Sunday/Samaritan

On this day:

1793
Journalist and French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat is assassinated in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday, a member of the opposing political faction.
1863
New York Draft Riots: in New York City, opponents of conscription begin three days of rioting which will later be regarded as the worst in United States history.
1878
Treaty of Berlin: The European powers redraw the map of the Balkans. Serbia, Montenegro and Romania become completely independent of the Ottoman empire.
2024 

Candidate Trump is shot by Crooks in Butler, Pa.

***

Why do we know so little about the attempted Trump assassinations?

***

The Left is rushing to rationalize Momdani's claim as an "African American." Why didn't they do that when Musk assumed it?

***

Freedom of speech is indeed under attack in Europe, and the internet extends its reach, even to the U.S.
In France, a woman spent 23 hours in custody for giving President Emmanuel Macron the middle finger. A German woman who posted images of politicians with painted-on Hitler mustaches and called a minister a terrorist was fined about $690. And in Denmark, a landmark trial began in May for two men accused of burning a Quran at a folk festival.

***

The typical length of cable tethered to the fiber-optic drones that Russia and Ukraine are deploying on the battlefield is 12.4 miles. Instead of using radio signals that can be easily blocked, fiber-optic drones transmit data back to the pilot through the cable they unspool as they fly. They are a game-changer in built-up areas, where walls or ravines interfere with radio signals.

***

Sunday/Samaritan

Anyone thinking of using the Bible as a creative writing course could do a lot worse than starting with the Good Samaritan. The traveler is from the spiritual heights of Jerusalem, going to the worldly Jericho, the starting place of Israel. He is ignored by the religious and political leaders and saved by the despised outsider. He is taken to an inn, and the savior stays with him. Then he does one of those weird gospel specifics: he departs after leaving the innkeeper with two silver coins (said to be the Church and tradition). And then the kicker: He will return.

And of course, it finishes with poignancy and humor. When Christ asks the lawyer who his neighbor is, the Jewish lawyer says, "He who showed mercy on him." 

The lawyer is unable to credit even a fictional cultural enemy.

SatStats

On this day:
1191
Third Crusade: Saladin’s garrison surrenders to Conrad of Montferrat, ending the two-year siege of Acre.
1562
Fray Diego de Landa, acting Bishop of Yucatan, burns the sacred books of the Maya.
1690
Battle of the Boyne (Julian calendar) – The armies of William III defeat those of the former James II.
1691
Battle of Aughrim (Julian calendar) – The decisive victory of William III of England’s forces in Ireland.
1789
French revolutionary and radical journalist Camille Desmoulins gave a speech, following hearing the news that France’s financial minister Jacques Necker has been dismissed. The speech called the citizens to arms, which lead to the falling of the Bastille two days later.
1948
Arab–Israeli War: Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion orders the explusion of Palestinians from the towns of Lod and Ramla.

***

Rioting guys throwing firebombs and shooting at law officers are certainly the kind of guys that would make this country a better place to live.

***

Melei gave Pope Leo a copy of Friedrich Hayek's *The Fatal Conceit*

***

Houthi drones have sunk a Liberian-flagged cargo ship crossing the Red Sea, leaving at least three crew members dead. They sank another boat yesterday.

***

From the Dept of Gesture and Symbolism: The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for two top Taliban officials, holding them criminally responsible for the regime’s treatment of women and girls. Since its 2021 return, the Islamist group has banned girls from education past the sixth grade, and has effectively banned women from public spaces. (CNN)

***


SatStats

As of Friday afternoon, Oneil Cruz was the plus-330 first choice to win the annual contest at DraftKings Sportsbook. Seattle’s Cal Raleigh was second at plus-360, and hometown favorite Ronald Acuna Jr. of the Braves was third at plus-450 before pulling out of the event with a back injury and being replaced by teammate Matt Olson.
But you do have to hit the ball before you can hit it far.

*

To maintain a stable population — no growth, no decline — the average woman needs to have roughly 2.1 kids. In the U.S., total fertility began dipping below that 2.1 threshold decades ago, and then after 2007, fertility rates plunged rapidly to a record low of roughly 1.6.

*

By midcentury, 40% of South Korea's population is expected to be age 65 or older.

*

Data from an energy think-tank suggests solar became the EU’s biggest electricity source for the first time ever last month, overtaking nuclear and wind. Still, fossil fuels are up 13% as countries use gas to cover recent hydro and wind shortfalls.

*

Since getting new glasses, Tommy Phan is hitting .445 with three home runs.

*

In 2024, illegal immigrants used 15% of New York hotel beds at $300 a bed.

*

The U.S. dollar fell 10.7% against its global peers through June, making it the worst first half since 1973.

*

FT: Analysis by Torsten Sløk, chief economist at Apollo, suggested that US government credit default swap spreads — which reflect the cost of protecting a loan against default — are trading at levels similar to Greece and Italy.

*

China is expected to lose more than 780 million people, more than half its population, by 2100.

*

Electric vehicles now receive over-the-air updates that can boost performance, upgrade infotainment or add driver-assist functions. A 2023 J.D. Power study found that 70 % of EV owners appreciate seamless software upgrades, but 30 % worry about losing functionality without warning.

*

Ireland’s population is the most educated in the world, with 52.4% (1.8million) of the population aged between 25-64 having a bachelor’s degree or higher. beating out countries such as Switzerland (46%), Singapore (45%), Belgium (44.1%) and the UK (43.6%), who round out the top five.

*

According to forecasts, in the next 10 years – perhaps as early as 2033 – declining birth rates in the U.S.will become a long-term reality at the same time that life expectancy increases to 80.4 years from 78.4 years.

*

On average, the lifespan of an ICE vehicle has increased to 12.5 years, with personal cars averaging 13.6 years. EVs, on average, are replaced every 3.6 years.

*

Eight countries border the Red Sea, but it has no rivers.

*

Amazon’s robot workforce has passed one million—and will soon outnumber the humans at its warehouses.

A Kind, Painless, Stable Life

On this day:

1405
Ming admiral Zheng He sets sail to explore the world for the first time.
1789
Jacques Necker is dismissed as France’s Finance Minister, sparking the Storming of the Bastille.
1804
A duel occurs in which the Vice President of the United States, Aaron Burr, mortally wounds former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton.
1864
American Civil War: Battle of Fort Stevens; Confederate forces attempt to invade Washington, D.C.
1940
World War II: Vichy France regime is formally established. Henri Philippe Pétain becomes Prime Minister of France.
1947
The Exodus 1947 heads to Palestine from France.
1972
The first game of the World Chess Championship 1972 between challenger Bobby Fischer and defending champion Boris Spassky starts.

***

"The flood crisis was someone's fault." The agitator always summons the same god.

***

Why do tennis coaching boxes seem to be filled with family and lab assistants?

***

Spam calls masquerade as polite and intimate. They create a miasma of insincerity and inspire rudeness.

***

It's been fun watching the dim-bulb Mamdani flickering and his smug supporters rationalizing.

***

A Kind, Painless, Stable Life

Socialism despises competition and its fallout of failure. In a way, it is an intolerance of the nature of life with its ups and downs--and eventual fatal denouement. Those who relentlessly try to interfere with all social and economic events are actually attempting to smooth the uncertainties of living and homogenize the outcomes of social and economic interactions.

We see encountering risk and overcoming it as success. They see risk as a basic enemy of life. And they are willing to sacrifice progress--the result of risk-taking--to eliminate it. In the back of their self-declared kind minds, they believe their ingenuity can substitute for the creative destruction of the marketplace. It's a wonder that they allow our dangerous social interactions, like school and romance.

Perhaps this explains the Left's hysterical, aggressive reaction to the chaotic Virus.

But the Left is tolerant; they do allow for some disorder. They are quite willing to put up with the messy period of social disruption while they sort out who they will allow to assist their leadership. And, of course, the purges. The New State must eliminate all those incapable of seeing the new future. Unanimity is the enemy of risk; the creation of unanimity is not.

Creative disorder, for all its positives, is disorder and will leave pain and failure in its wake. The socialist prefers their own power to create painless stability. And things that look like it, like stasis. And death.

Managing China's Economy

On this day:
988
Norse King Glun Iarainn recognises Máel Sechnaill II, High King of Ireland, and agrees to pay taxes and accept Brehon Law; the event is considered to be the founding of the city of Dublin. The Horse King!
1212
The most severe of several early fires of London burns most of the city to the ground.
1460
Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, defeats the king’s Lancastrian forces and takes King Henry VI prisoner in the Battle of Northampton.
1499
Portuguese explorer Nicolau Coelho returns to Lisbon after discovering the sea route to India as a companion of Vasco da Gama.
1553
Lady Jane Grey takes the throne of England.
1778
American Revolution: Louis XVI of France declares war on the Kingdom of Great Britain.
1882
War of the Pacific: Chile suffers its last military defeat in the Battle of La Concepción when a garrison of 77 men is annihilated by a 1,300-strong Peruvian force, many of them armed with spears.
1925
Scopes Trial: In Dayton, Tennessee, the so-called “Monkey Trial” begins with John T. Scopes, a young high school science teacher accused of teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act.
1946
Hungarian hyperinflation sets a record with inflation of 348.46 percent per day, or prices doubling every eleven hours.
1962
Telstar, the world’s first communications satellite, is launched into orbit

***

President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened Brazil with a tariff of 50% if Brazil doesn't stop legal action over charges against its right-wing former president, Jair Bolsonaro.
Earlier this year, he threatened 25% tariffs on Colombian exports that would grow to 50% if the country didn’t accept deportees from the US. (Colombia ultimately accepted the deportees and avoided those tariffs.) Trump also imposed tariffs on goods from Mexico, Canada, and China over the role he alleges they play in facilitating illegal migration to the US and enabling fentanyl to reach the country.
Interference with the internal workings of another country should drive Americans nuts.

***

Mamdani's college application is revealing of him, but the reaction to his scores is revealing of the Left. Arrogance is at the Left's marrow; their critics are, by definition, unimaginative, unread, and just dumb. To have their standard bearer in the lower half of the class is mortifying to them.

***

Brennan, accused by Trump of weaponizing the FBI, accused Trump of weaponizing the FBI to go after him.

***

Have polls become de facto substitute voting?

***

Managing China's Economy

The more economic power the [Chinese] Communist Party takes, the more knowledge and outside initiative is lost. The difference between the popular image of China and what research actually shows about it could hardly be greater. Our politicians and media paint horrifying images of China’s brilliant strategic planning, but in the vast literature on China’s economy, there is hardly a single study that even attempts to argue that a specific industrial policy has created real commercial success.

The Westerners who now assume we need an active industrial policy in order to compete with China thus choose not to imitate the Chinese policy that created the country’s successes, but the post-2010 policy that involves enormous risk-taking. To the extent that the new policy has achieved any results, they are negative. Capital has been transferred to less productive state-owned companies. Despite the fact that they only account for around a quarter of the country’s GDP, they get about 80 per cent of the banks’ lending. Growth per capita, which in the 1990s and 2000s was around an incredible 10 per cent annually, declined to 5 per cent before the pandemic (and some observers believe this was an exaggeration). Under the current economic model, China finds it hard to squeeze any growth out of the economy.--Norberg

While the West has a decided philosophical advantage, it suffers, as it did in its competition with Japan, from organizational jealousy, a fear that its messy, unchecked spontaneity will wilt before the fierce, structured, state-directed economies that oppose it. Some of this is simple restlessness, some the by-product of the very experimenting process that has given it such success. But the real impetus is that foolish selfishness that asks simple-minded politicians to achieve their grasping dreams. No sensible, nonpathological explanation is available to clarify the apparent success of Mamdani in a sophisticated, wealthy city like New York.

Socialism and Free Association

On this day:
1755
French and Indian War: Braddock Expedition – British troops and colonial militiamen are ambushed and suffer a devastating defeat by French and Native American forces.
1815
Talleyrand becomes the first Prime Minister of France.
1821
470 prominent Cypriots, including Archbishop Kyprianos, are executed in response to Cypriot aid to the Greek War of Independence
1850
U.S. President Zachary Taylor dies, and Millard Fillmore becomes the 13th President of the United States.
1868
The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing African Americans full citizenship and all persons in the United States due process of law.
1875
Outbreak of the Herzegovina Uprising against Ottoman rule, which would last until 1878 and have far-reaching implications throughout the Balkans
1944
World War II: Battle of Tali-Ihantala – Finland wins the Battle of Tali-Ihantala, the largest battle ever fought in northern Europe. The Red Army withdraws its troops from Ihantala and digs into defensive position, thus ending the Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive.
1958
Lituya Bay is hit by a mega-tsunami. The wave is recorded at 524 meters high, the largest in recorded history.
1962
The Starfish Prime high-altitude nuclear test is conducted by the United States of America.
1972
The Troubles: In Belfast, British Army snipers shoot five civilians dead in the Springhill Massacre.

***

Pittsburgh Pirates center fielder Oneil Cruz accepted an invitation Tuesday to compete in Monday's Home Run Derby in Atlanta.


***

In the 1960s and 1970s, scientist Paul Ehrlich popularized the idea that the Earth was being threatened by what he described as a population bomb.

"No intelligent, patriotic American family should have more than two children, and preferably only one," Ehrlich said in a 1970 interview,  warning that crowded U.S. cities faced a "fatal disease — it's called overpopulation."

Prophecy is tougher than it looks.

***

After graduation, many top international students can extend their stays temporarily to work in their fields of study, boosting American companies. This opportunity comes through the Optional Practical Training program—which would end if Mr. Trump’s nominee for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Joseph Edlow, has his way. Such a move would threaten the ability to attract top international students and would jeopardize a talent pipeline for American business.--wsj


***

Socialism and Free Association

The drift towards tyranny is always with us; like gravity, there is always some man or idea spreading an attracting field. Energy is always necessary to prevent a people from being pulled into the tyrant's orbit.

Anne Applebaum, in Iron Curtain, details Stalin's dynastic efforts in Eastern Europe, first as a Nazi partner then as an independent totalitarian contractor. It contains some interesting observations on tyranny as practiced by real experts, first Hitler, then Stalin. Hidden in it is some practical advice for free people.

She references the historian Stuart Finkel, who had the startling observation that communists have always acted more forcibly to undermine free association than to undermine free enterprise. When Lenin launched the New Economic Plan in the 1920s, Applebaum notes, the "systematic destruction of literary, philosophical, and spiritual societies continued unabated." Similarly, in Poland under the Nazis, Germany's war aims were not completely military."The object of the German occupation of Poland," she writes, "had been to destroy Polish civilization." After signing a pact to divide up the region between them, both Hitler and Stalin invaded Poland in September 1939. Under Hitler, much of the country's upper class was executed or sent to concentration camps. Stalin recognized a master when he saw him. The Soviets committed Nazi-style mass murders, most infamously the Katyń Forest massacre, which saw 22,000 Polish officers and other prisoners of war executed. "The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were, for twenty-two months, real allies," Applebaum writes. At the end of the war, there was almost literally nothing left of Warsaw.

After the war, the Soviets in Poland continued this broad cultural warfare. They attacked anti-Nazi groups(!), the Polish Boy Scouts, for example. Catholic Church groups were a high priority with their close-knit communities and their international connections. Some organizations were absorbed. The Polish Women's League, a group of earnest volunteers set up to feed refugees in train stations, was infiltrated by Soviet bureaucrats and turned into a mouthpiece for party dogma.

What Hitler and Stalin later did in Eastern Europe was not an attempt at a simple military victory. Both were attempting to destroy a people, to obliterate the social fabric, to deconstruct the very infrastructure that people used to live and work. Why? Because tyranny can be resisted by a people who see themselves as a people, as an entity. The nucleus of a "people" is hard to control.

Finkle's observation should not be forgotten: Free association is much more dangerous to tyranny than free enterprise.  

After Socialism

On this day:
1497
Vasco da Gama sets sail on the first direct European voyage to India.
1709
Great Northern War: Battle of Poltava – Peter I of Russia defeats Charles XII of Sweden at Poltava thus effectively ending Sweden’s role as a major power in Europe.
1896
William Jennings Bryan delivers his Cross of Gold speech advocating bimetalism at the 1896 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
1947
Reports are broadcast that a UFO crash-landed in Roswell, New Mexico.
1970
Richard Nixon delivers a special congressional message enunciating Native American Self-Determination as official US Indian policy, leading to the Indian Self-Determination Act.
2011
Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched in the final mission of the U.S. Space Shuttle program.

***

ESG is an official exemption from a company's obligation to enhance investor and employee wealth and return.

***

Danish women now face being called up for 11 months of military service when they turn 18, after a change in the law came into effect.

Under new rules passed by Denmark's parliament, women are to join teenage males in a lottery system that could require them to undertake a period of conscription.

The change was implemented as NATO countries increase defense spending amid rising security concerns in Europe.

***

Contrary to Pope Francis’s 2021 claim, the majority of bishops were not opposed to the Tridentine Latin Rite—in fact, it was even praised. So why was this report buried and Francis' case advanced?

***

Electric vehicles now receive over-the-air updates that can boost performance, upgrade infotainment, or add driver-assist functions.

***

After Socialism

Alan Charles Kors, writing for the Atlas Society, “Can There Be an ‘After Socialism’?“, is an old article, but interesting because it is so accurate and heartfelt. It also highlights the absence of any reflective examination of socialism's obvious disasters:

No cause, ever, in the history of all mankind, has produced more cold-blooded tyrants, more slaughtered innocents, and more orphans than socialism with power. It surpassed, exponentially, all other systems of production in turning out the dead. The bodies are all around us. And here is the problem: No one talks about them. No one honors them. No one does penance for them. No one has committed suicide for having been an apologist for those who did this to them. No one pays for them. No one is hunted down to account for them.
….

The record is truly plain. Socialism, wherever it actually had the means to plan a society, to pursue efficaciously its vision of the abolition of private property, economic inequality, and the allocation of capital and goods by free markets, always culminated in the crushing of individual, economic, religious, associational, and political liberty. Its collectivization of agriculture alone led to untold suffering, scarcity, and contempt for property as the fruit of labor. It was, at its best, the ability, through horror and servitude, to build Gary, Indiana, once, without the good stuff, and without the ability even to maintain it.
…..

To be moral beings, we must acknowledge these awful things appropriately and bear witness to the responsibilities of these most murderous times. Until socialism—like Nazism or fascism confronted by the death camps and the slaughter of innocents—is confronted with its lived reality, the greatest atrocities of all recorded human life, we will not live “after socialism.”

It will not happen. The pathology of Western intellectuals has committed them to an adversarial relationship with the culture—free markets and individual rights—that has produced the greatest alleviation of suffering; the greatest liberation from want, ignorance, and superstition; and the greatest increase of bounty and opportunity in the history of all human life.

This pathology allows Western intellectuals to step around the Everest of bodies of the victims of Communism without a tear, a scruple, a regret, an act of contrition, or a reevaluation of self, soul, and mind.
…….

We know that voluntary exchange among individuals held morally responsible under the rule of law creates both prosperity and an unparalleled diversity of human choices. Such a model also has been a precondition of individuation and freedom. By contrast, regimes of central planning create poverty and occasion ineluctable developments toward totalitarianism and the worst abuses of power. Dynamic free-market societies, grounded in rights-based individualism, have altered the entire human conception of liberty and of dignity for formerly marginalized groups. The entire “socialist experiment,” by contrast, ended in stasis; ethnic hatreds; the absence of even the minimal preconditions of economic, social, and political renewal; and categorical contempt for both individuation and minority rights. Our children do not know this true comparison

Democracy and Its Enemies, January 6

On this day:
1937
Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Lugou Bridge – Japanese forces invade Beijing, China.
1954
Elvis Presley made his radio debut when WHBQ Memphis played his first recording for Sun Records, “That’s All Right.”
2005
A series of four explosions occurs on London’s transport system killing 56 people including four alleged suicide bombers and injuring over 700 others.

***

Over 700 ETFs were started last year.

***

Russian car sales are down ~40%, and farm machinery sales are down 33%, while inflation remains high at around 9%, despite interest rates of 21%.
Russia's wartime spending is up 20%. In comparison, oil and gas revenues drop 12%, and Putin has now burned through two-thirds of his (liquid) rainy day fund, potentially exhausting it within a year unless oil prices improve or he cuts military spending.

***

Secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy ... censorship. When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know," the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything -- you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him. -Robert A. Heinlein, science-fiction author (7 Jul 1907-1988)

***

Democracy and Its Enemies, January 6

January 6th was the day Biden kicked off his reelection campaign. He picked January 6th as it is the anniversary of the attempt of some enthusiasts to demonstrate in favor of Trump's assertion that the election of 2020 had been rigged. What looked like a riot to the whole world became, in the eyes of the press, a tipping point of near Gettysburg or Shiloh proportions. The Republic trembled and nearly fell before an assault of scores of unarmed citizens led by a guy wearing deer antlers.

If Lee had only known.

Let's say these misguided fools and the Antler Guy actually had plans of upsetting the election. It's a big country; how would they have done it? We don't know. But let's say they had some secret plan. How would you rate their chances of success? (Assuming the Antler Guy has some wonderful--if, as yet unseen--planning and leadership qualities.) How would they have fared? Against the Feds? The U.S. Marine Corps? 2500 SEALS?

On the other hand, what if the President of the United States promises 'fundamentally transforming the United States of America'? What if the President is so infirm that all of the executive decisions are deferred to a faceless cadre of unelected government employees? What if the national debt rises so high it destabilizes the currency, prompting an alternative world currency and leaving its citizenry impoverished and in despair? What if the integrity and safety of the country are threatened by hundreds of thousands of unvetted, illegal immigrants crossing the border every month with only cursory attention? What if the government becomes so venal, so corrupt, so insincere, and so inept that the people become estranged?

Which scenario threatens the democracy?

Sunday/A State Above

On this dsy:1535
Sir Thomas More is executed for treason against King Henry VIII of England.
1557
King Philip II of Spain, consort of Queen Mary I of England, sets out from Dover to war with France, which eventually results in the loss of the City of Calais, the last English possession on the continent, and Mary I never seeing her husband again.
1777
American Revolutionary War: Siege of Fort Ticonderoga – After a bombardment by British artillery under General John Burgoyne, American forces retreat from Fort Ticonderoga, New York.
1885
Louis Pasteur successfully tests his vaccine against rabies. The patient is Joseph Meister, a boy who was bitten by a rabid do
1892
3,800 striking steelworkers engage in a day-long battle with Pinkerton agents during the Homestead Strike, leaving 10 dead and dozens wounded.

***

John Milton labored in 1660 on his epic poem “Paradise Lost,” he faced numerous obstacles: His role as an advocate for republicanism left him politically disgraced during the Restoration reign of Charles II. His second wife had recently died, and he had lost his vision entirely. Lying in bed at night, he composed verses of a poem vast in scale; it encompassed nothing less than the creation of the world and the fate of mankind. In the morning, he would dictate fresh lines to his daughters. --wsj

***

“We are at a wonderful ball where the champagne sparkles in every glass and soft laughter falls upon the summer air,” he wrote [in 1968] of a high-flying stock market in “The Money Game.”

“We know at some moment the black horsemen will come shattering through the terrace doors wreaking vengeance and scattering the survivors. Those who leave early are saved, but the ball is so splendid no one wants to leave while there is still time. So everybody keeps asking — what time is it? But none of the clocks have hands.” George Goodman, who wrote as 'Adam Smith'

***

Sunday/A State Above

There are a lot of opinions about America. Recent internal criticism--undermining America's position and reputation in the world--is becoming less and less significant because it seems more and more stupid. This is not to say that stupidity cannot carry the day in a democracy, but it does mean it will have less of a foundation and less permanence. And it is difficult to weaponize the supercilious.

But America has serious enemies. Democracies seek only commercial stability; the toltalitarians seek more.

Asia's conflict with America is simply practical. America is the international rival of the totalitarian state. Putin believes America's liberal view of man has come and gone. The State has returned like the Grand Inquisitor to fill in Man's failures and weak spots. Both China and Russia feel Man needs a powerful State, like a child needs strong parents. Materialism seems to be less of a guiding principle than a dimly remembered inherited flaw.

Europe is different as it tries stubbornly to cobble philosophies out of its museums of old tribal hierarchies, ethnic hatreds, and academic incoherence. 

All, both East and West, struggle with the American idea of Man, who is ceded spiritual worth and not judged on circumstance, and always granted the Christian miracle of the second chance. Contrary to Arendt's social compact of equality before the law, America thinks "isonomy" is not an arbitrary construct but inherent and deserved.

Some thoughts on America by real thinkers:

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Thomas Jefferson

Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.
Albert Camus

There is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals. The real American is all right; it is the ideal American who is all wrong.
G.K. Chesterton

Isonomy guaranteed … equality, but not because all men were born or created equal, but, on the contrary, because men were by nature ... not equal, and needed an artificial institution, the polis, which by virtue of its νόμος ['law'] would make them equal. --Arendt

"America – it is a fabulous country, the only fabulous country; it is the only place where miracles not only happen, but where they happen all the time." – Thomas Wolfe“

America is an idea, not a place.” – Jack Kerouac“

The best thing about America is that anyone can become an American.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger

The American Constitution is, as far as I can see, the most wonderful work ever struck off at any given time by the brain and purpose of man---Gladstone

America: At first, they strove to preserve the rights of Englishmen. This failed, and they declared their rights as human beings. This had never been done so largely.--Acton

Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected
Oscar Wilde

The American Constitution is, as far as I can see, the most wonderful work ever struck off at any given time by the brain and purpose of man---Gladstone

Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.--Thacher

American Revolution: The great point is that the letter of the law was against them. The absence of real oppression likewise. It was definitely an appeal to unwritten law, unchartered rights.--Acton

SatStats

On this day:
1687
Isaac Newton publishes Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica.
1830
France invades Algeria.
1934
“Bloody Thursday” – Police open fire on striking longshoremen in San Francisco.
1947
Larry Doby signs a contract with the Cleveland Indians baseball team, becoming the first black player in the American League. (Jackie Robinson had broken the color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers in the National League 11 weeks earlier.)
1962
Algeria becomes independent from France.
1996
Dolly the sheep becomes the first mammal cloned from an adult cell.
1998
Japan launches a probe to Mars, and thus joins the United States and Russia as a space-exploring nation.

***

The pause in shipment of some weapons systems to Ukraine— reported first by POLITICO — was driven by Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby and a small circle of advisers over concerns that certain weapons stockpiles in the U.S. were running low.
Even allies of President Donald Trump were frustrated by the move, and accused officials such as Colby — who led a review of U.S. munitions stockpiles that preceded the freeze — of pushing the move forward without notifying the rest of the administration or others.

***

Sheen, with an awful analogy: "There is no such thing as saving democracy alone. Democracy is a branch, not a root. The root of democracy is the recognition of the value of a person as a creature of God. To save democracy alone is like saving the false teeth of a drowning man. First save the man and you will save his teeth. First preserve belief in God as the source of rights and liberties, and you will save democracy. But not vice versa."

***

The UN's IAEA said Iran could start enriching uranium in a few months. But that's okay, right? They are just doing this for peaceful use, right?

***

SatStats

Thirty people a day are arrested in the UK for things they say on social media.

*

South Korea has banned the dog meat trade:
Traders and butchers before the ban would buy an average of half a dozen dogs per week.
Animal rights activists and authorities fought hard to outlaw the dog meat trade, but have no clear plan for what to do with the leftover animals, of which there are close to 500,000, according to government estimates.

*

The median bride price for marriages in the Chinese countryside doubled in real terms between 2005 and 2020, according to a recent paper by Yifeng Wan of Johns Hopkins University. Prices in urban areas are rising, too. A bride price of 380,000 yuan would indeed be steep in Guangdong province, where the median was about 42,000 yuan when last estimated. But it would look a bit less outrageous in neighbouring Fujian, where 115,000 yuan is the norm.

*

The Federal government controls more than half of Oregon, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, and Alaska, and nearly half of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Wyoming. The vast majority of this land is NOT parks.

*

Latin America and the Caribbean are much more violent than the rest of the world. Homicide rates are significantly higher in this region, and the top 6 highest homicide rates are in the Caribbean Basin.

*

Germany and Italy hold the world’s second- and third-largest national gold reserves after the US, with reserves of 3,352 tonnes and 2,452 tonnes, respectively, according to World Gold Council data.

*

Pittsburgh had only made between 4-6 draft picks each year from 2013-24. Taking 13 players this year more than doubles the typical yield. The Pens hadn’t drafted 10+ players since 1994.
The Pens had four picks in the top-40 and seven in the top-100. Pittsburgh made four top-40 picks in 2013-24 - combined.

*

The Pens draft was big. After the #11 pick, Zonnon (6’2”, 185 pounds) and Horcoff (6’5”, 203 pounds) are forwards. Peyton Kettles (6’6”, 194 pounds) and Brady Peddle (6’3”, 203) are monstrous defenders. Charlie Trethewey (6’2”, 201) isn’t far behind.

*

Repair vs. buying new. The big story isn’t declining durability but declining price:
In 1972, Sears sold a clothes washer for $220 and a dryer for $90, per 2022 research by AARP Magazine. That’s about $2,389 in 2025, adjusted for inflation. Today you can get a washer-and-dryer pair on sale from Sears for around $1,200.

*

No work of literary fiction has been on Publisher’s Weekly’s yearly top ten best-selling list since 2001
According to the National Endowment of the Arts, the number of Americans who “read literature” has fallen from 56.9% in 1982 to 46.7% in 2002 to 38% in 2022. 

Literary fiction makes up something like 2% of the market.

*

In the early days of FedEx, when the company was struggling financially, Smith took the company’s last $5,000 to Las Vegas and played blackjack. He reportedly won $27,000, which was enough to cover an overdue fuel bill and keep the company afloat for another week.

*

According to Israeli estimates, its interceptions of incoming missiles during an intensive bombardment cost as much as $285 million per night. Each Arrow 3 interceptor is priced at $2 million.

*

Birth rates are lower, but in several high-income nations, rising female earnings are now associated with higher fertility. Studies in Italy and the Netherlands show that couples where both partners earn well are more likely to have children, while low-income couples are the least likely to do so. Similar findings have emerged from Sweden as well. In Norway, too, higher-earning women now tend to have more babies.

*

Earning a doctorate during the first 70 years of the 20th century typically assured the graduate of a position in academe…Humanities Ph.D.s had the highest rate of academic employment—83 percent in 1995–99—but lower than the 94 percent level in 1970–74.

 

Fourth of July

On this day as well:

1054
A supernova is seen by Chinese, Arab, and possibly Amerindian observers near the star Zeta Tauri. For several months, it remains bright enough to be seen during the day. Its remnants form the Crab Nebula.
1187
The Crusades: Battle of Hattin – Saladin defeats Guy of Lusignan, King of Jerusalem.
1754
French and Indian War: George Washington surrenders Fort Necessity to French Capt. Louis Coulon de Villiers.
1863
American Civil War: Siege of Vicksburg – Vicksburg, Mississippi surrenders to Ulysses S. Grant after 47 days of siege. 150 miles up the Mississippi River, a Confederate Army is repulsed at the Battle of Helena, Arkansas.
1863
The Army of Northern Virginia withdraws from the battlefield after its loss at the Battle of Gettysburg, signalling an end to the Southern invasion of the North.
1918
Bolsheviks kill Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his family (Julian calendar date).

1943
World War II: Beginning of the Battle of Kursk, the largest full-scale battle in history and the world’s largest tank battle at Prokhorovka village.
1976
Israeli commandos raid Entebbe airport in Uganda, rescuing all but four of the passengers and crew of an Air France jetliner seized by Palestinian terrorists
1997
NASA’s Pathfinder space probe lands on the surface of Mars.

***

Fourth of July


America had an exceptional revolution, one that did not attempt to define and deliver happiness, but one that set people free to define and pursue it as they please.--Will

*
Isonomy guaranteed … equality, but not because all men were born or created equal, but, on the contrary, because men were by nature ... not equal, and needed an artificial institution, the polis, which by virtue of its νόμος (law) would make them equal. --Arendt

*
The American Constitution is, as far as I can see, the most wonderful work ever struck off at any given time by the brain and purpose of man---Gladstone

*
Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.--Thacher

*
Jay Leno had a recurring skit where he asked questions to passers-by on the street--questions most people think are rather simple and obvious. He asked several people what the Fourth of July celebrated, when independence was declared, and from whom the country separated. Of course, the results were embarrassing to most of those interviewed. One was particularly interesting. A college instructor knew nothing about the Revolution at all, thought it occurred in the 1920s, and thought China might have been involved.

*
A recent survey found that 27% of the people questioned were unaware that the American Revolution was waged against the British.

*

Both former U.S. Presidents Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on July 4, 1826–the day of the Jubilee–the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, in an extraordinary and eerie coincidence. Jefferson died shortly after noon at the age of 83 in Monticello, Virginia. Several hours later, Adams died in Quincy, Massachusetts, at the age of 90. According to newspaper reports, Adams’s last words were, “Jefferson still lives.”

Exactly five years later, on July 4, 1831, former U.S. President James Monroe died.

*

The Fourth

When I was a child in the '50s, the Fourth of July was a great event. The kids decorated their bikes, small local parades were held--every community had some commemoration, and the larger communities had fireworks. It was unlike other secular events like Thanksgiving, which were delightfully family-oriented; this was a commonly held social event. It was a birthday party. And it was heartfelt. Everyone felt that years ago, something of value had been accomplished, something special in the world created. There was a glow.

When Obama was first campaigning, he was asked about American Exceptionalism. (The phrase was de Tocqueville's, from Democracy in America, 1835: "The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one. Their strictly Puritanical origin, their exclusively commercial habits, even the country they inhabit, which seems to divert their minds from the pursuit of science, literature, and the arts, the proximity of Europe, which allows them to neglect these pursuits without relapsing into barbarism, a thousand special causes, of which I have only been able to point out the most important, have singularly concurred to fix the mind of the American upon purely practical objects. His passions, his wants, his education, and everything about him seem to unite in drawing the native of the United States earthward; his religion alone bids him turn, from time to time, a transient and distracted glance to heaven. Let us cease, then, to view all democratic nations under the example of the American people.")

American exceptionalism is a description of how America developed, not what it was. I'm unsure de Tocqueville--or Europeans then and now thought it complementary. It was special. It was unique.

The phrase has been used since by those who saw America as a point of reference in man's search for freedom and liberty. (It was also used by Stalin as a slur, decrying America's self-held belief that it was somehow excluded from the Marxian class warfare generality.) Obama saw the question as a trap--it would not do to talk of "exceptionalism" when we want all people to be the same, all nations indistinguishable. So, he hedged and said, "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." He, unlike those Americans of just a generation or two earlier, does not think that America is unique.

Unique. If that element is lost in this country, a lot has been lost. So, buy a small flag. Decorate your bike.

Democratic Socialism

On this day:

987
Hugh Capet is crowned King of France, the first of the Capetian dynasty that would rule France till the French Revolution in 1792.
1754
French and Indian War: George Washington surrenders Fort Necessity to French forces.
1775
American Revolutionary War: George Washington takes command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Massachusetts.
1778
American Revolutionary War: British forces kill 360 people in the Wyoming Valley massacre.
1863
American Civil War: The final day of the Battle of Gettysburg culminates with Pickett’s Charge.
1898
Spanish-American War: The Spanish fleet, led by Pascual Cervera y Topete, is destroyed by the U.S. Navy in Santiago, Cuba.
1913
Confederate veterans at the Great Reunion of 1913 reenact Pickett’s Charge; upon reaching the high-water mark of the Confederacy, they are met by the outstretched hands of friendship from Union survivors.
1940
World War II: the French fleet of the Atlantic based at Mers el Kébir, is bombarded by the British fleet, coming from Gibraltar, causing the loss of three battleships: Dunkerque, Provence and Bretagne. One thousand two hundred sailors perish.
***

The Bill:

The 40% of Americans who do not pay taxes will not benefit from a tax-cutting bill.
Reconciliation bills can not cut discretionary spending.
The bill deals with Medicare and Medicaid only insofar as it clarifies those already not eligible for them.

***

Five oil tankers have had explosions so far this year and it appears all may have been caused by limpet mines attached to the hulls by unknown individuals with unknown motives.

***

We have become obsessed with the outlier. 

A gift from Critical Theory: an individual cannot escape or transcend his group. Strange and outrageous behavior by one individual has become generalized to represent a larger group. So one lunatic cop is representative of all cops. And those cops are representative of all society.
The wide generalization from small experiences to large populations is a virtual definition of bigotry.

***

Jeffries and Schumer are so boring, they must have been Republicans in another life.

***

Democratic Socialism

The phrase "democratic socialism" mixes two entities, a governing system and an economic one. But the freedom of the vote in no way bleeds any freedom into the economic system. Democracy is the process by which the hierarchy--for good or ill--is chosen. "Democratic socialism" is, at best, a misunderstanding, and, at worst, malicious marketing.

So voting for socialism displaces a lot of the decision-making, by definition. It's not necessarily an oxymoron; the vote always creates a new reality. Individual freedom stops at the ballot box. The power to rule is transferred to another. The "representative." That happens in spades to democracies in wartime. The outrage over the internment of the Japanese in WW11 misunderstands this fundamental change. The vote allows citizens to choose their tyrant. Once the tribe had voted for the war chief, individual decision-making was over. 

"Democracy" implies "virtue" to our arrogant minds. It is not. It is a simple way of deciding. In the American example, it is ingenious--but only because of the limits created by its founders. The potential for tyranny is constrained by the Constitution. But this is not a characteristic of democracy; it is unique. Russia votes. Hitler was elected.

In democratic socialism, the citizen votes to surrender the national assets to a third party and accept the consequences.

Contemplating the Live Hand Grenade

On this day:

437
Emperor Valentinian III, begins his reign over the Western Roman Empire. His mother Galla Placidia ends her regency, but continues to exercise political influence at the court in Rome.
1881
Charles J. Guiteau shoots and fatally wounds U.S. President James Garfield, who eventually dies from an infection on September 19.

***

Mark Rutte, the NATO Secretary General, gave an eye-opening interview on NATO and the Russian efforts in Ukraine, and North Korean involvement. He flattered Trump--except for one moment where he said future negotiations with Russia should include more than a "historian."

***

A minority opinion: The gender debates in locker rooms, bathrooms, and sports received unintended stimulus when female reporters objected male reporters had an advantage over them when they could enter football locker rooms for post-game interviews. The culture demurred, and women were allowed in, causing surprised guys coming out of showers, a scramble for towels, and annoyed interviews with half-naked men.

It was sold as a women's rights question, but that crossed a line.. I don't recall any effort to make those men more comfortable. Men and women mixed in the locker rooms. The camel's nose was under the tent.

***

Raising taxes, substituting social workers for police, and inserting government into private business is a good way to cause the flight of the only people in NYC who can help. As always, the Left creates what it tries to prevent.

***


Contemplating the Live Hand Grenade

Zakaria had the bad judgment to give a platform to Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor under the Biden Regency, to rewrite the history of Ukraine and the Democrats' mishandling of Iran. First, he said that the Iran bombing could eventually be overcome with money and effort--a remarkably simplistic and obvious statement that led to the more obvious idea that only the participants' decision to prefer peace could keep the area safe. But the reason for the bombing attack was exactly that. And the idea that giving the Iranian regime money to continue their nuclear plans was not a solution, it was collusion. Obama--and the Biden Regency--underwrote Iran's nuclear development and contributed to the region's instability.

Remember, we are not trying to protect Israel from Iran; they don't need help. We are trying to protect the Middle East and ourselves from Iran's insane ambitions and Israel's inevitable insane vengeful response in its death throes.

Compounding this nonsense, Sullivan also criticized Trump for not being more forceful and supportive of Ukraine, this from a guy whose presumed boss called the invasion by Russia a "minor incursion."

All of this went unchallenged by Zakaria, who continued the tradition of journalistic one-sidedness. One obvious reason is the Press's political bias. However, another, painful, and discouraging factor is that these problems are dangerous and are felt to be more safely dealt with by platitudes. As in Ukraine and the national debt, the Left defaults to the safer, short-term news cycle rather than the challenging, long-term, and more dangerous policy.

Force-Feeding Children

On this day:

1690
Glorious Revolution: Battle of the Boyne (as reckoned under the Julian calendar).
1770
Lexell’s Comet passed closer to the Earth than any other comet in recorded history, approaching to a distance of 0.0146 a.u.
1858
Joint reading of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace’s papers on evolution to the Linnean Society.
1863
American Civil War: the Battle of Gettysburg begins.
1879
Charles Taze Russell publishes the first edition of the religious magazine The Watchtower.
1898
Spanish-American War: the Battle of San Juan Hill is fought in Santiago de Cuba.
1916
World War I: First day on the Somme – On the first day of the Battle of the Somme 19,000 soldiers of the British Army are killed and 40,000 wounded.
2004
Saturn orbit insertion of Cassini-Huygens begins at 01:12 UTC and ends at 02:48 UTC.

***

The state has accepted a plea bargain in the Idaho murders; the perpetrator will avoid the death penalty. The families of the victims are outraged; they want the death penalty. They want justice. They want revenge.

But is justice the objective of the law? Or is law a social compromise, a system that allows for the resolution of complex problems in a way that avoids the personal and tribal demand for justice? Avoids blood feuds?

Is the law a "social construct?"

***

The dollar has lost 10% of its value over the last year.

***

This book (All Quiet on the Western Front) is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war. -Erich Maria Remarque, novelist (22 Jun 1898-1970)

***

Raising taxes, substituting social workers for police, and inserting government into private business is a good way to cause the flight of the only people in NYC who can help. As always, the Left creates what it tries to prevent.

***

Force-Feeding Children

The Giant-Brained Judge Jackson delivered an impassioned, wide-ranging dissent from the Supreme Court decision to limit LGBT reading material for children. It sounded more like a fundraiser.

Her two main arguments: first, that children could go elsewhere—implying parents have the financial means of a Washington politico—or that universal vouchers existed, which do not exist because the teachers' lobby and Democrats oppose them; second, that education should expose students to different views.

The latter raises an interesting point. We generally believe that a broad education is beneficial. But is this universally applicable? Should children, for example, be taught dialectical materialism and its inevitable, homicidal resolutions? Theories of eugenics? Socialism? Manifest destiny? Should such a broad curriculum have any boundaries? Perhaps students should at least be able to read.

Sexual ambiguity and confusion are challenging topics. Most adults cannot explain the difficulties; many physicians cannot. Definitions have changed and continue to change, and the older medical definitions no longer apply. How a child is supposed to understand all this is quite perplexing.

What is even more perplexing is why any adult believes a child should try.

And all this time, most people thought Giant-Brained Judge Jackson was just pretending not to know what a woman was.

 

Mamdoni, Scarcity Among the Well-To-Do, and a Change

On this day:
1520
Spanish conquistadors led by Hernán Cortés fight their way out of Tenochtitlan.
1559
King Henry II of France is mortally wounded in a jousting match against Gabriel de Montgomery.
1688
The Immortal Seven issue the Invitation to William (continuing the English rebellion from Rome), which would culminate in the Glorious Revolution.
1905
Albert Einstein publishes the article On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, in which he introduces special relativity.
1908
The Tunguska event occurs in remote Siberia.
1934
The Night of the Long Knives, Adolf Hitler’s violent purge of his political rivals in Germany, takes place.
1971
The crew of the Soviet Soyuz 11 spacecraft was killed when their air supply escapes through a faulty valve.
1997
The United Kingdom transfers sovereignty over Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China.

***

"The invisible hand of the market, my ass. That hand is white and wearing a ring with a conflict diamond in it." --Mamdoni, humorously speaking from his narrow box of caste, caste hatred, and inherited guilt.  

***

Germany arms up. 

It must grapple with a procurement bureaucracy that once took seven years to select a new main assault rifle and more than a decade to procure a helmet for helicopter pilots. It will have to oversee an enormous ramp-up by an arms industry already struggling with capacity. And billions must go towards tasks such as upgrading barracks, some of which are in “disastrous” shape with crumbling plaster and mould, according to the armed forces watchdog.--FT

***

Spain midfielder Aitana Bonmati is being treated in hospital for viral meningitis.

***

One of the authors of an anonymous Department of Human Health and Services (HHS) review published in May, penned an op-ed for the Washington Post on Thursday detailing how the report found that “gender-affirming” procedures for minors “rests on very weak evidence.”

This may be true, but it is much more revealing that the review was originally published anonymously.

***

The P-G's article on the Stop the Violence fund is pretty shocking.

***

Mamdoni, Scarcity Among the Well-To-Do, and a Change

"The goal of socialism is communism." - Vladimir Lenin

The impending election of Mamdoni in NYC reminds us why the drama masks symbolic of the theater are both tragic and comic. The worldwide symbol of American capitalism is about to elect a socialist mayor.

Because socialism doesn't work, its profile changes over time as it mutates in search of a pathway. It was once the religion of the working poor, but in NYC, its target market has changed to the educated middle class. This may not be simply indicative of declining education quality.

They have no rallying cry; there will be no singing marches, arm-in-arm. They don't represent a universal outrage and have little in common with historical revolutionaries. By most national standards, they would be successful, comfortable, and productive. But they are different; they are working people who want to live in a city they cannot afford.

One doesn't hear the usual socialist jealous claptrap; there is no unexplainable misallocation of assets to redistribute, no congenital animosity to resolve. These people feel they have a right to live in this expensive town, and they want money from others to facilitate it.

In a way, it is the gentrification of the entitlement mentality.

The attempt to govern has always been challenging because these local politicians lack the vision, integrity, and imagination to resist the countless tugs and pulls of special interest groups. Nor do they have a thoughtful, watchful Press. This election has introduced a new element, scarcity among the successful, an affliction historically of frontiers.

Some will say this will be a great educational experiment. But, aside from the customer, there is nothing new here. And high-speed wrecks don't teach much more than the obvious. Moreover, this has serious overtones. The city, country — even the West — has less money than expenses. That will impact what can be bought, what plans can be developed, what schools attended, and what charities continued. And what money can be transferred to whom. This, in a free and energetic culture, would ordinarily bring it to the point of challenge and choice, a point it should love but has learned to fear.

Is this a beginning or an end?

New York will dabble with the question first through Mr. Mamdoni. 

So I'm going to change this format for a while to include more comments on economic, especially socialist, questions.

Sunday/A Question

On this day:1613
The Globe Theatre in London, England burns to the ground.
1956
The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 is signed, officially creating the United States Interstate Highway System.
1974
Isabel Perón is sworn in as the first female President of Argentina. Her husband, President Juan Peron, had delegated responsibility due to weak health and died two days later.
1974
Mikhail Baryshnikov defects from the Soviet Union to Canada while on tour with Bolshoi Ballet.
1995
Space Shuttle program: STS-71 Mission (Atlantis) docks with the Russian space station Mir for the first time.

*

Defenseman Charlie Trethewey was drafted in the third round by Pittsburgh. He grew up with his dad, Bob, in Mt. Lebanon. When Charlie was 13 years old, he and his father moved from Maryland to western Pennsylvania so that he could play for the DICK’S Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Penguins Elite. They lived with Charlie’s grandpa while building a house in Cranberry, right across from the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex. They lived there during Charlie’s time with the youth hockey organization for the 2020-21 and ’21-22 seasons.

These hockey guys are something else.

Trethewey plans to attend Boston University this fall.

*

The Danish parliament has voted overwhelmingly to grant the US sweeping access to three bases on Denmark’s Jutland peninsula.

*

Cristiano Ronaldo signed a two-year contract to continue playing soccer in the Saudi league. He will make $211 million per season.

*

Sunday/A Question

Today's gospel is the declaration of Peter. It contains a rare use of the word "church," in Greek meaning a religious assembly. It also contains a question by Christ, often startling, for what does Christ not know?

“But who do you say that I am?”
Simon Peter said in reply,
“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus said to him in reply,
“Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah.
For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.
And so I say to you, you are Peter,
and upon this rock I will build my church,
and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.
I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.

This is, again, another example of Christ's demanding a conclusion from what has been seen, a collection of observations leading to a result. It is an edgy problem, creating local conclusions from small events when a gigantic, far-reaching event could have convinced the world. And it allows for a profound uncertainty, "Who do you say that I am?" as if part of the story is the quest.


The Windhover: To Christ Our Lord

I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,–the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.


Gerard Manley Hopkins

SatStats

On this day:
1776
American Revolutionary War: Thomas Hickey, Continental Army private and bodyguard to General George Washington, is hanged for mutiny and sedition.
1807
Second British invasion of the Río de la Plata; John Whitelock lands at Ensenada on an attempt to recapture Buenos Aires and is defeated by the locals.
1896
An explosion in the Newton Coal Company’s Twin Shaft Mine in Pittston City, Pennsylvania results in a massive cave-in that kills 58 miners.
1914
Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria and his wife Sophie are assassinated in Sarajevo by young Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip, the casus belli of World War I.
1919
The Treaty of Versailles is signed in Paris, formally ending World War I between Belgium, Britain, France, Italy, the United States and allies on the one side and Germany and Austria-Hungary on the other side.
1969
Stonewall Riots begin in New York City marking the start of the Gay Rights Movement.
1987
For the first time in the military history, a civilian target was attacked by chemical weapons when Iraqi warplanes dropped mustard gas bombs on the Iranian town of Sardasht in rwo separate bombing rounds, on four residential areas.
1989
The 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo. Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević delivers the Gazimestan speech at the site of the historic battle, which is later interpreted as foreshadowing the Yugoslav Wars. 600 years.
1994
Members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult release sarin gas in Matsumoto, Japan; 7 people are killed, 660 injured.
2005
War in Afghanistan: Three U.S. Navy SEALs, 16 American Special Operations Forces soldiers, and an unknown number of Taliban insurgents are killed

*

An error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it. -Orlando Aloysius Battista, chemist and author (20 Jun 1917-1995)


***


Someone tossed a grenade at the Norwegian ambassador’s residence near Tel Aviv. There’ve been no injuries, but it’s stirred alarm within a foreign ministry long focused on Israel-Palestinian issues (eg, the Oslo Accords).

***

The UK’s new foreign intelligence agency (MI6) spymaster will be Blaise Metreweli.

***

Over the past 60 years the share of disposable personal income that Americans spend on food at home has steadily fallen. Just under 12 percent in 1964, this share today is around five percent. In the 1950s the typical supermarket in the U.S. offered 6,000 items; today it offers 50,000. Still, Mamdani's going after this business--with a profit margin of 1.6%
"People talk about capitalism and socialism and communism. There’s only two kinds of economic systems: the market-driven and the government-directed. That’s it! The more you move toward a state-directed economy, the less efficient and more corrupt it becomes."--Smith

***



SatStats

Only 10% of crimes in Mexico are reported, and of those, only 16% are resolved.

*

Social Security’s shortfall now equals 3.82% of taxable payroll or roughly 22% of scheduled benefit obligations. Avoiding insolvency eight years from now would require an immediate 27% benefit cut, according to former Social Security and Medicare trustee Charles Blahous.

Alternatively, legislators could raise the payroll tax from 12.4% to 16.05%. That’s a 29.4% increase. Or they could restructure Social Security so that only people who need the money would receive payments

*

The share of U.S. households earning more than $100,000 (adjusted for inflation) tripled over the past five decades, and the share earning less than $35,000 fell by 25 percent.

* 

Last year, Norway’s $1.5tn sovereign wealth fund revealed that it had lost NKr980mn, roughly $92mn, on an error relating to how it calculated its mandated benchmark.

*

Americans spent $186 billion pets last year, more than was spent on childcare.

*

1 million people now owe more than $200,000 in federal student loans.

*

Roughly 50% college graduates have jobs that don’t use their degrees.

*

Allen Iverson, who went broke despite earning nearly $200 million in salary and endorsements, is hanging on to reach his 55th birthday seven years from now, when he will receive $32 million from Reebok, thanks to a lifetime contract he signed with the shoe company in 2001.

*

At the end of June, 8.5% of U.S. homes are worth $1 million or more, the highest share of all time.

*

In 1960, the average American woman had 3.65 children in her lifetime. That’s fallen to about 1.6. But people will not have children for a tax break. Governments are responding with tax incentives.

Children are many things, not just an expensive asset, as a boat is. But you can repossess a boat.

*

34% of Americans now use social media as their main source of news, second only to Brazilians at 35%.

*

Apparently following the orders of a Farc rebel offshoot, locals in the cocaine-producing Micay Canyon have reportedly kidnapped 57 Colombian troops.

*

The federal government’s debt is now over $28 trillion by one measurement. That’s $2 trillion more than last year and $6 trillion more than when the Biden-Harris team entered the White House. This debt stands at 100% of America’s GDP, which, other than a one-year exception at the end of World War II, is the highest ratio we’ve ever had. Unlike in 1946, today’s debt is only going to grow. Indeed, debt-to-GDP took a nearly 30-year dive to reach 23% in 1974. Today, federal debt is projected — again, under the rosiest scenarios — to rise to 166% in 30 years.

*

The Refinitiv Lipper database gives the median turnover of a US mutual fund as 39%, implying a holding period of just 2.5 years.

*

The global proportion of people now using TikTok for news each week is 17%, up 4% in just a year.

*

Forty percent of people say they avoid the news.

*

The Swiss and the Norwegians both cut their rates
The Fed (plus the Bank of England) held theirs steady, and
Brazil’s central bank hiked rates for the seventh straight meeting to 15%

*

Private capital funds have taken more money from investors than they’ve distributed back to them in gains for six straight years, for a total gap of $1.56 trillion over that period.

*

Germany will more than double its military spending by the turn of the decade under a new defense spending proposal approved by the government this week.

Weekend Catchup

On this day:
1759
General James Wolfe begins the siege of Quebec.
1844
Joseph Smith, Jr., founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, and his brother Hyrum Smith, are murdered by a mob at the Carthage, Illinois jail.
1905
Battleship Potemkin uprising: sailors start a mutiny aboard the Battleship Potemkin, denouncing the crimes of autocracy, demanding liberty and an end to war.
1941
Romanian governmental forces, allies of Nazi Germany, launch one of the most violent pogroms in Jewish history in the city of Iaşi, (Romania), resulting in the murder of at least 13,266 Jews.
1950
The United States decides to send troops to fight in the Korean War.
1954
The world’s first nuclear power station opens in Obninsk, near Moscow.

***

Patriotism, n. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of anyone ambitious to illuminate his name. In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary, patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer, I beg to submit it is the first. -Ambrose Bierce, writer (24 Jun 1842-1914)

***

Last month, the steering committee of the progressive organization Indivisible PA asked Fetterman to resign.

***

Baseball fans will tolerate a lot, but they will not tolerate being asked to love a team like the Pirates that does not respect the game as much as they do.


***

The number of babies born in South Korea rose at the fastest pace in 34 years in April from a year earlier, data showed Wednesday, driven by a rise in marriages and demographic changes.

A total of 20,717 babies were born in April, up 8.7 percent from 19,059 babies born a year earlier, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea.

***

 



Weekend Catchup

A 23-year-old Mexican social media influencer was shot dead while live streaming on TikTok, the state prosecutor's office said.

Valeria Marquez was killed when a man entered her beauty salon in the city of Guadalajara "and apparently fired a gun at her", according to the Jalisco state prosecutor's office.

The motive for the fatal attack has not been identified but the case is being investigated as a femicide - when women and girls are killed because of their gender, the state prosecutor said.

Femicide.

* 

Several critics of the U.S. attack on Iran, especially on BBC, raised the possibility of Iran rebuilding its sites in the future, as if the U.S. could bomb the future.

And you can bomb places, but not thoughts.

*

Iran declared victory; the Western press declared failure, essentially agreeing with Iran.

***

The Silurian Hypothesis asks: if an industrial civilization arose millions of years ago — say, during the Devonian or the Paleocene — would we find any trace of it today?

Ocean crust, where much sediment settles, recycles every 170 million years or so. On land, surface preservation is even rarer. “The current area of urbanization is less than 1% of the Earth’s surface,” the researchers note, and ancient surfaces that remain intact are scarcer still.

So UFO intervention in our world cannot be disproved.

*

Roughly four in 10 millennials and Gen Zers have side jobs, according to new research by Deloitte. Those juggling multiple jobs say they’re padding their finances for a potential downturn, writes columnist Callum Borchers.

*

The majority of the Democratic Party sat quietly by as Joe Biden ordered strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen and Barack Obama ordered attacks on Libyan government forces and used drones to take out terrorists, including U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki. Democrats seem to get exercised only when Republican presidents strike against threats to the country, as they are doing now, and as they did back in 2020, after Trump targeted and killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

*

The FBI alerted federal agencies to fraudulent U.S. driver’s licenses from China being shipped to the United States, then recalled the advisory and requested the destruction of the file.
The advisory in question was dated August 24, 2020, weeks after U.S. authorities announced the seizure of nearly 20,000 counterfeit driver’s licenses, mostly from China, intended for college-age students.

Plans from the CCP to manufacture fake driver’s licenses and ship them into the United States were to facilitate fraudulent mail-in ballots—allegations which, while substantiated, were abruptly recalled and never disclosed to the public,” Kash Patel said.

Wonder why.

*

New York plans to build one of the first new U.S. nuclear plants in a generation.

*

Holtec, a key provider of services for the nuclear industry, plans to go public.

*

The U.S., left and right, is horrified by Mamdani's nomination. They focus on his many glaring, offensive positions. But there is little curiosity about the people who voted in favor of this problem.

*

Mamdani's mother said he is Indian and African, not American. Is that a good thing?

*
Remember the Mendoza Line, named for the Pirates' slick fielding, bad-hitting shortstop, when .200 was a terrible batting average? Suwinski and Davis are hitting for a .300 average, combined.

*

In-store and online purchases for 18- to 24-year-olds fell 13% year-over-year between January and April.

*

Artificial-intelligence chatbots tend to flatter users and be overly agreeable.

*

Anthony Bernal, former Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor to the First Lady, is now refusing to appear on June 26, 2025, for a transcribed interview as part of the Committee’s investigation into the cover-up of President Joe Biden’s mental decline and potentially unauthorized use of autopen for sweeping pardons and other executive actions.

When Navarro refused to testify at a hearing, they put him in jail.

*

More than a third of Tuvalu citizens have applied for a world-first climate visa, which would allow them to permanently migrate to Australia.

*

When Tyler, the Creator was asked about his desire to ban the digital medium, the two-time Grammy winner said, “I think we give a lot of people who aren’t smart and just want attention platforms to be loud and incorrect, and other stupid people follow them. Where are the people with skills? We need electricians, we need more drummers, painters, teachers. Everybody with a mic is crazy."

*

This is fun. Do not buy this. HYMC recently sold $40 million of stock and warrants. Including its $128 million in debt (coming due in 2027), the market says the company is currently valued at $300 million. AI says Hycroft Mining’s proven and probable reserves include approximately 12 million ounces of gold and 481 million ounces of silver. Total AI estimated gross metal value: ~$41.55 billion. Human vs AI valuation.