Question 17

Question 17

Euclid's geometry, the epitome of logical reasoning, is based on no fewer than 33 axiomatic, unprovable articles of faith. Are there assumptions that are not based on faith?

How did the Steelers beat the Bills?

"The working class have much more to lose by an inquiry to capital than the capitalist. They are more interested in its security. Because what threatens the one with loss of luxury and superfluity, threatens the other with the loss of necessity."(Acton) Why is the success of the average man over the last 200 years not more celebrated? And why are people not more cautious when tampering with it?

The fight over the budget is among the democrats, not with Republicans. Is that because the Puritan is unable to join or compromise?

If all ships are feminine, what is a man-o-war? Is that discriminatory?

Approximately two-thirds of the migrants who lived under the Texas bridge will not be removed from the country, an official said. Well then, what are we doing with them and why?

USAA Insurance has employer criteria to screen its applicants. Is that discriminatory?

About 1.24 million more men are incarcerated than women. Does discrimination explain the disparity? What can be done?

It would be worth your while to review the appearance of a mom objecting to reading material in Fairfax High School, Va. Google it, maybe under what she read from a school book called Lawn Boy. This reading was cut off by the board because there were children present. Stupidity is not irony. Are we morons?

Democrats are now aiming to create new entitlements and expand the existing ones, not only for the poor but also for the professional class. Workers making $200,000 a year would be eligible for a new national paid family and medical leave program. Earlier this year the American Rescue Plan Act expanded the child tax credit for households earning as much as $150,000. So, if need is not the basic criteria for government charity, what is?

Women have, on balance, outperformed men academically. There are more men failing to graduate from high school than women. About half of women entering a four-year college graduate in four years, compared with only about 40% of men. The average collegiate grade-point average is about 3.10 for women, versus 2.90 for men. Men are also more likely to have disciplinary problems in college. Are these disparities examples of discriminations?

Marxist-Leninist Pedro Castillo is now President of Peru. We will be treated to unknown years of optimistic predictions followed by rationalized economic failures culminating in domestic violence and blaming successful non-communist countries. Is there anything that will make people stop doing this?

Do we let all immigrants in because they are “looking for a better life” or close our borders completely and inhumanely? Are these the only two options? Is this the only place in America where the choice is binary?

Gas prices in Europe have risen more than 250% this year, while Asia has seen about a 175% increase since late January. In the United States, prices have surged to multi-year highs and are about double where they were at the start of the year. Electricity prices have also risen sharply as many power plants are gas-fired. Does this look like a situation where you would want to decrease the production of natural gas, especially when the alternative is coal?

Women are marrying later—at age 28 on average in 2020, up from 20.3 in 1960. A dramatic drop in fertility has accompanied this trend. The birthrate today is slightly below 12 for every 1,000 people, about half the 23.7 in 1960.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry advocated for 'coronavirus vaccine equity' during an appearance at Saturday's Global Citizen Live event in New York City.
Markle, 40, emphasized that billions of people around the world do not have access to the coronavirus vaccine during her remarks.
"Every single person on this planet has a fundamental right to get this vaccine. That's the point, but that's not happening," Markle said.

Do people understand that shortages imply that not everyone gets what is in short supply? So, if not everyone can't get something, how is its distribution decided upon? And, for starters, why does the U.S. have to take a vaccine away from a guy in Georgia and give it to a Libyan? There clearly is an imperative there; what?

question 16

Question 16

Why do we have a debt ceiling? A little charade for us?

For those of you with some anxiety deficit, I offer the Nipah virus. In the two strains of Nipah encountered so far — originating in Malaysia in 1999 and later in Bangladesh — pigs and fruit bats are believed to have been the intermediary hosts. It has a low infectivity rate but its mortality rate is 70%. Feel better?

The women's outfits that have appeared in the world--Megan Fox and the like--raise an interesting problem: How should an average woman respond to such carnality? Is it good and liberating or is it dangerous to women?

The California recall vote implies that there is boundless expectation from government and no expectation. What is that? 

The design of scientific studies is as important as the concept behind it. There are a number of failed studies that failed because they were doomed from the start by the very structure of the study. Stats deficiency in the study's creators?

Food and Drug Administration threatened to fine the principal investigator of a clinical trial for failing to submit results as required by federal law, marking the first time the agency has widened its list of targets that could face penalties for such a violation. Do you know that 30% of trials are said to go unreported?

Can you imagine the argument for voting for Gavin Newsome?

Gen. Milley is in trouble for the ultimate in American culture and politics. an allegation about an allegation. Because we are used to this kind of nonsense, we take it in stride--as we do the indictment of the Democrat operative who started the ball rolling on the Russia-Trump 'allegation'/plot.
Unfortunately, as with so much of our foolishness, there is a real problem here. Why would we have a structure that allows a single person to start a nuclear war? And, if we think that's a good idea, was Trump more a risk than Biden is?

In Clint Eastwood's new movie, he plays a two-fisted bronco-busting 92-year-old with several love interests. Parlor game: How many metaphors can you create here in 60 seconds?

All political concepts and visions are expressed through a hierarchy. What hierarchy is immune to self-serving abuse?

An outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 caused by the Gamma variant infected 24/44 (55%) employees of a gold mine in French Guiana (87% symptomatic, no severe forms). The attack rate was 60% (15/25) among fully vaccinated miners and 75% (3/4) among unvaccinated miners without a history of infection. No note of severity? Are all infections the same?

Imposter syndrome occurs when high-achieving individuals have a pervasive sense of self-doubt combined with fear of being exposed as a fraud despite objective measures of success. 144 residents completed the assessment (response rate=46.6%; 47.2% male). Only 22.9% had “none to mild” or “moderate” imposter syndrome. A majority (76%) had “significant” or “severe” imposter syndrome. There were no significant differences in mean scores amongst male and female residents (p=0.69). Does the equality of the problem mean there is less of a problem?

Does there come a time when government is so embarrassing that able people don't want to be associated with it?

A recent survey of U.S. high school students conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 1.8% of students identify as transgender. More than one-third of transgender adolescents surveyed had attempted suicide in the previous 12 months. The historical norms were one in 30,000. What is happening?

A U.S. official said recently he is convinced the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan carried out this week’s horrific attack on a maternity hospital in a majority Shiite Muslim neighborhood in Kabul, killing 24 people, including newborn babies and mothers. These aren't our partners, right?

Question 15

Question 15

Illegal immigration has been a glaring problem for quite a while so why are Haitian illegal immigrants being sent home?

So, with this Milley thing, wasn't independent foreign contact the reason that Flynn had his life ruined?

According to GQ, the top 10 earning male models earned a combined total of $8 million last year, compared to the $83 million the top supermodels of the world acquired over the same year. Is that an example of discrimination against men?

As Democrats scramble to finance their $3.5 trillion expansion of the entitlement state, they can’t find more than $2.2 trillion in taxes to raise, so they’re hoping to fill the gap with $500 billion in savings from price controls on drugs. In spite of Pharma's unbelievable Covid vaccine success. These politicians know the basic law that price controls decrease availability, right?

In Ridley’s view, the scientific establishment has always had a tendency “to turn into a church, enforcing obedience to the latest dogma and expelling heretics and blasphemers.” This tendency was previously kept in check by the fragmented nature of the scientific enterprise: Prof. A at one university built his career by saying that Prof. B’s ideas somewhere else were wrong. In the age of social media, however, “the space for heterodoxy is evaporating.” So those who believe in science as philosophy are increasingly estranged from science as an institution. Is there an institution that does not come with a hierarchy?

The Hoover Institution's John F. Cogan and Daniel Heil report that the Biden 4 trillion dollar spending plan would add more than 6 million households, and more than 21 million Americans, to federal entitlement rolls. That would raise the share of nonelderly American households receiving such entitlements by seven percentage points and push it above the 50 percent mark. Is there a point where giving citizens other peoples' money becomes undesirable?

“More than half of Britons suffering from long Covid might not actually have it” – so reports the Telegraph‘s science editor Sarah Knapton. So, how is 'long Covid' diagnosed anyway?

The principal preoccupation of the framers of the Constitution was with restraints on authority.
The word “travel” is not in the Constitution. Neither is the word “bacon,” but we have a right to have bacon for breakfast, and to raise our children. This puzzles people who think rights are privileges — spaces of autonomy — granted by, and revocable by, government. Such thinking paves the road to what some seem to want: a permission society, where what is not explicitly permitted is implicitly forbidden, or at least contingent on the grace of government. (someone)
Isn't this the opposite of the structure of American government where what is not specifically granted the government is withheld?

Will the Imperial College London’s infamous Covid model expose forever the weakness of models?

Incidental or mild cases accounted for a rising share of so-called COVID-19 hospitalizations—nearly half by the end of June. That means it is increasingly problematic to treat that number, which includes COVID-19 patients without life-threatening symptoms as well as COVID-positive patients admitted for other reasons, as an indicator of severe disease.

So do such cases qualify for federal subsidy?

Are employees really working for bosses or are they working for themselves?

Scientists who are skeptical of chief White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci’s proclamations about the coronavirus pandemic don’t want to go public with their concerns for fear it will affect their funding, Sen. Rand Paul claimed. So scientists do not want to contradict their underwriters. Is that an unreasonable assumption?

Stated in dollars, the typical female staffer working in the Biden White House earns $20,000 less on average per year than the typical male staffer. Is that meaningful?

It is a delusion to think of the individual in primitive society as free. There was no natural liberty for a social animal. Freedom is an artifact of civilization. This is from Hayek. So, in the modern hip lingo, freedom is a construct?.

Professor Susan Michie, a member of the Communist Party of Britain and SAGE scientist who openly endorses a “zero Covid” strategy, revealed on Channel 5 News that she believes social distancing, including mask-wearing, should continue not only into the long-term but forever. Is there such thing as a cultural vandal?

The Biden administration on Monday morning announced an interagency plan to deal with the effects of frequent extreme heat waves caused by global warming. Turn on the AC and open the windows? (We already do that in our house. You're welcome.)

“The masks worn by millions were useless as designed and could not prevent influenza. Only preventing exposure to the virus could.” – John M. Barry, The Great Influenza (2004)
“Abandoning masks and social distancing now would be the worst possible move for Americans and their political leaders. The 1918 pandemic teaches us why.” – John M. Barry, Washington Post, March 12, 2021

Is it fair to put these side by side?

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 54% of American Adults disapprove of the policy allowing Americans to select the gender they would like printed on their U.S. passport, even if it does not match the gender on supporting documentation such as a birth certificate, previous passport, or state ID. Are you surprised that people care?

Question 14

Question 14

'Tax the Rich' is reasonable in the way Willie Sutton robbed banks: that's where the money is. It isn't moral, it's practical. The poor don't have money to take. The point is that the hierarchy wants money; you can gussy that up in any way you want.

How did the administration avoid 'Wynkyn, Blinkin and Nod?'

“If they’ll not help, if these governors won’t help us beat the pandemic, I’ll use my power as president to get them out of the way,” Biden said. So the elected state officials are in the way?

Somehow Biden presented the vaccination program in a political light, as if Trump voters are the vaccine resisters or Covid victims were giving their voting records in the ER. They look like partisan hacks trying to take advantage of a problem when they should be solving t. How could they have thought that would be a good approach?

Does the president have the power to unilaterally compel millions of private-sector workers to get vaccinated or risk losing their jobs?

"We need to start looking at the choice to remain unvaccinated the same as we look at driving while intoxicated,” said Washington Post columnist, and CNN “analyst,” Leana Wen. But the risk of not being vaccinated is to the unvaccinated, himself. And other unvaccinated. So...?


Supreme Court Justice Amy Barrett said, "My goal today is to convince you that this court is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks." Do you remember when Nixon said, "I am not a crook?"


Fifty-seven percent (57%) of Democratic voters believe supporters of Donald Trump are a serious threat to the nation. A Scott Rasmussen national survey found that 56% of those in President Biden’s party also consider the unvaccinated a serious threat. That’s a higher level of concern than Democrats express about the Taliban (44% see it as a serious threat); China (44%), or Russia (37%). So, we're afraid of ourselves?

Richard Ebright, the board of governors professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University and laboratory director at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology, told Newsweek documents show "unequivocally" that NIH grants were used to fund controversial gain-of-function (GOF) research at the Wuhan Insitute of Virology in China—something U.S. infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci has denied. So where in the hierarchy of threats to humanity would you place these people? Above or below global warming?

How do so many in a country with seemingly well-educated people act so irrationally, against their own interest, against science, and against the lessons of history?

And, as we take things less and less seriously, here's Kardashian with a fashion non-statement at the Met Gala:

Is this nihilism or just stupid?


Does the prominence of female teachers make schools intolerant of male behavior?
Maybe not. Maybe we are agreeing to live with nonsense and young boys are not socialized enough to recognize the social flow. Here is a course at Yale Medical School: “The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind.” 

How insulated and close-minded must that community be?

An Ohio school district provided writing prompts for writing assignments including, “write a sex scene you wouldn’t show your mom,” and “rewrite the sex scene from above into one that you’d let your mom read.” Confidence is rampant, especially among the unproven. So school has teaching programs they want to hide from their employers?

Electricity prices in the U.K. this week jumped to a record £354 ($490) per megawatt-hour, a 700% increase from the 2010 to 2020 average. Germany’s electricity benchmark has doubled this year. Governments have heavily subsidized renewables like wind and solar and shut down coal plants to meet their commitments under the Paris climate accord. But wind power this summer has flagged, so countries are scrambling to import more fossil fuels to power their grids. European natural-gas spot prices have increased five-fold in the last year. (WSJ)
Do politicians not know that if you substitute expensive and unreliable products for cheap products, prices go up?

John, you're gonna love this:
AOC is investing heavily in her online store, selling T-shirts, sweatshirts and other merchandise with her name, "AOC" initials or slogans including "Tax the Rich" and "Fight for our Future," efforts aimed at both fundraising and building the second-term lawmaker's profile nationally.
Her campaign paid political merchandise firm Financial Innovations, which operates her online store and supplies merchandise, more than $1.4 million in the first six months of 2021, according to campaign disclosures to the Federal Election Commission late last week.

So, capitalism to sell socialism?

This is a pretty shocking bar graph:

...

Cold kills a lot more people than heat.

Wait. Not only is the modern drive for less carbon more expensive and damaging to the economy, but it is more dangerous to the elderly?

Los Angeles had a West Nile virus death. Does the news think you are getting too comfortable?

Question 13

 Question 13

At the VMA music awards Sunday, they gave 'a big shout out for the people in Haiti.' That's great. How will we know it worked?

If you missed the VMA awards, you might look for it. It was incredible, with an emphasis on shouting announcers, unintelligible lyrics, lots of skin and buttocks, indecipherable ads, a woman with a chair on her head, and a lesbian scene with a crucified woman. It was like an old-time sideshow. 

Do you think the ChiComs will be able to cut back on their anti-American propaganda budget?

Aaaaannndddd......AOC at the Met Gala! Ticket, $30,000:

Does having a murderous philosophy preclude a sense of the ridiculous?

In the gospel last Sunday, Christ tells the apostles that he is going to suffer, die, and be raised from the dead. Peter tries to talk him out of it and Christ says, "Get behind me, Satan." This is reminiscent of the temptation in the desert. There is a lot of spiritual logic in the conversation (You do not think like God) but there is an underlying quality in both suggestions Christ rejects: both are displays of power, not acts. Both separate him from us. Both are easy solutions to the problem, salvation at the point of a gun.

Display vs Act--is there some application to modern times?

A new study from Israel confirms that natural immunity to Covid-19 is superior to vaccine-induced immunity, even with the Delta variant. So are there some who are better candidates for natural immunity than vaccines?

Diffidence is rather an unfailing, pervasive awareness of the limitations of all human reason, of even any number of human minds, and especially of one’s own. The gentleman’s diffidence follows from recognizing that he can never see all around his constantly changing world.--Shirley Robin Letwin on the 'gentleman's virtues.' Connotation of unworthiness or inferiority not in the observers but in the evidence observed?

A network of fake social media accounts linked to the Chinese government has attempted to draw Americans out to real-world protests against anti-Asian-American racism and popular but unsubstantiated allegations that China engineered the virus that caused the Covid-19 pandemic, according to U.S. security firms. Will the lies and manipulation ever stop? Will the future select out only the mendacious?

China’s ongoing crackdown on the country’s entertainment industry stepped up a notch on Thursday after the state media regulator called for the boycott of “sissy” boybands and effeminate men on television, the end of reality talent shows, and a ban on vulgar social media influencers among a raft of other measures.
“Sissy idols” is a direct reference to boy bands that enjoy massive popularity in China. Acts such as TFBoys, Uniq, Super Junior-M and Exo-M have been the long-running target of criticism for wearing makeup and being focused on high fashion as opposed to what the state considers traditional masculine interests. The new regulations have now codified existing criticism.
The regulator is also calling for a boycott of stars who flaunt their wealth online or on social media, a ban on people that trade in entertainment gossip as well as “vulgar” social media influencers.

Who thought good taste would finally emerge, brought by totalitarians?

Why don't Afghan lives matter?

The Texas abortion decision does not mean much. It was a procedural decision. But it probably means that the Court has the votes to overturn Roe. Abortion is complex but its legal status is quite simple: the difference between what some people would like and what the structure of the government allows. Isn't this the crux of most things?

President Joe Biden said during a virtual event with leaders in the Jewish community Thursday that he visited the Tree of Life Synagogue in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh following the murder of 11 people during a service in 2018. Synagogue officials responded that he has never visited. Yet no one blinked. Somewhere at some time, did we decide not to take any of these people seriously? Do they know that yet?

How much extra we would need to find to finance Social Security for the next 75 years. Here the change in just one year is alarming. This deficit jumped $3 trillion last year, from $16.8 trillion to $19.8 trillion. That’s a huge change — 18% — in a single year. And note that this figure, for 2020, reflects only part of the crisis.
That figure is how much money we’d have to find right now, in theory, if we wanted to put the trust fund on a financially sound basis immediately.  
It’s nearly equal to an entire year’s U.S. gross domestic product.
And to make it financially stable forever? $59.8 trillion, or nearly three times U.S. GDP. And that rocketed $6.8 trillion in a year.

What amount of money and how much incompetence will get our attention? How about a model for that?

The government was accused Tuesday of wrongly taking credit for, and even actively obstructing, the first mission to get Americans out since the completion of the withdrawal at the end of August. Wait. What?

A two-commissioner panel of the state Board of Parole Hearings concluded on Aug. 27 that the convicted assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, 77, is suitable for parole. If we agree that jails are not for social revenge and if we agree that people are rarely rehabilitated, what are jails for? Put another way, is there something you can do that just disqualifies you from enjoying citizenship with the rest of us?

A Russian-backed warlord vying for power in Libya has hired ex-senior Clinton aide Lanny Davis and former GOP lawmaker Bob Livingston to lead a $1 million effort to lobby the Biden administration for support. Does the disgusting ever become criminal?

Four dissenting Supreme Court Justices warned last year that the majority’s decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma would cause chaos in the Sooner State and beyond. Their warning is coming true in the underreported story of the year, as Justice Neil Gorsuch’s misguided opinion has created legal and economic havoc. It's worth looking up. Is this a special insight into the mindset of the Left and its chaotic legacies?

COVID-19 has a “0.2 percent fatality rate among people not living in institutions.” Fully 80 percent of deaths have occurred among people over 65 and just 358 children under the age of 17 had died of the disease as of July 29, 2021. Does this imply that the medical efforts should be more targeted or is the generalized approach with all its anger and criticism working just fine? 

None of the world's major economies -- including the entire G20 -- have a climate plan that meets their obligations under the 2015 Paris Agreement, according to an analysis published Wednesday. So all its sound and fury is as meaningless as the California recall?

The Open, Coincidence, and History

 

The Open, Coincidence, and History

Daniil Medvedev will try to win his first major title on Sunday when he plays Novak Djokovic in the US Open final.

Carol points out that two Medvedevs were involved in the murder of Tsar Nicholas II. They were unrelated. Mikhail Aleksandrovich Medvedev (Kudrin) (September 30, 1891 - January 13, 1964) was a Russian revolutionary, Chekist, direct participant in the execution of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II, his family, and close associates in the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg on the night of July 17, 1918.(wiki) and Pavel Spiridonovich Medvedev (Russian: Павел Спиридонович Медведев; 1888 – 12 March 1919) was a Bolshevik revolutionary, head of the external guard of the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg, a direct participant in the execution of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II, his family, and those close to him on the night of 17 July 1918. (wiki).

So, does Danill have the heart of an assassin? Will he topple the current tennis tsar?

Question 12

Question 12

A couple of articles obviously misquoting von Mises and Friedman, in order to denigrate them, raise questions. Is intense and heartfelt seriousness a substitute for truth?

There are 15.2 million Jews in the world, up from 15.1 million last year.
Of those, 6.9 million Jews live in Israel, up by one hundred thousand from the previous year, with another 8.3 million living around the world. So one of the most productive, intellectual, influential, and impactful peoples in the world is about the size of the population of Istanbul?

A new company, Altos, is pursuing biological reprogramming technology, a way to rejuvenate cells in the lab that some scientists think could be extended to revitalize entire animal bodies, ultimately prolonging human life. Bezos has put money in. Among the scientists said to be joining Altos are Juan Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte, a Spanish biologist at the Salk Institute, in La Jolla, California, who is notorious for research mixing human and monkey embryos. Wouldn't it be better to start out with someone other than a guy under an ethics cloud? Or is there no one else comparable?

Did the culture start to slide when hurricanes could no longer exclusively be named after women or was it when the zipper lost its patent?

The study showing the climate change argument on the origin of Covid was done entirely with models, no data. Are models facts?

A number of people in LA overdosed at a party and died this week. This was a newspaper line: "Police were called to the party just after midnight and pronounced Johnson and the two others, who may have also been comedians, dead at the scene." Does this mean comedians have become a species or something equally distinctive? Is this a new identity?

According to Stanford University, the infection survival rate for people under the age of 19 is 99.9973 percent. So, what is the source of the alarm over younger virus patients?

The 8,328 US affiliates of foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs) employed 7.95 million American workers in 2019, a 1.9% increase from 7.8 million workers in 2018, adding roughly 150,000 insourced jobs to the US economy in 2019. Were those American jobs stolen from foreign nations?

"The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society".--Jefferson 

Is this a tough concept for the Left?

Atlantic hurricanes are not becoming more frequent. In fact, the frequency of hurricanes making landfall in the continental U.S. has declined slightly since 1900. The frequency Category 3 and above hurricanes making landfall since 1900 is also trending slightly down. Does this raise questions about global warming or does one just redo the models?

Editors of 220 leading medical, nursing, and public-health journals from around the world called for urgent action on climate change, in a joint editorial published on Sunday. Is that a consensus? All of the Russian scientists of the Stalinist era believed, or came to believe, that dialectic materialism was contained in all of modern science. Was that a consensus?

The federal government has announced they will guarantee abortion rights after the recent Supreme Court decision. They know the decision was not on 'Wade,' right? And they know that if it was, the administration could not change a judicial decision, right?

“The white British proportion of the population has fallen from 89 percent to 79 percent, while ethnic minorities have grown from 10 percent to 21 percent.” Lionel Shriver wrote this and followed with this, “Try reversing the paradigm. If white westerners were immigrating by the tens of millions to developing nations - if Liverpudlians were pouring into Lagos - the left would decry the mass migration as neocolonialism. Such white flight would be denounced as invasion - as it would be. Yet for today’s left, non-white cultures must be protected, preserved and promoted, while evil European cultures deserve to be subsumed.” So, does the Left view these changes as less the interesting but passive movement of peoples and more the desired replacement of another?

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation, a nonprofit trade group, said in a report last month that “changing resource mix” is the most urgent challenge for reliability. The group says America’s electric generation capacity “is increasingly characterized as one that is sensitive to extreme, widespread, and long duration temperatures as well as wind and solar droughts.” So we aren't making up for all the grid-stabilizing coal and nuclear plants that have closed?

I know a guy who makes native American artifacts. His best seller is wampum. This year he can't keep it in stock. Is wampum going to be a kind of cryptocurrency?"

Question 11

Question 11

After all this time, I figured out how to publish comments. How dumb am I?

Would the U.S. be helped culturally by closing the schools? If 'yes,' what does that imply?

Is a Che Guevara t-shirt like a Charles Manson or a Himmler t-shirt? Should we keep an open mind about them?

Should the Negro League have its name changed?

Chatbots are AI constructions that allow for conversations with machines. You can build your own. A guy built one of his dead fiancée. Apparently, a problem with chatbots is that they die. Is this becoming too weird to talk about?

Was Harris nominated to capture the Left and Blacks for the election? If so, is she the Black and Left Palin?

Does the number of college football games doom us to almost ridiculous commentators?

If freedom is part of man's natural state, where has it been all this time?

Why is Kim Kardashian, who became famous for a sex tape, an entrepreneur, and Melania, who as a model did some sexy stills, a whore? And what happened to the great dignity of sex workers anyway?

Does experience shape truth? So, can truth be personal? If so, is Trump a man of his time?

The gospel last week was of Christ healing the deaf man. Why did he take him aside to do it, why did he 'groan' when he did it, and why did he tell his followers to remain quiet about it when that would be impossible?

Does the college football playoffs just murder the season of a team that has an early loss, despite the team's quality?

On September 1st the House Armed Services Committee joined the Senate Armed Services Committee in voting 35-24 to expand registration for a possible military draft to include young women as well as young men. So there really is no difference between men and women and distinctions are not worth preserving? Or encouraging? Is the idea here that women are sort of smaller men with lower bone densities and hormones no one wants to talk about?

Romance languages have given most nouns genders. (Apparently, Romanian has a lot of gender-neutral nouns.) What can be done to make these nouns more fluid?

 

Question 10

 

Question 10

How has the party of Benghazi and Afghanization avoided being characterized as the party of abandonment?

So, are we saying that we have made arrangements with the Taliban to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a terrorist state?

China has set rules limiting the time children can use cell phones and the internet. Is the China government a better parent?

The Insured Retirement Institute (IRI) conducted a survey earlier this year of nearly 1,000 part-time and full-time employees ages 40 to 73, and found that 51% of them had less than $50,0000 saved for retirement. In the oldest age cohorts studied, one-third of workers ages 62 to 66 have zero in retirement savings, and roughly 20% of 63- to 73-year-old workers have nothing.

So, where do you think they will go for their money to live? Is the distinction between the Americans and the Europeans just a myth?

                             Is this what leadership looks like? 

I was searching for the Babylon Bee take-off of Biden sleeping ('dreams he met Israeli prime minister') when I came on this:

             Taliban Buys Hunter Biden Painting For Presidential Palace

According to Politico, the U.S. gave the Taliban the names of Americans and their Afghan friends they wanted to get out. Was that a good idea?

When I was a kid, I loved the Beat poets. Gregory Curso, Ferlinghetti, Ginzberg. They had a strange style that included the juxtaposition of forms and nature. Curso opened a poem "Radio belly! Cat shovel!" Now, this has become mainstream. How else do you explain "Food Justice?"

Did the planned optics of the 20th anniversary of 9/11 drive the decision for the government to leave Afghanistan the way we did? If so, is that an example of form vs. substance?

 

 In “A History of the English-Speaking Peoples,” Winston Churchill described the Vikings as “salt-water bandits, pirates as shameful as any whom the sea has borne,” even as he lauded “the discipline, the fortitude, the comradeship and martial virtues which made them . . .the most formidable and daring race in the world." Are the Vikings a race?

Are we watching the assumption of diplomatic responsibilities by the administration in our management of the withdrawal from Afghanistan? Should these agreements be approved by congress or is the State Department as a separate entity enough?  Was Biden's interposition worse than Trump's? If Trump is criticized for his negotiations (to protect Biden), will Obama be criticized? 

Covid Statistics
Age Grp    Infection Survival Rate 

0-19         99.997% 

20-29       99.986% 

30-39       99.97% 

40-49       99.92% 

50-59       99.73% 

60-69       99.4% 

70+         (All) 94.5% 

70+         (non-inst.) 97.6%

Are these numbers bad? How do they compare with other diseases?

Harvard’s newest chaplain, Greg Epstein, is an atheist. There are many elements here: it is inclusive, interesting, provocative, challenging. But, is it sensible?

Are you surprised that no military man has resigned over the Afghanistan exit?

Transable: “We define transability as the desire or the need for a person identified as able-bodied by other people to transform his or her body to obtain a physical impairment,” says Alexandre Baril, a Quebec born academic who will present on “transability” at this week’s Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Ottawa. This is a social paper, not a psychiatric one.

Can a culture become so open-minded that it is emptyheaded?

Nearly 2.6 million kids have switched from traditional school to homeschooling since the pandemic began, according to a new report from the Bellwether Education Partners, commissioned by the Walton Family Foundation.
Now the total number of homeschooled kids sits at about 5 million. According to census data, more than 11% of U.S. households are now homeschooling. 11%!!
And it's not just white families who are moving to homeschooling: 9.7% of white families with kids have pulled out of traditional education, as have 12.1% of Hispanic families, 8.8% of Asian families, and 16.1% of Black families.

Weren't we just told that everyone thought that children not going to school was bad for them? Will property taxes go down?

“We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.”--Ann Coulter after 9/11. Crazy, no? But what would older cultures have done with small, hostile nations with leverage against them who presume upon their enemy's kindness? What would Rome or the Greeks have done with the Saudis?

Question 9

Question 9

Can people identify as vaccinated?

People always try to create insightful questions that subdivide people and their thinking. My question to separate modern people into two social/political groups: Do you think that James Longstreet could be U.S. Grant's best man at his wedding?

The Pirates have fired their hitting coach. Should they bring Polanco back now that there will be a new coach?

Is it true that people of color do not fly as often as white people? If true, should white people be restricted from flying? And should people of color be forced to fly?

Is this a man's world? A white world? When all of Japan was living under the Shogunate, what kind of world was that?

The Secretary of the Navy said the Primary Mission of the Navy, in order, was 1. China 2. Culture 3. Climate 4. Covid. Is that, on its surface, one of the dumbest things you have ever heard?

The adjectives to describe the Pirates are legion but there is one that is the main branch feeding all others: insincerity. From their sappy, virtue-signaling charity to their fraud of development to their current emphasis on minor leaguers to their pretense of fielding a competitive team, they drip mendacity. They are already the symbol of American politics; are they the future of business too?

Is anyone watching the Paralympics? Are impaired performances entertaining?

Are ESG self-imposed social credits?

The same day at least 12 U.S. service members, including 10 U.S. Marines, were killed in a terror attack in Afghanistan, Vice media ran a story titled, “Why Are So Many Marines Neo-Nazis?”

Pediatricians and other health care workers are suing the Biden administration over a mandate tied to health care which would, according to the suit, require medical professionals to provide gender-related services and surgeries despite objections, medical or otherwise.
Objections, even to treating children, would be considered “discrimination,” pursuant to Biden’s reinterpretation of sex to include sexual orientation and “gender identity.”
So, is medical judgment a construct?

Last year, 2020, saw about the same number of deaths per 100,000 people as 2008 in Great Britain. So, how come the rate isn't higher because of Covid?

The truth about Nazism and the Holocaust is that they came from Western civilization, from its best as from its worst, from academic positivism itself as much as from irrationalism.--McCloskey.
The dictionary definition of positivism is:
1. a philosophical system that holds that every rationally justifiable assertion can be scientifically verified or is capable of logical or mathematical proof, and that therefore rejects metaphysics and theism.
2. the theory that laws are to be understood as social rules, valid because they are enacted by authority or derive logically from existing decisions, and that ideal or moral considerations (e.g., that a rule is unjust) should not limit the scope or operation of the law.
Well, that's all neat and tidy, isn't it?

Does the remark about positivism above make you feel any better about Critical Race Theory?

Klein writes, "sweden has one of the most aggressive covid counting methodologies in the world. they tested a lot and then called any death for any reason within 30 days of a positive covid test a covid death.
get sick, recover, get hit by a bus? covid death"
Cuts a lot of messy judgment out, doesn't it?

A police officer is 375 times as likely to be killed by a black suspect as an unarmed black is to be killed by a police officer. So is one group disproportionately vulnerable? And if the confrontational risk is arbitrary, is it arbitrary for both subsets or just one?

Counties with larger Trump margins have lower vaccination rates. However, not all counties are the same. For example, Loving County (TX) voted 90% for Trump. It also has 64 people as of the 2020 census. Meanwhile, Los Angeles County (the most populous in America) voted 75% for Biden.
Is this stuff meaningful?

North Korean nuclear reactor is up and running. Why wouldn't the Chinese be really worried about these guys?

A former mistress of JFK has an article in Vanity Fair about the "specialness" confirmed with affairs with the powerful. Can 'specialness' be caught? Is it venereal?

Is Larry Elder being hailed by the Left as a "ceiling breaker" and a "pioneer?"