George Soros in the news again

I mentioned George Soros in a blog post yesterday, and today I read about him in this curious story from Meduza, the Russian opposition newspaper.

Russia pulls 30% of library books in Ural city over Soros Foundation funding

About 30 percent of the books in Yekaterinburg’s libraries will have to be pulled from circulation because they were purchased with money from billionaire George Soros’s foundation, the director of the city’s municipal library network told the city council.

“The main bulk of the books were purchased in the 1990s. We are now facing changes in legislation. We have to remove some books from the collection because they were bought with Soros’s money. That’s about 30 percent of our entire acquisitions,” Irina Cheremisinova said, responding to a question from Yabloko member Konstantin Kiselev about library acquisitions.

She said libraries in other regions are facing the same problem, and that changes in legislation are the cause.

At the same session, acting Culture Department director for Yekaterinburg Elena Sokolova said the libraries are currently short of books and the budget lacks funds to replenish their collections, the Russian news outlet Vechernie Vedomosti reported.

The Soros Foundation operated in Russia from the late 1980s, working primarily through the nonprofits Open Society and Sodeistviye. It supported the development of educational programs, provided assistance to students and scholars, funded the construction of internet centers, and allocated money for printing books and textbooks.

The foundation wound down its active operations in Russia in 2003. In 2015, Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office declared it an “undesirable organization,” saying it was working to undermine Russia’s constitutional order.

 An  “undesirable organization”, huh, imagine that.

Georgie has appeared here a number of times.

Make Work

One of my pet theories on how to improve society is to start up a big stonework project. Something that would involve digging many big blocks of rock out the ground, cutting them into useful shapes, hauling them to a building site then stacking them up make something enduring, like the pyramids. Or an aqueduct, like the Romans did:

Massive Roman aqueduct built in Segovia, Spain by emperor Trajan (r. 98-117 AD).

Egyptian civilization under the pharaohs lasted for thousands or years. Let me just emphasize that: Thousands of Years. Our country is looking at a measly 250 years. Think maybe we could learn something from the Egyptians or the Romans? Nah, that ain't gonna happen, we are better and smarter and know more than those guys ever thought of knowing.

Anyway, I'm thinking if the apparent problem in America today is the lack of jobs, maybe the real problem is we don't have enough people starting businesses that need people. If they need people for their business, they are going to hire people and that would be great.

Meanwhile, rumor has it that George Soros is hiring protesters to show up the No Kings protests.

I just realized that maybe George is following my advice and putting people to work. Okay, they are temporary jobs, but it is something. I'm not quite sure what the point of these protests is. Is this just an old man making himself feel better by doling out nickels to the starving? Or is he just amusing himself by staging these protests to see how irate people get? Or is he building a religion? If it's the later, I'm wondering what he is going to ask of his army of believers.

Who is Funding the College Protests?

Bayou Renaissance Man is talking about how the protests at college campuses are being organized and funded by outside sources. These are not spontaneous, grassroots protests. They are professionally managed and run. So now I'm wondering just who is funding these protests, so I ask Google and what I get back is a lot of nonsense:

• AP - House Republicans launch investigation into federal funding for universities amid campus protests No, you're missing the point.
• Fox - Billions of taxpayer dollars fund schools with anti-Israel protests Same useless crap again.

Not till we get to The Jerusalem Post do we start getting answers:

US student protests against Israel are orchestrated by Qatar-funded groups, aiming to promote Islamist ideology and malign Saudi Arabia, as revealed by researchers.

Qatar, the same country that is playing host to Hamas leadership. 

George Soros is paying agitators who are fueling the explosion of radical anti-Israel protests at colleges across the country.

New York Post blames billionaire George Soros:

No one familiar with the state of modern academia can be much surprised by the wave of anti-Israel tent-city occupations sweeping US campuses — but that doesn’t make them 100% “organic.”

And The Post’s discovery that lefty philanthropists are funding student “protest leaders” may be just the tip of an iceberg.

Encampments at Harvard, Yale, UC-Berkeley, Ohio State and Emory in Georgia were organized by branches of Students for Justice in Palestine, which gets cash (some direct, some indirect) from the Soros family “charities” as well as the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and retired Wall Street banker Felice Gelman.

Gelman and the Soroses also give to Jewish Voice for Peace and Within Our Lifetime, two more groups intimately involved in the protests.

At least three organizers — Malak Afaneh (Berkeley), Craig Birckhead-Morton (Yale) and Nidaa Lafi (University of Texas-Dallas) — are paid fellows of another lefty-philanthropy favorite, the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights.

USCPR community and college fellows earn stipends of $2,880 to $7,800 for work organizing campaigns to demand cutting ties to Israel.

Soros and Biden, what a pair.

P. S. Beware - I don't know whether it is my computer, or the websites I linked to, but when I had all these sites open my computer slowed to a crawl. I blame Google. I'm going back to Linux as fast as my little feets can carry me.

Links

Stuff I like:

• AI Imaging is a Pox, a Fraud and a Thief by Mike on The Online Photographer
• Elon Musk Hammers George Soros During Joe Rogan Interview: ‘He Fundamentally Hates Humanity’ on The Daily Wire
• First Big Test for NASA's Lucy Satellite Wednesday Afternoon ET from The Silicon Graybeard

Political Contributions

Diligent daughter noticed something odd about the biggest political contributors. The biggest is George Soros, the insanely rich, muddle headed old fart who thinks that being nice to vicious people will make them nicer*.  It might do that, but amount of improvement in their attitude will be negligible. You should stop being muddle headed, George. Anyway, Georgie gave $130 million to the Democrats. 

The interesting part is who the second largest contributor is. That is Richard Uihlein of Uline Inc. with $80 million for the Republicans. Richard Uihlein of Uline Inc? Who the heck is that?

Uline Catalog

Well, Uline rings a bell. Back when everybody was mailing out catalogs of products for sale I somehow got on a material handling mailing list. It was full of parts bins and packaging from - you guessed it - Uline. I guess the pandemic and Amazon conspired to really boost their sales.

* I really have no idea what is going on in Georgie's brain, but 3rd hand scuttlebutt has given me that impression.

P.S. I took the data on political contributions from Open Secrets and loaded it into a Google spreadsheet. The total amount of contributions tops $1 billion, $480 million to the Democrats and $680 billion to the Republicans. Once you have the data in a spreadsheet you can muck it around any number of ways. Over $700 million came from just three states: New York, Illinois and California.

Gulf of Tonkin Incident

Gulf of Tonkin Incident - August 2, 1964 - E. J. Fitzgerald

Who in tarnation is running this show? Did you know that the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, the one on August 4th, the one that was used as an excuse to get us into war with Vietnam, was bullshit? There had always been rumors that there was something funny about it, but there are always those kinds of rumors about anything. I mean, no matter what happens, like the sun coming up this morning, there are going to be people who are going cast doubt on that event. 

But now I'm reading The Media is the Number One Cause of War Since 1898 by Simon Black on Sovereign Man and I find this:

The United States joined the Vietnam War based on a Gulf of Tonkin skirmish with the North Vietnamese which never actually occurred. But the Johnson administration and intelligence sources said it happened, so the media reported it as fact.

Well, no doubt in his mind, which kind of surprised me. So I go check and according to Wikipedia and History, Simon is correct, the incident was totally made up. There was an incident on August 2 (subject of the painting at top), but it wasn't a war starting event. The incident used as an excuse to start the war supposedly happened on August 4th, except it didn't happen at all.

All of which makes me wonder who is actually calling the shots? Could it be the heads of the big media corporations, people like Rupert Murdoch, Bill Gates and George Soros? That makes as much sense as anything.

Via ZeroHedge

Quote of the Day

The far Right thinks that George Soros is using his money to destroy the Republic but it’s okay for the Koch Brothers to spread some cash around to support the Conservative agenda; whereas the far Left thinks that the Koch Brothers are using their money to destroy the Republic but it’s okay for George Soros to spread some cash around to support the Liberal agenda. - T.J. O'Hara in a story in the The Washington Times

That darn Tam. She left a comment on another post, which prompted to me to make a flip answer, but then, because it was from Tam, I stewed on it. I had forgotten about George Soros, I mean he hasn't popped up on my radar in quite a while, and I had forgotten how much antipathy there is for George among gunnies. Doing a little Googling I was reminded of just how bitter the feelings are, though there didn't seem to be anything current. Has he backed off from his position? Hard to tell.

Looking for current news I came across this story where I found the quote. I wasn't impressed with the rest of the story. The quote was the highlight.

Lindsay Lohan's Life to be Sold on E-Bay

Lindsay Lohan

I stumbled across this story on Michael Bane's blog this morning. I liked it so much I wanted to post a link on Facebook, my latest playground, but the link wasn't working, so I thought I would copy and paste and see if a link to this copy would work.

As the only gun blog regularly covering the spreading Lindsay Lohan Crisis on a regular basis, I thought it was past time for an important update. It was announced today that the Loveable Lindsay doesn't have the scratch for another 3 months in Betty Ford, not to mention the coke. Sources close to Lindsay (including Alf the Wonder Beagle and Michael Jackson's presently incarcerated chimp) tell us that the Vivacious Vixen has come up with a unique solution — she will sell up to 12 months of her life on E-Bay.

If you're lucky enough to win Lindsay for 1 month, she will come live in your house for an entire 30 days. She promises to lounge around your doublewide in panties and bra, Twitter pictures of [your] Hummel collection, make a pass at (choose 1) you, your spouse, your son, your daughter, the girl who babysits once a week or a family pet. She also guarantees at least either 1 overdose or 1 arrest.

If you're willing to bid for a 3 month block, Lindsay will also agree to marry you, with a subsequent divorce on day 90. There are rumors that George Soros has expressed an interest in obtaining the whole 12 months if, and only if, Charlie Sheen is included. "Boy Howdy, that Charlie knows how to party," Soros is reported to have said.

Via Dustbury, I think.

Update October 2016 replace missing picture.

Pictures of Traffic For You

This is from an email exchange with my brothers.

Dan:

Well, it's slightly more interesting than that. I guess I could title it "Anecdotes Of the Business Cycle and International Logistics."

So our company is at the end of the 2nd quarter, and we have a big order shipping out to a customer. The bosses are frantic and hysterical to get the revenue booked in Q2. The rules say we can't book revenue until the product ships from the factory; more specifically, until we get a signed Forwarder Cargo Receipt from the forwarder.

Now we introduce a development from the world of international trade regulation. Apparently there goes into effect on July 1 a reduction in "duty drawbacks." My understanding is, if a US importer pays duty on an import, then takes that item and re-exports it (or something made from it), they can recover a lot of that duty. After July 1st, they can recover less.

Thus, all the buyers are pressuring the Chinese manufacturers to ship by June 30 to secure the higher duty drawback rate.

Thus, Chinese logistics are in gridlock. Thus, our $500K of mouse pads can't get to the forwarder, we can't get the receipt, and we can't book the revenue.

Our agent in Malaysia sent us pictures taken by the forwarder in Shanghai to document the traffic situation. Not particularly interesting in and of themselves, but interesting for me to see what's behind my personal torment.

Incidentally, my tongue-in-cheek comment on the situation was "we'll just book it next week." They looked at me with slack-jawed incomprehension.

Andrew:

Why is there such activity over there when I am finding it hard to find meaningful productive work here?

China & North Korea's success.

How do these countries with limited infrastructure grow so quickly?

The US preserved from the disruptions of war & famine has accumulated vast pools of cash (rich).

Technology has enabled the delivery of quality products, regardless of geography.

Seeking low price the US buys from the cheapest producers.

Why should this bother me? The rich sharing with the poor.

Years of xenophobic fueled propaganda of the inferiority of other nations and their peoples and the selfish (but logical) desire to invest in my community.

But cheap wins out.

What assurance do we have that this is not harming our interests?

Do the common citizens of these other countries enjoy life as much as we?

Net cash outflow, sort of like what I am experiencing.

Me:

I bought a book by George Soros a few months ago called "On Globalization". I have not read it yet.

According to sailboat people (cruisers) America has the best and cheapest food.

All the new semiconductor fabrication facilities (fabs) are being built in SE Asia at a cost $2 billion and up, each. Similar facilities are required to make LCD flat panel displays. When they built fabs here, it was a big deal, people blabbing about how many jobs they would provide. By my estimate, the cost of the fab was about equal to the gross wages paid to the entire workforce for the next 20 years. I doubt the fab will last that long. I imagine that to stay competitive, all the equipment will need to be replaced within five years, and that is at least half of the cost of the fab.

So building these fabs in Asia might be saving them a few percent on manufacturing costs, but I doubt it even reaches ten percent. Still, that could amount to 100 million dollars, which is still a considerable amount.

Nike (also headquartered here) was lambasted in the press for running sweat shops in SE Asia. What the protesters didn't say was that for every person working there, there were three or four more wanting the job.

On PBS last night there was a talking head saying that real wages in America are at the same level they were in 1974. Worker productivity has doubled.

We have been running a trade deficit with Japan for years, ten? twenty? I don't know how long. Salaryman gets ground to dust.

US is trying to get China to adjust their exchange rate. China is holding it artificially low. Not sure what this is all about. Keeping the populace down, keeping the commies in power?

We bought a Japanese SUV in January. Consumer Reports OK'd it. But you look at American SUV's, and they haven't changed in ten years.


Update March 2016 replaced missing pictures.