The anniversary of the Russo-Ukraine War missed one of the most important events: Musk sending Starlink satellites to keep Internet service going in Ukraine.
The liberals love him for electric cars. They hate him for Twitter and for being a capitalist. Liberal heads explode due to this love/hate relationship.
I think they hate him more for his being a business genius.
I am thankful for him, even though I don’t care about electric cars. I am in awe of him for his genius.
Reading Surber places the reader in a room with adults, good humor, incisive comment, wrapped in the aura and expertise that some of us used to expect from good journalism.
The Constitution is not a partisan document. It was written to constrain man’s human nature which is inherently bad, in order to produce good governance, and a means toward enabling Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
You could say the same thing about Trump when he descended the escalator to run for President. He was no ideologue but a businessman who saw a mess and knew how to how to fix it. It’s not a coincidence that most of what needed fixing was the result of Leftist policies and regulations, which exposed, threatened, and incensed them against him.
Common sense has no place in Leftist orthodoxy, so when someone like a Trump or a Musk comes along, (or a Constitution), they instinctively despise him. They are solely about power and control, and damn anything or anyone who comes in the way of that end, no matter how sensible or reasonable they may be, or perhaps, especially because of just that.
"Those two paragraphs show why when I buy a news organization, I will fire all the college graduate reporters and replace them with people who are not indoctrinated fools."
Quote of the year, sir. So far :-D.
Time: Molly Ball at Time told us exactly how they 'saved' the election:
At this point the US taxpayers are paying for StarLink over Ukraine. They haven’t paid their own bills for who knows how long. But I’ve been paying a big bunch of it since Biden started giving our tax dollars to Zelenskyy et al. Musk is of the I’ll lead, you follow if you want, but I’m leading aptitude. And he doesn’t rely on anyone else’s opinion for his sense of self. And he takes care of ALL of his children.
Musk, like Trump, is not necessarily interesting in and of themselves (though Musk is) but they are revealing in what they bring out of people.
It's true that Musk was one of the first to step up. As someone else pointed out, the US government is paying him, but if memory serves that wasn't always the case. He gave the service to Ukraine for free *until* one of Ukraine's ministers told him to "f--- off" after he suggested that Zelensky and Putin should hash this out peacefully. At which point, he threatened to turn off the service unless the US government started paying for it. And the "left" went crazy.
Never mind that Zelensky's own government is not working for free during a "war." Instead, US taxpayers are paying their salaries and pensions. And Raytheon and all the other munitions makers are not "donating" arms to Ukraine and will expect to be paid arms-dealer prices when we try to replenish our stocks. Musk is considered to be evil because he asked for fair compensation for the service he provided in a situation that is more about laundering taxpayer funds to munitions makers and other state-sanctioned war profiteers than anything else.
Musk is a man of his own convictions. When he decides, he acts like a businessman, not a politician. This man is not a conservative but he is not a progressive. He acts; he doesn't dither. Thank you, Don, for giving us more insights into why and what Elon does.
Feb 28, 2023·edited Feb 28, 2023Liked by Don Surber
Musk is a great innovator and businessman. My one criticism of him is how he has leveraged gubmint subsidies to produce and push the scam of all electric vehicles. One, our grid is far too weak to charge massive numbers of EV's. Two, the higher density population areas of our country are dangerously close to the limit of our base load power plants, and if you believe solar and wind can solve that I have a bridge you need to see. Three, battery tech limitations make EV's a goddam expensive method of short hop commutes. Until the long awaited (like for about 40 years) huge breakthrough in battery tech actually arrives they remain an expensive toy for rich members of the Church of AGW to virtue signal with.
Just because there are parrots rather than sparrows doesn’t mean there are not any Hawks or Eagles out there ready to chew on his Carrion. He is smart and made powerful friends but so did Epstein.
Great lines: "the deep state is run by indoctrinated fools. That’s the trouble with choosing indoctrination over education. You wind up with parrots, not songbirds."
Also, thanks for the in depth commentary on Starlink/Starshield.
Musk's existential continuum allows him to, likely, see the "biggest" picture out there of any - and to pull the most gigantic levers of power yet devised by the scope of that mind. In comparison, the rest we see presented as "movers and shakers" on the national and world scene come across - oh - as just toadies awash in anomie.
I could be wrong, but from what I remember they only started paying for it after that big to-do where some minister in Ukraine told Musk to "f--- off" when he made a comment about how Zelensky should talk to Putin and Musk threatened to jerk the whole thing and then demanded the US government pay for the service.
I don't see Raytheon "donating" arms. In fact, I don't even see the Ukrainian leadership "donating" their time as the US government is paying the salaries and pensions of the Ukrainian government.
Raytheon made enough $$ giving our technology to the Chinese during the Clinton years. That was the biggest scandal of the 90s, not a stained blue dress
The article is very flattering of Musk. But he is in bed with BlackRock, Vanguard, and all the ESG crowd. He decries ESG publicly but then he bought the Twitters at a huge markup which was a shot in the arm to the enemies of civilization. He still hasn't fired the FBI/CIA/NSA/TLA cabal executives (other than Baker) and they are still using it as a weapon of information warfare against us.
I think Musk is brilliant at maintaining a public persona because he knows the difference between right and wrong and is careful to cast what he does in a good light. I think he realized years ago that Tesla needs to sell pickup trucks/SUVs to survive and the people who own them are more conservative than him. So he started noting publicly how he agreed with conservatives on some things (sometimes true, sometimes not).
I certainly pray he finds God, but his continued business with China and globalists isn't reassuring. Until he starts publicly proclaiming his faith in Jesus, he is a flag flapping in the wind as far as I'm concerned. And the winds of change are blowing hard these days.
Musk acts in his own self interest for sure. He is a big climate change alarmist/non-carbon guy, even though his product has a larger carbon footprint that ICE vehicles - and if we look at the UK also cost more to operate than ICE. He is however a free speech proponent, and on that basis I'm happy to cheer for him just a bit.
Sorry. There was a very good article some months back that covered who benefitted from the Twitter transaction but I ran across it on magagator which has no search/minimal archives. The internet is not my friend these days... finding it would be very difficult.
I general I agree with you, but I also think that Musk is not so easy to size up and, in any event, is way smarter than his critics and opponents. He's bound to be looking for a way to shed the Chinese, and if the way can be found, he is the man who can find it. If he pays attention long enough, he'll come around on "climate change".
I posted this at the top – twice – but it didn't show up, though my reply to another poster did, so I'm borrowing your comment to put it here. Apologies in advance.
Gates actually stole the core of Microsoft BASIC (TM) and MSDOS (TM). Later, when Microsoft stole software and got sued, they settled for chump change (for them, anyway). They often just bought a company with software written by better coders than they had. Microsoft was never really a technology innovator, at least until 2010 or so. Just the best marketing company in history.
Musk is a true business genius.
The liberals love him for electric cars. They hate him for Twitter and for being a capitalist. Liberal heads explode due to this love/hate relationship.
I think they hate him more for his being a business genius.
I am thankful for him, even though I don’t care about electric cars. I am in awe of him for his genius.
Thanks. Now I don’t have to write anything else
Reading Surber places the reader in a room with adults, good humor, incisive comment, wrapped in the aura and expertise that some of us used to expect from good journalism.
The Constitution is not a partisan document. It was written to constrain man’s human nature which is inherently bad, in order to produce good governance, and a means toward enabling Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
You could say the same thing about Trump when he descended the escalator to run for President. He was no ideologue but a businessman who saw a mess and knew how to how to fix it. It’s not a coincidence that most of what needed fixing was the result of Leftist policies and regulations, which exposed, threatened, and incensed them against him.
Common sense has no place in Leftist orthodoxy, so when someone like a Trump or a Musk comes along, (or a Constitution), they instinctively despise him. They are solely about power and control, and damn anything or anyone who comes in the way of that end, no matter how sensible or reasonable they may be, or perhaps, especially because of just that.
Most fabulously stated.
"Those two paragraphs show why when I buy a news organization, I will fire all the college graduate reporters and replace them with people who are not indoctrinated fools."
Quote of the year, sir. So far :-D.
Time: Molly Ball at Time told us exactly how they 'saved' the election:
https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/
Thank you, Danimal28 - after re-reading that piece, I've had to pop three nitroglycerin... ; )
It is 25 pages of filth for sure.
At this point the US taxpayers are paying for StarLink over Ukraine. They haven’t paid their own bills for who knows how long. But I’ve been paying a big bunch of it since Biden started giving our tax dollars to Zelenskyy et al. Musk is of the I’ll lead, you follow if you want, but I’m leading aptitude. And he doesn’t rely on anyone else’s opinion for his sense of self. And he takes care of ALL of his children.
Musk, like Trump, is not necessarily interesting in and of themselves (though Musk is) but they are revealing in what they bring out of people.
It's true that Musk was one of the first to step up. As someone else pointed out, the US government is paying him, but if memory serves that wasn't always the case. He gave the service to Ukraine for free *until* one of Ukraine's ministers told him to "f--- off" after he suggested that Zelensky and Putin should hash this out peacefully. At which point, he threatened to turn off the service unless the US government started paying for it. And the "left" went crazy.
Never mind that Zelensky's own government is not working for free during a "war." Instead, US taxpayers are paying their salaries and pensions. And Raytheon and all the other munitions makers are not "donating" arms to Ukraine and will expect to be paid arms-dealer prices when we try to replenish our stocks. Musk is considered to be evil because he asked for fair compensation for the service he provided in a situation that is more about laundering taxpayer funds to munitions makers and other state-sanctioned war profiteers than anything else.
Sounds like the military-industrial-government troika doesn’t it!
Musk is a man of his own convictions. When he decides, he acts like a businessman, not a politician. This man is not a conservative but he is not a progressive. He acts; he doesn't dither. Thank you, Don, for giving us more insights into why and what Elon does.
Musk is a great innovator and businessman. My one criticism of him is how he has leveraged gubmint subsidies to produce and push the scam of all electric vehicles. One, our grid is far too weak to charge massive numbers of EV's. Two, the higher density population areas of our country are dangerously close to the limit of our base load power plants, and if you believe solar and wind can solve that I have a bridge you need to see. Three, battery tech limitations make EV's a goddam expensive method of short hop commutes. Until the long awaited (like for about 40 years) huge breakthrough in battery tech actually arrives they remain an expensive toy for rich members of the Church of AGW to virtue signal with.
Just because there are parrots rather than sparrows doesn’t mean there are not any Hawks or Eagles out there ready to chew on his Carrion. He is smart and made powerful friends but so did Epstein.
True...just not the right ones, as it turns out.
My Starlink internet subsidizes Musk l. I pay a premium to use it. I’m not going to buy a Telsla
Great lines: "the deep state is run by indoctrinated fools. That’s the trouble with choosing indoctrination over education. You wind up with parrots, not songbirds."
Also, thanks for the in depth commentary on Starlink/Starshield.
"...those are problems we can address with regulation..."
*&^%$#@! That is government's/Democrats' solution to everything they perceive as a problem (and if they can't control it, its existence is a problem).
Don, you are a much better man than I - I would not stop at firing them.
Musk is a disruptive creative genius. This does not make him an easy person to live with. We live better lives because of people like him.
Musk's existential continuum allows him to, likely, see the "biggest" picture out there of any - and to pull the most gigantic levers of power yet devised by the scope of that mind. In comparison, the rest we see presented as "movers and shakers" on the national and world scene come across - oh - as just toadies awash in anomie.
Point of order: The U.S. paid for the Starlink service to Ukraine.
I could be wrong, but from what I remember they only started paying for it after that big to-do where some minister in Ukraine told Musk to "f--- off" when he made a comment about how Zelensky should talk to Putin and Musk threatened to jerk the whole thing and then demanded the US government pay for the service.
I don't see Raytheon "donating" arms. In fact, I don't even see the Ukrainian leadership "donating" their time as the US government is paying the salaries and pensions of the Ukrainian government.
You are NOT wrong!
Raytheon made enough $$ giving our technology to the Chinese during the Clinton years. That was the biggest scandal of the 90s, not a stained blue dress
and boy wasnt that swept under the rug in a hurry. Almost think the blue dress was a distraction too.
A little scandal to hide a bigger scandal.
Maybe that's what their game is with Biden. You can hide a whole lot behind a corrupt president with dementia, like a whole corrupt system.
The article is very flattering of Musk. But he is in bed with BlackRock, Vanguard, and all the ESG crowd. He decries ESG publicly but then he bought the Twitters at a huge markup which was a shot in the arm to the enemies of civilization. He still hasn't fired the FBI/CIA/NSA/TLA cabal executives (other than Baker) and they are still using it as a weapon of information warfare against us.
I think Musk is brilliant at maintaining a public persona because he knows the difference between right and wrong and is careful to cast what he does in a good light. I think he realized years ago that Tesla needs to sell pickup trucks/SUVs to survive and the people who own them are more conservative than him. So he started noting publicly how he agreed with conservatives on some things (sometimes true, sometimes not).
I certainly pray he finds God, but his continued business with China and globalists isn't reassuring. Until he starts publicly proclaiming his faith in Jesus, he is a flag flapping in the wind as far as I'm concerned. And the winds of change are blowing hard these days.
Musk acts in his own self interest for sure. He is a big climate change alarmist/non-carbon guy, even though his product has a larger carbon footprint that ICE vehicles - and if we look at the UK also cost more to operate than ICE. He is however a free speech proponent, and on that basis I'm happy to cheer for him just a bit.
Vanguard left the ESG crowd in the past several days. Amen
John C. Bogle must have haunted them
Make Money!
That's great!
Got any links/references?
Sorry. There was a very good article some months back that covered who benefitted from the Twitter transaction but I ran across it on magagator which has no search/minimal archives. The internet is not my friend these days... finding it would be very difficult.
Thanks.
Pretty sure all the execs were fired and the content moderation section was gutted.
I general I agree with you, but I also think that Musk is not so easy to size up and, in any event, is way smarter than his critics and opponents. He's bound to be looking for a way to shed the Chinese, and if the way can be found, he is the man who can find it. If he pays attention long enough, he'll come around on "climate change".
Perhaps, though he seems pretty sold on it. However, as long as he doesn't utilize his platform to silence those who disagree I can live with it.
I posted this at the top – twice – but it didn't show up, though my reply to another poster did, so I'm borrowing your comment to put it here. Apologies in advance.
Gates actually stole the core of Microsoft BASIC (TM) and MSDOS (TM). Later, when Microsoft stole software and got sued, they settled for chump change (for them, anyway). They often just bought a company with software written by better coders than they had. Microsoft was never really a technology innovator, at least until 2010 or so. Just the best marketing company in history.