Roundup
Here we go again:
(1) Colonel MacGregor is Tucker Carlson’s longtime go-to “expert.” He sings the same song as Carlson. I’ve written about him before, mostly in connection with his pro-Russian “predictions” about the Ukraine War (see this). Apparently he’s now opining on the awfulness of Israel and our war on Iran – of course.
That’s why bonchie of RedState has posted this Twitter thread listing the things about which MacGregor has been wrong (hat tip: commenter “IrishOtter49”). The list is long. It would be a lot easier and shorter to list the times MacGregor has been correct.
(2) And speaking of disinformation (which we were), “X” has suspended 800 million fake accounts over the last year. Yes, you read that right: 800,000,000.
Elon Musk’s X said it had suspended 800m accounts over a 12-month period as it fights the “massive” scale of attempts to manipulate the platform.
The social media company told MPs it was continually fighting state-backed attempts to hijack the agenda on its network, with Russia the most prolific state actor, followed by Iran and China.
As part of the battle against such content, X suspended 800m accounts in 2024 for breaching its rules on platform manipulation and spam, although it did not reveal which of those suspensions related to foreign interference. X has approximately 300 million monthly users worldwide.
(3) Is this true? And if so, to what does it refer, and we will ever learn?:
Former Mossad official and JCFA researcher, @Sagivasulin2025, says: “I can say that big things have happened in Iran, on the scale of the beepers and perhaps even more. They may not photograph as dramatically, but over time we will hear about them, and they are no less amazing. There are also other significant things that remain up the sleeve.”
Prior to the beepers, it would be harder to believe. Now it’s much more easy to believe.
(4) About traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, Trump has been working on the insurance problem [my emphasis]:
Iran’s mullahs thought they could weaponize the Strait of Hormuz; instead, Trump turned their maritime choke point into a pressure point on their crumbling regime and its enablers.
As Washington underwrites safe passage and “privateer” tankers steam through silently with transponders off, the ayatollahs are reduced to offering bribery coupons for “safe passage” to any government willing to dump U.S. and Israeli diplomats, advertising weakness to friend and foe alike.
(5) This is at least part of the reason the arts have gotten so crummy:
The problem for opera and ballet, and indeed for straight theater and musicals as well, is that they stopped looking for audiences and started looking for grants. A bunch of woke, rich White people can give you money to produce the first Inuit opera but it doesn’t mean anybody wants to see it.
And have you looked at the contenders for Best Picture at the Oscars this year? I had the misfortune to see a half-hour of the film that writer ranks as #2: One Battle After Another. It’s a half-hour I’ll never get back, but at least I didn’t pay money for the privilege. I plan to write a review soon. Suffice to say I think it’s the worst movie I’ve ever seen.
I plan to write a review soon.
I may or may not have already posted this review – can’t remember.
Just imagine if Plan 9 from Outer Space had better actors. It’s that bad.
And it will likely win “Best Picture”.
“… the times MacGregor has been correct” comprises a null set. Or, if you prefer Venn Diagrams, MacGregor’s predictions and reality would be two completely non-overlapping circles. Maybe not even on the same piece of paper. But I’ll say this for him: he’s consistent.
One Battle After Another was the first movie that’s made ever me walk out of the theater in the middle of it. And I was there with a free ticket in a very comfy chair with popcorn and treats – so my laziness and inertia were extremely strong.
It’s basically an Antifa masturbatory fantasy with high production values and A-list actors. About an hour into it I realized that I hated all of the main characters, despised what they claimed to stand for, and couldn’t stand another hour of watching them do dumbass things. Life is too damn short for that.
Maetenloch:
You liked it a lot more than I did 🙂 . And you lasted longer, too.
(2) Wow! That’s a big number.
(3) The idea that virtually everyone today carries a mobile phone, switched on, in their pocket throughout the day, is a stupendous surveillance possibility, for many reasons.
It used to be true in the early days of cell network technology that the cell provider could triangulate location very approximately solely through the pings that the phone emits to towers. Now apparently, that can be very precise, without the use of GPS.
And how hard is it for a nefarious actor to highjack the OS on your phone? Or other software trickery?
Also, many or most of modern automobiles are always connected to the internet, all of the time.
I would imagine that smart leaders within Hamas or Iran would rely of couriers exclusively and forego modern tech. But it would seem that this is not the case.
“As part of the battle against such content, X suspended 800m accounts in 2024 for breaching its rules on platform manipulation and spam, although it did not reveal which of those suspensions related to foreign interference. X has approximately 300 million monthly users worldwide.”
There is a mechanical engineer who posts at Althouse and he would insist that the correct way to express 800,000 is 800m.
In my electronics background that quantity would be 800k, and 800,000,000 would be written as 800M.
So you might be off by a factor of 1000. Since the article states X has approx 300 million accounts it would be hard to suspend 800 million of them.
Batemjo:
It’s 300 million ACTIVE accounts. The 800 million suspended ones are not active.
Speaking of movies I watched Sentimental Value on the plane to Phoenix (Spring Training). I thought it was very good, and Stellan Skarsgård was great. I hope he wins Best Actor. Not sure I’d recommend for everyone. A bit of an arty movie, and it’s in a foreign language, so patience is required, but ultimately it delivers.
Given the depraved state of cinema, akin to digging thru a mountain of excrement in hopes that there might be a nugget of gold buried within it, my attitude toward the Oscars has long been one of monumental indifference.
Recently vising my daughter and son-in-law, gentle manners required I sit thru an episode of the Netflix series “Dark Mirror”. I was appalled at the coarseness and nihilism.
And I have a great Spring Training story. I’m a Reds fan so I’m at the Reds game and we’re playing Cuba – the WBC is going on you know. Behind me are a bunch of guys who, I can tell from their conversation, are from Chicago. Eventually I turn around and strike up a conversation with them. They’re all in their Cubs gear. You see? They thought they were going to see the Cubs. We were playing Cuba. Missed it by one letter.
Heh, that’s a hoot, Mike!
The Choral looks promising. Haven’t seen it though I’ll be making an effort.
So Cubs fans don’t feel insulted, this was really all a Reds fan’s fault. He rents a place out there for the entire month of March. He invites his buddies from Chicago out for a few days with the added lure of, “We’ll go to a Cubs game.” This is the game he brought them to.
#1)
MacGregor can now join the illustrious company of likes of Al Gore et al and their 100% failure rate on climate predictions. Why anyone listens to these obvious morons is beyond me.
An even better link to the full thread of MacGregor being wrong:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/2031159778429252031.html
”They’re all in their Cubs gear. You see? They thought they were going to see the Cubs. We were playing Cuba. Missed it by one letter.”
As a Cardinals fan let me just say: LOL!
IMO, one thing we ought to do as a matter of course is to end the regular distribution of government grants to corporate bodies bar a half-dozen or so exceptions (inter-governmental agencies, state governments, territorial governments, county governments, municipal governments, school districts, Indian reservations) and make it the rule that the distribution to individual entities be according to formula and be an addition to the entity’s general revenue and not have strings attached except a franchise to audit. Irregular distribution of grants could go to these bodies and to private philanthropies for purposes of disaster relief, with the proviso that they could only go to hands-on service providers and could not be laundered to other agencies.
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Another thing we could do is enact some amendments to the law on business corporations which require that corporation revenue flow to a company’s employees, suppliers, lenders, shareholders, or constitute retained income. Grants to other corporations would be defined as a species of embezzlement. The company could have a ‘public affairs budget’ which would have to be approved at the shareholders meeting each year. It’s purpose would be to finance any sort of corporate communication not devoted to marketing the company’s products as well as financing staff lobbyists or contractual lobbying firms.
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Another thing we might do is amend the law on non-profit corporations to require that their revenue go to paying employees, paying suppliers, and retained income and that (by defualt) they be engaged in hands-on service provision. Exceptions granted subtypes might be as follows: political parties and contribution bundlers would be permitted to make contributions to campaign committees; charitable and religious bodies might be permitted to distribute cash, vouchers, insurance, comestibles, and fuel to individuals and households; and foundations would be permitted to make grants to other non-profits with the exception of political parties, contribution bundlers, campaign committees, advocacy groups, trade associations, and labor unions. Posit as well that foundations would be debarred from any activity other than making grants. It might also be the law that certain types of non-profit (contribution bundlers, campaign committees, foundations) would not be abiding but would have to liquidate under the supervision of a court within a certain period of time – say, within two years for a campaign committee, withing twelve years for a contribution bundler, and within sixty years for a foundation. Liquidation procedures would require the assets of the non-profit in question be apportioned among donors and / or distributed to hands-on service providers per instructions in its founding documents.
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Another amendment to public policy we can make is to scrape the sectoral preferences out of the tax code. That includes all manner of deductions and exemptions, those for philanthropic donations included.
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You might still leave certain preferences for philanthropies in place. Posit a state of the world where the tax liability of business corporations can be discharged by issuing new shares to a government fund or by paying a % of its total revenue stream. For philanthropic corporations, their liability might be a function of the compensation paid to their senior employees and easily reduced to nil by keeping compensation plans within a certain multiple of the national mean. You might also impose local property tax liability on philanthropies, but provide an avenue for them to apply for full re-imbursement from the state treasury (club service providers excepted).
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You might be able to improve the quality of the philanthropic sectors’ services by shutting off financial pipelines from sources other than individual households.