Archive for the ‘under the fedora’ Category

There are wastes of space and articles like this:

What doomed CNN+? How rival strategies and executive intrigue fueled the streaming service’s rapid demise

Seriously, it’s because of rival strategies and executive intrigue that CNN+ failed. How about the idea that it was trying to get a population to pay for a product that they haven’t been able to give away free.

God how stupid do they think we are?


Nothing illustrates how deadly the idea of people being able to make their case to the general public without leftist censorship to the electoral prospects of Democrats as the complete and utter meltdown of the left over the Elon Musk purchase of Twitter.

Again when your opponents have bad arguments it’s not hard to dispute them, when they have better arguments that’s the time to rethink your positions or panic. The left has chosen the later

As Ann Althouse put it: “It’s interesting how much free speech the opponents of free of speech already have.”


Anyone surprised by Russia’s move to cut of Gas to Poland and Bulgaria has no sense of history or of how Russia thinks.

In terms of how they think, anyone who has followed this history of the last 200 years knows that once Russians decide someone is their enemy no amount of local hardship is unendurable if it causing said enemies to suffer. That’s how Putin will sell it to his people and they’ll buy it.

Secondly all of the history of the last forty years of the USSR & Russia funding groups in the west to decrease energy self sufficiency was precisely for this eventually where Russia would force their potential foes into tough choices.

Not sure how this ends.


Speaking of Russia and the war while I distrust all the various sources all we have seen thus far shows the weakness of the crony system of procurement.

When you’re busy stealing and skimming it can be a problem when suddenly the equipment you have turns out to be substandard. Furthermore in a Kleptocrocary which in many ways Russia is the idea that you would use state funds to enrich yourself rather than solve a problem is considered the norm.

It’s very possible that the Russia’s performance in the war in Ukraine is the natural end result and this time around there won’t be the US sending convoys of arms and equipment to save them.


Finally I got an oil bill earlier this month that perfectly illustrates the cost of a stolen election.

It was a split bill for the 180 gallons of oil I got. Half of it was priced at the pre-pay price that I paid under Trump before the election. The other half showed the current price under Biden.

You can talk about the costs of a stolen election in terms of what it’s done to our country, our foreign policy and our freedoms but I have a concrete figure of how much this stolen election is costing me in cash. And that cost is a full week’s take home pay every time oil is delivered.

Multiply that times every voter who sees snow and cold in the winter and that tells me that they’ll have be even more blatant next time to push that walking corpse in the White House over the line.

If you are a shareholder of Twitter this is your: “I’m going to make them an offer they can’t refuse” moment. Elon Musk’s offer is your best chance to make the best possible profit on your investment. You don’t have to deal with any of the drama that’s been going on, you don’t have to take sides, you can just cash out and leave it to someone else to deal with. On the minus side if you choose not to take this price, twitter shares will tank faster than CNN+ Unless of course another billionaire decided he’s willing to offer 60+ Billion instead in order to keep those who support free speech silenced then you can sell to either and then watch it tank

Over to you George Soros.


What’s really funny about this is that even if people who hold a solid third of Twitter decide not to sell because they want twitter to remain a gatekeeper against “hate speech” (which they define as: “Any speech I hate”) Musk can still end up with 51% of Twitter and once he does he will have the controlling interest which will give him the power to make changes without taking the company private.

It’s really a lose/lose situation for these folks.


According to some estimates the offer that Musk as made for twitter represent between 1/6 & 1/8 of his estimated net worth. That’s a ton of money to spend on something like this but it reminds me of what a friend of mine Author Tim Imholt (who used to blog here as DaScienceGuy many years ago has told me about rich people from experience. They tend to have much more money then they know what to do with so it’s no big deal.

If Musk loses his entire investment or even half his net worth on this venture he’ll be reduced to living a life more comfortable than nearly every human that has ever existed since the dawn of time. Their only troubles are the ones they make for themselves

Two comments on that fact

  1. Pretty much all of the rich in this period of history are in the same boat in terms of comfort
  2. This is why Christ warns about how hard it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. When you can have all you want at any time and are used to getting it it’s hard to remember the wages of sin when there is absolutely no resistance if you want something sinful

While it’s been a lot of fun watching the left fall apart over this we who are enjoying it should remember something.

None of this means that Elon Musk is a conservative, who recognizes conservative values, supports conservative causes or share our political, religious or cultural views.

It only means that he agrees with us on free speech.

There is also no guarantee that a Musk controlled Twitter will not decide to go off on a nasty direction in the future.

It will be what it will be but it’s worth remembering Musk isn’t the Messiah, it remains to be seen if he’s a just a very naughty boy.


Finally The left’s unhinged reaction to this shows how weak their arguments are as they have no confidence that they can survive in a game that isn’t fixed. However let me note a bright side to this for them.

If Musk is successful in his takeover Trump’s “Truth” shares will tank faster than twitter share will if the takeover fails. Also other platforms like Gab will also be severely impacted by a Twitter that isn’t driven by ideology.

I suspect we will see a lot of stories on how this screws Trump if it happens because the left will need a narrative to keep them from jumping.

Cue Eric Idle in an iconic and ironic video for Good Friday

It’s the 2nd day of Christmas and because it falls on a Sunday the feast of St. Stephen the 1st Martyr is trumped by the feast of the Holy Family.

Oddly enough according to the calendar of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops it didn’t get moved to a later day in the week (the 1st open one is the 29th as St. John the Evangalist gets the 27th and the Holy Innocents slaughter by Herod the 28th).

St. Stephen’s feast is an important one as it reminds us that while we celebrate the birth of Christ we remember that it’s his death that created “God and Sinners” reconciled.


I saw this on Christmas day (via Instapundit) and thought it was absolutely hilarious:

Of course if France WAS Bacon it would be a lot more popular

The English language is so much fun because of the way you can play with words. Groucho Marx made an entire career out of it.


A perfect example of playing with the English language in that way for December 26th.

Riddle:  Why is the feast of Stephen very big in the Gay Community?
Answer:  Because that's the day good King Wenceslas came out.

There is a reason why I don’t quit my day job.


Speaking of Running Gags Don Surber is constantly talking about wanting a Bentley. For the fun of it I searched online and look what I found:

Don Surber’s Dream Car

Hey Under $20,000 for a car with under 42,000 miles? That not only a pretty good deal but might even be in his price range.

I wonder if he can generate the cash via his tip jar? After all there are twelve days of Christmas and he has 11 left to do so.


Finally I was about to write that the old datechguyblog.com site is finally dead as it went blanks a few days ago. But this morning I tested it out as I was writing this and it came right up.

This seems to fit my theory that all of this has been running automatically for quite a while.

I’m not going to worry about it. My record of cancelling the account is still saved and has been stated publicly so I don’t anticipate some guy coming after me with a big bill in a few years but you never know.

Either way there is where I am and where I’ll stay and eventually I’ll get datechguyblog.com to point here too.

The Lord certainly works in mysterious ways.

I wrote a while back about the conflict about being Sicilian and being Catholic plays out on occasion and the more I see of the left lately the stronger that conflict becomes.

That’s when I remember the parable of the workers in the Vineyard and remember those who were hired with one hour to go in the day and a sermon that my priest gave reminding us that if we met Matthew the Tax Collector, Mary Magdalene or Saul of Tarsus the day before they encountered Christ we would not like what we saw.

We are dealing with a lot of really bad people right now but they are one encounter with Christ from change. If God’s willing to wait on them who am I not to?


One of the single hardest things about Christianity is the idea of loving your enemies, particularly when they don’t feel that obligation.

We’ve seen a lot of that lately from our friends on the left, a lot of it on the assumption that the good Christian folks on the right will just keep taking it.

They should be aware that Christians sometime slip, after all that’s what confession is for. So I’d be wary of pushing people to that point.


Nobody is going to convince me that all of the “don’t get together for Christmas” and “Cancel Christmas” for your own safety is about the virus.

As Don Surber noted: ” WHO didn’t tell the Saudis to call off the Hajj.”

Most of what the left does frankly is all about hatred of Christianity so I don’t see why this would be any different.


Speaking of tactics to hamper Christians the New DC Vaccine Passport rules go into effect two days before the March for Life.

I think with hundreds of thousands of people there it will be tough to enforce such rules but I don’t see the correlation between Christianity and not getting the vaccine, except for the fact that many Christians are able to get a religious exemption, but then again so can any other religion.

Plus I wouldn’t be surprised if more than a few non-religious suddenly found religion when looking for an exemption. After all during prohibition a lot of folks suddenly starting going to mass to receive the cup.


Finally I see the the group pushing trans priests in the Lutheran Church has suspended the 1st openly trans Lutheran Bishop over unspecified: “harm done by the Sierra Pacific Synod Council and Bishop Rohrer to the Latinx community in Stockton, CA.”

Of course some Spanish speaking people might consider the term “latinx” harmful in itself but it just goes to show you that wokeness is an unforgiving God and no matter how high in the woke hierarchy you are, you’re always one step away from being cancelled.

Me I think they should have stuck with Christ myself.