Very interesting Article on how the Media Abandoned the Working Class

 This article is spot on in its protrayal on how the media has moved away from the working class and toward the highly educated liberal elite.

Sorceress' Toolkit Found in Pompeii

 It would have been cool to see what the actual box these items came in.

Out of the ashes of Pompeii, archaeologists recently pulled up a time capsule, though only the bronze hinges remained of what is being described as a “sorceress’ toolkit.”

Inside were a collection of around 100 little objects: two mirrors, tiny skulls, scarab beetles, bone-carved objects like buttons, bells, and little fists, decorative elements made of amber, carnelian, and bronze, carved images of men and satyrs, and of course, miniature phallic amulets.

Also I would love to know the price of her various charms and auguries were as well.

China Making Companies "Pay their Fair Share"

Time for them to do some clawback on the vast wealth their companies created. They kind of sound like the Bernie people on this.

Alibaba will invest 100 billion yuan ($15.5 billion) over the next few years into “common prosperity” initiatives, joining a chorus of technology giants pouring money into President Xi Jinping’s goal to spread wealth.

The Chinese e-commerce giant will put the money into 10 initiatives including technology innovation, economic development, high quality job creation and supporting vulnerable groups.

Last month, Xi called for the “reasonable adjustment of excessive incomes” and encouraged high income groups and businesses to “return more to society.”

The New "Biden Doctrine?"

This is certainly a bipartisan issue.

These numbers don’t lie. Since America gained superpower status in the early to mid-20th century, it has built a military footprint that all but guarantees the country will be tempted to try and solve problems far from its shores, whether counterterrorism, nation building, humanitarian intervention in a genocide or something else. This is the reality that Biden and future presidents similarly inclined toward restraint will confront.

Perhaps gutting the defense budget is the long term goal that will be what secretly unites the MAGA types and the Biden Dems.

Afghanistan Might Turn into the Worlds Biggest Terrorist Arms Dealer

So this means that terrorist nations will have the best equipped forces ever.

Assume that for the next quarter-century, Afghanistan will become not just the world’s training haven for Islamic terrorists, but an international, no-questions-asked, cash-on-the-barrel arms market for anti-Western terrorist cliques. 

So this means that the next terrorist attack will be with our own weapons, planes, and bombs abandoned to the Taliban who will sell them to the highest bidder. That is an incredibly depressing thought and 100% on Biden.

Scathing Account: You Can't Sink the Ship and Brag about How Many Lifeboats you Have

Yeah this has all been to clean up Biden's evacuation mess.

You don’t get to sink the ship and then brag about the number of lifeboats.

Yeah, it’s the biggest airlift in U.S. history because this is the biggest presidential screwup in U.S. history. This is a disaster of Biden’s own making, and now Psaki is boasting about how frantically they’re scrambling to clean up after Biden’s incompetence.

Bat-Mite Returns!

 This is welcome news for me as a comics fan. I actually have his first appearance in Detective Comics #267.

A new ally is about to join Wonder Woman: Bat-Mite, the Fifth-Dimensional Batman-obsessed imp. Wonder Woman #778 has a new preview from DC Comics that reveals the latest ally to assist the titular heroine on her journey, and it's a powerful character who tends to be either loved or loathed by longtime fans.

 Here is a panel from this site.

Mullen Admits he Got it Wrong on Afghanistan

 At least he is admitting that he was on the wrong side of this whole thing.

In our phone conversation the next morning, Mullen acknowledged that, back in 2009, he and all the other top officers and officials advised Obama to send 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan and to adopt a nation-building strategy. Biden was alone in calling for merely an extra 10,000 troops and to restrict their activities to training the Afghan army and fighting terrorists along the Afghan-Pakistani border. “He got it right,” Mullen said of Biden. “It would be hard to argue that [Biden’s proposal] wasn’t the right way to go.”

He said his people did not root out corruption to the extant that was needed and they built the Afghan army as a pseudo-American army that was dependent on us for close air-support, intelligence, etc. When we pulled out they either made a deal or ran for it.

You Would Figure the State Department would be Running an App Like This

This is Tech in action. Too bad the State Department seems like they don't know what they are doing in this whole mess

As the Taliban imposes its draconian rule in Kabul, residents of the city are turning to a crowdsourced public safety app to help them dodge violence, checkpoints and other threats. 

The app, called “Ehtesab,” gives iPhone and Android users real-time updates on emergencies in the city of 4.4 million, which fell to the Taliban last week. It bears a strong resemblance to Citizen, the controversial public safety app popular in US cities like New York and Los Angeles that also sends out safety alerts to nearby users.

Politico starts to Turn on the White House

It really seems like the White House is living in a different world than everyone else. They are also rapidly losing cheerleaders in the press as well.

Multiple sources point to deteriorating conditions inside the airport, including lack of power and sanitation. And tension has emerged between American troops on the ground and State Department officials trying to extract U.S. citizens and Afghan allies.

Meanwhile, the West Wing is looking increasingly disconnected from reality as the Biden White House strives to project a sense of calm competence — even as the Taliban tighten their grip on Afghanistan.

My Content is Really Old

I guess it is time for a cleanup and a refresh. Also putting my posts on Twitter needs a tune-up as well. I think the service I used ages ago is long bankrupt or bought up by big tech or something. I'll go though things and bring them as up to date as I want. 

This Atlantic Article on the Escape from Kabul nearly Had me in Tears

What a harrowing story of the will to get out and start a new life. I think this article can be parlayed into a very interesting Peter Berg movie. Also Julie Kornfeld, Khan's lawyer at the International Refugee Assistance Project needs to win some kind of reward.

On Wednesday I was surprised to hear from Kornfeld that Khan and his family had gone back to the airport again at six in the morning. Shops, banks, and ATMs had closed down because of looting, and Khan had no money in his pocket. The family left their small travel bags with a food peddler near the airport and waded into the crowd with only the clothes they were wearing, along with some water and biscuits, and their documents, hidden under Khan’s wife’s burka. They had decided that they would stay at the airport all day and all night. They planned to remain there until August 31, the deadline Biden had given for the U.S. evacuation. They’d stay at the airport until they got out or died. “She was giving energy to me,” Khan later said of his wife. “She told me that we should not lose our hopes.”

Are there Leaders Left in America?

 Very interesting article from Substack about the how America is changing.

Our elites’ dereliction of duty, their forgetting — about who they were supposed to be and, just as important, what America was supposed to be — is mostly to blame for the ocean of inanity that has engulfed us. The multiplying stupidities. The mythologies we promulgate online unironically or strategically. The preeners. The pronoun displayers. The opportunists. Michael Moore with his mindless Instagram post about everyone having their own Taliban. 

This failure of American elites is something that will be a problem for a long time to come. It is just difficult to trust people who let things get as bad as they are now. There is a feeling that the institutions are starting to come apart and the people in charge don't seem to care. 

Biden's callowness in this whole thing really hit me. He was supposed to be the compassionate candidate but these last few weeks certainly changed peoples minds about that.

Restarting my Blog

This whole fall of Afghanistan thing has made me want to start getting in there and commenting again. I also wanted to save for posterity interesting articles about the stock market and current affairs that I am coming across in somewhere other than my Chrome Reading List area.