390 BCE
Roman-Gaulish Wars: Battle of the Allia – a Roman army is defeated by raiding Gauls, leading to the subsequent sacking of Rome.
1290
King Edward I of England issues the Edict of Expulsion, banishing all Jews (numbering about 16,000) from England; this was Tisha B'Av on the Hebrew calendar, a day that commemorates many Jewish calamities.
1870
The First Vatican Council decrees the dogma of papal infallibility.
1925
Adolf Hitler publishes his personal manifesto Mein Kampf.
1942
World War II: the Germans test fly the Messerschmitt Me-262 using only its jet engines for the first time.
1944
World War II: Hideki Tojo resigns as Prime Minister of Japan due to numerous setbacks in the war effort.
1966
Human spaceflight: Gemini 10 is launched from Cape Kennedy on a 70-hour mission that includes docking with an orbiting Agena target vehicle.
1969
After a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator Ted Kennedy from Massachusetts drives an Oldsmobile off a bridge and his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, dies.
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The Kopechne affair ended forever the myth of even-handedness in the American political culture. That the Democrats recovered is astonishing, but not in their framework of slavery, Wilson, Roosevelt, and the international minuteman wars that eventually became the culture of the land.
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Is the firing of Maureen Comey as stupid and tacky as it looks?
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The kerfuffle over the Epstein case makes you wonder how the National Enquirer could have failed. But it does give the Democrats an identity.
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Hundreds of detainees at a newly opened detention center in the Florida Everglades don't have underlying criminal records, according to a Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times investigation published Sunday.
Does that include illegal entry to the country?
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If something is valuable, why do we assume that it should be federally funded?
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A scary notion from Cowen: The very smart and talented AIs are listening, much like young children might hear their parents arguing outside their bedroom door late at night. It may not matter much now, but as the children grow up and assume a larger role in the world, it will.
***
Apparently, the core message of "Superman" is that AI, drones, biotech, and nanotech will elevate the power of private companies and individuals over states.
Hundreds of detainees at a newly opened detention center in the Florida Everglades don't have underlying criminal records, according to a Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times investigation published Sunday.
Does that include illegal entry to the country?
***
If something is valuable, why do we assume that it should be federally funded?
***
A scary notion from Cowen: The very smart and talented AIs are listening, much like young children might hear their parents arguing outside their bedroom door late at night. It may not matter much now, but as the children grow up and assume a larger role in the world, it will.
***
Apparently, the core message of "Superman" is that AI, drones, biotech, and nanotech will elevate the power of private companies and individuals over states.
***
According to multiple reports, T. J. Watt has agreed to terms on a three-year contract extension that will make him the league’s highest-paid non-quarterback in league history.
***
Democracy/Socialism
"Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and other contemporary American advocates of democratic socialism lean heavily on the democratic part, which is at least in part a matter of marketing.
……..
In the United States, we use the word “democratic” as though it were a synonym for “decent” or “accountable,” but 51 percent of the people can wreck a country just as easily and as thoroughly as 10 percent of them. That is why the United States has a Bill of Rights and other limitations on democratic power.
………………
The destructive nature of socialism comes not from its tendency to trample on democracy (though socialism often does trample on democracy) but from its total disregard for rights — rights that are, in the context of the United States and other liberal-democratic systems, beyond the reach of mere majorities. We have the Bill of Rights to protect freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the free exercise of religion, etc., not because we expect that majorities will reliably support and protect these rights but because we expect that majorities will be hostile to them." (from somewhere)
The demand of the majority to have its way will never end. That's why the Constitution was written and why it has been such a success. Majority vote is not sacred without a hard, basic framework of individual rights, which majority vote intentionally tries to supersede. Otherwise, we would glorify lynching and gang rape. Doing something by vote is neither right nor good any more than voting to sack Canada is.
Majority vote is only as meaningful as the guidelines restraining it.
Socialism is a silly idea, but it is not made any less silly--or given any more dignity--by voting for it.
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