Memorial Day

 

                        Memorial Day

War is man's most evil pursuit. Every single human motive morphs into something horrible and destructive; the most noble of man's qualities become misapplied. Somehow the diffident grasshopper becomes the predatory locust. 

Yet within the world of men, some things must be done. Individuals must live and act within the admitted abomination that is war. In the Second War the Germans and the Japanese were asked to fulfill their destiny, to complete history. This involved destroying or subjugating everyone who was not them. The Allies' children were asked to fight for their lives. Their behavior in this gargantuan struggle should always stand as a testament to man's higher elements in the midst of man's lowest. Yet questions always arise.

When Obama was in Japan and visiting Hiroshima, new discussion of the WWII atomic bombing began. An article in the LA Times asserted the bombing was cruel, gratuitous, and not a factor in the ending of the war. "Most Americans have been taught that using atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 was justified because the bombings ended the war in the Pacific, thereby averting a costly U.S. invasion of Japan. This erroneous contention finds its way into high school history texts still today," the article states. More, the cause of Japanese surrender was actually the Russian invasion of Manchuria. "It was not the atomic evisceration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended the Pacific war. Instead, it was the Soviet invasion of Manchuria and other Japanese colonies that began at midnight on Aug. 8, 1945 — between the two bombings." Indeed the sentiment at least seems to be in line with current thinking; the majority of Americans in polls think the bombs should not have been dropped.

Of course, people will differ in the assessment of history. Some assessments will be more accurate--sometimes more honest--than others. And many military men did not want to drop the weapons. But of all the wars in history, World War Two is the least ambiguous to analyze.

The History website has this summary:
Early on the morning of July 16, 1945, the Manhattan Project held its first successful test of an atomic device–a plutonium bomb–at the Trinity test site at Alamogordo, New Mexico.

By the time of the Trinity test, the Allied powers had already defeated Germany in Europe. Japan, however, vowed to fight to the bitter end in the Pacific, despite clear indications (as early as 1944) that they had little chance of winning. In fact, between mid-April 1945 (when President Harry Truman took office) and mid-July, Japanese forces inflicted Allied casualties totaling nearly half those suffered in three full years of war in the Pacific, proving that Japan had become even more deadly when faced with defeat. In late July, Japan’s militarist government rejected the Allied demand for surrender put forth in the Potsdam Declaration, which threatened the Japanese with “prompt and utter destruction” if they refused. (Italics added)

General Douglas MacArthur and other top military commanders favored continuing the conventional bombing of Japan already in effect and following up with a massive invasion, codenamed “Operation Downfall.” They advised Truman that such an invasion would result in U.S. casualties of up to 1 million. In order to avoid such a high casualty rate, Truman decided–over the moral reservations of Secretary of War Henry Stimson, General Dwight Eisenhower and a number of the Manhattan Project scientists–to use the atomic bomb in the hopes of bringing the war to a quick end. Proponents of the A-bomb–such as James Byrnes, Truman’s secretary of state–believed that its devastating power would not only end the war, but also put the U.S. in a dominant position to determine the course of the postwar world. (italics added)

On August 6, 1945  an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s unconditional surrender in World War II in a radio address on August 15, citing the devastating power of “a new and most cruel bomb.”

So the Emperor cites the bomb as a factor. And the alternative was an island-by-island attack on Japan that the experts accepted would cost one million--MILLION--American lives.

The LA Times article suggests the U.S. ignored a Japanese peace approach to the U.S. requesting only the Emperor survive. But that is not entirely true. Their proposal was to keep the Emperor and the current governing militaristic system intact, something the Allies thought nonnegotiable. Another element overlooked in the LA Times article is the continuity of events. Over 200,000 people were killed in the atomic attacks. Isolated, that is horrific. One wonders how the essayist saw those deaths in the context of the war itself. Or do they spare themselves the difficulty? China suffered between 15 and 17 million--MILLION--deaths directly related to combat--many described as "crimes against humanity." The Russians lost 25 to 27 million. MILLION. Certainly, we need kinder, gentler wars.

Nonetheless, the LA Times article was quite critical of American behavior and motives in one of the world's most easily evaluated conflicts, the American democracy vs. Nazis and Japanese imperialists. Applying morality to war is tricky and can be practiced only by our best and brightest. Fortunately, a look at the by-line has the reassuring information that the LA Times article was authored by none other than Oliver Stone, the esteemed and awarded movie director. He is certainly qualified. As a member of the exclusive self-absorbed entertainment cult and the reliable creator of the movie JFK, one of the cult's more astonishing productions of historical analysis, we can certainly rely upon his opinion.

And I'm sure he would have been willing to talk to the widows, the orphans, and the parents of those million Americans, explaining that those soldiers had to die assaulting the Japanese islands because we were true to our inner nature and did not drop the cruel bombs that could have ended the war. That was not who we are.

Something Else in 'Transition'

 

Something Else in 'Transition'

In much of the developed world, referrals to gender clinics and diagnoses of gender dysphoria have been on a steep incline in a short period of time.

The graph (above) by Trans Youth CAN!, a study of youth referred for puberty blockers and hormones in Canada, shows a tiny number of young people—the majority male—sought care until 2007 at a gender clinic in British Columbia. Since then, the number of referrals has grown more than tenfold, and the majority are now female. The Netherlands saw a similar trend. The UK’s Gender Identity Development Service reports an almost 4,000 percent increase in ten years, also shifting from majority males to females, the great bulk of them teenagers. In the past, the majority of referrals were young children or adult males.--eSkeptic 

Bill Maher says that, if you extend the curve out, everyone in the country will be gay by 2050.

Stakeholders

Stakeholders

The efforts to share in the productivity of others never rest.

An interesting idea in the WSJ:

The pre-Enlightenment world was dominated by the powerful, who defined the public interest to benefit themselves and imposed their will on productive members of society. When labor and capital are forced to share what they produce with stakeholders, the reward for working and savings is plundered.

In the post-Enlightenment world, people were empowered to pursue their own private interests. Private interests and free markets accomplished what no benevolent king’s redistribution, no loving bishop’s charity, no mercantilistic protectionism, and no powerful guild ever did—deliver broad, unending prosperity.

Remarkably, amid the recorded successes of capitalism and failures of socialism rooted in Marxism, pre-enlightenment socialism is re-emerging in the name of stakeholder capitalism. These stakeholders claim that “you did not build your business” and that your labor and thrift should serve their definition of the public interest.

The initial target of this extortion is corporate America. Stakeholders argue that rich capitalists who own big businesses already get more than they deserve. But since roughly 70% of corporate revenues go to labor, the biggest losers in stakeholder capitalism are workers, whose wages will be cannibalized. And of course, the idea that rich capitalists own corporate America is largely a progressive myth. Some 72% of the value of publicly traded companies in America is owned by pensions, 401(k)s, individual retirement accounts, charitable organizations, and insurance companies funding life insurance policies and annuities. The overwhelming majority of involuntary sharers in stakeholder capitalism will be workers and retirees.

The Transition

 

The Transition

“[When] it comes to the gas prices, we’re going through an incredible transition that is taking place that, God willing, when it’s over, we’ll be stronger and the world will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels when this is over,” Biden said during a press conference in Japan following his meeting with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

I'm unsure where he sees this 'transition.' Fossil fuel consumption has increased significantly over the past half-century, around eight-fold since 1950, and roughly doubling since 1980.

True, the types of fuel we rely on have shifted, from solely coal towards a combination with oil, and then gas. Today, coal consumption is falling in many parts of the world. But oil and gas are still growing quickly.

Global energy consumption will grow by 56 percent by 2040 with fossil fuels remaining the dominant energy sources. Of the renewable energy sources, the EIA projects that wind and hydropower will see the fastest growth, with wind dominating in developed nations, and hydropower projects more limited to developing countries. By 2040, the report projects, renewables’ share of world energy use will be 15 percent, up from 11 percent in 2010. Yet 85% of energy will be generated by fossil fuels.

Which is to say, there is no electricity tree.

But our government, which should be on our side, continues to insist we suffer in this symbolic effort.
Or, as Obama said, "The price of electricity will necessarily skyrocket."

“Keep this in mind next time you fill up,” Boston radio host Gerry Callahan tweeted. “THIS IS WHAT THEY WANT. The pain is the point. The beatings will continue until all the intransigent rabble comply. Shut up and trade your F-150 for a Prius.”

Decisions

Decisions 

We continue to suppress our own petroleum production, preferring instead to rely on dirtier sources provided by people who hate us and technologies that will not be available in any significant production for decades. We continue to buy dirtier oil products from the Russians who then use that money to fund an almost unbelievable planned murderous mugging of a smaller defenseless country that is being reported as a military operation. We are negotiating with a partner in the Middle East murder-suicide pact so we can buy their oil rather than use our own and give them more nuclear weapons potential. And, of course, we are negotiating with the Venezuelan kleptocracy. 

Fortunately, we have a Scandinavian child and an adult heavyweight like John Kerry to keep things in perspective.

Areas of Success

 Areas of  Success

So, a guy going to brunch in N.Y. is shot by a stranger on the subway. Children are attacked and shot by a guy said to be fleeing the Border Police. Abbott has their children's formula plant for what appears to be little reason and is not allowed to start up their plant for months, also for no apparent reason.

Political philosophy aside, aren't these safety factors basic areas of government responsibility? If the government can't guarantee a modicum of public safety, what would be considered a government strong point? (Don't say 'war' without first thinking 'Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and, as a transgenerational bonus, Korea.') 

Maybe being ahead of the curve by funding early COVID research.

Touchstone

 

Touchstone

From The Hill's take on the new press secretary.

“You want to bring down inflation? Let’s make sure the wealthiest corporations pay their fair share,” the president tweeted.  

Question from the press: “How does raising taxes on corporations lower the cost of gas, the cost of a used car, the cost of food, for everyday Americans?”
 
What followed was akin to a high school student putting together a series of sentences in order to achieve a mandatory word count on a term paper. Here was the answer verbatim, per the official White House transcript:

Jean-Pierre: “So, look, I think we encourage those who have done very well — right? — especially those who care about climate change, to support a fairer tax — tax code that doesn’t change — that doesn’t charge manufacturers’ workers, cops, builders a higher percentage of their earnings; that the most fortunate people in our nation — and not let the — that stand in the way of reducing energy costs and fighting this existential problem, if you think about that as an example, and to support basic collective bargaining rights as well.  Right?  That’s also important. But look, it is — you know, by not — if — without having a fairer tax code, which is what I’m talking about, then all — every — like manufacturing workers, cops — you know, it’s not fair for them to have to pay higher taxes than the folks that — who are — who are — who are not paying taxes at all or barely have.”

The original question about how raising taxes on corporations lowers inflation did not get answered.

On another occasion on Wednesday, a reporter asked if there is “a new level of alarm within the White House about the stock market?” The question came after stocks plunged for a sixth straight day, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average losing more than 1,100 points, the biggest drop in two years.

Jean-Pierre: “We do not — that’s not something that we keep an eye on every day. And so, I don’t — I’m not going to comment about that from here.”

So while more than 144 million Americans own stock, and many more are invested in 401Ks for their retirement, the White House isn’t keeping an eye on it. Sleep tight, America.

There's all this analysis about Biden's curious decisions. Maybe he's just really bad at it.

Question 68

 

Question 68

From the AUA:
The AUA is seeking a highly-qualified member to fill the new position of Diversity & Inclusion Chair reporting to the Board of Directors. The chair also serves as the AUA’s Chief Diversity Officer and chair of the Diversity & Inclusion Committee. The chair is responsible for advising the board to shape and execute diversity initiatives of the AUA, including but is not limited to:
-Identify, and advise on potential solutions to meet, diversity gaps within the AUA organizational programs
-Advise AUA Program Councils on the implementation of their diversity initiatives
-Advise on methods to recruit, support and retain diverse AUA leaders and volunteers

On Roe: The opinion’s careful analysis of text therefore represents not only the overruling of Roe but also a sea change in the appropriate method of reasoning about the Constitution. What was notable about Roe was that it failed to locate the abortion right in the text of the Constitution or even in previous precedent. As law professor John Hart Ely said about Roe, “it is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.” (Not surprisingly, Alito quotes Ely.) But Roe was also the culmination of decades of loose thinking about constitutional interpretation, as expressed in cases that ignored the original meaning of text and were driven by what the justices thought of as good policy. If the Dobbs decision follows this draft opinion, then its most important legacy will be the restoration of a more rigorous method of reasoning to the heart of constitutional law.--mcguiness

According to F.A. Hayek, liberty “not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions and will receive praise or blame for them. Liberty and responsibility are inseparable”

Sweden’s death rate during the Covid pandemic is among the lowest in Europe, despite the country refusing to impose strict lockdowns, according to new figures from the World Health Organisation.

One characteristic of government is its resistance to self-examination. How will the U.S. respond to the COVID event? If we rely on the government to resolve that question, we will never know

Fodder for the Greater Vision

Fodder for the Greater Vision

The Ministry of Truth is on 'pause.' Maybe go underground for a while. Work on its mask. But something revealing has occurred in the Ministry mess. What about The Tsarina?

What about the Disinformation Governance Board’s director, Nina Jankowicz?

Mayorkas struggled to answer questions about the board’s work in front of lawmakers on Capitol Hill earlier this month. He had no idea who this woman was or why anyone would be upset. So she was just destroyed, destroyed by the casual indifference that her leaders showed.

Senate Democrats abruptly canceled a hearing last week, where Jankowicz was scheduled to testify, after a multiple of her videos went viral, including one showing her bragging about being the "Mary Poppins of disinformation." Democrats were reluctant to have Jankowicz face questioning from Republicans, prompting them to scrap the event altogether, which led to the board being disbanded.

She has a rather weird history, working for a CIA front and for a right-wing group in Ukraine. It is a shadowy and peculiar story but the real story is that she is an airhead. How could this silly woman with her Mary Poppins songs be in any government position at all?

The only thing worse is how she was sacrificed and butchered by her resumed friends in the government. They just rolled her out to the potential criticism. No justification. No defense. Exposed and left on her own. Like the Russian U.S. President Joe Biden nominated Saule Omarova.

“Until I came to the US, I couldn't imagine that things like gender pay gap still existed in today's world. Say what you will about old USSR, there was no gender pay gap there. Market doesn't always ‘know best.’” This person, a professor at Cornell University, was picked to be America’s next comptroller of the currency. The comptroller of the currency! A 2020 article written by Omarova suggests the need for a government-controlled “people’s ledger” that would “end banking as we know it”

When criticism mounted, “I am an easy target," she said. "An immigrant, a woman, a minority. I don’t look like your typical comptroller of the currency. I have a different history. I am easy to demonize and vilify.”

These people have a religious certainty in their righteousness and simply cannot conceive of an honest, thoughtful differing opinion. Disagreement is always stupid and ugly. And they are always angry at their critics and not their leaders who sacrifice them so casually and ineptly.

Buffaloing the People

Buffaloing the People

Taking the outlier as representative of large groups misunderstands the basic idea of 'outlier.' 

President Biden traveled to Buffalo, N.Y., to visit the scene of Saturday's insane massacre at a grocery store. Strangely, he called on Americans to reject white supremacy and criticized the racist conspiracy theory that inspired the shooter, as if this madman had a philosophy deserving opposition.

"White supremacy is a poison. It's a poison running through our body politic, and it's been allowed to fester and grow right in front of our eyes. No more," Biden said in remarks Tuesday at a community center alongside local leaders. "We need to say as clearly and forcefully as we can that the ideology of white supremacy has no place in America."

House Democrats plan to vote this week on a bill to combat white supremacists and other domestic extremist groups.

"What happened here is simple and straightforward: Terrorism. Terrorism. Domestic terrorism," Biden said, calling the shooting a "murderous, racist rampage" carried out in the name of a "hateful and perverse ideology."

In America, evil will not win, I promise you. Hate will not prevail. White supremacy will not have the last word," Biden said.

But this is is simply and straightforwardly not true. This crazy man is not a conspirator, he is a public health failure.

Biden--and Schumer--have taken a lunatic and made him emblematic of a larger threat to the nation. When you purposely use the outlier to create a false world to rally your brownshirts, you are a despicable politician.

Question 67

Question 67'

The Buffalo shooter isn’t a “lone wolf.” He’s a mainstream Republican.'--Rolling Stone

How is the hatred element in a crime determined? Do criminals seek out people they hold in high regard for victimization? Do some criminals 'love their enemy?'

A question I don't know the answer to: Has there ever been a successful democracy with multiple races?

Saw Schumer last night blame Republicans for the Buffalo murders. He referenced 'replacement theory.' I am a high school graduate and I had to look it up. Schumer is a really bad guy. So are whoever he is speaking for.

Heard the new Press Secretary. We are gonna miss Psaki.

‘I hold a number of beliefs that have been repudiated by the liveliest intellects of our time… that order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction… And I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable than ideology… Above all, I believe in the God-given genius of certain individuals, and I value a society that makes their existence possible.’--Clark
Probably not thinking about a culture where you can build a career in Animosity.

Question 66

Question 66

Fetterman said Sunday that he had suffered a stroke.
“On Friday, I wasn’t feeling well, so I went to the hospital to get checked out,” the Democratic front-runner for U.S. Senate said in a statement. “The good news is I’m feeling much better, and the doctors tell me I didn’t suffer any cognitive damage. I’m well on my way to a full recovery.”
Is there any other line of 'work' where a neurological injury would not disqualify you? But, then, Biden has had two craniotomies. 

We certainly are led by the nation's best.

Under this cartel of countries, with foreign governments committed to refusing to compete for capital by cutting tax rates, the incentives for U.S. companies to avoid high U.S. taxes are seriously reduced. So are the incentives for governments to keep their own tax systems modest.--deRudy
Tax Cartels!

Faced with a deepening economic and humanitarian crisis, Sri Lanka called off an ill-conceived national experiment in organic agriculture this winter. 

You can cut down on fertilizer by cutting down on food, just like you can cut down on energy by cutting down on fuel.
Apparently poverty, starvation, and decline are superior to a lot of things we take for granted.

Pelosi wants to establish price controls.

Just before Russia invaded, former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden doubted the veracity of reports of Russia's alleged "invasion" of Ukraine and suggested that statements without evidence could provoke an escalation of the crisis.
"So... if nobody shows up for the invasion Biden scheduled for tomorrow morning at 3 a.m., I'm not saying your journalistic credibility was instrumentalized as part of one of those disinformation campaigns you like to write about, but you should at least consider the possibility,"

What a guy.

Sunday/Reminiscences

Sunday/Reminiscences

“If there were a philosophical Vatican,” Simon Blackburn declared in the New Statesman, “the book would be a good candidate for going on to the Index.”

The Book? Mind and Cosmos by Thomas Nagel. The rub? Nagel, an avowed atheist and a professor of philosophy and of law at New York University with terrific standing in the scientific community, suggests that “the materialist neo-Darwinian conception of nature is almost certainly false,” and offers thoughtful reasons to believe that the non-material dimensions of life—consciousness, reason, moral value, subjective experience—cannot be reduced to, or explained by, its material dimensions. While “there is really no reason to assume that the only alternative to an evolutionary explanation of everything is a religious one,” he writes, “this may not be comforting enough” for the materialist establishment, which may find it impossible to tolerate also “any cosmic order of which mind is an irreducible and non-accidental part.”

"Comforting enough?" The establishment has gone nuts. "The shoddy reasoning of a once-great thinker." (Pinker) "A bad book like this, by a philosopher with a good name, gives philosophers in general a bad name." (Alwin) "..will certainly lend comfort (and sell a lot of copies) to the religious enemies of Darwinism." ----the financial motive dismissal (Dupres) "No one could possibly think he has shown that a massively successful scientific research program like the one inspired by Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection.."---no kidding (Leiter and Weisberg)

In The New York Review of Books, H. Allen Orr concedes that it is not at all obvious how consciousness could have originated out of matter. He then cites Colin McGinn’s suggestion that our “cognitive limitations” may prevent us from grasping the evolution of mind from matter: “even if matter does give rise to mind, we might not be able to understand how.” Soooooo.....we should accept materialistic explanation on ....what? You guessed it: Faith! A solution as old as man to the God problem now must be applied to the materialism problem.

There is a lot of wonderfully ironic stuff here as you go through the responses to this book. The reviews are painful cries of tortured men. And there is no answer evident. But it is enlightening to see supposed "outside the box" thinkers congeal into a regiment and walk in lockstep as soon as possible. And heaven--or materialism--help you if you transgress the dogma.

Questions 65

Questions 65

Watching the disastrous Pens game I was struck by the number of repeating commercials, sometimes back-to-back.
Maybe a statute of limitations.

President Joe Biden announced on Thursday, May 12, that his administration is canceling the Alaskan Oil & Gas Lease, according to a report from CBSNews.com. The lease would have given companies the opportunity to drill for oil in Cook Inlet, Alaska, an area spanning 1 million acres.
In a statement to CBS News, the Department of the Interior said that there was a “lack of industry interest in leasing in the area.”
Is everything PR?

The PA. Republican senate race is astonishing. A recent Fox News poll showed Oz with 22 percent support; McCormick, the former CEO of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, with 20 percent; and Barnette at 19 percent.

Ten people have been taken into custody after 17 were shot in Milwaukee Friday evening near the Bucks-Celtics basketball game, police said Saturday.

In ethics, the proportionality principle dictates that “responses should be proportional to the good that can be achieved and the harm that may be caused,” as Kate Jackson-Meyer from Boston College has put it. This obvious notion, which would be offered by any guy in a bar, is a ethics 'principle.'
'It’s far past time we ask ourselves when abundance really means excess, when our precautionary measures against Covid have gone too far, when we have ignored the costs and lost all sense of proportionality.'--bauer

Question 64a

Question 64a

The Rangers reverted to old-time hockey last night, trying to hurt the first line. It looked as if they knocked Crosby out.

Hockey will never expand their fan base if incapacitating their major talents is seen as an acceptable tactic.

Ralston College in Georgia, which describes itself as a “new institution of higher education dedicated to free inquiry and human flourishing,” said last week that it had appointed Jordan Peterson as chancellor.

“The surge in gun violence across the United States in 2020 pushed the firearm homicide rate that year to its highest level in a quarter-century, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday. ”Over half of 2020 gun deaths were suicides.”
Did you know that?

Father Coughlin, nearly a century ago, had 30-40 million listeners. Tucker Carlson, yes the highest-rated show on cable news, last week had 3 million viewers.

Bloomberg has an article suggesting that Netflix is in some serious trouble. Serious. Netflix’s market share has been declining steadily and has now fallen below 50%. One estimate claims that the company’s share of consumers fell more than 30% in a single year.

Questions 64

Questions 64

Would the business world or academia accept without criticism or anxiety the type of behavior demonstrated by the current President of the U.S.? He wanders around the public forum like a broken toy. Why doesn't anyone say anything?

An overall twin correlation across thirty-eight measures was r = 0.95, p < .001. In contrast with previous research, the twins’ general intelligence and non-verbal reasoning scores showed some marked differences. A remarkable study of female co-twins, raised separately by an adoptive family in the United States and the biological family in South Korea.

Obstacle-course racing is close to being named the new fifth sport in modern pentathlon, replacing equestrianism, in a highly contentious move that opponents warn will plunge the sport deeper into civil war.

George Gilder on information, not materials, driving growth: "Wealth is most essentially knowledge... the caveman had access to all the materials we have today. Therefore, economic growth is learning, manifested in ‘learning curves’ of collapsing costs driven by markets...Crash a car and all its value disappears, though every molecule remains...Capitalism is not chiefly an incentive system, where entrepreneurs act in rote response to rewards and punishments like in a Skinner Box. It’s an information system governed by the unveiling of surprising truths, innovation. If the creativity of entrepreneurs wasn’t a surprise, socialist planning would work.”

M]eritocracy is a revolutionary idea, the intellectual dynamite which has blown up old worlds – and created the materials for the construction of new ones. For millennia, most societies have been organized according to the very opposite principles to meritocracy. People inherited their positions in fixed social orders. The world was ruled by royal dynasties. Plum jobs were bought and sold like furniture. Nepotism was a way of life. Upward mobility was discouraged and sometimes outlawed.--woodward

Questions 63

 

Questions 63

The British Retail Consortium (BRC) has calculated that one in seven shopfronts across Britain is empty.

A new map of the night sky has just been made public for the first time. The photo, which was published by scientists at Durham University, shows an incredibly detailed picture of millions of galaxies and space objects.
Many of the 4.4 million galaxies captured in the photo hold massive black holes, or are generating new stars at high speeds. Most of the specks of light visible in the image are billions of light-years away from Earth, according to the scientists. Some of the rarer objects captured in the image include colliding galaxies and flaring stars in the Milky Way.
4.4 billion galaxies.
The difference between "real income" and "real disposable income" is the latter is after taxes. Inflation-adjusted, real disposable income declined for the 9th time in 10 months.

Hoover Institution’s John Cochrane noted recently, big borrowing has to be followed by big consequences like big spending cuts, big tax increases, big inflation, or worse, a big debt crisis. It will also be followed by greater difficulty in responding to emergencies like the one in Ukraine.

NEWS

 NEWS

Good news. The Biden administration's disinformation czar claimed in a book she authored this year she will not be "silenced" on social media as she pushed back against what she considered to be "harassment" from men whenever she shared opinions online.
She claims the "infrastructure of the internet is built for men."

A lot of people feel she's unfit for the post but perhaps the whole idea is so goofy, she's perfect.

The State Department said it is "closely monitoring" the investigation into what left three Americans dead at a Bahamas Sandals resort, and a fourth hospitalized.

Salvation Army of Sarasota County: Starting in May, the agency was forced to cut its free dinner and shower services for members of the public who are not enrolled in its programs. 

An officer said. “In the last three to six months, we probably lost I would say 20% to 30% of our staff due to the fact that they can’t afford to live in the area and they need to move.”

Sinn Féin will be the largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly for the first time, pushing the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) into second place.

“The War on the West” claims that perhaps as many as 12 million Africans were trafficked across the Atlantic in the Transatlantic slave trade. At the same time, as many as 18 million were sold to the East from Africa in the Arab slave trade. The author asks why are there no descendants of slaves in the Arab lands as there are in this country? Because, he says, the Arabs castrated all the male Africans they bought so that there would be no next generation.

Wrong More Often Than Dictated by the Laws of Chance

Wrong More Often Than Dictated by the Laws of Chance

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, when asked if government spending is fueling the rise in government indebtedness as well as inflation, answered “No, it isn’t. The government spending is doing the exact reverse, reducing the national debt. It is not inflationary.”

This is quite a statement--maybe not the idiocy of the 'tilting Guam' worry, but close. There is nobody--or at least not many--who would say that increased deficit spending does not increase the national debt. And, unless you are a fan of MMT, deficit spending is inflationary. Adding dollars to the exchange market cheapens them. What one of the most important people in the world is saying is just gibberish.

An element of American politics is that a politician--with the exception of Trump--can say anything, regardless of how stupid, without the risk of correction or criticism. This says as much about the observers as the politicians themselves. Frighteningly, there is no reason for us poor working slugs to assume that these stupid statements do not correlate directly with stupid government. 

The inescapable camera and microphone may require the quality of these people to rise. Now that would be change.

Question 62

 

Question 62

Members of the U.S. Senate often have conflicts of interest, both business and personal. But never before has our country experienced a senator who has dual citizenship, served in a foreign military and maintains deep ties to the other nation where he holds citizenship — one where the leader is notorious for punishing those who cross him. Mehmet Oz — more commonly known by his television name of “Dr. Oz” — has myriad connections to Turkey and the world of its autocratic president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, that are causing concern in Washington and beyond.--WashPo
I saw an ad by a Dr. Oz opponent touting that he was an American.

According to California Assembly Bill 2098, physicians who deviate from an authorized set of beliefs would do so at risk to their medical license. The bill, written by Assemblyman Evan Low, a Democrat in Silicon Valley, and currently making its way through the California Legislature, is motivated by the idea that practicing doctors are spreading “misinformation” about the risks of COVID, its treatment, and the COVID vaccine.

An interesting observation from Durant, channeling Hayek: Law tends to lag behind moral development, not because law cannot learn, but because experience has shown the wisdom of testing new ways in practice before congealing them into law.

In reality, Europe is a fragmented continent increasingly distrustful of the reliability and sanity of the United States, unhappily but helplessly dependent on German economic interests, destabilized by serial crises, eager to diversify away from fossil fuels, and terrified by the return of Russian imperial power and the prospect of a nuclear exchange. Far from being strategically autonomous, Europe needs a partner and protector. And if the answer isn’t Washington, then Beijing is the only other game in town.--stern

Questions 61

Questions 61

Chappell attacked with a knife on stage. Are glass screens next for performers? They are very upset. Probably don't remember Monica Seles.

The Roe opinion leaks. Will it unify the Dems at mid-terms?

"Extremist MAGA Agenda" emerges as a Dem talking point. Can the party of The Ministry of Truth call anyone 'extremist?' 

Unbelievable Pens game. Brutal hit on Rakel.

Vance wins in Ohio.

Modeling cannot “accurately predict the numbers”, the chairman of the Government’s modeling task force admitted as he was questioned by MPs on why experts had got omicron projections so wrong. Speaking to the Commons science and health select committee, which is scrutinizing the pandemic response, Prof Medley said: “The modeling is there to understand the process and what’s going on. We know we can’t accurately predict the numbers, but we can give insight into the processes that determine the outcomes.”
Scenarios released in models before Christmas estimated that up to 6,000 people a day could die at the peak of the omicron wave, with tens of thousands of daily hospitalizations, leading to calls for a national lockdown. However, deaths peaked at 306 on Jan 21, while daily admissions never rose beyond 2,615.

zero carbon and zero covid are the same grift
it's the same state-sponsored crony corporatism to establish control and enrich allies--el malo gato

In 1959 the editor in chief of JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, wrote, “Neither the proponents nor the opponents of the smoking theory have sufficient evidence to warrant the assumption of an all-or-none authoritative position.” In 1958 the leading expert on statistical analysis, R.A Fisher, wrote in Nature, “Unfortunately, considerable propaganda is now being developed to convince the public that cigarette smoking is dangerous.” Imagine if doctors would have lost their medical licenses for disagreeing with the expert opinion.--wsj

The Bureau of Truth

The Bureau of Truth

The Bureau of Truth and Jankowicz are testing whether idiocy can be a threat to basic virtues.
This is from an article in the National Review.

"Jankowicz’s social-media history suggests that, while she is certainly interested in disinformation, her passion is dressing up as Liza Minnelli. In one video, Jankowicz adapts the tune of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” to convey that “Information laundering is really quite ferocious / It’s when a huckster takes some lies and makes them sound precocious.” In another, she offers up that pornographic twist on the Harry Potter books for which we’ve all been clamoring. “I helped him solve the mystery of the egg,” she warbles. “But I’d like to solve the mystery between his legs.” Her canon is limited in scope, but what I’ve seen of it is enough to test even the most committed civil libertarian in his opposition to casual waterboarding.

...

All told, it will be tough to find a more perfect example of Modern American Progressivism than this for a good while. It exhibits an entirely undeserved epistemological self-confidence. It is driven by a niche moral panic that begins and ends online. It is unabashedly authoritarian in concept and in tone. It involves the addition to the public payroll of one of the silliest people in all the land. And, like so much that the contemporary Left ends up doing, it has pushed the vast majority of psychologically normal voters into paroxysms of derisive laughter. One of the most remarkable features of our age is that the more het up about an issue the American Left seems to be, the less serious its saviors seem to become. David Harsanyi is correct to argue that the very idea of “the state putting an imprimatur on ‘truth’” is both “dangerous to freedom” and “laughable,” but I wonder if he is perhaps overestimating the extent to which the Democratic Party and its chums will ever be able to control America’s national conversation. We are told that we are in the midst of a chronic “information crisis,” and yet the best progressives can do to fight it is promote Brian Stelter, Taylor Lorenz, Jen Psaki, and Nina Jankowicz."