What Andreessen Said
Friday, December 20, 2024
What Andreessen Said
The federal government is big enough and mean enough to destroy individual lives just to demonstrate that it can. This has been my growing suspicion. Although I don’t believe everyone with a complaint should be taken seriously, I do see the leverage is there for the federal government to use and abuse.
In a recent episode of the Joe Rogan podcast, tech investor Marc Andreessen relayed the experiences that drove some of his friends and associates into supporting the Trump campaign. In a segment of the interview, Andreessen mentions abuses coming from the CFPB, created as an unaccountable bureaucracy that makes its living by finding private citizens and companies to hang charges on and pillage. It’s like a medieval army of force-conscripted peasants that “liberates” a territory for its princeling and promptly rapes and pillages the territory in the name of its own survival.
Someone went through the conversation and indexed it, so here are three segments in sequence that add up to a whole. It’s disturbing, and I tend to believe it, even if it may be overstated.
It does not seem to me that there’s much accountability in many parts of our government. It wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t so expansive: If it could just be ignored and left alone. But it’s everywhere trying to do everything.
The main thing government is good at is thwarting and preventing, not creating, constructing, or producing. It is the very definition of a monopoly, with all the potential for abuse that entails. The only thing it can do effectively is oppression. And with 450 federal agencies, it just can’t find enough nooks and crannies in which to oppress.
Unfortunately, with a weirdo show warming up in the wings, now we’re going to get a refresher course on what it’s like when the party and elected leaders from the other team get to hold the whip…
Today’s special animal friend is the Wattled Crane, Grus carunculata (or Bugeranus carunculatus, depends whom you ask). Anyway, the wattled crane – so called because of fleshy bits dangling off its face – is the tallest crane in Africa and the second-tallest in the world, standing up to 5’9” tall with a wingspan up to 8’6”. The largest concentration of these birds, which are rated Vulnerable by IUCN, is in the Okavango Delta.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntlf9vGYp3c
As you can see, the cranes wander through the wetlands among the large herbivores. They are omnivorous, but they eat much more plant material than most cranes. (I thought they were eating meat because of the red coloration of their beaks and facial skin.) They feed mainly on the submerged roots and rhizomes of aquatic plants such as sedges and water lilies. They fill out their diet with aquatic insects, snails, amphibians, and snakes. They are not considered migratory, but populations move around depending on local water levels or temperatures.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugXQm4LrjYY
Wattled cranes have a low reproductive rate. They usually begin nesting in April, making a nest by flattening some grass near a body of water. One or two eggs are laid. Both parents participate in incubation for about a month; it is rare for more than one egg to hatch. The adults feed the hatchling for about 80 days, until it is able to forage for plants with its parents. Fledging may take up to 150 days. I assume the very large size of this bird accounts for the long maturation period.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikp9rT7yeLw
Habitat loss is the main threat to wattled cranes, especially in areas where hydroelectric dams disrupt the natural hydrology. They are illegally hunted in some regions. They are kept and successfully bred in a number of zoos around the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42vfgYItPRE
Good morning. What a chirpy start to the day! The CFPB got a fair amount of attention when it started, because it was, as you point out, set up to function with no accountability or control from anyone, and somehow, all the actual branches of government that, like, exist in the Constitution and stuff just say, "Yeah, whatever ...".