Nothing works anymore: construction edition

Forget bridges, highways, and high-speed trains. Major US cities can’t even build simple buildings without drama anymore:

A large portion of a Hard Rock Hotel under construction in New Orleans collapsed Saturday morning, killing at least two people and injuring 20 others, authorities said. The building bordering the city’s historic French Quarter is considered unstable and officials said further collapse is possible.

Three people were initially reported missing, though one has since been found, according to the New Orleans Fire Department. Authorities said no one on the ground was injured in the collapse.

According to Mayor LaToya Cantrell, 112 people were in the building at the time of collapse. Though the search for those missing was suspended for the evening, Cantrell confirmed that rescuers found two bodies but were unable to retrieve them.

VFM Bear said it best: it’s the indoor plumbing that I’m going to miss the most.

Import the Third World, become the Third World. This really isn’t that hard. Ain’t immigration and diversity grand?

So it turns out the guy behind the collapsed Hard Rock hotel, Praveen Kailas  was previously convicted of ripping off the state, and was allegedly cutting corners by employing unqualified labor.

The collapse of science

Illustrating once more that science is dependent upon technology rather than the other way around, a petty Python script bug may force the retraction of more than 100 published scientific studies:

Scientists in Hawaiʻi have uncovered a glitch in a piece of code that could have yielded incorrect results in over 100 published studies that cited the original paper.

The glitch caused results of a common chemistry computation to vary depending on the operating system used, causing discrepancies among Mac, Windows, and Linux systems. The researchers published the revelation and a debugged version of the script, which amounts to roughly 1,000 lines of code, on Tuesday in the journal Organic Letters.

“This simple glitch in the original script calls into question the conclusions of a significant number of papers on a wide range of topics in a way that cannot be easily resolved from published information because the operating system is rarely mentioned,” the new paper reads. “Authors who used these scripts should certainly double-check their results and any relevant conclusions using the modified scripts in the [supplementary information].”

Yuheng Luo, a graduate student at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, discovered the glitch this summer when he was verifying the results of research conducted by chemistry professor Philip Williams on cyanobacteria. The aim of the project was to “try to find compounds that are effective against cancer,” Williams said.

To help understand how devastating this sort of thing could be for the profession and practice of science, consider the very frightening possibility that modern science increasingly relies upon the sort of people responsible for enhancing your user experience of Skype and manning Twitter “customer support”.

It is worse than you IMAGINE

You might look at the terrible events described in The Last Closet and thank your lucky stars that nothing like that has ever happened around you. And you might be wrong:

Dozens of predators, 100s of kids: Decades of trained stars and scorched lives at Children’s Theatre.

Shortly after Children’s Theatre Company was founded in 1965, critics were calling it the greatest children’s troupe in the world. The extraordinary feats of its cast and crew, bright kids from across America, afforded the Twin Cities a reputation for artistic excellence.

The Minneapolis company was an insular institution with mysterious methods, helmed by the brilliant and volatile John Clark Donahue. He was also a predatory abuser of children. It was common knowledge that the boys in starring roles tended to be those who serviced Donahue sexually.

When Donahue was finally caught in 1984, Judge Charles Porter skewered the Twin Cities arts community for its complicity.

“‘Genius has to be given their idiosyncrasies, or genius has its funny side, and you have to forgive those sort of things. The theater would have collapsed if anything happened to John Clark Donahue, and the Twin Cities could not afford to have that happen.’ I have heard that so much,” Porter said at sentencing.

“Large family and company money, Dayton’s, Pillsbury, etc., supports the theater, and that they would not allow this to happen. The allegations would be squelched to protect their reputations.”

The judge understood that Donahue was just the spearhead of a larger deceit.

Underneath him were dozens of other staffers who sifted freely through the company’s turnstile of children. Some predators were friends Donahue hired to teach. Others were former students who’d been raped when they were very young, in an earlier decade, and raised in a boundaryless reality to become perpetrators in another.

But because many within the company worked to deflect probing questions from the outside world, the institutional nature of the abuse was hidden for decades. The company survived. It scoured its history.

My parents were patrons of the Children’s Theatre and we attended every show there for years, including at the height of this period of rapacious abuse. Neither they nor I had any idea about any of this, of course; I knew nothing of it until Spacebunny brought my attention to it this weekend.

And it is an object lesson in understanding that the murky depths of evil may lurk considerably closer to you than you would ever assume.

Big Bird has a problem

Or so it would appear:

Never a show to shy from tough subjects, “Sesame Street” is tackling America’s opioid epidemic head on, revealing that Karli, the little green Muppet with yellow hair, was in foster care because her mother suffered from addiction.

When the children’s show returns for its 50th season, Karli will explain that her mom “was away for a while because she had a grown-up problem.”

Never fear, Bert and Ernie can adopt her after getting gay-married, right? Nothing is safe anymore. Pop culture is filth.

The clearing of the Amazon

The Amazon rainforest is disappearing, or so we’re told:

An area of Amazon rainforest roughly the size of a football pitch is now being cleared every single minute, according to satellite data. The rate of losses has accelerated as Brazil’s new right-wing president favours development over conservation.

Okay, so let’s walk through the math.

  • Amazon rainforest = 5,500,000 square kilometers
  • Football pitch (max) = 120 meters x 90 meters = 10,800 meters
  • Square kilometers of Amazon cleared every single minute = .0108
  • Minutes until Amazon is entirely cleared = 509,259,259 minutes
  • Number of minutes in a year = 525,600
  • Years remaining to Amazon rainforest = 968

So, clearly not a problem for anyone living today, unlike immigration. And, as it happens, this reported clearance rate is actually very good news for those of us who are both ecologically conscious and numerate, as it means the rate of rainforest clearance has declined by 98 percent since 2013.

The first global, high-resolution, satellite analysis of global deforestation revealed that since 2000 an area equal to 50 football pitches has been destroyed every minute. The total loss is 10 times the area of the UK, with only a third being replaced by natural and planted reforestation, and the destruction is accelerating in the tropics.

So, if  .18 square kilometers are being replaced by natural and planted reforestation every minute and .0108 is being cleared, the Amazon will last a lot longer than 968 more years. Indeed, it appears that it is actually growing.

And even that is an improvement from 2008, when we were told that 120 football pitches were being destroyed every minute.

The current rate of rainforest destruction is the equivalent of two football fields every second. That adds up to 33.8 million acres a year. Official Brazilian government data shows that 3,500 sq km of forest were lost between August and December last year, but it is thought that the real figure might be double that. Rising prices for cattle, soy and other commodities are increasing the value of deforested land, so we can expect deforestation rates to increase accordingly.

Always do the math. And thank Sting and Mrs. Sting for saving the Amazon. The numbers make it very clear that their Rainforest Fund has saved the planet by reducing the rate of rainforest clearance to less than one percent of its previous rate.

The corruption of Creepy Joe

Creepy Joe Biden’s presidential campaign is all but finished, thanks to the information now coming out of Ukraine. It is now being reported that it wasn’t just his son who was being paid by the Ukrainians, but Creepy Joe himself as well:

Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden received $900,000 for lobbying activities from Burisma Group, Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada member Andriy Derkach said citing investigation materials.

Derkach publicized documents which, as he said, “describe the mechanism of getting money by Biden Sr.” at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine’s press center in Kyiv on Wednesday.

“This was the transfer of Burisma Group’s funds for lobbying activities, as investigators believe, personally to Joe Biden through a lobbying company. Funds in the amount of $900,000 were transferred to the U.S.-based company Rosemont Seneca Partners, which according to open sources, in particular, the New York Times, is affiliated with Biden. The payment reference was payment for consultative services,” Derkach said.

He also publicized sums that were transferred to Burisma Group representatives, in particular Hunter Biden, a son of the former U.S. vice president.

“According to the documents, Burisma paid no less than $16.5 million to [former Polish President, who became an independent director at Burisma Holdings in 2014] Aleksander Kwasniewski, [chairman of the Burisma board of independent directors] Alan Apter, [Burisma independent director] Devon Archer and Hunter Biden [who joined the Burisma board of directors in 2014],” Derkach said.

“Using political and economic levelers of influencing Ukrainian authorities and manipulating the issue of providing financial aid to Ukraine, Joe Biden actively assisted closing criminal cases into the activity of former Ukrainian Ecology Minister Mykola Zlochevsky, who is the founder and owner of Burisma Group,” he said.

“Biden’s fifth visit to Kyiv on December 7-8, 2015 was devoted to making a decision on the resignation of [then Ukrainian Prosecutor General] Viktor Shokin over the case of Zlochevsky and Burisma. Loan guarantees worth $1 billion that the United States was to give to Ukraine was the point of pressure. Biden himself admitted exerting pressure in his speech at the Council of Foreign Relations in January 2018, calling Shokin ‘son of a bitch who was fired’,” Derkach said.

That so-called “impeachment” drive by Democrats is increasingly looking like a well-laid trap for them.

The cost of money

World of Warcraft Designer/Producer Mark Kern’s explanation of why he has severed himself from all things Blizzard illustrates why I never seek large investments from anyone in any of my projects:

This hurts. But until Blizzard reverses their decision on @blitzchungHS I am giving up playing Classic WoW, which I helped make and helped convince Blizzard to relaunch. There will be no Mark of Kern guild after all.

Let me explain why I am #BoycottBlizzard

I am ethnically Chinese. I was born in Taiwan and I lived in Hong Kong for a time. I have done business with China for many years, with several gaming companies there. So I think I have a valid perspective here, having been a Team Lead at Blizzard and having grown up in Asia.

I have watched China slowly take over as the dominant investing force in gaming and movies over the years. It’s a shame US companies never believed as strongly as China and Asia in investing in games, but this allowed China to have unprecedented influence over our media.

Chinese game companies have grown huge not just because of market size, but because the government subsidizes them. They get free land, free offices, and huge infusions of cash. This cash was and is used to do expand and buy up stakes in US gaming companies.

I’ve seen firsthand the corruption of Chinese gaming companies, and I was removed from a company I founded (after Blizzard) for refusing to take a 2 million dollar kickback bribe to take an investment from China. This is the first time I’ve ever spoken publicly about it. I’ve also seen how American company reps in China have been offered similar bribes to get licenses for large AAA titles. Not everyone refused like I did.

Unfortunately, US and European companies are loath to take risks and invest in game companies legally as much as China was. China remained one of the few places mid-tier studios could get funding. So again, China influence grew. I’m sure this is the same for movies as well.

I understand Mark’s perspective and I respect his stand. He’s a good guy, a smart game designer, and a man of principle. That being said, I absolutely consider the Chinese influence to be vastly preferable to the alternative with which they are competing. A competing civilizational alternative to Western civilization may not be ideal, but it is almost infinitely better than pure satanic inversion.

Remember, the Chinese response is a reaction to the subversive cultural invasion of their civilization. It is an aggressive form of civilizational self-defense. Rather than permit their invaders a safe base from which to stage their attacks, they are attacking the bases from which the invasion stems. Given this observation, I very much doubt it will be long before a Chinese company acquires one of the Big Five media companies.

And let’s face it. They couldn’t have screwed up Star Wars any worse than the Devil Mouse has.

No need to wonder

I think it is pretty clear the Chinese don’t intend to permit the game to take place barring a full and public kowtowing from the NBA Commissioner:

Despite nearly every coach, player and staff member apologizing on behalf of Morey, China is severing financial connections with the league and discontinuing scheduled broadcasts.

Ahead of a preseason game between the Brooklyn Nets and Los Angeles Lakers set to take place Thursday, multiple videos have surfaced of NBA memorabilia being purged from the public view in Shanghai.

The move has many wondering if the game will be canceled.

NBA China update from Shanghai:

4:30pm NBA press conference was cancelled.

NBA fan event tonight cancelled.

Video shows how logo of Chinese Smartphone maker Vivo – an NBA advertiser – was covered on an NBA promotional sign.

Lakers-Nets scheduled to play in Shangai Thursday.

The Chinese are absolutely within their rights. They are a sovereign nation and the NBA is blatantly lying through its teeth about “free speech”, which it does not respect, practice, or support in any way, shape, or form. The NBA has literally nothing to complain about in light of the way it treated a former team owner over nothing more than comments of which it did not approve.

On the plus side, we have now discovered the one force capable of forcing Mark Cuban to keep his mouth shut. And President Trump is right to observe that these bozos have no problem shooting their mouth of about him, but they’re terrified to even mention an entire country, much less criticize it.

  • Item: Silver refused to apologize and said the NBA doesn’t dictate what people can or can’t say.
  • Item: Philadelphia 76ers fans kicked out of game for carrying ‘Free Hong Kong’ signs.
  • Item: All of the NBA’s official Chinese partners have suspended ties with the league.

There is a lesson in this, people. You don’t have to let SJWs push you around.

Smells like old pajamas

Cuck Central is live! All they need to do is add Rod Dreher and they’ll be set:

Former National Review columnist Jonah Goldberg and Steve Hayes of the now-defunct Weekly Standard have launched a conservative media company called The Dispatch.

“We aim to make The Dispatch a place that thoughtful readers can come for conservative, fact-based news and commentary that doesn’t come either through the filter of the mainstream media or the increasingly boosterish media on the right. Importantly, we want to build a genuine community, with regular engagement between those of us who work here and the readers and listeners who will pay our salaries,” Goldberg and Hayes write on the company’s website.

Visitors to the site can choose to read content for free initially or purchase a “Founders Membership” for $1,500, which provides a lifetime membership and other perks including “priority access to meet-ups, events, conference call with top staffers” and “access to robust members-only discussion room.”

“Everything will remain free for the next few months. Early next year, we’ll begin charging $10 a month or $100 a year for membership,” Hayes indicates in an email to new subscribers.

The publication’s newsletter will debut on Wednesday, Axios first reported on Tuesday.

National Review’s David French will also be joining The Dispatch as senior editor, the news outlet added.

According to Axios, The Dispatch will launch with a full-time staff of eight. It has reportedly raised $6 million from investors ahead of its debut.

It’s a blog. A six-million-dollar group blog. I wonder how long it will be before that $6 million from investors is converted into a loan. And it won’t surprise me if  it doesn’t have as many page views as this totally free blog does.

You always know a publication is going to be full of tedious squishes when it advertises itself as “thoughtful”. Because they spend a lot of time thinking very hard about how to be absolutely certain that no one can call them racist.

Market vs society

The Z-Man considers the way in which conservatism now attempts to conserve the market rather than the society:

If one were to summarize why Buckley-style conservatism failed, the clearest answer is that it stopped being conservative. The central tenets of conservatism are tradition, organic society, hierarchy, authority, property rights and prudence. In the Anglo-Saxon model, ordered liberty can also be included. The limits on authority are the logic of a fixed and orderly legal system. Probably the most concise explanation of American conservatism came from Russel Kirk seventy years ago.

Buckley conservatism, in contrast, was never deeply rooted in social philosophy and this was a deliberate act. The Buckleyites wanted a create a political movement that could compete with Progressives. In order to do that it meant winning elections and that meant providing a practical platform for governance. As a result, Buckley conservatism was always a compromise. In order to fashion a practical political platform, it meant deviating from conservative dogma as necessity required.

This lack of ideological moorings, however, led it to drift away from conservatism toward something that is better described as marketism. Libertarians see property as the key to individual liberty. All human rights derive from ownership of self and property is the fruit of labor, so absolute property rights safeguard individual liberty. Marketism, in contrast, views liberty as the unfettered right to trade property and labor. Therefore, liberty is maximized only through the free and unregulated marketplace.

In both cases, the definition of individual liberty is at odds with conservative conceptions of individual liberty, as well as the tenets of conservatism. The Right has always understood that a man could only be free within the context of society. To exist within a society, he must gain control of his passions and master himself. Customs and traditions, which habituated him to his duties as a member of society, also channeled his energies to that which served the good of his society.

This doesn’t address the entirety of the problem, but it is a good start. The reality is that Kirk-style conservatism was every bit as doomed, even if it didn’t stop being conservative, because it is not a coherent political philosophy, it is only an attitude.

Of course, that which by any name conserves nothing will not be able to conserve the free market because it did not conserve the society that values free markets.