The Price of Freedom

On this day:

1610
Galileo Galilei makes his first observation of the four Galilean moons: Ganymede, Callisto, Io and Europa, although he is not able distinguish the last two until the following day.
1785
Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England, to Calais, France, in a gas balloon.
1835
HMS Beagle drops anchor off the Chonos Archipelago.
1920
The New York State Assembly refuses to seat five duly elected Socialist assemblymen.
1940
Winter War: The Finnish 9th Division stops and completely destroys the overwhelming Soviet forces on the Raate-Suomussalmi road.
1942
World War II: The siege of the Bataan Peninsula begins.
1945
World War II: British General Bernard Montgomery holds a press conference in which he claims credit for victory in the Battle of the Bulge.
1948
Kentucky Air National Guard pilot Thomas Mantell crashes while in pursuit of a supposed UFO.
1952
President Harry S. Truman announces that the United States has developed the hydrogen bomb.

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“Empires have no interest in operating within an international system; they aspire to be the international system.”--Kissinger

***

The Maduro capture is looking like a more serious international position. Venezuela and South America are less vulnerable to American enemies, the yuan is less a threat, the hemisphere emphisis is new and places a burden upon NATO--the military arm of the people at risk, and may make opponents of former allies over the remaining hemisphere. China and Russia.

***

The early hearings on Minnesota fraud sound as if the government is really an agent of organized crime.

***  

A lot of the fraud in Minnesota was done in crypto.

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The Price of Freedom

What is the price of freedom?

In all other governmental systems, you are forced to suffer other people's errors. Imagine living where the political philosophy believes that a person is born with an unescapable responsibility for the condition of total strangers, conditions that stretch back before either you or they were born. And imagine that the future depends, not only on your acceptance of this, but your death and the deaths of your children and family. Imagine being subject to whatever goofy notion catches on in university coffee houses: illiterates taking over oil facilities, or health facilities. Beliefs that you will work tirelessly for the well-being of your alcohol-consumed neighbor. The somber belief you should sacrifice your daughter's heart to the Sun God.

Freedom allows you to make your own decisions, to make your own life. Freedom also allows you to make your own mistakes, a circumstance that encourages the insinuation of people who offer to relieve you of those risks, with, by the way, no credentials at all.

The price of a Melania coin is just under 14 cents; people paid as much as $8.48 for each one less than a year ago.
But you can also buy 25 pristine, wrapped pennies for between 9 and 10 dollars.
That is the price of freedom.

Venezuelan Musin'

On this day:

1492
Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic Monarchs conquest Granada completing the Reconquista.
1721
The Committee of Inquiry on the South Sea Bubble publishes its findings.
1900
Second Boer War: Having already sieged the fortress at Ladysmith, Boer forces attack it, but are driven back by British defenders.
1912
German geophysicist Alfred Wegener first presents his theory of continental drift.
1941
President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers his Four Freedoms speech in the State of the Union address.
1994
Nancy Kerrigan is clubbed on the knee at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Detroit, Michigan.

***

Why are there guards for football coaches?

***

There is a strange silence in the world over the bombing of Iran, an act that ordinarily should stimulate some discussion. Is that tacitly accepting something solely on its practical advantages?

***

Were the doctored BBC's January 6 tapes ever used in court?

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Have we opened a new terrorist battlefield in Venezuela?

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Venezuelan Musin'

A few years ago, the Biden Regency put a $25 million bounty on the head of Maduro. Biden, or whoever was writing fatwas that day, decided that Maduro was not a political leader, he was a gangster in drag, undeserving of the political niceties that exist between even the most hostile of nations. Today, the same politicians are outraged over Maduro's capture.

But there are plenty of thugs out there masquerading as politicians. Who do we excommunicate from the community of nations? And who do we harry and punish?

The pompous insincerity that politics gathers--one day an enemy of the state, the next a put-upon wide-eyed political victim--is soul-destroying. There is no moral consistency, no reliable civilized port to rest. One fears a violent rejection by nature, where suddenly these frauds will just be vomited up. The only sure consequence is the gradual degradation and rejection of the political class itself.

This is the embodiment of a real international crisis: criminals acting as nations or ethnic subgroups, nations as 'fronts'. The Americans have long tolerated the idea of commercializing crime, individuals or groups incorporating as businesses and getting in line to receive the financial goodwill intended for charity. Government funds are always laundered and repurposed for some criminal or political benefit. When does society kick the door in and reclaim the charity? 

But this can be done on an international level, too. The problem is the analog sliding scale. Is the Congo headman a leader? A boss? A striving new Washington? Does he have any vision other than his immediate benefit or that of his crew? When does the proletarian mass murder, said to be retribution for ancient 'class crimes', become just mass murder?

At some point, the intellectual boat must be righted. A pirate ship is not a democracy because the captain is elected, nor is it socialist because the spoils are shared. Nor does it become a privateer with a letter of marque. Racketeering is racketeering. What is gerrymandering? What is 'packing the courts'?

The real fear should be that Trump's simple utilitarianism may be the inevitable coming wave. Strong countries will start policing their sphere of influence. That is nothing new; the world has assigned America that role since WW11. But the consequences will be fascinating and terribly dangerous. The homogeneous world of nations will separate like continental drift into Balkanized regionalism. And America's philosophical basis will slide into practicality. National action will be only that. Russia will attack Ukraine, and America will menace Cuba. China and Russia will want Mongolia. The age of the warlord--now heavily armed and righteous--will return. 

And the world will depend upon that most rare of political qualities: self-restraint.

Epiphany

On this day:
871
Battle of Reading: Ethelred of Wessex fights, and is defeated by, a Danish invasion army.
1642
King Charles I of England sends soldiers to arrest members of Parliament, commencing England’s slide into civil war.
1649
English Civil War: The Rump Parliament votes to put Charles I on trial.
1885
The first successful appendectomy is performed by William W. Grant on Mary Gartside.
1959
Luna 1 becomes the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon.
1965
United States President Lyndon B. Johnson proclaims his “Great Society” during his State of the Union address
2004
Spirit, a NASA Mars rover, lands successfully on Mars at 04:35 UTC.

***

“Do not save what is left after spending, but spend what is left after saving.”--Buffett 

***

A 'world expert' just said that Trump's behavior in Venezuela might embolden Russia and China to behave aggressively in their own sphere, With a straight face!

***

Venezuela is the eighth country that the Americans have attacked in the last year. Do people still think Trump is motivated by the Peace Prize?

***

There will be rising and organized criticism and resentment over the disruption of the Venezuelan government, of South America, and the international petroleum trade. There will be dark talk of 'international law.' Many will worry about Venezuela's national integrity. No one will discuss the losses American companies incurred in their efforts to improve the country. No one will worry about Venezuela. No one will worry about how the U.S. is hampered by its own ethics and the philosophy that created it, making it a ready victim from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli. No one will talk about how the Americans have been relied upon to maintain the world order, then vilified when they do it.

The Americans attacked Iran in an outrageous example of international vigilanteism, but for the first time, no one complained. Everyone accepted the intervention as necessary for the safety of the world. Venezuela is another example of Trump the Utilitarian, the end justifying the means. But, in fairness, he is just filling a void. Europe and Biden allowed the invasion of Ukraine. America's efforts at communal stability have been sabotaged here and abroad by mobile, hostile ideologies. Ignorance of American principles has been adopted by its supporters.

Safety and direction in the world have been Balkanized. America is just joining late. 

A lot is lost when idealism is sacrificed to counter offense and disregard.

***

Epiphany

Shakespeare is famous for encapsulating the essence of a play in his opening scene. And there are many examples in literature where a scene or chapter is a concentration of the larger vision. The Epiphany is such a scene in the New Testament. The Magi--astrologers and dream interpreters--follow thin scientific promptings to Jerusalem and ask Herod for help in the final leg of their journey to find the Christ child. Herod asks his priests to explain who they are seeking. The priests use the Old Testament to explain the Christ prophesies. Then the Magi leave for Bethlehem and Herod plots to find the child and kill him.

So Christ is born, is sought and adored by Gentiles from a metaphysical caste, and is stalked by killers trying to protect their worldly power and position. So far, so good. But the priests are the stunner: They are the academic resource, the intellectuals who know the connection between the Old Testament and the evolving New, the students and teachers of the question. They explain why the Magi are there and explain where they likely are bound. The Messiah may be at stake. And then they, the intellectuals,....do nothing.

The Morality of Precision

On this day:1431
Joan of Arc is handed over to Bishop Pierre Cauchon.
1496
Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tests a flying machine.
1521
Pope Leo X excommunicates Martin Luther in the papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem.
1868
Meiji Restoration in Japan: The Tokugawa shogunate is abolished; agents of Satsuma and Chōshū seize power.
1961
The SL-1, a government-run reactor near Idaho Falls, Idaho, underwent a core explosion and meltdown, killing three workers.
1962
Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro.

***

“A man is born to work, to suffer and to fight; he who doesn't, must perish.” — Nikola Tesla. Down, boy.

***

Michael Burry, of The Big Short, has a newsletter called Cassandra Unchained. He's shorting AI.

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Proof of God is hard, proof of the devil is easy. It's on Netflix, the Watt murders.

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The guy on trial for killing Kirk wants due process.

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The Palisades Fire report has been disavowed by its author. There is always a Truth Bottleneck.

***

The Morality of Precision

Trump continues to wade through national and international affairs like a heavily armed CEO. American troops have captured Maduro, the assumed President of Venezuela. So we continue our international rampage from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.

Like the wag said, you can't be a little bit pregnant, but you can be a little bit at war.

There is a lot here. Trump and Rubio mentioned the drugs, the coziness Maduro had with Hamas and Cuba. A big component was the Venezuelan nationalization of American petroleum interests.

Rubio emphasized this was a 'law enforcement effort.'

Is this a change? It is attractive to pull all this together with a new view of nations. There is little community among nations, and we are beset by little bullies, artificial states that live on the edge of civilized behavior for their own advantage, and who have no internal or external controls.

The cartels are Mexico's fifth-largest employer. Cuba has a gigantic spy/disinformation program in this country. Tiny oil countries can extort the world. Lunatics bombing chess clubs are a metaphor for the world.

Who is going to enforce the greater good?

But is that a change? Where does the capture of Noriega fit in? Or Obama as executioner of an American citizen on foreign soil? Libya? Afghanistan? Kidnapping old nazis? The UN's flailing court orders?

Years ago, Jefferson brought war to the shores of Tripoli because the nation's ships were being pirated and its crews enslaved. North Africa wanted 'tribute' to stop, and Jefferson thought that was demeaning extortion, preferring war. Jefferson.

Trump is philosophy-free, and his actions are often seen through utilitarian lenses. But we are a people with a philosophical 

national basis. Does this mean that kind of self-examination and caution is old-fashioned and passé? And, if so, where is the line drawn between 'might' and 'right'?

Some New Year Notes

On this day:366
The Alamanni cross the frozen Rhine River in large numbers, invading the Roman Empire
1920
The second Palmer Raid takes place with another 6,000 suspected communists and anarchists arrested and held without trial. These raids take place in several U.S. cities.
1935
Bruno Hauptmann goes on trial for the murder of Charles Lindbergh, Jr., infant son of aviator Charles Lindbergh
1959
Luna 1, the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon and to orbit the Sun, is launched by the Soviet Union

*

What is going on inside Iran?

*

Mandani is now Mayor of New York.

This is going to be so much fun.

*

Are the Pirates spending money because streaming demands a real product?

*

The 64-year-old wife of Jill Biden’s ex-husband was found dead in her Delaware home after law enforcement responded to investigate a domestic dispute late Sunday, authorities said.

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The very smart and talented AIs are listening, much like young children might hear their parents arguing outside their bedroom door late at night. It may not matter much now, but as the children grow up and assume a larger role in the world, it will.--Cowen

*

A few years ago, a poll found that whereas 63 percent of voters said they viewed the Founding Fathers as heroes, among those under thirty, that figure shrank to 39 percent. Meanwhile, fully 31 percent of U.S. voters under 30 said they saw the Founders as “villains.”

"Villains."

Can a culture that does not hold itself in high regard survive?

*

Is the Constitution compatible with the power and conformity requirements of socialism and Islamism?

*

Fossil fuels are cheap, available, and efficient. Their substitutes are less so. Fossil fuel substitution suggests energy decline, an inevitable energy contraction. There will be a general and widespread self-sacrifice, all for the greater good.

 

Shutting down the world's energy will create circumstances considerably deeper and more serious than can be borne by a stiff upper lip. Production will decline. Living standards will decline. Economies will implode. Agricultural and industrial production will be reduced, sometimes to nothing. People will die. Some cultures will suffer disproportionately.  

What if some resist? Or, worse, what if they see their energy-less neighbors as an opportunity for exploitation? Or revenge? What if some see it to their advantage?

What if some nations see a sliding scale of 'self-sacrifice'?

*

The Russians are losing 41,000 men a month in Ukraine.

*

One might be curious and suspicious about the development of a culture that accepts misrepresentation and mendacity as staples in its daily life. What is chilling is the casual way these people view their deceits, suggesting they, themselves, don't take themselves seriously. 

That is true nihilism.

*

What is more of a threat to the Republic, the Jan. 6 riot, or Packing the Supreme Court?

*

Communism was doomed from its inception. Adherents who sneered at the "invisible hand" saw a mysterious invisible force in history that picked its fights toward an idyllic endpoint of incentive-less, motiveless production of peace and wealth, leaving behind a path littered with the bodies of those poor souls only placed on this earth to facilitate as antagonists to communism's great march. This strange, murderous idealism violated all the laws of human reality yet staggered on, storming trenches, deracinating appropriate families, and slashing and burning the present to plant the seeds of the future. It is said that it attracted the idealist--but who could say its mayhem and murderous creed was, in any way, idealistic? No, it attracted the foolish, the embittered, the cynically ambitious, the irrational, and the overtly psychopathic, who unsurprisingly rose in its hierarchy. But eventually, after years of misery and death, the cause flagged, failed, and died.

*

In 2025, SpaceX launched 165 separate Falcon spacecraft. 165.

*

We have become obsessed with the outlier. 

A gift from Critical Theory: an individual cannot escape or transcend his group. Strange and outrageous behavior by one individual has become generalized to represent a larger group. So one lunatic cop is representative of all cops. And those cops are representative of all society.
The wide generalization from small experiences to large populations is a virtual definition of bigotry.

*

"Democracy" implies "virtue" to our arrogant minds. It is not. It is a simple way of deciding. In the American example, it is ingenious--but only because of the limits created by its founders. Its success is defined by its self-imposed restraints. The potential for tyranny is constrained by the Constitution. But this is not a characteristic of democracy; it is unique. Russia votes. Hitler was elected.

*

One of the authors of an anonymous Department of Human Health and Services (HHS) review published in May, penned an op-ed for the Washington Post on Thursday detailing how the report found that “gender-affirming” procedures for minors “rests on very weak evidence.”

This may be true, but it is much more revealing that the review was originally published anonymously.

*

Where does the U.S., or any country, get the authority to determine the internal workings of another state? We are reasonably afraid of the implications of a maniacal, homicidal theocracy that has threatened its neighbors and the U.S. and periodically killed our citizens. They are, without question, a malignant threat to the U.S. and the world. The world will rejoice at the effort, albeit probably silently. But where does the justification for such a huge military action come from?

***

Americans and Europe

The Americans are deeply criticized by a loud, intense, European minority. Some are simple foreign agents on a relentless, insincere social media crusade, some are fanatical faith-based social zealots, and many are mean, jealous outsiders with a nationalist bias. Here is a clarifying little snippet that is informative:

'While Europe has created 14 companies worth more than $10 billion in the past 50 years, with about $400 billion of market value in total, Americans have created nearly 250 such companies, worth $30 trillion.

That success has driven up America’s middle-class incomes. The median disposable U.S. household income, according to the OECD, is now 25% greater than the median German household and 60% greater than the median household in Italy.

Europeans’ incomes would be even lower if they weren’t free-riding on American innovation, defense spending, and higher drug prices, which incentivize research. America’s median incomes would be higher if we had more talent devoted to supervising and creating jobs for blue-collar workers or Northern Europe-like distribution of test scores.

The outsize success of America’s talented entrepreneurs doesn’t stem from their superior intelligence. It comes from working at companies such as Google and Microsoft, which mine the technological frontier and expose employees to valuable knowledge, insights, and opportunities. Apple is worth more than the 30 largest German companies combined. Apple’s employees and its alumni use their knowledge and training to create more value than their counterparts in Europe.

Unlike Europe, the enormous success of American entrepreneurs motivated an army of talented Americans to get valuable on-the-job training, work longer hours, take risks, and succeed. A small amount of success bubbles up from a large pool of failure.

…..

When entrepreneurs capture as little as 5% of the value they create for others, it makes little sense to encourage successful risk-takers to quit working long before they achieve outsize success. With the effect technological success has on the productivity of talented American workers, who are our constraint to growth, and the effect of their productivity on the growth of middle-class incomes relative to Europe, that’s not a “policy failure.”'--Conard

There are myriad additional factors involved with the distinctions here. Many are outlined by the insightful McClosky. Another is the failure of Americans to indulge in vindictive, self-destructive tax policies. However the major one is an old De Tocqueville observation: Americans regard success highly and do not see the success of others as an impediment to their own individual efforts to attain similar success.

Happy New Year

 

Happy New Year

One of the curiosities about New Year's Resolutions is the unspoken belief that new and better ideas are always coming to the fore. I hope that is true, but my advice is always a hash of old suggestions:

“You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you do not do too many things wrong,” --Buffett

Seek fulfillment. Emphasize safety.

The great Old and New Testament sin is pride; the great sin of the doomed Greek was anger engendered by pride. These geniuses were not kidding.

Do not go out of the house in your pajamas.

Spend less than you earn.

There are better ways to do military-type lifts that pressure bones and joints but no good reason to do them at all.

Find a good podcast.

Keep boundaries. Always reassess them.

One thing at a time. Multitasking is terribly inefficient.

Do not be on time, be early.

Never use the phone at social events, dinner, or in elevators.

Keep up-to-date phone numbers and addresses of friends. Use them. Keep up with old friends with a line or e-mail; do not let them slip away.

Get seven hours of sleep a day.

Use audiobooks.

The time before and after exercise is essential. Warm up and cool down.

People will not remember presents, but they will remember how you made them feel.

Ours is a period of downgrading. Start a mild upgrade with more effort on appearance. It may catch on.

Do not phone from the bathroom.

A first date should always be coffee or lunch.

Do not read anything other than menus while eating a meal with others.

Regularly pay off your debt, even bit by bit.

Sign all petitions and always vote "no."

Build a good wardrobe, one good piece at a time.

Do not put ice in wine. If the wine is not cool enough, go to a better place.

Angry people are usually entertaining but avoid them after 6 o'clock.

Read a formal literary effort, a book, essay, or play, a little bit every day.

Wake up. Early. The day will be nice and long and full of opportunities.

Go to bed at a reasonable time. Anything that happens late at night is because the perpetrators think no one is watching.

Do not name your children after large cities in Texas. Or European cheeses.

If you are going to drink alcohol, drink only good alcohol. Never drink something because it is there.
Never drink alcohol because you "don't want to waste it."
Never forget, alcohol is a neurotoxin.

Generalizations are verboten in our time. Nonetheless, the Irish have an inordinate appreciation of alcohol. Watch it.

Memorize one insightful quote or poetry line every week.

Do not run at night wearing black.

Have your teeth cleaned every six months.

Make a budget. The discipline alone is helpful. 

Set aside a percentage for two groups of savings. Use one account to go to when necessary for a big purchase or a surprise problem. Use the other one for retirement. Never touch the second one.

People tend to like what they do when they are good at it. So, be good at your job and your diversions.

Always get the cost of goods or services upfront. This is especially true of lawyers.

When traveling:

Never travel without a phone that works.
Always, always get the harbormaster's number when you leave a ship.

Never travel alone to an area where you do not know the language or the alphabet.

Always travel with enough money.

Avoid areas where you might depend upon the goodwill of people with old political grudges towards some group you remotely resemble.

Again, always, always get the harbormaster's number when you leave a ship.
 

Buy one tailor-made piece of clothing to see the difference from retail.
 

Floss.
 

"To trace something unknown back to something known is alleviating, soothing, gratifying, and gives moreover a feeling of power. Danger, disquiet, anxiety attend the unknown - the first instinct is to eliminate these distressing states. First principle: any explanation is better than none." (Friedrich Nietzsche) 

Remember this when attacking another's beliefs. You are attacking more than his intellectual position, you are attacking his area of comfort and command.

Save 10% of your income for retirement.

And some book suggestions and comments:

   Feral Detective by the usually reliable Jonathan. Obscure motives of leadened characters. I couldn't finish it. 

   Dragon Tattoo series. The first three, by Larsson, are terrific. And this was his first fiction. The others were distracting enough.

   Curiosity Shop. This is one of Dickens' rare controversial books: is it 10 of 10 or only 8? True, it is a bit more heavy-handed than his usual, but...he did almost invent the form.

   We Have Always Lived in a Castle, Shirley Jackson: Very good from the author of The Lottery.

   Bell Jar, Plath. I know coming-of-age crises in young women is current and important, but I did not finish it.

   Sea of Tranquility, Mandel. From the Station Eleven lady. Very complex, high-level, and aggressive topic--multiple universes. Much more than I expected.

   Never Let Me Go, Ishiguro. Very good. Surprising element of the fantastic.

   Human Acts, Han Kang. A vicious account of South Korea's counter-revolution. More personal than Rape of Nanjing, but not with the impact. Still, insomnia-giving.

   Bunker Hill, Philbrick. A good account of a tremendous event in history.

   Zero K, Delillo, The Strike Series, Galbreith, and The Gone World, Sweterlitsch were my three favorites this year (recognizing I love Dickens) Zero K is a modern, spare everyman story that is very cleverly constructed as it describes the life of a non-combatant in a very confrontational world. The Strike series is by JK Rowling under a pen name. This woman just doesn't know her place. After immortalizing herself with Potter, she decides to try detective stories. She has some biases--she hates aristocracy and thinks identity a shallow assessment tool--but they are just great. The second, Silkworm, is a bit rough but this woman can write. The third, Gone World, is an obscure mukti-universe story by an obscure Pittsburgh author. I loved it, but in truth, this is a dense, confusing book and is not for everyone.

Paul's Letter to the Galatians says that Christ on earth means that all men are adopted sons of God, heirs to His infinite creation.
So every man, regardless of station or circumstance, wealth or heritage, birthright or appearance, sickness or health is equal in the eyes of God. There have been a lot of notions--from nihilism to castes, from divine right to class conflict, from Freud to Malthus--that have come down the pike since the beginning of recorded time but has there ever been a more radical, more hopeful, more optimistic idea than that? And could there be a better thought to start the new year? 

And how could the vicious alternatives compete with it?

Happy New Year.