Trump and History

Buchanan thinks that the current Trump controversy is part of a long American history of elite opposition to any attempt to supplant their influence.

"Attempts to overturn elections where elites are repudiated are not uncommon in U.S. history. Both Nixon and Reagan, after 49-state landslides, were faced with attempts to overturn the election results.

With Nixon in Watergate, the elites succeeded. With Reagan in Iran-Contra, they almost succeeded in destroying that great president as he was ending the Cold War in a bloodless victory for the West.

After Lincoln’s assassination, President Andrew Johnson sought to prevent Radical Republicans from imposing a ruthless Reconstruction on a defeated and devastated South.

The Radicals enacted the Tenure of Office Act, stripping Johnson of his authority to remove any member of the Cabinet without Senate permission. Johnson defied the Radicals and fired their agent in the Cabinet, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.

“Tennessee” Johnson was impeached, and missed conviction by one vote."

I'm not so sure. No doubt the country is run by people who are used to running it and Trump interrupts that. But Trump is a lot more than an elite antagonist; he is a difficult, combative and obnoxious guy whose policies are often anything but clear. He is not an easy guy to have everyone rally behind.

Otherwordly

A study by academics at the International Islamic University Malaysia showed that  Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries have 8.5 scientists, engineers, and technicians per 1000 population, compared with a world average of 40.7, and 139.3 for countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
 

Forty-six Muslim countries contributed 1.17% of the world's science literature, whereas 1.66% came from India alone and 1.48% from Spain. Twenty Arab countries contributed 0.55%, compared with 0.89% by Israel alone. The US NSF [National Science Foundation] records that of the 28 lowest producers of scientific articles in 2003, half belong to the OIC.
 

The situation regarding patents is also discouraging, if you believe that these kinds of behaviors correlate with success: The OIC countries produce negligibly few. According to official statistics, Pakistan has produced only eight patents in the past 43 years.

Borlaug

There's a lot of talk about science. Global warming. Oil and options. CRISPER. Here is a little bit on GMOs:

Norman Ernest Borlaug was an American agronomist named "The father of the Green Revolution."

According to Norberg's Progress,

“After thousands of crossing of wheat, Borlaug managed to come up with a high-yield hybrid that was parasite resistant and wasn’t sensitive to daylight hours, so it could be grown in varying climates. Importantly it was a dwarf variety, since tall wheat expended a lot of energy growing inedible stalks and collapsed when it grew too quickly. The new wheat was quickly introduced all over Mexico.”

In fact, by 1963, 95 percent of Mexico’s wheat was Borlaug’s variety and Mexico’s wheat harvest grew six times larger than it had been when he first set foot in the country nineteen years earlier.

By 1963, 95 percent of Mexico’s wheat was Borlaug’s variety and Mexico’s wheat harvest grew six times larger than it had been when he first set foot in the country nineteen years earlier.

Norberg continues, “in 1963, Borlaug moved on to India and Pakistan, just as it found itself facing the threat of massive starvation. Immediately, he ordered thirty-five trucks of high-yield seeds to be driven from Mexico to Los Angeles, in order to ship them from there.” Unfortunately, Borlaug’s convoy faced problems from the start; it was held up by Mexican police, blocked at the US border due to a ban on seed imports, and was then stalled by race-riots that obstructed the LA harbor.

Before the seeds had reached the sub-continent, Indian state monopolies began lobbying against Borlaug’s shipment and then, once it was ashore, it was discovered that half the seeds had been killed due to over-fumigation at customs. If that wasn’t enough, Borlaug learnt that the Indian government was planning to refuse fertilizer imports as they “wanted to build up their domestic fertilizer industry.” Luckily that policy was abandoned once Borlaug famously shouted at India’s deputy Prime Minister.

This extraordinary transformation of Asian agriculture in the 1960s and 1970s almost banished famine from the entire continent. By 1974, wheat harvests had tripled in India and, for the first time, the sub-continent became a net exporter of the crop. Norberg notes, “today they (India and Pakistan) produce seven times more wheat than they did in 1965. Despite a rapidly growing population, both countries are much better fed than they used to be.”

Borlaug’s opinion on GMOs was summed up during a television appearance prior to his death, where he responded to the position that all food should be processed according to the practices of the ‘organic’ movement: “We are 6.6 billion people now. We can only feed 4 billion. I don’t see 2 billion volunteers to disappear.”

Ethics, Burnt to a CRISP

A Chinese researcher with an American assistant has announced an effort using the CRISPER gene editing technique to delete the  gene that allows expression of the CCR5 protein that appears on the surface of the white cell. This little protein has an extraordinary story. CCR5 is a receptor for chemokines through which the white cell is attracted to tissue and organs to do its anti-infective and inflammatory work. Ironically CCR5 is used by some HIV strains to enter and destroy white cells but there has emerged in relatively recent human history a mutation of the CCR5 gene/protein that incidentally provides protection against some of the strains in the HIV attack. This mutation is not geographically universal (it suspiciously follows the geographic pattern of Viking raids) and may have emerged as a protective adaptation to bubonic plague.

So....the Chinese researcher deleted the gene completely in an IVF twin set. Expect a patent application.

This, if true, is a scary step for serious scientists. These deletions are not accurate as yet and can cross into unintended sites. Most deletions have been aimed at expression genes, not germ cell genes which can be passed on and inherited. And does anyone know what happens if the gene is knocked out, not just altered?  One can only guess at what the scientists at Biopreparate are musing.

There is a creepy sorcerer's apprentice quality about all this. Recall, even the Chinese' major CRISPER researcher several years ago said such activity was unethical. But the curiosity of the entrepreneur--and the weapons maker--has no bounds.

Khashoggi and the State

This Khashoggi murder is fascinating. It is, on its face, a classic example of the problem with the State: The State, as an entity, has qualities that are in opposition to the individuals who compose it. And, it is encountered by outsiders in the same way. No American reading this story would conclude anything other than the Saudis involved--agents of the State--were savage, cruel and heartless. It is reasonable to assume that such a generality would apply to the State itself. But the State is also many other things, some things very important to us, things that would make us sacrifice our concern for the individual.

In the 1940s, Stalin was our ally. Our crucial ally.

That compromise is the very essence of the State. And it is the very problem with giving to the State individual hopes and aspirations as the State and the individual are never a compound, they are an amalgam, an alloy, where the individual qualities are preserved. The notion that the State and the individual are one in the same is the silly utopia of the collectivist and the black dream of the fascist.

Sunday/Steambaths

“When the door of the steam bath is continually left open, the heat inside rapidly escapes through it; likewise the soul, in its desire to say many things, dissipates its remembrance of God through the door of speech, even though everything it says may be good. Thereafter the intellect, though lacking appropriate ideas, pours out a welter of confused thoughts to anyone it meets, as it no longer has the Holy Spirit to keep its understanding free from fantasy. Ideas of value always shun verbosity, being foreign to confusion and fantasy. Timely silence, then, is precious, for it is nothing less than the mother of the wisest thoughts.”
Diadochus of Photiki, quoted by Henri Nouwen in The Way of the Heart

Reverie

"There will always be bull markets followed by bear markets followed by bull markets." - John Templeton
 

By the time Roosevelt launched his antitrust assault on Standard in 1907, that company’s market share had fallen from more than 90 percent in the late 1890s to 68 percent. And when Standard was broken up four years later, its market share was down even further, to 64 percent.

 

Nobel laureate Ed Prescott, in his famous 2004 paper "Why Do Americans Work So Much More Than Europeans?" shows that workers spend considerably more hours working when marginal tax rates on their incomes are lower. So basically, over time people will reduce the number of hours they work, economic growth slows down, and less revenue is collected. As Prescott’s work show, the effect is even stronger as government benefits grow.

The Eagles' greatest-hits album has topped Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” to retake its crown as the best-selling album ever, the Recording Industry Association of America revealed, according to the Associated Press.

I'm very worried that Cortez will displace Stormy in the starry-eyed press. Stormy is my favorite political commentator.

The latest world climate report from the BP Statistical Review of World Energy finds that in 2017, America reduced its CO2 emissions by 0.5%, the most of all major countries. This despite withdrawing from the Paris Accords.

It might be best if the middle class did not see the graphs that I have foolishly reproduced below. Really stunning.

3.4 million jobs have been added during Trump’s 19 months, but that’s fewer than the 3.7 million during Obama’s last 19 months.  Inflation-adjusted wages rose a quarter of a percent per year under President Obama, but have declined under Trump.

One interesting factor seems to be the retiring of older workers being replaced by younger cheaper ones.

An Ohio historical society was planning a reenactment of a battle from the French and Indian War for October. A western Shawnee group objected to the misuse of their clothing and history and got the state to cancel the event and forbid any such event on state property.

This is what Brennan said: "“Trump’s … performance in Helsinki exceeds the threshold of ‘high crimes and misdemeanors.’ It was … treasonous.” Now I understand you can say just about anything now, but that is a lot. It is curious in the culture that a gender or racial slur would have received much more attention and criticism.

So Hilary says, “You could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables … racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic. … Some of those folks … are irredeemable, but … they are not America.”

And Gov. Andrew Cuomo can say, “We’re not going to make America great again. It was never that great.”

And they can expect everyone to agree? Or at least not be angry?

Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges, admitting that he coordinated with Donald Trump to buy the silence of two women and directly implicating the president for the first time in a scheme to violate campaign-finance laws. Now is this bribery of a private person? Can that happen? Or is it extortion?

Proof of my liberal creds: Twenty-four inmates received associate's degrees through an innovative collaboration between Wesleyan's Center for Prison Education and Middlesex Community College.

Elizabeth Warren's recent speech on her vision of the future American economy veers dangerously into specifics. It is going to be fun watching this play out in the national debate because it is a truly dangerous--if revealing--position.

The Neanderthal -- Denisovan story is interesting.

In a recent survey, two-thirds of all medical residents (75%) ranked a good work schedule and call hours as the most important factor when looking for a job – more than starting salary and compensation (66%) and potential for career advancement (29%).

Good news: A “controversial” working group within the Food and Drug Administration has begun discussion of importing drugs from other countries as a way to bring down US prices, according to Dan Best, a senior adviser on drug pricing in the Trump Administration.

Bad news: Reuters reports the European Medicines Agency announced Monday that heart drugs with an active ingredient produced by a second Chinese company, Zhejiang Tianyu Pharmaceutical, were being recalled from the EU market “after detection of a toxic impurity that may cause cancer.”

Since the destruction of tools, skills, infrastructure, and productive resources by necessity creates the need for rebuilding, does such damaging and destructive behavior imply a pro-growth policy?

The Economist Intelligence Unit's Global Livability Index report ranks cities around the globe based on stability, health care, culture and environment, education and infrastructure. Pittsburgh was named the 32nd most livable city in the world out of 140. The unit is the research and analysis division of The Economist Group and the world leader in global business intelligence. Vienna, Austria replaces Melbourne, Australia as the most livable city in this year's report. Pittsburgh came in second-best of all the U.S. cities, behind Honolulu, Hawaii. 

Aaaaannnnnnddddd.......two graphs:

Nast and Thanksgiving

Thomas Nast was a Bavarian immigrant credited with developing the American cartoon. He arrived in the 1840s as a child and became the illustrator for Harper's weekly. He developed the modern version of Santa Claus and the elephant as the Republican Party symbol. As such, this is a provocative drawing, from the Nineteenth Century.

Melanie Kirkpatrick’s 2016 book, Thanksgiving: The Holiday and the Heart of the American Experience (link added):

[Thomas] Nast was an immigrant, having arrived in America from Germany when he was six years old, and “Uncle Sam’s Thanksgiving Dinner” reflected what Nast saw as the immigrant’s passionate affection for his new country and commitment to its democratic values….
At the head of the table stands Uncle Sam, who is carving a turkey. Around the table are seated Americans representing an array of races and religions, identified in many cases by their national dress. Among the guests are an African American family, a Native American, a Chinese man with a long queue, an Irish American couple, a Spanish woman wearing a mantilla and holding a fan, a bearded Muslim with a fez on his head. Nast presents the people in this portrait respectfully, not as caricatures. His message is that every American has an equal right to sit at the Thanksgiving table.

November 22

The Thanksgiving holiday, one of the best holidays and certainly the best secular one, has been spoiled for everyone who was awake and thinking in the mid 60's by the assassination of Jack Kennedy. That promising shift from the generation of Eisenhower to its sons, to youth and its potential, to the charismatic and the virile was just stopped cold by Oswald in Dallas. We defaulted back to the older, ponderous Lyndon Johnson, a true guardian of the Old Guard. That loss--of youth, of hope, of promise, of beauty--has never been overcome and we are reminded of it every Thanksgiving. One only wonders how much of the unrest in the 60's and 70's was a result.

An aspect of the assassination that has dogged its shadow has been the shameless exploitation of the atrocity by writers, politicians and artists. This exploitation, which has become almost a cult, believes--or says it believes--that the assassination was a conspiracy of a number of men, groups or organizations. Every aspect of the event has been picked over, every inconsistency of life magnified, every possibility made a probability. The result is that the event, right before many of our eyes, has been completely recreated and, like an alternative universe, continues without interference with its own laws, experts and history. It is very like those academic musings run wild. "If, instead, you assume that history and archeology was 300 years wrong--or falsified--and Moses was actually alive in the court of Akhenaton...." "If, instead, you assume there is a unexplained and unexplainable driving force in history..." "If, instead, you assume that everyone is possessed at birth by sexual urges towards their immediate family...." It is another victory of the Art of the Plausible.

This is nowhere more revolting than is seen in the movie "JFK" where a seemingly respectable director rewrites the assassination story according to a man whose grasp on the event is dangerously close to psychosis. Oliver Stone writes a story of the assassination through the eyes and the belief set of James Garrison, the District Attorney of New Orleans, who had arrested, charged, indicted and tried a local community figure, Clay Shaw, for involvement in the Kennedy murder. Shaw's arrest was virtually random. There was no evidence against him other than the word of a psychiatric patient who failed a lie detector test and refused to testify. How an American citizen could come under such unreasonable, whimsical charges has never been explained. But Garrison persisted and then Stone followed up after the laughable trial (where the jury took longer to find their seats than to find "not guilty") with a movie inexplicably presenting the Garrison thesis as within the same time zone as reason. Of course, all the facts of the assassination were changed to implicate the innocent, the shooting presented was almost a complete fiction and this all was delivered by Kevin Costner, a credible actor, with certainty and outrage. Anyone who knew anything about the assassination walked from the theater with their collective heads spinning. But many with less of a good grasp left alarmed and resentful. This constant barrage of misinformation has done a lot to undermine this country's credibility and value in the minds of its people who, after all, own and run it.

There are two bad lessons here. The first is there are people and industries in the world who, even in those cultures with the highest of ideals, will do anything, say anything, publish anything to make a buck. If possible they will take the Plausible-made-Art and create an industry of it with historians, academics, and franchises. The second is that they often hide their entrepreneurship in the gowns of Art. How many of our greatest artists have questioned the reliability of memory, the interaction of history and art--even to the point of their blending? So Stone calls Julian Barnes and Cormac McCarthy as witnesses for his defense.

Stone is more Goebbels than John Huston here. He is everything that is wrong with businessmen gone rogue. His product is harmful to the society, toxic to the young and delivered without an ounce of social conscience. The real story about Garrison is how is it possible that Clay Shaw could be treated like a Kafka character in the United States. Another would be a clarifying and cleansing explanation of all the facts and evidence that has been gathered over the years about the murder. This might set the country at ease. But there's probably not much money, or return on arrogance, in this. Instead why not take advantage of the distressed and confused citizens, contribute to their malaise and cash in.

In 1976 the U.S. House of representatives created a commission, The House Select Commission on Assassinations, to investigate all the evidence in the murder again. This time they applied all the newer technologies available as well. Aside from the single and erroneous "fourth bullet thesis" not a single new conclusion was reached. Instead this august deliberative body concluded there was no evidence of a conspiracy--but they believed one existed anyway

Thanksgiving

 

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a tricky word. It means gratitude but it implies more than something to be grateful for, it implies something to be grateful to.

In the fall of 1621 the Plymouth settlers had a celebratory meal with a local Indian tribe as part of a traditional English harvest festival. There are two accounts; no mention is made of a Day of Thanksgiving but they were probably happy; since their arrival they had a 50% mortality. It lasted three days. A Day of Thanksgiving, a day the English would have considered religious, was first held in the new land in 1623 following a needed rainfall. Various days of thanksgiving were celebrated by the country over the years, the first in commemoration of the end of the Revolution by Washington. In 1863, in the middle of the Civil War, Lincoln formally made Thanksgiving an annual event.

It is interesting to see these two men, Washington suspicious of organized religion and Lincoln harder to read, celebrating an official Thanksgiving, but both seem heartfelt, Lincoln's surprisingly so. Washington's is almost a mirror of the mindset of the time. The two proclamations are below.

The Thanksgiving  

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor--and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me `to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.'

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be -- That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks -- for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation--for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed--for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted -- for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions--to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually -- to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed--to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn [sic] kindness onto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord -- To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease [sic] of science among them and us -- and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New-York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

George Washington

Proclamation Establishing Thanksgiving Day October 3, 1863

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence [sic], have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years, with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

Abraham Lincoln

Reverie

One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture and, if it were possible, speak a few reasonable words. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)

The overarching message of “The Opportunity Cost of Socialism”—a study recently released by the President’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA)—is that the advocacy of socialism cannot reasonably be based on policy preferences; its attraction has always been grounded in a combination of wishful thinking and ignorance. For example, the new CEA study shows that the socialist approach to “single payer” health care advocated by many on the left would cost much more and deliver much less, resulting in the significant worsening of mortality and morbidity, not just higher taxes and reduced economic growth.

 Gallinaceous

1. belonging or pertaining to the order Galliformes, comprising medium-sized, mainly ground-feeding domestic or game birds, as the chicken, turkey, grouse, pheasant, and partridge.
2. pertaining to or resembling the domestic fowls.

The adjective gallinaceous comes straight from the Latin adjective gallīnāceus, a derivative of gallīna “hen,” itself a derivative of the noun gallus “rooster, cock.” Further etymology is uncertain: gallus may come from the Proto-Indo-European root gal- “to call, cry.” If so, gallus (from unattested galsos) means “shouter, crier” and is related to Lithuanian galsas “echo,” Polish głos “voice,” and English call (via Old Norse kall). Gallinaceous entered English in the 18th century.

 

Trump started school at Fordham, transferred to U. Penn and graduated from Warton with a B.S. degree (no pun intended) in economics.

 

The so-called Spanish Flu of 1918 probably really started in Kansas.

The rapid changes in the development of mankind over the last 100,000 years has been a problem difficult to explain. A new thesis has emerged, epigenetics.

There is a basic problem with socialism: Its false promise to create wealth better than capitalism can. Advocates of socialism promise great economic achievements, which they argue are worth the price of reduced individual economic liberty. The difference between market-based and socialist economies is not the presence of redistributive policies per se. For over a century, around the world, market-based economies have taxed and redistributed wealth, and provided a host of services such as public education and care for the poor, sick, and elderly. The difference is that in market-based systems taxation is regarded as an unfortunate burden, which is employed out of necessity to ensure that other priorities are achieved. In contrast, in socialist regimes, taxation is not regarded as an undesirable consequence, but as a means to prevent individuals from counterproductively controlling their collective economic destiny, not just out of envious revenge but because of the never seen superiority of socialism's production over capitalism/freedom.

One of the fascinating developments in the popular conception of government is the confusion of aspiration with rights. So Roosevelt could include with life and liberty as his four basic rights "freedom from want" and "freedom from fear," both quite noble hopes but rights? So, too, the EU has a right of "The Freedom of Employment Counselling." I'm not sure Ethan Allen would have agreed. There is this disquieting subset that holds rights that are whimsical, ephemeral and generally belittling of its fellows. And the cheering of rights in the absence of freedoms.

The Queen's cousin, Lord Ivar Mountbatten, is the first member of the extended royal family to have a same-sex marriage. Lord Ivar married his partner, James Coyle, in a private chapel in Devon.

Lord Ivar's ex-wife, Penny, with whom he has three daughters, gave him away at the ceremony.

27% of U.S. business is Tech. 62% is U.S. based, only 5%  China.

The collapse of Lehman Brothers, the fourth-largest U.S. investment bank was history’s largest bankruptcy filing and presaged the October 2008 evaporation of almost $10 trillion in global market capitalization.

Senator Warren has a new proposal: No business with more than $1 billion in revenue would be permitted to legally operate without permission from the federal government.

Has Trump said anything dumber? This is the true message of the Trump election. Trump is no outlier. He is what these people are.

Prions do not reproduce using DNA. In fact, the may reproduce across distances. They are aliens.

Only 1% of guys who declare free agency in the minors get to the majors within one year. Rodrigues from the Pirates did. 

As Irwin M. Stelzer of the Hudson Institute says, “If unlimited borrowing, financed by printing money, were a path to prosperity, then Venezuela and Zimbabwe would be top of the growth tables.”

When did the Press get so anti-Russian? They were even tolerant of Stalin.

Is it any of Canada’s business whether Saudi women have the right to drive? Isn't advancing Western values in foreign lands the very thing that everyone has been criticizing the Americans for?

Aaaaaaaaannnnnnddddddddd........two graphs:

Rapture of the Deep

Marx and Socialism have made tremendous errors on both sides of the economic equation. In underestimating Capitalism they never imagined the depth and breadth of its economic growth, they  erroneously assumed inherent declining production and rising unemployment, they never thought the successful would share governance with the workers, nor did they anticipate the impact of technology or social safety nets. On the Socialism side, different cultures exposed different deficits: Stagnation in Great Britain, corruption in South America and Africa, and economic failure and starvation in Russia and China.

Yet , despite all the errors in concept and the disasters in application, the socialist soldiers on. It is simply hard to believe there is not something more going on.

Distinctions Vs. Differences

Prepare yourselves: There are some differences among us.

According to Hasbro, 83% of recreational Scrabble players 25 to 54 are female.

Championship Scrabble, however, rewards typically male obsessions: strategy, math, a passion for competition, and a drive to memorize facts. So...males’ excellence at a certain activity itself keeps females out.

The National Geographic Geography Bee shows similar results. Since 1989, boys have won 27 times, girls twice. Nothing prevents or discourages girls from learning the details of an atlas; it's more likely they just don't want to. But the National Geographic Society has already been sued for discriminating against girls based on that winner ratio alone.

A distinction in results implies malice.

More females than males take the SAT test in recent years. For example, in 2015, 903,719 high school girls (53.2% of the total) took the SAT compared to 794,802 boys (46.8% of the total). In that year, the percentage of males .who earned perfect scores of 800 points was 1.4% compared to the percentage of females with perfect scores of 0.62%, which is a male-female ratio of 2.26-to-1.

The obsessive among us may search for explanations, demand balance, sue for equal outcomes. Simpler minds may appreciate differences.