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February 13, 2025 08:38 AM UTC

Thursday Open Thread

  • 26 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error.”

–Andrew Jackson

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26 thoughts on “Thursday Open Thread”

    1. The problem with presidents. Look at LBJ:

      • 2nd on Civil Rights to Lincoln
      • 2nd on addressing poverty to FDR
      • Vietnam

      So was he a good president or a bad president? Same for Jackson, and you have to take in to account that he was a creature of his times.

      • Shut down talk of southern succession (and at that time the South would have succeeded)
      • Much more responsive to the demands of the people
      • Indian policy

      1. Jackson was trumpian (or vice-versa) in his genocidal mania and intentional acts ignoring orders issued by the Supreme Court.  All presidents are flawed.  Not all are vile.  Jackson was vile

  2. China’s 21st century tech cluster. Noah Smith

    In recent years, Chinese companies have become extremely competitive in consumer products like electric cars, phones, and drones. At the same time, they’ve also become competitive in various high-value component and machinery products like computer chips, robots, lidar, and batteries. How did they suddenly get good in all of these things at once?

    Kyle Chan thinks the products I listed above form a single cluster of related technologies. This is true in two different senses. 

    First of all, many of these things help you produce the others. Batteries go into EVs, phones, and drones. So do chips. Industrial robots help make all the other things. And so on. If you have all of the upstream industries in the same country — or, if possible, the same city — then you can very easily become competitive in all of the downstream industries at the same time.²This gives big countries an advantage over smaller ones — with a larger domestic market, it’s easier to support a greater variety of upstream industries. It’s also very relevant for industrial policy — it teaches us that building a complete local industrial ecosystem can generate positive externalities.

    Second, Chan notes that a bunch of these technologies seem to be converging — a car is much less different from a phone than it used to be, in terms of what kinds of components it uses. Basically, both an electric car and a phone are some metal and plastic wrapped around a similar type of battery and some pretty similar types of computer chips. A drone is just that stuff plus a motor. That means if a company has expertise in making one of these products, it’s very easy to start making the others. That’s why Xiaomi was able to spin up an EV arm so fast. And it also means that if a company makes all the downstream products, it’s easy for it to expand into the upstream industries — like BYD becoming a chipmaker.

    Anyway, Chan focuses on China’s strengths rather than America’s weaknesses, but it’s easy to see that America will have a lot of trouble competing in this emerging tech cluster. Our conservative leaders oppose EVs and batteries because of culture war madness, while our unions generally oppose automation. This will leave the U.S. with gaping holes in its industrial ecosystem, ultimately hurting the semiconductor, phone, and drone industries as well. Oops.

  3. Contrary to the “Make America Great Again” mantra used by the Orange Destruction and his similarly hued Horde, we are witnessing the end of American ascendancy and the beginning of the end of the American Empire. The United States will no longer be an important world power. We have ceded that position to China, Russia, and India.

    I am hoping CHBs’ sock puppet, Lauren Boebert is a POS, will drop by to tell us how wrong I am.

    Nothing to worry about? Amirite?

     

     

    1. Hey Dookie. “Lauren Boebert is a POS” knows the score. But always fun to see you pointing the finger at others. Of course, nothing is ever said about what YOU are doing to help curb the excesses of Trumpism.

      Before I forget it, saw earlier today on Colorado Newsline that Trump has selected a woman of your dreams, Kathleen Sgamma from the Western Energy Alliance, to be the new head of the Bureau of Land Management. 

      1. As I said some days ago…the Rape of America has begun anew. In keeping with his MO, Trump has appointed an enemy of regulation to the head of the agency she has professionally opposed.

        Ms. Sgamma gets my vote for leader of the OilyGirlz. I have read enough of her prose to know she is  very adept at doubletalk and obfuscation and a devoted fan of drilling rigs. I don't think I am going to be surprised. 

    4. Your "Stable Genius" and his negotiating strategy is getting rave reviews (in Russia)

      … Russian State Media Monitor Julia Davis reports on comments from two of their most popular TV hosts: "Trump is sawing through the western world," Luzyanin said. "One piece is Canadian, another one is European. We'll see how successful he'll be with his saw." Host Popov responded that Trump is using tactics right out of the Russian playbook: "Basically he is taking our bread and butter. We wanted to saw the western world into pieces, but he decided to saw through it himself."

      … Sen. Tim Kaine – “Am I missing something or did Trump just give Russia exactly what it wants in Ukraine – no NATO admission, Russia keeps Ukrainian land, and Putin gets to visit the U.S.? In return for… one prisoner exchange? That’s the grand deal?”

      … Trump ally Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) told Punchbowl he isn’t thrilled with how this is being handled so far: “I’d prefer we don’t give away negotiating positions before we actually get started.”

      All it took was a little flattery from Putin to get Trump to roll over and beg "Scratch my Belly!"

       

      1. It points out, again, how the APPEARANCE of things is the most important thing to the Dear Leader. He was hugely pissed at liberals getting awards and is obsessed with being the candy man to his flatterers.

        Hey, Lee Greenwood is due. Y'know?

         

  8. Ever since the NaziTechBro and his teenage coder posse have been hacking our Federal Payment system I've been following WIRED's reporting on the issue (hence my frequent linking to their sites)…but I just realized that after 5 articles you hit a paywall. 

    But it's not the only great reporting on this issue – I highly recommend Nathan Tankus' excellent "Notes on the Crises" website, which he's removed his paywall on: 

    The Latest: 

    Trump-Musk Treasury Payments Crisis of 2025: Bombshell Court Filings Confirm Wired & Notes on the Crises Reporting & Raise Alarms About BFS-Based Impoundmen

    https://www.crisesnotes.com/bombshell-court-filings-confirm-wired-notes-on-the-crises-reporting-raise-alarms-about-bfs-based-impoundment/

     

     

    1. @SSG_Dan….. I'm a long time print subscriber to Wired, but have never checked into the digital options. I will do so over the upcoming weekend. 

  9. I'm in a hearing at the state capitol. You all love to make fun of DeGraff and probably earned. But he's sitting through a very looooong hearing. And he's asking good questions.

    Some of the anti-nuke people are reasonably well spoken, the majority are crazy. Shrill, emotional and mostly devoid of facts. Or coming up with crazy hypotheticals.

    The most out there – a woman who claimed we dropped the atomic bombs after Japan surrendered.

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