Logical Extremes

Hamas said its political leader Ismail Haniyeh has been killed in an overnight strike in the Iranian capital Tehran.

***

Polls showed that in 1964, two years after the Cuban missile crisis, only 38 percent of Americans knew that the Soviet Union was not a NATO member. In 2006, only 42 percent could name the government’s three branches. The average American works harder at being informed when choosing a refrigerator than when picking a president.

***

The estimate is that, with the end of the academic year, the student protests will move elsewhere. Does that mean go on holiday?

***

Braves agreed to a deal with the San Francisco Giants to acquire All-Star outfielder and two-time World Series champion Jorge Soler.


***

Logical Extremes

Abortion will be a linchpin in American elections forever. It ranks as the prime national question among several demographics despite demonstrable threats to the very existence of the republic, so much so its abrasiveness has become a threat itself. One who tried to pour oil on the waters was Nisbet.

Robert Nisbet, a philosophically sophisticated sociologist who provided intellectual ballast to conservatism in the second half of the 20th century, considered it incoherent for conservatives to make opposition to abortion a fundamental tenet of their doctrine. He said “the major theme of Western conservatism” is “the preservation, to the extent feasible, of the autonomy of social groups against the state.” And particularly the preservation of “the family’s authority over its own.”

Abortion has been considered an intractably divisive issue because it supposedly was not amenable to the basic business of politics: the splitting of differences. Nisbet noted, however, that “there is no record of any religion, including Christianity, ever pronouncing an accidental miscarriage as a death to be commemorated in prayer and ritual.” This, Nisbet implied, indicates an ancient, durable, and widespread cultural tendency to say this: Societies that assert an interest in protecting life before birth are not required, by custom or a settled, articulated logic, to ban all deliberate terminations of pregnancies. (from Will)

This may all be true. But it does seem to be an effort to avoid the basic question that is raised by partial-birth abortion. And philosophical efforts to avoid definitive decisions are unsettling. And, as an aside, why is precedence a trump card? It isn't with the ancient institution of slavery.

 

A Priest at Normandy

Harris wants a 31% corporate tax.

***

There are election riots in Paraguay. Troops are shooting demonstrators in the street.

***

Shapiro is the obvious VP choice but apparently, there is a strong internal resistance to him.

***


A Priest at Normandy

Fr. Francis L. Sampson was not killed at Normandy, but he overcame his fears and expectations so that he could serve those who put their lives on the line.


Born in Cherokee, Iowa, he graduated from Notre Dame in 1937 and was ordained a priest in 1941. After serving as a parish priest in Iowa, he volunteered for chaplain service in the Army.


He later admitted that he didn’t really know what he was getting himself into.

“Frankly, I did not know when I signed up for the airborne that chaplains would be expected to jump from an airplane in flight,” he said. “Had I known this beforehand, I am positive that I should have turned a deaf ear to the plea for airborne chaplains."

As a member of the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, he parachuted into Normandy on June 6 and made his way to a French farmhouse where injured soldiers were being treated. Fr. Sampson chose to stay with them, even though the area was about to be overrun by German troops. He was captured and taken to an area to be executed. He later confessed that he was so scared that he prayed Grace Before Meals instead of an Act of Contrition.


But a Catholic German non-commissioned officer intervened, and the priest, considered harmless, was allowed to stay at the first aid station.

The Will of the People

 

The Will of the People

Kamala's campaign has received an astonishing $200 million since her coronation. So it has been with money in politics and so it will always be. Do people think this kind of money is put in as a sort of detergent, trying to clean up what it can? Or is it what it appears, a powerful influence that can overturn the results of months of a voting primary in a day.

As an unsuccessful candidate for her party’s nomination in 2008, and accepting her party’s nomination in 2016, Hillary Clinton wanted to “get money out of politics.” But also in 2016 she overcame her aversion to money and outspent Trump 3 to 1. The progressive aspiration is to remove private money from politics.

This would extend government’s domination of society to politics — to the debate about the composition of government. The maximum progressive aim is to remove voluntary political contributions from politics and restrict candidates to spending money that government extracts from voters by taxation. The overwhelming majority of voters — this we know — will not voluntarily pay for politics.

Every year, Americans can check a box on their tax returns, thereby giving $3 (without increasing their tax liabilities) to fund the presidential campaigns of nominees who agree not to accept other money. In 2023, only 3.35 percent of tax filers checked the box.

Signal

Harris is Prsident and is not. She was Border Czar and was not. 

A woman for all seasons.

***

France’s high-speed rail network was hit Friday with widespread and “criminal” acts of vandalism including arson attacks, paralyzing travel to Paris from across the rest of France and Europe only hours before the grand opening ceremony of the Olympics.

***

Signal 

The Signal Foundation, created in 2017 with $50m in funding from WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton, exists to “protect free expression and enable secure global communication through open source privacy technology”.
It took over the development of its messaging app, also called Signal, in 2018, Meridith Whittaker came on board in the newly created role of president in 2022 – just in time to begin defending Signal, and encryption in general, against a wave of attacks from nation states and companies around the world.
“Through the 80s, there’s deep unease about the idea that the NSA [US National Security Agency] and GCHQ would lose the monopoly on encryption, and by the 90s, it ends up controlled under arms treaties – this is the ‘crypto wars’. You couldn’t send your code in the mail to someone in Europe; it was considered a munitions export,” Whittaker said.
Surveillance, she says, was a “disease” from the very beginning of the internet, and encryption is “deeply threatening to the type of power that constitutes itself via these information asymmetries”.
All this means that she doesn’t expect the fight to end soon. “I don’t think these arguments are in good faith. There’s a deeper tension here, because in 20 years of the development of this metastatic tech industry, we have seen every aspect of our lives become subject to mass surveillance perpetrated by a handful of companies partnering with the US government and other ‘Five Eyes’ agencies to gather more surveillance data about us than has ever been available to any entity in human history.
The criticisms of encrypted communications are as old as the technology: allowing anyone to speak without the state being able to tap into their conversations is a godsend for criminals, terrorists, and pedophiles around the world.
But, Whittaker argues, few of Signal’s loudest critics seem to be consistent in what they care about. “If we really cared about helping children, why are the UK’s schools crumbling? Why was social services funded at only 7% of the amount that was suggested to fully resource the agencies that are on the frontlines of stopping abuse?”
Regrettably, both these arguments could be true. The problem with security is that is an all-or-nothing proposition.
“Signal either works for everyone or it works for no one. Every military in the world uses Signal, every politician I’m aware of uses Signal. Every CEO I know uses Signal because anyone who has anything truly confidential to communicate recognises that storing that on a Meta database or in the clear on some Google server is not good practice.”

Oil Leases

Biden finally explained his reason for dropping out of the race: it was to save democracy.
He would have done more good for democracy if he had dropped out of the 2020 race.

***

NORAD chased off a joint flight by the Russians and the Chinese last night.

***

Oil Leases

There was an oil lease auction held by the U.S. Government of Alaskan properties. Only nine were actually sold.

First is the fact that, while 9 “oil and gas” leases were sold in that January lease sale, not a single one of them was auctioned off to an actual “oil and gas” company. Indeed, 7 of the 9 were bought by the State of Alaska itself, via its Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority.

The two remaining leases were purchased by placeholder entities that are so insubstantial that neither of them - Knick Arm Services LLC and Regenerate Alaska, Inc. - even has its own website.

No real gas and oil company.

The reasons why are simple: Drilling in ANWR is too controversial, too legally difficult, too costly and there are too many other good places around the globe to explore for oil and gas. These are “oil and gas” leases in name only.

Democracy on the Ballot

It's been written that, at the time of Joan of Arc, a man could walk from the English Channel to the Rhine and never see the sun because of the unbroken canopy of leaves

England's forest coverage now is greater than at any time since the Black Death nearly 700 years ago, with some 1.33 million hectares of the country covered in woodlands. The UK as a whole has nearly three times as much forest as it did at the start of the 20th century.

That’s not by a long way the most impressive performance. China’s forests have increased by about 607,000 square kilometers since 1992, a region the size of Ukraine. The European Union has added an area equivalent to Cambodia to its woodlands, while the US and India have together planted forests that would cover Bangladesh in an unbroken canopy of leaves.

***

Democracy on the Ballot

Mr. Biden said his original plan to “provide millions of working families with debt relief for their college student debt” was derailed by “MAGA Republicans” and “special interests” who challenged the plan in court. “The Supreme Court blocked it,” Mr. Biden added, “but that didn’t stop me.”

What does that mean? That this was a political decision initiated by 'Maga Republicans' and 'special interests'? But the Court does not decide on the value of a law, -- whether or not debt forgiveness is a good idea is not involved. The Supreme Court is the arbiter of what powers are granted to the government and where those powers are housed. Does Biden not accept the arbiter role of the Court? Does he think their opinion only one of many? It would be like, after appealing an 'out' call at second base, asking for a third opinion....from somewhere.

The peculiar battle cry that 'democracy is on the ballot' might be true. The nature of the Supreme Court is integral to the country's structure; many countries do not do this hierarchical balance well and instability is the result. The relationship between the government and its agreed-upon, assigned, limits is a difficult concept for many and can be exploited by the ambitious and the ill-informed. This can be exaggerated by our current political personalities; we seem to be governed by the lowest quintile of the country's graduating classes. This makes the complex more obtuse than they should be.

Education vs. Sports

The US’ lurch from its post-World War II free trade principles offers China a golden opportunity. On the world stage, China will espouse open free trade and investment. China will encourage EV and battery firms to establish plants in Europe, Brazil, Mexico, and elsewhere, essentially daring the US to damage its own alliances by restricting third-country imports containing Chinese components.--Hufbauer

***

Although protectionists stubbornly refuse to acknowledge this reality, trade deficits are not synonymous with borrowing. Foreigners’ purchases of American real estate and their creation of equity in American-based businesses, as well as foreigners simply holding dollars, contribute to American trade deficits without Americans’ borrowing anything from anyone.

***



Education vs. Sports

It would be of interest to survey men and women separately as to the notable events they felt were of the greatest influence in their formative years. The academic world might well blush as it is likely sports and particular sporting events or moments would likely be high on the list of the men. Higher than most classroom experiences.

All the usual subjects would be rounded up -- the value of hard work and its correlation with success, surrendering individual for team goals, the importance of preparation and practice, the need for self-control during competition, the subtle relationship between athlete and coach and how to take instruction, good sportsmanship, comradeship, how to eat and exercise--and all would be seen as important to some degree among the men surveyed.

The most complex sports lesson, though, is how to win. Physical skills, preparation, practice, diet, and training are all important components but not learning how to win can trump them all. And it is not easy to learn because one can not learn to win unless one learns to lose. The heart is tender in the hardest athlete, and shy in the gruffest competitor. and can easily protect itself in the shade of indifference. Pledging oneself completely to the task at hand carries great risk as failure can be devastating. So failure--losing--must be understood and managed. While the individual submits completely to the event, he must somehow make his investment total yet contained. He must understand that the struggle is not with his opponent but with himself, to perform as best he can and recognize that and nothing more is at stake and is enough. The outcome is not a judgment, it is a conclusion. The outcome is his own preparation and effort coming to fruition. Sometimes the opponent is faster, quicker, stronger, and will be victorious; such qualities are unlearned and are gifts of God. But the opponent must never be more committed or more dedicated, he must never fear failure less. Only when one learns that the outcome is nothing personal can losing become tolerable. Then the athlete can dissolve his fear of failure and learn to win.
 

Liquor Licenses and Government Scarcity

It is self-destructive for any society to create a situation where a baby who is born into the world today automatically has pre-existing grievances against another baby born at the same time, because of what their ancestors did centuries ago. It is hard enough to solve our own problems, without trying to solve our ancestors’ problems.--Sowell

***

Despite China’s juggling, the dollar is, and will remain, the reserve currency. Try visiting Costa Rica with Chinese renminbi. Or bitcoin. China is our factory floor, though it’s now contracting. I’m convinced manufacturing will eventually move to India, once they sort out the socialist mess the British left them.--kessler


***

Liquor Licenses and Government Scarcity

Under rules that have been in place since Prohibition ended in 1933, the state limits the City of Boston to approximately 1,200 licenses to serve alcohol. That is far too few for a city with 700,000 residents and tens of millions of annual visitors, so the demand for liquor licenses long ago outstripped the supply.

As the shortage of licenses has grown steadily more acute, their market value has grown more extortionate. The prevailing price in Boston for a license, typically purchased from an establishment going out of business, is now $600,000.

It's a system rooted in bigotry. With the repeal of Prohibition, the Yankee-dominated Legislature didn't trust Boston's Irish politicians to regulate the city's bars and restaurants, and imposed a stringent cap on the number of establishments where alcohol could be served. In the decades since, the artificial scarcity induced by the Legislature has become notorious.

Jacoby's solution: clone every liquor license in Boston into two liquor licenses, freely transferable and unrestricted. By that means, every owner of a license in Boston would become the owner of a second license, which could be disposed of as the owner wished. It could be used to open another restaurant or bar, sold to a new owner, donated as a gift, or retained for future use. The market value of liquor licenses would quickly descend from the stratosphere. But existing licensees would be compensated by the doubling of their holding.
--from Jacoby

Creating Jobs

Karl Marx himself defended colonialism and wrote several pieces that denigrated the intelligence of non-white people, including implying that they were incapable of governing themselves.--magness

***

Sen. Elizabeth Warren believes that the nation would be better off if Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos were to cede 2% of their wealth annually to her control. She wants us to believe that, somehow, she’ll spend it more productively than they would.

This makes as much sense as believing that the Kansas City Chiefs’ offensive productivity would benefit from giving her 2% of Patrick Mahomes’s allotted snaps from center.--letter to editor to wsj

***

 Creating Jobs

"The evidence is overwhelming that manufacturers are creating excess HFC-23 simply to destroy it and earn carbon credits," said Mark Roberts of the Environmental Investigation Agency, a research and advocacy group. "This is the biggest environmental scandal in history and makes an absolute mockery of international efforts to combat climate change."

This appeared as part of an article in the Huffington Post. HFC-23 is a particularly dirty carbon producer and the implication is that the production of carbon--even if that production is peripheral or has no relation to the industry in question at all--has become a separate pursuit of companies so they can be paid not to produce it.

The question is why is anyone surprised? A distortion in the market, a tilt of the playing field, has been created to reward some and not others, to benefit specific behavior that has only an accounting advantage, like depreciating steel plants but not investing to produce steel. People will rush in to take advantage of the bias. These Rube Goldberg economics probably work sometimes but rarely. Raise the minimum wage to benefit minimum wage workers: Decrease the number of minimum wage jobs. Subsidize ethanol to decrease the use of petroleum: Petroleum use increases to produce the ethanol. Balance the earnings between big earners like the Yankees and lesser teams: Pittsburgh Pirates. Decrease the spreads in the stock market trades to stabilize the market: Flash crash. In this instance, businesses will be paid not to produce something, ergo, they will produce as much of it as they can first. This will produce more of the offending substance and eventually leech more money out of the payback system and make it less effective.

Notice that a system, once interfered with--even with the best of intentions-- changes into something else. A minimum wage job changes a valuable employee into an economic burden on his employer. An energy producer produces fertilizer and proportionally less petroleum for energy. The efficient farmer becomes a part-time food producer and a grossly inefficient energy producer. Several good baseball teams create and underwrite a new strange game the Pittsburgh Pirates play. Decreasing the profit in stock trades by market maker intermediaries creates a market where only high volume computer trading is profitable. It is reminiscent of hybridization. A mule is neither a horse nor a donkey. It is new.

But it is close. Close. And that is the point. No chef would substitute salt for sugar because it was close in appearence; he knows there is more to it than that. But somehow intellegent people feel thay can mix-and-match economic and political components without fear. Administrators and legislators create programs in reaction to problems and it is like adding a unique, foreign piece to a puzzle. Everything changes. Now, with the new piece, nothing fits and the puzzle becomes something else, neither the problem nor the solution but something else. A mule that can not run like a horse, a tiglon very distinct from its parents and from a liger.

It's not "close enough for government work"; it's a new explanation, a new excuse. It's the excuse Heisenberg has cursed us with that justifies our compromises: The imprecision of our times.

But we have to do something, don't we?

SatStats

SatStats

GDP graph in the U.S. since the Revolution:

***

This year alone, interest payments on the national debt will reach $892 billion, which is larger than defense-based funding. Annual interest payments will reach $1.71 trillion by 2034, widening the gap into an abyss.

***

The IRS last week published its annual data on the migration of taxpayers and adjusted gross income (AGI) between states. California ranked, again, as the biggest income loser ($23.8 billion) in 2022, followed by New York ($14.2 billion), Illinois ($9.8 billion), New Jersey ($5.3 billion) and Massachusetts ($3.9 billion). The top gainers were Florida ($36 billion), Texas ($10.1 billion), South Carolina ($4.8 billion), Tennessee ($4.7 billion) and North Carolina ($4.6 billion).

Although higher interest rates and housing prices reduced mobility in 2022, the flight from progressive states far surpassed pre-pandemic levels. California lost nearly three times as much income in 2022 to other states as it did in 2019. New Jersey’s net income loss hit a record in 2022, largely owing to fewer New Yorkers moving across the Hudson River.

***

In 2016 America was the world’s second-leading exporter, exceeded only by China. Yet on a per-member-of-the-workforce basis, America that year exported more than two-and-a-half times what China exported.

***

The Tax Foundation estimated that the Trump tariffs cost American households more than $625 annually. A 2019 study by Fed economists looked at two waves of trade policy “shock,” first in 2018 and then in the first half of 2019, and estimated the impact reduced GDP growth by about one percentage point. Tariffs contributed to the slowing economy and business investment late in 2019, which then plunged at the onset of the pandemic.

Maps

 

Based on the latest data and an enhanced version of a stress-tested methodology from a scholarly journal, about 10% to 27% of non-citizen adults in the U.S. are now illegally registered to vote.

***


Maps

The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility. --Four Quartets


Ancient maps are wonderful and wonderfully human. They are the confident and altruistic sharing of knowledge, carefully researched and drawn, beautiful and elegant, often the products of the brightest and the bravest. And usually they are wrong. Time and better information displace them gradually, sometimes suddenly, and they become an artifact, a relic of their time. Their more modern usurpers reign awhile , then they too are gone. They appear, are the obsession of every sea captain, every explorer, and then are trumped and worthless, pushed back on the evolutionary trail and fall from the culmination to a mere contributor.

Importantly, every seaman and explorer knows this. They know the limits of these observations and recollections made flesh. They swear no fealty but work within the map's limits.

Explorers, mapmakers and sea captains should be more prominent in our society.

There is an interesting story about China's recent contribution to the massive tome of Unintended Consequences. In the 1960's the State decided to control the population growth and limited each family to one child. One child per family would make the huge population manageable and stable. As males were preferred in families the effect was to discourage the birth or survival of infant girls. Over time a noticeable change developed in the population: The usual 50-50 gender birth rate tipped 4% in favor of males. Jobs for women went unfilled, women were lured to population centers for better work. Now there are small towns and communities that have no women at all. Family farms and businesses are at risk. Men expecting to raise families with local wives are getting older. Some communities have resorted to raiding--RAIDING--neighbors for women.

In an effort to stabilize the population, the government created shortages. But they started with a really good map.

Tariff

 

MSNBC is very suspicious about Trump's head wound. They want medical reports. I assume they believe Biden's Covid diagnosis.

***

At the remaining publicly listed department stores, credit cards — rather than retail sales — now generate a surprisingly large chunk of profits. Credit income accounted for about 47 per cent and 66 per cent, respectively, of Nordstrom’s and Kohl’s operating income last year, according to Bank of America Global Research. At Macy’s, the figure was about 55 per cent in 2022, said Citigroup.

***

Tariff

Some takes on Trump's tariff plan:

Trump’s tariff plan is “economically ignorant, geopolitically dangerous, and politically misguided,” says Scott Lincicome, head of Cato’s Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies. He adds that Paul Winfree, Trump’s Domestic Policy Council deputy in 2017, has denounced the tariff proposal, saying it “would impose a massive tax on the folks who it intends to help.”

According to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the Trump tariffs “would reduce after-tax incomes by about 3.5 percent for those in the bottom half of the income distribution,” and “would cost a typical household in the middle of the income distribution at least $1,700 in increased taxes each year.”

The Center for American Progress reports that Trump’s tariffs “would amount to a roughly $1,500 annual tax increase for the typical household, including a $90 tax increase on food, a $90 tax increase on prescription drugs, and a $120 tax increase on oil and petroleum products.” .

Erica York, senior economist at the Tax Foundation, says Trump’s 10 percent tariff ring “would amount to a $300 billion annual tax hike, reducing the size of the US economy by 0.7 percent and eliminating 505,000 jobs.” That’s before we even consider foreign retaliation.

Total War

“Rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city – except for bombing.” --economist Assar Lindbeck

***

Biden gave an extraordinary speech to the NAACP last night where he angrily proposed two blatantly unconstitutional political promises, term limits for the Supreme Court and national rent controls. The speech was almost comically inept--Biden confused his 5% rent cap with $55.
Perhaps the government's mental decline is more systemic than specific.

***

Total War

From the days of The Waters of Mullalla through the Heroes of Beslan to the Glorious Defeat of Dr. Karen Woo there is nothing more characteristic of the desperate, homicidal and primitive nature of the peripheral, armed ideologue than the precise, savage attack on the helpless. A hospital target is preferable and, if a nunnery is attached, all the better. Rarely a school is available but that, of course, is usually too much to hope (or pray) for. That is the nature of certainty--or sometime the desperate, homicidal, and primitive all by itself: The right --or need--to exploit the greatest leverage possible. Who can forget the wild-eyed terror in the eyes of the children in the Beslan school as hard, experienced guerrillas cut them to pieces. And one can easily imagine the similar fear mixed with an adult incomprehension as Dr. Woo and her companions died because they did not know the protective magic phrases from the Koran that their fellow knew.

War has many causes and the losers also have their reasons, formulated in their minds and conferences. And they are myriad. But a core of every homicidal conflict is inevitability, the belief that the combatants have no other choice. War is the option to their annihilation.

Years ago the Iroquois, pressed on all sides by the relentless European immigrant, decided to go to war. But trapped as they were against the Great Lakes in the northwest by the bulk of white settlers they needed a second front, preferably in the southwest. They turned to the Creek, a large and well-ordered tribe they respected, and sent their famous war chief, Tecumseh, to convince them to join their war. Tecumseh stood at the council for three days, silent until the white government observers left. Then he gave a speech that ended thus: "Make war on their men! Make war on their women! Make war on their children! Make war on their dead!" The Creek rose in a rage, joined the Iroquois, and fought to the death. Many of the battles had 98% mortality rates with only the leaders escaping to raise another force. One of the white leaders, Andrew Jackson, cemented his reputation in these horrific wars.

"Make war on their dead"? But Tecumseh was not mad. His war was not with these settlers and he knew it. His war was with history. His war was with a culture and its progress; no less a victory over the entire movement of history would protect the Iroquois and the Creek. They were doomed and total war was their only answer. They were in the endgame. 

They killed everyone they could find, farmers, traders' wives, settlers' children. And the settlers responded in kind. Every battle was to the death; there was no quarter and no surrender. When the military position was overrun, the camps and villages were next and all the women and children were killed. And then they were gone.

A society, a culture, a people backed into a corner, will fight like a trapped beast to the death. So will an outlaw. It is very important that a society be able to distinguish between the two. No society wants to be in an endgame with an enemy and not know it.

Butler

 

Vance's wife's bio is worth a look.

***


Butler

“You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.”--Robert Heinlein. Also known as Hanlon's Razor.

"I think this trying to pin down the precise motive, and how much of it was a mental imbalance or emotional imbalance and how much of it was political, is a bit of a fool's errand. There is a mixture of things they are.

The bottom line I think is that when someone is demonized to the extent Trump was being demonized, you are putting a target on them, and you are increasing the risk they are going to become a target for someone who has a mixture of these factors -- imbalance, some potential political element to it. They become the target.

What was concerning me was that -- and I understand the people on both sides engage in extreme rhetoric, occasionally. But what was bothering me was the thrust of the Democratic narrative for this election year had become that Trump was a mortal danger to our democracy, and if he wins the country is going away. When you take that position, that is an apocalyptic and hysterical position, it is bound to lead to violence, eventually.
...

The sentiments expressed by the president in his remarks just now are very noble and I hope they follow them because if they believe it they will scale back the rhetoric. And what he said about differences in policy, fine, you can attack your adversaries, you can attack their character and their policies, and so forth. But they demonized him -- called him Adolf Hitler, a racist, and a fascist, and so forth it is ridiculous. He is not a threat to democracy they portray. He was a president for four years he carried out excellent policies and it was all done lawfully.

...

That was my perception of what we suddenly saw this increase in attacks, and the decibel level and that vitriol increase, because they did not have an alternative other than this apocalyptic vision they are trying to paint.

And by the way, it is not just about Trump. We have seen the same thing with the Supreme Court, the personal vilification of Supreme Court justices when they disagree with the Supreme Court justices on legal matters."--Bill Barr

Yet, in the analysis following the attempted assassination the event was somehow homogenized with other, general violent events like riots and the crazy attack on Pelosi's husband rather than the very specific thing it was. And the public concerns became things like 'retaliation,' and equal blame, like campus riots being attributable to both anti-semitism and Islamophobia. Even Biden's generic call for unity was tinged with politics.

Insincerity and ambition. We're having trouble looking in the mirror. And we seem to be very willing to sacrifice the common good for our own limited aims.

Factors in Behavior

That the race between Biden and anybody is close is just astonishing.

***

We have always had a smug confidence in the superiority of our economic system over the communists; do they have a similar disregard for our election system?

***


Factors in Behavior

A number of years ago a woman held up my neighborhood bank with a handgun. She was quickly arrested, tried and convicted. The judge--a bathoes character if there ever was one--sentenced her to nursing school.

I have never forgotten this story because it so typifies modern thinking. The judge felt that nurses were, as a group, upstanding, responsible, hardworking citizens. The distinguishing characteristic that separated nurses from others was their nursing degree. Therefore, he reasoned, this criminal would be improved by a nursing degree. You can catch almost anything in a hospital, so why not responsibility and integrity. Indeed perhaps the entire community could be improved if everyone was conferred a nursing degree at birth.

Observations lead to generalizations. Sometimes these are brilliant, like Darwin. Sometimes they are only bigotry, like blacks are lazy or Asian girls can't drive. No observation is worth anything unless it is confirmed, critically. Science is not consensus, it is contentious. It is the battlefield of argument over inference. Information never, ever, implies; we infer. It is only after brutal analysis that information becomes meaningful.

Our current culture does not understand this and we will suffer for its ignorance. We look at home ownership and see that people who are homeowners seem to be better invested in their communities. We ask no further questions; we assume --infer--that home ownership is beneficial in itself. We ignore all the other possibilities--the buyer saved for his down payment so he was disciplined, the buyer did not buy until he had a good and stable job, the buyer had a stable family--all perfectly reasonable circumstances that might contribute to the successful homeowner demographic success. No, the house is the thing. People with college degrees earn more than their fellows without a degree, thus a degree is good for you. (Not a nursing degree this time around.) Do we have any idea if a 120-IQ woman with a degree earns more than a 120-IQ woman without a degree? No, that study has never been done. So we slog on and encourage home ownership and college degrees with only the most superficial evidence.

Poor scientific thinking is more than erroneous, it distracts us from the truth. It misleads us as surely as an intentional, malicious lie. Years ago a seminal study was done on the mortality rates in cities versus farm communities in Great Britain. It showed a significantly higher mortality rate in urban communities. The conclusion was that pollution was very bad for you and plans were initiated to curb smog. Now it might well be that smog is terrible for one's health but the study omitted one point: It did not correct for smoking. When the statistics were later reviewed to eliminate the factor of smoking among the subjects, the difference went away; the survival rate among the two communities was identical. Smog might be bad for you but there was no evidence in this study for that; but there was real evidence that cigarettes were killing people.

We are less insightful than we think. And we are less kind. Basing plans and programs on shoddy thinking traps everyone in the shoddy results. More, it distracts us from the true answers to our questions. One can hope that with time we, as a community, will get better at this thinking but one worries. Shoddy thinking, like bigotry, is easier

Akhenaton

“...though it is disguised by the illusion that a bureaucracy accountable to a majority of voters, and susceptible to the pressure of organized minorities, is not exercising compulsion, it is evident that the more varied and comprehensive the regulation becomes, the more the state becomes a despotic power as against the individual. For the fragment of control over the government which he exercises through his vote is in no effective sense proportionate to the authority exercised over him by the government.”--Lippmann

***

Only 1% of The #Forbes 400 is under 40, the lowest percentage in at least two decades.

***

Overriding all the problems of the current Biden crisis is the obvious unwillingness of the administration to do what is best for the nation.

***

Akhenaton

I have always thought that Obama looked like Amenhotep IV aka Akhenaton. Of course, his statues changed with his reign --and, I think, his religious vision --but the long, long face is pretty consistent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GD-EG-Caire-Mus%C3%A9e061.JPG

Amenhotep has always been fascinating. He was unknown to history until his temples were uncovered in el-Amarna in the 19th century and gradually quite a story emerged. He was the son of Amenhotep III and assumed the throne--either singly or as co regent for a short time--in about 1350. He seemed to be an interactive, concerned leader as he dealt with the problems of empire, particularly the growth and incursion of the Hittite Empire. But his main contribution to Egypt was his startling attempt to reverse, indeed revolutionize, Egyptian culture. He was Egypt's--perhaps the world's--first monotheist. (This observation was expanded into a whole thesis by Freud who argued in Moses and Monotheism that Moses was an Egyptian and had learned monotheism from the Aten cult). The current god was Amen. He gradually began to dismantle the pantheon of myriad gods and goddesses ruled over by Amen and substituted the single god Aten--really a re-emphasis of the old sun god Ra-- in their place. He also established himself as the intermediary between Aten and the world, thus bypassing the priest caste. This may have been a difficult process against the priests and tradition but perhaps it was a cult of the upper class with the lower classes clinging to the old gods and ways; nonetheless, the images and charms of the older gods seem to have continued unchanged. Amenhotep IV eventually changed his name to Akhenaten, moved the capital to a new site, Amarna, dedicated to the new god, and destroyed and desecrated the old Amen statues and religious sites.

There are so many interesting and unique aspects of this man. He changed art; representations of the pharaoh became softer and more personal. His family became prominent (his first wife was the elegant Nefertiti) and for the first time, statues became less rigid, more life-like . Temples were bright, airy, and filled with representations of family and community scenes.

Things ended badly. He died--or was overthrown--and his family began rule. But soon Horemheb took the throne and all evidence of Akhenaten, his family, and his new god was erased from monuments and records. Indeed Horemheb is recorded as directly following Amenhotep III. Amarna was abandoned; Akhenaten was anathema. Amen and his priests were back.

Cause and Ill-Effect

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen writes that “wages have risen more than prices since 2019” to justify her claim that “our economic position reflects actions the Biden administration has taken over the past three years” (“Bidenomics Is Working for the Middle Class,” op-ed, Dec. 21).

The problem with this claim is that President Biden wasn’t in office a single day in 2019—or in 2020. From the beginning of 2019 to the end of 2020, with Donald Trump still in the White House, real weekly earnings rose by $69 (or 6.2%) and annual median income rose by $3,592. But from the beginning of the Biden administration to the third quarter of 2023, the last quarter for which we have data, real weekly earnings fell by more than $25 (or 2.1%), pushing real annual median income down by $1,306.

***

As of December 2019, the average price of a gram of methamphetamine was $20 to $40.
An 8-ball of meth (3.5 grams) costs between $40 to $60. An ounce of meth (28.3 grams) costs $150 to $300.
Meth can be sold in smaller amounts. A single dose or “bump” of meth may be anywhere from $3 to $20. One dose will last six to eight hours. There are around five doses in a gram.

***


Cause and Ill-Effect

So the recent studies show that an increase in the minimum wage results in the rise in unemployment of minimum wage workers. Subsidizing the mortgages of homeowners results in the rise of bankruptcies and loss of homes. Attempts to pacify countries result in an increase in armed resistance. Programs that underwrite food expenses for hungry children results in an increase in the number of hungry children. The federal support of ethanol as a petroleum fuel substitute results in an increase in petroleum use. Taxes to stimulate jobs growth cause a decrease in gross domestic product. And how's the war on drugs going? Is it doing as well as the war on poverty?

Anybody see a pattern here? Is it true that our interference stimulates the problem we are trying to fix? Or are we seeing the bad administration of a good plan? Either way, it's a heck of a lot worse than Heisenberg interference which, at least, is neutral.

The debate over the proper role of government will never end. A new approach might be: What can government do right? One of the axioms of government seems to be that a program will never go away once started regardless of its effectiveness or success. How about the creation of a bureau that does nothing but analyze the effectiveness of governmental programs. Then we can analyse the role of government in the framework of its capabilities.

Probably wouldn't work

The Mortification of the Flesh

Portugal native, global restaurateur, and chef Antonio “Toni” Pais was a culinary leader and fixture in Pittsburgh for over 40 years.
Pais died on July 7 from complications of Parkinson’s disease. He was 69.

***

74% of the new jobs were government-financed and the construction jobs added were likely also due to government infrastructure programs.

***

A Commentary podcast states that Trump's platform is the least family-conservative platform in the last 50 years.

***

The Mortification of the Flesh

We live in a complex world. Physics describes a world of multiple levels, realities of unseen levels. Like faith-based Leftism, there are truths so real and deep that they cannot be seen--or inferred. The border is secure. The President is in good health. Modern Monetary Theory. Fossil Fuels are successfully being reduced in our progress to zero usage.

From The Guardian

At least 16 of the 33 Latin American and Caribbean countries are involved in about 50 major new oil and gas onshore and offshore projects.

Two new powerhouses, Brazil and Guyana, are expected to register two of the three largest increases in fossil fuel exports by 2035.

According to the latest report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), production in Latin America and the Caribbean, which stood at 8m barrels a day (mb/d) in 2022, will grow by 5.8 mb/d by 2028. With increased production in countries such as Brazil and Guyana and new projects all over the region, non-Opec countries are strengthening their foothold in the oil and gas market, playing a crucial role in the shifting geopolitics of oil and gas worldwide.

Even if the world market for fossil fuels starts shrinking by the end of the decade, countries like Brazil, Guyana, Argentina, Ecuador, Mexico, and Suriname are betting on oil as a source of wealth, economic growth, and development – despite its impact on the planet and thanks to the international community’s inertia in “transitioning away” from the oil era.

According to the latest report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), production in Latin America and the Caribbean, which stood at 8m barrels a day (mb/d) in 2022, will continue to grow above demand, adding 2 mb/d destined for export by 2030. With increased production across the region, non-Opec countries are strengthening their foothold in the oil and gas market, playing a crucial role in the shifting geopolitics of oil and gas worldwide.

Brazil and Guyana, are expected to register two of the three largest increases in fossil fuel exports by 2035. The region currently accounts for 15% of the world’s oil and gas resources and could increase its share if other historical producers transition away from the oil market, reducing their production and exports.

Brazil, which used to be a modest oil producer until the discovery of its pre-salt deposits in 2006, has become one of the top ten largest oil producers. More than 100 wells have been drilled, with production increasing from 41,000 barrels a day in 2010 to 2.2m a day last year, according to Petrobras.

Petrobras has identified new fields in the “equatorial margin” region, which stretches from Rio Grande do Norte to Amapá. It is also considering the extraction of fossil fuels at the mouth of the Amazon River, which the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama) and environmental groups such as Greenpeace have spoken out against.

Petrobras plans to invest $6bn from its own budget in exploring new deposits over the next five years, adding another 10bn barrels to its reserves – almost doubling its current capacity.

“You have oil in one place. Guyana is exploring, Suriname is exploring and Trinidad and Tobago are exploring. Will you stop exploring yours?” asked Brazilian Lula at a recent event in Rio de Janeiro organised by the Future Investment Initiative Institute (FII Institute) from Saudi Arabia.

In neighboring Guyana, one of the poorest countries in Latin America, the economy has grown quickly since ExxonMobil discovered oil in 2015. GDP per capita is soaring, growing by 33% in 2023. It is expected to increase by 34% in 2024.
 
Ashni Singh, Guyana’s finance minister, says: “We’re using this period [of oil exploitation] to ensure Guyana’s long-term competitiveness, to secure long-term economic growth, and to invest in the things that matter most to improving the quality of people’s lives – and in particular, the most vulnerable.”

Meanwhile, Suriname has become a “rising star” in the oil market with some big offshore discoveries, including new deposits in Block 58 by TotalEnergies and APA, estimated at 700m barrels, with the potential to transform the economy of South America’s smallest nation.

In addition to oil giants Venezuela, Mexico, Argentina, Ecuador, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and even the environmentally exemplary Costa Rica have ambitions to expand their oil and gas industry. “We must carefully assess these resources,” said Costa Rica’s president, Rodrigo Chaves. “This is a multibillion-dollar industry. And, as a nation, we should discuss its potential.”

Coal

In the US, 5% of women are blonde. Among female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, 48% are blonde.

Female senators: 35% blonde 

Blonde privilege.

Just 2.2% of male F500 CEOs are blonde

***

In the US, 14.5% of men are 6ft or taller.
Among CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, 58% are 6ft or taller (4x increase) 3.9% of men are 6’2’’ or taller, among F500 CEOs, 30% are 6’2’’ or taller (7.6x increase)

***


Coal

So, how's the carbon war going?

Demand for coal is set to grow 1.2% and top 8 billion metric tons for the first time ever this year, the IEA said in the latest edition of its annual coal report. This record comes only a year after countries agreed to phase down their use of coal at the United Nations climate conference in Glasgow.

The growth is mostly due to a rapid rise in the prices of natural gas and other fuels, which has forced some countries and regions to turn to coal as a cheaper alternative.

China, which accounts for more than half of global coal consumption, also ramped up its use of coal earlier this year, when the worst heatwave and drought in six decades hit its hydroelectricity production.

Earlier this year, the IEA said CO2 emissions from coal power generation were forecast to grow by more than 200 million tons, or 2%, this year. It said that investment into new fossil fuels infrastructure must stop immediately if the world wants any chance of achieving net zero by 2050.

This means coal will continue to be the global energy system’s largest single source of carbon dioxide emissions by far.

The largest increase in coal demand is expected to be in India at 7%, followed by the European Union at 6% and China at 0.4%.

The Rewards of Progress

Interesting notion about part of Biden's bleary decision-making to stay as president: he is still bitter about being passed over by Obama for Hilary in 2016. He wants his two terms.

***

Adulterate is from Latin adulterare (to corrupt) while adult is from Latin adolescere (to grow up). Adulterate and adultery are related. When you engage in either, you introduce something/someone other to the picture.

***

Don sent a note from the American Thinker by an MD suggesting that Biden has the Lewy Body Dementia version of Parkinsonism.

Diagnosis over time or distance is unfair...but...

***

The Rewards of Progress

Coal consumption, a lynchpin in the faith-based warming/change theology, is rising. Despite all the treaties. Despite all the promises.

The CEO of Huntsman Corp., which has annual revenue of about $8 billion from turning hydrocarbons into products, said the following: 

In 1970, global cooling was supposedly going to disrupt agriculture and other things, the ozone was going to disappear, and acid rain was going to deforest New England. Today, the real U.S. GDP is four times larger than in 1970, but Americans’ activities are emitting about the same number of metric tons of carbon dioxide, even while using much more electricity, and driving and flying many more miles. Why? Better technologies and processes; we learn and adapt.

So where should the world look to save us from the uncertain crisis of global warming? Who can we get to make the sacrifice? Not the tough guys like India and China. How about the rich kid trying to make friends? How about the good old Charlie Brown? How about the USA? Even though they have already made a great effort and the impact of restraining them would hurt them much more than it would help the earth?

Yes.

Now who thinks like that?

Assange

Cindy Tappe, a former director of finance and administration at NYU's Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and Transformation of Schools, sent about $3.5 million to a pair of shell companies she controlled between 2012 and 2018, according to prosecutors and the state comptroller's office.


***

In May of ’21, CDC falsely claimed that children accounted for 4% of Covid deaths. But the real data showed the true number was four-hundredths of one percent (.04%). Is it a coincidence that this mistake coincided w/CDC’s controversial decision to recommend Pfizer’s Covid vaccine for kids as young as 12? Who’s been held accountable for these mistakes and misinformation?--Atkissson


***

Assange

What to do with Mr. Assange...Some cry "Treason!"--but he's not a U.S. citizen. Some say "Spy!"--but he only publicized what was already exposed by the American Manning. (Who is a traitor.) The libertarians are thrilled with his exposing insincerity and duplicity of government--as if this were some news.

Truth is not the question. What was published were copies. True copies. But does truth always have to be said? Is it important to the moral balance of the universe that the lady in the stupid hat--who spent all day working with it and wears it proudly and confidently into the world--knows that everyone around her thinks it's stupid? Or is that truthful insight gratuitously cruel and self important?

But Assange is more than arrogant and gauche; he is destructive. He has a plan of chaos and disorder and the victims of that plan are us. Read what he said to Time magazine: "It is not our goal to achieve a more transparent society; it's our goal to achieve a more just society."..... (If leaks cause U.S. officials to) ...."lock down internally and to balkanize," ...(they will)... "cease to be as efficient as they were." What he wants is to make the system inefficient. He wants the system not to work.

For some reason those with confidence in state power often attack it by asking more of it than it can do.

Well, which part of the system should fail. The electrical grid that runs the respirators? The economic grid that controls contracts and exchange? The military grid and its fail safe mechanisms?

The world is getting more dangerous. Imagine a malicious soul in a commodity exchange computer. Or a bank computer. Or a military one.

The well-poisoner does not want to kill anyone; he wants to destroy the village.

Wills and Obama

Half the protein in your body comes from artificially created nitrogen, a process invented a hundred years ago by Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch. This process combines nitrogen from the air with hydrogen to make ammonia, which is used in fertilizer. In the past century, the Haber-Bosch process improved crop yields, saving the lives of 2.7 billion people who would have otherwise starved to death.

***

In Iceland, it was legal to kill Basque people until 2015.

***

Twice as many women get tattoos as men: 39% of women and 21% of men have tattoos. The ratio is the same for hidden tattoos, too: 30.2% of women have a hidden tattoo, compared to 16.7% of men.

***

Wills and Obama

Garry Wills wrote on Lincoln at Gettysburg, a book that reshaped the relationship between the Constitution, the Civil War, and Lincoln.

Sam Tanenhaus has an article in Prospect on Garry Wills, whom he says "has written better than anybody else about modern America."

An author, historian, and anti-clerical Catholic, Wills has written significant analysis of America and American culture, the most famous work on the Gettysburg Address and its pivotal place in Lincoln's--and America's--history. He is tough, opinionated, and argumentative, a proud mid-westerner, a sports fan, and the husband of a stewardess. But, as Tanenhaus says, "For Wills to argue is not to quarrel, accuse, or even opine. It is to state a hypothesis and then work through it with Euclidean rigor and arcane examples."

"It was Wills who saw, long before it became accepted dogma, that Richard Nixon, the bête noire of American liberals, was himself the “last liberal,” ferociously clinging to the national myth of “the self-made man.” It was Wills who cleared away the nostalgic mist surrounding John F Kennedy and exposed him as the originator of the modern “insurgency presidency,” addicted to reckless “covert actions” that paralleled his illicit bedroom adventures." Wills told Clinton to resign the presidency over Lewinsky the same week Clinton awarded him the National Humanities Medal.

In June 2009. Obama, newly in office and acutely aware of his place in history, wanted to hear what experts had to say. Doris Kearns Goodwin, whose Team of Rivals Obama drew on when he assembled his cabinet (the book also inspired Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln), arranged for eight historians to join Obama and a few staffers for dinner in the White House. The guest list included, among others, Robert Caro (the legendary biographer of President Lyndon Johnson), Robert Dallek (biographies of Kennedy and Johnson), and inevitably, Garry Wills. “It’s a strange thing,” one of the group told Wills afterwards. “You imagine you have a lot to tell the president. But as soon as you’re with him, all you can think to do is tell him how great he is.” Wills argued that Afghanistan was a mistake and would harm him.

The following year the group was invited back--except for Wills. The lesson seems to be that, for politicians, admiration is more important than good advice.

Democracy and its Enemies

 

 

In the 2020 election, The Center for Tech and Civic Life, a previously small Chicago-based nonprofit, quickly amassed hundreds of millions of dollars it donated to local election offices — most notably, $350 million from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.

Where did that money go, exactly, and what influence did it have?

***

It seems the important question about Biden is whether he can win, not whether he can lead.

***


Democracy and its Enemies

January 6th was the day Biden kicked off his reelection campaign. He picked January 6th as it is the anniversary of the attempt of some enthusiasts to demonstrate in favor of Trump's assertion that the election of 2020 had been rigged. What looked like a riot to the whole world became, in the eyes of the press, a tipping point of near Gettysburg or Shiloh proportion. The Republic trembled and nearly fell before an assault of scores of unarmed citizens led by a guy wearing deer antlers.

If only Lee had known.

Let's say these misguided fools and the Antler Guy actually had plans of upsetting the election. It's a big country; how would they have done it?  We don't know. But let's say they had some secret plan. How would you rate their chances of success? (Assuming the Antler Guy has some wonderful--if, as yet unseen--planning and leadership qualities.) How would they have fared? Against the Feds? The U.S. Marine Corps? 2500 SEALS?

On the other hand, what if the President of the United States promises 'fundamentally transforming the United States of America.' What if the President is so infirm that all of the executive decisions are deferred to a faceless cadre of unelected government employees? What if the national debt rises so high it destabilizes the currency, prompting an alternative world currency and leaving its citizenry impoverished and in despair? What if the integrity and safety of the country are threatened by hundreds of thousands of unvetted, illegal immigrants crossing the border every month with only cursory attention? What if the government becomes so venal, so corrupt, so insincere, and so inept that the people become estranged?

Which scenario threatens the democracy?

Fourth of July

Fourth of July


America had an exceptional revolution, one that did not attempt to define and deliver happiness, but one that set people free to define and pursue it as they please.--Will

*
Isonomy guaranteed … equality, but not because all men were born or created equal, but, on the contrary, because men were by nature ... not equal, and needed an artificial institution, the polis, which by virtue of its νόμος would make them equal. --Arendt

*
The American Constitution is, as far as I can see, the most wonderful work ever struck off at any given time by the brain and purpose of man---Gladstone

*
Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.--Thacher

*
Jay Leno had a recurring skit where he asked questions to passers-by on the street--questions most people think are rather simple and obvious. He asked several people what the Fourth of July celebrated, when independence was declared, and who the country separated from. Of course, the results were embarrassing to most of those interviewed. One was particularly interesting. A college instructor knew nothing about the Revolution at all, thought it occurred in the 1920s, and thought China might have been involved.

*
A survey published recently said that 27% of people questioned did not know the American Revolution was waged against the British.

*****

When I was a child in the '50s, the Fourth of July was a great event. The kids decorated their bikes, small local parades were held--every community had some commemoration and the larger communities had fireworks. It was unlike other secular events like Thanksgiving which were delightfully family-oriented; this was a commonly held social event. It was a birthday party. And it was heartfelt. Everyone felt that years ago something of value had been accomplished, something special in the world created. There was a glow.

When Obama was first campaigning, he was asked about American Exceptionalism. (The phrase was de Tocqueville's, from Democracy in America, 1835: "The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one. Their strictly Puritanical origin, their exclusively commercial habits, even the country they inhabit, which seems to divert their minds from the pursuit of science, literature, and the arts, the proximity of Europe, which allows them to neglect these pursuits without relapsing into barbarism, a thousand special causes, of which I have only been able to point out the most important, have singularly concurred to fix the mind of the American upon purely practical objects. His passions, his wants, his education, and everything about him seem to unite in drawing the native of the United States earthward; his religion alone bids him turn, from time to time, a transient and distracted glance to heaven. Let us cease, then, to view all democratic nations under the example of the American people.")

American exceptionalism is a description of how America developed, not what it was.

The phrase has been used since by those who saw America as a point of reference in man's search for freedom and liberty. (It was also used by Stalin as a slur, decrying America's self-held belief that it was somehow excluded from the Marxian class warfare generality.) Obama saw a trap--it would not do to talk of "exceptionalism" when we want all people to be the same, all nations indistinguishable. So, he hedged and said, "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." He, unlike those Americans of just a generation or two ago, does not think that America is unique.

Unique. If that element is lost in this country, a lot has been lost. So, buy a small flag. Decorate your bike.

A Manual of Patriotism

P. O. Joseph signs with St. Louis.

***

Henderson wryly notes that, in 2015, a person acquired status by seeing “Hamilton.” By 2020, however, when the masses had made the musical contemptibly popular, former enthusiasts turned against it, saying it insufficiently reflected America’s failings. Its creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, performed the expected grovel: “All the criticisms are valid.”--will

***

45 American citizens were killed in the Hamas attack last October 7th and 12 were taken hostage. It was not brought up in the 'Debate."

***

A Manual of Patriotism

A recent note suggested citizens read the Declaration of Independence. An interesting idea.

From an article I lost somewhere. Maybe Noonan?

"I’ve spent the past few days reading an old book, one that couldn’t possibly be published today because it’s so full of respect for America. “Manual of Patriotism: For Use in the Public Schools of the State of New York,” runs 461 pages of text and was published in 1900.  

The manual was written after the Legislature passed an 1898 law requiring public schools to display the American flag and “encourage patriotic exercises.” Organized veterans of the Civil War and of the Women’s Relief Corps, who were nurses on the battlefield, pushed for it to “awaken in the minds and hearts of the young” an “appreciation” for “the great deeds” of their nation.

Memorial Day meant a lot to those old veterans, but more was needed. Their generation was passing; they’d given everything to hold the nation together; they wanted the young to understand why.

Unsaid but between the lines: America at the turn of the 20th century was being engulfed by waves of immigrants; they too needed to understand what America is and means to be, so they would love it too.

What a book the manual is, what a flag-waving old classic.

How do you encourage love of country among schoolchildren? You let them have fun. You hold pageants and parades, have them read poems and learn songs. Let them dress up as figures in history and enact great events. This need not be costly: “An old-time coat or dress found in a garrett or unused drawer at home may serve all needful purposes.”

Tell the story of the American flag. The Continental Congress in 1777 said we need a national banner. Here enters the heroic Mrs. Elizabeth Ross of Philadelphia, known as Betsy, who, on the personal request of General Washington, started sewing. The stars and stripes from her hand, “were unfurled at the battle of Brandywine, in 1777. . . . They sang their song of triumph over defeated Burgoyne at Saratoga. . . . They saw the surrender of the enemy at Yorktown; they fluttered their ‘Goodbye’ to the British evacuating New York.”

Have children memorize and recite Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride.” Have them enact the battle of Lexington and Concord and read aloud Emerson’s “Concord Hymn”:

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,

Here once the embattled farmers stood,

And fired the shot heard round the world.

Tell the story of the Mayflower, of the making and meaning of the Compact, of the landing on Plymouth Rock: Quote an old poem: “Here, on this rock, and on this sterile soil, / Began the kingdom, not of kings, but men; / Began the making of the world again.”

Remind children, as Sen. James G. Blaine once said, that the U.S. was long “the only country with a known birthday. All the rest began they know not when, and grew into power, they knew not how.” America wasn’t just some brute force that pushed up from the mud; we announced our birth with a Declaration that was “a revelation”: All men are created equal.

The manual includes a lot of opinions on historical events. One I liked was the assertion that the Civil War ended the day Ulysses S. Grant was buried in 1885. Why? Because America saw who his pallbearers were: “Johnston and Buckner on one side of his bier, and Sherman and Sheridan upon the other.” The first two were generals of the Confederate army, the last two of the Union Army. Henry Ward Beecher wrote that their marching Grant to his tomb was “a silent symbol that liberty had conquered slavery, and peace war.”

You come away from that vignette thinking not only “what men,” but “what a country” that could tear itself in two, murder itself, forgive itself, go on.

Parents, help your children love this country. It will be good for them, and more to the point this country deserves it.

Also when you don’t love something you lose it. We don’t want that to happen."

What the Debate Really Revealed

 

72% of Americans feel Biden is not competent to be president. Yet the race is within 2 points.

How is that possible?

***

Murray debated playing in Wimbledon this year. He had back surgery and still has bilateral leg weakness.

Djokovic had knee surgery three weeks ago but will play. Meniscus.

Aryna Sabalenka withdraws with a shoulder injury.

***

And, for those who look to the BBC to calm discussions down, David Aaronovitch, who presents Radio 4's Briefing Room show, took to X/Twitter shortly after 5 pm and said: “If I was Biden I'd hurry up and have Trump murdered on the basis that he is a threat to America's security #SCOTUS”.

***

Sotomayer's dissent over the 'presidential immunity' decision was so bizarre and unserious that I worry the Supreme Court's high ground of 'designated grownup' might slip away. It was like a Twitter rant.

*** 

The guy breathing easier after the 'immunity' decision is Obama, who ordered a lethal strike on an American citizen without due process.

***

 

What the Debate Really Revealed

In a discussion on the debate this weekend the participants had a surprising take on the event. They felt the Democrats were teetering on a precipice of chaos if they tried to displace Biden but the emphasis was misplaced. The real problem was that Trump had to be defeated because he was of poor character and the proof was he lied 33 times in the debate.

It was surprising to hear that Truth had returned from its long exile from the national stage. Especially the demand for Truth from Biden and his organization. Biden is a notorious confabulator and has been so for his entire political career. (Before his more recent deterioration, he was simply a liar.) But essential to this 'presidential' behavior is its gigantic support system of the media and the party, whose loyalty is solely to winning--to the exclusion of everything, including the health and wellbeing of the nation.

That sacrifice of the safety and betterment of the nation for personal gains, of course, is the definition of the behavior one would characterize as the nation's enemies.

Notes and Notables

 

Notes and Notables

24-year-old defenseman P.O. Joseph will become a free agent.

Furniture sales are down 10%, a reflection of the future housing market.

Does the public collapse of Biden force urgency on the ambitions of Putin and Iran?

Bowman's defeat is hard to read. So much money involved.

There's a battalion of North Koreans fighting in Ukraine for Putin.

Are the 16 Nobel economists who claim Trump will wreck the economy different from the 51 intel leaders who claimed the Biden laptop was Russian disinformation?

Moody’s estimates that as much as $250 billion of office value will be wiped out in downtown real estate.

20% of all EV chargers do not work.

Hertz sold off all their EVs due to excessive maintenance costs and low demand.

98% of all cars on the road now are gas. 97% of all auto purchases-new and used, are gas. Used cars are 75% of all car sales, so when they say 7% of car sales are EV, they are leaving out the bulk of car purchases. They are just talking about new cars and that will likely be dropping as more owners realize these cars require more cost over time.