“The White House is strongly denying reports that Iran provided any advance warning of the massive aerial attack it sent towards Israel on Saturday, calling the suggestion that Tehran would have provided any information on its military plans “ridiculous”.
John Kirby, the president’s national security communications adviser, also took a page from President Joe Biden’s book of oft-used phrases by referring to reports of such warnings — through back channels or otherwise — as “malarkey”.
“We did receive messages from Iran, and they receive messages from us too, but there was never any message to us or to anyone else on the timeframe, the targets, or the type of response,” he said during a White House press briefing on Monday.
“I want to be clear, this whole narrative out there that Iran passed us a message with what they were going to do is ridiculous,” he later added.”
“Ukraine’s president said that Russia is now firing 10 times more artillery shells than his country is able to, and has 30 times more aircraft, in a worrying sign for Ukraine’s ability to sustain its military efforts.”
“As far as consumer complaints go, of course, there’s nothing wrong with some of the DOJ’s concerns. We might wish that every product we owned was compatible with every other product we owned and that they worked in perfect tandem. We might wish we never had to consider tradeoffs between price, function, design, compatibility, etc.
Where this gets crazy is the federal government saying: Consumers being able to choose whether to use a product is not good enough. We’re going to step in and say that this business has to make a competitor’s products more accessible. It has a legal duty to undermine its own business interests to help outside—and many would argue inferior—products compete.
In the vein of other recent antitrust actions against tech companies, particularly under the Biden administration, the Apple suit relies on an absurd conception of how the law should work. And it’s a conception that could seriously harm innovation, weaken the position of U.S. tech companies, and mess with products many people like.
And many people really, really love Apple products, including iPhones.
The bottom line: Nobody has to use an iPhone, and no developer has to distribute its app through the App Store. There are other ways to communicate, other smartphone options, and other ways to distribute apps (including other ways to distribute apps to iPhone users). That many people still carry iPhones and distribute their apps through the App Store speaks to the fact that many people find the phone’s upsides and the App Store’s upsides stronger than any downsides.”
“Contrary to what Trump and Biden imply, it is impossible to “protect” Social Security and Medicare by doing nothing. Inaction will guarantee automatic benefit cuts in less than a decade.
In 2033, according to the latest projections, Social Security’s trust fund “will become depleted,” and “continuing program income will be sufficient to pay 77 percent of scheduled benefits.” Two years before then, Medicare’s hospital insurance trust fund “will be sufficient to pay 89 percent of total scheduled benefits.””
“if you artificially hike the price of labor, you reduce demand for workers. In California, this is playing out in terms of lost jobs, increased automation, and other consequences that result when politicians signal a unicorns-and-rainbows vision of the marketplace to their allies and leave the public to deal with the resulting mess.”
…
“”A California state law is set to raise fast-food workers’ wages in April to $20 an hour. Some restaurants there are already laying off staff and reducing hours for workers as they try to cut costs,” Heather Haddon reported for The Wall Street Journal. “California restaurants, particularly pizza joints, have outlined plans to cut hundreds of jobs in the months leading up to the April 1 wage mandate, according to state records. Other operators said they have halted hiring or are scaling back workers’ hours.”
This comes after California Pizza Hut franchisees laid off over 1,200 delivery drivers in anticipation of the minimum wage hike. It comes in the wake of McDonald’s and Chipotle Mexican Grill announcing higher menu prices to accommodate labor costs; those higher prices can be expected to drive away some customers, resulting in less need for workers to service lower demand.”
…
“less customer traffic isn’t the only way to reduce staffing needs; you can also replace people with technology. Chipotle announced plans to use robots to assemble burrito bowls. El Pollo Loco is doing the same for making salsa. Other restaurants are adopting automated fryers and burger-flippers to reduce the costs of employees.”
“What if you come home and find strangers living in your house?
I assumed you order the squatters out, and if they resist, call the police, and they will kick them out.
Wrong.
Pro-tenant laws passed by anti-capitalist politicians now protect squatters. If a squatter just lies about having a lease, the police won’t intervene.
“It’s a civil matter,” they’ll say. “Sort it out in court.”
Great. Court might cost $20,000. Or more. And courts are so slow, eviction might take years.
In my state, New York, homeowners can’t even shut off utilities to try to get the squatter out. That’s illegal. Worse, once a squatter has been there 30 days, they are legally considered a tenant.
This month, New York City police arrested a homeowner for “unlawful eviction” after she changed locks, trying to get rid of a squatter.
“Squatter rights,” also known as “adverse possession” laws, now exist in all 50 states. As a result, evicting a squatter legally is so expensive and cumbersome that some people simply walk away from their homes!”