An extensive collection of political polls, current and historical. Use the ‘poll type’ and ‘state’ scroll bars, or the free-form search field. Remarkably fast search.
Who Knows?
So, by a curious coincidence, my address has been tagged by a long-time and established polling organization, to receive increasingly plaintive pleas for any adult in the household to participate in whatever line of questioning on important matters which they have been asked to research. I guess that someone doing basic research has tagged my residence as representative of a demographic, based on value of home, area of address, ethnic background, income, education, profession … or whatever judgment is used to select respondents for national surveys. One of those mailers even included a $5 bill as token of earnest intent. I pocketed the bill hey, five bucks that I didn’t have before and threw the rest of it in the recycle bin.
Time was when I would have been Nancy Nice Person and signed on to give my opinion hey, I signed up to review movies and books, yea these many years ago, mostly for the freebies which that exercise offered, and once again to give judgment on various surveys that my local grocery store chain offers (in hope of scoring one of those drawings for gift cards) but all that is merely a matter of consumer aesthetics and tastes. This polling enterprise is on a whole ‘nother level. It may touch on the political, and that like the electrified rail in subway routes is a thing that I will not venture in these present times. Although I post here, on matters social and political, it is not with my given legal name and residential address firmly attached to said opinions and comment.
Miscellaneous Business/Economics/Energy Items
Apple is going to make Watches and MacBooks in Vietnam. (More precisely, Apple suppliers will make the products there. “Make” in this context meaning mostly “assemble”, I think.) Apple is also planning to produce the iPhone 14 in India, with only about a 2-month lag from its initial production in China.
Intel will be partnering with Brookfield Infrastructure Partners to help pay for factory expansion projects, with Brookfield contributing up to $30 billion. Most immediately, the money will pay for the expansion of Intel’s Ocotillo manufacturing campus in Chandler, Arizona, with Intel funding 51% and Brookfield funding 49% of the total project cost. (This is pretty different from BIP’s typical investments, which tend to involve such things as railroads, toll roads, pipelines, and electricity transmission)
A useful overview of planned and in-development fabs, worldwide.
Electricity prices, marginal costs, and the last kilowatt.
Texas has banned BlackRock and several other firms from doing business with the state.
Finland may be facing power outages this winter. On the other hand, if their Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power plant goes into production at the end of the year, as planned, this should help a lot. Another plant is planned, taking total nuclear contribution in Finland to 60%.
Also,perhaps a way could be found to harness the power from their PM’s very high-energy dancing. (If other Western leaders could dance like that, would it somehow influence their minds to adopt more rational energy policies?)
Elsewhere in Europe, skyrocketing energy prices are causing a lot of hardship–and will surely create serious economic pressures as much manufacturing in the affected countries becomes cost-prohibitive)
The Euro is not doing very well versus the dollar. More here.
f you think people have scar tissue, you should see organizations. Each time there’s a disaster, they create a process to prevent future disasters of that type. Eventually they accrete a thick layer of these processes that prevents them from moving. Then they die.
A Tipping Point?
So help me Bog, I think the tipping point that is, the end of toleration and indulgence for all things trans is fast approaching. For all that social media, and the social media outlets masquerading as national news and entertainment outlets can pretend otherwise ordinary people have been fed to the teeth with pro-trans propaganda and are beginning to rebel. A most unforeseen development is in the rebellion of parents and alums of a very upper-caste all-girls school against the decision by the school to admit biological males who claim that they are really girls. Well, after the experience of a public school system who were all chuffed no end at having their own special mini-tranny, who was then accused of raping a couple of genuine no-kidding XX girls … well, I’d venture to guess that the bloom is off the tranny rose whenever parents must consider the safety of their daughters. Especially well-heeled parents. Especially when a well-founded suspicion develops that male perverts are trading on claims of being trans to gain access to biological females-only spaces for jollies and their own predatory purposes, and second-rate male athletes are doing it for a chance to rate rather better in their chosen sport by competing against smaller and physically weaker competitors.
Rapò Sitiyasyon Ayiti
Most problems were not problems long enough to be interesting.
— Larry Niven, PROTECTOR
Haiti has remained a problem long enough to be interesting.