Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Speech and Ideas


It appears that the border wall between The Dominican Republic and Haiti works.

***

The number of couples in China choosing to marry has gone up for the first time in nine years.

***



Speech and Ideas

There is a big case coming before the Supreme Court on Freedom of Speech. The substance involves the efforts by the federal government to control the information coming out of social media that opposed the government's position on COVID-19, how people got it, how they spread it, and how vaccines influenced it.

There is a peculiar picture here of acres of computer farms with technicians combing through postings from a housewife in Peoria looking for her subversive questions about the value of immunizing infants.

But what about speech the other way? What about speech originating not from the small computer on the kitchen table but from the center of opinion-making? Like Washington.

Here's an example.

A typical university policy statement (such as this one from California State University, Fullerton) reads, “Faculty members from traditionally underrepresented groups may experience additional demands on their time, a phenomenon termed ‘cultural taxation.’ Cultural taxation involves the obligation to demonstrate good citizenship towards the institution by serving its needs for ethnic representation and cultural understanding, often without commensurate institutional rewards.”

An example of "Cultural taxation" might be a black professor who is burdened with the supposed need to spend more time with black students than a white professor would be and therefore deserves some extra compensation. There isn’t any evidence that this is true, there is no reason to assume these Black students require more help, there is no reason why the helpful professor would necessarily be Black ....on and on. 

The point is that we now are dealing with a new concept--"cultural taxation"--with its own structure, theories, costs, and--most importantly--its own mythology. What is essentially a coffeehouse notion has become policy and will result in its own bureaucracy, rules, administration, and justice system. Without any proof.

Does such an idea deserve support or should the veracity of this idea be questioned? If the idea is imaginary and without foundation, should it be suppressed or should it be allowed to advance in deference to "Free Speech?"

Another way of putting it is, Why is the citizen always the offender?

 

Monday, March 18, 2024

Pro-Consumer Report

 


Pro-Consumer Report

An update on the evil American corporations and their arbitrary, anti-competitive, predatory pricing policies as wonderfully, if haltingly, exposed by our glorious leader.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is concerned that consumers are buying low-cost electric vehicles from China rather than higher-priced American creations. The government may have to intervene. How? Tariffs; a tax on imports. How does this fit with Biden's unending drumbeat of unreasonable corporate profits, American price-gouging, and consumer victimization?

It doesn't. It creates all those distortions.

Protectionism, remarkably, does just what it says. It protects American producers from foreign competition by raising those foreign competitors' prices with tariffs. There may be some reasons The Powers That Be may want to raise domestic prices on their citizens--none of them of any economic merit--but any benefit to the beleaguered consumer is nonsense.

At some point, inconsistencies become incoherent.

Sunday, March 17, 2024

Sunday/The Universal

 

Sunday/The Universal

Today's gospel is fascinating. "Some Greeks" ask Phillip "who was from Bethsaida in Galilee" to see Christ. The message works its way to Christ who answers with what appears to be a non sequitur:

'Some Greeks who had come to worship at the Passover Feast
came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee,
and asked him, “Sir, we would like to see Jesus.”
Philip went and told Andrew;
then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.
Jesus answered them,
“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies,
it remains just a grain of wheat;
but if it dies, it produces much fruit.
Whoever loves his life loses it,
and whoever hates his life in this world
will preserve it for eternal life.
Whoever serves me must follow me,
and where I am, there also will my servant be.
The Father will honor whoever serves me."'

This gospel is long but in this opening paragraph, a basic human problem is developed, then answered. First, the provincialism. Initially, we are shown two geographic, ethnic, and philosophic groups--the inquiring, philosophical, pagan, western Greeks and the faith-based, religious, eastern Jews. Both of these subsets have their own history, genetics, literature, traditions, successes, and failures. Both are looking for truth.

Do all of their disparate elements distort them? Does each have their own truth? Are the philosophical Greeks looking for answers in an impossible place? 

Can there be any commonality between the two groups?

The entire nineteenth century in the West was devoted to answering "No!" Marx and his homicidal accomplices built a murderous world on the concept of 'different truths' depending upon different circumstances. These competitive realities had to be resolved with conflict. The more recent "Critical Theory" is the twisted scion of this disbelief in truth.

Here both groups are looking for a hub. Christ says there is one. 

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Take a Load Off Fani


They are voting in Russia, according to the BBC. Is this an example of the distinction between form and substance?

***


Take a Load Off Fani

The Fani Willis decision is in. Ms. Willis has been found to have used the Georgia Trump case for her own personal advantage, has demonstrated breathtaking disregard for public appearance, has gone outside the court to racially disparage opponents, and, from all appearances, has raised questions of her truthfulness under oath. She has created an atmosphere of mendacity, personal advancement, and blatant disregard for the public welfare as should be the concern of a public servant.

The weight of responsible, honest, competent behavior is heavy.

One would expect this to result in exactly nothing. It is of no advantage for the Left to examine itself. But the reaction has been surprising. Fox was academically thorough but CNN was furious. They saw this as undermining the Trump case and the very confidence people have in the justice system.

This, of course, is not new; the Right has been complaining about this for years. That the Left is picking this up is shocking. They may simply be seeing this as a frustration of their parochial pursuit of Trump but that they see any larger picture is telling and could be meaningful.

Politics has always trumped truth but competence has been assumed; distinction has been seen as 'only' policy. These last years --and the next election--raise questions about the ability of the republic to generate capable leadership at any level. Ms. Willis will probably not become the poster child for governmental self-centeredness, indifference, and incompetence but she might make concerns more mainstream--and dangerously quotidian.

Friday, March 15, 2024

Astounding Stuff



Astounding Stuff

I was watching the news last night and all this unbelievable stuff popped up. This in just a few minutes.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called on Israel to hold new elections, saying he believes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has “lost his way” and is an obstacle to peace in the region amid a growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
So the head of the Senate in the U.S., a country that has been virtually hysterical over election interference, is publically criticizing a democratically elected foreign government and demanding its replacement. Worse, all the commentators are blaming this position on the Democrats' concern for pro-Palistinian domestic voters, not about the people, or Israel or Palestine at all.
N.B. Reason aside: Israel's war policy is determined by their War Council, a body of which Netanyahu is one. One. Another member is the oppositiion leader. This is a national policy, not a personal one.

A small dog was attacked by a coyote in the city's Mount Washington neighborhood, Pittsburgh Public Safety said in an alert Thursday.

Dak Prescott is now being investigated for his involvement in an alleged sexual assault that took place in 2017, Dallas police confirmed to the Dallas Morning News on Thursday.
The alleged incident occurred in the parking lot of a strip club, around Feb. 2, 2017, Dallas Morning News reported.
It comes days after Prosper (Texas) police opened an investigation into the Dallas Cowboys quarterback's claims that he was extorted.

Bernie Sanders, a Senator who has never held a non-government job, has introduced a law in the Senate that would limit the American work week to 32 hours while continuing 40-hour pay.
So the relationship between wages and production is not a factor, only a government declaration. Price and wages by fiat. There is no "value." This famous error on the value of labor and production has historically invalidated Marx.
The only thing that can save China and Russia is if we become more like them.

The U.S. will send $150 million to Haiti as emergency money. To whom? There is no government; they are all dead, or in hiding, or dinner. Fortunately, the inevitable Haitian flood will be accommodated here on Biden's non-border.
Obama gave Haiti $4 billion. Can you imagine? $4 Billion dropped into Haiti.

Several billion dollars were earmarked for the border wall by Trump and this money was diverted elsewhere by Biden. A court overturned this decision and repurposed it to the wall.

And all this is China and Ukraine free.

These stories were broadcast in just a few minutes in the evening news. Enough to interfere with digestion.

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Rising Unseriousness


“Almost 30% of Gen Z women identify as LGBTQ+, most as bisexual,” Jeffrey Jones, a senior editor at Gallup, told NBC News. What could explain this discontent?

***

The Brits have banned the use of pituitary blockers.

***



Rising Unseriousness

In our world of mendacity and shallow symbolism, the President of the United States wants to tax "the rich." Now, this is the man who says the rich are taxed at 8.3%. This is the same guy who says the border is secure, the Republicans want to end Social Security, and crime is under control. On the judgment side, he offered Zekensky asylum.

Biden wants to raise the corporate rate to 28% from 21%. The 2017 tax reform dropped the rate to 21% from 35%. (
By the way, China’s corporate tax rate is 25%.) A National Bureau of Economic Research paper last year found that the corporate tax reform effectively paid for itself by boosting investment and raising worker wages.

So, increasing the rate to 28% will probably result in lower tax revenue by reducing business investment and wages. Exactly the opposite of its intended effect. Because money goes where it's treated best. Taxes are punishments that incidentally raise money for the state; a higher corporate rate is a disincentive to invest in the U.S. – which is why Republicans cut it.

Control of finances is a sure way to limit them. See rent control. And creating a country hospitable to investment should be a national priority. This should be beyond debate. But, with these people, nothing is off the table regardless of logic, national benefit, or goodwill.

   

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Nicodemus



NASA’s SpaceX Crew-7 completed the agency’s seventh commercial crew rotation mission to the International Space Station on Tuesday after splashing down safely in a Dragon spacecraft off the coast of Pensacola, Florida. The international crew of four spent 199 days in orbit.

The Crew-7 mission lifted off at 3:27 a.m. Aug. 26, 2023, on a Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. About 30 hours later, Dragon docked to the Harmony module’s space-facing port. Crew-7 undocked at 11:20 a.m. Monday, March 11, to begin the trip home.

***




Nicodemus

There has always been an interesting slant on Christ and Christianity, particularly in academic circles, that Christ was a profound thinker, a great humanist, not divine in any way but a great man. They probably haven't read as far as the recent gospel where Christ actually has a dialogue with Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin. This is the first of three times Nicodemus is mentioned in the Gospel of John. (The second time he appears is when he reminds the other members of the Sanhedrin that a man must be first heard before he is condemned. The third time was when Jesus was killed and Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes to prepare Jesus’ body for burial.)

Christ is direct. He is the Son of God and the Redeemer, "so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”

Is there some context you can imagine where such a claim could fit comfortably in the thesis that Christ was only "a great man?" Either He was a lot more or a lot less.