"CrowdStrike" IT Failure

The corrupted bug that shut down operations of millions of Microsoft systems on the morning of July 19 won't be the last. The monopoly computer operating system whose profits have made weird Bill Gates one of the wealthiest busybodies ever, has always had a reputation of jamming up when it was most inconvenient. 

It's truly folly at an immense level for important businesses to all rely on the same digital system for their successful operation.

It's always been a mystery how a monopoly like Microsoft can continue to exist when there are many successful alternatives available. Much of the Microsoft domination is a result of their marketing practices within the personal computer field. Users at all levels seem to feel comfortable with the format and accept the inconvenient updates and the fact that many applications are written for  Microsoft software exclusively even though other software and apps are readily available. 

The GAI data centers being touted as the answer to every problem will contain an overwhelming amount of information derived through Microsoft. No one can tell how much of it has been corrupted. Some of the failures of CrowdStrike are likely to be preserved for future inadvertent release. 

Ultimately, Microsoft or not, reliance on complex, macro-sophisticated software for day-to-day transactions is a weakness open to both accidental  problems and the deliberate sabotage that's becoming more and more common. Maybe some tech entrepreneur should develop a very simple but incorruptible simple system for the ordinary world. 

What Became Of The Ice Age?

Back in the '70s and '80s the fear was that increased snow fall would reflect the heat of the sun's rays back into space and quickly bring on a new and devastating ice age. What happened? Now, in just a few short years, in geological terms, the prediction has made a 180 degree reversal and we're looking at a short and torrid future unless carbon dioxide is curtailed.

Maybe it's the case that a certain element of the scientific community is interested in promoting humanity's demise, presently through it's own activities, for public recognition. In fact, there's no maybe about it. A voracious media uses academics as climate disaster sources much as tabloid newspaper reporters haunt police stations for info on bank robbers and serial killers. 

The difference is that crime fighting is entirely a government affair. Battling climate change has huge openings for hyper-capitalist activities, wind turbines, solar panels, CO2 direct-capture mechanisms, pipelines, sequestration, etc. financed with Whiggish government grants and subsidies. The recipients of these taxpayer funds, if they are actual monetary receipts, may very well realize that at some point this charade will come to an end. No matter, the acquired funds will have been invested in other, perhaps more legitimate activities. The national landscape will be dotted with fallen turbine towers and cracked, inert solar panels but their interests will have been divested among the unwary.

A similar fate is likely for the GAI mania that's gripping the technocrats. Basically an immense filing system with the ability to search itself, there's some doubt as to how or if its owners will be able to successfully monetize it after an incredible investment of other people's money. The frauds of Elizabeth Holmes, Charlie Javice and Sam Bankman-Freid are Little League stuff compared to Sam Altman and his GAI dream.   

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Advertising

If you're a normal American you've probably never heard of the World Federation of Advertisers. This organization and its GARM subsidiary represent 150 of the world's largest corporations. An article in the on-line New York Post described the efforts of GARM in censoring on-line media advertising and the article itself was scrubbed off the web in short order but has since been replaced. The article included this link to a US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee report on the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, the WFA's censorship mechanism, operated by Rob Rakowitz.

While it's disturbing that corporations like Walmart, NBC Universal, Microsoft, General Mills, Nestle and many others are subsidizing the censoring of on-line media, an even creepier operation is the control of production and implementation of advertising itself by the WFA. 

You may have wondered how, quickly after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25, 2020, advertising in all forms began to include increased numbers of minorities, mostly blacks, and regular examples of mixed white and black marriages, gatherings and families. To mention this trend would be to invite conspiracy theory accusations and worse. 

 

today's parent.com 

 One explanation by an on-line source is the usual commercial effort to increase profits, not by selling a better product at a lower price but through creating empathy with a large share of the target market. This makes sense as far as it goes but hasn't been a decision made by these individual advertisers. Instead it's a direction from the WFA.

Diversity, equity and inclusion is a mantra of the WFA.

“Brand owners have a two-fold opportunity to promote a positive and progressive DEI agenda through the content they produce: first, by making sure that what happens in front of the camera is reflective of the diversity of people their brands serve, and secondly, by championing a diverse and inclusive culture on set, where everyone can feel like they belong. This new production guide is for those just starting their DEI journey or the seasoned brand marketers seeking to identify proven ways to leave a legacy of positive societal and business impact,” said Stephan Loerke, CEO, WFA.

Legally, like it or not, the obligation of corporate management is to maximize the returns of the business. A legacy of positive societal impact, if such a thing can even occur in a consumer society where sales of unhealthy food and junk machinery is rife, at the expense of profits, won't be accepted by shareholders. 

Another organization, the Advertising Producers Association,  is involved from the production end.

"This report is important because while there have been real efforts to improve diversity and inclusion across the production and advertising sector, measurement has been a week spot and needs to be improved. Production companies are committed to playing their part and want to work with advertisers and agencies who genuinely share that commitment- and who don’t just add contractual requirements to look like they are- but want to put the work in with us," said Steve Davies, Chief Executive at Advertising Producers Association.

What we're getting at here is that the conscious hypercapitalist effort to increase consumption isn't the only goal of American business now. Apparently, it's also the use of visual and verbal stimuli to psychologically change the culture. There are probably a lot of aspects of modern culture that could stand some modification but should that role be one for the marketing and advertising industry? Once upon a time people relied on religion and tradition to order their lives. Will Unilever, Lego and P&G do a better job? 

 

EU Investigating Chinese Wind Turbine Subsidies

 

The EU is upset that Chinese firms are supplying the equipment necessary for the transition to Net Zero at prices lower than their own manufacturers, presumably through state subsidies. Once again we're forced to admit that the battle against hydrocarbon fueled climate change is actually a financial boondoggle. 

If climate change were the existential threat it's made out to be the Germans would be overjoyed that the Chinese were making it cheaper for the Germans to do their share to save the world. But no. The conversion from gas and oil to wind and solar is all about the money. 

The development and production of new wind turbines and solar panels is a relatively new business in terms of government subsidies. Companies all over the world are being formed to take advantage of the problem and existing companies are adding divisions devoted to alternative forms of energy. This would seem to mean that all things considered employment in the EU shouldn't be affected by imports of the equipment since few are being employed to make it.   EU companies hoping to jump on the new energy bandwagon are in a different situation. They need to sell their products at a significantly higher price to assure their existence and the general population must accept paying the bill. The cost per ton of CO2 elimination is apparently of no importance. Global warming turns out to also be a publicly financed jobs project, perhaps to put thousands of immigrants to work. 

Another aspect of the situation is the supposed contrast between the authoritarian East and the democratic West. During the Cold War the big argument about the Soviets was that their 5 Year Plans couldn't succeed because central planning ignored market realities and was divorced from prices. The Russian experience thus indicates a similar fate for other authoritarians, especially the Chinese, who have managed to lift the income and well-being of their population over a distance and time unrivaled in world history. The governments of the West are less worried about the economic success of the Chinese than the possibility that they might acquire more credibility among the "non-aligned" nations.

Of course the West's fixation on Net Zero generally uses the year 2050 as a target date. There could hardly be a more striking example of central planning.

In fact, the trillions of imaginary Euros and renmimbi required to reach the goals of the climate anxious will bankrupt the EU no matter who supplies the wind turbines and solar panels.  

The Hottest and Coldest Tempertures in US History

 

An Environmental Conundrum

Somebody noticed years ago that many barred owls, (Strix varia), had moved from their original range in the eastern US to the old growth forests of the west. They began to displace the native spotted owls,    (Strix occidentalis), a species whose continued existence has worried people so much that their preservation has had a huge negative impact on the logging industry.

 

 audubon.org

A northern spotted owl

 

eastsideaudubon.org 

A barred owl

Now, instead of calk-booted loggers waving snarling chain saws around, close cousins of the spotted owls are putting their future in jeopardy. A $5 million program to use trained hunters to kill with shotguns 3600 barred owls has received a permit for the US Fish and Wildlife Service. If successful, as it is sure to be, the plan is to dispatch as many as half a million barred owls to maintain the population of its relatives.   

This is another example, if any were needed, of the environmental movement's never ending attempts to maintain stasis in the natural world. Nothing should ever change on planet earth. The same animals should inhabit the same range in the same numbers in perpetuity.

In the upper Mississippi  watershed there's a concerted effort to prevent the Asian carp, an invasive specie, from moving upriver and displacing the native catfish, walleyes, pike,suckers, etc. No one seems to realize that all fish in the upper Mississippi are invasive species. Just a few thousand years ago the entire area was covered with a mile high continental glacier. No fish at all lived there for millennia until climate change melted the ice and enabled fish to move in from somewhere else. 

Isn't it the case that species competition for survival is a key element in Darwinian evolution?     

No More Child Brides In Sierra Leone

Legislation has recently become law in Sierra Leone forbidding the marriage of girls under the age of 18, a move that follows that of a number of other African countries.

Estimates are that millions of post-pubescent females are brides all over the African continent. Arresting this phenomenon isn't related to biology but instead means that a substantial number of Africans are adopting the culture and mores of the West, where marriage of girls is universally banned.

 

 goodnewsnetwork.org

This isn't as cut-and-dried of an issue as it might appear. Like any other age-determined limit, the age of eighteen is entirely arbitrary and has no relationship to the physical, emotional or intellectual state of any one individual. There are no doubt 22 year-old females that aren't really ready for wedded bliss.

Additionally, child brides are generally the result of marriages arranged by their parents, sometimes of both parties, for a number of different reasons. Wouldn't it be more sensible to prohibit arranged marriages, which actually occur all over the world?

Ultimately, forbidding "child" marriages means an abrogation of freedom, the elimination of an individual choice. Freedom of choice, of a course of action that doesn't affect in any way the freedom of others, is what true freedom is all about.

On the other hand, the personal choice of a geriatric to, for instance, pilot a commercial jet aircraft, might have serious effects on uninvolved strangers, so there are  upward age limits in some circumstances. But not in politics, where the aged have the fate of future millions subject to their diminished intellect and judgement.