One of the greatest revolutionary ideas in all of human history is the classically liberal notion that there is no such thing as group rights. For thousands of years, aristocrats had more rights than peasants. When America was founded, whites had more rights than blacks, men had more rights than women, and rich white men had more rights than everybody else. This wasn’t always true on paper, but it was overwhelmingly true in the real world....Just as there are no collective rights, there is also no such thing as collective guilt. ---Goldberg
Who is...James Allison?
On July 1, 1987, just 45 minutes after Ronald Reagan announced his nomination of Robert H. Bork to the Supreme Court, Ted Kennedy said in the Senate that Bork’s confirmation would mean that “women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, and schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists would be censored at the whim of government.”
Kennedy spoke just 288 days after he and 97 other senators voted 98-0 to confirm Antonin Scalia, Bork’s intellectual soulmate. Obviously the Bork episode was not about jurisprudence.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, was eating at a restaurant with his wife, Heidi Cruz, when he was suddenly accosted by a group of "anti-racism activists." These activists grilled Sen. Cruz on whether he believed the three-decade-old sexual abuse allegations against Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump's pick to replace former Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court. "Do you believe survivors, sir?" one of the protesters asked. The group then began chanting, "We believe survivors!" in increasingly vociferous tones. Eventually, Cruz and his wife were forced to leave the restaurant.
So one man's bullying is another's crusade?
Two immunologists, James Allison of the US and Tasuku Honjo of Japan, won the 2018 Nobel Medicine Prize for research that has revolutionized the treatment of cancer, the jury said on Monday.
The pair were honored "for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation," the Nobel Assembly said.
Immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy targets proteins made by some immune system cells, as well as some cancer cells.
The proteins can stop the body's natural defenses from killing cancer cells. The therapy is designed to remove this protein "brake" and allow the immune system to more quickly get to work fighting the cancer.
America’s largest metro economy – the New York area — produced 4% more economic output last year ($1.72 trillion of GDP) than the entire country of Canada ($1.65 trillion of GDP) and the New York City metro area as a separate country would have been the 10th largest economy in the world behind No. 9 Italy in 2017 ($1.9 trillion GDP). Interestingly, to produce approximately the same amount of economic output, requires a labor force of about 20 million in Canada that is roughly twice the size of NYC’s labor force of about 10 million.
Nugacity:
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Nugacity is a direct borrowing from the Late Latin noun nūgācitās (stem nūgācitāt-), which first appears in the letters of St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430 a.d.). Nūgācitās means “worthlessness, frivolity” and is a derivative of the Latin adjective nūgāx (stem nūgāc-) “bungling, incompetent,” itself a derivative of the plural noun nūgae “absurdities, nonsense, frivolities, trifles” (its further etymology is unknown). Nugacity entered English in the 16th century.
The Swedish Academy that awards the prestigious Nobel Prize is in some serious trouble.
Jean-Claude Arnault, a French citizen who is a major cultural figure in Sweden, is at the center of a sex abuse and financial crimes scandal that has tarnished the academy and forced it to take a year off in its deliberations.
The 72-year-old is now on trial in Stockholm, facing two counts of rape of a woman seven years ago. He has denied the charges.
A verdict in his case is expected on Monday, the same day that the 2018 Nobel Prize announcements kick off with the Karolinska Institute announcing who wins the Nobel award in physiology or medicine. The prosecutor has urged the court to sentence Arnault to three years in prison.
The Swedish Academy said an internal investigation into sexual misconduct allegations found that "unacceptable behavior in the form of unwanted intimacy" had taken place within the ranks of the prestigious institution.
But a fierce internal debate over how to face up to the academy's flaws in responding to the misconduct divided its 18 members — who are appointed for life — into hostile camps. Several members either left or disassociated themselves from the secretive academy.
It is liberating to avoid the daily news. I'm not sure it gives a different perspective but there is a clarifying filter that develops, perhaps because the callous does not. The civilized meeting between Trump and Putin becomes dreamy. What is the protocol for meeting a guy who is an international gangster, who prior to taking power was a murderer and who continues in that "style" through the kleptocracy he runs, who opposes you and your county's aims at every opportunity, who sends his military to oppose your allies and who has attempted--as policy--to disrupt your country's life and electoral processes? Are there really diplomatic rules for meeting someone like that? In the simple working world, one would just avoid the contact, but what about the international diplomatic world? And are Trump's critics angry that he is not acting as more of a nationalist?
One of the mysteries in life is the slow pace of evolution, the meticulous feeling-along process of trial and error to reach a position of advantage. One place where evolution is not slow is language. Words change quickly to disguise the intent of those trying to reproduce the power of kings, emperors and central committees in new, benign-appearing iterations.
Golden oldie:
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steeleydock.blogspot.com
"Everything else in your life is fluid, but here is this text that doesn't change. Will there still be readers 50 years from now who feel ...
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"The government doesn’t have any wealth of its own..."
CRISPER technology is getting some questions raised again. Somehow our greed for money and power blinds us to the risks of not being able to control the means of our aspirations. The Sorcerer's Apprentice is always within, not "lurking" but sort of "lounging."
Countries have a lot of money to play with when they don't have to defend themselves.
The US military employs 1.4 million soldiers and is the world’s largest oil consumer(!). Military spending accounts for one-third of the entire federal budget—that’s about a trillion dollars per year.
Between 2008 and 2009, US consumer spending fell 8.2% and companies cut back on capital expenditures by 20%. Meanwhile, the US government increased military spending by 12.2%.
About 65% of American households have pets. That’s up from 56% in 1988. Apparently aging Baby Boomers increasingly buy pets. Pet spending in the US has grown 4.6% annually over the last 10 years and is now a $70 billion industry.
A good line from Caplan: Enlightened self-interest may rule markets, but benighted nationalism rules politics.
Thousands of Americans flocked to Nicaragua in recent years, attracted by a tropical climate, low costs and crime and seeming stability. Now, a violent uprising is upsetting their plans. (wsj)
Also this: The notion that France owes its World Cup soccer triumph to Africa—given the African heritage of many of its players—has seeped into the rhetoric of public figures from Trevor Noah to Nicolás Maduro. France is not amused.
Milton Friedman described the “Iron Triangle” in his book “Tyranny of the Status Quo.” In the triangle’s corners are the direct beneficiaries of laws (special interest groups), the bureaucrats who thrive on those laws, and the politicians who seek votes by enacting policies favorable to special interests.
From a Shipiro article on the new and exciting Ocasio-Cortez: "What exactly is democratic socialism, and what distinguishes it from socialism plain and simple? Ocasio-Cortez doesn't know. When asked about it by Meghan McCain on "The View," she stated that there is a "huge difference" between the two notions but then concluded, "I believe that in a moral and wealthy America, in a moral and modern America, no person should be too poor to live in this country." Which doesn't explain the difference at all."
Funny observation on Pickleball. It is tennis played with square, clunky paddles and what appears to be a Wiffle Ball on a reduced-size court. So it’s tennis with a lot less speed, skill and athleticism.
Pickleball is a metaphor for America. Everything is dumbed down and made easier.
Aaaaaannnnndddddd.....a graph:
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