Devils

The Devils

'Know thyself,' a wry oracle once said.

Dostoyevsky was and is the master of the introspective. If Tolstoy is the cartographer of man's world, Dostoyevsky is its spelunker. The Devils is overwhelming--even its title is debatable-- a blizzard of people, motives, histories, personalities, action, and contemplation that threatens to be reducible to a Rorschach Test. It is so ambitious that many aspects can be isolated and analyzed individually with great satisfaction. Male-female, liberal-radical, nationalism-internationalism, pagan-Christian,  theistic-atheistic, landed-serf, rules vs. convictions are just a few of the numerous, rewarding, symmetrical oppositions of moral and social doppelgangers that Dostoyevsky somehow organizes in this story.

Dostoyevsky loved Dickens. And he loved the gothic. Indeed this novel was originally published as a serial. The contemporary setting was the death of a radical Russian revolutionary, murdered by his fellows who thought him an informer. Dostoyevsky saw this as emblematic of the social unrest simmering in Russia where, in a godless, Western-drenched world, the only constraint on personal behavior is cowardice.

The book opens with a gathering of the clans as people with no love or respect for each other try to unify for some poorly articulated greater purpose. Unsettled youth, dedicated revolutionaries, flint-eyed anarchists, soothing liberals, random lunatics and morons, settled aristocracy, optimistic gospel-sellers, all converge upon the small town. The chickens coming home to roost. Complex personal dynamics, cruel ambitions, nihilism, the new Western science, cold-hearted manipulations, rumors and partial truths all marinate until they flare into a conflagration of murders, deaths, and the destruction of the town to, amazingly, little resolution. In all of this, the foolishness, insincerity, ignorance, pretense, and shallowness give the horror a savage human comedy. Drama is driven by melodrama. Thoughtful battles can be silly among the spiritually unarmed.

Everyone is ridiculed--except for Stavrogin. There is nothing funny about Stavrogin. He is introduced as a prince, a man of physical and intellectual distinction, loved both for his potential and his fearlessness to act upon his emotions. He is Prince Hall, poised at the edge of his metamorphosis. But when we meet him he is far past that. The edge has become a precipice. Hal is a wastrel; Stavrogen is a killer. What he doesn't destroy, he seduces--or rapes.

One wonders if the entire story could be told without Stavrogen. The social and political conflicts, the progression from foolishness to craziness, the hopelessness of mere change, the destructive force of soullessness, the chaos of weaponized shallowness, the conversion of Stepan--all could be achieved, self-contained, without Stavrogin, who broods amid the action, often off-stage, like a brutal Hamlet.

But, as Dostoyevsky wrote, Stavrogin is the center of the novel. He personalizes the story's cold, unmotivated squid of a being with touch everywhere but no soul. No belief, no fire. An emptiness beyond effort or rationalization, that cannot be escaped in Switzerland.

There is a terrible moment when the reader sees the direction here. Wandering in his desert, Stavrogin is offered everything by an evil one. He can be a hero; he can marry Liza. All that has to happen is the Lame Girl must die. The reader's heart leaps with hope. Perhaps Stavrogin will see the horror he is unleashing. Perhaps he will intervene and the Lame Girl--and he--will be saved. No such luck. He pays The Convict and runs off for a night with Liza.  Consistent and soulless to the end.

But Stavrogin is anything but a superman. He is brave and honest in facing a godless world but there is something wrong with Stavrogin, something that gives him nightmares and visions of the violated child, something strangely optimistic that Darya sees when she says she can not save him with her love but will be his nurse. There is an element in him that is inexplicable and Dostoyevsky is willing to accept it. The author is willing to accept a mystery in his major character! Stavrogin is intellectually able to live in a godless world but his basic nature will not let him. Bravery and honesty are not enough. Somewhere in him was--or is--a good, responsible element that he has no access to. And it haunts him. When he finally kills himself, he is not insane. And he is not sorry.

Oates wrote a good commentary on the novel and included this terrific section from Troilus and Cressida. Ulysses is looking at the Greek camp that is roiled with dissension and says,

The specialty of rule hath been neglected;

And look, how many Grecian tents do stand
Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions.
When that the general is not like the hive
To whom the foragers shall all repair,
What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded,
Th’ unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask.
The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre
Observe degree, priority, and place,
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office, and custom, in all line of order;
. . .
But when the planets
In evil mixture to disorder wander
What plagues, and what portents, what mutiny,
What raging of the sea, shaking of earth,
Commotion— in the winds, frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate
The unity and married calm of states
Quite from their fixture! 0, when degree is shak’d,
Which is the ladder to all high designs,
The enterprise is sick.
. . .
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And hark what discord follows. Each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores
And make a sop of all this solid globe;
Strength should be lord of imbecility,
And the rude son should strike his father dead;
Force should be right, or rather, right and wrong—
Between whose endless jar justice resides—
Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then every thing includes itself in power,
Power into will, will into appetite,
And appetite, an universal wolf,
So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce an universal prey
And last eat up himself.

Ulysses Act I, Scene iii in Troilus and Cressida

Know thyself? Art is to reveal. But as, Tiresias says to Oedipus, "Don't look too far, you might find yourself."

On a political level, Devils is quite resilient; Rules for Radicals apparently don't change much. 

And it is still provocative. A few possible questions:

Does indulgence by liberals lead to radicalism? 

The Point of View, First Person, is violated in countless ways. Why does it seem to make no difference?

The West seems to be a decompression chamber for the radicals. It is said that radicalism has its home in the West and they have some comfort there. If so, why is America so hostile to the two immigrants? And why does the Lame Girl specifically refuse to leave her native Russia?

Is The Lame Girl from the earth, like an oracle? As such, is her violation suicidal? Oats thought that. Does she have a divine possession?

Are women calming and protective in the bulls' corral or are they ineffective?

What is the function of Mavriky?

Why does Darla receive the last testaments of two dying men?

And, finally, what is the real diagnosis of 'brain fever?'

Sunday/Naaman

Sunday/Naaman

Today's gospel is the "Prophet in his own land" gospel. This is a great one-liner: foreignness and mystery help influence people and familiarity undermines authority. It would seem this is a bit self-deprecating, as if there was a geographic component of God and his message. But Christ is talking about the audience and how familiarity has softened the religious sensitivity of Isreal. He then makes it worse by bringing up the story of Naaman.

The story of Elisha, Naaman, and Gehazi in the Old Testament is one of those hand-grenade stories that gets more disturbing the closer you get to it. In essence, Elisha, the Israel prophet, cures Naaman, the enemy general, of leprosy, and Elisha's servant, Gehazi, takes financial advantage of it. Shakespearian, in a way. But Christ says, 'why Naaman and not all the widows and orphans of Israel with leprosy?' He's saying that God's message is not tribal. So the crowd chased him out of town and tried to kill him.

Tribalism is old and new with rare interregnum. And people want to keep it, not escape it. But it is hard to keep a universal vision your own.

SatStats

SatStats

Asian-American share of the US college-aged population doubled over the course of 30 years but their share of Ivy League enrollment remained completely flat

Now, if you wanted to really worry, this includes Asian non-citizens.

Curious. This does not distinguish when they became millionaires.

Unmasking Masking

Unmasking Masking

Vinay Prasad is a hematologist-oncologist, associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco, and author of Malignant: How Bad Policy and Bad Evidence Harm People with Cancer. This is culled from a recent article by her on masks and the Virus.

"This isn’t a matter of protecting children, their teachers, or their grandparents; it’s delusional and dangerous cultlike behavior.

When it comes to masking kids in schools, the global scientific community has launched no such studies during the pandemic.

If it works, it merely delays an inevitable brush with COVID, and is therefore unnecessary; if it doesn’t work (and the impossibility of children maintaining a proper fit and seal for hours on end suggests it can’t), it is simply a piece of public health theater whose side-effects are likely to be severe, and is therefore unnecessary.

A (pre-vaccine!) analysis from Germany shows that if a child is infected with COVID—with or without preexisting conditions—there is an 8 in 100,000 chance of going to the intensive care unit. According to the same study, the risk of death is 3 in 1 million, with no deaths reported in the over-5 age group. These risks are astonishingly low.

In all of human history, we have never masked so many children for so many hours a day for so many years. As such, we have very little data from which to draw lessons. We simply do not know the long-term impacts of this evidence-free intervention.

While the assertion is often made that masking kids is a form of unselfish behavior—and that those who oppose it are the real selfish ones because they put others at risk—the data appears to support the opposite conclusion.

Masking is now little more than an appealing delusion.

But most of the masks worn by most kids for most of the pandemic have likely done nothing to change the velocity or trajectory of the virus. The loss to children remains difficult to capture in hard data, but will likely become clear in the years to come.

Less forgivable is the decision we’ve made as a society to shift the anxieties of adults onto the youngest members of society, who count on us to defend their interests before our own.

While we purportedly do it to protect other age groups, empirical analysis suggests, for instance, that school closures in a given community have done nothing to slow the spread among the elderly in the same community.

When the history books are written, we will not look wise or kind for insisting that kids and toddlers wear masks for hours on end, year after year, without ever testing this policy with controlled trials. We will look ignorant, cruel, fearful, and cowardly. We might even look worse than our primitive ancestors who, when faced with great plagues, engaged in all sorts of bizarre, superstitious behavior—but which rarely included making kids suffer most." 

(This is not continuous; it is excerpted.)

This opinion will not be picked up right away because it attacks a basic human--and particularly Progressive--myth: the ability we have to assess problems with clarity and the scientific righteousness of good ideas.

Eventually, this opinion will bleed into the popular press and the pronouncements of the government over the next while will morph and become the new gospel, with all opposing positions ridiculed and blamed on Trump.

So, in the middle of the Hate Season, as crowds gather to denounce Eurasia, the elites switch our enemy to Eastasia.

 

Faking the Government Tug-of-War

 

Faking the Government Tug-of-War

Most of the changes in this country over the last years are attributed to 'The Virus,' when those changes are actually the result of the government's assumption of power in response to it.

There is a growing sense that those who have been managing the social controls during Covid--and those reporting on it--are reluctant to let it go. It is in some respects, reasonable. Politicians bathing in the glow of power, the press maintaining better ratings; self-importance all around.

But what about the other side, the citizen on the receiving end of novel vaccines and social and commercial shutdowns? Some of those people have been damaged forever. Are they reassessing the damage done to them and others? Are they beginning to resent the obvious panic that the government and the bureaucrats slid into? After all, this is the land of the free and home of the brave.

The Telegraph‘s American-born columnist Janet Daley:
"What is becoming alarmingly clear is how many people welcomed this assumption of unprecedented state power.

The inescapable conclusion is that there is, at the deepest level of human consciousness, a totalitarian impulse which is beyond the reach of rational argument or moral conscience. The desire to be taken care of, to have decisions taken out of one’s hands, to be relieved of the responsibility for making choices is an ineradicable feature of our condition which has been exploited by every dictatorship in history."

So maybe the Founders misread us. Maybe the insatiable lust for power and influence is not simply grasped by those who would lead us. Maybe the control of our lives is eagerly surrendered to them by people who do not want the burden and uncertainty of freedom, people who are not so brave.

MedSpeak

MedSpeak

The American Medical Association’s Advancing Health Equity: A Guide to Language, Narrative, and Concepts has been published. It answers a number of unasked questions.

The guide condemns several “dominant narratives” in medicine. One is the “narrative of individualism,” and its misbegotten corollary, the notion that health is a personal responsibility. A more “equitable narrative,” the guide instructs, would “expose the political roots underlying apparently ‘natural’ economic arrangements, such as property rights, market conditions, gentrification, oligopolies, and low wage rates.”

They have suggestions. They are not yet mandatory. One the AMA recommends is “equity explicit” language. Instead of “individuals,” doctors should say “survivors”; instead of “marginalized communities,” they should say, “groups that are struggling against economic marginalization.” We must also be clear that “people are not vulnerable, they are made vulnerable.” Accordingly, we should replace the statement, “Low-income people have the highest level of coronary artery disease,” with “People underpaid and forced into poverty as a result of banking policies, real estate developers gentrifying neighborhoods, and corporations weakening the power of labor movements, among others, have the highest level of coronary artery disease.” te medical record will presumably be longer but more accurate.

This kind of propaganda, advancing a social/economic view at the expense of any logic or self-consciousness, will be met with caution only. No one will arise to challenge this; no one will want to appear on the right side of an unarguably lopsided argument. Stranger, how does an opinion like this emerge to speak for a medical population that certainly is overwhelmingly opposed to it? 

Question 40

Question 40

The Russians are filling supply depots outside Ukraine. If they staff MASH units, they will probably go.

One of the interesting conclusions that a citizen might make with all the Voters Rights/Rules controversy is the unspoken suggestion that the current Constitutional right to vote is actually beyond the government's ability to enforce. If that is true, why would new local rules make a difference?

49% of poll respondents say Biden is doing more to divide the country, and only 42% see him as unifying it. How do those 42% think?

And, regarding voter ID, a Monmouth poll this year found that 80 percent of Americans support voter ID requirements and only 18 percent oppose them. That’s not a new finding. In 2016, Gallup also found that 4 in 5 Americans support voter ID requirements, including 77 percent of nonwhite voters. An aside; who would oppose them?

“Black Americans, compared with any other racial group, have come the greatest distance, over some of the highest hurdles, in a shorter period of time. This unprecedented progress can be verified …if one were to total black earnings and consider black Americans a separate nation, he would find that, in 2008, they earned $726 billion.” That's the late Walter Williams. 

I'm not sure that comparing that improvement, starting from so low, is actually fair but the success certainly is impressive.

Last year, via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the Cato Institute discovered that the FBI had opened an investigation into Concerned Women for America in the absence of any kind of criminal predicate. (The group's stated purpose is to "protect and promote Biblical values and Constitutional principles through prayer, education, and advocacy.") 

Sounds like a rough group.

A Pigouvian tax, named after 1920 British economist Arthur C. Pigou, is a tax on a market transaction that creates a negative externality, or an additional cost, borne by individuals not directly involved in the transaction. Examples include tobacco taxes, sugar taxes, and carbon taxes. 

So you legislate the inside to control the outside.

Science and the economy share an aversion for direction and control. You can advance technology with focus and money but not knowledge or the random progress of innovation.

A short talk by Ridley on the Virus: Virus:https://twitter.com/i/status/1481715983693885440

A good summary of the universe of the Virus from O'Neil:
And what about the culture of freedom? Forget, for a moment, the way our legally guaranteed liberties were put on ice during this crisis. That was bad, no question. But a more injurious if sometimes intangible process was taking place alongside this temporary unwinding of our rights. The culture of freedom was undermined. The individual self-confidence and social trust that freedom depends upon, which freedom cannot exist without, was pummelled, day in, day out. We were educated to distrust others, to distrust ourselves. People are vectors of disease, the messaging went, not fellow citizens in the cause of the common good. Your friends, your neighbours, your colleagues, they will infect you. They’re bad for you, and you are bad for them. That was the propagandistic menace through which lockdown was maintained. Anyone who thinks that such weaponised distrust will not have consequences beyond the crisis itself is kidding themselves. You cannot sow suspicion, tear citizen from citizen and criminalise community life and then expect everything to be hunky-dory once you say: ‘Right, back to normal!’ The beast of fear is easy to unleash, but rather more difficult to heel.

In France, President Emmanuel Macron gave an interview with Le Parisien on January 4. In this interview, he categorized the unvaccinated as non-citizens, referred to their “lies and stupidity” as the “worst enemies” of democracy, and proclaimed “I really want to piss [the unvaccinated] off.” Macron argued these unvaccinated persons to be only “a very small minority who are resisting,” and asked a chilling question: “How do we reduce that minority?”--McBrady

I dunno. Small-arms fire?

Sinema

Sinema

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz. refused to vote in favor of changing Senate rules to enact 'voting rights' legislation on Wednesday. The openly bisexual senator underwent unprecedented criticism from her base.

Emily’s List — a women’s rights group that supports female Democratic candidates and was the largest contributor to Sinema’s 2018 Senate campaign — and abortion rights group NARAL pulled their support from her. Living United for Change in Arizona and Stand up America, compared her actions to the likes of staunch segregationist George Wallace. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has suggested that he’d support primary challengers against her.

Major LGBTQ advocacy groups — which are normally united on advancing a progressive agenda — have been divided in their response to the openly bisexual senator’s actions this week.

“I’m saddened, I’m heartbroken, I’m frustrated,” said Kierra Johnson, executive director of advocacy group the National LGBTQ Task Force. “Senator Sinema was someone that we grew to love — and grew to trust and experienced as a champion who walked side by side with us — so it feels extra painful to not see her exercise her full power to ensure that queer people and poor people and Black folks have full access to participating in our democracy through the right to vote.”

Amending the Senate’s filibuster rule would have allowed the Democrats to pass legislation without any Republican support. And although the Arizona senator has voiced support for the new voting rights bill, her refusal to change the Senate filibuster rule, along with that of Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., effectively killed it.

Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and CEO of LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD, said Sinema’s actions this week “won’t be forgotten.”

“Senator Sinema turned her back on LGBTQ voters and all marginalized people who helped put her in office hoping she’d represent and protect their voices,” she said in an email.

LPAC — a political action group that is dedicated to electing queer women to political office — threatened to follow in the footsteps of Emily’s List and NARAL, stripping Sinema of its endorsement.


The Arizona Democratic Party Saturday formally censured Sen. Krysten Sinema, D-Ariz., for refusing to roll back the Senate filibuster in order to pass major voting rights reforms.
"I want to be clear, the Arizona Democratic Party is a diverse coalition with plenty of room for policy disagreements, however...(nonsense follows)..." Arizona Democratic Party Chair Raquel Terán said in a statement.

Remember by 'voting rights reform,' they mean voting 'rules.' There is no suggestion--even with the confusion of 'rights' with 'rules'--that somewhere in the land there are voting rules aimed at excluding the gay community from voting. Sen. Sinema is being beaten from the fort despite her credentials.

Clearly, the 'identity' component is more narrow than even she thought. There is a deeper nature that the group sees or feels that trumps all those elements she thought were uniting.

So...what does this mean for the future of identity politics? Is lock-step voting actually more integral to the 'identity' than the gender or racial 'identity' is?

Maybe the 'identity' obsession will have as shallow an impact as it is a concept.

Sunday/Theophilus

Sunday/Theophilus

It is the beginning of "Ordinary Time" in the Church. There is something funny about that. The Old Testament reading is a long review of the history of Israel and reads like history of Man with war, slavery, abuse and resilient recovery. The average guy stumbles through his life in the Old Testament as the Sport of Kings.

Then the New Testament arrives.

The Gospel is the opening of Luke's letter to the "most excellent Theophilus" (Lover of God). After explaining that he is writing down the results of his research into the life of Christ, Luke writes of Christ's initial entry into his public life (presumably after his mother pushes him into a miracle at the marriage at Cana.) This is what Luke writes after Christ in the synagogue opens a scroll of the writings of the prophet Isaiah:

He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written:
'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. 

He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.'
Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down,
and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him.
He said to them,
"Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing."

Laconic. The world's shortest sermon. And hardly the beginning of "Ordinary Times."

Rules Vs. Rights

Rules Vs. Rights

The Voting Rights Bill that Biden so viciously supported in Georgia is really a voting 'rules' bill; it addresses how voting is held, not who is eligible. Who is eligible is written in the Constitution and it would be illegal to deprive those people qualifying of the right to vote. Those people do not need clarification. The question of voting process, as to whether voting is held on a day or a month or with ID or not, seems reasonable to ask. 

As always, the debate's underlying component is sincerity.

There are problems here. The Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL) and The Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR) passed a staggering $419.5 million of Zuckerberg’s money into local government elections offices, and it came with strings attached. Every CTCL and CEIR grant spelled out in great detail the conditions under which the grant money was to be used. Those are non-partisan election positions flooded with partisan money and ideologues.

What is good for a political party may not be good for the country.

In his presser this week Biden was asked about the Democrats’ new election bill. He said if it was not passed, the 2022 midterm elections “easily could be illegitimate.” This again shows how Trump was not the outlier many claim. This is identical to the disruptive, divisive, undermining that Trump was accused of in the last election. You can count on these politicians to be similar. They are all the same species regardless of appearance or protective coloring. They are all the same.

Do you get the feeling that the concern that the public wants to skewer elections is exactly the obverse and it's the government that wants to? Which is to say, do you think that the government is trying to protect itself from the democratic process?

Question 39

Question 39

Dr. Jordan Peterson has resigned from his tenured post at the University of Toronto. because "inclusion is demolishing education and business." His article in the National Post is worth the read, if you can get past the screaming.

“[a] nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”--JFK

Over the past three years, dozens of cities across the country have banned natural gas hookups in newly constructed buildings as part of a growing campaign to reduce carbon emissions from homes. This was done on ethical and scientific rationale; no--or probably not too many or certainly not countless--lobbyists were involved. So they switch to electric, which will come from...? And, as always, we will pay the extra price.

The essence of Capitalism is trade for mutual advantage. If the balance of trade is skewered toward the consumer, you have socialism and eventual collapse. If it is skewered away from the consumer to the sole advantage of the producer, you have the Pittsburgh Pirates. Note that both distortions result in shortages of quality.

The challenge of learning to live with Covid was always going to be that many ordinary people don’t want to feel the sacrifices they made—and supported at the time—were in vain. This very important point was raised by the WSJ.

Fauci’s wife Christine Grady is head of bioethics for the National Institutes of Health, so don't worry.

Nearly half (48%) of Democratic voters think federal and state governments should be able to fine or imprison individuals who publicly question the efficacy of the existing COVID-19 vaccines on social media, television, radio, or in online or digital publications. Only 27% of all voters – including just 14% of Republicans and 18% of unaffiliated voters – favor criminal punishment of vaccine critics.

Are they saying they want to criminalize dissension? If so, how many things are so well proven that opposition is criminal? Would they consider, say, dialectic materialism or the 1619 project as so obviously true as to demand suppression of dissent?

If Relativity and Quantum Theory are incompatible, can we always follow the science?

Peggy Noonan wrote, on Biden's Georgia speech: 'The speech itself was aggressive, intemperate, not only offensive but meant to offend. It seemed prepared by people who think there is only the Democratic Party in America, that’s it, everyone else is an outsider who can be disparaged.'
What the speech implied was that there was a true, core political position that could be opposed only by stupid or malicious outliers, people who deserved only venom. Deplorables. A party afraid of the people. See above.

A Wonder in Wonderland

A Wonder in Wonderland

Everyone looks for inflection points, moments in their lives, their families, their culture when things seem to peak and moments recede into new moments, the current hesitates before changing. The last snowflake before the avalanche. This might be one of those moments.

Here is a portion of a speech given recently, quoted in Jordan Peterson's article explaining why he resigned from his tenured position at the University of Toronto.

“The advocates of so-called so-called ‘social progress’ believe they are introducing humanity to some kind of a new and better consciousness. Godspeed, hoist the flags, as we say, go right ahead. The only thing that I want to say now is that their prescriptions are not new at all. It may come as a surprise to some people, but Russia has been there already. After the 1917 revolution, the Bolsheviks, relying on the dogmas of Marx and Engels, also said that they would change existing ways and customs, and not just political and economic ones, but the very notion of human morality and the foundations of a healthy society. The destruction of age-old values, religion, and relations between people, up to and including the total rejection of family (we had that, too), encouragement to inform on loved ones — all this was proclaimed progress and, by the way, was widely supported around the world back then and was quite fashionable, same as today. By the way, the Bolsheviks were absolutely intolerant of opinions other than theirs.

This, I believe, should call to mind some of what we are witnessing now. Looking at what is happening in a number of Western countries, we are amazed to see the domestic practices — which we, fortunately, have left, I hope — in the distant past. The fight for equality and against discrimination has turned into aggressive dogmatism bordering on absurdity, when the works of the great authors of the past — such as Shakespeare — are no longer taught at schools or universities, because their ideas are believed to be backward. The classics are declared backward and ignorant of the importance of gender or race. In Hollywood, memos are distributed about proper storytelling and how many characters of what color or gender should be in a movie. This is even worse than the agitprop department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.”

This is from Anna Mahjar-Barducci at MEMRI.org translation of this speech, recently given by.....wait for it....Vladimir Putin! Vlad the Impaler thinks the modern western thinking in society is 'bordering on absurdity,' worse than the old Central Committee agitprop.

Alice is stunned.

Voldemort One

Voldemort One

Russia continues to dominate the media's small mind. But the huge nation has moved from a dangerous philosophy to a stunted, grasping kleptocracy and can initiate world instability only through overreaction by the adults. The question is, why do they remain so prominent? Even the ludicrous Steele Dosier put the Russians in cahoots with the Big Bad Man. Why would such a minor threat to the U.S. and the world be taken so seriously? We are not worried about them enough to attack their commercial gas success in Europe, which would seriously harm them. We even have facilitated their success through our self-harming petroleum policies. What is going on here? Are the Russians really the sum of all our fears? And, if they are, why do we seemingly support them?

There is an argument that little in this world exceeds money and PR. That alone can explain much of what and who the culture sees as significant. Social media is the thesis commercialized.

If, on the other hand, you decided that the Russians were a simple distraction, who would you imagine the magician to be?

Rhymes with Angina.

Questions 38

 

Questions 38

The 'Voting Rights' debate may come to an end soon. There is a big difference between 'voting rights' and 'voting rules.' Confusing them purposely could be seen as dishonest.

'Who, or what, is served by contending that it is impossible to know the true motive of a gunman who attacks a synagogue and takes hostages and demands the release of a convicted al-Qaeda operative? Why is it so vertoben to say “jihadism” or “support for al-Qaeda and Islamist terror groups”? Why were authorities so reluctant to say antisemitism was a motive, as if the gunman had chosen to target a synagogue at random?'--National Review on the Dallas hostage event

Chris Evert has an early-stage ovarian cancer, with chemo a 10% relapse rate. Her sister, Jeanne Evert Dubin, also a professional tennis player, died of ovarian cancer in February 2020 at age 62.

The U.S. Embassy was attacked with drones and mortars 3 days ago. Did you see that reported?

Pregnant People Are Still Not Getting Vaccinated Against Covid--wired headline

Pregnant People

Djokovic has had Covid. That is the best immunization you can get. So...is the state objection to him that he raises a health threat or is he a threat to committed, erroneous messaging by the state? Those are two quite divergent motives.

 

One of the elements in the effort to nationalize state and local elections is the subsidy of candidates with tax dollars. Think about that. The system would pay for these...people...to participate.

'Sex Reassignment Surgery' is officially offensive and not used by any medical center. The approved term is 'gender-affirming.'
Of the 1700 patients in the NYU transgender program, 1/3 have had surgery.

Harris was picked specifically for her appeal to a segment of voters. So was Palin.

If your throat has viral colonization, is a mask a 'rebreather?'

Criminals have stolen close to $100 billion in pandemic relief funds, the U.S. Secret Service said Tuesday.
The stolen funds were diverted by fraudsters from the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program, the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, and another program.

If your cause is true, then is anything that advances your cause true? If so, what is the antonym of 'true?' (see 1619)

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced Thursday that people should avoid cruise travel regardless of their vaccination status after an increase in COVID-19 cases on cruise lines in recent days.
When did the CDC grow an executive arm?

Germany is turning off their nuclear power plants in the middle of a power shortage. Think about that.

Are the people who scorn Melania for her nude shots the same people who champion 'sex workers?'

An international team of scientists, led by the University of Cambridge, has reassessed the age of the Omo I remains found in Ethiopia in the late 1960s. Earlier attempts to date the homo sapien fossils suggested they were less than 200,000 years old, but the new research shows they must be older than a colossal volcanic eruption that took place 230,000 years ago. The results are reported in the journal Nature.  

Pittsburgh police will no longer be able to conduct traffic stops for minor, secondary violations.
City Council on Tuesday approved legislation banning such traffic stops, despite calls from residents and one councilman for a public hearing ahead of a vote on the measure.
The legislation, introduced by Councilman Ricky Burgess in early November, will stop police from pulling over drivers for having a burned-out brake light or headlight or having an improperly placed license plate or temporary tag, as long as it is visible. Officers would not be allowed to initiate a traffic stop because of a registration, inspection sticker, or emissions sticker that is expired by less than two months.
Council members supporting the legislation have said it will address a disproportionate number of traffic stops involving people of color.

China owns 55% of the rare earth minerals and controls 85% of refining. Rare earth minerals are essential to EVs.

Now what kind of American/free world leader would allow that to happen?

In seeking to appease Moscow, what about Washington's commitment to the 1994 Budapest Memorandum? That commits the US, as well as other allies such as the UK and France, to safeguard Ukraine's territorial integrity in return for dismantling its Soviet-era nuclear weapons arsenal.

When the Criteria is Ideology

 

When the Criteria is Ideology

Justice Sotomayor may be on the brink of dissolving into a nice old lady. This is from a Reason article on the recent constitutional question of the Biden vaccine mandate:

'On Friday, when the Supreme Court considered whether it should block enforcement of the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for private employers, most of the discussion focused on whether the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has the statutory authority to issue that rule. But the justices and lawyers also touched on a constitutional argument against the mandate, one that hinges on the distinction between state and federal powers.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor claimed not to understand this distinction.

OSHA’s “emergency temporary standard” (ETS), which it published on November 5, demands that companies with 100 or more employees require them to be vaccinated or wear face masks and submit to weekly virus testing. While arguing that OSHA does not have the power to issue such an order, Ohio Solicitor General Benjamin Flowers said “there may be many states, subject to their own state laws, that could impose this [policy] themselves.” Sotomayor said she found that concession puzzling.

“If it’s within the police power to protect the health and welfare of workers,” she said, “you seem to be saying the states can do it, but you’re saying the federal government can’t, even though it’s facing the same crisis in interstate commerce that states are facing within their own borders. I’m not sure I understand the distinction—why the states would have the power but the federal government wouldn’t.”

Flowers noted that “the federal government has no police power”—the general authority to enact legislation aimed at protecting public health, safety, morals, and welfare. While states retain that broad authority under the Constitution, the federal government is limited to specifically enumerated powers. This principle is reflected in the 10th Amendment, which says “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
…..
Sotomayor’s reference to a federal “police power” was not quite as striking as her false claims about the omicron variant’s impact on children. But her exchange with Flowers raised some eyebrows.

“Sotomayor professed not to be able to understand the distinction between federal authority and state police powers,” National Review‘s Isaac Schorr wrote. “Sotomayor claims not to understand [the] distinction between state and federal power,” Ilya Shapiro, director of the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, tweeted. “Mind-boggling. Calls OSHA’s regulatory authority…a ‘police power.’ OH SG tries to explain con law 101, eventually, Roberts rescues the embarrassing discourse.”'

Why are these demanding positions, so crucial to the democracy, so hard to fill with able people?

Sunday/Cana

Sunday/Cana

Today's gospel is The Marriage at Cana, a truly funny story. Christ is at a wedding where they run out of wine. His mother prods him to intervene. He says 'my time has not yet come,' and she ignores him, telling the servants to do what he says.

We don't know much about Christ's young life but, after the Annunciation, Mary certainly knew something really big was going on. Did he cut onions from across the room? Did neighbors bring him wounds and fractures? Was he impossible to wrestle with? You get the impression that Christ is having moments with his mother saying, "Aw, mom, I can't do that. Not yet."

The subtlety here is there is a plan, a blueprint laid out for Christ to follow and develop. Divine plans, for the religious, at least, should be very reassuring. But it also is true that the plan is not written in stone. People count.

The next point is that his mother ignored his protests. And she knew he would accommodate her, and the family. I have little knowledge of comparative religions but I'll bet human beings rewarded for ignoring the Godhead in religious literature is rare. What are we to make of this? The power of intercession? A wry, beleaguered God? Maybe a more tender and intimate God than expected. It certainly puts Mary in a different light.

The third point is the wine was good. Quality was emphasized. In the vast cosmos, that's a human element. It always seems that this moment in the gospel, Christ steps away from humanity to do a 'trick' when most of the event is as human as Christ gets.

Dying in Darkness

Dying in Darkness

Sometimes, in clandestine conflict, true colors fly.

The Russians are said to be setting up their own troops in Ukraine disguised as Ukrainian troops to initiate outbreaks of violence against local Russians. This will allow the Russian troops on the border to enter and attack Ukraine to 'save the day.' This raising of an incident by your own agents, so you can respond to it, is called a 'false flag' operation, a time-honored surreptitious and dishonest way to justify violence against a people.

The Department of Education asked for--solicited--a letter from a local school board stating that parents' behavior at a meeting frightened them and asking for help. The Board of Education received the letter and forwarded it to the Department of Justice for further, aggressive response.

Are these two episodes similar? Does the Department of Education look like the Russians? Does the group of parents look like Ukraine? Does the Department of Justice look like the Red Army?

If any of these comparisons are fair, are you scared to death?

Energy, and the Lack Thereof

 

Energy, and the Lack Thereof

The energy non-debate contains several elements that we used to call 'strategic.' First is the availability of components and the second is who provides them.

Germany consumes the most natural gas of any EU country, the majority of which comes from Russia. 77% of natural gas exports from Russia’s Gazprom go to the EU. Of the over €286 billion worth of natural gas imported by the EU from Not Free countries between 2005 and 2019, almost €165.3 billion worth, or nearly 58%, came from Russia. In an act that might be called a suicidal gesture by others, Germany recently decided to shutter three of its six nuclear power plants in the middle of winter.

The Americans have cut back on petroleum exploration and refining to the degree they have gone from net exporter to net importer. Like Germany's weird nuclear decision, they have done this on purpose.

China controls about 85% of global cobalt supply, including an offtake agreement with Glencore, the largest producer of the mineral.

According to the International Energy Agency, China processes about 90% of the world’s rare earth elements, along with 50 to 70% of lithium and cobalt.

The United States is 100% import-reliant on 13 of the 35 critical minerals the Department of the Interior has classified. They include manganese, graphite and rare earths. According to Market Intelligence data, the majority of critical minerals imported during the second quarter of 2021 came from South Africa (41.4%), with 7.9% shipped from China.

In a world that still runs on oil, how free are Western nations, when they depend on the good graces of places like Russia, Algeria and Saudi Arabia, for their oil and gas?

And, in the strangely planned post-petroleum world, how independent will the U.S. be when they are wholly dependent upon the kindness of China for the basic materials of EV?

Question 37

 

Question 37

There is talk about Hilary getting another run at the presidency. Trump, Biden, now Hilary. When did the White House turn into a halfway house?

A minister, a priest, and a rabbit walk into a blood bank to give blood, and the nurse at the reception desk asks each of them what their blood type is. ‘I’m pretty sure I’m a Type O,’ says the rabbit.

Social outrage plus political ambition is a heat-seeking missile that no longer seeks heat. Biden gave a powerful speech in Atlanta attacking a non-problem. His target was 'Jim Crow 2.0,' clever and impactful unless you thought about it. The notion is having any rules and defined times about voting are inherently discriminatory. The ideas here are getting hard to follow as non-citizens are apparently going to be allowed to vote in New York. That seems to make the selection process very thin and hard to abuse.

According to a new paper, at least three compounds naturally occurring in the cannabis plant were shown in lab tests to be effective at stopping coronavirus molecules from entering human cells. The mechanism effectively mimics the activity of antibodies.

. . . There are endless profiles of people who have become billionaires by starting crypto exchanges, trading platforms, market makers, derivatives businesses, etc. (Meanwhile I have never read a profile of someone who became a billionaire by using crypto to solve any problem other than trading more crypto) . . .(Levine)

There is a proposal in Quebec to tax unvaccinated people.

Is there anybody who does not think our analysis and response to the Virus has been a disaster? Is there anyone who can come up with a retrospective analysis on which of the various approaches were better than the others or are the approaches so blended together that nothing will be meaningful? How could any scientifically oriented culture allow this to happen?

Why do we insist on combining the damage done by the Virus with the damage done by the lockdown and call it all Virus effect?

America’s population grew 0.1% this year, the lowest rate on record, according to Census Bureau figures released Tuesday.

The coronavirus pandemic has led to a new era of inflation inequality, economists warn, in which poor households bear the brunt of rising prices. 

Inflation inequality.

FOX's "Gutfeld!" is regularly generating higher ratings than more established late-night fare, such as "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" and "The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon," and has at times even topped "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert."

China conflates government and business, America conflates government and entertainment.

 

Some Vaccines in History

Some Vaccines in History

2003

December 13, 2002, the president of the United States announced that smallpox vaccination would be offered to some categories of civilians and administered to members of the military and government representatives in high-risk areas of the world. The events that precipitated that historic announcement included a series of terrorist attacks during the 1990s, which culminated in the catastrophic events of 2001.

By July 25, 2003, the total number of civilian vaccinees was 38,004—far short of the 500,000 that had been given as a program target and still short of the 50,000 that CDC had suggested in GAO’s assessment (CDC, 2003c; GAO, 2003). A year later, on July 31, 2004, civilian vaccinations had reached a cumulative total of 39,579 (CDC, 2004c). Nearly 2 years after the beginning of the program, smallpox vaccination has all but come to a halt, with a mere handful of vaccinations each month.

Late March and early April 2003—Concerns about vaccine and program safety reach high point in response to reported fatal cardiac adverse events and cases of heart inflammation, known as myo/pericarditis.

April 2003—Smallpox vaccination compensation plan is enacted in response to widespread concern about vaccine-related injuries.

2005

Apr 29, 2005 (CIDRAP News) – In a recent study, some laboratory and public health workers who received smallpox shots reported several side effects that have not shown up in other studies, including joint and abdominal pain, backache, and breathing difficulty.

The side effects were reported by both first-time vaccinees and previously vaccinated workers but were more common in the first-time vaccinees, according to the report by James Baggs and colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.

"As with recently described cardiac adverse events [following smallpox shots], our unexpected findings of increased proportions of subjects with joint pain, abdominal pain, backache, and difficulty breathing are suggestive of systemic involvement and warrant further study," says the report, published in the Apr 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases.


 

 

Question 36

Question 36

President Biden's IRS is cracking down on payments made through third-party apps, requiring platforms like Venmo, PayPal and Cash App to report transactions if they exceed $600 in one year.

Cracking down on Mickey Blue Eyes money-laundering through art sales will probably be next.

California would become the first state to provide access to its Medicaid program to all low-income residents, regardless of immigration status, under a proposal unveiled Monday by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

"The reality is the Biden administration is not standing in the way of increasing domestic oil production to meet today’s energy needs,” Deputy Energy Secretary David Turk asserted at the World Petroleum Congress in Houston last week.
These people will say anything, presumably because we, the people, will believe anything.

Retail investors are now bigger than institutional investors in Wall Street investing. It is estimated that the transfer in wealth from the old generation to its children will be in the range of $70 trillion.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has declared racism a "public health crisis," signing an entire package of legislation Dec. 23 aimed at addressing discrimination and racial injustice in the state.

And on the very confusing front: 

Penn transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, who had been crushing her competition since joining the women’s swim team after three years swimming as a biological male, met her match Saturday in the 100-meter freestyle during a tri-meet with Yale and Dartmouth. Thomas won the 200-meter and 500-meter races at Penn’s final home meet of the season, but she finished sixth in the 100-meter where Yale’s Iszac Henig, a transgender swimmer who is in the process of transitioning from female to male, crushed Thomas. Henig finished the 100 in 49.57 while Thomas touched the wall in 52.84.

 

Spectators in attendance told the Daily Mail that Henig, who had his breasts removed, won the 50-yard freestyle and proceeded to pull down the top of his swimsuit.
 

State migration:

Sacrificing for Covid

 

Sacrificing for Covid

The bell-curve is showing a lot of support for government control in the Covid debate.

An Economist poll in Europe showed: 19 percent support for a permanent 10pm curfew. Significant minorities favor other permanent restrictions, including: keeping nightclubs and casinos closed forever (26 percent); enforced social distancing in theaters, pubs and sports grounds (34 percent); mandatory 10-day quarantines for people returning from foreign countries (35 percent); mandatory tracking-app check-ins when entering pubs and restaurants (36 percent); mandatory masks in shops and on public transportation (40 percent); foreign travel allowed only with proof of vaccination (46 percent).

Even the Americans defer to the State.

"A growing number of Americans want to get the coronavirus vaccine, and a majority also support workplace, lifestyle and travel restrictions for those not inoculated against COVID-19," a Reuters/Ipsos poll found the same month. The poll found majority support for barring the unvaccinated from airplanes (63 percent), public schools (59 percent), gyms (54 percent), theaters (56 percent), and offices where they're employed (56 percent). All of this even though the vaccines against COVID-19 are remarkably effective at shielding those who take them against illness, no matter the status of people around them.

These numbers are a few months old but the notion remains that these sorcerer's apprentices deserve our allegiance even in things where they have already demonstrated incompetence. And anxiety, even in lands where the political structure demands self-sufficiency, encourages us to look elsewhere for help.

Covid may be less threatening than revealing.

Sunday/Lawlessness

 

Sunday/Lawlessness

The epistle today is from Paul and has a line not often quoted but obliquely significant.

He writes very specifically about Christ, how He spoke and how He was received--quite confident at the time about things that people later will say were ambiguous. Today he declares 'the appearance of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,
who gave himself for us to deliver us from all lawlessness
and to cleanse for himself a people as his own,
eager to do what is good.'

What caught my eye was 'lawlessness.' The people are being rescued from 'lawlessness.' It's reminiscent of Dostoyevsky's horrible thought that, without God, man is limited only by cowardice.

Satstats

 Satstats

'liberal' first acquired a political meaning in Britain in the 1770s. A graph:

     

                

A study published by the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases in November 2020 estimated that only 13% of all C-19 infections that occurred in the U.S. from the outset of the pandemic through September 2020 were “recognized and reported.”

A record annual high of nearly 35,000 people were murdered in Mexico in 2019 as President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador struggled to rein in violent crime in his first year in office. A government agency reported a total 34,582 murders the previous year, a 2.5% increase from 2018, when 33,743 victims were recorded.

There is empirical evidence that the top ten inbound states (where people are moving to) are on average out-performing the top ten outbound states (where people are moving from), suggesting that domestic migration patterns in the US do reflect Americans and firms “voting/moving with their feet” from Democratic-controlled, high-tax, business-unfriendly, fiscally unhealthy, economically stagnant states with relatively high electricity and housing costs to Republican-controlled, lower-tax, more business-friendly, fiscally healthy and economically vibrant states with lower electricity and housing costs.
The question not asked is, are they bringing their bad ideas with them?

Price changes:

In February 2021, the European Journal of Clinical Investigation published a paper analyzing all reported cases of C-19 in Austria during the first two waves of the pandemic. It found that people who caught C-19 during the first wave developed a degree of immune protection to the second wave “comparable with the highest available estimates on vaccine efficacies.” The study also found that no one who recovered from C-19 in the first wave died from it during the second wave.

BMJ Oct. 2020:
“Contrary to popular perception,” the Imperial College paper that was used to justify the lockdown never “specifically modeled” the lockdown.

Blacks and whites use drugs at about the same rate, but blacks are three times more likely than whites to be arrested on drug charges and ten times more likely to be sent to state prison on drug charges than whites.

Heroin-related overdose deaths increased five-fold from 2010 to 2019. As the nation has cracked down on prescription opioid abuse, people suffering from addiction have turned to heroin, a cheaper, easily accessible option.
Since the War on Drugs II began nearly 50 years ago, the U.S. government has spent more than $1 trillion on interdiction policies, and spending on the costly, failed war continues to cost U.S. taxpayers more than $51 billion annually.

Tolstoy as Hayek

Tolstoy as Hayek

Writing about the social sciences, since the man whose work is guided by knowledge “is always kind,” Zola reasoned, we may be confident that the “illimitable future” of the “coming [-twentieth] century” will witness “the greatest happiness possible on earth.”

'...since the man whose work is guided by knowledge “is always kind!”' And you wonder why the radical is confident in his efforts. And why the average guy has so much to fear.

In his essay “Non-­Acting,” which defends the opposite ­thesis, Tolstoy, paraphrasing Lao Tzu, the founder of Taoism, maintains that “the ills of humanity arise . . . not because men neglect to do things that are necessary but because they do things that are ­unnecessary.” The more confident we are that we can achieve the greatest human happiness, the more likely it is that we will create the greatest misery.

In War and Peace and Anna Karenina, he had developed a similar doctrine. The ancient Chinese teacher rejected not all action, but only intentional efforts counter to the nature of things. It is wiser to respect the world’s spontaneous tendencies and work within the limits they set. Lao Tzu and Tolstoy considered the most dangerous people to be those who imagine they possess the knowledge—Tolstoy calls it “science”—to accomplish what they deem beneficial. “Exterminate the [purported] sage, discard the [supposedly] wise,” Lao Tzu advises, “and the people will benefit a hundredfold.”

It is astonishing how many come to mind.

Ever since Newton reduced the amazingly complex movements of the planets to four simple laws, endless “moral Newtonians,” as historian Élie Halévy called them, have claimed to do the same for ­society. Wisdom begins with the recognition that one cannot possibly take all contingencies into account and that surprise belongs to the very nature of things. Battle, or the workings of society, do not at all resemble the movements of the planets. One must learn to make decisions under irremediable uncertainty.

Good drivers, chefs, and violin players do not possess a science, yet there is no gainsaying their superior performance. To put the point differently, wisdom differs from knowledge. It is not formalizable, and it comes of experience reflected on thoughtfully. As Aristotle explained, that is why young people can be good at mathematics but not at moral decision-making, or at any activity requiring judgment acquired through long experience. “Long years of military experience had taught him, and the wisdom of old age had convinced him, that it is impossible for one man to direct hundreds of thousands of men struggling with death, and he knew that the fate of a battle is decided not by the dispositions of a commander in chief . . . but by that intangible force called the spirit of the army, and he took cognizance of that force and ­guided it insofar as it lay in his power.” By raising the soldiers’ morale and nudging them in the right direction, he does all that can be done. And the decisive burning of Moscow was not a plan or tactic. Tolstoy concludes: “Moscow was burned by its inhabitants, it is true, but by those who abandoned her, not by those who stayed behind.”

Change is possible only within the limits set by “the natural order of things”—in this case, the sum total of habits and practices, chosen by no one and accumulated haphazardly over centuries—that constitutes “the elemental force.” (culled from Morston)

Tolstoy as Hayek.

Question 35

Question 35

US intelligence agencies have assessed that Saudi Arabia is now actively manufacturing its own ballistic missiles with the help of China, CNN has learned, a development that could have significant ripple effects across the Middle East and complicate the Biden administration's efforts to restrain the nuclear ambitions of Iran, the Saudis' top regional rival.

Warren is furious about the amount of taxes Musk pays because of the loopholes in the tax code. She knows the government writes the tax code, right?
BTW, Musk did something clever to take money out of Tesla: he borrowed it, then invested it. So the money he took out was untaxed and the money he earned was gains, not income.

I’ve been vocal about my dismay over unquestioning public capitulation to wholesale rescindment of civil liberties during this pandemic. I’ve raised the alarm over the irrationality of divisive but bizarrely popular vaccine mandates and passports, when the inoculated also catch and spread this disease. I’ve decried the collusion of government, Big Tech and the mainstream media, all singing in such perfect harmony that they could go on tour as a Motown revival band. But the Covid story has not altogether been one of unrelenting conformity. Often at some cost to themselves, a range of British journalists, academics, doctors and, yes, even politicians have sung piercingly off-key.--Shriver

The Build Better payoff: There is a $1.7 billion payroll tax credit of up to $25,000 for each local journalist an organization employs in the first year and $15,000 for the next four. Employees, shareholders, and customers of corporations will pay all corporate tax increases.

Shameless.

Even in a country long recognized as one of the most prosperous on earth, the United States of America, at the beginning of the twentieth century only ten percent of American homes had flush toilets and only 3 percent had electric lights. There is nothing automatic about prosperity. Standards of living that we take for granted today have been achieved only within a very minute fraction of the history of the human race, and are by no means the norm among most of the people of the world today. Standards of living far below what we would consider to be poverty have been the norm for untold thousands of years. It is not the origins of poverty which need to be explained, since the human species began in poverty. What requires explaining are the things that created and sustained higher standards of living.--Sowell

And, from the race between insincerity and stupidity, Biden’s response to rising gasoline prices has included directing the Federal Trade Commission to investigate “anti-consumer behavior” by oil companies. And, of course, there's 'Big Meat."

Advancing Health Equity: A Guide to Language, Narrative, and Concepts is a recently published guide that condemns several “dominant narratives” in medicine. One is the “narrative of individualism,” and its misbegotten corollary, the notion that health is a personal responsibility. A more “equitable narrative,” the guide instructs, would “expose the political roots underlying apparently ‘natural’ economic arrangements, such as property rights, market conditions, gentrification, oligopolies, and low wage rates.” The dominant narratives, it says, “create harm, undermining public health and the advancement of health equity; they must be named, disrupted, and corrected.” 

The author of the guide? The AMA.

Recent data show that 3% of US workers – 4.4 million people – quit their jobs in September. That monthly quit rate is not only remarkably high; it is unheard of, especially given that the US employment-to-population ratio is still only 59.2%, almost two points below its February 2020 peak.

Having a vaccine does not stop you from getting Covid, and it doesn’t stop you from spreading Covid. So there is little to be gained from vaccine passports. Right?

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has caused tragic morbidity and mortality. In attempt to reduce this morbidity and mortality, most countries implemented population-wide lockdowns. Here we show that the lockdowns were based on several flawed assumptions, including “no one is protected until everyone is protected,” “lockdowns are highly effective to reduce transmission,” “lockdowns have a favorable cost-benefit balance,” and “lockdowns are the only effective option.” --from an abstract of a paper by Ari Joffe and David Redman

Net-Zero Banking Alliance

Net-Zero Banking Alliance

John Kerry, some sort of national climate 'envoy,' has been pressuring banks and financial institutions to reduce their commitments to U.S. oil and gas companies and join the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, which would hobble the ability of oil and gas companies to increase production. Citi, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan Chase signed on to the alliance last year.

Who--or what--is the Net-Zero Banking Alliance? A UN organization. And heavily supported by the esteemed Prince of Wales.

This is from their website: The industry-led, UN-convened Net-Zero Banking Alliance brings together banks worldwide representing over 40% of global banking assets, which are committed to aligning their lending and investment portfolios with net-zero emissions by 2050. Combining near-term action with accountability, this ambitious commitment sees signatory banks setting an intermediate target for 2030 or sooner, using robust, science-based guidelines.
The Alliance will reinforce, accelerate and support the implementation of decarbonisation strategies, providing an internationally coherent framework and guidelines in which to operate, supported by peer-learning from pioneering banks. It recognizes the vital role of banks in supporting the global transition of the real economy to net-zero emissions.
It was co-launched on 21st April 2021 with 43 founding banks and the Prince of Wales’ Sustainable Markets Initiative Financial Services Taskforce.

'robust,science-based guidelines.' 'decarbonisation.' 'peer-learning.' 'industry-led.'

So, this is "industry-led?" And, after appropriate government pressure, US banks are withholding funding for energy exploration and development with the hopes we can develop other sources we don't have yet? We are following the whimsical notions of such giant brains as John Kerry and the Prince of Wales?

Now if I told you Trump had sponsored this project--with its obvious benefit to Putin's gas program in Europe, with its inevitable dependence on foreign energy that the formally energy-independent US would become to the obvious detriment of American consumers--do you think people would be outraged? Would they suspect a conspiracy? Treason?

Here is a truly noble project the little guy can start: Withdraw your money from these banks.

 

Some Reflections on 2021

Some Reflections on 2021

Democracies are inherently unstable. Given enough time, they will vilify even their best and brightest, undermining their history, thus calling into question their present.

Human qualities: Faith. Hope. Charity. The greatest is charity, the commonest is hope. But, in motivation, the strongest is fear.

There is little in common between abstract science and practical technology.

Science, like democracy, is very poorly understood by the public.

The election of Trump and Biden should carve in stone the basic American idea that government is dangerous and needs constitutional structure and limits. Both men needed supervision in office.

Current culture is obsessed with acceptance and so will drive the peripheral to the center. Gender dysphoria in women is 1/5th as common as dwarfism; these unfortunate outliers have become quotidian.

In McGurt, the Supreme Court decided that some U.S. laws did not apply to some races.

Anyone who knows anyone with a genetic defect or severe illness knows the truth: equality is a philosophical concept--spiritual or political--not a quality of life.

Capitalism is not a philosophy, it is the awkward outgrowth of the behavior of a free people. Thus the attack on capitalism requires a subversion of the liberty that made it possible.

Coal use was up 9% last year, globally. Some people are taking the CO2 problem of the world less seriously than others.

Has anyone told the developing nations the sacrifices they will have to make with the forced substitution of expensive, unavailable energy sources for cheap, available ones?

A hierarchy will always serve itself first.

Greed is wanting what you have earned, wanting what someone else has earned is not greed.

800,000 non-citizens will be allowed to vote in NYC. Didn't we have an election where everyone was worried about the influence of noncitizens?

Crime is beginning to be presented in the news and politics as a 'health problem.'

African leaders are beginning a campaign for cheap energy using the phrase 'energy poverty.'

Vaccines protect individuals, not the group. This disparity is discordant to some, and threatening.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year

One of the curiosities of New Years Resolutions is the unspoken belief that new and better ideas are always coming to the fore. I hope that is true but my advice is a hash of old suggestions:

Seek fulfillment. Emphasize safety.

The great Old and New Testament sin is pride, the great sin of the doomed Greek was anger. These geniuses were not kidding.

Do not go out of the house in your pajamas.

Spend less than you earn.

There are better ways to do military-type lifts that pressure bones and joints but no good reason to do them at all.

Keep boundaries. Always reassess them.

One thing at a time. Multitasking has been shown to be terribly inefficient.

Do not be on time, be early.

Never use the phone at social events, dinner, or in the car.

Keep up-to-date phone numbers and addresses of friends. Use them. Keep up with old friends with a line or e-mail; do not allow them to slip away.

Get seven hours of sleep a day.

The time before and after exercise is very important. Warm up and cool down.

People will not remember presents but they will remember how you made them feel.

Ours is a period of downgrading. Start a mild upgrade with more effort on appearance. Maybe it will catch on.

Do not phone from the bathroom.

First dates should always be coffee or lunch.

Do not read anything while eating a meal with others.

Sign all petitions and always vote "no."

Build a good wardrobe, one good piece at a time.

Do not put ice in wine. If the wine is not cool enough, go to a better place.

Angry people are usually entertaining but avoid them after 6 o'clock.

Read a formal literary effort, a book or essay or play, a little bit every day.

Wake up. Early. The day will be nice and long and full of opportunities.

Go to bed at a reasonable time. Anything that happens late at night is because the perpetrators think no one is watching.

Do not name your children after large cities in Texas. Or European cheeses.

If you are going to drink alcohol, drink only good alcohol. Never drink something because it is there.
Never drink alcohol because you "don't want to waste it."
Never forget, alcohol is a neurotoxin.

Generalizations are verboten in our tome. Nonetheless, the Irish have an inordinate appreciation of alcohol. Watch it.

Memorize one insightful quote or poetry line every week.

Have your teeth cleaned every six months.

Make a budget. The discipline alone is helpful. 

Set aside a percentage for two groups of savings. Use one account to go to when necessary for a big purchase or a surprise problem. Use the other one for retirement. Never touch the second one.

People tend to like what they do when they are good at it. So, be good at your job and your diversions.

Always get the cost of goods or services upfront. This is especially true of lawyers.

When traveling:

Never travel without a phone that works.
Always, always get the harbormaster's number when you leave a ship.

Never travel alone to an area where you do not know the language or the alphabet.

Always travel with enough money.

Avoid areas where you might depend upon the goodwill of people with old political grudges towards some group you remotely resemble.

Again, always, always get the harbormaster's number when you leave a ship.
 

Buy one tailor-made piece of clothing so you can see the difference from retail.
 

Floss.
 

"To trace something unknown back to something known is alleviating, soothing, gratifying, and gives moreover a feeling of power. Danger, disquiet, anxiety attend the unknown - the first instinct is to eliminate these distressing states. First principle: any explanation is better than none." (Friedrich Nietzsche) 

Remember this when attacking another's beliefs. You are attacking more than his intellectual position, you are attacking his area of comfort and command.

Save 10% of your income for retirement.

And some book suggestions.
Damrosch's The Club was very interesting. Boswell was emotionally incontinent and it made him really sick. Hard to believe these guys survived to middle age. Peterson's Twelve Rules was a good display of how an intelligent, reflective mind works. His YouTube debates are as interesting.  American Lion, When Einstein Walked with Godel were good, Greg Bear less so. Rovelli's two books on time were interesting but, like Godel, work. John Williams is all the rage now and I read Butcher's Crossing, Augustus and Stoner--all are terrific, Stoner the best. Ted Chiang's short sci-fi is thoughtful and imaginative but elaborate. The best of the year was a reread, The Devils, by Dostoyevsky, a book for our times.

Paul's Letter to the Galatians says that Christ on earth means that all men are adopted sons of God, heirs to His infinite creation.
So every man, regardless of station or circumstance, wealth or heritage, birthright or appearance, sickness or health is equal in the eyes of God. There have been a lot of notions--from nihilism to castes, from divine right to class conflict, from Freud to Malthus--that have come down the pike since the beginning of recorded time but has there ever been a more radical, more hopeful, more optimistic idea than that? And could there be a better thought to start the new year?

Happy New Year.