David One, Goliath Zero

 “When you are told that all (stock) repurchases are harmful to shareholders or to the country, or particularly beneficial to CEO’s, you are listening to an economic illiterate or a silver-tongued demagogue (characters that are not mutually exclusive)”.--Buffett

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Clarence Darrow defended John Scopes in his trial over teaching evolution. Williams Jennings Bryan was prosecutor and Darrow succeeded in having him called to the stand as a bible expert. This was a pivotal exchange in favor of Darrow and Scopes:

Darrow: "You have given considerable study to the Bible, haven't you, Mr. Bryan?"

Bryan: "Yes, sir; I have tried to.... But, of course, I have studied it more as I have become older than when I was a boy."

Darrow: "Do you claim then that everything in the Bible should be literally interpreted?"

Bryan: "I believe that everything in the Bible should be accepted as it is given there; some of the Bible is given illustratively. For instance: 'Ye are the salt of the earth.' I would not insist that man was actually salt, or that he had flesh of salt, but it is used in the sense of salt as saving God's people."

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Importantly, we find that bans or restrictions that specifically target “assault weapons” increase demand for handguns, which are associated with the vast majority of firearm-related violence.

That is from a new NBER working paper by Sarah Moshary, Bradley Shapiro, and Sara Drango.

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David One, Goliath Zero


One wonders about leadership, particularly in top-down, narrow hierarchies. 

We usually give our opponents more credit than they deserve. 

Biden welcomed Zelenski to the U.S. asylum. He did not want or need it. We always assume that Chinese leadership is smarter than ours. But the idiot radicals here are bred in the same toxic philosophies as the Chinese leadership. Maybe such philosophies and hierarchies have their own inherent flaws and expiration dates.

Take China's relentless bullying of the Philippines.

After a decade of suffering China's aggressive acts against Philippine vessels, fishermen, and energy exploration efforts in waters within the archipelago country's Exclusive Economic Zone, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. recently welcomed an expanded US military presence.

Marcos now has responded to continued Chinese belligerence by granting US forces access to five additional military bases on Philippine territory.

In a direct rebuke to China, two of these new bases are on Palawan, one of the disputed Spratly Islands, which are also claimed, as is much else, by Communist China. A US military presence in Palawan will be a direct challenge to the Chinese Communist Party's plan to ultimately seize Taiwan: Palawan is the closest large Philippine island to Taiwan and the equally disputed waters of the South China Sea. US air and naval assets in Palawan could potentially play a large role in supporting the Free World forces against China.

China, by bullying its neighbors, is bringing about what it fears the most: a united phalanx of Asian powers under an American umbrella that is ready to prevent China from expanding to what it claims as its historic land and maritime borders. (from Franklin)