SatStats

On this Day:

1497
The bonfire of the vanities occurs when supporters of Girolamo Savonarola burn thousands of objects like cosmetics, art, and books in Florence, Italy.
1898
Émile Zola is brought to trial for libel for publishing J'Accuse.
1900
Second Boer War: British troops fail in their third attempt to lift the Siege of Ladysmith.
1986
Twenty-eight years of one-family rule ends in Haiti when President Jean-Claude Duvalier flees the Caribbean nation.
1990
Dissolution of the Soviet Union: The Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party agrees to give up its monopoly on power.

***

"Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see."--Arthur Schopenhauer


***

The Olympics promises respect we don't always see in popular competitive sports. Or competitive ideas.

***

Vonn is said to have a plateau fracture, the support of the femur. Unbelievable risk at skiing force of up to 6 Gs.

***

Benghazi's been avenged. Any plans for The Liberty?

***


SatStats

Over the past century, the length of Oscar speeches has ballooned, peaking in the 2010s at almost 300 words per speech.

*

Mammals and non-human primates follow a clear scaling of body mass to brain mass. Humanoids break that trend.

*

People know whether or not they want to buy a house in just 27 minutes, but it takes 88 minutes to decide on a couch

*

At Berkeley, as recently as 2015, white male hires accounted for 52.7 percent of new tenure-track faculty; in 2023, they accounted for 21.5 percent. UC Irvine has hired 64 tenure-track assistant professors in the humanities and social sciences since 2020. Just three (4.7 percent) are white men. Of the 59 Assistant Professors in Arts, Humanities and Social Science appointed at UC Santa Cruz between 2020-2024, only two were white men (3 percent).

*

National Debt

A recent report from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget projects that interest payments on America’s national debt will surpass $1.5 trillion in 2032 and reach $1.8 trillion by 2035.

According to the Treasury Department, U.S. national debt now stands at $38.56 trillion — and it continues to grow as federal spending outpaces revenue.

So far in fiscal year 2026, the government has already spent about $602 billion more than it has collected.

The interest payments on the national debt exceed the military budget, which is $1 trillion.

*

100 South Koreans will have an estimated 15 grandchildren

*

Overall, our findings challenge popular narratives and suggest that pet ownership may support, rather than displace, fertility.---a paper

*

Planning assistance caused municipalities to build 20% fewer housing units per decade over the 50 years that followed.

*

At the end of 2025. Berkshire Hathaway's marketable equity portfolio was valued at about $320 billion, and the business has about $354 billion of cash to deploy on top of that.

*

This is the toughest market for PhD economists in recent memory. JOE listings are down 20% from last year. Worse: they are 19% below COVID levels.

Political Couture

On this day:1685
James II of England and VII of Scotland becomes King upon the death of his brother Charles II.
1820
The first 86 African American immigrants sponsored by the American Colonization Society started a settlement in present-day Liberia.
1952
Elizabeth II becomes the first queen regnant of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth Realms since Queen Victoria upon the death of her father, George VI. At the exact moment of succession, she was in a treehouse at the Treetops Hotel in Kenya.
1959
At Cape Canaveral, Florida, the first successful test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile is accomplished.
1959
Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments files the first patent for an integrated circuit.
1976
In testimony before a United States Senate subcommittee, Lockheed Corporation president Carl Kotchian admits that the company had paid out approximately million in bribes to the office of Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka.

***

And how much did the global lockdown reduce 2020’s global carbon emissions? By about 6 per cent. It is the largest reduction ever but nowhere close to what would be needed. If we were to meet the Paris Climate Agreement by 2030 just by doing and travelling less, we would need to suffer a pandemic like this every year for the next decade, without allowing us to have any recovery between the pandemics. Which, of course, would lead to an unprecedented social collapse.--norberg

***

UFOs, Epstein, Omar's theft--we all know this, but when will the innuendo be separated from the chaff? Or is insincerity the arbiter, and truth will never escape it?

***

How could a voter ID law not distinguish Republicans from Democrats to the Republicans' advantage?

***

A Russian general serving as deputy head of Russian military intelligence was shot and seriously wounded in Moscow on Friday, officials said – the latest in a series of attacks on top military figures.

***

Innuendo Alert:

“Dear Director Ratcliffe, I write to alert you to a classified letter I sent you earlier today in which I express deep concerns about CIA activities,” Senator Wyden wrote.

***

The chairman of the new prospective owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins says his company is reportedly in discussions to acquire the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

***

Political Couture

Among the many declarations of The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague is this insight:

“Customary obligations are the same for all States and exist independently regardless of whether a State is a party to the climate change treaties" (para 315). 

That is, it applies to you whether you agree to it or not. Like gravity.

It's one of the ICJ's more than 200 references to 'customary international law' (CIL), which is essentially the unwritten rules that bind the world. They're the rules so basic, they don't need a treaty.

America's own judge on the ICJ, Sarah Cleveland, reiterates this point. And that's particularly intriguing when you recall the US has now twice withdrawn from the Paris Agreement that the world negotiated to try and slow rising temperatures.

So the court (including Cleveland) is basically saying you can withdraw from as many treaties as you like, but your climate obligations remain unchanged at this point. It’s CIL.

This should sound familiar. It's much like Trump's campaign slogan of "It's common sense." The unagreed-upon assumption. The battle cry in the field of opposing opinion.

It's obvious and definitive. 

"It's couture."

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