Thursday blend: labor shortage edition

Happy Thursday!

James Bond To Stay Male, Will Be Played By Elliot Page

DISGUSTING: Disrespectful Football Player Kneels During Traditional 'F Joe Biden' Chant

Leftists Deeply Afraid Things Could Go Back To Normal

“Normal is like the worst thing ever,” said Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the world’s smartest socialist. “Normal is systemic racism and inequality and people telling me the math doesn’t add up on all my plans—even though I didn’t do any math.”

----

An observation: I went to the doctor's office recently to have some blood drawn for labs. I checked in, walked in the little blood lab room, sat in the chair, turned my head the other way, felt some pain, and I'm assuming they drew some blood. But I have no idea if something was injected or drawn, or if the needle was even clean--it happened pretty quick. That's our new normal. We go where we're told, and technicians poke you and inject or draw fluids (if you're lucky an actual nurse might do it, doctors don't have time for that).

I think it's good to question "normal" sometimes. At least be more aware and ask questions. It's like I was on autopilot the other day. It's not just about medical stuff, it's everything. All the little fees and taxes we typically no longer question, or any minor annoyance that is suspiciously easier in which to accede rather than to challenge. I'll try to be more aware and at least slightly skeptical of "normal" things.

----

There's apparently a labor shortage. I have kind of been vaguely aware of this the past several months, but it's getting more pronounced lately. And according to this article, it's still hard to find work despite the labor shortage:

Erica Groshen, senior economics advisor at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations and the former commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, told Insider that employers may not be working rapidly to actually fill the record number of job openings.

"They may say, 'Well, we have an opening and we have it listed,' but they may not be rushing to fill it if they're not sure how the pandemic is playing out in their area," Groshen said. "So they may leave the posting up, but not be rushing."

The supply chain industry is having a particularly rough time with it. If you're in that industry, now is a good time to ask for a raise and/or change companies for the increased pay the industry rarely gives.

----

There may be a government shutdown. Good. Save us some money, and propose something much more reasonable than a $3.5 trillion bill. 

----

Twitter seems to think (or hope) that Dog the bounty hunter will find Brian Laundrie before the FBI finds him.

----

Last but not least,

The list of major Biden administration failures

• The Del Rio Haitian border crisis.
• Don't forget Afghanistan.
• TBA

Bait, instigate, entrap, arrest, theatrical hysterics, and oppression

The more-or-less six-step guide to bringing down popular unrest.

Are people sick and tired of the establishment's garbage? Are they protesting and causing problems? The legitimacy of the left's and deep state's power (excuse the redundancy) must never be questioned.

So they just help set up a new protest.

First, install dozens or hundreds (the more the better) of your own agents who will help organize the event, and then both instigate and escalate any and all untoward mayhem--thus making the movement look bad--proceed to arrest everyone in sight (sans friendly media), taking out any potentially ideologically problematic persons. Notify your friends in congress who will work hand in glove with the media to put on a big show of how scary, terrible, unprecedented, treasonous, and evil the protesters rioters insurrectionists terrorists really are (and by extension, all of their ideological allies). They must be stopped! If possible, pass a bunch of really bad laws cementing your power quickly after.

Problem solved.

Except they forgot something. The government is incompetent and leftists are stupid.

click to enlarge

Original image from Kaitain:

From the “rally”. Can these fedbois be more obvious? pic.twitter.com/cOgJSexToH

— Kaitain 🇺🇸 (@Kaitain_US) September 18, 2021

The "insurrection" was not coordinated

In other news, water is wet. From Reuters, FBI finds scant evidence U.S. Capitol attack was coordinated:

The FBI has found scant evidence that the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was the result of an organized plot to overturn the presidential election result, according to four current and former law enforcement officials.

Though federal officials have arrested more than 570 alleged participants, the FBI at this point believes the violence was not centrally coordinated by far-right groups or prominent supporters of then-President Donald Trump, according to the sources, who have been either directly involved in or briefed regularly on the wide-ranging investigations.

Seven and a half months later, after hundreds of arrests, and countless lectures about the dangerous right-wing, we get a peak into the real investigation. And it's what everyone who doesn't blindly swallow the left's divisive garbage already thought. Compared to the entire 1/6 protest, it was a small collection of randos who took things too far. But that kind of news doesn't get the left's mentally-challenged base to the polls, nor does it open up their wallets. And as D.C. and the vast majority of news media are Democrats, don't expect things to change. 

Frankly, I still expect to see the events of 1/6 being written in the history books as an attempted right-wing insurrection inspired by Trump.

Remember when Apple fought for privacy? Good times

Years ago, Apple famously (or infamously, depending on your POV) refused to create a backdoor for the government to get in criminals' phones. Here's the Wikipedia article.

Recently, as you might be aware, Apple announced it plans to scan users' photos in order to fight child abuse.

[Note: I am very much pro-privacy. I do not need and refuse to post a disclaimer saying I am against child abuse because that's insane, and would do little to protect me from idiots who have no issue assuming others are totally okay with child abuse.]

On Thursday, Apple surprised the tech world by announcing that it will actively scan some users’ iPhones for known images of child sexual abuse material. The company also plans to discourage Siri searches for this material and warn children against sending or receiving sexually explicit messages, all starting with the launch of iOS 15 this fall.

The news drew a quick backlash from security experts and civil liberties groups, who believe the company is standing on a slippery slope by adding these content-scanning systems to its devices. The news also seems to have raised some objections inside Apple, as the company has stood behind its system in a memo to employees.

Apple is doubling down. They described opponents of this terrible idea as the "screeching voices of the minority." With that logic, we should mandate that every smartphone record everything and compare the data to what other people decided was bad. It would surely save lives, prevent child abuse and much more! From Pixy at Ace's:

Dismissing the entire security community, which has universally decried this, and the entire privacy community likewise as "screeching voices of the minority" shows exactly where this is coming from.

They are fully aware that what they are doing is wrong. They know it will harm people. That's why they kept it secret. They just don't care.

This is the end result of intellectual monoculture. To whatever small extent they spoke to any security or privacy advocates about this, their concerns were overridden because by definition anyone objecting to this was evil.

Cupertino delenda est. 

The apparent and increasing inability of the upper echelons in tech to question their own beliefs, to be genuinely open to disagreement, and to do so without assuming bad faith of their opponents is frankly disturbing. 

Lol China

 Via mostly leftwing site HotAir, I saw this:

I am so well-trained by our diversity police that the first thing I noticed is there are no women pictured. I'd be very surprised if a woman even had a significant role in this Chinese propaganda film. Does China have female doctors? (Yes, but good luck finding any statistics, let alone credible statistics).

But more importantly, I began to think about that Chinese doctor, Li Wenliang, who blew the whistle on China, and died shortly after from the virus. Any chance he'll be in the movie? Don't hold your breath.

And lastly, from the HotAir post, Allahpundit raised an excellent point about the NIH removing data upon the request of a Chinese scientist:

Erasing material that’s already been published is considered unethical on a *blog* ... At the federal government’s top public health agency, though, it seems they follow a “memory hole” policy. In the unlikely event that the Chinese researcher who submitted the early Wuhan data was telling the truth about updated genomic sequences being posted to a new database, the original data should have been left up with a note indicating that it was outdated and directing users to that database. Allowing scientists, especially scientists from totalitarian countries, to remove information after the fact is all but inviting them to make NIH complicit in their cover-ups.

Emphasis mine. I see the NIH is competing with the FBI for most incompetent/corrupt bureaucracy. That memory hole policy is looking sharp right now. Now you know why governments across the world are slow-walking their embrace of blockchain, they can't destroy evidence (China however, is leading by example of how to get your totalitarian blockchain on).

Initial thoughts on Strzok hearing

It's not over yet, and I missed bits and pieces, but I've seen enough.

If one wants candid answers to important and pressing questions, a televised congressional hearing is one of the last places you'll find them.

Although part of it was quite entertaining, if regrettable, but only further contributes to the idea congress is a cesspool and their televised events little more than clown shows.

The only new thing I learned, was that Peter Strzok does not appear to be all that intelligent. That and his somewhat recently publicized texts, doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the FBI, let alone the town in which all this is taking place.

In summary, when it came to the substantive issues discussed, all interrogative progress was expectedly stalled when Strzok and his fellow Democrats began arguing over the definition of bias, and concern trolling about conflating personal political views with bias.

Edited to add: I missed more than I thought. Ace has a more detailed post on the hearing.


In other news, I'm pretty sure I just heard Shep Smith say, very matter-of-factly, as if he were Walter fucking Cronkite, that Russia is in fact our enemy and they did tamper with our democracy.

They probably did tamper, but he said it as if Russians infiltrated every other polling station and falsified the outcomes, and we're on the verge of war with those dirty bastards. Where's my fainting couch? Get a grip, Shep.


via GIPHY

Return of the red eye

Lately it seems like my only free time is an hour or two in the wee hours, or an hour or two in the morning when I'd rather be sleeping (and sometimes do). So in order to try not to devolve into a lazy waste of space during my free time, I'm going to attempt to occasionally post something here again.

So, to recap what I've missed and what's in the news today, here are some observations and links.

I don't think Trump or any meaningful part of his campaign colluded with Russia. But there is probably a tantalizing something, maybe small, but something. Otherwise I don't see how the FBI and Democrats--which is seemingly redundant these days--can justify this perpetual investigation with virtually nothing to show for it, and survive with any credibility intact. I think, to a significant degree, they're operating on the sunk cost fallacy.

Charles Krauthammer has "weeks to live." I always appreciated his typically thoughtful commentary. You'll be missed, Charles.

I am almost in disbelief at the North Korean summit. I don't expect it to produce miracles, or much of anything in the way of denuclearization, but the summit alone is quite remarkable. Trump keeps surprising.

Tariffs. I am a believer in free trade, but I also believe in fairness. And I am not opposed to using tariffs as temporary measures to further encourage freer and fairer trade agreements. Naturally, the recipients of increased costs (whether it's from tariffs or fairer trade agreements) don't like it, and are trying various things to stop it. I think the Trump administration expected some push back, but I kind of doubt they expected so much. But one thing I've learned is that Trump, for better or worse, plays chicken quite well. He may yet surprise us again.

Due to new living conditions, I have cable tv now. There is still nothing on. CNN and MSNBC have lost all credibility with me long ago and generally suck; this is still the case. Fox News is getting worse. They always leaned a bit right on most of their shows, especially relative to other news networks, but now it's more blatant, unapologetic, and sloppy. I miss the kind of shows with the integrity and perspective Meet the Press had under Tim Russert.

Pardons. It's about time a president used the power in the middle of a term, and with such frequency. I'm aware it's a slippery slope, especially when it involves political allies, but I think it's worth freeing a few guilty partisans if the innocent and overcharged also go free.

I'm also trying to be more polite while communicating via text, email, or other online media. It's too easy to read something and post your knee-jerk reaction in the heat of the moment. This is partly because my new job involves a lot of emailing and texting, and I've had to force myself to wait a while before responding. Your tone, perspective, and articulation all improve after waiting, even just a few minutes. This precious time also lets you reconsider and reinterpret the possible tone of the text you just read, which is usually very important.