News roundup
(1) Continuing horrific massacres in Sudan don’t seem to engender demonstrations from the left. It’s not “Palestine,” after all, so it doesn’t really matter to them.
(2) Bari Weiss continues changing the makeup of CBS: “Purge Begins at CBS; Biased Trump-Deranged Anchor John Dickerson Out, Gayle King Says She’s Leaving, Trump-Deranged and “Geriatric” 60 Minutes Facing Shake-Up.”
(3) Bill Gates’ climate change change:
In the letter, Gates called out the “doomsday view” of climate change and said leaders need to make a “strategic pivot” to focus on issues that have the “greatest impact on human welfare.”
“It’s the best way to ensure that everyone gets a chance to live a healthy and productive life no matter where they’re born, and no matter what kind of climate they’re born into,” he wrote.
Breakthrough Energy, Gates’ climate-focused investment fund, reportedly cut dozens of staffers earlier this year.
(4) On the NY Times’ lies, in which John Hinderaker points out an entire Times article in which virtually nothing is correct.
Not all that unusual for the gray lady.
(5) Trump says there’s a deal with China. Here’s what one writer says:
The U.S.-China deal is actually a one-year truce that will avoid the 100% penalty Trump threatened to slap on China. The question is whether China will follow through. Often they don’t. No matter. With $525 billion of exports to the U.S. in 2024, America is by far China’s largest trading partner, which gives Trump leverage if China tries trade war tactics again. …
… Xi agreed to open up [on rare earths], but Trump is playing the long game to cut China’s market share by boosting global production from friends and allies. …
… Xi pledged to catch up this year [on soybean purchases] and then buy 25 million tons annually …
… Here’s the deal [on AI chips]. Sales = profits = investment = dominant global market share = beating China. …
… Trump has drawn in upwards of $18 trillion in investment commitments [from Asian countries] for everything from shipyards to AI data centers and aluminum smelting. …
… The big miss of this trip, sadly, will be Ukraine. Trump tried. “Ukraine came up very strongly. We talked about it for a long time,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One. Trump said Xi is, “going to help us, and we’re going to work together on Ukraine.” Don’t hold your breath. Xi has kept the Russian war machine going with oil purchases and microelectronics. He could get North Koreans out of the Ukraine battle with one phone call. China doesn’t care if Russians and Ukrainians are dying and Europe is in a panic.
It’s Bari Weiss, not Barry.
Indeed. Thanks, fixed.
Sudan massacres are black Islamists killing other black Islamists (with some Christian casualties thrown in). Nobody in the Western press cares. Same for black Islamists killing large numbers of black Christians in Nigeria, and massacres of Christians in other places on the bloody fringes of Islam. And, all things considered, it’s probably reasonable for the American press not to care too much about what Pakistan may do to the Taliban.
On Gates: Climate change was all-important until AI required massive increases in electricity capacity. Suddenly, that’s more important.
Kate, re: Gates:
Yes, exactly what I believe!!
Gates knows his “new” money venture — AI — is totally dependent on reliable energy. Ie: Fossil fuels.
I remain angry that AI and crypto scams are legally taking over our cities’ and states’ investment priorities.
At least in many cities and states.
Eg: Austin, and Texas.
Grid stability be damned.
Kate — “Sudan massacres are black Islamists killing other black Islamists (with some Christian casualties thrown in). … ”
Like BLM.
And like cities such as Chicago.
Black on black violence, even murder, is merely an inconvenient blip to leftists.
…
Speaking to the choir, of course.
Re: Bill Gates’ pivot on climate change
Yeah, well, Gates is still deeply involved with Microsoft and Microsoft is deeply involved with OpenAI (ChatGPT). Gates knows that AI has a ferocious appetite for energy, as Kate notes, and that AI is the big new tech.
Climate change? Yesterday’s news.
Also, after Microsoft’s near-death experience in the cross-hairs of the DOJ for anti-trust violations, Gates learned to keep his friends close but Washington closer. With Trump Washington has changed.
Bill Gates is a clever bastard. He does everything for a reason.
Not sure I wanna be around when the AI bubble shakes out…
Idle question, perhaps, but is Bill Gates’ desertion of the Climate Change orthodoxy any different from Bill Kristol’s desertion of the Republicans?
“I have my principles, and if you don’t like those — I have other ones.”
The Other Marx.
Or: The Agenda is never the agenda; personal aggrandizement is always The Agenda.
Or: It’s a club and you aren’t in it.
Browsing through the rest of Ace’s output for today, here is his take on the Arctic Frost “worse than Watergate” scandal:
https://ace.mu.nu/archives/417102.php
Since the whistleblower evidence and retrieved documents show that “…the corrupt Biden FBI subpoenaed the bank records, donor lists, and emails of nearly every major conservative organization and leader in the country, including Donald Trump’s campaign, the RNC,…”
… where are the indictments that should have resulted from finding the connections that tied the entire conservative Republican party leadership into a vast nefarious conspiracy to destroy Our Democracy?
There ought to have been at least one RICO.
They didn’t even indict Senator Cruz for being a J6-enabler.
Like the lawfare against Trump that generated piffle, there is only one conclusion: Cleanest. Political. Party. Ever.
Well, that’s maybe a little over-hyped, but you all know what I mean.
My favorite Ace rhetoric:
The NYT publishes many stories which demonstrate that choosing what to say and how to say it means you can write a news report that contains independently true statements, “just the facts,” and is still overall a lie.
In the case noted by PLB, they Slimes is slipping, because they included a “fact” that was not in fact true, and they had to have known that because they deliberately omitted the information that included it.
Tsk, tsk.
in re (1) the story contains a multitude of horrific offenses, and rubs salt into the wounds of the victims by choosing to use the perpetrators’ self-lauding labels as “warriors” and “fighters” — as if their targets were other militias, not helpless civilians.
Just like Hamas in their own PR about their attack on Israel.
Neo – “It’s not “Palestine,” after all, so it doesn’t really matter to them.”
And yet, in Sudan and other parts of Africa, it is October 7 every day.
I can believe Congresspeople thought their life was in danger on Jan 6 and they needed to take drastic to punish the actions by hundreds of protesters. And I can believe officials in the White House honestly felt they had to take unprecedented action to foreclose the possibility that Trump or other Republican politicians might ever again get their hands on the reins of power.
But I find it hard to believe senior officials in the FBI, who knew their people had infiltrated the Jan 6 protests, honestly believed they were dealing with an “insurrection” that threatened democracy. Which means they should have known they were engaging in a conspiracy.
Because there were whistle-blowers, we know that SOME FBI people were aware that what they were doing was wrong, but why only a few? These are law enforcement people, many trained in the law, and they didn’t know what they were doing was unconstitutional?
I am really shocked. I mean that. If the FBI really engaged in this activity with little to no pushback from senior staff, it’s hard to believe the Bureau can be allowed to continue. Corruption appears to have reached critical mass. Fire the lot.
Re: China and the current Russo-Ukraine War, it is pretty obvious that Xi is playing both ends against the middle, by which I mean that he is supplying Russia with ordnance and financing in just enough amounts so as to keep the hostilities going, in return for which Russia sends China oil and gas with the added bonus that by doing so, China is draining Russia of money and manpower and simultaneously diverting Western resources from productive areas into propping up the Ukraine. So continued war in that area is a “win/win/win” for Xi. Also, China clearly has designs on Siberian annexation at some point, because it needs the vast tracts of arable land and water that are in short supply in China’s western provinces. That is why Xi is not cooperative with Trump’s efforts to end the conflict, since that would disadvantage China. Xi doesn’t care how many people die in wars between other countries. I love Trump, but sometimes wonder if his admirable desire to end global conflict is a bit too utopian for America’s interests. Israel/hamas is another example of his (possibly) misplaced global altruism, by which he has ended most of the fighting (good) but enabled hamas to continue to exist (bad). I think Trump’s background in NYC real estate may be a bit of a detriment here, because, on the one hand it does give him an edge in negotiating but on the other, the emphasis on achieving a “deal” may obscure potential future adverse consequences. (Cue PM Chamberlain in Munich.) Sometimes wars only end when one side obliterates the other, or at least eliminates its ability to continue to engage. Perhaps it is more like “always” rather than sometimes. My experience in litigation provides a more personal insight here. Although achieving a “settlement” is usually, but not always of paramount importance to the litigating parties, sometimes the price is either too dear or too meager, at which point a trial becomes the substitute for “war,” but results in something like finality, whereby one side “wins” and the other “loses.” Of course, the comparison is a pale one, since nobody (ideally!) gets killed in the course of litigation no matter what the outcome.
F:
I can’t remember where I read it, but apparently the searches of GOP members of Congress were the work of 6 lawyers at the DOJ who were fired or left of their own accord some time ago.
Sudan massacres are black Islamists killing other black Islamists (with some Christian casualties thrown in)
Kate, mainly it’s Christian Sudanese who are getting massacred. Mainly in the south. Animists also.
Until my health problems arose I was tangentially involved in assisting the Sudanese Christians. Worked with a group/individuals who were working to provide military assistance. Not so much now. But I remain on call. And informed.
Yep, Bill Gates various enterprises need a lot of energy. He must have understood for many years the absurdity of the arguments for man-made climate change. He likely senses the change in the political climate that will allow him to break with the church.
Tech oligarchs are changing their mind on alternative energy. AI is going to be a big energy hog. Virtual reality isn’t dead either and there are still people around the world who haven’t been connected to the webernet, so climate change is on the back burner now. If it’s happening — and happening because of human activity — it’s something that human creativity could fix or modify or react to, which was always the case.
Siberia and ‘vast tracts of arable land’, ah, IIRC, don’t go together.
Vastness, yes, but arable?
Northern latitudes, short summers, long winters don’t make for great farming (arability).
@AesopFan:Bill Gates’ desertion of the Climate Change orthodoxy
I’m afraid this didn’t happen. Rather, Gates rejected an extreme position within climate change orthodoxy which I doubt he personally ever held.
Here’s his actual words. tl dr: still believes in the reality of climate change, still intends to make money from fighting it.
I’m afraid this didn’t happen. Rather, Gates rejected an extreme position within climate change orthodoxy which I doubt he personally ever held.
He couldn’t claim it isn’t happening.
Also, one needs to consider the narrative related to “climate change”. At the level of the accepted “science”* there is uncertainty and mild warming. But the warming is amplified at each step of the chain, until it is reported as being the worst threat we face.
His current stance is basically to be a “science denier” at the levels reported by the MSM and establishment politicians.
*”science” because results that undercut the narrative are not curtailed.
I’ve looked into the science, particularly with respect to the effect of CO2. Several basic points:
1) CO2 is saturated except at high altitude. Where it is saturated it can’t further contribute to warming. Hence only CO2 at very high altitude can contribute to further warming.
2) A doubling of CO2 from 400 ppm to 800 ppm will only reduce outward thermal radiation by ~ 3 Watts/square meter, and only increase the average temp by ~0.5 C.
3) CO2 levels are increasing by a linear 2.3 ppm, so this doubling takes over 170 years at the present rate.
4) If you present the above in an argument, the reply is “feedbacks!”. In one online debate I saw where someone stated “they have identified seven feedbacks!”. LOL, how many feedbacks have not been identified. The effects of clouds are not fully understood.
5) The other thing is climate models. These are rather course models of a chaotic system, and in a chaotic system small changes to inputs can have huge changes to the outputs. Physicist (climate scientist) Richard Lindzen once said they can probably make their models have whatever outcome they want.
In conclusion, CO2 itself can’t do much. They sell the issue as “settled science” because “greenhouse gas”, but the real issue is with respect to the feedbacks they don’t fully understand.
And, on feedbacks, Richard Lindzen identified a negative feedback that exists at least in the tropics (where the greenhouse effect matters the most), which he called the “iris effect”. But they seem to ignore that particular feedback because it is negative (negative feedbacks create stable systems and prevent ramping up, positive feedbacks are the type that would amplify warming).
. . . because results that undercut the narrative are not curtailed.
I meant: “. . . because results that undercut the narrative are curtailed.”
Bill Gates and “carbon credits.”
This is no different than wealthy Catholics paying indulgences to the church to clear their souls. Just one of the items addressed by Martin Luther that led to the Protestant Reformation.
Bill Gates has the $$$$ to buy any amount of carbon credit ; it’s painless for him .
Meanwhile the “unwashed masses” have to pay higher electric or natural gas rate due to policies supported by him.
Once again, a rich liberal is immune and exempt from the consequence of the policies he espouses.
Oh, by the way, did you know he has several private airplanes and a 60,000 sq foot home and a massive car collection.
Yep, we all need to listen to the climate change prescriptions of Gates and his ilk, but just don ‘t expect them to follow them.