Well. this doesn't sound good

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(don’t) let the chips fall as they may

PowerLine publishes “The Week in Pictures” every Saturday, and they’re always pretty amusing. The picture they paint in a post today, however, is not so funny:

Quote of the day

Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, quoted in the New York Times: “The single biggest threat to the world economy, the single biggest point of single failure, is that 97 percent of the high-end chips are made in Taiwan. If that island were blockaded, that capacity were destroyed, it would be an economic apocalypse.”

Via John Ellis/News Items.

JOHN adds: It’s OK, though. AOC is on the case.

Older news, but just as alarming, is the world’s, and, especially, our country’s dependence on China’s pharmaceutical drug production; such as, 97% of all antibiotics.

AI Overview

China is a dominant global supplier of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) for critical medicines, with estimates suggesting they control

80–90% of global production for certain antibiotics and essential compounds. While direct Chinese, finished drug imports to the U.S. are lower, they constitute roughly 13–25% of U.S. API, with indirect reliance through India being much higher.

Brookings +3

Key details on China's role in the pharmaceutical supply chain include:

  • High Dependency on Ingredients: China is the primary source for key starting materials (KSMs) and APIs, with studies indicating that nearly 700 U.S. medicines rely on at least one chemical solely sourced from China.

  • Antibiotics & Specific Drugs: China produces about 97% of all antibiotics used in the U.S.. They also account for 95% of U.S. ibuprofen imports and 74% of acetaminophen imports.

  • Global Impact: In 2024, China was the largest foreign supplier of critical pharmaceutical inputs to the U.S. by volume (39.9% of imports).

  • Direct vs. Indirect Imports: While only 13% of FDA-registered API facilities supplying the U.S. were located in China as of 2019/2020, this does not account for the high volume of raw materials sent to India for final manufacturing.

The reliance is driven by lower labor costs and less stringent environmental regulations.

Two new listings coming to Riverside this Thursday

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16 Summit Road, $3.995 million. Built on the steep hill at the eastern end of Summit, its vertical design wins no architectural award in my eyes, but the owners have lived happily (I assume) here since 2005, so I guess no one’s tumbled off the slope, yet.

26 Glen Avon Drive, $5.995 million. Brother Gid’s bringing this back on the market after encountering buyer resistance last spring. I suspect that in this ever-accelerating market, its appeal has become less selective, and a happy ending will be soon achieved.

Nice house, excellent street, good neighbors, and with the Fountain boys no longer on Gilliam, two streets over, your chances of break-ins and arson are very much diminished.

Pending

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28 Thunder Mountain Road, so named, presumably, because of its proximity to the Merritt Parkway, reports a pending sale. Asking $6.650 million, it was originally priced at $6.550 back in July, raised it $100,000 in October (go figure), and found a buyer this month.

When it was new in 2006 its builder tried for $6.495 million but had to settle for $5.650 two years later, in 2008. Those buyers, in turn, attempted $5.595 in 2012 and finally sold to the present owners in 2014 for $4.490.

Thank you, Mamdani?

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63 Wesskum Wood Road, * Riverside, was put on the market January 14th at $4.190 million and sold to a Brooklyn family (11211 Zip) today for $5.148 million. Joe Barbieri had both the listing and the buyer, but with Joe involved, there’s no question about the integrity of the bidding process. Besides, Joe needs the money.

*Sotheby’s has removed its own page for this house, so I’ve switched the link to Zillow; we’ll see how long that lasts.

Betty Davis's vacuum's eyes

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Or, perhaps that Eagles classic, “you can’t hide your vacuum’s eyes”?

full text:

This story is actually insane:

• dude drops $2000 on a DJI robot vacuum like a lunatic

• refuses to use the normal app like a peasant

• pulls an auth token from their servers, connects successfully • except the system thinks he controls 7000 vacuums

•checks again

• yep, seven thousand

• DJI built authentication with zero device ownership verification

• any valid token works for any unit on the planet • Sammy now has eyes inside homes across 24 countries

• live vacuum camera feeds everywhere

• full floor plans from the mapping data

• some guy in germany eating cereal at 3am, unaware his roomba is snitching

• one API call away from being the most informed burglar in history • all he wanted was to steer his vacuum with a joystick

• does the right thing and reports it

• DJI fixes it in two days

• back to normal life with his stupidly expensive floor cleaner

• IoT companies stay undefeated at shipping garbage security

The sole purpose of all these social welfare programs — every one of them — is to provide graft opportunities for politicians and their friends

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was that wrong? should I not have done that?

Out of Leftist field

UNEXPECTEDLY: SF Homeless Nonprofit CEO Charged with Nine Felonies for Allegedly Misappropriating over $1M in Public Funds.

The former CEO of a San Francisco-based homelessness nonprofit was charged Monday with nine felony counts after allegedly misappropriating more than $1.2 million in public funds.

Gwendolyn Westbrook, 71, is the former CEO of the United Council of Human Services. Charges against Westbrook include misappropriation of public funds, grand theft, and filing four years of false tax returns.

According to prosecutors, Westbrook misappropriated the $1.2 million through unauthorized payments to herself, improper cash withdrawals, and fraudulent reimbursements from 2019 to 2023. Prosecutors also claim Westbrook directly stole $91,000 from the United Council of Human Services. Court documents show that other large amounts of money are also missing from UCHS accounts.

The nonprofit has long faced scrutiny for its practices.

A 2022 audit by the city controller’s office found deeper issues with the group. UCHS, which had received close to $28 million in city funds, failed to place tenants in appropriate housing, failed to accurately calculate rent prices, and disregarded required hiring processes.

In 2023, “Gavin Newsom’s 10-year plan to end San Francisco homelessness [marked] 20-year anniversary.” Along the way, in December of 2009, SF Weekly had this classic Fox Butterfield-esque line: “Despite its spending more money per capita on homelessness than any comparable city, [San Francisco’s] homeless problem is worse than any comparable city’s.

Great suggestion from The Free Beacon: let's encourage them by contributing to their strike fund

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ProPublica Faces Threat of Newsroom Strike

‘We are prepared to walk off the job,’ reporters say, as they foist large inflatable rat at protest

Ira Stoll 

February 23, 2026

ProPublica, which describes itself as "an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism with moral force," but is in reality a left-wing investigative outlet bankrolled by left-wing foundations, left-wing donors, and anonymous benefactors, is facing a possible strike by workers who formed a union in 2023 but say management has been "unwilling to accept basic union protections" after more than two years of contract negotiations.

Employees picketed ProPublica offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Austin, and Chicago earlier this month, toting signs that said "Ready to Strike" and "ProPublica Workers Deserve Fair Pay." They appear to have been accompanied by a large inflatable rat, a frequent tool used by organized labor to depict management and non-union labor as vermin. The union has also raised more than $24,000 toward a strike fund to replace wages if workers go out.

"We are prepared to walk off the job and forgo our paychecks to advocate for our members, for ProPublica readers and, now with the looming threat of AI, for the integrity of accountability journalism itself," the GoFundMe page for the would-be-strikers says.

"We are fighting for a fair contract that includes industry-standard ‘just cause’ job security, a fair and transparent disciplinary process, union steward representation when requested and guardrails ensuring artificial intelligence does not replace journalists. Our management has said no to all these common-sense protections that we deserve," a petition circulated by the union says.

….

ProPublica is funded in part by grants from left-leaning foundations including the Sandler Foundation, which gave $2 million in the year ended June 30, 2024; the MacArthur Foundation, which has given a total of $8,050,000; the Hewlett Foundation, which has given $3,750,000, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, which has given $1,950,000. The Crankstart Foundation, run by Sequoia Capital’s Michael Moritz, donated $6.5 million in 2024.

The site’s news coverage is closely aligned with the Democratic Party agenda. Recent headlines include "New Moms in Wisconsin to Get Extension of Vital Benefits After GOP Powerbroker Ends Holdout," "Under GOP Pressure, Federal Agency Pulls Climate Change Chapter From Official Manual for U.S. Judges," and "A Year in Trump’s Mass Deportation Campaign." Among the most read stories in 2025 was an article headlined "To Pay for Trump Tax Cuts, House GOP Floats Plan to Slash Benefits for the Poor and Working Class." GOP is headline jargon for the Grand Old Party, which is to say, the Republicans. 

….

It’s unclear whether a strike would force ProPublica to cease publication or if it would continue publishing by having management or even replacement workers pump out copy demonizing Republicans. The organization is hiring; current openings include a defense reporter, to be paid $135,000 to $165,000 plus benefits, which include a retirement plan match of up to 5 percent of salary, 90 percent employer-paid health insurance, and "Company Issued Cell Phone or Cell Phone Bill Reimbursement (up to $80 per month)."

It’s almost tempting to contribute to the strike fund just to entice the Republican-demonizing reporters to walk off the job as midterm elections approach. If it works, the tactic could be used widely. Maybe a good investment would be funding cranky labor-union organizers at Zeteo, Drop Site News, Al Jazeera, and other hostile publications, especially since the things the organizers appear most eager for—restrictions on use of artificial intelligence and layoff protections that make it nearly impossible to fire employees—are precisely provisions that impede productivity gains.