Biden is an Alien

One recurring theme in the election is that Trump is entirely self-absorbed with no concern about the state of the nation.
How does that differ from what Biden and his supporters are doing?


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The Department of Homeland Security has identified over 400 immigrants who have come to the U.S. from Central Asia and elsewhere as “subjects of concern” because they were brought by an ISIS-affiliated human smuggling network, three U.S. officials tell NBC News.

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“The Houthis are the first entity in the history of the world to use anti-ship ballistic missiles ever,” Navy Vice Admiral Brad Cooper recently told CBS’s 60 Minutes. He added that it would convey a “false sense” of superiority to describe the Yemen-based militia group as “ragtag.” “Ten years of being supplied by the Iranians very sophisticated, advanced weapons,” he added, has produced a well-armed and adept force firing powerful ordnance at both commercial vessels and U.S. Navy ships.

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Biden is an Alien

An article by Hoel last year tried to summarize the strange UFO resurgence, which he attributes to the influence of Alien aficionado Senator Harry Reid, a press eager for clicks, and an embedded governmental subculture advancing a subset they could milk. (Reid's initial UFO grant was for $22 Million. Million!)

It might be fun to revisit after the recent exposure of the massive U.S.A., Biden manipulation,

This is an attempt at a summary.

"To sum up the story as far as I understand its convoluted depths: diehard paranormal believers scored 22 million in Defense spending via what looks like nepotism from Harry Reid by submitting a grant to do bland general “aerospace research” and being the “sole bidder” for the contract. They then reportedly used that grant, according to Lacatski himself, the head of the program, to study a myriad of paranormal phenomenon at Skinwalker Ranch including—you may have guessed it by now—dino-beavers. Viola! That’s how there was a “government-funded program to study UFOs.”

Our current journalistic class, unwilling or unable to do the research I can do in my boxers in about five hours, instead did a big media oopsie in The New York Times, running the story and lending credibility to the idea the Pentagon did create a real serious task force to investigate UFO claims. The fervor in response to these “revelations” memed into existence a real agency at the DoD that now does actually study UFOs, simply because everyone “demanded answers”—which is totally understandable, given the journalistic coverage. However, the current UFO task force is staffed by, well, the people willing to be on a UFO task force. According to the Post:

And who was in charge, during the Trump administration, when the Pentagon created a UFO Task Force to investigate incursions of unknown objects over America?

Stratton—who believes the ghosts and creatures of Skinwalker Ranch are real—officially headed up these Pentagon investigations for years.

The “chief scientist” of this Pentagon task force was Travis Taylor, who is and was a co-star of “Ancient Aliens” on the History Channel. He currently stars on “The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch” on the same network.

This official embedding makes it difficult to break the veneer of legitimacy unless you know the whole story, simply because there’s likely a lot of coordination by professional UFO enthusiasts behind the scenes, which is why you’ll occasionally read stuff about how anonymous sources from other insiders confirm the accounts. Here is a piece by Michael Shellenberger at Public from Wednesday, in which he says that the David Grusch account is supported by insiders:

'The Pentagon says there's no credible evidence of alien spacecraft, but several military and intelligence contractors with inside information say there is.'

I can’t possibly know, but a good question is whether these ah, anonymous contractors, were, by any chance, just anyone marginally associated with the original AATIP/AAWSAP? Or those currently in AARO? To make this point in another way: since a bunch of people who investigated spooky stuff at Skinwalker Ranch got government money, and the original bad reporting on that memed into existence an actual program at the DoD who now do study UFOs (a slightly more sober group but one that still contains some long in-the-scene characters), as well as likely triggered a lot of interest in the subject within the intelligence community, in theory there are now a bunch of people who are basically Ancient Aliens extras or enthusiasts who might reasonably count as former or current “insiders” at the DoD, and they can go around supporting one another’s accounts about rumors of secret programs because they all believe those very same rumors, which are mostly just decades-long popular UFO theories. This cycle of back-rubbing, which just so happens to guarantee funding and attention, is everywhere. When Fox News brought on an investigative journalist to discuss the David Grusch story, who did they bring on? None other than Jeremy Corbell to vouch for Grusch (there was no mention of Star Trek conventions.)

And if you think that there’s no coordination here, ask yourself why you’re suddenly seeing UAP (“Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon) rather than UFO as the abbreviation. That’s a longtime attempted rebranding by “ufologists” because UFO had too many negative associations."

Now, one could argue that the development of mendacity as a national trait could invalidate this criticism but that could invalidate all criticism (which may be where the culture is going.)

An American Success Story

The 'Chevron Decision' is a big deal. But, as with the presidency itself, there is a gulf between form and substance.

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In the first five months of this year, Beijing’s National Bureau of Statistics noted that foreign direct investment into China amounted to 412.5 billion yuan (about $568 million). That is some 30% below the level of such flows during this time last year. What is more, these latest figures show a faster rate of decline than in the January-April period and the 12th consecutive month of declining direct foreign investment into China.

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The 'threat to democracy' charge is part of the routine anti-Trump attack. The argument is he is more concerned with his own advancement than the nation's. Now, where on the scale of nation-scorning ambition is what the Democrats have done with Biden?

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An American Success Story

The debate restored politics to its proper place: entertainment. A participatory sport. And mendacity and unsubstantiated mutual accusations.

ICF would never come up in such a discussion but might be more indicative of American politics than any topic discussed.

ICF International Inc. was born as the Inter-City Fund in 1969 to finance and help minority-owned businesses apply for and secure governmental contracts. Since then, its focus has shifted radically. Today, it is the most important environmental organization you have never heard of.

ICF International Inc. staffs the United States Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) in the Office of Science and Technology Policy within the Executive Office of the President. It provides a yearly report on climate change to Congress called Our Changing Planet and is responsible for the content of the climate.gov website. In 2022, its annual budget from the United States government was a stunning $3.6 billion. In 2024, it topped $5 billion — an increase of nearly fifty percent during the first two years of the Biden Administration.

A giant oak from a pinecone.

Who are these people? 

But this kind of thing is hardly surprising considering we don't even know who makes the decisions in the Oval Office.

No Debate

No Debate

How could these people think that Biden was going to do well in the debate? They know what he is. They have been managing the country as a shadow government for years. What did they think was going to happen?
Or is this the state of American politics, looking at something for years and not seeing it. Or wishing it away.

Maybe the Deficit is who we are.

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This problem with Biden is not new. This has been how the government works for the last years. They have been running the country with this situation without complaining. Why the change?

Why not just continue on with Jill, Blinkin, and Sullivan?

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Can Trump beat any Democrat other than Biden?

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How do the Democrats solve this? If he steps down, that makes Kamala the Prestdent. Can they ride him to the convention and then replace him so Kamala can be bypassed?

The decision will have little to do with what's best for the country. The decision will be how best to control the nation and maintain their influence.

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As an aside, did abortion have a too prominent place in the debate with the incoherent Israel policy, the idiotic Afghanistan withdrawal, the disasters on campuses with its weird antisemitism, and the astonishingly defiant shifting of school loan responsibility having very little prominence?

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So, in thrall to symbolism and appearance, will the Democrats be hung on their Kamala petard?

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The baseline of this fiasco of a debate is this: this was possible only because the press and the politicos manipulated the last years for their own advantage and the detriment of the nation.

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Do you think that Putin and the Chinese are watching this and saying, " Their system doesn't work."

 

Tax the Rich

Few individuals have been more integral to the Obama-Biden project to “realign” the U.S. with Iran and strengthen the Middle East theocracy – at the expense of Israel, America’s Sunni Arab allies and partners, and U.S. national interest – than Rob Malley.
The lead negotiator behind President Obama’s signature Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Malley was brought back into the fold when Joe Biden came entered the Oval Office. Biden tabbed Malley as Iran special envoy to resurrect that nuclear deal. Last summer, however, the longtime progressive foreign policy hand suddenly had his security clearance revoked and was placed on unpaid leave while under investigation by the State Department and FBI for potentially mishandling classified information.

Huh?

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China is expected to emerge as the world's largest economy before 2030, with India becoming the third-largest by 2050. Both China and India are likely to surpass the United States, which is currently the largest economy in the world. The EU's share of the world’s GDP is projected to drop below 10%.

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A sexual assault lawsuit filed against Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott earlier this year has been dismissed because it 'lacked merit'.

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Tax the Rich

The concept of "raising taxes on the wealthy" packs a lot of notions into a deceptively short phrase--like "small cancer" or "local insurgents." Taxes remove money from very interested individuals and give it to casual, inefficient groups. Could the government ever be a successful venture capitalist? Run a successful charity? Even build a specific project without the protection of a monopoly? The answer is no because the government has too many mouths to feed, too many debts to pay, too many cross-purposes to cross. The government is a huge crazyquilt of competing factions, influence peddlers, friends, and relatives--and these are just the legal conflicts with the task at hand; not even considered are the thefts, criminal inefficiencies, payoffs, and errors of commission and omission of the amateurs, hacks, and idiots involved.

Anyone who thinks taxes result in a redistribution of wealth does not admit that the redistribution occurs long before the target group ever sees the residual. The government tax system is a huge disassembly line where money goes in and is removed at every intervening station along the way until the tiny amount remaining dribbles out at the end. It is a huge game of Telephone where the outcome is nothing like the planned input. So rather than the interested individual spending his money--and benefiting those he invests in or pays--in an efficient and targeted way, his money, when taxed, dissipates along the channel and becomes lost, like the "broken window theory" where the power and advantage of commerce barely keep up.

Any tax, regardless of whom, removes money from investment and commerce in the system and dampens commercial development. That is a tax on everyone. Whether you want to subsidize those parasites along the way is another question.

The Origins of Government

George Latimer, a pro-Israel centrist, defeated U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman on Tuesday in a Democratic primary in suburban New York. Bowman is a member of "the Squad," a political outlier of anti-Israelism, socialism, and general incivility.

A lot of money was involved.

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The U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. attacked Israel's management of the West Bank in the U.N. in the Security Council.

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It is pretty well established in law that charter schools cannot be discriminated against based on religion but, nonetheless, the Oklahoma Supreme Court struck a Catholic charter school down.
These people will not stop.

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Trump will enter the debate with parts of a gag order.

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Amed Rosario needed just 2 stitches to close a cut near his lip after being hit by a 99.6 mph pitch by Jared Jones in Pittsburgh. The injury looked a lot worse. But Brandon Lowe, who was also hit by Jones in the same inning, has a broken right pinkie toe.

Whether the league admits it or not, there is a problem with the speed of pitching, the need to advance pitchers' careers, and the defensive reaction time of batters.

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The Origins of Government

The debate is tomorrow and Biden has been huddling for a week with 16 advisors to prepare, apparently to the exclusion of other work.

Imagine if they had been as assiduous with other projects, like the Afghan withdrawal, Covid management, and deficit spending.

Worse, maybe they were. Maybe these were not errors, maybe they are the Left's best policies.

Outlawing the Enlightenment

16 million dollars has been invested into the Democrat Primary Race--the Primary(!)--over Bowman's House seat.

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So, how's the 320 million dollar Gaza Humanitarian Pier going? This is looking very Afghanistan Withdrawl-like.

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A ransomware group known as LockBit claimed to have hacked the Federal Reserve Bank

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Hamas Skimmed $1 Billion in U.N. Aid for Weapons and Tunnels, Suit Says.
About 100 Israelis sued the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, saying it pays local employees in dollars that buoy the terrorist group.

(NYT Headline)

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Outlawing the Enlightenment

Rufo has an article in City Journal on DEI. Not the Journal's best but its initial concept is that the public university is the result of a "compact." Public universities in the United States originally rested on an agreement between the citizen and the republic: the citizens would provide funding for the university to train young people to advance the public interest and the common good. In recent years, however, this compact has disintegrated, and considerable efforts will be needed to rebuild it.

He uses the University of Colorado Boulder’s DEI program as an example.

"The basic predicate of CU Boulder’s DEI program is that “Black, Indigenous and People of Color,” or “BIPOC,” students are failing because of “white supremacy culture.”

What is white supremacy culture? According to CU Boulder’s DEI documentation, it includes “individualism,” “perfectionism,” “a sense of urgency,” “worship of the written word,” and “objectivity.” These traits are supposedly vestiges of “whiteness” and unavailable to racial minorities—an unintentionally bigoted attitude.

Next, CU Boulder’s DEI bureaucrats would have you engage in a 21-day “Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge.”

One of the resources included in this program is a guide on “How to Be a Better White Person.” The document supplied a protocol on how to accomplish this task. Step one: “Realize you’re white.” Step two: “Recognize your privilege.” Step three: “Know things.” Finally, from a related resource, instructions on how to be an “ally” to racial minorities: “Transfer the benefits of your privilege to those who lack it”; “amplify the voices of the oppressed before your own”; “acknowledge that, even though you feel pain, the conversation is not about you.”

This is not the language of an academic program but of an abusive relationship.

Unfortunately, the language of DEI has also taken hold in CU Boulder’s curriculum. For example, the university has recently included a course on “Critical Whiteness Studies.” The syllabus is replete with activist terms, such as “institutionalized whiteness,” “white privilege,” and “white fragility.” The basic concept is that “whiteness” is an irreducibly malicious essence, loaded with ancestral guilt.

Human history is brutal and filled with injustice. But to scapegoat one population group, European whites, as the essence of evil is nothing but propaganda. Obviously, none of this meets any genuine scholarly standards—and that’s a pattern characteristic of DEI.

Finally, DEI is used as a justification to hire scholars of favored demographics and ideologies. CU Boulder has explicit and implicit racial quotas in hiring, which, in theory, violate the law. According to one professor, more than 90 percent of recent hires at CU Boulder’s College of Arts and Sciences have been diversity hires. Of the remaining 10 percent, some might lay claim to other protected identities, such as “LGBTQ,” reducing the percentage of “oppressors” even further.

This is unethical and immoral. But under DEI, it is a requirement of social justice.

The problem with DEI is not merely administrative or curricular. When its principles are adopted wholesale, DEI compromises the fundamental purpose of the university and the basic compact between the citizen and the state.

In fact, the degeneration of universities into centers of ideological activism—which American taxpayers are currently subsidizing—violates basic democratic principles to such an extraordinary degree that we urgently need to implement dramatic reforms."

The Genes of Politics

Surfing legend Tamayo Perry has died following a shark attack in Oahu, Hawaii.

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“Pre-1983, mortgage costs were in the CPI as were car payments pre-1998. Now, price indexes do not include borrowing costs. Thus, when interest rates jumped last year, official inflation did not fully capture the effects it would have on consumer well-being.”
Indeed, if we measured inflation as we did in the 1970s, the inflation that started in 2021 would have peaked at 18 percent—double its reported peak. That’s higher than the worst of the 1970 and ’80s. Inflation’s current annual rate would be about 8 percent.
(Larry Summers)

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In recent months, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), which rules the southern state of Tamil Nadu, has used AI to resurrect its iconic leader M Karunanidhi from the dead, using lifelike videos of the former movie writer and veteran politician at campaign events. (He died in 2018.)

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The Genes of Politics

Aristotle thought Politics was the highest philosophical pursuit as it dealt with the creation and behavior of the city-state; ethics was only individual. But politics in theory bears little resemblance to politics in practice. And political parties are politics' worst distillate. Antagonism, belief founded on conjecture, mendacity, distortion--all these are the nature of politics and the essence of political parties. And these basic sins are intensified when the system begins to show it does not work.

As dirty and harmful a bastard as politics can be, it comes from pure and noble parentage. Politics is the result of man's basic assessment of Man. That is, the nature of Man is the foundation of any political viewpoint. A political movement will be either the exploitation of Man's qualities as they see them or a reaction against those qualities for some perceived greater good. In either case, politics is the creation, the child, of our philosophy of life, of what we believe Man is and what the world he inhabits should be. If we believe Man a depraved killer, society should probably bear some aspects of a prison. If we think Man has been ruined by technology but has a good heart, perhaps some agricultural society would make sense.

But if something is not constructed correctly, it will fail. If your assessment of Man is erroneous or the world he is to inhabit completely fantastic, the resultant political structure will not work. It may take some time to fail--as power can compensate for unreality for a while--but in the long term it will not work. The Russian communist state was built on several gigantic fallacies and was doomed from the start. No support by the KGB, no pressure from Reagan, would have anything other than a minor effect. Internal flaws will bring a structure down. In government this means that some basic assessment and judgment of human nature must be made and, for the system to succeed, must be accurate.

Very bright guys have tried this before and have not agreed at all. Kant was thrilled with the Enlightenment, Rousseau thought it was a disaster. The problem is that most people think these guys are abstract thinkers with no practical meaning. That is untrue. These people either point to a future direction or are representative of it. Kant led to the English evolution, Rousseau led to the French Revolution and eventually Napoleon. Marx was worse as he unleashed a pious and charitably sounding philosophy that was arbitrarily homicidal. It is quite one thing to have people fail in a system because the protective nature of the system has been overestimated or the people themselves have, it is quite another thing to target a large element of the culture for extinction because of some vague and unprovable belief. It is no wonder that Hitler and Stalin found so much comfort in their treaty, the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact: they must have recognized the fraternal homicidal gleam in the eyes across the table. Leaders and government theorists will influence us if they possibly can--they want to--and must be thought of in that way. Governments and leaders try to exploit what they think we are; so what we are, and their assessment of us, matters.

But the assessment of Man is difficult. Our analysis will always be contaminated by our hopes and prejudices. Worse, group behavior might be different from individual behavior--like flocking of birds--and the results from groups might be entirely unexpected. Even worse, times change. New factors--technological, religious, scientific--are introduced or removed. The ground changes. So political belief might come from optimistic views of Man, hopeful, radical, inspired, mystical--anything. But the evaluation of Man which forms the foundation of every political movement must be true. Man's personal plugs must fit the political outlets. For the outcome of inaccuracy in politics is chaos--until it is rescued--stabilized--, as it always is, by despotism.

More than the English Channel separated the development of the English state from the collapse of the French state. The English experience for the time was simply truer.

Feeding AI

Hamas doesn’t want a deal, except one where Israel just gives up.
And if Blinken doesn’t know that, then he’s not getting the basic info he should, not from US intelligence nor even from whoever’s in charge of getting him essential press clippings.--NY Post

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The Philippines is a treaty-status nation, like NATO, that has an ongoing conflict with China, which absurdly has made claims for the entire China Sea--about half the size of the continental U.S. So we are involved and must have policies for those potential interactions.

And, while we are on the topic, what would we do if Vietnam applied for a similar status? Indonesia?

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Feeding AI


Swimming against the stream is specialized work, particularly when the stream is progress.

AI is more than the next interesting computer step, it is the next step in the vital technological and economic dominance the U.S. has developed and maintained over the last generation. And with this research and economic success comes the inevitable camp-follower, military success. No culture can allow that to happen, even one as leadership-dim as America's,

So everything will go into AI. Entrepreneurs. Financiers. Government. Military. Everyone will pull out all the stops to advance the technology. And, as so often is the case, this will entail significant unanticipated ripples.

AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT require billions, and sometimes trillions, of information to train these models, which are housed in massive data centers that use electricity for cooling and processing power. But new predictions and forecasts suggest increasing demand for ever-more-powerful AI models could stretch current energy supplies further than was once thought. In the US alone, according to a new report released by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) data centers tasked with powering advanced AI models could account for up to 9.1% of the country’s overall energy demand by the end of the decade. 9.1% of the total. Much of that new demand may be met by non-renewable natural gas, which could complicate global efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

By 2030, the report notes, data center energy requirements could account for anywhere between 4.6% and 9.1% of total US electricity generated by 2030. That’s compared to 4% today. The newfound demand isn’t limited to the US either. By 2026, The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates data center energy demand globally could double by 2026.

That's a lot of paper straws.

Power-hungry data centers threaten to place real strains on energy grids in coming years. As of 2024, according to the Goldman Sachs forecast, data centers account for between 1-2% of global power demand. That figure is expected to increase to 3-4% by the end of the decade. In the US, which maintains roughly half of the world’s data centers, these facilities are expected to account for 8% of the nation’s overall energy drain by 2030. Energy providers are already rushing to bring new power plants online to ensure those brewing energy demands are met. The Goldman Sachs forestate estimates more than half (60%) of energy used to meet those demands will come from nonrenewable resources. That forecast reinforces previous reports which suggest renewable resources alone might be insufficient to meet data centers’ energy needs.

AI must be seen for what it is, essential for the next step in a crucial technology. It cannot--and will not--be cut back or muted. Our world--and its erroneous estimates--will have to adapt. And that process will not include decreasing energy sources.

Notes and Notables

Notes and Notables

A mass shooting killed three people and wounded 10 others, including two police officers, at a Fordyce, Arkansas grocery store on Friday.

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The Allegheny County Health Department issued an alert for Redfin Blues on Washington's Landing after an inspection on Thursday.

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Last year, only the Marine Corps and the Space Force met their recruiting goals. The army fell an astounding 10,000 recruits short of its modest goal of adding 65,000 soldiers to maintain its current size. The deficiency is not just a personnel problem; it speaks to a lack of confidence that young Americans and their families have in the purpose and mission of the military.

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The U.S. Navy now has fewer than 300 ships, compared with 592 at the end of the Reagan administration.

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A total of 44% of Americans say they approve of the way Joe Biden is handling his job as president and 51% say they disapprove of the way Biden is handling his job according to the latest survey from the American Research Group. In May, 39% approved of the way Biden was handling his job as president and 56% disapproved.
How is that possible?

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China has doubled the size of its nuclear arsenal since 2020.

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President Barack Obama drastically reduced funding for the development of hypersonic missiles in 2011, leaving China and Russia far ahead of the United States in acquiring these important new weapons that travel at more than five times the speed of sound and can maneuver within the earth’s atmosphere.

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In the 1950s, Lockheed delivered the first U-2 spy aircraft less than a year and a half after getting the contract
In the disorganized and hyper-regulated modern Washington, such an achievement would be impossible today. For example, in the early and mid-1990s, when the Navy was designing its current class of aircraft carriers, it added a requirement for an electromagnetic aircraft launch system—a technology that did not exist at the time.

 

Fauci

AI is the new growth technology, both economically and militarily. It is a landrush and dominance will determine the direction of national and international development. The investments will only increase. By 2027 the AI sector could consume between 85 to 134 terawatt hours each year. That’s about the same as the annual energy demand of de Vries’ home country, the Netherlands.
AI electricity consumption potentially could be half a percent of global electricity consumption by 2027.

An entirely new technology!

How do these anti-growth people think they can control these things?

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According to a new study, plate tectonics are crucial for developing complex life and advanced civilizations. Earth’s plate movements create diverse habitats, recycle nutrients, and regulate climate—all vital for life. It’s important for plate tectonics to last for 500 million years because the biological evolution of complex multicellular life is extremely slow. On Earth, it took more than 500 million years to develop humans from the first animals, which appeared around 800 million years ago,

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Senate Democrats have added language to the annual defense authorization bill to require women to register for the draft, prompting a backlash from Republicans and social conservatives.
Equality has downsides.

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In 2032, 25% of U.S. citizens will be over 65 years of age.

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Fauci

Tabarrok on Fauci and the Feds' management of the pandemic:

"The lockdown was specifically advocated for by Anthony Fauci (‘15 days to stop the spread’/ ‘hunker down’/ ‘shelter in place’), and Fauci would go on to make hundreds of other specific policy recommendations. Although he initially rejected it, by April 2020, he recommended community cloth masking to slow the coronavirus (an intervention for which we now have randomized data showing it doesn’t work).

Fauci opposed Ron DeSantis in numerous TV interviews in spring 2020 when DeSantis reopened schools. He called school reopening reckless— though it was widely embraced in Western Europe at the time, and now clearly the correct policy choice.

Fauci supported vaccine mandates and border closure. He repeated the false statement that 6ft of social distancing had an empirical basis. Many in the media and medicine think criticizing him is unfair— he did the best he could with what he knew at the time—but it is fair to criticize a scientist who presented his views as facts when they were at best speculation. And, moreover, there is one criticism that no one can deny:

Although he was director of the NIAID, and although he controlled a 5 billion dollar infectious disease research budget, he chose to launch, fund, and conduct precisely ZERO randomized trials of non-pharmacologic interventions."

Epigenetics of Despair

A survey of 1,095 registered voters from the conservative news network FOX showed that Biden is leading his presumptive Republican rival, Trump, by two points (50 percent to 48 percent).

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“When Hamas is talking about eliminating Israel, it’s talking about not killing all of the Jews. It’s about eliminating the idea.'"(When one of the panelists, Free Press columnist Eli Lake, erupted in laughter, she continued.) “Sir, can I just finish this sentence? It’s about eliminating the idea of a Jewish state, ending a Jewish state, ending an ethno-national state, and having a state more like what we have in the United States.”--Bernie Sanders' former spokesperson and co-host of The Hill TV’s Rising, Briahna Joy Gray

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Today there is an article in the NYT arguing the U.S. is a theocracy.

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The WashPo says today that the Iranians are three weeks from nuclear weaponization.

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Epigenetics of Despair

It's nice to see continuity in the culture. And in social disorder. It is as if there are basics at work that can be dealt with. That thesis that 3.5% of the population is necessary for confrontational social change is beginning to make a lot more sense.

Our current anti-Israel demonstrations on campus now remind me of a few years ago when Colinford Mattis and Urooj Rahman were arrested at a demonstration for attacking a police car with Molotov cocktails.

Both are attorneys. Above is a picture of the esteemed counselors.

This should raise some serious questions.

Is the orderly legal function of the state seen, by its very agents, to be illegitimate? Is the education of those agents of the courts so inadequate, or the choosing of candidates of such so inadequate, that the citizenry has reason to fear them? And what laws can be broken with impunity? Are the rest of us able to break laws because of our political vision, or for some other reason we see as valid? If so, which ones?
Or, is it only some special people among us that have such privilege?
How does this lawlessness differ from the abusive lawlessness of the police they are protesting?

And, is the damage or failure of this community so great that even achieving the trappings of apparent success, that the rest of the culture admires, is inadequate? If so, what will substitute for the social and economic advances that previous cultures have viewed as their ambition and the evidence of their success?

And, as an aside, what is the implication if the 3.5% social revolutionaries are judges, legislators, and attorneys?

The Working Part of an Ax is Thin

Willie Mays has died.

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Biden offered amnesty as a solution to the borderless problem in a strange, confused, mendacious speech yesterday.

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Phillips, the Colorado cake maker, is in court again, this time for refusing to bake a cake for a transitioning party. These people are merciless.

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Democrats are rolling out the Dr. Oz attack on Dave McCormick in the Senate race. My bet is it will work.

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The Working Part of an Ax is Thin

Slow Down is a book by Saito that presents a Marxist viewpoint to solve the notion of global warming. Why anyone would turn to a bad economic philosophy responsible for murderous--even demographic disrupting--inhumanity for any insight is hard to explain. Yet the book presents the outrageous, but often heard, concept of a Rosseau-like luddite deconstruction of the modern world for the benefit of all. 

One--perhaps accidental--revelation is the fascinating admission of the number Harvard political scientist Erica Chenoweth came up with in her research into protest strategies as the percentage of a population that must rise up sincerely and nonviolently to bring about a major change to society.

That number is 3.5%. 

Now that number is not what Madison was thinking when he was developing a republic concept to protect minorities from democratic bullying.

 

The Espionage Act

An Australian woman logged so many aircraft noise complaints that they accounted for nearly half of such complaints made in the country last year.
The unidentified resident from Perth complained about the sound of overflying aircraft 20,716 times last year, according to data provided by Airservices Australia, responsible for managing air traffic in Australian airspace.

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The former CDC director said the bird flu is coming and when it enters humans, will have a “significant” mortality.
“Probably somewhere between 25 and 50 percent mortality, so it’s going to be quite complicated,” Dr. Redfield said.

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The impartial press: The Gaza-based reporter who held three Israeli hostages captive at his home worked for a US non-profit accused of “providing material support to Hamas” where hard-left professor Noam Chomsky sits on the editorial board.
Abdallah Aljamal — killed by Israeli Defense Forces during the raid to free the hostages from his home in Nuseirat — was a regular correspondent for The Palestine Chronicle, an Olympia, Washington state-based news outlet established in 1999, with sister publications in France and Italy.

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The Espionage Act

Politicians will use any advantage, short of air power, to advance their political position. This is from Lind.

The Espionage Act — a vague, sinister law passed by Congress in a fit of hysteria during the First World War — has been abused by presidents against opposition politicians and journalists. President Woodrow Wilson’s Democratic administration used it to give his Socialist presidential rival, Eugene Debs, a 10-year prison term in 1919. In the same year, Victor Berger, a Socialist member of the House of Representatives, was also convicted under the legislation. In spite of winning an election, Berger was denied his seat in Congress and disqualified from public office under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, an irrelevant clause designed to prevent ex-Confederate insurrectionists from regaining power after the Civil War. Ironically, this is the same archaic provision that was weaponized recently by Democratic officials in Colorado, Maine and Illinois, who sought to disqualify Trump from appearing on Republican primary ballots in those states, before a unanimous Supreme Court in 2024 ruled against such efforts.

Having run for President in 1920 from behind bars, Eugene Debs was pardoned by Republican president Warren G. Harding in 1921, while Berger’s conviction was also overturned in the same year. In a similar vein, we can hope that enlightened state or federal courts will overturn the unjust convictions of Trump. But whether or not that happens, the damage to America’s democracy has largely been done.--Lind

Political Nesting Dolls

Mathematician Robert Coveyou once said, “Random number generation is too important to be left to chance.

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The Wall Street Journal revealed private correspondence of the terror group’s military chief in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar.
Sinwar admits openly that he wants more Palestinian casualties. They are “necessary sacrifices” that will “infuse life into the veins of this nation, prompting it to rise to its glory and honor.”

So, do you think Sinwar will pick up on Blinkin's 'peace plan?'

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Latin American immigrants are starting businesses at more than twice the rate of the U.S. population.
The jump in Latino entrepreneurship has driven up the overall share of new businesses owned by immigrants, who accounted for 36% of launches last year compared with 25% in 2019, according to a new analysis of Census Bureau data. New business creation by white and native-born Americans has slowed in the past two years, following a broad surge early in the pandemic.

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Political Nesting Dolls

“Instead of paying $400 a month for insulin, seniors with diabetes only have to pay $35 a month!” Biden said at his State of the Union address in March. “And now I want to cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month for every American who needs it!”

The Democratic incumbent is trying to use lower insulin costs as proof that he has helped lower consumer costs despite the stubbornly high levels of inflation that have loomed over the U.S. economy’s post-pandemic recovery.

For Trump’s part, the former president signed an executive order in the last year of his administration requiring federal community health centers to pass on insulin discounts to customers, his own effort to lower insulin prices. Biden later paused that policy when he took office as part of a larger freeze to allow his administration to review new regulations set to go into effect.

“Low INSULIN PRICING was gotten for millions of Americans by me, and the Trump Administration, not by Crooked Joe Biden. He had NOTHING to do with it,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. “It was all done long before he so sadly entered office. All he does is try to take credit for things done by others, in this case, ME!”

Both candidates are whipping the economic waters, pretending the laws of economics can be guided and disciplined, playing to the popular fantasy of political cause and effect. And, like the statement "The border is secure," or the phrase "Birthing Person," these claims must be taken in context, in the Wonderland of Political Reality.

Not to say the Red Queen can't sentence you to death...

The Lying Culture

Ms. Sheinbaum has promised to put the poor first, but that means Mexico’s economy will need to keep growing. Her challenge will be to square her socialist bona fides, and her history of climate activism on the United Nations climate panel, with policies that attract foreign capital to expand prosperity.--wsj

That step after the promise is always a toughie.

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The FBI's 'Highway Serial Killings Initiative' (HSK) estimates that between 400 and 500 truckers could be implicated in a huge number of murders over the past 35 years.

As many as 850 women have disappeared or been found dead along the main interstate routes.

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Eleven current and former newsroom veterans, who spoke to National Review on a condition of anonymity, said that Emma Tucker, the Wall Street Journal’s new editor-in-chief, appears to lack a basic understanding of American government, politics, and culture.

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The Lying Culture

Our politics has become an Olympic trials of lying. But this country does not just tolerate mendacity, it does so without judgment.

"The border is secure." "Inflation is temporary." "Crime is trending down." "It was the largest crowd ever." "If you want, you can keep your own doctor." "Biden is sharp but Trump is failing." We have begun to accept mendacity as a cultural norm.

Remember Hilary Clinton discussed her grandparents and their trials as new immigrants in America. Her grandparents were not immigrants--Clinton's paternal grandmother Hanna Jones Rodham was born in Pennsylvania and Clinton's two maternal grandparents - Della Howell and Edwin Howell - were born in Illinois--and the story was easily proven false.  

This behavior is not new. One of her more enjoyable lies was her claim in 2008 that, in 1996 on a trip, for some reason, to Bosnia, she came under sniper fire.
When her lie was exposed, she excused herself by having her 2008 campaign folks explain that she “misspoke.” A lie is casually dismissed with a lie.

Bordeaux put this seriously strange behavior in context with a thought experiment, nee analogy.

"Suppose you’re on the board of a successful corporation and the President & CEO of that corporation is about to retire. You, as a board member, must help select the outgoing president’s replacement. A seemingly sane candidate comes in one day for an interview and he announces that he was once in the midst of sniper fire. That candidate then explains the hectic efforts that he and his companions took to avoid being mowed down, giving you the impression that his life was then in serious jeopardy before his fortunate escape from the attack. You’re impressed by the man’s adventure! You soon learn, however, that the candidate’s tale is a lie. There’s not a shred of relevant truth to it. You call the candidate and inform him that you have it on solid authority that no gunfire incident ever happened to him. There’s a short pause. He then replies, confidently, “Oh, yeah. I misspoke. Sorry about that!”

Do you need any further information about this candidate to immediately and unconditionally strike him off of the list of possible successors to the outgoing president? Can this candidate possibly have any superior qualities that offset your certain knowledge that he is either a bald-faced liar or bat-poop nuts? Surely not.

Let’s face it: no sane person misremembers being in the line of sniper fire when, in fact, that person never was in such a predicament. That’s not the sort of non-event that a sane person comes to believe he or she actually endured. How many of you, Cafe patrons, have ever recalled being in the line of sniper fire only to remember later that such a recollection is completely mistaken?
….
Now suppose that some of your colleagues on the board aren’t fazed by the discovery of this candidate’s phoniness or insanity. Indeed, a couple of your board colleagues say “Sure, that little tale is unfortunate, but we must overlook it because his genitalia make him ideal for the job!” Do you reassess your opinion of the candidate, or do you conclude that your colleagues either are up to something no good in their support of this candidate or are themselves also bat-poop bananas? Surely the latter.
…
If you don’t like this just-concluded mental experiment, try this one: your 25-year-old daughter brings home her new fiancé. The fiancé tells you that he was once in the midst of sniper fire and had to scurry to escape. You then discover that it’s a lie. How do you feel about your daughter’s future happiness?

Why is Hillary Clinton taken seriously by any serious person?"

Because we do not take the truth seriously.

Chaos in the Upper Level

The longest day must have its close -- the gloomiest night will wear on to a morning. An eternal, inexorable lapse of moments is ever hurrying the day of the evil to an eternal night, and the night of the just to an eternal day. -Harriet Beecher Stowe, abolitionist and novelist (14 Jun 1811-1896)

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A report from the Allegheny County Health Department shows Mia Pizza, on the 499 block of Baum Boulevard in Bloomfield was hit with 10 violations.

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Sports/social/ philosophy update: Bill Belichick is dating 24-year-old former competitive cheerleader, Jordon Hudson, according to TMZ.

Sources close to the situation say the two have been romantically involved for a while now -- shortly after the ex-New England Patriots head coach called off his longtime relationship with Linda Holliday. Hudson -- an entrepreneur and philosopher -- has even begun helping Belichick with his business endeavors.

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Chaos in the Upper Level

This is quite a story with a surprising public explanation.

Secret Service officials will give a bipartisan briefing to Congress to answer questions about training and recruiting issues regarding an agent on Vice President Kamala Harris’s protective detail who attacked her supervisor.

"It was recently reported that a Secret Service agent, tasked with protecting Vice President Kamala Harris, physically attacked her superior (and the commanding agent in charge) and other agents trying to subdue her while on duty at Joint Base Andrews and assigned to the Vice President’s protective detail," Comer wrote to Cheatle.

The Secret Service has confirmed in other media accounts the altercation occurred at about 9 a.m. on April 22 at Joint Base Andrews in Prince George's County, Maryland. The agent, who was ultimately escorted away in handcuffs, has been removed from the vice president’s detail. The Secret Service has described the incident as a "medical matter."

According to a Bloomberg reporter, there may have been other incidents, according to a petition circulated within the agency by Secret Service personnel seeking a congressional investigation. The agents asserted problems with inadequate training and a double standard in disciplinary actions.

"This incident raised concerns within the agency about the hiring and screening process for this agent: specifically, whether previous incidents in her work history were overlooked during the hiring process as years of staff shortages had led the agency to lower once stricter standards as part of a diversity, equity, and inclusion effort," Comer’s letter to Cheatle continues.

This situation, if true, raises the ever-present question of standards and whether such criteria are related to outcomes.

 (nb: Jerry pointed out TMZ is an entertainment tabloid--I didn't know. I came across the story on the internet. I went back and found the story reported on NBC and the NY post.)

Inequality

For democracy to work as a long-term component of government, its role must strictly be limited, as the Founders intended. There is a tendency to view criticism of democracy as anti-American, but an analysis of American political history shows that its Founders tried to prevent the creation of the type of democracy that characterizes twenty-first-century American government.--Holcombe

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Advocates of reducing the U.S. trade deficit should realize that doing so would also reduce the inflow of capital from abroad. Do we really want to do that? If so, why? U.S. governors and mayors who now go to Europe and Japan with delegations of boosters to attract investors may not have heard that they might be boosting the trade deficit by encouraging capital inflows.--miegs

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From obscure academic topic to major campaign issues, ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) investing has erupted onto the political scene. Projections indicate ESG fund assets will balloon from around $20 trillion in 2022 to a staggering $40 trillion by 2030.

Our new paper in the Santa Clara Journal of International Law examines whether market forces or government interventions drive ESG’s rise. We conclude that government policies, rather than investor preferences, primarily fuel ESG.--Mendenhall and Sutton

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Inequality

"Average is Over," written by Tyler Cowen explores a theme quite commonly heard nowadays, income inequality and potential social instability. (The social instability is always hinted at, written in a whisper, as if the tipping point is so close the mere mention of it will precipitate chaos.) Cowen generally agrees that there is a division of income in the U.S. that he believes will continue but he is much more confident in its outcome. His thesis is that the computer, Internet, and increasing freedoms will make education and advancement much more democratic with a rise in quality and production. A “hyper-meritocracy” is developing. With computer advances, chess has become a common analogy now, and he uses it too. Before online chess, an Armenian player would have to move to Moscow to compete at the highest levels. Now, Armenia is a “perennial competitor” for international chess honors. The advance of machine intelligence will cause a surge in income inequality, but will also level the playing field for opportunity. In a recent interview with NPR Cowen predicted that “for a lot of people upward mobility will be a lot easier.” Competence, not social status, will decide.

As to the instability that doomsayers predict will result, Cowen calls these theories of the revolutionary consequences of income inequality “some of the least thought-out and least well-supported arguments with wide currency.” His argument is that there are stronger bonds in society than economic similarities. In a 2011 article for The American Interest, Cowen wrote, “By broad historical standards, what I share with Bill Gates is far more significant than what I don’t share with him.” (This is reminiscent of de Tocqueville who always thought there was an esprit in the nation based on liberty.)

More, wealth has risen dramatically. The Dallas Federal Reserve Bank published a report showing that the increase in income disparity is overwhelmed by the rise in the standard of living. In 1919 it took the average American eighty minutes of work in order to buy a dozen eggs. Today it takes him five minutes. That diffuse wealth is a very soothing--and perhaps sedating--element in society.

So income inequality might rise but so will opportunity. The real question is this: How does a society like ours judge social equality? Is income equality the best way? Or does the equality of opportunity and the collateral increase in wealth offer so much more?

Another question: If there is a complacency that develops in the "have-nots," what about the risk it will develop in the "haves," in the producers the "have-nots" need?

Notes and Notable 8

Roughly 14% of US travelers reported a bed bug encounter in the past year,

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The press reports Iran is having an 'election.' The Ayatolla has appointed a 'reform candidate.'

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NYTimes: Treasury officials say that they fear that elevated Chinese production targets are causing its firms to produce far more electric vehicles, batteries and solar panels than global markets can absorb, driving prices lower and disrupting production around the world. They fear that these spillovers will hurt businesses that are planning investments in the United States with tax credits and subsidies that were created through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, a law that is pumping more than $2 trillion into clean energy infrastructure.

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Notes and Notable 8

Illegal Chinese immigration count update, in battalions: 60.

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Why is the debate over Biden's appropriateness as a presidential candidate seen as what is good for his party rather than what is good for the country?

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Will Hunter's appeal rest upon his right--even an addict or felon--to own a weapon under the Second Amendment?

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The press has reported the EU votes as a shift to the right. Is that true? The most astonishing breakdown of the European vote is the reversal of Green support. For example, in Germany, the Green vote dropped from 21% in 2012 to 12%. Among voters under 30, it dropped from 31% to 12%. Those are astonishing numbers.
(As an aside, what will the press say when the Conservatives get trounced in Britain in July?)

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Seven ISIS terrorists, who crossed the southern border, have been arrested. That is an example of the phrase, 'The other shoe dropped.'

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Note to government re: Hamas: They do not believe protecting citizens is in their interest. 'No means no.'

Judges

WOD
Pander: "arranger of sexual liaisons, one who caters for the lusts of others," 1520s, "procurer, pimp," from Middle English Pandare (late 14c.), used by Chaucer ("Troylus and Cryseyde"), who borrowed it from Boccaccio (who had it in Italian form Pandaro in "Filostrato") as name of the prince (Greek Pandaros), who procured the love of Cressida (his niece in Chaucer, his cousin in Boccaccio) for Troilus. The story and the name are medieval inventions.
Amazingly, after several speeches, this word is being used to describe the President of the United States

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“It is an indictment of democracy that neither of America’s political parties seems capable of addressing the fiscal crisis caused by the transfer state.”-McGinnis

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Judges

So, let's see if we can get this straight about judges and the appropriateness of hearing cases.

Judge Alito is to recuse himself from Supreme Court decisions because some people do not like his wife's choice of traditional American flags.

The judge in the Trump case with the unspecified charge has contributed to a political campaign--which is illegal in New York--but that is okay. His daughter has a thriving business as a Democrat advisor. That is okay.

Do these people understand how the average guy sees this? Do they understand how bad that makes the country, the political scene, and justice generally, look? Or has political success become the north star of all political encounters? Are we, the revolutionary nation created out of process, now subservient to ends rather than means? Or, worse, is the electorate incapable of assessing and deciding on this kind of important, public information.

Mendacity in a Noble Cause

The former assistant city attorney of Atlanta, who was also a life advice podcaster, has been jailed for seven years after fraudulently obtaining approximately $15 million in COVID relief loans.

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Krugman’s op-ed about why he, as a Nobel-winning macroeconomist, isn’t worried about the debt includes these arguments: 1) America’s debt/gdp today is ok bc it’s lower than Britain’s was at the end of WWII 2) The debt can be stabilized by cutting deficit by $600 bln/year even though he acknowledges that’s politically impossible 3) Republicans are fiscally irresponsible so therefore he, as a Democrat, shouldn’t have to worry.

Well, that's very reassuring.

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Slavery still exists in Mauritania, despite the country officially abolishing it in 1981 and criminalizing it in 2007. Very progressive. Estimates of the number of people enslaved in Mauritania range from 1% to 20% of the population, and some say that thousands of people are born into slavery. Enslaved people face forced labor and abuse for their entire lives. 

They became independent (from France) in 1961.

So, the UN does what, exactly?

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Mendacity in a Noble Cause

The arrogance of the righteous knows no bounds. You do not care who knows your agenda when you know the greater truth. And, as always, those eager to appoint themselves our leaders have great disdain for those they feel are nothing but an audience to their great performance.
Here are some quotes from "climate leaders" who have glory on their minds.
Ottmar Edenhofer, lead author of the IPCC's fourth summary report released in 2007, speaking in 2010 advised: "One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. Instead, climate change policy is about how we redistribute de facto the world's wealth."
U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres said that the true aim of the U.N.'s 2014 Paris climate conference was "to change the (capitalist) economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution."
Christine Stewart, Canada's former Minister of the Environment said: "No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits. ... Climate change (provides) the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world."
Tim Wirth, former U.S. Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs and the person most responsible for setting up the Kyoto Protocol said: "We've got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic policy and environmental policy."

Such disclaimers under ordinary circumstances would be incendiary in the minds of an informed, aware people. So maybe the lack of response to the insincerity is more disturbing than the insincerity itself.

The Jew in, and Among, Nations

In the wake of former President Donald Trump’s felony conviction last week for falsifying business records to hide a hush money payment to a porn star, President Biden (46%) now leads his Republican rival (44%) in a two-way race for the White House for the first time since October 2023, according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll.

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Caitlin Clark will not be invited to the U.S. Olympic team

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Chuck Schumer and other Democrats are calling for criminal prosecution of oil-company executives who allegedly conspire to raise gasoline prices (“Hang the Oil and Gas CEOs,” June 1). As you report, however, no real evidence exists to support this allegation. But if prosecution of conspirators to raise fuel prices is indeed appropriate, prosecutors can start by filing charges against Sen. Schumer himself and many of his fellow Congressional Democrats who, the record shows, have willfully and blatantly conspired to raise the prices of gasoline and other fuels through the imposition of a carbon tax.--letter to editor, wsj

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The Jew in, and Among, Nations

The People of the Book are seen as a group, the Old Testament no different from the New. This is an oversimplification. They are contiguous, but not homogeneous. Christ was a revolution. An earthquake. 

This is taken from a revealing article in Tablet assessing the history of Jewish militarism and the religious factors that influence it.

"You will not hear Jesus mentioned when Western leaders speak on how important it is that Israel adhere to international laws of war, but the concept of the innocent civilian enshrined in these laws grew practically out of wars fought within Christendom during the last several hundred years.

More importantly, the very idea of the innocent civilian makes sense in an explicitly Christian context: “Render unto Caesar” plus the idea of a universal community of faith that transcends nationality means the conscience of the individual is paramount, and a person cannot so easily be classed as a targetable enemy “just because” of his membership in some nation waging war.

The contrast with the Jewish perspective here is sharp.

One particular Talmudic-era commentary comes to mind. Everyone knows that Pharaoh and his army were on horses as they chased Moses and the Israelites seaward. But it took the genius of Shimon ben Yochai, the sage, to ask where the horses came from. A plague of hail had killed off all the livestock in Egypt, other than that which belonged to upright individuals who held the Lord in awe. What this means, then, is that Pharaoh got his horses from the upright individuals. Ben Yochai concludes: [In times of war], it is correct to kill even the righteous among your enemy (Mekhilta 14:7).

This is a wince-inducingly Judaic—and very unchristian—position.

Ben Yochai witnessed the Roman annihilation of Judea. He understood that the way your enemy fights a war affects the definition of the righteous way to fight back. In other words, his recommendation was calibrated to the assumption that if the Jews are fighting a war, then their own future survival (and flourishing) is a nonnegotiable goal of the war. Thus, a Jew living by the Torah and confronted with an enemy armed with a human shield must ask: What does God want me to do now, given what I face? And how might I figure that out by studying the Torah?

As Abraham learns when arguing with God about Sodom, the ultimate decision about who lives and who perishes in calamity is the Creator’s choice, and while you can plead with God to spare the righteous, you must also have the moral humility to trust that He knows what He’s doing. ...And among the constraints and instructions given by the Torah is a specific one: “Choose life.” Accepting one’s own death because the other options are ugly and seem heartless is not on the menu.

In the current war in Gaza, a basic Judaic question therefore arises and must not be ignored: What is the bare minimum we must do in order to prevent our own mass murder?

The Jews do not venerate the image of a more-divine-than-usual human who achieved an abstract victory for all of humanity by dying horribly. And because we do not, we cannot accept the Western exhortation to be suicidally gentle with our enemies in order to receive a Christian burial on their “moral high ground.”

...this means that Israel must stop pretending it is a nation like any other, begging to be judged fairly by whatever standards the current hegemon has decreed we all agree upon. We need to look for standards from within our tradition to set a moral example for the whole world, while making it more practically possible to defend our homeland.

Instead of bragging about the extra danger our soldiers experience for the sake of sparing enemy noncombatants, we should reject the premise that we Jews bear any responsibility for protecting the human shields employed by our enemy.

Instead of threatening Jews with arrest for praying on the Temple Mount, we should take a hint from the “Al-Aqsa” moniker our attackers gave to their day of savage invasion and let Cohens up there on the hill to slaughter lambs for Passover.

And above all—given that land is nearly all that matters to this death-worshipping foe—instead of repeatedly withdrawing troops from areas we have just taken over so we can deny having unchristian territorial ambitions, we should conquer, annex, and resettle parts of Gaza so that Jews and friendly gentiles both can live there safely.

...Like the Jew among nations, Israel constantly struggles with its half-successful attempt to blend in with the crowd and pretend to be a member like any other, and it is time to put an end to this paralyzing charade. We did not stick to our Law through 3,000 years of human civilization to continue national life as the perpetual defendant. It is our job to know that Law, to teach what we know—and, most of all, to live by it."

So their military stance is more than simple self-preservation.

Can you imagine the foolishness of the International Criminal Court bringing their laws and preoccupations to these people, to Hamas and The Israelis?

Born Bloodless

In the mid-1990s, there were nearly 8,000 public companies listed in the U.S. Today, there are half as many, and at the current rate, we’ll see that number halved again by 2044. “The total should have grown dramatically, not shrunk,” --Dimon

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...as an economist, it was her view (Yellens) that China could benefit if it stopped giving subsidies to firms that would fail without government support.--Tabarrok
Ponder that.

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in 2010, President Obama directed the CIA to assassinate an American citizen in Yemen, Anwar al-Awlaki, despite the fact that he had never been charged with (let alone convicted of) any crime, and the agency successfully carried out that order a year later with a September 2011 drone strike. While that assassination created widespread debate — the once-again-beloved ACLU sued Obama to restrain him from the assassination on the grounds of due process and then, when that suit was dismissed, sued Obama again after the killing was carried out

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Born Bloodless

Is there a conflict between living and experience? 

We have become a people of experience.

"As in the traditional folktale, and as in the Christopher Marlowe play, Goethe’s Faust sells his soul to the Devil, Mephistopheles. But in Goethe’s version what he asks in exchange is not magic powers or supernatural knowledge. It is, rather, experience—a life lived at fever pitch, “a frenzied round of agonizing joy, / Of loving hate, of stimulating discontent.” The condition of his deal is that the Devil may take his so
ul whenever he grows too contented with life: “If I should bid the passing moment stay, or try / To hold its fleeting beauty, then you may / Cast me in chains and carry me away.”

The central issue of Goethe’s life and work is on what terms is life worth living? For Faust, as for Werther before him, ordinary existence is flavorless and intolerable; like an alcoholic, he demands ever-stronger draughts of emotional intoxication. Above all, he demands the intoxication of love, and he finds it with Gretchen, an innocent and virtuous young girl, whom he seduces and abandons. Not until the end of the play, when Faust returns to find Gretchen in prison for infanticide, and on the edge of madness, does he realize how selfish his quest for experience has been. A heavenly voice announces that Gretchen will be saved—Goethe, no moralist when it comes to sex, can forgive her for being carried away by passion. But there is no salvation for Faust, whose crime is the one transgression that Goethe can never forgive—solipsism, the refusal to acknowledge the full reality of other people."--Adam Kirsch in "The New Yorker"

"Assault on the Liberty"

The University of Virginia paid two DEI executives annual salaries of more than $500,000 apiece, spent $20 million annually on over 200 DEI employees, and has committed almost $1 billion over the long term to race-based scholarships, faculty chairs, and other “equity projects.” Companies typically pay DEI directors in the U.S. at least $200,000 annually, much more at large firms, and globally spend an estimated $9 billion on DEI.

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Assault on the Liberty

Every so often, the political animal shows its stripes. And national ambition will always trump friendship. Something like this always gives a little context.

Most of this is from St. Clair's summary of "Assault on the Liberty," a first-hand account by James Ennes Jr. whose book of the event is a 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 three hours. The Liberty was flying a large US flag and was easily recognizable as an American vessel.

An easily-identified lightly-armed American surveillance ship in international waters.
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, 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.

The Children of Israel are never alone. But sometimes it's hard to see why.

Crocodiles of the Arctic

Good news from America, as a banana republic: as we look with different eyes on the integrity of our legal system, will we become less desirable as an immigrant destination?

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China: Private capital investment in real productive assets, which typically amounts to half the country’s total, has slowed from a growth rate of over 23 percent in 2013, before all the talk of “new eras” began, to 10 percent in 2015, to 5 percent in 2019, to an outright, if small decline last year.

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While more than half of students in their internal-medicine, family-medicine, emergency-medicine, or pediatrics rotations had failed tests in those subjects at one point during the 2022–23 academic year—and those struggles led many trainees to postpone taking their national licensing exams. “I don’t know how some of these students are going to be junior doctors,” one unnamed UCLA professor told him. “Faculty are seeing a shocking decline in knowledge of medical students.”--Atlantic

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Crocodiles of the Arctic

From The Horse by Wendy Williams, writing on the temperature increase during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) of 56 million years ago, in which global temperatures rose at least 5°C and stayed there for 200,000 years: "It's hard for us to imagine in our twenty-first-century world, where we accept the cruel reality of sweltering summers and freezing winters, but for a good deal of Earth's history, including most of the Eocene, the planet enjoyed fairly uniform temperatures. For example, during the Eocene, the world north of the Arctic Circle was so warm that crocodiles flourished there. There were no ice caps, of course, and so much freshwater flowed into the Arctic Ocean that a layer of fresh­water sat like a lens over the salt water. The freshwater Azolla fern was plentiful. Forests of redwoods and walnut trees grew there. Pale­ontologists have found the remains of giant ants usually associated with the tropics."

So is global warming mainly a risk for real estate prices?