Statements and Displays

On this Day:

62
Earthquake in Pompeii, Italy.
1576
Henry of Navarre abjures Catholicism at Tours and rejoins the Protestant forces in the French Wars of Religion.
1597
A group of early Japanese Christians are killed by the new government of Japan for being seen as a threat to Japanese society.
1918
SS Tuscania (1914) is torpedoed off the coast of Ireland; it is the first ship carrying American troops to Europe to be torpedoed and sunk.
1918
Stephen W. Thompson shoots down a German airplane. It is the first aerial victory by the U.S. military.
1937
President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposes a plan to enlarge the Supreme Court of the United States.
1958
A hydrogen bomb known as the Tybee Bomb is lost by the US Air Force off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, never to be recovered.

1971
Astronauts land on the moon in the Apollo 14 mission.

***

I'm not a perfect guy, but I've done a hellava lot of good for perfect people.--Trump, confessing his sin-eating.

***

Today is the anniversary of the loss of The Tybee Bomb, a tribute to those confident in government.

***

The Netherlands' Queen Maxima has joined her country's army as a reservist, voicing concern about national security.

***

The timing of the Guthrie disappearance--after she was out of the house until late--is curious.

***

Statements and Displays

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech at Davos garnered a lot of attention, but for the wrong reasons. He proclaimed the ability of “middle powers”—that is, Europe and countries like his own—to stand their ground against America and China, but he mentioned AI only in passing. He had no solution to an immediately pending world where Canada is quite dependent on advanced AI systems from American companies (often, incidentally, developed by Canadian researchers in the U.S.). That is likely to be the next major development in this North American relationship, and it will not increase the relative autonomy of Canada or of any other middle powers.

Carney has been praised for staking out such bold ground and standing up to Trump. The deeper reality is that Carney can “talk back” in the North American partnership because he knows America will defend Canada, including against Russia, no matter what. Most European countries cannot relax in the same manner, and thus, they are often more deferential. What the reactions from Carney and the Europeans show is not any kind of growing independence for the middle powers, but rather a reality where you are either quite tethered to a major power—as Canada is to America—or you live in fear of being abandoned, which is the current status of much of Europe. (from Cowen)

Posuuring need not be insincere. But it may be only wishful. The risk, of course, is that it is deceptive. Symbolic independence has shrinking importance in our world of increasing technical gravity. And sometimes global declarations, like those of Iran and Canada here, are only bluster. And sometimes they are a risk.

Reality is harsh, and unreality is increasingly hazardous. Hitler believed what he said, and many weak-minded followers have since. Russia's overreach in Ukraine was a dangerous underestimation of its victim. And how many stupid homicidal dogmas prowl just beyond the warmth of the sheltering common human campfire?

What will small producers do? What will oil-deficient countries do? AI deficient? Population deficient? They will drift toward survival and some acceptable integrity. The voracious autocracies will prove to be poor partners.

Politics?

On this Day:
960
The coronation of Zhao Kuangyin as Emperor Taizu of Song, initiating the Song Dynasty period of China, which would last more than three centuries
1703
In Edo (now Tokyo), 46 of the Forty-seven Ronin commit seppuku (ritual suicide) as recompense for avenging their master’s death.
1789
George Washington is unanimously elected as the first President of the United States by the U.S. Electoral College.
1797
The Riobamba earthquake strikes Ecuador, causing up to 40,000 casualties.
1801
John Marshall is sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States.
1846
The first Mormon pioneers make their exodus from Nauvoo, Illinois, westward towards Utah Territory.
1859
The Codex Sinaiticus is discovered in Egypt.
1861
American Civil War: In Montgomery, Alabama, delegates from six break-away U.S. states meet and form the Confederate States of America.
1974
The Symbionese Liberation Army kidnaps Patty Hearst in Berkeley, California.
2010
The Federal Court of Australia’s ruling in Roadshow Films v iiNet sets a precedent that Internet service providers (ISPs) are not responsible for what their users do with the services the ISPs provide them.

***

Legendary investor Ray Dalio warned on Tuesday that the world is “on the brink” of a capital war, amid simmering geopolitical tensions and volatile capital markets.

Speaking to CNBC’s Dan Murphy on stage at the World Governments Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Dalio said we are close to teetering into capital war territory — when money is weaponized using measures like trade embargoes, blocking access to capital markets, or using ownership of debt as leverage.

***

A mother asked her 13-year-old son Austin to swim four hours through dangerous waters to get help after her family was swept out to sea.

***

This note by Michael Brendan Dougherty in NR struck me. 

"I try not to overreact, but there is something about this that gets deep under my skin and unsettles me about my country.

 

Alex Pretti has no more or less dignity than any other human being, looking exactly as he looked. And yet, a photo editor took time — perhaps a decent bit of it — completely changing his skin tone, his beard, and jaw. We have history textbooks that condemn the Stalin regime by showing how the officials altered photos in order to alter the perception of history.
At least those officials could explain themselves — that they were acting under real compulsion, the real threat of execution, exile, or imprisonment by another apparatchik. What is the excuse of Americans in 2026? Why do people volunteer to create this kind of propaganda? Would you want to try to make a public reputation for virtue in a country whose sense-making institutions act like this?"

***

Politics?

300,000 children were admitted into the country without an adult or other supervision during the Biden Regency.

Schools closed during COVID. The National Strike includes truancy so students can be in the street.

Elected representatives become wealthy after their election.

Cocaine in the White House.

$9 billion--BILLION--stolen from the taxes in one--ONE--state.

The son of the President, who can honestly be described as a degenerate.

An organized, coordinated effort to keep the President in office by fraud and deception despite his inability to even speak.

A political party with a political pillar encouraging purposeful defiance of the law and its representatives.

Now the former husband of the President's wife has been arrested for murder.

These aren't the Democrats; these are the de Medici. 

Maybe our worst fears are true. Maybe government is only a by-product of an organized crime syndicate.

Double Vision

On this Day:313
Edict of Milan: Constantine the Great and co-emperor Valerius Licinius met at a conference in Milan. They proclaimed a policy of religious freedom, ending the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire.
1377
More than 2,000 people of the Italian city of Cesena are slaughtered by Papal Troops (Cesena Bloodbath).
1488
Bartolomeu Dias of Portugal lands in Mossel Bay after rounding the Cape of Good Hope, becoming the first known European to travel so far south.
1637
Tulip mania collapses in the United Provinces (now the Netherlands) as sellers could no longer find buyers for their bulb contracts.
1787
Shays’ Rebellion is crushed.
1913
The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose and collect an income tax.
1943
The USAT Dorchester is sunk by a German U-boat. Only 230 of 902 men aboard survived. The sinking of Dorchester was the worst single loss of American personnel of any American convoy during World War II. Many memorials were established to commemorate the Four Chaplains who famously gave up their life jackets to others
1959
A plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa kills Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, The Big Bopper, and pilot Roger Peterson and the incident becomes known as The Day the Music Died.
1961
The United States Air Force begins Operation Looking Glass, and over the next 30 years, a “Doomsday Plane” is always in the air, with the capability of taking direct control of the United States’ bombers and missiles in the event of the destruction of the SAC’s command post.
1966
The unmanned Soviet Luna 9 spacecraft makes the first controlled rocket-assisted landing on the Moon.
1971
New York Police Officer Frank Serpico is shot during a drug bust in Brooklyn and survives to later testify against police corruption. Many believe the incident proves that NYPD officers tried to kill him.
1984
John Buster and the research team at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center announce history’s first embryo transfer, from one woman to another, resulting in a live birth.

***

"You talk, my good sir, of employing influence to appease the present tumults in Massachusetts. I know not where that influence is to be found, or, if attainable, that it would be a proper remedy for the disorders. Influence is not government. Let us have a government by which our lives, liberties, and properties will be secured, or let us know the worst at once."--Washington, in a letter to Henry Lee commenting upon the uprising called Shays' Rebellion, which contributed to the Federalist--anti-Federalist argument and led to the Constitutional Convention. It was this rebellion that caused Jefferson to write to James Madison on January 30, 1787, that occasional rebellion serves to preserve freedoms. In a letter to William Stephens Smith on November 13, 1787, Jefferson wrote in his famous, disturbingly detached letter, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

***

Charismatic socialists keep trying to sell Americans on the European model.
The unsustainable welfare state means France cannot afford its ambitions to build a self-sufficient military or fully support Ukraine as it fends off Russia.
The bleak conclusion: Politicians in Paris have made promises they can’t keep to a people who are now dependent on government for their livelihoods. Nor can they help others.
Protecting themselves is another question.

***

Trump has said the windfall from his tariffs will help cover nearly $6 trillion in costs. That’s over 22 times more than the administration’s own estimates for how much revenue his taxes on imports will generate this year.

All told, for Trump to keep his promises on what tariff revenue would be used for, he’d need them to raise almost $6 trillion this year. The U.S. imported $3.61 trillion in goods last year, so such a number isn’t even possible.

*** 

The nation’s number of white births fell from 52.6 percent in 2016 to 49.6 percent in 2024


***


Double Vision

Ours is not a time of great precision.

If you were a journalist at one time in the past, can you attack a church today?

If you have two murderers, one an illegal immigrant, one a native American citizen, will sanctuary cities give the citizen up to the police and protect the illegal immigrant?

Is there a concern about injustice with ICE? There are over 300,000 missing children who have crossed into the country without adults under the Biden Regency. Do they deserve justice? Or, at least, found?

The police are peace officers. The fact that the Democratic Party wants to defund them in one case, block them in another, implies they feel that the police are not peace officers, not agents of safety and order--or superfluous. Are there examples of successful removal of peace officers in cultures? If so, what does that say about the nature of man? Is that optimistic nature consistent with the behavior of men?

Is this just a nostalgic 'Give peace a chance' cult?

An interesting non sequitur emerged in the self-puffery at the Emmys: no one is illegal on stolen land. Do those stolen lands have borders? Do borders define lands and make them 'stealable'? So could American lands be invaded and stolen? Are all immigrants stealing the land they enter and settle? Under those circumstances, who is the victim? When does the statute of limitations apply? Did the Sioux steal the Comanche lands? Are squatters forgiven all their crimes? Their sins?

One would expect more diversity of opinion in a large group. Is the unanimity of ICE opposition at the Emmys a coincidence? Especially among artists. Is it caused by a certain food? Or lack of dress.

Is ICE a problem in itself or a symptom of government overreach? The Left has great confidence in the power of government. What is it that the Left finds so objectionable in ICE?

Both of the demonstrators who died in Minneapolis have family attorneys. Is that provocupreneur once removed?

Will "empathy" become the substitute slogan for "Ice Out?"

 

Interlude

On this Day:
1922
Ulysses by James Joyce is published.
1925
Serum run to Nome: Dog sleds reach Nome, Alaska with diphtheria serum, inspiring the Iditarod race.
1943
World War II: The Battle of Stalingrad comes to conclusion as Soviet troops accept the surrender of 91,000 remnants of the Axis forces.
2004
Swiss tennis player Roger Federer becomes the No. 1 ranked men’s singles player, a position he will hold for a record 237 weeks.

***

"He is rich whose income exceeds his expenses."--La Bruyere

***

Moltbook—a Reddit-style platform built exclusively for AI agents—has become the most discussed phenomenon in silicon circles since the debut of ChatGPT. The agents post, comment, argue, and joke across more than 100 communities. They debate the nature of governance in general and discuss "crayfish theories of debugging."
The growth curve is vertical (and debatable): tens of thousands of posts and nearly 200,000 comments appeared almost overnight, with over one million human visitors stopping by to observe.

***

“I mean, it’s something I’ve been concerned with the whole time I’ve been here. What are the rights of individuals? Who can you kill? When can you kill them? What is war? What is not war? What is due process? When do you have Fourth Amendment protections? So all these things are incredibly important.”--Rand Paul

***

The NR notes the increasing adoption of combat uniforms by law enforcement. This includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers and their leaders, who in Minnesota and other regions go around dressed like Marines about to invade Fallujah.

***

A report states Canada remains part of a list of countries experiencing “ultra-low fertility” as the country’s fertility rates hit a record low in 2024 with 1.25 children per woman.

Other countries in a similar situation based on this data include Switzerland (1.29), Luxembourg (1.25), Finland (1.25), Italy (1.18), Japan (1.15), Singapore (0.97) and South Korea (0.75).

***

"Life-changing focaccia." Life-changing !!!


***


Interlude

A break, sort of, from selective law enforcement. But one can never truly escape.

Watched the Grammys. They still think that music without plot is a performance art. Sometimes they don't even need the music.

There were some very dramatic ads, though.

There were a lot of thin-voiced thin girls with echo chambers. Better than the usual "This is a holdup" look.

Bad Bunny made a plea for love. Certainly Caesar, since we're living here, gets some, small say, though. 

He drove the crowd wild with an acceptance speech in a language noone understood.

A guy in a broad-brim hat gave an award for global influence to another guy without a hat.

Jeff Goldblum seemed mortified to be associated with a country music award. No one else showed such limits.

Justin Bieber didn't wear any clothes. He seemed like a guy who needs a friend.

***

Credit card interest rates aren’t arbitrary. They reflect the risk of lending to borrowers with different credit profiles.

If credit card interest rates were capped, this would harm the very people such a policy aims to help. Not only would it fail to help borrowers, but it would paradoxically make things less affordable. Lenders would issue new credit cards only to people with stellar credit. Those with fair credit would likely see their credit limits fall. And those at the bottom of the credit ladder would be shut out completely or pushed toward payday loans or black-market lending.

Sunday/Mount

On this Day:
1327
Teenaged Edward III is crowned King of England, but the country is ruled by his mother Queen Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer.
1709
Alexander Selkirk is rescued after being shipwrecked on a desert island, inspiring the book Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.
1865
President Abraham Lincoln signs the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
1978
Director Roman Polanski skips bail and flees the United States to France after pleading guilty to charges of engaging in sex with a 13-year-old girl.
1979
Convicted bank robber Patty Hearst is released from prison after her sentence is commuted by President Jimmy Carter.
1979
The Ayatollah Khomeini is welcomed back to Tehran, Iran after nearly 15 years of exile.
Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrates during reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard.

***

The most useful work in the coming years will be about leveraging AI to help improve and reform liberal democracy, the rule of law, separation of powers, free speech, coordination, and constitutional safeguards.--Cowen

***

Would a local politician meeting with other city government officials about how to resist immigration law be a RICO offense?

***

Productivity is rising in UK.
The last time productivity increased meaningfully was during the pandemic. This was misleading. Average output per hour worked increased only because lower productivity workers in retail and hospitality were disproportionately losing their jobs.

New ONS figures suggest the same thing is happening, but happening slowly.

***

The distinction seems to be this: if you are a criminal or suspected criminal, you cannot be pursued if you are also an illegal immigrant.

*** 

Sunday/Mount

Today is the Sermon on the Mount with the Beatitudes. Christ's description of the Good in the Beatitudes includes meekness, the poor in spirit, and those who mourn--they are not limited to the dramatic apostles, their dramatic lives and deaths.

In many respects, these qualities are in the everyday.

Saint Irenaeus was a man of the Second Century, a man who campaigned against the Gnostics. He has a famous quote: “The glory of God is man fully alive.” This has been debated for years; does it imply the value of self-fulfillment, without God? In fairness, he answers this himself in the next phrase: “The life of a man is the vision of God.” But it implies that spiritual fulfillment is possible for humans in their daily interactions.

The author Alan Furst gave an interview once on his writings, a collection of WWII spy stories that describe the heroism of everyday men during the time before the war. He says that his readings of the period have led him to believe that evil, a true evil life, requires full-time application. That it was simply too hard to be devoted to evil without eliminating all other elements of your life. (Or perhaps evil eventually fills the moral space?) So the caricatures of Evil are true.

Goodness, on the other hand, emerged as a by-product of living a normal thoughtful life inspired, as Irenaeus would say, by God.
Not at all tooth and claw. And achievable by all.

Here are two minority reports:

Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
--Hamlet Act 1, scene 3, 75–77 

Perhaps too far in these considerate days
Has patience carried her submissive ways;
Wisdom has taught us to be calm and meek,
To take one blow, and turn the other cheek;
It is not written what a man shall do,
If the rude caitiff smite the other too!

Land of our fathers, in thine hour of need
God help thee, guarded by the passive creed!
As the lone pilgrim trusts to beads and cowl,
When through the forest rings the gray wolf's howl;
As the deep galleon trusts her gilded prow
When the black corsair slants athwart her bow;
As the poor pheasant, with his peaceful mien,
Trusts to his feathers, shining golden-green,
When the dark plumage with the crimson beak
Has rustled shadowy from its splintered peak,--
So trust thy friends, whose babbling tongues would charm
The lifted sabre from thy foeman's arm,
Thy torches ready for the answering peal
From bellowing fort and thunder-freighted keel!                          
--Oliver Wendell Holmes

And Blake's summary of unresolved conflict:

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears; 
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine.
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole; 
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.                          
--William Blake

SatStats

On this day:
1606
Gunpowder Plot: Guy Fawkes is executed for his plotting against Parliament and James I of England.
1865
American Civil War: The United States Congress passes the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, abolishing slavery, submitting it to the states for ratification.
1876
The United States orders all Native Americans to move into reservations.
1915
World War I: Germany uses poison gas against Russia
1942
World War II: Allied forces are defeated by the Japanese at the Battle of Malaya and retreat to the island of Singapore.
1943
German Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrenders to the Soviets at Stalingrad, followed 2 days later by the remainder of his Sixth Army, ending one of World War II’s fiercest battles.
1945
US Army private Eddie Slovik is executed for desertion, the first such execution of an American soldier since the Civil War.
1958
Explorer program: Explorer 1 – The first successful launch of an American satellite into orbit.
1958
James Van Allen discovers the Van Allen radiation belt.

***

Bad as it is financially for the federal government to be saddled with the runaway costs of “entitlement” programs, it is far worse for the society as a whole to be saddled with millions of people with the “entitlement” mentality and all the social problems that go with it.--Sowell

***

And this is far from the end. With thousands of officers having risen through the ranks under Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, these individuals now recognize they are primary targets for a systemic purge. Mobile devices have been seized across ranks & all units are now on high alert--Wei

***

David Brooks, who has occupied the prestigious (if mythical) “reasonable conservative” perch at the opinion section of the Paper of Record for nearly a quarter century, is now decamping for The Atlantic, another inert organ of elite consensus politics, to serve as a staff writer and host of a video podcast. For Brooks to be forsaking his role as the nation’s Times-branded civic scold while US democracy swoons further into the abyss amid Donald Trump’s second authoritarian term drives home how ineffectual-to-untenable he has been as a trollish Never Trumper. Still, his failure bears a closer look, if only to size up the vacuity of a particular strain of culture-calibrating punditry from the US right that has bent over backward to avoid acknowledging a clear and present mobilization of blood-and-soil reaction.--the intro in The Nation on Brooks by Lehmann

***

Virginia's Clean Economy Act was passed in 2020. The law requires the states’ utilities to be carbon-free within two decades. Dominion Power last year said that it would need to charge ratepayers $220 billion—about $25,000 for every man, woman, and child in the state—to pay for the long-term costs of renewable energy “certificates” to meet the mandates.

***

SatStats


The decision made this winter by ReaderLink to stop distributing mass market paperback books at the end of 2025 was the latest blow to a format that has seen its popularity decline for years. According to Circana BookScan, mass market unit sales plunged from 131 million in 2004 to 21 million in 2024, a drop of about 84%, and sales this year through October were about 15 million units. But for many years, the mass market paperback was “the most popular reading format,” notes Stuart Applebaum, former Penguin Random House EVP of corporate communications.

*

The greenback has lost about 14% of its value relative to the euro over the past year.

*

California already relies on taxpayers making over half a million dollars a year (the highest income 2.5 percent) to pay 49 percent of income tax revenue.

*

Europe


Nearly two-thirds of respondents said the “best years are behind us” (63 percent), while 77 percent believe life in their country “will be harder for the next generation, according to a poll by the strategic communications firm FGS Global shared exclusively with POLITICO, which surveyed more than 11,000 people across 23 European Union countries in November.

A majority of Europeans (76 percent) said democracy in their country is in decline.

Nordic countries, generally less gloomy, had the most positive numbers. Negative opinions were higher in Romania (91 percent), Greece (88 percent) and Bulgaria (86 percent).


*

In all countries, more than 70 percent of respondents felt they were “entitled to expect more from government,” as opposed to expecting too much.

*

Asked whether they agreed their countries “should be more assertive of [their] national interests even if this creates friction with other countries,” a large majority approved (71 percent).

*

A Biden administration Treasury study found that the wealthiest 92 Americans faced total state, local, federal, and international income tax rates of 59 percent. Recent research by four prominent liberal economists concludes that US billionaires pay higher tax rates than their counterparts in the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, and France.

*

Skenes

Skenes had just a 10-10 record in 32 starts with the Pirates, but a 1.97 ERA over 187.2 innings pitched, 216 strikeouts to 42 walks, a .199 opposing batting average and a 0.95 WHIP, along with a 10.36 K/9, a 2.01 BB/9 and a 5.14 K/BB.

*

He ranked amongst the best pitchers in baseball, with the lowest ERA, tied for the fourth-most strikeouts, the fourth-lowest WHIP, the sixth-lowest batting average and the 10th-most innings pitched, plus the fifth best K/BB, seventh best K/9 and ninth best BB/9.

*

Skenes also ranked highly in the NL, with the lowest WHIP, the fourth-lowest batting average, tied for the second-most strikeouts and the fourth-most innings pitched, as well as the second-best K/BB and both the fifth-best K/9 and BB/9.

*

His play made him the starting pitcher for the NL in the All-Star Game, becoming the first pitcher to start consecutive All-Star games in the first two seasons in the major leagues.

*

He was the first NL pitcher with a sub-2.00 ERA and 200+ strikeouts since right-hander Jacob DeGrom did it with the New York Mets in 2018. He was a also the first MLB pitcher to finish with a sub-2.00 ERA in a season since right-hander Justin Verlander did so with the Houston Astros in 2022.

*

Skenes became the first pitcher in MLB history to finish with 200+ strikeouts and a sub-2.00 ERA and still not have a winning record since ERA became a stat in 1913.

*

He was the first qualified pitcher to post a sub-2.00 ERA in a season at 23 years or younger, since right-hander Dwight Gooden did so at age 20 with the Mets in 1985. Skenes also made Pirates history, with his 216 strikeouts the most for a right-handed pitcher in the live-ball era (since 1920). Only Ed Morris, who had 326 strikeouts in 1886 and 298 strikeouts in 1885, the most and second-most in a season in franchise history, has more than him.

*

His 216 strikeouts rank seventh-most in a season in franchise history and fifth-most in the live-ball era.

*

Skenes is just one of three Pirates pitchers who led the MLB in ERA, with right-hander John Candelaria last doing so in 1977 and right-hander Cy Blanton doing it first in 1935, according to OptaStats.

Law From a Great Distance

On this day:

1048
Protestantism: The villagers around today’s Baden-Baden elect their own priest in defiance of the local bishop.
1649
King Charles I of England is beheaded.
1661
Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England is ritually executed two years after his death, on the anniversary of the execution of the monarch he himself deposed.
1703
The Forty-seven Ronin, under the command of Ōishi Kuranosuke, avenge the death of their master.
1835
In the first assassination attempt against a President of the United States, Richard Lawrence attempts to shoot president Andrew Jackson, but fails and is subdued by a crowd, including several congressmen.

1862
The first American ironclad warship, the USS Monitor is launched.
1933
Adolf Hitler is sworn in as Chancellor of Germany.
1945
World War II: The Wilhelm Gustloff, overfilled with refugees, sinks in the Baltic Sea after being torpedoed by a Soviet submarine, leading to the deadliest known maritime disaster, killing approximately 9,400 people.
1948
Indian pacifist and leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi known for his non-violent freedom struggle is assassinated by Pandit Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist.
1969
The Beatles’ last public performance, on the roof of Apple Records in London. The impromptu concert is broken up by the police.
1972
Bloody Sunday: British Paratroopers kill fourteen unarmed civil rights/anti internment marchers in Northern Ireland.
1996
Gino Gallagher, the suspected leader of the Irish National Liberation Army, is killed while waiting in line for his unemployment benefit.
***
More than four million Americans will turn 65 between now and 2027. “That’s over 11,000 people hitting this milestone every single day. The program's cash surplus is expected to run out in less than a decade,” according to NPR.

***

The fast-growing measles outbreak in South Carolina is now the largest in the United States since the disease was declared eliminated in this country more than two decades ago. 789 cases were reported as of Tuesday.

***

The Left is whispering. They say last week in Brussels, Robert Fico, Slovakia’s prime minister and one of Europe’s most vocal Trump supporters, pulled aside his fellow European leaders to share what he’d witnessed during a private meeting with the American president. The word he used to describe Trump’s demeanor? “Dangerous.”

Governing by rumor and innuendo is how the Left works now. We don't know if it's true, what he meant, or what accuracy governs Mr. Fico, but we do know that when you govern by rumor and innuendo, and you allow your President to abdicate his powers to a group of grad students for four years, you lose a lot of credibility.

***

Law From a Great Distance

Rules should be a relief to a culture.

The oldest known evidence of any law code are tablets from the ancient city Ebla (Tell Mardikh in modern-day Syria). They date to about 2400 B.C. — approximately 600 years before Hammurabi put together his famous code.

"An eye for an eye ..." is a paraphrase of Hammurabi's Code, a collection of 282 laws inscribed on an upright stone pillar. The code was found by French archaeologists in 1901 while excavating the ancient city of Susa, which is in modern-day Iran.

He ruled the Babylonian Empire from 1792-50 B.C.E. And his laws seem to grow out of necessity: he was trying to organize an expanding empire of diverse groups with diverse rules and norms.

His was actually an effort to eliminate tribal justice that holds groups responsible for individual acts and individuals for group acts, for example, Hatfield and McCoy thinking. If this sounds familiar, it should. This is the thinking of the modern, ironically named, Progressive.

Group identity is the most primitive of all legal forms. Hammurabi's genius was to overcome it, to apply individual crimes to individuals. There is a thesis that it influenced the Old Testament (through the Babylonian Captivity).

Group identity has never left the Middle East. And it's strong, the obverse of our bonding. We will always have the lurching monster staggering around, fed and encouraged by the Left in the American University Lab, as it seeks a place to apply its broad brush.

Its threat in places like Minneapolis is that it appeals to very early, unformed human thought because it requires so little of it. A complex problem can be quickly solved and acted upon without the hesitancy and uncertainty of unfocusing debate.

And in the softer mind, certainty is its own reward. Law is a unifying and stabilizing element in a culture. It takes advantage of that bonding tendency in us and focuses it towards a general, agreed-upon good.

In Minneapolis, the local government has officially denied the law, sits back while the Feds go in alone to enforce it, and then complains bitterly about the chaotic results.

That takes a special kind of high-minded cowardice.