Behind the Mayor's Smile

On this day:

43 BC
Octavian, later known as Augustus, compels the Roman Senate to elect him Consul.
1561
An 18-year-old Mary, Queen of Scots, returns to Scotland after spending 13 years in France.
1612
The “Samlesbury witches”, three women from the Lancashire village of Samlesbury, England, are put on trial, accused for practicing witchcraft, one of the most famous witch trials in English history.
1692
Salem witch trials: in Salem, Massachusetts, Province of Massachusetts Bay five people, one woman and four men, including a clergyman, are executed after being convicted of witchcraft.
1745
Prince Charles Edward Stuart raises his standard in Glenfinnan – the start of the Second Jacobite Rebellion, known as “the 45”.
1782
American Revolutionary War: Battle of Blue Licks – the last major engagement of the war, almost ten months after the surrender of the British commander Lord Cornwallis following the Siege of Yorktown.
1812
War of 1812: American frigate USS Constitution defeats the British frigate HMS Guerriere off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada, earning her nickname “Old Ironsides”.
1848
California Gold Rush: the New York Herald breaks the news to the East Coast of the United States of the gold rush in California (although the rush started in January).
1934
The creation of the position Führer is approved by the German electorate with 89.9% of the popular vote.
1960
Cold War: in Moscow, downed American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers is sentenced to ten years imprisonment by the Soviet Union for espionage.
1991
Dissolution of the Soviet Union, August Coup: Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is placed under house arrest while on holiday in the town of Foros, Crimea.
1999
In Belgrade, tens of thousands of Serbians rally to demand the resignation of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia President Slobodan Milošević.

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"Many bad men, for sure, are rich, and many good men poor; yet will we not change our virtue for these men's wealth, seeing that virtue endureth but possessions belong now to this man and now to that." - Theognis of Megara, 6th/5th century bc., apparently a zero-sum guy. More than half of the extant elegiac poetry of Greece before the Alexandrian period is his. (He also wrote that he wanted to drink the blood of his enemies, mostly pro-democratic revolutionaries.)

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It is reported that China is now arresting economics professors at their own universities who tell the truth about China’s stagnating economy in their classes

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Former President Obama’s drone assassinations of American citizens were non-issues because observers knew Obama “meant well.” When Obama decided to bomb Libya in 2011, his appointees made it clear that he would ignore the War Powers Act of 1973, enacted to prevent presidents from launching wars on their whim. When a federal judge ruled in May 2016 that the Obama administration’s consumer subsidies under the Affordable Care Act violated the Constitution, the decision was almost completely ignored — perhaps because Obama’s illegalities were progressive. When President Trump ended the subsidies, he was denounced for trampling Congressional prerogatives.
This is possible only if people are not paying attention or do not care.

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China’s foreign minister Wang Yi is travelling to South Korea today (Wed) for his first official visit there in five years. Why now?

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Trebuchets reached the peak of their development in medieval times, probably the most famous example being Edward I’s massive machine, Warwolf. This terrifying device was over sixty feet (18 meters) high and was capable of throwing a three-hundred-pound (140-kilogram) rock several hundred yards, projecting some five hundred kilojoules of energy, a thousand times the power of Roman ballistas and five thousand times as powerful as a single person. Edward used it just once, in 1304 during his wars of conquest against the Scots, to attack Stirling Castle, the last stronghold of the Scottish armies. The defenders were so petrified by the prospect of the attack that they sued for peace before Warwolf could be used, but Edward refused to let them surrender until he had tested the machine; in four days it totally destroyed one of the castle’s curtain walls.--Ennos

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Shackleton Crater near the moon's South Pole has high rims that create permanently shadowed regions known as “cold traps,” where it’s thought that water (in the form of ice) and other useful materials may have accumulated over billions of years. In all of NASA’s and China’s plans for long-term settlement on the Moon, relatively few square miles at the Moon's South Pole matter most.

If they are successful, what will China's territorial decisions be?

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An eight-year Finnish study found that children who spent more time on screens tended to show better cognitive processing as teenagers, challenging common assumptions about screen use. 

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Behind the Mayor's Smile

Mamdani's biggest asset seems to be his smile. And his incongruity. (He's speaking Chinese.) But...

NYC sent out letters to people thought to be eligible for the second home pied-à-terre tax. Then NYC published it. Why would they do that?

Malice. They want to identify their enemies to their base. With luck, they will personalize their outrage. Maybe even show up and vent their anger. There might be violence- just enough to imply the war the Left believes in and cherishes.

These are bad people who do not wish us or our culture well.