Read it.

Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia announced plans to dedicate an $80 billion fund to develop the Neom megaproject, aimed at establishing a futuristic living space in the northwest of the country. This forms part of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, which aims to diversify the national economy and make the country less reliant on its oil revenues. Saudi Arabia plans to develop Neom as a mega clean-energy city on a plot of land the size of Belgium. The space is expected to eventually become self-sufficient and provide a return on investment of between 13 and 14 percent. It will have no cars, roads, or greenhouse gas emissions and will be powered by 100 percent renewable energy, with 95 percent of the land being preserved for nature.

…

The much-talked-about Neom project will see the 10 regions developed in the northwest of Saudi Arabia. The most ambitious project is called ‘The Line’, two parallel skyscrapers aimed at housing 9 million people, a 170-kilometre building that juts into the Red Sea but is just 200 metres wide. What it lacks in width it makes up for in height at a staggering 500 metres tall, complete with a mirrored facade. If successful, this structure will be a major feat of engineering. The development will also include Oxagon, an industrial city with a manufacturing hub centred around tech industries, to be built on the sea and the mountainous region of Trojena. Neom will include a residential area, an industrial city, and a mountain tourism destination.

The project has the further advantage of cutting through major areas that are the traditional home of the Howeitat, long-time enemies of the Saudi royal family.

Read it.

Despite the discovery, the work, titled New York City I, will continue to be displayed the wrong way up to avoid damaging it.

I guess it really doesn’t mater.

Now that’s comedy.

ZMan’s weekly podcast. Highly recommended.

With Halloween approaching I thought about doing a special show on the subject, but then I remembered I did that last year. I then remembered that it was not just the greatest Halloween show ever, it was probably the best podcast ever produced in the history of podcasts. In retrospect, I should have retired after that show, but like all champions, I have lingered on too long.

Luckily, the news is providing more than enough content. We have the war, the midterms, the fatwah against Ye. Next week we will get to see a million blue checks on Twitter wail in unison over Elon Musk. It looks like he will start his reign of terror with mass firings, which will be a good time. This is the season of schadenfreude and the gods of that concept are going to be generous.

The one sour note will be seeing so many of our guys rush back to Twitter so they can once again perform for the enemy. Generations of conditioning have trained them to think they need the attention of lefty in order to live. They will abandon the various alternative platforms just so they can carry on like precocious children for their masters on the other side. It is the slave’s mentality.

Read it.

Economic centralization is the ultimate form of organized conspiratorial power, because it allows a small group of people to dictate the terms of trade for a society and therefore dictate the terms of each person’s individual survival.

For example, the Federal Reserve as a banking entity has free rein to assert policy controls that can disrupt the very fabric of the US economy and the buying power of our currency. They can (and do) arbitrarily create trillions of dollars from thin air causing inflation, or arbitrarily raise interest rates and crash stock markets. And according to former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, they answer to no one, including the US government.

Read it.

Just minutes after the world’s richest man has reportedly closed the $44 billion deal, The NYTimes reports that, according to sources that declined to be identified, the Twitter executives who were fired include:

• Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s chief executive,
• Ned Segal, the chief financial officer,
• Sean Edgett, the general counsel, and
• Vijaya Gadde, the top legal and policy executive, (or censorship czar).

Read it.

My single issue is this: the reinstatement of the draft. Over the next few years, I’ll have two draftable boys, and more after that. The prospect of committing us to yet another 20-year quagmire on some blasted foreign plain with miserable weather and inedible food is an irresistible bauble to our corrupt government; I fear they cannot resist the intoxicating scent of teenage blood.

ZMan discusses some inconvenient truth.

If you are over the age of fifty, you remember a time when you would have been corrected, if you said America was a democracy. Conservatives would interrupt you and say that America is a constitutional republic, not a democracy. Liberals would say that America is a fascist police state, not a democracy. That is a small exaggeration, but the liberals were always going on about the lack of democracy. Both sides of the mainstream agreed that America was not a democracy.

Somewhere along the way, this reversed. Both sides of the increasingly narrow political consensus calls America a democracy. In fact, they compete with one another to be the most outraged by threats to our democracy. Proof that the universe has a sense of humor, our rulers would no doubt condemn all of their prior statements about America not being a democracy. This would never happen as no one would dare bring this up to them, but the point remains.

Tom Veal.

The elevation of unrestricted abortion from a progressive policy preference to a primary dogma is one of the most astonishing developments in intellectual history. From Bill Clinton’s “safe, legal and rare”, “rare” has been dropped entirely, and “safe” is hardly a consideration. Abortions performed by non-medical personnel or by the unsupervised ingestion of abortifacient drugs are regarded as quite acceptable. The child’s death has a higher value than the mother’s health.

Even more strikingly, pro-abortion progressives denounce any public criticism of abortion as fiercely as any religious fanatic has ever excoriated blasphemy. Several posts back, I cited a couple of examples. A couple more showed up today.

Read it.

A new Hoover Institution (Stanford University) report indicates that California continues to shed corporate headquarters locations to other states.

Hoover Institution Senior Fellow and UCLA distinguished professor of economics Lee Ohanian and Joseph Vranich of Spectrum Locations Services show that “In 2021, California business headquarters left the state at twice their rate in both 2020 and 2019, and at three times their rate in 2018. In the last three years, California lost eleven Fortune 1000 companies, whose exits negatively affect California’s economy today. But California also is risking its economic future as much smaller but rapidly growing unique businesses are leaving, taking their innovative ideas with them.”

Including companies outside the Fortune 1,000, Ohanian and Vranich indicate that California lost 153 corporate headquarters between in 2021. This is more than double the totals for each of the three years from 2018 to 2020.

Read it.

The NFL has blackmailed Arizona over powder keg issues before, but it won’t happen again, says the Republican candidate for governor. Kari Lake, the former Fox 10 television news anchor, said rich, woke NFL owners will not dictate border policy to her if she’s elected next month.

Sounds good.

MarketWatch.

The company has started covertly tracking wishlists and shopping carts across the web in a gambit to win the big business of social shopping, before other platforms get there first

I love the smell of conspiracy in the morning.

Ukraine Situation Report: Intel Chief Says Russia Is Reinforcing Kherson City

Rotax Engine Found In Iranian Mohajer-6 Drone Downed Over Ukraine

Russia’s Growing Dirty Bomb Threat Narrative Is Highly Concerning

Russia’s Medvedev Threatens Defense Industry Arrests During Tank Plant Visit

UN Office: More Than 6,400 Civilians Killed in Ukraine’s War With Russia

Read it.

An Orthodox Jewish school at the forefront of the battle for religious freedom has presented an interesting compromise: Rather than endorse the LGBT student club that is currently suing the school for recognition, it will launch its own club that it says will help LGBT students while obeying the Law of Moses.

Yeshiva University announced Monday that it has established “the Kol Yisrael Areivim club for LGBTQ students striving to live authentic Torah lives.” The announcement came just over a month after the Supreme Court rejected the university’s request to block a non-final New York trial court order forcing it to recognize YU Pride Alliance, an LGBT student group that promotes activities that conflict with Torah values, according to the university.

I don’t think this will satisfy the Freedom Deniers, but it’s a clever move.

Biology Denier: Person who refuses to accept that there is a genetic physical difference between a male and a female.

Spread the word.

Ukraine’s Zelenskiy: only Russia could use nuclear arms in Europe (Reuters)

US, Russian defense secretaries speak for second time in three days amid ‘dirty bomb’ claims (Fox)

Putin’s ‘Luck Is Over’ in Ukraine War: Former Russian Diplomat (Newsweek)

Reports: Israel Destroyed Iranian Drone Manufacturing Plant in Syria Doing the jobs Americans don’t want to do….

Worried About Nuclear War? Consider the Micromorts (Wired ‘Science’)

EU To Give Ukraine 1.5 Billion Euros Per Month Next Year

Russia Only Creating ‘Illusion’ In Kherson Of Evacuation

Liberals urge Biden to rethink Ukraine strategy (Washington Post)

Read it.

I can count on the fingers of one hand the people that I’d face a bear to save, and “teammate” doesn’t make the cut.

Read it.

I’ll bet you didn’t know that.

Read it.

If you look at the source code for this blog, you might notice that all my blog posts (written in Markdown) have two spaces after every period.

Every so often this Slate article makes the rounds and annoys me. This time I figured I’d write a blog post/rant to get it off my chest once and for all: two-spacing is equal or superior to one-spacing in all non-trivial ways.

Soviet-Era Centralized Heating Systems Were Ukraine’s Secret Weapon for Cutting Emissions. Now They’re a Vulnerability (TIME)

‘Dr. Doom’ predicts NYC destroyed by nukes, storms in next 20 years (N.Y. Post)

The secret history of America’s tactical nukes (Vox)

In bloody battle for Bakhmut, Russian mercenaries eye a symbolic prize (Washington Post)

Using Adoptions, Russia Turns Ukrainian Children Into Spoils of War

Lawmakers Seek To Pass $50BN In New Ukraine Aid Before Next Congress  Go out there and spend! Spend! Spend!

Military Think Tank: Russia Withdraws Officers From Kherson

Iran Is Conducting “Massive” Military Drills On The Azerbaijan Border

Read it.

Assuming you have a choice, of course.

I want to be a ‘workplace culture expert’. I’ll bet I could do a great job.

“There’s an expression: ’People join companies, but they quit bosses,” Gimbel tells CNBC Make It. “That isn’t too far removed from the truth.”

See? How hard could it be?

Ukraine Situation Report: Russia Rigged Kherson Dam To Explode Zelensky Claims

US Navy chief warns China could invade Taiwan before 2024 (Financial Times)

ZMan’s weekly podcast. Highly recommended.

Greg Johnson and Mark Collett had a debate about the war in Ukraine, with each man taking a quite different view of the war. It was a reasonable and polite exchange, so if you like these things, it is worth a listen. I must admit I struggle to follow the logic of Greg’s argument, as it leads him to defend the people who would throw him in a cage if they had the chance, but perhaps the fault lies with me.

Regardless, the debate itself is a good jumping off point to talk about other issues related to the larger struggle. Like Covid, the war in Ukraine is a bit of a litmus test on this side of the great divide. Where you stand on the issue says a lot about where you stand on many other issues. Like Covid, it is becoming one of those reference points for other differences in the dissident sphere.

Steve Sailer peers behind the curtain.

One of the new problems of our age is that if you don’t high-five a black person who wants to high-five (or whatever is considered the cool way to greet at the moment) you, you can instantly be exposed to global hate from hordes of angry dimwits on social media, like that poor minimum wage worker at the Sesame Street theme park.

On the other hand, if you are a Korean pop star, you can still probably get away with it, because you are cool and a star, and only the most pathetic fans in Asia much care about what stupid Americans think.

Read it.

It is not just some crazy notion at the Claremont Institute, some crazy right-wing think tank’s invention, that we no longer live under the Constitution. The Left has been trying to undermine and overturn the Constitution for a long time. That agenda has been consistent. And the only thing that’s really changed is the rhetoric. The Progressive movement is where the attack on the Constitution first started more than a hundred years ago. And the most famous proponent of that was Woodrow Wilson, the only political scientist to be president of the United States. That tells you something right there—his being a political scientist.

And he was very open about repudiating both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as relics of the 18th century that had no relevance to the modern world. That’s where this all started. But it was a little too bold, and it’s not an accident that Wilson was followed by 12 years of Republican presidents: Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. Then, Franklin Roosevelt came along. Roosevelt didn’t change the agenda, but he did change the rhetoric.

And that’s where the Left started adopting this idea: they’re actually defenders of the Constitution, but they simply tweaked, and redefined, and reworked all of the concepts. And so, you’ve got a living Constitution, and you’ve got all this language about rights, but they were no longer the natural rights that the founders defended. They were a whole series of invented new rights that the government would bestow on us, rather than natural rights that the government would protect.

Read it.

Imagine, for a moment, the near future Amazon dreams of.

Every morning, you are gently awakened by the Amazon Halo Rise. From its perch on your nightstand, the round device has spent the night monitoring the movements of your body, the light in your room, and the space’s temperature and humidity. At the optimal moment in your sleep cycle, as calculated by a proprietary algorithm, the device’s light gradually brightens to mimic the natural warm hue of sunrise. Your Amazon Echo, plugged in somewhere nearby, automatically starts playing your favorite music as part of your wake-up routine. You ask the device about the day’s weather; it tells you to expect rain. Then it informs you that your next “Subscribe & Save” shipment of Amazon Elements Super Omega-3 softgels is out for delivery. On your way to the bathroom, a notification bubbles up on your phone from Amazon’s Neighbors app, which is populated with video footage from the area’s Amazon Ring cameras: Someone has been overturning garbage cans, leaving the community’s yards a total wreck. (Maybe it’s just raccoons.)

Read it.

French accounts that use planes’ transponder signals and publicly accessible information have tracked Arnault’s and other rich folks’ use of private jets to reveal just how much wasteful flying time is used by the world’s wealthiest.

Easily done: Just make a deal with a selection of charter air services and pick one at random when you want to go somewhere.

Anyone who isn’t constantly traveling is a fool to buy a jet.

In September, the Twitter account laviodebernard (Bernard’s Plane) wrote that Arnault’s plane had been de-registered in France. The account wrote “The LVMH private jet has not been registered in France since September 1, 2022. Still no word from Bernard Arnault or LVMH on the subject of private jets. So Bernard, are we hiding?”

If I were the world’s second richest man I would track this guy down and beat him until he rang like a bell. A couple hundred thousand ought to do it.

“Just Read” always works for me.

Ukraine war: Kyiv attacked by ‘kamikaze drones’, say officials

How Iodine Pills Can—and Can’t—Help Against Radiation (Wired ‘Science’)

NATO Kicks Off Nuclear War Games On Monday

Gazprom CEO Says All Nord Stream NatGas Could Be Redirected To Turkey

How Russian Ships Are Laundering Grain Stolen From Occupied Ukraine (Bloomberg)

Russian Journalist Who Protested War Flees Country

EU Unanimously Votes To Designate Vladimir Putin ‘A Real Jerk’ (Babylon Bee)

Newsweek Legitimizes Idea Nuclear War Could Offer ‘Temporary’ Help for Climate Change

Report: Missile Tech ‘Funded by US Taxpayers, Through the US Government,’ Ends Up in China

Report: Ukrainian Nuclear Reactor Staff Must Join Russian Energy Company to Keep Jobs

Read it.

They forgot one: Regularly vote Democrat.

(Most reference works I’ve consulted make no distinction between ‘sociopath’ and ‘psychopath’.)

Steve at Tools of Renewal lets it all go.

I do not want to sign up for your cool updates and offers, especially when you sign me up without permission. When I am forced to opt out, I do not want to be asked why I left. Please don’t tell me you’re sorry to see me go. No human being was ever aware I was there in the first place.

I do not want to be part of your cool new community, or worse, “family,” and neither does anyone else. I do not want to interact with you or other users. I do not want other users to know I exist.

If people wanted to associate with you, they would have talked to you when you were in high school, which they did not, because you are nerds.

I do not want a password on the hardware you sold me. I do not care if someone hacks into my Gopro or wireless printer. If your stupid software insists on a password, do not tell me what kind of password it has to be. Allow me to use “1,” which is my all-time favorite. Please do not put a long, complicated initial password with a lot of numbers and capital letters on the product you sold me and then put the password on a tiny label on the bottom of the product in microprint.

Please do not print your serial numbers in fonts only an ant can read.

Please put your software on disks (in the box) AND online, do not charge me for downloading it, do not put a bunch of junk in it no one wants, and do not make me fill out any forms in order to get it. Don’t even think about charging me for it.

Include all the necessary cables. Seriously, what’s wrong with you?

Do not force me to upgrade my firmware or software before using the product. I don’t care if it understands the latest emojis or gets along well with Tiktok. Last year’s stuff is fine.

If your product is a printer, do not write your software so it tries to sell me your toner cartridges and lies and says they’re better than the other ones. I do not want the $100 cartridges. I want the $17 cartridges from China which work just as well, and I am willing to hack your printer in able to use them, because using someone else’s toner isn’t stealing.

Do not include “lite” software which does not work but hits me with ads for the real software I have to pay extra for.

Do not cover your package with ridiculous bragging about how green it is. I do not care. It’s going to the same dumpster, where I will mingle the plastic, styrofoam, cardboard and staples without remorse. For all I care, you can spray your boxes with dioxin and use plutonium staples along with cellophane that has been rubbed all over Ebola patients. Just get your product to me without damage.

Just knock it off, okay? Just sell me what I want, make it quick to start using it, and buzz off.

Joel Kotkin.

In the past, ruling classes sought to protect the system that secured their coveted positions. But sometimes, as in the era before the French or Russian Revolutions, some in the ruling circles stopped believing in their religion, their traditions, and their state, only to be exiled, executed, or turned into what the Soviets called “former persons.”

Like our current elites, many French aristocrats lived dissolute lives but also supported revolutionary ideas which threatened “their own rights and even their existence,” as Alexis de Tocqueville noted. Today a large, even dominant portion of the wealthiest and most privileged parts of our society—including the heirs of nasty capitalist titans such as Henry Ford or John D. Rockefeller—are key funders of an increasingly anti-capitalist left. Others are still young tech billionaires and—increasingly—their discarded or former spouses.

This elite has arisen at a time when, as in France before 1789, inheritance is becoming ever more important as a vehicle for upward mobility, which is otherwise increasingly remote for most of the population. Home ownership among middle income Americans, for example, the primary means for asset accumulation for the non-rich, has dropped by over 8 percent in the past decade, while the wealthy have garnered the greatest gain from increased housing prices. American millennials are three times as likely as boomers to count on inheritance for their retirement. Among the youngest cohort, those ages 18 to 22, over 60 percent see inheritance as their primary source of sustenance as they age.

ZMan’s weekly podcast. Highly recommended.

There used to be a time when certain pundits would post about the correlation between economics and election results. They would go to one of the quantitative guys who modeled these things and then make predictions based on his model. This was a way for a pundit to pretend he was smart. George Will perfected this trick back in 1992 when he consulted a Yale professor whose model predicted a Clinton win.

We do not see much of that anymore. The last time anyone bothered to make the connection was in the 2012 election. The economic models said the election should be razor thin, but that was declared haram. Obama was black Jesus and no one would be allowed to cast shade on our dusky savior. Since then, no one has bothered to talk about economics and elections.

Even now it is not getting much discussion, despite the fact we have 1970’s style inflation and a crumbling economy. People are feeling the pain at the cash register, but the real pain lies just after the election. People seem to get that and will most likely make this known on election day. On the other hand, the great invisible army of Biden voters may think everything is great. Who can really know?

Read it.

You think the Biden inflation is bad? Check out grade inflation at Harvard.

Read it.

Law professor Mary Ellen Turpel Lafond is a well-known member of Canada’s Great and the Good.

She’s received eleven honorary degrees from law schools for being the first Canadian Amerindian this and that, despite being extremely white-looking.

Not surprisingly, a long investigative report by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation can’t find any evidence of her actually being an Indian.

Read it.

A 2017 YouGov survey of 2,300 US adults on issues related to free speech and tolerance on college campuses (weighted to be nationally representative) found that:

* 56 percent of men said that colleges should not protect students from offensive ideas; 64 percent of women said that they should.
* When presented with a variety of controversial claims made by speakers (e.g., men are better at math, all white people are racist, police are justified at stopping African Americans at higher rates), a majority of men supported nine of the 11 speakers’ right to speak on campus, and a majority of women opposed all 11 speakers’ right to do so.
* 51 percent of men said colleges should not disinvite speakers if students threaten violent protest; 67 percent of women said they should.
* 58 percent of men opposed a confidential reporting system at colleges which students could use to report offensive comments; 54 percent of women supported it.
* 63 percent of men thought controversial news stories in student papers should not need administrators’ approval before publication; 51 percent of women thought they should.
* 65 percent of men believed that supporting the right to make an argument is not the same as endorsing it; 51 percent of women disagreed.

Apparently women are fascists.