The rightness of a thing isn't determined by the amount of courage it takes. -Mary Renault, novelist
Some interesting problems are coming in the academic world. Many teaching physicians have no benchmarks that determine salary. That is changing and there will be screaming.
A Swedish behavioral scientist has suggested that it may be necessary to turn to cannibalism and start eating humans in order to save the planet. Settled science?
The Energy Information Administration reports that the subsides per unit of power generation for wind and solar electricity are many times greater than those for conventional electricity.
In the spring of 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder revealed an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador on U.S. soil. Mattis urged the White House to make the public case for reprisals against Tehran. He was rebuffed. “We treated an act of war as a law enforcement violation, jailing the low level courier.”
Mattis did mot like Obama.
By 2049 the annual interest on the debt will be about 5% of gross domestic product — roughly the share that we spend today on Social Security. And that’s even if interest rates stay low. Despite rising debt and federal spending, the government is expecting — or hoping — the average rate on federal debt will rise only from today’s lowly 2.4% to 4.2%, still modest by historic standards, by 2049.
On this day in 1877, Oglala Sioux chief Crazy Horse was fatally bayoneted by a U.S. soldier after resisting confinement in a guardhouse at Fort Robinson, Nebraska.
Wehner on Will #2
In The Atlantic, Jul 28, 2019 Peter Wehner interviewed George Will about his new book on Conservativism. It raised several important points and these are several more:
All of us, including Will, have to deal with the fact that we are now confronted with a head of government who is systematically assaulting our ideals and virtues. Those who may have forgotten are now being reminded that government has a vital role in the cultivation and sustenance—or in the degradation and destruction—of political cultures.
“To revitalize politics and strengthen government, we need to talk about talk. We need a new, respectful rhetoric—respectful, that is, of the better angels of mankind’s nature.” The reason, he said, is that “mankind is not just matter, not just a machine with an appetitive ghost in it. We are not what we eat. We are, to some extent, what we and our leaders—the emblematic figures of our polity—say we are.”
Will’s broader project over the course of his career is the restoration of norms, the bolstering of public confidence in government, and the recovery of the nation’s founding virtues. “What I’d like progressives to take away from the book is a reconsideration of their dilemma,” he recently told me. “And their dilemma is this: In 1964, when I cast my first presidential vote for Barry Goldwater, to whose memory the book is dedicated, 77 percent of the American people said they trusted the government to do the right thing all the time or almost all the time. Today, it’s 17 percent—and that 60-point evaporation of government prestige has accompanied a 60-fold increase in government pretensions. I would think my progressive friends would be alarmed by this, because their entire agenda depends on strong government, and strong government depends on public confidence in the government.”
Some interesting problems are coming in the academic world. Many teaching physicians have no benchmarks that determine salary. That is changing and there will be screaming.
A Swedish behavioral scientist has suggested that it may be necessary to turn to cannibalism and start eating humans in order to save the planet. Settled science?
Most are expecting a net 22.5 million more immigrants to come to the U.S. over the next 20 years. By 2049, they’re expecting immigration to account for a stunning 87% of annual population growth. We’re going to have a lot more illegal immigrants. Despite the current bluster and the scandals at the border, the CBO expects we’ll have 2.4 million more illegal immigrants in 20 years’ time than we have today.
Federal Reserve officials are gearing up to reduce interest rates at their next policy meeting in two weeks, most likely by a quarter-percentage point, as the U.S.-China trade war darkens the global economic outlook. (wsj)
The price of copper often gives us a clear indication of where the economy is heading, and it is now down 13 percent over the last six months.
A transgender philosophy professor defended herself last week following a tweet in which she lauded the death of David Koch: “It’s okay to be happy, even celebrate, when bad people die.”Federal Reserve officials are gearing up to reduce interest rates at their next policy meeting in two weeks, most likely by a quarter-percentage point, as the U.S.-China trade war darkens the global economic outlook. (wsj)
The price of copper often gives us a clear indication of where the economy is heading, and it is now down 13 percent over the last six months.
The Energy Information Administration reports that the subsides per unit of power generation for wind and solar electricity are many times greater than those for conventional electricity.
In the spring of 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder revealed an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador on U.S. soil. Mattis urged the White House to make the public case for reprisals against Tehran. He was rebuffed. “We treated an act of war as a law enforcement violation, jailing the low level courier.”
Mattis did mot like Obama.
By 2049 the annual interest on the debt will be about 5% of gross domestic product — roughly the share that we spend today on Social Security. And that’s even if interest rates stay low. Despite rising debt and federal spending, the government is expecting — or hoping — the average rate on federal debt will rise only from today’s lowly 2.4% to 4.2%, still modest by historic standards, by 2049.
On this day in 1877, Oglala Sioux chief Crazy Horse was fatally bayoneted by a U.S. soldier after resisting confinement in a guardhouse at Fort Robinson, Nebraska.
Wehner on Will #2
In The Atlantic, Jul 28, 2019 Peter Wehner interviewed George Will about his new book on Conservativism. It raised several important points and these are several more:
All of us, including Will, have to deal with the fact that we are now confronted with a head of government who is systematically assaulting our ideals and virtues. Those who may have forgotten are now being reminded that government has a vital role in the cultivation and sustenance—or in the degradation and destruction—of political cultures.
“To revitalize politics and strengthen government, we need to talk about talk. We need a new, respectful rhetoric—respectful, that is, of the better angels of mankind’s nature.” The reason, he said, is that “mankind is not just matter, not just a machine with an appetitive ghost in it. We are not what we eat. We are, to some extent, what we and our leaders—the emblematic figures of our polity—say we are.”
Will’s broader project over the course of his career is the restoration of norms, the bolstering of public confidence in government, and the recovery of the nation’s founding virtues. “What I’d like progressives to take away from the book is a reconsideration of their dilemma,” he recently told me. “And their dilemma is this: In 1964, when I cast my first presidential vote for Barry Goldwater, to whose memory the book is dedicated, 77 percent of the American people said they trusted the government to do the right thing all the time or almost all the time. Today, it’s 17 percent—and that 60-point evaporation of government prestige has accompanied a 60-fold increase in government pretensions. I would think my progressive friends would be alarmed by this, because their entire agenda depends on strong government, and strong government depends on public confidence in the government.”
“What I’d like conservatives to take away from this book,” Will added, “is the sense of the enormous intellectual pedigree behind conservatism from Madison to Lincoln to [the economist Friedrich] Hayek and the rest.” Will said conservatives need to answer the question, What does conservatism want to conserve?
The most important of all revolutions, Edmund Burke said, is a “revolution in sentiment, manners and moral opinion.” What conservatives like Will and me believe, and what we think Trump supporters either don’t understand or deny, is the destructive revolution in manners and mores that Donald Trump is ushering in, the enormous cultural and social blast radius of his presidency.
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