When Mendacity is Policy

Apple Inc. is said to be canceling a decade-long effort to build an electric car, abandoning one of the most ambitious projects in the history of the company.

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According to a Stanford study, over the past 20 years, the medical profession has gone from 60% Republican to 80% Democrat.

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One reason the United States didn’t adopt the metric system was because the ship crossing the Atlantic from France carrying a standard kilogram—a real physical object requested by Thomas Jefferson in 1793-- was blown off course into the Caribbean and captured by pirates.

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When Mendacity is Policy

Some quotes from President Biden.

Biden says that a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas might be finalized by next Monday. Does this position have anything to do with the Muslim presence in the Michigan primary? Does the fact that both Israel and Hamas have denied any progress make you think that this Biden announcement might be a tad cynical? And untrue?

Biden said, “The evidence said I did not willfully retain these documents.”   

Hur’s report, page one: “Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen.”

Biden said, “There’s even a reference that I don’t remember when my son died. How in the hell dare he raise that. Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself it wasn’t any of their damn business.”   

NBC News reported, “Hur never asked that question, according to two people familiar with Hur’s five-hour interview with the president over two days last October. It was the president, not Hur or his team, who first introduced Beau Biden’s death, they said.”

"We have plans to build a railroad from the Pacific all the way across the Indian Ocean."

The average federal income tax paid by the richest Americans is “8%. … If you’re a cop, a teacher, a firefighter, union worker, you probably pay two to three times that.”

Al-Qaida is “gone” from Afghanistan.

This is a bit hard to analyze because Biden is unreliable mentally as well as politically. But is this how we are going to live, ignoring our leaders as liars and frauds and incompetents? Just discarding all public pronouncements as nonsense? 

All the pleas for conversation and mediation don't work very well when you can safely assume these positions are all false.

Inefficient Outrages

There were 16 fatal dog attacks in England and Wales in 2023.

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Kim Kardashian reportedly wants Kanye's wife to dress more appropriately around her children, according to The Daily Mail.

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Four underwater communications cables between Saudi Arabia and Djibouti have been struck out of commission in recent months, presumably as a result of attacks by Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, according to an exclusive report in the Israeli news site Globes.

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Inefficient Outrages

"On Thursday, the Biden administration announced a new plan to enact large-scale student loan forgiveness, this time by targeting borrowers experiencing financial “hardship.”

…..

Ironically, the Biden administration’s “permanent solutions” to the student loan crisis will likely only end up making the problem worse. While supporters of the proposal say it would provide necessary relief for borrowers unlikely to pay their loans back, providing blanket forgiveness to those struggling to pay their loans back would likely end up incentivizing universities to hike prices and encouraging students to enroll in expensive programs.

If students know that they can have their loans forgiven as long they prove financial hardship, it will directly incentivize prospective borrowers to take on huge balances for dubiously valuable degrees. In turn, colleges can assure students that taking on tens—or even hundreds—of thousands of dollars in loans is a wise choice. After all, the government has promised to step in should repayment become burdensome."--Emma Camp

All this may be true but the executive shifting citizens' debts from one to an other is a lot more than ineffective, it is wrong. We have a difficult time determining right and wrong nowadays, but we do have basic governmental beliefs in this country. Taking property from one citizen and giving it to another is not allowed. The President can not declare such a transfer. The Supreme Court has already ruled on this and Biden has publicly declared his intention to get around the ruling, that is to violate the decision.

This is simply criminal, regardless of whether or not it "works."

What Subsidies Say

I'm genuinely stunned at how good OpenAI's Sora AI video previews are. It makes existing video models look like silly toys. Everyone will be a filmmaker.--De Kraker

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The Coke and Pepsi pricing strategies are being scrutinized under an obscure law known as the Robinson-Patman Act. The law prohibits suppliers from offering better prices to large retailers at the expense of their smaller competitors. The largely dormant 1936 law is aimed at promoting a level playing field between small retailers and large chain stores.

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What Subsidies Say

Subsidies are supports outside of normal analysis. Sometimes subsidies just jump-start something before its time. Create a foundation for a new structure, large or small. Clean energy is not a "transition," it is a destructive overturning of the present without a real vision of what is to come.

If the “clean energy transition” were economically efficient, financial support would be available. Market forces would affect the “transition” without Beltway interference. But unconventional energy is very far from efficient. It needs all the help it can get. So its devotees take money from the productive and efficient part of the economy and underwrite the inefficient 'new energy' economy with the diverted money.
 

An honest cost analysis of these policies will not be forthcoming because this is not a matter of commerce or economics but rather of ideology. And ideology--while passionate --generally has long escaped the intellect.

Sunday/Transfiguration

When President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law in 1935, life expectancy in America was only 59.9 years for men and 63.9 for women. Fast forward to today, and these numbers have increased to 74.8 for men and 80.2 for women.

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Chicago's Mayor Brandon Johnson has allocated roughly $150 million for immigrants in his 2024 budget, but a recent agreement with state and county leaders demands another $70 million.

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Sunday/Transfiguration

Today is the Feast of the Transfiguration. Despite its drama, it was never formalized in the Church until after the Tenth Century. In it, Christ is transfigured on a mountaintop with Moses and Elijah while Peter, James, and John watch in amazement.

It is often seen as the point in the Gospel where Christ and the apostles are both energized by this glimpse of heaven.

But it is a remarkable, almost posed, artistic, and philosophical moment. A distillation of the New and Old Testament conflicts and resolutions, it is a potent mixture of spirituality and humanity, Christ and the great prophets and the apostles all swirling in opposition and conformity.

And light.

We have always had great respect for light. In Genesis, right after the creation of the formless heaven and earth, light displaces the dark. Even Lucifer (appearing only once in the Old Testament) means "the morning star" or "light-bringer."

The architect Wren, on deciding to avoid stained glass windows in his churches, said ""Nothing can add beauty to light." 

Edison's first commercial electric light system was installed on Pearl Street in the financial district of Lower Manhattan in 1882.

Before that, the world was lit only by fire.

The World
by Henry Vaughan

I saw Eternity the other night,
Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
All calm, as it was bright;
And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years,
Driv’n by the spheres
Like a vast shadow mov’d; in which the world
And all her train were hurl’d.
The doting lover in his quaintest strain
Did there complain;
Near him, his lute, his fancy, and his flights,
Wit’s sour delights,
With gloves, and knots, the silly snares of pleasure,
Yet his dear treasure
All scatter’d lay, while he his eyes did pour
Upon a flow’r.

The darksome statesman hung with weights and woe,
Like a thick midnight-fog mov’d there so slow,
He did not stay, nor go;
Condemning thoughts (like sad eclipses) scowl
Upon his soul,
And clouds of crying witnesses without
Pursued him with one shout.
Yet digg’d the mole, and lest his ways be found,
Work’d under ground,
Where he did clutch his prey; but one did see
That policy;
Churches and altars fed him; perjuries
Were gnats and flies;
It rain’d about him blood and tears, but he
Drank them as free.

The fearful miser on a heap of rust
Sate pining all his life there, did scarce trust
His own hands with the dust,
Yet would not place one piece above, but lives
In fear of thieves;
Thousands there were as frantic as himself,
And hugg’d each one his pelf;
The downright epicure plac’d heav’n in sense,
And scorn’d pretence,
While others, slipp’d into a wide excess,
Said little less;
The weaker sort slight, trivial wares enslave,
Who think them brave;
And poor despised Truth sate counting by
Their victory.

Yet some, who all this while did weep and sing,
And sing, and weep, soar’d up into the ring;
But most would use no wing.
O fools (said I) thus to prefer dark night
Before true light,
To live in grots and caves, and hate the day
Because it shews the way,
The way, which from this dead and dark abode
Leads up to God,
A way where you might tread the sun, and be
More bright than he.
But as I did their madness so discuss
One whisper’d thus,
“This ring the Bridegroom did for none provide,
But for his bride.”

Gordievsky

Did the fact checkers ever correct Tony Fauci, Rochelle Walensky, or Rachel Maddow for saying that the COVID-19 vax prevents you from getting and spreading COVID-19? If not, why not?

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Karl Spence characterizes the views of the liberal intelligentsia as: “Let my conscience be your guide.”

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Gordievsky

Oleg Gordievsky was the most significant British agent of the Cold War. For 11 years, he spied for MI6.

Gordievsky told the story of his improbable survival in his 1995 memoir, Next Stop Execution. It charts his recruitment by the KGB, where his older brother Vasili served as a deep-cover “illegal”, and Gordievsky’s growing disillusionment with the grey totalitarian world of 1960s Moscow which culminated in his revulsion of the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Ben Macintyre’s The Spy and the Traitor complements and enhances Gordievsky’s first-person account. It reveals the dramatic role of MI6 in recruiting and cultivating a serving KGB insider – and keeping him alive against the odds. Gordievsky’s British contacts were a colorful collection of upper-class Cold War adventurers and gifted working-class linguists recruited from Oxbridge

Gordievsky would go on to meet his British handlers once a month; he didn’t want money and said he was spying out of ideological conviction. Cassettes of these conversations were sent back to London in a diplomatic bag. Gordievsky, MI6 discovered, was a star asset. He had a prodigious memory and thorough knowledge of current and former KGB operations. At lunchtime, he would slip out of the embassy and hand over microfilm strips to his case officer for copying. These were Moscow’s secret instructions.

There were close shaves, including an approach to the Soviet embassy by Michael Bettaney, a renegade MI5 loner. Betrayal eventually came from a venal CIA officer, Aldrich Ames, who tipped off Moscow – Ames is the traitor of the book’s title. Ames!

Macintyre touches only briefly on the unprecedented “download” of information Gordievsky gave to the West. It included details of the KGB’s attempts to influence Western elections through “active measures”. In 1985 the KGB circulated a top-secret “personality questionnaire”. It set out the characteristics it was looking for in a potential agent: narcissism, vanity, greed, and marital infidelity. Soon afterward, the Soviet government invited a prominent American, Donald Trump, to visit Moscow. (In fairness, we do not know if there was a connection.)

In the summer of 1985 – after Gordievsky was hastily recalled from London to Moscow by his suspicious bosses – British intelligence officers helped him to escape. It was the only time that the Brits ever managed to exfiltrate a penetration agent from the USSR, outwitting their Russian adversaries. It went some way towards exorcising the Cambridge spies, who a generation earlier had traveled in the opposite direction.

His two books on Soviet intelligence operations with historian Christopher Andrew are invaluable references.

Much from The Guardian

 

Strange Bedfellows

 

At least four police officers were hurt during a violent riot that erupted on the streets outside The Hague after two rival groups of Eritreans clashed following a political disagreement.
Rioters torched police cars and a bus, and Dutch police officers were forced to use tear gas to try and dispel them.
An official said a group loyal to Eritrea's government was holding a meeting when the venue was attacked by Eritreans who oppose the African nation's government. (Eritrea is a one-man dictatorship under unelected President Isaias Afewerki, with no legislature, no independent civil society organizations or media outlets, and no independent judiciary.)
The conflicts underscore deep divisions among members of the Eritrean diaspora between those who remain close to the government and those who have fled to live in exile and strongly oppose Isaias.

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Bridewell

MEANING:
noun: A prison.

ETYMOLOGY:
Originally it was a well, named for St. Bride (or Brigid) in London. The name St. Bride’s Well became Bridewell. Over time, the site has served as a church, a palace, an orphanage, a hospital, and finally, gained notoriety as a prison. Earliest documented use: 1583.

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Strange Bedfellows

We seem to be in the time of ideologues, wild-eyed devotees of rigid, inflexible political positions. Unreflective and narrow. Intense.

But these movements are always more complex and less pointed than they seem.

Bruce Yandle, Clemson University economics professor, in his seminal 1983 article, “Bootleggers and Baptists – The Education of a Regulatory Economist,” explained why virtuous Baptists and self-interested bootleggers might come together to support the prohibition of the sale of alcohol. 

Baptists sincerely support temperance; bootleggers greedily welcome reduced competition. Similarly, environmentalists genuinely committed to protecting forests and biodiversity might be joined by beef producers seeking nothing more elevated than a protected market. 

U.S. consumers may have different preferences, but powerful combinations like this can ride roughshod over the general public.

The whole may be a lot less than the sum of its parts. And don't the major candidates reflect that?

Lilith's

Berkshire is one of the few insurers that has yet to set a target to wind down emissions from its insurance and investment portfolios.

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This Gaza thing won't end until, as Golda Meir put it, "the Arabs love their children more than they hate the Jews."

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Donnie Iris is 81!

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It has been 66 days since Kate Middleton was seen in public.

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Lilith's

We have been awaiting the new restaurant replacing Toni Pais' Cafe Zinho on Spahr Street. Zinho had been in Shadyside for 25 years and was old-shoe comfortable. You needed some care around the menu, which could be self-indulgent, but the food was reliably good and they were always happy to see you. Just the kind of restaurant a neighborhood wants.

The new place is Lilith's, owned by Pittsburgh veteran chefs Jamilka Borges and Dianne DeStefano (Bar Marco, The Independent Brewing Company, Lorelei, and Hidden Harbor.)

We made several attempts at reservations (only online)--apparently, they are really busy--but strangely got a reservation in person after being told there were none available online. Our reservation for four was later mysteriously changed to two but, after the trouble we had getting anything, we took it without complaint.

We were on time and showed through a busy floor of mostly tables for two, into the back area to a room that, in its previous life, was a small craft shop run by the previous owner's wife. It is small with a table for 4, maybe 6--perfect for an intimate Mafia meeting or people in mourning. Fortunately, the hostess found another less segregated table.

As she sat us she said "90 minutes. We're fully committed tonight. Your reservation is 90 minutes." A spirited discussion developed among nearby tables about selling 'restaurant time credits.'

The waitstaff was interested and helpful. Two of the three beers on the menu were unavailable. We would have any of the meals again.

All said and done, the room was buzzy, and the food was good.

Neighborhood restaurants are sometimes hard to do and I am always on their side. I have high hopes for any good kitchen like Lilith's. But right now we did not think we were very high on the restaurant's list of priorities. The worry is, with all the changes in the economy and the restaurant industry, is this the direction of the future?

Art Auction

California’s highest income tax rate is 13.3%. That is in addition to a top federal tax rate of 37%. California also has a state sales tax rate of 7.25%, and many localities impose a smaller sales tax. So if a wealthy person earns and spends labor income in the state of California, the tax rate at the margin could approach 60%. Then there is the corporate state income tax rate of 8.84%, some of which is passed along to consumers through higher prices. That increases the tax burden further.

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Governments around the world are intensifying scrutiny on the building of data centers over fears that their huge energy usage is putting excessive pressure on national climate targets and electricity grids.

Ireland, Germany, Singapore, and China as well as a US Loudoun County in Va. and Amsterdam in the Netherlands have introduced restrictions on new data centres in recent years to comply with more stringent environmental requirements.

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Art Auction

An auction of the tattooed skin of an Austrian performance artist has been canceled after all 12 pieces were bought by a collector for "a seven-figure Art Auction sum" ahead of the event. The sale of Wolfgang Flatz's skin was due to take place at Munich’s modern and contemporary art museum, the Pinakothek der Moderne, on 8 February.

The lots have been purchased by a Swiss collector, who will receive black-and-white photographs of the lots until they are transferred to them posthumously. One remaining piece of tattooed skin will be given to the artist’s son. The tattoos include the artist’s name in Cyrillic and a quote by the Roman philosopher Cicero: "Dum spiro spero" (while I breathe I hope).

The auction, titled "To Risk One’s Own Skin", was to be led by Christie’s auctioneer and chairman, Dirk Boll. A now-removed page on Christie’s website described how "the auction thus offers a unique opportunity to acquire a significant piece of art history’s future, as this is the first time an artist has sold his real body as a work of art during his lifetime."

The event was organized as a prelude to the Munich Museum’s retrospective of Flatz’s work, Something Wrong with Physical Sculpture, which runs until May 2024 and includes a work that offers visitors the chance to throw darts at his body. An undisclosed portion of the proceeds from the sale will go towards the museum’s Bavarian State Painting Collections and the Flatz Foundation, which was set up by the artist to foster "artistic expression."

An article in The Art Newspaper then discusses the legal implications of the sale, presumably because the ideas of good taste and common sense are too subjective to allow definitive debate.

Squatter

Somehow, social pressure pushing identity politics over meritocracy has been building over the years, to the point that an article on the virtues of merit in science, co-authored by many eminent scientists, could only be published in the Journal of Controversial Ideas.--Staddon

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All else being equal, for every one standard deviation increase in income inequality in a city, the number of sexy selfies goes up by 31-34%.

All else being equal?

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In the three months after Dobbs—the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade—the number of vasectomies rose 29%.

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Squatter

The San Francisco Elections Commission has, for what is believed to be the first time in history, appointed someone who is not a U.S. citizen—who is not legally allowed to vote—to serve as an official.

Is this because the pool of available candidates is so poor that the republic cannot support itself?

The officer, Kelly Wong, was sworn in on Feb. 14, local news outlet KQED reported. It said that Ms. Wong, an immigrant rights advocate, is a native of Hong Kong who arrived in the United States in 2019 for graduate studies.

She was sworn in by Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin during a ceremony at San Francisco City Hall after winning unanimous support from the board.

So a guest has arrived and has started to rearrange our furniture. It's only a matter of time before she changes the locks.

Chinese Immigration

Results from a global recruitment survey:
93% of Gen Zers have stood up an interviewer.
87% managed to charm their way through interviews, secure the job, and sign the contract, only to leave their new job on the very first day.
Their reason for doing so? According to the survey, it makes them “feel in charge of their career."

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Finland has announced it will open 300 shooting ranges to encourage citizens to take a greater interest in national defense.

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Gutfield's great line about the New York case against Trump: "If you can't identify a victim, then the crime had to be reverse-engineered."

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Chinese Immigration

According to the strangely named U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), since October 2023, almost 16,000 Chinese migrants have attempted to cross the U.S.-Mexico border — more than doubling the previous fiscal year’s total number of Chinese migrants in a matter of months. This makes Chinese nationals the fastest-growing population to cross into the U.S. from Mexico.

CBP data reveals that from January to November of 2023, over 30,000 Chinese people were detained by border agents after crossing illegally. In 2021, meanwhile, there were only 323 crossings.

Chinese citizens now represent the fourth largest nationality to cross the Darién Gap — the dense, mountainous jungle connecting Colombia with Panama. The Darién Gap was once seen as extraordinarily dangerous to traverse, but waves of migrants have established ways to navigate it as they move northward to the U.S. Illegality paves its own way.

In June, China’s unemployment rate for 16-to-24-year-olds reached 21.3%, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Fortunately for them, with the decline in their birth rate, unemployment will eventually drop a lot.

Priorities

Interesting summary of a paper: The key insight is that women have always been more [economically] left-wing than men, but that women were also more religious (both vs today and vs men) and that this was a moderating force against those left-wing views. With religion in retreat, those views now take voice.

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There have been 80,000 recorded UFO sightings since 1906. Four-fifths of extraterrestrials have chosen to visit the United States--probably because they speak English.

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Curious we have such a good understanding of Putin's plans with Novotny but his invasion of Ukraine was a complete surprise.

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Priorities

Most people would not think the value of education would be debatable, especially when so many of the generally accepted parameters are being underachieved. Hidden within education is the assumption that a fulfilled, achieving, successful individual is a unit of the successful state.

Not so fast.

In a discrete choice experiment in which bureaucrats in education were asked to make trade-offs between foundational literacy, completion of secondary school, and formation of dutiful citizens, respondents valued dutiful citizens 50% more than literate ones. For many policymakers, the goal is not the production of knowledge, but the fostering of nationalism.

This may sound like an odd set of priorities, but both European and Latin American countries had similar priorities when they expanded their education systems to serve more than a small elite around the turn of the 20th century. The goal was not to produce scientists or entrepreneurs but to inculcate a reliable workforce that would support the state.

…Developing-country schools are trying to achieve much the same ends. Students learn to memorize, to obey, and to not question — but they do not particularly learn to read or write. But then again, that was never the goal — developing countries are following the path trod on by developed countries. Like developed countries, they will try to “teach ordinary people obedience, respect for the law, [and] love of order.”

National achievement does not just rank ahead of personal achievement; personal achievement is actively sacrificed for the state, by the state.

While this is hardly scientific, here's another bit of unscientific information. There is also an interesting correlation between countries that encourage dutiful citizens in schools and countries that invest in government-owned TV stations.

Always trying to remind us: The stability of the state comes first.

 

Sunday/Activism

A new study on intelligence finds no difference in general intelligence between genders with some specific distinctions, females with faster processing and writing, males advantaged in visual processing.

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Yemen now has more births per year than Russia, far more than Germany or Japan. In a few decades, it will end up with a larger population than Russia.

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Sunday/Activism

For some reason, outsiders must attack insiders. Rather than just going his own way, the outsider must set himself against the insider with a righteous vengeance, even if that opposition is certain to provoke response. In 1989, thousands stormed St. Patrick’s Cathedral in opposition to the Catholic Church’s policies on homosexuality and HIV/AIDS. At that time they desecrated the host. The homosexual community felt this event unifying. The Catholic community never forgave them.

Last November, Catholics held a Mass of Reparation in Brooklyn to cleanse the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church. The Brooklyn Diocese said the church was desecrated when someone filmed a sexually provocative music video inside the church.

St. Patrick’s Cathedral held another Mass of Reparation Saturday after the Archdiocese of New York claimed mourners at a funeral service for trans icon Cecilia Gentili last week contaminated the church by engaging in “scandalous behavior.”

In the Catholic tradition, to make "reparation" means to offer to God an act of compensation for one's own sins or the sins of others against Christ. St. Patrick’s pastor, the Very Rev. Enrique Salvo, said that at Cardinal Dolan’s request, the Mass was offered to pray for forgiveness for what some Catholics considered a desecration of the historic Midtown house of worship.

“Thanks to so many who have let us know they share our outrage over the scandalous behavior at a funeral here at St. Patrick’s Cathedral earlier this week. The Cathedral only knew that family and friends were requesting a funeral Mass for a Catholic, and had no idea our welcome and prayer would be degraded in such a sacrilegious and deceptive way,” Salvo said Saturday in a statement.  

Joe Zwelling, a spokesman for the archdiocese, said the church didn’t take issue with Gentili’s sexual identity, but the actions of the mourners.

Outraged Catholics complained on social media that attendees wore racy outfits and cursed openly at the podium while paying tribute to Gentili, 52, a renowned trans activist and award-winning author, former sex worker, and actress.

Mourners also jokingly identified Gentili as a “saint” and changed the lyrics to some Catholic songs to honor the LGBTQ advocate.

Among the mourners was “Pose” star Billy Porter, who, according to the group Catholic Vote opened the service “with a song mocking the Our Father prayer.”

Ceyeye Doroshow, who organized the memorial, admitted to The New York Times that she did not mention Gentili was trans to St. Patrick’s officials and kept her identity “under wraps.” Organizers did put out an extensive news release advertising the funeral at the church.

More than 1,000 people attended the service, which was live-streamed on Trans Equity YouTube channel. Many of the mourners were trans and were seen wearing miniskirts, halter tops, fishnet stockings, and fur stoles.

Gentili’s family on Saturday pushed back at St. Patrick’s, saying the funeral brought “precious life and radical joy to the Cathedral in historic defiance of the Church’s hypocrisy and anti-trans hatred.”

“Cecilia Gentili’s funeral service, which filled the pews in ways the Cathedral only can during Easter service and NYPD funerals, was a reflection of the love she had for her community and a testament to the impact of her tireless advocacy,” family members said in a statement to The New York Daily News. “Her heart and hands reached those the sanctimonious Church continues to belittle, oppress, and chastise, and she changed the material conditions for countless people, including unhoused people and those who needed healthcare.

“The only deception present at St. Patrick’s Cathedral is that it claims to be a welcoming place for all,” they said.

This is a misunderstanding. Any organization is defined by its rules which distinguish it. The Professional Pilots Association has, as a criterion, being a professional pilot.
The AMA is an organization of physicians. Now only 15-18% of doctors in the US are paying members of the AMA and in one study only 11% of physicians who responded believe the AMA stands for the views of doctors. The AMA is controversial within medicine and provokes a lot of disagreement but no non-AMA member has attacked them.

Organizations are, by definition, exclusionary. Catholicism has, certainly recently, been inconsistent about the gay/trans community but it does exclude them from some of the sacraments--as it does their members who have missed Sunday mass. But this group wants more than inclusion; they want approval. They want validated. And they want those who don't validate them to change and they will strike them if they don't.

Like a Jehovah's Witness bombing a blood bank.

Agents of the Law

A regular program of welfare checks to people with children is now called a tax cut.

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Fourteen of the world’s twenty largest tech companies are based in the United States – including the top six. American-based tech companies’ market valuation (at least as of December) comprises 90.5 percent of the total market valuation of these twenty tech companies.

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Agents of the Law  

The arts community has always seen itself above the fray, a social commentator, a moral referee. So, a refuge. A sanctuary of the greater good that stores man's higher nature and aspirations, often in conflict with the shallow, coarse, and degrading motives of the everyday.

Well, maybe they're just like us.

Organizers of the Hugo Awards, one of the most prominent literary awards in science fiction, excluded multiple authors from shortlists last year over concerns their work or public comments could be offensive to China, leaked emails show.

Questions had been raised as to why writers including Neil Gaiman, R.F. Kuang, Xiran Jay Zhao and Paul Weimer had been deemed ineligible as finalists despite earning enough votes according to information published last month by awards organizers. Emails released this week revealed that they were concerned about how some authors might be perceived in China, where the Hugo Awards were held last year for the first time.

Any work focusing on China, Taiwan, Tibet, or other sensitive issues, he added, “needs to be highlighted so that we can determine if it is safe to put it on the ballot.”

"Safe."

Some books, like Kuang’s “Babel” — which won the 2023 British Book Award for Fiction — appear to have been excluded simply for taking place in China. Zhao’s novel “Iron Widow” was flagged as being a “reimagining of the rise of the Chinese Empress Wu Zetian.”

Organizers also flagged comments that authors made on social media.

It's important to note this is the arts indulging in self-censorship, anticipating state censorship. This obliterates the freedom and truth that is the essential artistic nature.

Cancelling your brand in most pursuits would be an extinction event.

A Minority Report

Most of the world’s major nations have concluded that healthy children do not need Covid-19 vaccinations.

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Russia is developing a space-based capability to attack satellites using a nuclear weapon, an aggressive move that has alarmed U.S. national security officials and lawmakers who worry that Russia could interfere with or disable critical communications and intelligence systems, according to people familiar with classified intelligence on the matter.--WashPo

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Canada's demographics are changing. Male immigrants, especially in working/fighting/reproducing age groups, are surging. The figures highlight the country’s changing demographic trends due to its liberal immigration policy, which aims to rapidly expand the pool of workers to stave off long-term economic decline from an aging populace.

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A Minority Report

Last week Trump threatened to let NATO countries that failed to meet the two percent of GDP defense budget obligation fend for themselves against Putin. This may be one of Zito's "taking Trump seriously but not literally" moments but it is pretty harsh. But is it nutty?

NATO leaders pledged in 2014 to commit at least 2% of their gross domestic product to defense spending, in response to Russia's annexation of Crimea and instabilities in the Middle East. These are not funds that countries would pay to NATO, but contributions to their own military budgets. The alliance doesn't have its own army and its military protections are insured by member countries.

Only 11 of the 31 nations were predicted to spend more than 2% of their GDP on defense in 2023, according to NATO estimates published in July. Almost a decade ago, only three countries met that mark. The U.S. was estimated to spend 3.49% of its GDP in 2023 on defense, which is roughly $860 million. Poland comes in first with 3.9% -- more than $29 million. The only other country estimated to pass the 3% mark was Greece, with more than $7 million.

NATO's border runs along the Eastern Europe interface with Russia as well as along the very long border Russia shares in the Arctic with Canada, contributing 1.38%. The problem isn't just investment, it's competence. While many countries haven't maintained their financial obligations, some could not maintain their readiness with three times the financial requirements. Remember the reports that the German Army trained with broomsticks because they didn’t have enough machine guns?

This isn't just a matter of fairness; an unprepared nation is vulnerable regardless of its financial commitment. And vulnerability invites aggression because that's how we--and especially non-democratic nations--are. Those unprepared members of the coalition would, logically, depend upon the prepared members. I.E. us.

Look at Germany. In the last years, Germany has behaved politically like the Americans have behaved socially, which is to say, nuts. The country has given up its energy independence and it may lose a significant portion of its manufacturing base. Its earlier economic strategy was to cast its lot with Russia and China. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, a far-right organization, is the number 2 party there and growing, and the former east is politically polarized and illiberal. Most of all, the country has lost its will to defend itself despite a well-educated population and a deliberative political system that in the more distant past worked well.

If Germany is in trouble, NATO is in trouble.

Trump's excesses may astutely expose a serious American risk.

Patriots

Nearly all of the rise in borrowing over the past 15 years has been because of higher spending and not because of lower revenue. Now that we are through our most recent recession, spending is still higher than it used to be, and CBO’s projections show that rising deficits are from this spending growth. Revenue is growing, too, but spending is growing faster. Somewhere along the way, after the pandemic, we committed to higher spending without a real public debate about whether we wanted government to represent a higher share of the economy.--deRugy

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"...gambling is not dangerous the way smoking is: Cigarettes, the focus of a concerted public health campaign for six decades, are harmful when used as intended. For most who bet, their pastime is harmless, and we should not constrain a large majority to protect a relatively small minority from what is called a “disorder of impulse control.”--Will

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Penguins are 30th in the powerplay with 21 power-play goals, one more goal than Sam Reinhardt.

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Nkechi Diallo, formerly known as Rachel Dolezal, was fired by a Tucson, Ariz. school district after administrators learned of her OnlyFans account.
Diallo was the center of controversy in 2015. She identified as Black, despite being the daughter of two White parents. She later resigned as president of the NAACP chapter in Spokane, Wash. amid the scandal.

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Patriots

Everyone is suddenly worried about Biden's mental acuity. Why now?

Biden has never been a shining star. This man has had two--two--craniotomies when younger. He has a reputation as a loud, aggressive, shallow guy in the Senate. He has been found culpable for illegal behavior dating back into his time in the Senate. Over the last several years he has become increasingly vague, unable to express himself, and has been making contradictory--and frankly foolishly erroneous--comments about people and policy. Now there is a special council report saying he's too incompetent to convict.

At first, one would wonder how he gets support at all. That confusion would be understandable until the real objectives of the executive become clear. The point is not to do a good job, to help advance the ship of state in shark-filled waters. The project is to maintain hold on the tiller. To stay in control, regardless of the quality of work done. The executive class would support Himmler or Ronald McDonald as president--as long as they felt he could win the next election.

That they are beginning to turn against him is the result of one thing: they are beginning to think he might not be able to win.

Patriots.

A Canary is Silent But the Fat Lady Sings

Former Ohio State quarterback Art Schlichter was arrested Friday in Columbus after a state trooper found cocaine in his car, according to court records.

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Zoom fatigue is real! When people talk face-to-face, they respond to yes-or-no questions in 297 milliseconds, on average, but this number jumps to 976 milliseconds when talking over Zoom. This imperceptible delay interferes with the neural mechanisms that govern the normal back-and-forth of human conversation, and the body’s physiological response is fatigue.

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A robotic lunar lander is scheduled to launch in the early morning hours of Wednesday. If all goes well, it will become the first American spacecraft to set down softly on the moon’s surface since the Apollo 17 moon landing in 1972.
It is also the latest private effort to send spacecraft to the moon. Earlier attempts have all ended in failure. But the company in charge of the latest effort is Intuitive Machines of Houston.

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A Canary is Silent But the Fat Lady Sings

Congressional Budget Office published its annual 10-year Budget and Economic Outlook. In a country that thinks its border is 'secure,' such information will likely be ignored. 

But...according to the CBO’s latest estimates, in 2024 the U.S. government will pass a grim and once-unimaginable milestone. The federal debt has gotten so large that spending on interest to service that debt will exceed federal spending on national defense.

In the CBO’s long-term projections, interest payments will become the largest line item in the budget—exceeding even spending on federal health care programs—sometime in the 2040s. It’s very likely that sometime between now and then, global financial markets sour on U.S. Treasury bonds as a sound investment, leading to an unprecedented and dangerous economic crisis with rising interest rates, higher inflation, and social turmoil.

Federal Interest Costs Now Exceed U.S. Defense Spending

(Estimated $ billions, 2022–2034)

Net Interest (2024 projection)

Defense (2024 projection)

Source: Congressional Budget Office

Graphic: Avik Ro in Forbes