Some Questions About Iran

On this day:

1269
King Louis IX of France orders all Jews found in public without an identifying yellow badge to be fined ten livres of silver.
1306
The Earl of Pembroke’s army defeats Bruce’s Scottish army at the Battle of Methven.
1586
English colonists leave Roanoke Island, after failing to establish England’s first permanent settlement in North America.
1846
The first officially recorded, organized baseball match is played under Alexander Cartwright’s rules on Hoboken, New Jersey’s Elysian Fields with the New York Base Ball Club defeating the Knickerbockers 23-1. Cartwright umpired.
1953
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are executed at Sing Sing, in New York.
1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is approved after surviving an 83-day filibuster in the United States Senate.
1982
The body of God’s Banker, Roberto Calvi is found hanging beneath Blackfriars Bridge in London.

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Is Caitlin Clark being targeted in the WNBA despite her remarkable impact on fans and on the game's popularity?

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Karen Read was found not guilty. Very interesting case, essentially, showing 'unanswered question' replacing 'reasonable doubt.' And, of course, the privilege given to white women with good jawlines and high cheekbones.

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Some Questions About Iran

Iran and Israel are beating each other to a pulp. Iran is particularly damaged and seems to no longer control its airspace. so Israel theoretically could continue air attacks until it runs out of armaments. How come one has declared war on the other? What would war look like if not this?

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It is said that Iran is months away from a nuclear weapon. This has been the war chant for at least the last decade. Iran is always just a step away from destroying the Middle East. The last version of this was the chant of WMDs in Iraq, which created a military black hole for years. And, of course, we poor citizens are inundated with other imminent crises: global cooling, climate change nee global warming, population growth leading to global starvation, population shrinkage leading to welfare state collapse, social security bankruptcy, falling test scores, and growing adolescent stupidity. These are legitimate concerns for thinking people, but do they deserve a national war footing?

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Have we become numb to the war drums of crisis? The endless war chants of the Press: Trump is Hitler, threats to democracy, WMDs? How can a democracy make reliable decisions when its information system is as warped as a midnight infomercial? Will we have to rely on outsiders with their own agendas, like Israel?

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The silence of America's enemies is deafening. No one is supporting Iran in the Middle East. Vicious theocracies are biting their collective tongues. Even China is quiet. What does this mean? Are all these countries aware of the Iranian threat? Is everyone worried?

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There is also silence from America's friends. The G7 actually voted on innocuous wishes for peace. Ciphers.

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War does expose the comic. The dithering Europeans, Putin's clownish offer to mediate peace, the American Left's stunned silence. 21% of responding Americans are "unconcerned" over Iran getting a nuclear weapon.

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What does this say about a nation's internal politics? Is the Iranian theocracy representative of the Iranian citizen? Because they wear clerical robes, do the religious leaders get more of a vote because, presumably, they are closer to God? Does anyone care about the poor Iranian citizen caught in this mess?

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If Iran is a threat to the world because of their homicidal theocracy, what about North Korea? Should they have a bomb? 

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Where does the U.S. get the authority to declare who should have a nuclear weapon and who should not?

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What would be the model for a government that gives up its nuclear ambitions for the betterment of world peace? Libya?

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Everyone was upset about the Russian attack near the reactor in Ukraine. Is an Israeli attack on the Iranian nuclear facility okay?

History and Its Discontents

On this day:

618
Li Yuan becomes Emperor Gaozu of Tang, initiating three centuries of Tang Dynasty rule over China.
1178
Five Canterbury monks see what is possibly the Giordano Bruno crater being formed. It is believed that the current oscillations of the Moon’s distance from the Earth (on the order of meters) are a result of this collision.
1429
French forces under the leadership of Joan of Arc defeat the main English army under Sir John Fastolf at the Battle of Patay. This turns the tide of the Hundred Years’ War.
1815
Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Waterloo results in the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte by the Duke of Wellington and Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher forcing him to abdicate the throne of France for the second and last time.
1830
French invasion of Algeria
1858
Charles Darwin receives a paper from Alfred Russel Wallace that includes nearly identical conclusions about evolution as Darwin’s own, prompting Darwin to publish his theory.
1994
The Troubles: the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) open fire inside a pub in Loughinisland, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom, killing six civilians and wounding five.

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Altman says Meta is offering $100 million signing bonuses, plus substantial annual compensation, to attract AI researchers.

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The leader of Iran is 86.

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Israel and Iran are bombing the devil out of each other, but neither has declared war. Why is that?

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Is there scientific evidence of dye toxicity, or is this just another fad?

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Rep. Omar, an immigrant from Somalia, believes the U.S. has become "one of the worst countries in the world."

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History and Its Discontents

History weighs heavily on us. Theories abound. History is fulfilling itself, creating an inevitable future. We are psychologically prone to the same motives and emotions that have made the past, so the future will resemble it. Traditions mold us; institutions contain us.

We may be too young a country to exhibit this phenomenon, but Europe is very good at it. They have wars that last for decades, sometimes even centuries. They even reuse battlegrounds in addition to claims. Conservation. Despite this, not much has changed. Animosities, hatred, homicidal philosophies, and men are chewed to a pulp--and it starts again.

When this land was discovered, it was pristine. No wheel, no horse, some metal jewelry, little agriculture. The Europeans brought the things they could carry. They did not bring their enemies, only the memories of them. 

The Europeans struggled with the hostile environment, against an unfortunate Stone Age people, against their memories, and created a government out of the best of European thought. Contemplative. Based on the limits of rule, the best of man and what he could achieve when he was not suppressed for the advantage of others. A new start for the world.

As America has developed, it has had problems. It became an agricultural power, fought a war with itself to finish its vision, and struggled through the nascent industrial period. Throughout its growth, it has endured a lingering curse: some people who come here cannot embrace the future. They cannot escape their history.

Their memory created ghosts they think must be fought. Ethnicities battled in the cities over problems thousands of miles--and often years--away. Embittered European anarchists moved here and remained embittered despite not having an oligarchic enemy. When America entered the world community, some Americans took international positions based on their family origins. German-Americans joined isolationists in opposition to joining the European war. Israel created several opposition alliances. The homicidal caste vision of the homicidal Marxists has morphed like a malignant pest into CRT.

None of these problems is native to the nation. They are imported, like a new competitive fish species dumped in the ballast of ocean-going vessels that destabilize port environments. Furious Arab students might have an argument about Israel (although, to my mind, it is three generations too late). But it is not an argument for the New York streets. It is an argument for the Europeans and the Middle East. Our concern with the Middle East is shipping safety. And preventing nuclear insanity. The students involved might bring wonderful talent to the nation, but these angers are simply dislocated and should be repatriated.

No Kings

On this day:
1673
French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet reach the Mississippi River and become the first Europeans to make a detailed account of its course
1775
American Revolutionary War: Colonists inflict heavy casualties on British forces while losing the Battle of Bunker Hill.This was a significant encounter, a planned battle, and the British famously bayonetted the American wounded. It became a focal point and rallying cry. The important Patriot leader, Dr. Joseph Warren, was also killed.
1930
U.S. President Herbert Hoover signs the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act into law.
1939
Last public guillotining in France: Eugen Weidmann, a convicted murderer, is guillotined in Versailles outside the Saint-Pierre prison
1940
The three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania fall under the occupation of the Soviet Union.
1944
Iceland declares independence from Denmark and becomes a republic.
1972
Watergate scandal: five White House operatives are arrested for burglarizing the offices of the Democratic National Committee, in an attempt by some members of the Republican party to illegally wiretap the opposition.
1994
Following a televised low-speed highway chase, O.J. Simpson is arrested for the murders of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.

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Can Israel (and the world) be successful against Iran without U.S. air strikes?

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Some ask with outrage, Why are ICE agents masked? Because some in this country are so crazy, they will identify their opponents, hunt them down, and kill them and their families. 

That's the reason to identify them, right? So they can be intimidated? Even harmed? And their families? Right?

And masked criminals in demonstrations are ok?

Is the idea here that the government's agents cannot be held responsible for their acts if they are masked? In a country that can read a license plate from space?

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Some publicity was gained when a Canadian Indigenous leader who greeted world heads of state arriving for the Group of Seven summit said he was “filled with rage” and considered leaving before Donald Trump arrived, saying the U.S. president has “caused much pain and suffering in the world.”
Why this man felt this way or deserved this publicity was not explained.

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No Kings

The No Kings marches are over. It was a tough sell, being held on the 250th anniversary of the U.S. military responsible for separating the U.S. from England and...its king. And, of course, America doesn't have a king. And had a democratic election 4 months ago as mandated by its federal constitution. And a Supreme Court. Maybe they don't know how monarchies work. It was especially difficult in Canada, which has a king, so they bravely called it No Tyrants.

But at least Canada has a monarchy to protest, albeit fecklessly. The U.S. is a constitutional republic with a Supreme Court, not a monarchy. But these are the same people who did not care at all that the last president was non-compos and was surreptitiously substituted for by a masquerading cabal. That is an aristocracy. That is treason. One would think those supporting the anti-autocracy No Kings would be outraged.

One might look at the considerable contribution of teachers' unions. This probably means the No Kings moniker is poetic, but with 40% of the country's 8th graders unable to read, it might be that the teachers really don't know America doesn't have a king, any more than they know what a woman is. They clearly have little regard for the American Revolution.

At the dark heart of the protests is Indivisible, a far-left activist group that has reportedly received $8 million in funding from George Soros’ Open Society Foundation between 2017 and 2023. Soros is not a king. Nor is he just one of the boys.

And big contributions from billionaire Walmart heiress Christy Walton, who is hard at work trying to put the "ditz" in "philanthropy."

One particularly galling bit of information includes a list of non-profits receiving federal grants contributing to this embarrassment. It is linked below for the impending furious (don't know the link):

https://datarepublican.com/nokings/

Regulatory State

On this day:

1755
French and Indian War: The French surrender Fort Beauséjour to the British, leading to the expulsion of the Acadians.
1816
Lord Byron reads Fantasmagoriana to his four house guests at the Villa Diodati, Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley, Claire Clairmont, and John Polidori, and inspires his challenge that each guest write a ghost story, which culminated in Mary Shelley writing the novel Frankenstein, John Polidori writing the short story The Vampyre, and Byron writing the poem Darkness.
1858
Abraham Lincoln delivers his House Divided speech in Springfield, Illinois.
1871
The University Tests Act allows students to enter the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Durham without religious tests (except for those intending to study theology).
1904
Irish author James Joyce begins a relationship with Nora Barnacle and subsequently uses the date to set the actions for his novel Ulysses; this date is now traditionally called “Bloomsday”. Barnacle. She must have been quite a woman to overcome that name with a word guy like him.
1940
World War II: Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain becomes Chief of State of Vichy France (Chef de l'État Français).
1963
Soviet Space Program: Vostok 6 Mission – Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space.

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"Some hold that Shakespeare’s plays were not written by him, but by another fellow of the same name."--Mamet. A truly funny, complex line.

 
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Iran and Israel are not officially at war. Why is that?

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The Pirates are the lowest-scoring team in baseball. Analytics are great, but it seems they may not be a formula.

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The Middle East conflict will not be resolved until the decision is made whether to use U.S. bunker-busters. What will be interesting is if the U.S. is not given the easy decision as a result of Iran attacking--purposely or accidentally--U.S. sites or personnel. Behavior of death cults are difficult to predict.

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Regulatory State

In his book, George Washington, Entrepreneur, John Berlau warns of the dangers of “regulation without representation” – and argues that the entrepreneurial George Washington shared that same fear. He documents George Washington’s amazing entrepreneurship and innovation. Starting out from a humble background compared to the other Founders and lacking resources for a college education, Washington became an apprentice surveyor for the neighboring Fairfax family at 16. He quickly built a lucrative freelance surveying practice and speculated in real estate by purchasing or asking for compensation in some of the undeveloped land he surveyed.

Decades later—after he acquired Mount Vernon due to the untimely deaths of his older brother Lawrence and Lawrence’s family—Washington abandoned tobacco as the farm’s cash crop, diversified into wheat and dozens of other crops, and built a grist mill to sift flour that he would export throughout the colonies, to the West Indies and Great Britain. Washington would put his name on these bags of flour, essentially trademarking the flour with the “G. Washington” imprint on the bags to differentiate it from his competitors, pioneering the practice of branding we have today. In addition, he turned Mount Vernon into what historian Harlow Giles Unger called in his book, The Unexpected George Washington, “a vast agro-industrial enterprise” that included a blacksmith shop to make tools such as horseshoes and nails and a mini textile factory to make clothing, the latter of which was run largely by Martha Washington. Mount Vernon has since rebuilt the grist mill and whiskey distillery that Washington had placed near the grist mill after he was president.

But these very ventures pulled Washington into the vortex of regulation that the British Parliament foisted upon the American colonies. The red tape stemmed especially from mercantilist trade policies. The Navigation Act of 1651 gave Great Britain complete control of trade routes for the colonies, which meant that colonists officially could only export and import goods with the mother country.

With limited trade routes and high shipping costs for goods from Britain, colonists began to produce their own items and grow their own crops, just as Washington did with his ventures at Mount Vernon. The Industrial Revolution started gaining traction in Great Britain during the eighteenth century and also made its way to the colonies on a small scale, thanks to the efforts of individual entrepreneurs like Washington.

But Parliament saw colonial manufacturing upstarts like the enterprises at Mount Vernon as a threat to British manufacturers, despite how small they were in comparison. Parliament passed laws such as the Iron Act, Hat Act, and Wool Act to restrict or ban colonial entrepreneurs from making everything from nails and horseshoes to hats and wool carpets.

Taxation has been limited in certain situations--like religion--because inherent in taxation is its ability to destroy. It allows those taxed to be crushed or molded for the benefit of others, often the writer of the law.

Regulation is molding and destruction by other means. Why are we not similarly cautious about it?

The Watchmaker

Government allocation, that is, allocation by politicians and bureaucrats, at least partly replaces market signals and incentives.

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Wild enthusiasm for a government project usually occurs only when we are putting costs on other people.

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The Watchmaker

Penrose and Hawking did calculations based on their research on black holes. Two of their conclusions:

“The odds against an ordered universe happening by random chance are 10^10^30th to 1, against."

And,

"The odds against life are 10^10^123rd to 1, against.”

"If you like, you can say the laws are the work of God, but that is more a definition of God than a proof of his existence."--Hawkings

The Enlightenment, the reliance on reason, created tremendous problems for religion. Regardless of the various times and philosophies, religion relies on faith. The unreasonable, the miraculous, the very essence of the unknowable inherent to religion was anathema to the Enlightenment. Eventually, this strictness created a reaction with a new reliance on the individual and the value of his feelings, Romanticism. A quasi-enlightenment bridge for religion at this time was Deism. Deism was the belief in a God who created existence but did not interfere in life. The classic image was the Watchmaker, used by William Paley. Paley asks himself what he would think if, while walking in a field, he came upon a stone? Not too much. But if he came upon a watch! What would that complexity imply?

God, as the Watchmaker, made this complex and precise world but did not interfere with it. Once created, the watch ran on its own.

Not only could a reasonable man look at the complexity of life and see the logic behind this complex Creator, he could rationalize why he need not hold God responsible when things went wrong. This analogy continues to this day in various guises, most recently in the Intelligent Design movement, which argues that the cellular information-based genetic system is a modern example of the computer-oriented Watchmaker. So each age builds its own spiritual mirror.

Our current mirror is now clouded. Our new understanding of the universe has become arcane, mathematical and recondite, creating a new, upper strata of knowledge-priests reminiscent of older times..

"It seems to be one of the fundamental features of nature that fundamental physical laws are described in terms of mathematical theory of great beauty and power, needing quite a high standard of mathematics for one to understand it. You may wonder: Why is nature constructed along these lines? One can only answer that our present knowledge seems to show that nature is so constructed. We simply have to accept it," Dirac wrote in 1963. "One could perhaps describe the situation by saying that God is a mathematician of a very high order, and He used very advanced mathematics in constructing the universe."  

Dr Willie Soon, an astrophysicist and aerospace engineer who has worked at the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, has recently claimed that a mathematical formula could be the ultimate proof of God's existence. (Warning. The good Dr. Soon is hated by many because he is a global warming skeptic.)

At the core of Soon's thesis is the fine-tuning argument, which posits that the precise nature of the universe’s physical laws is too perfect to have occurred by chance. The theory, initially proposed by Cambridge mathematician Paul Dirac, implies that the universe’s conditions are so precisely balanced that they suggest intentional design. A small variation in constants like gravity or the cosmological constant could have prevented the formation of galaxies, stars, and even life itself.

In an interview on the Tucker Carlson Network last year, he referenced  Dirac, who predicted the existence of “antimatter” in 1928, specifically a counterpart to the electron. Four years later, in 1932, Carl Anderson discovered the positron, a particle with the same mass as an electron but with a positive charge. Soon described this as miraculous, highlighting Dirac’s ability to predict its existence before any experimental confirmation.

Dr. Soon also referred to geometry in mathematics, specifically the concept of closed curvature in spacetime without gravity, which has long challenged the understanding of how mathematics relates to the real world. He noted that studies have explored this topic extensively. Hermann Weyl, a German mathematician, introduced the Weyl tensor to measure spacetime curvature without relying on mass-energy. This tensor helps describe tidal forces in a gravitational field without referencing the energy-momentum tensor.
John Archibald Wheeler, an American theoretical physicist, gave “Geometrodynamics”, proposing all physical phenomena could be understood in terms of spacetime geometry, and suggesting that curvature can exist due to the vacuum structure rather than mass-energy. He also introduced geons—self-contained gravitational or electromagnetic waves held together by their own energy, demonstrating curved spacetime without traditional gravitational sources.
Willem de Sitter’s solutions to Einstein’s field equations describe “de Sitter and anti-de Sitter spacetimes,” where a universe with positive curvature is driven by a cosmological constant, independent of any matter content.

How many people can understand this? But, as difficult--and harmonious--as the obscure might be, it is not necessarily spiritual. A Rubik's Cube is difficult and harmonious.

Dr. Soon concluded by saying, “There are many incidents and examples like this. So sometimes we have to bow down and occasionally take a deep breath, and maybe some ever-present forces will illuminate our lives. God has given us light. All we have to do is just follow the light.”

Some Questions on Iran/Israel

On this day:

1645
English Civil War: Battle of Naseby – 12,000 Royalist forces are beaten by 15,000 Parliamentarian soldiers.
1775
American Revolutionary War: the Continental Army is established by the Continental Congress, marking the birth of the United States Army.
1789
Mutiny on the Bounty: Bounty mutiny survivors including Captain William Bligh and 18 others reach Timor after a nearly 7,400 km journey in an open boat.
1800
The French Army of First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte defeats the Austrians at the Battle of Marengo in Northern Italy and re-conquers Italy.
1807
Emperor Napoleon I’s French Grande Armee defeats the Russian Army at the Battle of Friedland in Poland (modern Russian Kaliningrad Oblast) ending the War of the Fourth Coalition.
1830
Beginning of the French colonization of Algeria: 34,000 French soldiers begin their invasion of Algiers, landing 27 kilometers west at Sidi Fredj.
1846
Bear Flag Revolt begins – Anglo settlers in Sonoma, California, start a rebellion against Mexico and proclaim the California Republic.
1940
The Soviet Union presents an ultimatum to Lithuania resulting in Lithuanian loss of independence.
1940
World War II: Paris falls under German occupation, and Allied forces retreat.
1941
June deportation, the first major wave of Soviet mass deportations and murder of Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians, begins.
1947
Roswell UFO incident A supposed UFO crash lands in Roswell, New Mexico

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Disagreements and protests are inherent to freedom and democracy. But are confrontations inherent to democracy?  Aren't elections the alternative to confrontation?

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CNN reporter Christine Amanpour stated she was fearful to visit the U.S. to speak at Harvard, comparing her anxiety to that of visiting North Korea. Does that kind of judgment disqualify her opinions elsewhere?

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Military celebrations are planned in the U.S. to mark the 250th anniversary of the American armed forces. There is also a "Trooping of the Colour" in London, a parade to celebrate the King's birthday.

Demonstrations are planned in the U.S. with the theme "No Kings." Is that a protest against Charles ' birthday? Do the demonstrators think London is in the U.S.? Are the protesters just products of the American education system who think the U.S. is part of Great Britain? Is this a protest against the Biden Regency? Or is this just incoherent?
An additional question has been raised in interviews with Democrats: they are suddenly and inexplicably concerned about the cost of the parade. One can only hope this outbreak of fiscal responsibility seeps into the rest of the national expenses.

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Last month, over 350 academics, clinicians, and activists signed an open letter titled “Biology is not binary.” Addressed to Bridget Phillipson, the United Kingdom’s Minister for Women and Equalities, its purpose was to denounce recent legal and policy developments in the U.K. that reassert the biological basis of sex in law.

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Some Questions on Iran/Israel

The conflagration in the Middle East raises some serious world questions and some strange domestic ones. 

Despite the proximity of Iran's proxy anti-Israel groups, this is not a border dispute. Iran is 1,000 miles from Israel.

1. This conflict creates a clear confrontation of significantly divergent world views. Israel vs. Iran pits the totalitarian East against the democratic West, unelected religious hierarchy vs. elected representation, homicidal and obliterative motives vs. desire for survival. These appear to be obvious conflicts that essentially involve the old, tribal, authoritarian world against the modern, reflective, individual present. It will be interesting to see how the college-educated street demonstrators and the increasingly peculiar Democrats come down on this question.

As an aside, the Democrat Vice-President candidate, Tim Walz, said the problems between Iran and Israel require mediation, and his idea of the national intermediary with the most "moral authority" is.....China. China. The Democrat VP candidate thinks China is the world's moral leader. Understand, he really thinks this.

2. Israeli planes refueled over Syria. Could that be done without some international agreement?

3. The precision and thoroughness of the Israeli attacks raise the question of how espionage is best done. Israeli success seems much more personal than electronic.

4. The Israelis launched their drones from inside Iran, much like Ukraine's successful attack on Russia. This should raise some serious questions about domestic land ownership. Free property ownership has always been a basic principle in American philosophy, but this technology might challenge that. China has bought a lot of American farmland.

5. Iran is a true menace to the world community. Their hatred for Israel has far-reaching effects even for uninterested parties: their proxies attack commercial ships in international waters and kill randomly. Israel's success so far might well help the economies and stability of countries around the world, even countries that hate them. They have become like a strange, special unit group for the world, perhaps an international mercenary in some future dystopian world. Imagine a Davos strike force.

Clearly Clouded

On this day:

1525
Martin Luther marries Katharina von Bora, against the celibacy rule decreed by the Roman Catholic Church for priests and nuns.
1966
The United States Supreme Court rules in Miranda v. Arizona that the police must inform suspects of their rights before questioning them.
1983
Pioneer 10 becomes the first man-made object to leave the central Solar System when it passes beyond the orbit of Neptune (the furthest planet from the Sun at the time).

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Law enforcement in Miami-Dade County is seeking to arrest former NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown on a charge of attempted murder, according to a warrant reviewed by The Washington Post.

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The self-indulgent, incoherent, manipulative, attention-seeking, entitled, and insincere press conference break-in by the California senator is an encapsulation of the self-indulgent, incoherent, manipulative, attention-seeking, entitled, and insincere street demonstrations. The real problem is that these people are too old to grow out of it, so it seems we are stuck with them.

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Clearly Clouded

A modifier is described in the Cambridge Dictionary as "a word or phrase that is used with another word or phrase to limit or add to its meaning." "The tall girl" distinguishes one girl from the others based on height.

Sometimes the effect is not clarifying, it's funny. George Carlin made a living on contradictory modifying phrases, oxymorons, like jumbo shrimp, military intelligence, acting naturally, and civil war. Sometimes it's a great literary device: with “Oh, brawling love, O loving hate,” Shakespeare describes the feuding families in Romeo and Juliet. 

And sometimes it's purposely obfuscating.

What are we to think of "mostly peaceful demonstrations?" Is it like almost warm, generally bloodless, sort of clean, pretty honest, usually safe, generally accurate, nearly won, mostly pasteurized? Unlike "the tall girl," phrasing meant to refine the meaning, these phrases are meant to diffuse meaning, detract from the word, and its specificity.

Now, that said, what does social justice mean?.