Gub'ment work

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electric chainsaws shipped to powerless N.C. by FEMA in anticipation of its workers using them as handsaws

Thirteen workers” to move a (very small) log fifty feet, plus one to watch, and how many off-camera, supervising?

If you had a wheelbarrow in that video, you could let all but one or two of those expensive federal employees go help someone else. 

Of course, efficiency was not the point: showing effort was--and the more employees, the better. 

Back in the pre-iPhone camera days, I wrote a letter (it was also before email) to the editor of Greenwich Time, noting that I’d seen a town crew digging a ditch on Summit Avenue in Riverside that day; there were two men actually doing something, a third standing around with a shovel, ready to ward off attack squirrels, I suppose, and five observers, presumably supervisors, standing around chatting. I thought that was a misallocation of resources, and said so, and the letter was just snarky enough to prompt a reply from the head of Public Works, “explaining” why those supervisors were critical to the mission. Uh huh.

My favorite composition from those days, because it actually elicited a public response by our Chief of Police, was one that pointed out an item in the paper’s police blotter reporting that eight of our finest had gone to the Cos Cob residence of one of the members of the Chimblo criminal branch (there are two branches of the Chimblo family in town: one is the good one, with plenty of notable accomplishments, the other is on its third — probably fourth, by now — generation of drug addicts, wife-beaters and thieves). Eight cops, but the target escaped out the back door. I suggested that, rather than have them all assemble on the front porch like a sad sack collection of Sam & Silos, a better approach might have been to station two officers at each of the four sides of the house and nab the miscreant as he fled.

“Although the Greenwich Police Department does not ordinarily publicly respond to citizens’ complaints”, the obviously embarrassed chief began, “in this case ….” . Hahahaha — victory! (I also received a nice postcard, illustrated with a drawing of his cartoon cops Sam and Silo, from Greenwich’s own, Jerry Dumas, thanking me for the nice mention; that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship that lasted for years until Jerry’s lamentable passing).

I was careful not to violate any traffic laws for several years after the letter’s publication, however.

Never use a scarecrow as your brain trust

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do i have to draw you a venn diagram, kid? just get on the bus and shut up.

Curtis: There's this very odd, disturbing, and -- frankly -- cringeworthy habit Leftist women have: they speak down to voters like we're kindergarteners. Kamala Harris does it. So does Gwen Walz. Back in July, we told you about this cringey TikToker who embodies the Nanny state.

Here's another Kamala supporter who treats rally attendees like children:

And this:

And this:

And this is what that same crack team came up with after she refused to attend the Al Smith dinner: pure genius

Nicht so schlau

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Ich bin ein Dummkopf

Huge, state-of-the-art fire station burns down because they didn't have any fire alarms

A fire station in Germany, a state-of-the-art, multi-million dollar fire station, along with ten fire trucks, burned to the ground this week ... because they hadn't installed fire alarms.

The new fire station, in Stadtallendorf, was hailed by Oberhessische Presse, the town's local newspaper, as a "modern, state-of-the-art" building when it opened last year.

But months later, Stadtallendorf firefighters, and others in the region, found themselves in the embarrassing situation of trying to put out a blaze at their own premises.

While there hasn't been an official statement about the source of the blaze, it appears as though a lithium ion battery charger started the inferno.

That’ll teach ‘em not to let immigrants store their stolen e-bikes in the station.

There's nothing so delicious as watching the Left engaging in riotous autosarcophagy

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Park Slope Food Co-op members face anti-Israel, antisemitic hate from their fellow liberals

The Park Slope Food Co-op has devolved into a hotbed of antisemitic and anti-Israel hate, with members spewing Nazi slogans toward Jews and sneering they “smell of Palestinian blood,” according to a complaint filed with the state. 

….The crunchy co-op, founded in 1973, requires its roughly 16,000 members to work 2.75-hour shifts every six weeks, in exchange for the privilege to purchase heavily discounted groceries, in addition to voting on store policies.

In the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack and the ensuing war in Gaza, however, several members began pushing to strip the store’s shelves of products linked to the Jewish state, such as Sabra hummus, with the spicy scuffle soon permeating campaigns for the co-op’s board of directors election earlier this year. 

In May, a Jewish co-op member who was standing outside the store and trying to inform those strolling by about the boycott effort was confronted by a shopper, who called her a “Nazi,” according to Maislen’s complaint. 

The odious member began walking away, but not before shouting “Sieg Heil” at the 35-year-old, according to the complaint.  

“I’ve had antisemitic stuff happen to me, but like that publicly, that brazen, with that language … I was really shaken up,” the woman told The Post. 

The co-op, she said, is “not a welcoming space anymore, for Israelis, for Jews,” she said. 

Anti-Israel hostilities continued a week later, when Maislen, who unsuccessfully ran for a board of directors seat on the anti-boycott platform, was harassed by an unhinged member outside the co-op, who barked at him that Zionists “can’t have empathy,” the complaint noted.  

And in late June, an Israeli-Jewish co-op member who was discussing the pro-boycott candidates during her shift was harassed by another woman espousing antisemitic conspiracy theories, including that Jews celebrated young Palestinians being raped and killed, according to the complaint.

The unhinged member seethed that she couldn’t work or stand next to the Jewish woman because she smelled “of Palestinian blood,” the complaint read. 

This article from The Jewish Forward provides a taste of what life among the woke is like:

In theory, co-ops are the ideal of democracy, where everyone gets a say on everything; a society built on community, compromise, collaboration and shared values. But the reality tends to be less utopian; without an ultimate authority, every decision, no matter how small, can erupt into a chaos of a thousand opinions. 

And though the Coop is a beloved neighborhood shop, it’s also a huge, profitable company; it has tens of thousands of members, many of whom commute from other neighborhoods or even other states to shop and work their shifts, making it the largest member-run co-op in the country. (Other cooperative companies, like REI, do not run on member labor; they are only coops insofar as members have some limited voting power.)

Those tens of thousands of members make for tens of thousands of opinions and rules — and zealous enforcers. Each change in operations is a battle. …. Members battle over which food additives are acceptable, the volume at which music can be played over the store speakers, what kind of meat to sell — and whether the Coop should sell meat at all. (It does, but my colleague, who has been a member since 1985, recalled a temporary compromise involving separate meat and non-meat shopping carts.)

In the letters to the editor section of the Coop’s newspaper, the Linewaiters’ Gazette, for the last several months, topics of contention included “the amplified collision of plastic” caused by the store paging system and pickle sourcing. And BDS is more controversial than any of those issues. 

A Jewish woman reported feeling afraid that another member would yell at her when she bought Jerusalem-made matzo before Passover. Another mentioned a beloved tahini brand that the store carries. “Did you know it’s made by an Israeli Arab who champions LGBT rights?” she asked. The rest of the letter is devoted to a tahini smoothie recipe: “Pour into a glass, take a sip, and savor the creamy goodness of standing against BDS and supporting products that promote unity and understanding.” Many, many letters accuse the store of being unwelcoming to Jews — members wearing keffiyehs while working their shifts is a common theme — and the Gazette of antisemitism for even publishing letters about BDS.

Meanwhile, others argue that the Coop is an inherently political project, and that it has boycotted other products and countries — Coca-Cola, Nestlé, South Africa, Chile — in the past. They speak of their guilt in eating good produce from the Coop while children in Gaza starve. Several letters accuse the Coop of being unwelcoming to Muslims for not having Ramadan foods on display — and for fomenting anti-Muslim sentiment by printing letters that accuse BDS of antisemitism.

Things have gotten so bad that, in the same issue, the Gazette published back-to-back letters in which both a pro-Unity and a pro-BDS member reported being called a Nazi. 

Ah, for the good old days, when Leftists could all just get along; so long as they all agreed with each other.

$12,162.16 per "underserved" customer vs $600.00 for satellite service; guess which one our Hartford Looters are going with?

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Starlink satellites fly over greenwich, unused

Greenwich gets $1.8M from state to upgrade broadband internet, most of any municipality in CT

GREENWICH — Verizon has been awarded $1.8 million from the state to upgrade its internet infrastructure all over town.

Oh — the money’s going to a nice, generous-to-politicians corporation like Verizon? Notice my shocked face.

The money will improve broadband internet access for 148 local businesses and residences that meet the federal government’s definition of “underserved” because current internet speeds are so slow.

The upgrades are for Verizon FIOS — the company’s wired “fiber-to-the-premises” connections — not Verizon Wireless.

Fiberoptic, no less; no plain ol’ cable for the underserved, if undeserving (in fact, there’s no means test for receiving this gift from the taxpayers, so the mana will fall into the homes and businesses of the rich and poor alike: Equity!)

Here’s a daring thought: do impose a means test, require business proprietors and those living in multi-million dollar back country homes and to pay for their own cable, fiber or otherwise, and buy $600 Starlink receivers for the handful of peasants shivering in unheated, cableless hovels down in Chickahominy Hollow.

The locations were selected based on the Federal Communication Commission's National Broadband Map, which included 152 residences and businesses in Greenwich that lack reliable broadband speeds as of Dec. 31, 2023.

Verizon did not seek any financial contribution from the town of Greenwich on the project, instead securing the funds with help from the town's three representatives in the state house. The work must be completed by Dec. 31, 2026 per the grants rules.

Reps. Rachel Khanna in the 149th District, Stephen Meskers in the 150th and Hector Arzeno in the 151st all supported the grant application. All three are seeking reelection in November.

Gee, if only there were a less expensive way to get high-speed internet service to these 148 households. Well, after spending 5 years and millions and millions of federal dollars paying the state’s cable providers to expand into rural locations, Maine’s Democrat governor Janet Mills had to throw in the towel and look to the heavens for relief from the cost of extending service to the last, most-remote 9,000 homes and businesses. Oh, how that must have hurt!

Maine will give Elon Musk’s satellite dishes to remaining homes without internet access

Maine will offer Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite dishes to the roughly 9,000 homes and businesses in the state that still lack internet service.

The Maine Connectivity Authority shared that plan Thursday while launching the Working Internet ASAP Program that will help the state fulfill its goal of offering internet connection options to all Mainers by the end of this year.

To bring service to the 1.5 percent of Maine homes and businesses without it, the state will coordinate the purchase of Low-Earth Orbit satellite hardware and service reservations from Starlink, a subsidiary of SpaceX, the aerospace company founded by Musk.

What’s a news article from a liberal rag like the Bangor Daily News without a gratuitous bit of editorializing?

“Musk, the world’s richest person whose ownership portfolio also includes Tesla and X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, has not shied away from touting Starlink while also courting controversy as he stumps for former President Donald Trump.”

Now, back to the regularly scheduled broadcast:

Starlink has already brought internet to rural parts of Maine in recent years, though early users in 2021 complained of high prices and dropped connections. The Maine Connectivity Authority said Thursday it selected Starlink following a competitive bid process this summer.

What’s the cost: Brian Allenby, the connectivity authority’s senior director of program operations, said the total cost of purchasing the equipment along with offering free shipping and professional installation is still not set, especially given not all households may take the offer. Allenby cautioned a broadband-focused news outlet’s report on how the equipment alone likely will cost $5.4 million [$600 per terminal] does not capture all considerations [we’re talking a government contract here, after all].

The outlet, Broadband Breakfast, said Maine is possibly the first state in the nation to provide free Starlink satellites to unserved residents. Starlink terminals currently cost around $600. Maine will not cover Starlink’s monthly $120 service charge that comes with unlimited data.

So why would Connecticut choose to pay Verizon $1.8 million, $12,162 per household, to provided high-speed internet service that could be obtained from Starlink at a total cost of just $88,800? Reached for comment by FWIW, Greenwich’s representatives in Hartford, Khanna, Meskers, and Arzeno (would probably) respond: “who’s paying our salaries, Verizon or Musk? Besides — Musk’s politics? We hate that guy!”

Meskers tried to distance himself from his colleagues, insisting, “I not a crook, I’m just stupid”. Embrace the power of “and”.

Your tax dollars at work (well, Alaskans', but I'm sure there's a federal grant buried in the snow here somewhere)

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happy shopper in anchorage

Shocker: Homeless Alaskans More Likely to Suffer Cold-Related Injuries. Who Knew?

Ward Clark, RedState:

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Cold exposure injuries like frostbite and hypothermia are eight times more common for unhoused people in Alaska than those with secure housing, according to recent research by the Alaska division of epidemiology. 

Riley Fitting, an epidemiologist with the state, said cold exposure injuries can be serious. 

“Just because we’re in Alaska and we’re hearty, and we understand the winter, and we know things are cold, but we still go out and do things in the cold, it’s important to realize that not everybody can warm up,” Fitting said. “And if we can’t warm up, we’re at much higher risks of these lasting health outcomes.”

He said about a quarter of cold exposure injuries were caused directly because people were unhoused. He also said the rate of cold injuries for unhoused people has increased over the past several years, likely because of recent harsh winters.* But in harsh winters, people with homes aren’t similarly at higher risk of cold-induced injury.

Clark:

So, people sleeping on the sidewalks of Anchorage, Alaska, are more likely to suffer from cold exposure injuries than people who sleep indoors, in a bed, under blankets? Gotcha. I never would have figured that out if an epidemiologist with the state of Alaska had not helpfully informed me. Heck, do you suppose this is true in other places? Could it be true that people sleeping on sidewalks or in doorways are more likely to suffer from exposure than people who sleep indoors?

*So we can expect global warming to fix this by, say, 2028? That’s great news (CF)

From Cuba, to Detroit, to the dark halls of academia, no one learns; they can't, or won't

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Fascinating story here

The Embarrassment of Success

Richard Fernandez

For those who believe "property is theft," success as exhibited by SpaceX's catching of a huge booster or South Korea's prosperity compared to the north is prima facie proof of guilt. How could anything be so successful without diabolism? By contrast, destitution and dysfunction are irrefutable signs of virtue because failure is -- to some people's way of thinking -- caused by victimhood. Recently North Korea blew up some of the few roads it had in rage at the unfairness of it all. Self-multilation enhances the virtue effect because the previously pitiable become even more so.

There is a theory is that people, states and institutions are unsuccessful because failure is imposed on them. Hamas, for example, justifiably committed ordinarily unspeakable atrocities on Oct 7, 2023 because they were driven mad by decades of settler colonialism. Criminals are flooding into the US from all over the world because America has made the rest of the world unlivable. "It's your fault for being richer than Venezuela." Not theirs. Victims are never at fault.

….

Because the pie is only so big North Korea -- and in a larger sense Hamas -- must be poor because their opposite numbers have left them with so little. That means extreme wealth is evil. A Guardian columnist thinks this should be self evident: "The fact that we are even having this debate is a depressing indication of the extent to which extreme inequality has been normalised. Of course billionaires shouldn’t exist. This shouldn’t be a remotely controversial thing to say; it shouldn’t even be considered a leftwing thing to say." The evil of material success is not worth debating.

If we want to abolish failure one must perforce abolish success. Then society will move into the sunlit uplands more slowly, but surely at the speed of the slowest ship, a convoy commanded by the right thinking. Success only makes future unfairness inevitable. SpaceX's technical achievements are unleashing inequity on a cosmic scale.  JD Vance openly proclaims, "I believe the destiny of this country is to conquer the stars. Whatever your views of Elon's politics, this is something that should inspire all of us." Can Vance hear how evil that sounds? Destiny. Conquer. Could the danger be clearer? SpaceX is extending settler colonialism to the universe, exporting "surfacism" to the new "sacrifice zone." 

…..

Unless the American billionaires are stopped the US will seize or claim the inner solar system before North Korea or Africa even put a man into orbit. Something must be done or success will unleash poverty -- or so the argument goes. But then the question arises: why then do new industries arise without the intervention of government? Why doesn't old wealth dominate forever even with the help of government? Could success be due to something other than ripping the poor off?

The evidence that economics is more than just about dividing pies is overwhelming. It is also about finding better ways to make bigger pies. In the 1950s, after political partition, North Korea was considerably richer than South Korea. Today per capita income in South Korea is 30 times greater than in North Korea. But South Korea didn't victimize North Korea. They're not even connected, and if they were the connecting roads are now blown. During the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948, Israel was far from dominant. In fact it was ludicrously outmatched by the Arabs in manpower, weaponry and in Western trained regular units. Where did Israel's present superiority come from despite the fact that the Arabs had oil?

The change in the composition in the Fortune 500 between 1994 and 2022 is even more intriguing. In 1994 General Motors topped the Fortune list. Today it is not even in the top 20. Amazon, Apple and Google are currently much bigger than General Motors. Did they victimize General Motors? But perhaps the most dramatic challenge to the pie theory of economics is the saga of SpaceX versus Boeing.

This is a test of evolutionary fitness. 

Boeing epitomises the end of the late industrial era. It is burdened by bureaucracy; it relies on regulatory and political capture; and it has taken management theories like outsourcing past the extreme to the absurd. The firm has dispersed R&D and manufacturing across a global network of suppliers – a strategy that yielded quality issues and, at times, had fatal consequences. 

In contrast, SpaceX embodies the vertically integrated model of the Exponential Age, with in-house production that delivers rapid innovation and dramatic cost reductions in space launches. 

Since its founding in 2002, SpaceX has brought down the cost of space launches into low Earth orbit by 90%. Ten years ago, Boeing received a $4.2 billion contract from NASA to develop crewed launch vehicles with zero success. The same year, SpaceX got a $2.6 billion contract and has completed nine crewed launches so far. The tenth will be the rescue of the astronauts stranded by Boeing.

Boeing should have been poised to conquer the stars. It had the advantage of size, government support and even tradition.  "Instead SpaceX will do 80% of all mass to orbit this year. China will do 12%. The rest of the world will do 8%. That includes Boeing, Lockheed, and everyone else." Perhaps the Left have got it wrong. Maybe success is principally the result of getting things right and failure the outcome of getting things wrong. That's why the Fortune list keeps changing, because some get it righter than others. Perhaps victimhood is not so much due to what other people have done to others, but what one has failed to do or failed to learn.

(Somewhat) Related, over at Instapundit:

DON’T THINK THIS HAS GOTTEN THE ATTENTION IT DESERVES: Will the XAI 19 Day Data Center Miracle Win the Future of AI?

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang knows exactly how long it takes most companies to build an AI data center using Nvidia GPUs. He describes how his Nvidia team worked with xAI and Elon Musk to build a complete AI Data Center with 100,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs in 19 days. Elon Musk has said it took 122 days from start to finish.

Jensen said this would normally take 4 years. It would take 3 years for the planning and getting the site and permits and then it would take one year to build it and get it working and everyone trained. This means XAI took about 103 days for the planning and other non-GPU planning and other tasks.

The removal of most of the 3 year planning and preparation requires leveraging Elon’s Tesla team and processes they have worked out for factories and the prior setup of 20,000 GPUs used for Grok 2. . . . Tesla can completely design, build and test and certify a car in one hour. Other car companies take a year or more. If xAI has converted the installation, building and testing of a 100k GPU cluster from a 365 days process into a 19 day process and shortened the planing and preparation from 3 years into 100 days then this could be an unbeatable level of speed for xAI and for Tesla AI.

Leftists: “Elon doesn’t do anything he just buys companies.”

Oh, how the truth hurts!

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Say it, sister: Pop star Lizzo ripped online after saying ‘the whole country will be like Detroit’ if Kamala wins

Pop star Lizzo was ripped online after she claimed that if VP Kamala Harris is elected president “the whole country will be like Detroit” at a rally for the Dem candidate in her hometown.

Harris appeared with the “Truth Hurts” singer at a rally in the motor city Saturday where the two sang the city’s praises after former president Trump had disparaged it at an appearance at the Detroit Economic Club last week.

“I mean, the whole country is going to be like — you want to know the truth — it’ll be like Detroit… Our whole country will end up being like Detroit.”

You want the truth? I don’t think you do.