform are carried out together to the launch site by the crawler/transporter. The MLP includes a tower to fill the core stage and upper stage with propellants. The solid rocket boosters have grown an extra segment each since the space shuttle so the combined mass of SLS and MLP are now sufficient damage the crawler transporter's tracks and they path the travel to the launch site. EUS is longer than ICPS so the propellant connections are at a different height. A whole new MLP is required otherwise SLS block 1B would be delayed because modifications to MLP1 would not be able to start until after Artemis III.
Clearly this situation is untenable. What if MLP2 was completed before EUS? Boeing would look bad for delaying Artemis IV. The solution was simple: do not decide what height the propellant connections will be at until the last possible minute. Bechtel cannot start design of MLP2 without that. Moving the connections also moves the fans that blow hydrogen leaks away before the concentration gets big enough for an explosion. Designing the MLP for a choice of connection heights is also tricky. The platform must be optimized for mass so it does not go much further over the limits of the crawler transporter.
If Boeing and SpaceX had to agree on a flight suit connector US astronauts would now have a choice of rides to the ISS: Soyuz or Shenzou.
Believe it or not there is a worse solution. NASA could decide the shape of the flight suit connectors. Congress would then have an opportunity to help like they did with SLS. Giving Boeing and SpaceX the freedom to work independently of congress (and each other) saves a huge amount of time and money. It also means a flight suit design issue does not ground both crew transport systems at the same time.
What is the max skin temperature?
I heard/read somewhere that the reason the max skin temp of the real thing was 127℃ was because it made the maths easier for the engineers. Which makes sense after a little thinking.
I also heard about an SR-71 crew who were buzzing around the Caribbean being alerted to "Civilian traffic at your altitude" and being "WTF?"
Happy
Re: What is the max skin temperature?
What, so _skintemp could be stored as a 7-bit uint?
So... if any part of Concorde's skin ever reached 128°C, it would instantly flash-freeze?
Re: What is the max skin temperature?
127+273=400. (K)
Re: What is the max skin temperature?
Maximum skin temperature of 127ºC was set by the properties of the aluminum alloy used on the Concorde. Sustained exposures to temperatures above that would weaken the alloy. Sustained Mach 3 flight requires use of Titanium or stainless steel.
IIRC, the SR-71's typical operating altitude was a few km higher than the Concorde.
Re: What is the max skin temperature?
There's an interview with the SR71 pilot in the Omegatau podcast.
He was describing how he was pootling around over Cuba doing SR71 type things, when asked to look out for civilian traffic at his flight level
His observation was that he was wearing a space suit and peeing in a tube, while these businessmen flew past in shirt sleeves eating dinner and sipping champagne.
Microsoft has confirmed that the venerable Windows Control panel will finally be put out to pasture in favor of a shiny new Settings app. //
Re: cue the wailing
Control panel also lets you do amazingly complicated and advanced things like... opening more than one control panel item at a time!!!
The number of times I've forgotten that Settings is a kids toy, been looking at one part of the settings menu, realised I needed info from elsewhere so separately go to that other area... and then realise that no, you can't do that. It's binned off what you were looking at before and used the existing Settings session/window to open the new thing instead.
Re: cue the wailing
No, about how you can't set multiple IPs on a network adapter using the settings app.
Or change advanced hardware settings like jumbo frames or VLAN tagging.
Or update the drivers of the thing you're looking at.
Re: cue the wailing
It is done using PowerShell 7 only
Re: cue the wailing
Using undocumented commands - which will eventually be documented, but by then they'll be deprecated.
U.S. District Judge John W. Broomes in Wichita dismissed two machine gun charges against Tamori Morgan, who was indicted in 2023 for possessing a model AM-15 .300 caliber machine gun and a conversion device known as a “Glock switch” that can make a semi-automatic weapon fire at a similar rate to machine guns.
During trial, Morgan’s lawyers argued that these firearms are protected under the Second Amendment, a claim that Broomes upheld. He ruled that machine guns qualify as “bearable arms” under the Second Amendment and that the state failed to demonstrate a historical precedent that justifies the regulation of these weapons.
Why in the ever-loving world should Elon Musk use one red cent of his vast wealth to help improve Mid-Market? In case nobody informed you, Mr. Shaw, that's not his job. The taxpayers are paying some of the highest taxes in the republic, and they have every reason to expect that some of that money would be used to keep people from, well, shooting up and crapping on the streets. That's not Elon's responsibility. He doesn't owe Mid-Market, the Tenderloin, or the city of San Francisco a damn thing. But that's just like the left - sit around whining, waiting for someone else to do something.
Some years ago, one of my literary heroes, Robert Heinlein, wrote about situations just like this:
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as "bad luck.” //
If I could offer any advice to Chiu, Shaw, and Gavin Newsom, it would be that they had better keep a sharp eye peeled for locusts. //
Brytek
4 hours ago edited
If they see locusts coming they will make the people in SF eat them instead of meat, that is how they roll.
There is currently a debate over the efficacy and safety of using progesterone to reverse the effects of Mifepristone, a drug used to induce abortions. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists referred to the procedure as “unproven and unethical.” //
On the other side of the debate, the Charlotte Lozier Institute discussed other studies showing that the treatment is safe and effective. //
DaveM
5 hours ago
I find it interesting that abortifacient agents intended to kill babies in the womb are considered "safe" but medications intended to stop the abortifacients from killing babies are considered "unsafe"
OK, that's a lot of text, but the writers raise an interesting point. If they are correct in how this is done, there's potential here that billions - billions of dollars may have been funneled to Democrat candidates, supporters, and donors. And here's the catch; that 1977 change in the law means it may actually be legal.