DeepSeek is legitimately impressive, but the level of hysteria is an indictment of so many.
The $5M number is bogus. It is pushed by a Chinese hedge fund to slow investment in American AI startups, service their own shorts against American titans like Nvidia, and hide sanction evasion. America is a fertile bed for psyops like this because our media apparatus hates our technology companies and wants to see President Trump fail.
We have so many useful idiots uncritically reporting Chinese propaganda as fact because on some level, they want it to be true. They love seeing hundreds of billions of dollars wiped off the market cap off our largest companies.
Politics
Considering Media Teflon
You won’t have your names when you ride the big airplane, All they will call you will be “deportees“
Oh, pity the poor establishment media folks, the woke clergy, and the professional bleeding-heart progressive activists, all making woeful faces and lamenting regarding the round-up and repatriation of masses of criminal illegal immigrants. It’s as if they all honestly believe that the masses of illegals are all doe-eyed innocent widdle cheeeldren and humble suffering agricultural workers, all packed off by their cheating employers once the harvest season is finished. The bubble in which these sentiments are enshrined as gospel is being severely battered over this last week as it becomes apparent that many, many Americans of various ethnic backgrounds and incomes welcome the ICE roundups and deportations with cheers of rapturous approval. Imagine that.
Six Years Ago Today
Instapundit reminds readers of the anniversary of the hit job on the Covington kids. In the wake of the debacle I had composed this song.
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
One of the many benefits of growing older is that when people tell you a self-serving lie about the past, you can call them on it by reminding them that you lived through that part of history.
A case in point was the recent death and state funeral for Jimmy Carter. I know one shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, especially when their coffin is still settling into the earth, but I’m the type of a guy at a funeral who would raise their hand during the eulogy and ask for equal time.
Carter was a man who while given a state funeral for his public life as president, was largely eulogized for his post-presidential life. The man was a disaster as a president and not just because of the condition of the country after he left office. The man did not understand at a fundamental level the job he held. Instead of being the chief executive and leader of a great republic and nation, he thought his job was to act as a puritanical scold. Instead of seeing his office as a public trust of leadership, he saw the moral authority of the office as a private possession.
While I wish the current occupant of the White House a long and healthy life, the past week reminds us that some day Joe Biden will also be given a state funeral, and that more than likely his many faults (let alone his evil) will be interred with his bones.
I was also reminded this week of the final days of the Clinton presidency, when outgoing Clinton White House staff engaged in “damage, theft, vandalism and pranks” designed to troll the incoming Bush administration.
Given the vandalism the outgoing Biden administration has been doing during its final days, those acts of 24 years ago seem almost cute.
Random Thoughts (7): Trump, Canada, and the Monroe Doctrine
One: A Politician’s DNA
A long time ago, I was told that you can trace a politician’s MO back to their formative years. Joe Biden was a senator for 36 years, since he was 30, and that left an indelible mark on his soul. He thinks that talk and spending money equal results. Also don’t try to hold him personally accountable or he’ll treat you like he treated his legislative staff for all those years.
Obama? He’s a con man, telling you what you wanted to hear. You can tell me that just makes him a politician, but he was doing it long before he became one. Everybody keeps talking how awesome that speech was at the 2004 Democratic National Convention that launched his national career; I’m still waiting for that guy to be president.
Donald Trump? He’s still at heart the real estate developer, the man who wrote “The Art of the Deal” and who is willing to negotiate with just about anyone. When you negotiate you look to persuade, you look for leverage, and you look to expand your options by forcing things onto the table.
You might think Trump’s stated desire to buy Greenland is ludicrous, but it seems people (including Greenlanders) are open to talk about changing things up. For someone looking to cut a deal, the best answer to a proposal is “yes” and the second best answer is “no” because then they are listening. The worst answer is to be ignored. Trump is not the type of man to be ignored.
For the past five years, since the last time Trump brought up Greenland, our political betters have spent very little time talking about that very strategic piece of real estate. Now everyone is talking about it and what its future is. Go ahead and mock him, but he knows how to cut deals and right now he’s got people talking about what he wants. That’s winning. Dial me up some more.
Maybe he knows something the DC establishment doesn’t.
My prediction? Greenland independence and a Compact of Free Association with the US.
Two: The Return of the Monroe Doctrine
Trump’s (arguably) three most “outrageous” comments since his re-election have to do with Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal. What do they all have in common? They are all in the Western Hemisphere, they are all strategically vital, and they are all under some form of foreign influence that’s inimical to American interests. The Chinese are nosing around Greenland and making offers, the Chinese are acquiring and building port facilities around the Canal, and Canada has done diddly about protecting its Arctic coastline from the Russians.