Prejudicial but not Discerning

The IRS audits about 1 tax return in 100 these days. When 357,598 taxpayers filed the first modern income-tax returns in 1914, they had to sign them under oath before officials. And the Bureau of Internal Revenue audited every one.--The Wall Street Journal


Prejudicial but not Discerning

The Supreme Court has ruled against college admissions being decided by race.

    --"discrimination" means both "prejudicial" and "discerning."

    --Why are military schools exempt?

    --An Asian applicant has a 25% chance of admission. A Black student with identical qualifications has a 95% chance of admission to the same school.

    --What is the argument here? Is the point that there are differences among people? And those differences must be legislated against?

    --Is diversity in itself of value, even if achieved through racist policies?

    --The Diversity argument seems to be that diversity is a valuable second opinion to situations and is inherently worthwhile simply because it is different.

    --Quotas help some people. Some argue this is value enough. But they harm others reciprocally. So, is the 'help' argument legitimate?

    --Circumstances and history influence the present. And people and their prospects. How have the Japanese Americans overcome the astonishing animosity generated against them after the second war?

    --The common reaction on TV over this decision among Blacks was outrage, not flint-eyed resolve. Ot was as if they could not do without it?

    --Biden was asked by the impartial press if this was a 'rogue court?" Biden said the court was "not normal." The President of the U.S. who can barely talk, in a country that believes gender is a 'construct,' thinks the Court is not "normal."

Aberrant Nukes

Perfect game last night.

“Entitlement” is not only the opposite of achievement, it undermines incentives to do all the hard work that leads to achievement.--Sowell

Aberrant Nukes

Writing for the Bulletin of the Atomic Sciences, Louis Reitmann and Sneha Nair offer the strongest argument for preventing the “queering of nuclear weapons” by arguing in favor of such a policy:

"Exclusion creates nuclear security risks. Exclusion and unfair treatment of queer individuals and other minorities by a homogenous, cis-heteronormative community of practitioners also creates vulnerabilities in nuclear decision-making. Cis-heteronormativity is the automatic assumption that someone is heterosexual and identifies with the sex assigned to them at birth. It creates the idea that being heterosexual and cisgender is normal and natural, whereas being queer or trans is a deviation."

There is a narrative gaining traction that diversity is a tool truth uses to examine itself. A broader bell curve examines truth through a wider lens. Insight comes from the periphery. Our norms should be examined by the fringe. So truth should escape the confines of...what? Consensus?  Success? 

Are we to spend the rest of our lives re-centering?

Origins of Capitalism

The Chinese have put cameras across the street from the door to the MI6 building.


None of the incidences of myopericarditis pooled in the current study were higher than those after smallpox vaccinations and non-COVID-19 vaccinations, and all of them were significantly lower than those in adolescents aged 12–17 years after COVID-19 infection.--Bao-Qiang Guo, Hong-Bin Li, Li-Qiang Yang

Origins of Capitalism

"Before writing this review, I asked Microsoft Bing: “When was capitalism invented?” Bing said: “1776.” Then I turned to Google: “What was the first capitalist country?” Google’s answer: “Great Britain.” I then asked the chatbot Lia27, “Was a strong state necessary to back the formation of capitalism?” It replied: “Yes, strong states are necessary to provide the infrastructure and legal framework that allows capitalism to thrive. Without a strong state, it would be difficult for businesses to operate and for markets to function efficiently.”

These answers are neat, clean, and wrong.

Maarten Prak and Jan Luiten van Zanden, two economic historians who do not have an obvious political agenda, tell a different story in a deeply researched and well-written new book, Pioneers of Capitalism. Differentiating small-scale markets from capitalism, they argue that a capitalist economy features advanced specialization and trade, the widespread use of wage labor, and financial markets. This sort of economy, they show, was neither invented in 1776 nor inseparable from a strong state. It evolved, from the ground up, over centuries, and Dutch merchants were some of its most important pioneers.

A thousand years ago, a traveling monk, Alpert of Metz, was dismayed by the scale of state collapse around him. In his visit to the merchants of Tiel, he saw, in Prak and van Zanden’s words, that “they enjoyed a certain degree of independence” and self-organized in various ways. They “used drinking societies to strengthen their mutual bonds, fostering trust and thus simplifying mutual trade.” They “also maintained their own system of justice, which deviated from canonical law.” In other words, order was coming from market participants through private governance, rather than being established by a strong state. (This irked Alpert, who was “annoyed by the customs of the merchants, with their own legal rules and pagan drinking societies.”)"

---Ed Stringham – reviewing Maarten Prak’s and Jan Luiten van Zanden’s new book, Pioneers of Capitalism: The Netherlands 1000-1800 – explains that capitalism first emerged from the efforts of Dutch merchants and not from a strong state.

It Could Be Worse: There Could Be Orcas

Harvard Scholar Who Studies Honesty Is Accused of Fabricating Findings--Headline from NYT, not The Bee

Acorn PGH, a restaurant that originally brought modern American cuisine from Chicago to the city's toniest shopping district in Shadyside, closes.


Classified documents of the case against Trump's handling of classified documents have been leaked. Huh?



It Could Be Worse: There Could Be Orcas

When Kemp's ridley turtles emerge from their nests under the sand on the beach, the first ones do not move, waiting for the others so they don't stand out. Then they all scramble for the water. They suffer terrible losses to the birds and the crabs, but they survive, not because some are clever or fast, but because there are so many of them the predators can't keep up.

This is not a metaphor.

Subsidies

The Biden Administration picked the anniversary of D-Day to deep-six the NewRange mine, which would provide minerals to power electric vehicles and his green-energy transition. The U.S. will have to import the minerals from arsenals of autocracy like Russia and China.

We live in times of inexplicable decisions.

Subsidies


"...a Department of Homeland Security “anti-terrorism” program, which distributed approximately $40 million to groups with a tendency to demonize their political opponents, is worrisome. For instance, the agency has funded a program that has produced material classifying mainstream conservative organizations such as the Heritage Foundation, Fox News and the GOP as only a few steps removed from neo-Nazis and far-right terrorists in terms of the threat of radicalization they represent.

I sometimes criticize conservative political rhetoric, but it’s far-fetched to believe that simply watching Fox News puts one on the road to radicalization any more than watching MSNBC does. People are always entitled to their opinions. A government that forgets this could end up normalizing censorship while rendering us all less alert to real threats of radicalization."--deRugy

These particular subsidies by the government makes very little sense unless they are trying to launder the responsibility. But there are many other examples of financial support for organizations that have very specific social action without any uniform social support. As if a good aim, like pharmacology studies, are valuable in themselves.

Not sure subsidies are a proper pursuit of government.

Roads to Leadership

Interesting that the kleptocracy of the racketeer-class Russian leadership is being confronted by serious, convicted, society-threatening, yakuza-class criminals.

Now would be a good time for the Ukrainians to push into Crimea. Buy bomb shelter stocks.


Roads to Leadership

The bridge on I-95 that was destroyed by the tanker fire has been repaired in two weeks. Everyone is thrilled. Astonished. Somehow this construction achievement is the achievement of Pa. governor Alan Shapiro.

Shapiro is seen as a serious presidential candidate after Biden. He got a reputation in Pennsylvania with a vigorous attack on child abuse in the Catholic Church. He destroyed an idiot Republican candidate in the election for the governorship. (A bit tainted as Federman was elected then, too.) Recently he showed serious independence in announcing support for charter schools, a logical but donor-averse position opposing the teachers' union.

Quick construction projects are often seen as litmus tests for governor leadership, implying efficiency, focus, and organizing skills. What really is required is the willingness to cut Democrat-inspired regulations that ordinarily hamper the work and efficiency of everyday businesses that can be conveniently overlooked for the same political appearance that created them.

Great Men

The Allegheny County Health Department has issued a consumer alert for the Urban Tap on South Highland Avenue in East Liberty after an active infestation of rodents was discovered. Seven dead rats in the kitchen. Is it better or worse that they're dead?


Great Men

The Wagner Group in the Russian Army has publicly questioned Russian military policy and has withdrawn from Ukraine. The head of the unit, perhaps the nation's largest military group in the Russian army, was a hot dog vendor in his previous life. (He also spent a lot of time in prison.) He is now threatening to take his military objections to Moscow, 300 miles away. Putin, in true capo fashion, threatens retaliation but seems more powerful against unarmed civilians or as a poisoner, one on one.

His opponent in Ukraine is a former standup comedian. He managed to mobilize an astonishing successful resistance to a nuclear power and is on the edge of counterattacking into Russia itself.

The watchful West is led by an elderly man who is clearly impaired and, in any other social situation, would be in a care facility. His major domestic political opponent is in the WWF Hall of Fame.

This leads to many questions, like how does this kind of disorder happen? How do such leaders become leaders? It was bad enough when the hereditary-king-ordained-by-God could sweep through your town and dragoon you into a war over his girlfriend or his territorial ambitions, wars named in decades or, sometimes, centuries. But now these self-obsessed leaders have nuclear weapons, species-ending weapons.

Who are these people who threaten us, who make these decisions for us? And why do we assume that their idiots are smarter and better motivated than ours?

Jordan Neely

Jordan Neely

Jordan Neely could be the center of future analyses of this strange American period as he symbolizes the modern political experience. Pointlessly dangerous, violently threatening to total strangers, rootless and homeless, immune from feedback and correction, stimulating ambiguity in his victims, he is a man lost in his own world and in ours.

But he is more: he was a man cared for more in death than in life.

Dolphin Patriots

Dolphin Patriots

The patriot search has apparently moved to the ocean highways and byways.

Situated just 20 miles from Seattle, Naval Base Kitsap houses America's most powerful and secret deterrents, a weapon that is the first line of defense for U.S. national security: U.S. Navy dolphins.

Since 1967, the Navy has been training dolphins and sea lions (and probably other marine life) for military applications such as mine clearing, force protection and recovery missions. The U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program deployed military dolphins as early as the Vietnam War and as recently as the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

The U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program.
 
When protecting harbors and ships from mines, as they do at Naval Base Kitsap, the dolphins use their extraordinary biological sonar to detect hazards beneath the surface, whether tethered to the sea floor or buried beneath the sediment.

If a mine or other weapon is detected, the dolphin returns to its handler, who gives the animal a buoy to mark the location of the device on the surface. Passing ships know to avoid these markers while Navy explosives ordnance disposal divers neutralize the threat below.

For protection against enemy divers, dolphins will swim up to the infiltrator, bump into them and place a buoy device on their back or a limb, using their mouth. The buoy then drags the outed diver to the surface for easy capture. When trained sea lions perform the same maneuver, they use a kind of handcuff with their mouths to attach the buoy.

Bangor, Washington, now houses the largest single nuclear weapons site in the world, it needs protection from all sides, including the seaward side. That's where the Navy's dolphin pods and sea lions come in. Navy spokesman Chris Haley says the animals have been defending the waters around the stockpile, holding roughly 25% of the United States’ 9,962 nuclear warheads, since 2010.

Our nuclear weapons are being guarded by sushi.

from Military.com

Don't be too reassured; there are probably commie dolphins, too. And those orcas...

State and the State of the World

 

State and the State of the World

So Blinkin, as a member of the Nod administration, has been to China. We are to put the spy balloon behind us. In front of us is a Chinese nuclear base being built in Cuba. All is well.

What is astonishing is not the indifference of the Americans, it is the freewheeling, bit-in-their-teeth, relentless enthusiasm of Cuba and China for a policy that, years ago with the Americans and the Russians, almost ended life on earth. These people have no regard for the risk to the world they pose. At the time, Fidel actually campaigned among the Russians for a first strike against the U.S., which would certainly have resulted in the erasure of Cuba from the face of the earth. The representative of the Cuban people was lobbying for a policy that would have obliterated them as the first step to the end of the civilized world!

We pray for intervention--angels or aliens--when all we need are some intelligent adults.

A Heroine or Else

 

A Heroine or Else

Brittney Griner, the American heroine, returned to the WNBA when her Phoenix team visited Los Angeles. Vice President Kamala Harris was there. So was tennis legend Billie Jean King. And men’s basketball great Magic Johnson. And 10,393 others. Capacity is 19,079 for basketball so a lot were not there. You would think the American heroine would do better.

You could argue that the American public was force-fed the American heroine, but the forced feeding is more likely a larger meal. The average attendance for WNBA games in 2022 was just 5,679. To put that in perspective,  the American Hockey League games this past season averaged 5,651. The AHL. Minor-league hockey with teams in tiny towns like Bakersfield, Grand Rapids, Hershey, Utica, and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton drew almost identically to the world’s top league for women’s basketball, which has franchises in major markets and big-time arenas. They have a national TV contract, too.

Probably should revisit the basketball pay inequity, too.
(some from Madden)

Collaborations

 

Collaborations

Are the failed efforts at political-cultural affiliations, as exemplified by the Budweiser, Target and Dodgers fiascos, different from the successful collaborations and identification that the Pillow Person and Relief Factor has forged with the Right?

Hyenas Shopping

 

Hyenas Shopping


Nearly 40 pupils have been killed at a school in western Uganda by rebels linked to the Islamic State group (IS). Five militants attacked the Lhubiriha secondary school in Mpondwe at around 23:30 (20:30 GMT) on Friday. They entered dormitories, setting fire and using machetes to kill and maim the pupils, officials said.

The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) - based in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) - have been blamed and a manhunt is under way. Uganda's information minister said 37 students were confirmed to have been killed but did not give their ages. Twenty of them were attacked with machetes and 17 of them burned to death, Chris Baryomunsi told the BBC. Survivors said the rebels threw a bomb into the dormitory after the machete attack. It is not clear if this resulted in a fire in the building which was reported earlier.

In June 1998, 80 students were burnt to death in their dormitories in an ADF attack on Kichwamba Technical Institute near the border of DRC. More than 100 students were abducted.

If this doesn't remind you of the Heroes of Beslan, it should.

On September 1, 2004, armed Chechen rebels took approximately 1,200 children and adult hostage at a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, Russia, at approximately 9 a.m. local time.

The siege ended on September 3, 2004, with more than 330 killed, including 186 children, and more than 700 people wounded.These people always talk in high ideals but, whenever possible, attack the most innocent, the most vulnerable, the least armed, and strangely, those with almost no input to whatever the struggle is said to be. Schools, nunneries, churches, hospitals--not hunting grounds because scavengers are not hunters.
(some from BBC article)

Sat Stats/NYC Arrests

NYC Arrests

Some numbers on the debate over crime, misdemeanors, and bail in New York, from Tabarroc.

On average, each arrested person had 3.2 prior felony arrests and 5 prior misdemeanor arrests.

The people who do not make bail are on average more dangerous—they have twice as many arrests and twice as many convictions on average as those who are released. For example, the average defendant who doesn’t make bail has 6 previous felony arrests and 4 previous failures to appear.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics found that the average person sent to state prison in 2014 had 10.3 previous arrests (median 8) and 4.3 previous convictions (median 3)!

(These are not including the arrest and conviction that sent them to jail.)

Nearly a third of all shoplifting arrests in New York City last year involved just 327 people, the police said. Collectively, they were arrested and rearrested more than 6,000 times, Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said. Some engage in shoplifting as a trade, while others are driven by addiction or mental illness; the police did not identify the 327 people in the analysis.

The way bail reformers like to frame the issue of eliminating cash bail is to point to a misdemeanor case and say ‘look this ordinary person was denied bail because of a misdemeanor!’ In fact, what is going on is that judges are dealing with serial offenders–they are setting high bail rates for those who have already failed to appear on multiple previous misdemeanor charges. Eliminating cash bail for misdemeanors is one of those policies which sounds reasonable on its face but in practice it leads to shoplifters who have already been arrested 20 times being arrested and released again. The issue of “unaffordable bail” is also misleading. Judges set high bail amounts for a reason!

Mean Regression

Mean Regression

The Golden Knights won the Stanley Cup going away. They final game was a blowout. The two final teams played well to get to the finals, but it looked as if the Panthers were just exhausted with the effort.

Neither team was supposed to be there; the teams with the great players --Toronto, Edmonton, Colorado--never came close. So, the playoffs could not showcase the games stars. Such is the advantage--and price --of parity.

Hockey has reached parity. Every team is limited to spending the same amount every year; more money for superstars means less for the other players. So, some teams are top-heavy, others homogenous. And any team can beat any other. The competition will be tough and close.

But, as with all socialism, no brilliance.

American Poverty

American Poverty

Matthew Desmond’s argument, that the last 50 years have seen no progress in America against poverty, is based on the official government measure of poverty. It is true that the official poverty rate has fluctuated between 10 and 15 percent for the past 50 years.

But there’s a problem with that interpretation of the data. “It’s for a very simple reason that serious researchers have known for a very long time: The official poverty measure does not include much of the government assistance,” Corinth said. “If you were to include all the benefits we provide, you get a much different picture of poverty.”

Corinth and other researchers have calculated the “full-income poverty rate,” which includes all the government assistance poor people receive. Where the official poverty rate was 10.5 percent in 2019, the full-income poverty rate was 1.6 percent. The full-income poverty rate was around 19 percent in 1963, around 7 percent 20 years later, and gradually declining to 1.6 percent since then — a long-running decline, contrary to Desmond’s portrayal.

Scott Winship, director of AEI’s Center of Opportunity and Social Mobility, illustrated the absurdity of Desmond’s use of the official poverty number by running it in reverse. He said, “If you use today’s official poverty line, the poverty rate in 1963 would have been 70 percent.”

Captains of Our Souls

 

 

Captains of Our Souls

US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy released an advisory recently addressing the “epidemic of loneliness and isolation” affecting the country and laying out a framework for a “National Strategy to Advance Social Connection.”

These are the same people who shut the country down during COVID. The center of repression and limits is going to free us.

Government attracts people the same way fire departments attract arsonists.

But this is a grand topic, the subject of countless studies and examinations by the renowned. The Lonely Crowd, Civilizations and its Discontents, Lear and every other single thing written about the elderly. But Fireman Vivek is not daunted. His heart is pure, and he has immense power to do good.

And, fortunately, the government has communities shovel-ready; he already has the rigid identity framework to assign people to so they can find friends.

The Trump Case

 

The Trump Case

This Trump case is revealing. The accusations are specific and look to be dangerous for him.

There are some prominent questions.

First, does the government and the press handle these questions evenly from one political view to another. No. The government and the press have a political bias that will influence how this is managed. Leaks to the NYT are heroic. Hilary and Hunter were not handled the same way as Trump. Do these inconsistencies invalidate the charges? In themselves, I don't see how. They can be unfairly lenient and unfairly harsh, but the question is, is the complaint against Trump legitimate? Fairness is a reasonable question, but a separate one.

Second, this was avoidable. Why did Trump, an important man and important to the country, allow this to happen?

Three, his handling of people is simple tribalism. Bill Barr, one of the bright spots of his administration and an impressive guy, was giving an honest legal opinion and said he thought Trump was very vulnerable if just 1/3 of the charges were true. Trump immediately called him a 'low life,' a 'coward,' who deserved being fired. Low life? Coward? And Barr resigned; he wasn't fired. Opinions in this culture have to be viewed in the context of loyalty. Objectivity is secondary.

Four, this will create a confidence disaster in this country. This was originally a civil case that matured into a criminal case. Every president goes through this silly debate when he leaves office. On the assumption that Trump is wrong here, why would the government be so aggressive about it? Why not just walk away, as they do all the time with others? Will the disruption be worth it?

The Perils of Identity

 

Former President Donald Trump’s Attorney General, Bill Barr, believes his old boss is in very serious trouble — if “even half” of what is laid out in the 37-count federal indictment against him is true.

The Perils of Identity

I have, embarrassingly, been watching "The Jewish Matchmaker" on TV. People from different countries, walks of life, educational and cultural levels, all come together the find a mate, using the great unifier in their lives: Judaism. And these people, with all their diversity ask for nothing other than a mate with continuity with their respective religious demands.

And they don't work. They don't match up. And the factor is never the diversity of their lives, it is a slight disparity in the beliefs that unify them, religious beliefs that hold them in common. What on the surface looks to be a classic example of identity organization fails; the very identity that should unite them, divides them because the identity's demands are too pure.

Self-sufficiency

 

Self-sufficiency

China now is the largest exporter of cars and makes 2/3 of the world's EVs.

In a very interesting interview with a European trade minister, he worried about the current American anxiety about the rise of Chinese influence over American economy and military. His opinion is that the effort by the Americans to isolate themselves in self-contained safety is incompatible with the vulnerabilities of the Europeans who do not have the American capacity for self-sufficiency and need trade, especially with China.

This may be the beginning of that great separation of demographics and energy and food integrity that so many states will not have in the near future.

Sat Stats

 Boris Johnson is stepping down immediately as a Tory MP after receiving an advance copy of the "Partygate report."

Four children aged 13 to 1 survived a plane crash in the Amazon Forest and then 40 more days, alone.

This is a provocative story. Last October the Saudis reduced oil production in tandem with Russia, the US chief global adversary, souring relations between Riyadh and its decades-old allies in Washington, D.C. The move infuriated President Joe Biden, who promised the Saudis there'd be "consequences" amid fears it'd spike domestic inflation and damage his prospects in the US midterm elections.  The crown prince's response, according to the documents, was to threaten the US with the prospect of economic calamity. That threat appears to have paid off. 

Sat Stats

 In 1990 America accounted for a quarter of the world’s output, at market exchange rates. Thirty years on, that share is almost unchanged, even as China has gained economic clout. America’s dominance of the rich world is startling. Today it accounts for 58% of the G7’s GDP, compared with 40% in 1990. Adjusted for purchasing power, only those in über-rich petrostates and financial hubs enjoy a higher income per person. Average incomes have grown much faster than in western Europe or Japan. Also adjusted for purchasing power, they exceed $50,000 in Mississippi, America’s poorest state—higher than in France.

American firms own more than a fifth of patents registered abroad, more than China and Germany put together. All of the five biggest corporate sources of research and development (R&D) are American; in the past year they have spent $200bn. Consumers everywhere have benefited from their innovations in everything from the laptop and the iPhone to artificial intelligence chatbots. Investors who put $100 into the S&P 500 in 1990 would have more than $2,000 today, four times what they would have earned had they invested elsewhere in the rich world. --The Economist

Buddhism at the Center

 Trump has been indicted. He will be tried in the middle of an election. These people will sacrifice anything to attain their goals.

Buddhism at the Center

There are millions of Buddhists in America and Canada. Millions. Yet there is not one, one, Buddhist in the National Hockey League.

Isn't the failure of an organization or group to reflect the national statistics prima facie proof of bigotry?

So, what are we to do with these outliers that are so frequent? You might be able to rationalize some disparities as resulting from some nonspecific hierarchy. So, you could attack the vague lieutenant of the hierarchy--although he may not know he's a representative of evil and may take it poorly.

But what do you do about the Buddhist hockey player? Or, on the other hand, all the Buddhist spelling bee winners? Does justice always have to result in an attack on merit?

The Amazing Story of the USS Liberty

 

Private equity firms have tripled in the last twelve years and the opportunities have not. Therefore, competition is up, yields are down.

The Feds have informed Trump he is the subject of classified doc investigation. If political parties are unable to rise above this, American politics will change forever.

              The Amazing Story of the USS Liberty

 

(This is from St. Clair, mostly a summary of "Assault on the Liberty," a first-hand account by James Ennes Jr. whose book of the event is hair-raising story of betrayal by America's presumed friends and its own leadership. On this day in history, June 8, 1967.)

'In early June of 1967, at the onset of the Six Day War, the Pentagon sent the USS Liberty from Spain into international waters off the coast of Gaza to monitor the progress of Israel’s attack on the Arab states. The Liberty was a lightly armed surveillance ship.
Only hours after the Liberty arrived it was spotted by the Israeli military. The IDF sent out reconnaissance planes to identify the ship. They made eight trips over a period of three hours. The Liberty was flying a large US flag and was easily recognizable as an American vessel.
Soon more planes came. These were Israeli Mirage III fighters, armed with rockets and machine guns. As off-duty officers sunbathed on the deck, the fighters opened fire on the defenseless ship with rockets and machine guns.
A few minutes later a second wave of planes streaked overhead, French-built Mystere jets, which not only pelted the ship with gunfire but also with napalm bomblets, coating the deck with the flaming jelly. By now, the Liberty was on fire and dozens were wounded and killed, excluding several of the ship’s top officers.
The Liberty’s radio team tried to issue a distress call, but discovered the frequencies had been jammed by the Israeli planes with what one communications specialist called “a buzzsaw sound.” Finally, an open channel was found and the Liberty got out a message to the USS America, the Sixth Fleet’s large aircraft carrier, that it was under attack
Two F-4s left the carrier to come to the Liberty’s aid. Apparently, the jets were armed only with nuclear weapons. When word reached the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara became irate and ordered the jets to return. “Tell the Sixth Fleet to get those aircraft back immediately,” he barked. The planes turned around. And the attack on the Liberty continued.
After the Israeli fighter jets had emptied their arsenal of rockets, three Israeli attack boats approached the Liberty. Two torpedoes were launched at the crippled ship, one tore a 40-foot wide hole in the hull, flooding the lower compartments, and killing more than a dozen American sailors.
As the Liberty listed in the choppy seas, its deck aflame, crew members dropped life rafts into the water and prepared to scuttle the ship. Given the number of wounded, this was going to be a dangerous operation. But it soon proved impossible, as the Israeli attack boats strafed the rafts with machine gunfire. Nobody was going to get out alive that way.
After more than two hours of unremitting assault, the Israelis finally halted their attack. One of the torpedo boats approached the Liberty. An officer asked in English over a bullhorn: “Do you need any help?”
The wounded commander of the Liberty, Lt. William McGonagle, instructed the quartermaster to respond emphatically: “Fuck you.”
The Israeli boat turned and left.
A Soviet destroyer responded before the US Navy, even though a US submarine, on a covert mission, was apparently in the area and had monitored the attack. The Soviet ship reached the Liberty six hours before the USS Davis. The captain of the Soviet ship offered his aid, but the Liberty’s conning officer refused.
Finally, 16 hours after the attack two US destroyers reached the Liberty. By that time, 34 US sailors were dead and 174 injured, many seriously. As the wounded were being evacuated, an officer with the Office of Naval Intelligence instructed the men not to talk about their ordeal with the press.
The following morning Israel launched a surprise invasion of Syria, breaching the new cease-fire agreement and seizing control of the Golan Heights.
Within three weeks, the Navy put out a 700-page report, exonerating the Israelis, claiming the attack had been accidental and that the Israelis had pulled back as soon as they realized their mistake. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara suggested the whole affair should be forgotten. “These errors do occur,” McNamara concluded.'

What would happen if the Chinese attack and kill unarmed American military men in international waters? 

What value is the support of international friends?

Is loyalty a real element in international relations.

How self-absorbed and dangerous is Israel?

What kind of people can do this and excuse it? Are such people connected at all to the people they influence?

In Webber's "Dreamcoat," "the Children of Israel are never alone." But sometimes it's hard to see why.

Evil Spells

Evil Spells

Dev Shah from Florida spelled "psammophile" correctly to become the 95th Scripps National Spelling Bee champion, beating Charlotte Walsh from Virginia.

Two spellers were eliminated in Round 9, when 11-year-old Sarah Fernandes from Nebraska was marked incorrect on "leguleian" and Pranav Anandh from Pennsylvania on "querken."In Round 10, which is a word-meaning round, Tarini Nandakumar from Texas was out on "chthonic."

Arth Dalsania from California was eliminated on "katuka," Dhruv Subramanian from California on "crenel," Vikrant Chintanaboina from California on "pataca," and Aryan Khedkar from Michigan on "pharetrone."

Shradha Rachamreddy from California missed "orle" in the 13th round, before Surya Kapu spelled "kelep" incorrectly to leave Shah and Charlotte Walsh from Virginia as the final two competitors of 2023.

Kapu, an eighth-grader in his last year of eligibility, ranked fifth in 2022. This year, his correctly spelled words included "nunnari" and "Bloemfontein" on his way to finishing tied for third.

Walsh spelled "daviely" incorrectly before Shah spelled his final word, making her the 2023 runner-up and the winner of $25,000. Her 13 correctly spelled words throughout the competition included "akuammine," "collembolous," "rescissible" and "sorge."

Certainly no one wants to make any generalization here but there is a coincidence that might be noticeable; many of these names may be of Indian origin. Now for the really bad news: Since 1999, the children of immigrants from South Asia have dominated the world's most prestigious spelling bee. In our belief in equality of outcome, this is more than disturbing, this is virtual treason. 

What is going on? What circumstances or series of circumstances has unfairly created this unnatural disparity? We know this kind of imbalance implies injustice. But something of this scope has to be more than simple bigotry. It has to be a conspiracy.

And, as an aside, who the hell is Charlotte Walsh?

D Day