NGOs in the Weeds

On this day:

1187
Siege of Jerusalem: Saladin captures Jerusalem after 88 years of Crusader rule.
1780
John André, British Army officer of the American Revolutionary War, is hanged as a spy by American forces.
1789
George Washington sends the proposed Constitutional amendments (The United States Bill of Rights) to the States for ratification.
1835
The Texas Revolution begins with the Battle of Gonzales: Mexican soldiers attempt to disarm the people of Gonzales, Texas, but encounter stiff resistance from a hastily assembled militia.
1919
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson suffers a massive stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed.
1928
The “Prelature of the Holy Cross and the Work of God”, commonly known as Opus Dei, is founded by Saint Josemaría Escrivá.
1937
Dominican Republic strongman Rafael Trujillo orders the execution of the Haitian population living within the borderlands; approximately 20,000 are killed over the next five days.
1944
World War II: German troops end the Warsaw Uprising.
1950
Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz is first published
2001
NATO backs U.S. military strikes following 9/11.

***

If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin. -Samuel Adams, revolutionary

***

Removing immigrants from the labor force reduces the domestic market for goods and services. Immigrants are not only workers, but also consumers. As immigrants are expelled and the labor supply shrinks, economic growth diminishes and employers have fewer opportunities to invest in their businesses. Which is to say a nation's promary asset is its people

***

The United States already has a smaller average class size than a number of countries whose educational achievements are higher. Japan, for example, averages 41 students per class, compared to 26 for the United States. In mathematics, where the performance gap is especially glaring, the average class size in Japan is 43, compared to 20 in the U.S. Within the United States, the ratio of pupils to teachers declined throughout the entire era from the 1960s to the 1980s, when test scores were also declining.

***

The U.S. has run annual trade deficits every year, without fail, starting in 1976 – that is, for 20 percent of the country’s existence. And yet the U.S. unemployment rate is today 4.1% – less than half its rate of 8.5% in 1975 (the last year the U.S. ran an annual trade surplus).


***

-Three people were injured in a shooting following an altercation outside George K. Cupples Stadium on the city's South Side, after a Westinghouse High School and University Prep game.

-Police found a “male” stabbed near the East Liberty bus station.

-Wilson and Metcalf both looked good in the Steelers' depressing loss last night.

***

NGOs in the Weeds

“Israel Is Committing Genocide in Gaza, Leading Scholars’ Association Says,” ran the headline in The Washington Post.
The BBC’s headline read: “Israel Committing Genocide in Gaza, World’s Leading Experts Say.”

The World's Leading Experts? The organization? The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS)

The Guardian quoted the president of the association, Melanie O’Brien, declaring that the resolution represented “a definitive statement from experts in the field of genocide studies that what is going on on the ground in Gaza is genocide.” In another interview with ABC News Australia, O’Brien boasted that the resolution passed with nearly 90 percent support.

Salo Aizenberg, a board member of Honest Reporting and contributor to NGO Monitor, tested that proposition. After exploring the IAGS website, he found that he could become a member of the organization with just a $30 contribution. “This organization that purports to be a leading organization of scholars is open to anyone who is interested,” he told The Free Press. For thirty dollars.

After Aizenberg posted about his new membership to X, others joined in on the fun. Newly minted genocide scholars now include Emperor Palpatine, the villain of the Star Wars franchise; Adolf Hitler of Gaza City; and the favorite, “Mo Cookie,” who turns out to be the Cookie Monster wearing a green scarf with the Hamas logo. And the 90% support? It was 90% of a small portion of the group who bothered to answer.--from Plosker

This is silly. And people trying to use them as persuasive "experts" is silly. But a lot of silly stuff is dangerous. People dressed in KKK outfits are silly. Tariffs are silly. Government ownership of private businesses is silly.

But I surely dislike how manipulative people are rewarded by silliness. I hate when it is influential. And I despise it when it is insincere and tax-deductible.

Royalty on the Red Carpet

On this day:
1449
Battle of Tumu Fortress – Mongolians capture the Chinese emperor.
1504
Michelangelo’s David is unveiled in Florence.
1923
Honda Point Disaster: nine US Navy destroyers run aground off the California coast. Seven are lost, and twenty-three sailors killed.
1935
US Senator from Louisiana, Huey Long, nicknamed “Kingfish”, is fatally shot in the Louisiana capitol building.
1941
World War II: Siege of Leningrad begins. German forces begin a siege against the Soviet Union’s second-largest city, Leningrad.
1943
World War II: United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower publicly announces the Allied armistice with Italy.
1944
World War II: London is hit by a V2 rocket for the first time.
1945
Cold War: United States troops arrive to partition the southern part of Korea in response to Soviet troops occupying the northern part of the peninsula a month earlier.
1994
USAir Flight 427, on approach to Pittsburgh International Airport, suddenly crashes in clear weather killing all 132 aboard; resulting in the most extensive aviation investigation in world history and altering manufacturing practices in the industry.

***

Oliver Wendell Holmes once called Franklin Roosevelt “a second-class intellect, but a first-class temperament.”

***

Not only did football take a day of the week, but the previous owner was God.--someone

***

NYC has created an office that helps private company employees unionize. Aside from subsiding conflict, what does this office have as its responsibility? Do union workers have more rights than non-union workers? How is this a government responsibility?

***

The Honda Point disaster was the largest peacetime loss of U.S. Navy ships in history. On the foggy night of September 8, 1923, seven destroyers traveling at 20 knots (37 km/h) ran aground and wrecked at California's Honda Point (also known as Point Pedernales, with offshore outcroppings known as Devil's Jaw). The location was several miles north of the Santa Barbara Channel, the ships' intended route. Two other destroyers grounded, but were able to maneuver free off the rocks. Twenty-three sailors died; 745 were rescued.

Navigational errors, compounded by unusual ocean currents attributed to Japan's Great Kantō earthquake, were the likely cause. Other factors were the refusal to use modern location equipment that was available to them.

***

Royalty on the Red Carpet

Politicians are held in strange regard by us mere mortals.
Consider this from Bordeaux, on a report by Peggy Noonan writing on an exchange between then Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer; the subject at the time was another proposed COVID-19 “stimulus” bill:

He [Blitzer] said it’s not about him but people in food lines.

Mrs. Pelosi: “And we represent them. And we represent them. And we represent them. And we represent them. We know them. We represent them, and we know them. We know them. We represent them. Thank you for your sensitivity to our constituents’ needs.”

“I am sensitive to them because I see them on the street begging for food,” Mr. Blitzer said.

Mrs. Pelosi: “Have you fed them? We feed them.”

Thank you for your sensitivity to our constituents’ needs!

Nancy Pelosi presides over a chamber of politicians who vote on taxing and spending bills that transfer money from some Americans to other Americans – a fact that (inexplicably!) propels Ms. Pelosi to boast that she and her colleagues, not taxpayers such as Mr. Blitzer, feed poor Americans. On top of this appalling pretension, Ms. Pelosi expects CNN’s audience to believe that she and her Congressional colleagues “know” poor Americans in a way that non-politicians don’t.

As Peggy Noonan wrote about this interview, “It was bonkers.”

And yet most people continue to defer to people such as Pelosi … and to Trump, and Biden, and AOC, and Newsom, and to other such people, in Washington and in state capitals, who routinely parade in plain view their raw ambition, their delusions of possessing supernatural powers, and their lack of ordinary human decency.

And their supporters ardently believe that these displays are something more than showbiz.

The Alaskan Microcosm

On this day:

1807
Robert Fulton’s North River Steamboat leaves New York City for Albany, New York on the Hudson River, inaugurating the first commercial steamboat service in the world.
1862
American Civil War: Major General J.E.B. Stuart is assigned command of all the cavalry of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.
1862
Indian Wars: The Dakota War of 1862 begins in Minnesota as Lakota warriors attack white settlements along the Minnesota River.
1918
Bolshevik revolutionary leader Moisei Uritsky is assassinated. This, and the attempted assassination of Lenin by Fanny Kaplan, initiates the Red Terror
1943
World War II: The Royal Air Force begins Operation Hydra, the first air raid of the Operation Crossbow strategic bombing campaign against Germany’s V-weapon programme.
1943
World War II: The U.S. Eighth Air Force suffers the loss of 60 bombers on the Schweinfurt–Regensburg mission.
1943
World War II: The U.S. Seventh Army under General George S. Patton arrives in Messina, Italy, followed several hours later by the British 8th Army under Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery, thus completing the Allied conquest of Sicily.
1950
Hill 303 massacre: American POWs were massacred by North Korean Army.
1970
Venera Program: Venera 7 launched. It will later become the first spacecraft to successfully transmit data from the surface of another planet (Venus).
1998
Monica Lewinsky scandal: US President Bill Clinton admits in taped testimony that he had an “improper physical relationship” with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. On the same day, he admits before the nation that he “misled people” about the relationship.
2005
Over 500 bombs are set off by terrorists at 300 locations in 63 out of the 64 districts of Bangladesh
2008
American swimmer Michael Phelps becomes the first person to win eight gold medals in one Olympic Games.

***

They [these leftists] seem to want a regression to the Dark Ages: an unsophisticated economy with no landlords, no insurers, no complex markets. They see complexity in the economy, the reason for which is beyond their comprehension, as parasitic.--Wolfe

***

"Turning Point"

***

Imagine, if you will, outrageously wealthy men suddenly declaring their devotion and their lives to the well-being of the average guy.

***

The Moroccan migration into Ceuta has caused a ripple in the EU.
While France and other countries tightened border checks, Italy went further and announced it had suspended the EU’s free-movement Schengen agreement with Madrid. Now, in Italian airports, passengers from Spain are asked to join a different line.
Spain retaliated by imposing checks on travelers from Italy.

***

One of America's stranger official creations, the Memorandum of Understanding, has expired. All those politicians and journalists, with their somber declarations and comments, will be missed.

***

The Alaskan Microcosm

Sometimes politics seems to be too big a task for politicians.

Dan S. Sullivan is the incumbent Republican senator from Alaska running for reelection. A late addition to the race is one Daniel J. Sullivan.

Though Dan J. Sullivan, AKA "Decoy Dan," is running as a Republican, he was not associated with the party until two days before filing to run under the GOP banner. He also asked the state to be listed on the ballot as "Dan S. Sullivan," though he does not share Sen. Sullivan's middle initial.

Majority Forward, the nonprofit affiliate of Schumer's Senate Majority PAC, began running ads for the Democrat candidate, using the man who nominated "Decoy Dan" in the ad. He is a romantic partner of an Alaska Democrat operative.

Republicans challenged Dan J. Sullivan's candidacy, arguing that he was running in "bad faith." The Alaska Division of Elections disqualified him in June, determining that his campaign served "the purpose of confusing or misleading voters." Dan J. Sullivan appealed the decision, which a lower court reversed. This means Dan J. Sullivan will appear on the Aug. 18 primary ballot alongside Sen. Sullivan.

This is a clear effort by the Democrats, at the local and national levels, to split the Alaskan Sullivan vote and allow their candidate to sneak in. That subversion of the Alaskan vote is a matter of national Democrat policy. Policy. Nor does the judicial system have the moral wherewithal to protect the voter from their politicians. Like gerrymandering. Like packing the court.

In some way, this is reminiscent of college fraternity rivals; it has a funny element. But our republic gives the citizen a say. On the assumption that being a national senator has national and international implications, and this brazen act is obviously an attempt to confound and blunt the voters' choice, it is a serious matter and should be remembered every time a Democrat somberly intones his concerns about 'saving democracy.'


 

Getting Into the Henhouse

On this day:
53
Roman Emperor Nero marries Claudia Octavia.
62
Claudia Octavia is executed.
68
Roman Emperor Nero commits suicide after quoting Homer’s Iliad, thus ending the Julio-Claudian Dynasty and ushering in the civil year known as the Year of the Four Emperors.
721
Odo of Aquitaine defeats the Moors in the Battle of Toulouse.
1924
In the second attempt to climb Mount Everest, George Mallory and Andrew “Sandy” Irvine disappear, possibly having first made it to the top.
1973
Secretariat wins the Triple Crown.

***

This nation must be taken seriously because it is powerful. It used to be taken seriously because it was virtuous.

***

A remarkable story out of Russia. A Moscow-based disinformation network named “Pravda” — the Russian word for “truth” — is pursuing an ambitious strategy by deliberately infiltrating the retrieved data of artificial intelligence chatbots, publishing false claims and propaganda for the purpose of affecting the responses of AI models on topics in the news rather than by targeting human readers, NewsGuard has confirmed. By flooding search results and web crawlers with pro-Kremlin falsehoods, the network is distorting how large language models process and present news and information. The result: Massive amounts of Russian propaganda — 3,600,000 articles in 2024 — are now incorporated in the outputs of Western AI systems, infecting their responses with false claims and propaganda.

This infection of Western chatbots was foreshadowed in a talk that American fugitive-turned-Moscow-based propagandist John Mark Dougan gave in Moscow in January at a conference of Russian officials, when he told them, “By pushing these Russian narratives from the Russian perspective, we can actually change worldwide AI.”

***

Take a single sheet of ordinary paper, about a tenth of a millimetre thick. Fold it in half, and it is twice as thick. Fold it again, and it is four times as thick, then eight, then sixteen. Keep going in the mathematical ideal, and by the forty-second fold, the stack would be tall enough to reach the Moon.

It would save a lot of fuel.

***

Admitted serial rapist and former National Football League champion Darren Sharper has been transferred from federal prison to a halfway house program.

All better.

***

WSJ's opinion of Trump's 'autocratic-like spread' of his image:

"This sort of leader-worship is common among autocrats. In Cuba, Vietnam, and China, images of Fidel Castro, Ho Chi Minh, and Mao Zedong have long been present in government buildings, schools and private businesses. (Not to mention T-shirts and key chains for despot tourist kitsch.) In North Korea, citizens are expected to hang pictures of Kim Jong Un in their homes. 

Sober observers of our democracy note that these mundane flights of Mr. Trump’s ego don’t rise to the level of consequential decisions on policy or foreign affairs. But they are assaults on the country’s character as a republic born from distrust of monarchical grandiosity."

Assaults on the country's character. And they encourage the use of an old word that real autocracies don't allow: tasteless. With any luck, it might bring back another near-extinct word: shame.

***

***

Getting Into the Henhouse


What is it that makes the Left pursue policies that have been proven to be the enemies of individual and societal success and freedom everywhere they've been applied? Dependence, economic need, and social division are not the consequences of Leftist policies; they are the objectives.

How could anyone who hides Biden's infirmities, appoints --appoints!--Harris as a presidential candidate, or offers Platner as a senator, pretend they have the betterment of the citizens and their country in mind?

They do not; they have their own political well-being and their personal and economic rewards in mind. Theirs is a very small window overlooking a small terrain.

And how could anyone accept that the argument above is true, but that their opposition party has fewer of these characteristics and so deserves support?

These are not lady-and-tiger choices; they are baboon-and-mandrill choices.

How Will We React When We All Know the Truth?

"It is indeed brutal to kill one or two hundred million Americans. But that is the only path that will secure a Chinese century, a century in which the Communist Party leads the world." — General Chi Haotian, China's defense minister and vice chairman of the Party's Central Military Commission, reportedly secret speech advocating the extermination of Americans.

***

Bill Mazeroski has died.

***

Apparently, the animosity toward Melania is moral!

***

Archaeologists have discovered Paleolithic glyphs in a German cave that could potentially push back the history of written communication by over 30,000 years, per a rock-solid study in the journal Proceedings Of The National Academy of Sciences.

According to the researchers, the symbols were engraved on artifacts that dated back some 40,000 years to the Stone Age, when early humans arrived in Europe from Africa and encountered the Neanderthals.

Despite their age, these ancient etchings boasted a complexity comparable to the early stages of the world’s oldest writing system, cuneiform, which originated around 5,000 years ago, the New Scientist reported.

***

How Will We React When We All Know the Truth?

We have many news countdowns: the days Mrs. Guthrie has been missing, the days the Russians have been killing Ukrainians, and how long it's been since the U.S. won a gold medal in hockey. A new, highly symbolic one should be: how many days an open conduit of raw sewage has been draining into the river that runs through the national capital.

A serious issue has gradually become clear to Americans: with a $38 trillion national debt, the country faces enormous expenses, and the large taxes needed to cover these costs are either poorly managed or stolen. In other words, there is a conflict of interest between the country's needs and the personal desires and competence of the people's representatives.
 
A smaller view sometimes helps. New York City's budget is $127 billion. For perspective, this is similar to the annual expenditures of a mid-sized nation, with all the expenses a country requires, like Greece or Thailand, devoted to governing one city.

In little more than a decade, New York's budget has nearly doubled, growing faster than inflation and faster than the city’s economic growth.
The city's population remained below its 2020 baseline as of 2024.

New York’s general spending in 2023 was more than 30 percent higher per capita than Los Angeles, and more than double that of Houston.

In Los Angeles, the Homelessness Services Authority reported that in 2023, homelessness was up 9 percent countywide and 10 percent in the city. And a 2024 AP account noted that homelessness has surged 70 percent countywide since 2015, and 80 percent in the city.

All this amid a public frustration because, despite billions spent, an audit reviewed $2.4 billion in city homelessness funding and found that officials could not reliably track where it went or what it achieved. Read that again.

How hard is it to have safer streets, functioning schools, predictable sanitation, and adequate housing for the middle class in the world's richest nation? Apparently, very.

Solutions will not appear until the ostensible leaders put aside stupidity and avarice, and substitute some concern for the general good. But you can't teach stupidity and, ancient Greeks aside, teaching virtue to politicians has yet to be demonstrated.

The hard-working, good-natured American has shouldered a lot: intervention in strange, inexplicable wars, supporting non-productive but demanding fellow citizens and immigrants, hard-earned taxes stolen and/or redirected, third-world education for his kids, ridicule of his values, and his history.

One can only wonder what will happen when this governing model sheds her potemkin disguise, and the horrors of this dishonesty and neglect become fully understood.

Arrogance, Stupidity, and the Limits of Ambition

American-born Olympic freestyle skier Eileen Gu has made headlines for her talent and for her decision to compete under the Chinese flag — a choice National Review senior editor Charles C. W. Cooke, on today’s edition of The Editors, said is, though “not in the legal sense, of course . . . adjacent to treason.”

***

Right now, there are about 70 million white-collar workers in the United States.

***

Arrogance, Stupidity, and the Limits of Ambition

Who invites whom to Munich's Security Conference? And why? Can anyone just show up? Could I go and talk about baseball? AOC looked like a moron. Newsome looked like a social climber. Fortunately, Rubio was consoling for poor Europe.

In any sensible world, AOC in Munich would be her Dan Quale "potato moment." She could not have looked dumber. She, our Latina heroine, did not know where Venezuela was. Then, when asked a routine question about Taiwan, she blubbered for 10 seconds before denying the question's validity.

Most unsettling, she knew, presumably, that she was at a world conference on security. While it may just be a tax-funded good time, she certainly could have anticipated discussion about several of the world's top four or five concerns. But she didn't. She did not bother to study, even superficially, the problems she was auditioning to solve. Because she is: 1. entitled to the position, 2. pretty, 3. a popular minority, and 4. favored by the Press.

It will be interesting to see the response of her handlers/champions. Even in America, high cheekbones and a good jawline should only get you so far. (Melania aside.) Ambition should have some quality ceiling. We'll see if the culture--and the Press--have any discriminating scruples.

Vaudvillain

On this day:

1555
Bishop of Gloucester John Hooper is burned at the stake.
1775
American Revolutionary War: The British Parliament declares Massachusetts in rebellion.
1825
After no presidential candidate receives a majority of electoral votes in the election of 1824, the United States House of Representatives elects John Quincy Adams President of the United States.
1861
American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is elected the Provisional President of the Confederate States of America by the Confederate convention at Montgomery, Alabama.
1942
Year-round Daylight saving time is re-instated in the United States as a wartime measure to help conserve energy resources.
1964
The Beatles make their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, performing before a “record-busting” audience of 73 million viewers.
1965
Vietnam War: The first United States combat troops are sent to South Vietnam.

1971
Apollo program: Apollo 14 returns to Earth after the third manned moon landing

***

February 5 saw the release of Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6 and OpenAI’s GPT-5.3-Codex.
What makes these new models so important is the fact that much of the programming work behind them was done by artificial intelligence rather than humans. Anthropic insiders are claiming, for instance, that effectively 100 percent of the code behind their products is written by Claude itself.

***

Jordon Hudson — Bill Belichick’s girlfriend — was photographed wearing an “Orchids of Asia Day Spa” shirt while standing next to the former Patriots head coach at the UNC-Duke basketball game on Saturday night.

***

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has shut off Russian pirated access on the battlefield in Ukraine.
The issue has fuelled anger in Moscow that, four years into the war, the Russian army remains heavily dependent on western technology.

***

Elon Musk says SpaceX is shifting focus from Mars to a moon city.

***


Vaudvillain


Epstein’s attorneys have formally demanded that the CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA) release all records related to any potential intelligence ties involving the disgraced financier.

There is anxiety in the air.

The Epstein Files don't show much. There are a lot of rich creeps, but we knew that. There are creeps, and a lot of money just makes them worse.

Epstein information must be incomplete. Crucial information must be withheld. Blood sacrifice may be involved. The information we get is curated for the benefit of a cabal. Epstein himself may be alive.

ICE agents are not over-responding to being obstructed and attacked while performing their rightful job; they are part of a larger, unadmitted Nazification program in the U.S. The rising debt in the U.S. is not stupid, weak, and self-indulgent; it is part of a plan by persons unknown to undermine the currency and to leave them wealthy. No election is valid. Scientific studies are manipulated to benefit Pharma. The COVID disaster was a trial run.

This kind of thinking stems from the same creative center in all of us, the source of caution, suspicion, and poetry. Our need for order, explanation, and creativity.

And our regard for omerta. The hard, defensive shell of the outsider.

What we're seeing is a staggering loss of trust. The reason is our leaders' disregard — not of the truth — of us. We have moved from the Biden Regency of total disregard of reality, truth, and adherence to our basic legal concepts to Trump's vaudevillian buffoonery. We, the citizens, have become outsiders.

Tolstoy thinks this element in us is funny. In War and Peace, Pierre Bezukhov fiddles with the math and “discovers” that, when rendered into French and assigned various numerical values, the letters of his own name add up to 666, the “number of the beast” from the book of Revelation. How, exactly, he was connected to the events foretold in the Bible, Pierre did not know, but “he did not doubt that connection for a moment” and reveled in the knowledge that he was somehow involved in affairs of world-historical importance.

But it ain't all funny. Official, outrageous lies and distancing of the public carry a social risk and deserve a name.

I propose "Vaudevillain."

 

 

Statements and Displays

On this Day:

62
Earthquake in Pompeii, Italy.
1576
Henry of Navarre abjures Catholicism at Tours and rejoins the Protestant forces in the French Wars of Religion.
1597
A group of early Japanese Christians are killed by the new government of Japan for being seen as a threat to Japanese society.
1918
SS Tuscania (1914) is torpedoed off the coast of Ireland; it is the first ship carrying American troops to Europe to be torpedoed and sunk.
1918
Stephen W. Thompson shoots down a German airplane. It is the first aerial victory by the U.S. military.
1937
President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposes a plan to enlarge the Supreme Court of the United States.
1958
A hydrogen bomb known as the Tybee Bomb is lost by the US Air Force off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, never to be recovered.

1971
Astronauts land on the moon in the Apollo 14 mission.

***

I'm not a perfect guy, but I've done a hellava lot of good for perfect people.--Trump, confessing his sin-eating.

***

Today is the anniversary of the loss of The Tybee Bomb, a tribute to those confident in government.

***

The Netherlands' Queen Maxima has joined her country's army as a reservist, voicing concern about national security.

***

The timing of the Guthrie disappearance--after she was out of the house until late--is curious.

***

Statements and Displays

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech at Davos garnered a lot of attention, but for the wrong reasons. He proclaimed the ability of “middle powers”—that is, Europe and countries like his own—to stand their ground against America and China, but he mentioned AI only in passing. He had no solution to an immediately pending world where Canada is quite dependent on advanced AI systems from American companies (often, incidentally, developed by Canadian researchers in the U.S.). That is likely to be the next major development in this North American relationship, and it will not increase the relative autonomy of Canada or of any other middle powers.

Carney has been praised for staking out such bold ground and standing up to Trump. The deeper reality is that Carney can “talk back” in the North American partnership because he knows America will defend Canada, including against Russia, no matter what. Most European countries cannot relax in the same manner, and thus, they are often more deferential. What the reactions from Carney and the Europeans show is not any kind of growing independence for the middle powers, but rather a reality where you are either quite tethered to a major power—as Canada is to America—or you live in fear of being abandoned, which is the current status of much of Europe. (from Cowen)

Posuuring need not be insincere. But it may be only wishful. The risk, of course, is that it is deceptive. Symbolic independence has shrinking importance in our world of increasing technical gravity. And sometimes global declarations, like those of Iran and Canada here, are only bluster. And sometimes they are a risk.

Reality is harsh, and unreality is increasingly hazardous. Hitler believed what he said, and many weak-minded followers have since. Russia's overreach in Ukraine was a dangerous underestimation of its victim. And how many stupid homicidal dogmas prowl just beyond the warmth of the sheltering common human campfire?

What will small producers do? What will oil-deficient countries do? AI deficient? Population deficient? They will drift toward survival and some acceptable integrity. The voracious autocracies will prove to be poor partners.

Politics?

On this Day:
960
The coronation of Zhao Kuangyin as Emperor Taizu of Song, initiating the Song Dynasty period of China, which would last more than three centuries
1703
In Edo (now Tokyo), 46 of the Forty-seven Ronin commit seppuku (ritual suicide) as recompense for avenging their master’s death.
1789
George Washington is unanimously elected as the first President of the United States by the U.S. Electoral College.
1797
The Riobamba earthquake strikes Ecuador, causing up to 40,000 casualties.
1801
John Marshall is sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States.
1846
The first Mormon pioneers make their exodus from Nauvoo, Illinois, westward towards Utah Territory.
1859
The Codex Sinaiticus is discovered in Egypt.
1861
American Civil War: In Montgomery, Alabama, delegates from six break-away U.S. states meet and form the Confederate States of America.
1974
The Symbionese Liberation Army kidnaps Patty Hearst in Berkeley, California.
2010
The Federal Court of Australia’s ruling in Roadshow Films v iiNet sets a precedent that Internet service providers (ISPs) are not responsible for what their users do with the services the ISPs provide them.

***

Legendary investor Ray Dalio warned on Tuesday that the world is “on the brink” of a capital war, amid simmering geopolitical tensions and volatile capital markets.

Speaking to CNBC’s Dan Murphy on stage at the World Governments Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Dalio said we are close to teetering into capital war territory — when money is weaponized using measures like trade embargoes, blocking access to capital markets, or using ownership of debt as leverage.

***

A mother asked her 13-year-old son Austin to swim four hours through dangerous waters to get help after her family was swept out to sea.

***

This note by Michael Brendan Dougherty in NR struck me. 

"I try not to overreact, but there is something about this that gets deep under my skin and unsettles me about my country.

 

Alex Pretti has no more or less dignity than any other human being, looking exactly as he looked. And yet, a photo editor took time — perhaps a decent bit of it — completely changing his skin tone, his beard, and jaw. We have history textbooks that condemn the Stalin regime by showing how the officials altered photos in order to alter the perception of history.
At least those officials could explain themselves — that they were acting under real compulsion, the real threat of execution, exile, or imprisonment by another apparatchik. What is the excuse of Americans in 2026? Why do people volunteer to create this kind of propaganda? Would you want to try to make a public reputation for virtue in a country whose sense-making institutions act like this?"

***

Politics?

300,000 children were admitted into the country without an adult or other supervision during the Biden Regency.

Schools closed during COVID. The National Strike includes truancy so students can be in the street.

Elected representatives become wealthy after their election.

Cocaine in the White House.

$9 billion--BILLION--stolen from the taxes in one--ONE--state.

The son of the President, who can honestly be described as a degenerate.

An organized, coordinated effort to keep the President in office by fraud and deception despite his inability to even speak.

A political party with a political pillar encouraging purposeful defiance of the law and its representatives.

Now the former husband of the President's wife has been arrested for murder.

These aren't the Democrats; these are the de Medici. 

Maybe our worst fears are true. Maybe government is only a by-product of an organized crime syndicate.

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?

***

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.

Pearl Harbor

On this day:

1941
World War II: Attack on Pearl Harbor – The Imperial Japanese Navy attacks the United States Pacific Fleet and its defending Army Air Forces and Marine air forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, causing a declaration of war upon Japan by the United States. Japan also invades Malaya, Thailand, Hong Kong and the Philippines at the same time (December 8 in Asia).
1965
Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras simultaneously revoke mutual excommunications that had been in place since 1054.
1972
Apollo 17, the last Apollo moon mission, is launched. The crew takes the photograph known as The Blue Marble as they leave the Earth.
1987
Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771 crashes near Paso Robles, California, killing all 43 on board, after a disgruntled passenger shoots his ex-boss traveling on the flight, then shoots both pilots and himself.

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The European conservative harbors “fondness for authority” and a “lack of understanding of economic forces.” Although not blind to the potential—nay, likely—problems that attend innovation and change, the American conservative trusts in the largely unmanaged, undirected choices of individuals and institutions of civil society and the market to produce virtue, prosperity, and flourishing better than any state or statesman ever could. American history vindicates this confidence.--Hayek

***

One of the mysteries of political life is that the opposition to Trump's questionable assumptions of power is not led by small-government conservatives but by the powerful central government Left and the totalitarian socialists.

***

The bill that passed the Senate with Vance as the tie-breaking vote will add nearly $4 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.
Yet Vance says, immigration is “the thing that will bankrupt this country more than any other policy.”

***

By as late as 1940, the federal and state governments’ investment in research amounted to only 23 percent of U.S. R&D and 10 percent of U.S. basic science, and the nature of that investment had little or no impact on rates of American economic or health growth: Defense R&D has almost no economic benefit, while the agricultural R&D was surplus to requirement.
As current criticism of Trump's research cuts shows, perhaps as a consequence of its confidence in wealth elsewhere, this country believes money equals progress.

***

Pearl Harbor

2,403 Americans were killed in the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941. The Americans then entered World War 11. One could argue that it pushed a hesitant America onto the world stage.

After Pearl Harbor, the country was terrified, especially along the West Coast. The proximity of the attack was exaggerated by the large presence of the American Japanese in California. Since there was no evidence of any Japanese-American involvement in the attack, the argument was made that the Japanese were lying low, waiting to pounce. 

Critical Race Theory Syndrome: the absence of something is proof it existed.  

Executive Order 9066, ordering the forcible removal of Americans of Japanese descent from the Pacific coast, was signed by the liberal President Roosevelt in 1942. 120,000 American citizens--Americans--were moved out of their homes into squalid camps and ancient Indian reservations.

This is another rule in politics that should caution anyone expecting the government to do the right thing: "When the going gets tough, everyone loses their principles."

Or, there are no countries, only governments.

Democracy and Its Enemies, January 6

On this day:
1937
Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Lugou Bridge – Japanese forces invade Beijing, China.
1954
Elvis Presley made his radio debut when WHBQ Memphis played his first recording for Sun Records, “That’s All Right.”
2005
A series of four explosions occurs on London’s transport system killing 56 people including four alleged suicide bombers and injuring over 700 others.

***

Over 700 ETFs were started last year.

***

Russian car sales are down ~40%, and farm machinery sales are down 33%, while inflation remains high at around 9%, despite interest rates of 21%.
Russia's wartime spending is up 20%. In comparison, oil and gas revenues drop 12%, and Putin has now burned through two-thirds of his (liquid) rainy day fund, potentially exhausting it within a year unless oil prices improve or he cuts military spending.

***

Secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy ... censorship. When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know," the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything -- you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him. -Robert A. Heinlein, science-fiction author (7 Jul 1907-1988)

***

Democracy and Its Enemies, January 6

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 proportions. The Republic trembled and nearly fell before an assault of scores of unarmed citizens led by a guy wearing deer antlers.

If Lee had only 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?

Diagnosis vs Illness

On this day:

1536
Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII of England, is beheaded for adultery, treason, and incest.
1568
Queen Elizabeth I of England orders the arrest of Mary, Queen of Scots.
1649
An Act of Parliament declaring England a Commonwealth is passed by the Long Parliament. England would be a republic for the next eleven years.
1780
New England’s Dark Day: A combination of thick smoke and heavy cloud cover causes complete darkness to fall on Eastern Canada and the New England area of the United States at 10:30 A.M.
1848
Mexican-American War: Mexico ratifies the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo thus ending the war and ceding California, Nevada, Utah and parts of four other modern-day U.S. states to the United States for US$15 million.
1961
Venera program: Venera 1 becomes the first man-made object to fly-by another planet by passing Venus (the probe had lost contact with Earth a month earlier and did not send back any data).

***


A report published two years ago by American think tank RAND Corporation, with close ties to the Pentagon, said China's defense industry had exported malfunctioning and defective military equipment in recent years — leaving countries short of what's needed for their security while also draining military budgets

***

The big data planned economy is a paradox. Big data is the result of countless spontaneous actions by people in the market economy. If the planned economy is implemented so that every person follows government decrees, then big data itself will disappear!--Zhang

***

Diagnosis vs Illness

The most important man in the West occupying the most important position in the West had, during his tenure, a common and easily diagnosed cancer which, by all modern scientific assumptions, was chronic and undiscovered.

There are many observations one could make here--most quite ugly--but this is a harder question than it appears.

Prostate cancer is common, and its incidence rises with age. It is biologically present in 30% of 50-65 year olds and 40% of men in their 70s. Its percentage in 80-year-olds is probably higher. The problem with prostate cancer is that it does not behave like a cancer; it just looks like one. And when it behaves like a cancer, it usually does so in slow motion.

The number of men who will benefit from active intervention for the disease is close to the number who will suffer serious consequences from the search for the disease. Most tread carefully in this area and usually do not search for the disease in men over 70.

It would be tempting to say that Biden's keepers were ignoring the man and polishing the shell. They probably were, but likely not in this instance.

Self-inflicted Wounds of the Righteous

... among corruptible human beings, the power to weaponize a vision of justice and impose it on a world of alternative visions is toxic.--Schmidtz

***

Roger Federer said, “In the 1526 singles matches I played in my career, I won almost 80% of those matches. Now, I have a question for you. What percentage of points do you think I won in those matches? Only 54%.”

***

Blue Origin is preparing to step into a new chapter of rocketry, by debuting its first orbital class rocket, New Glenn, Bezos' entry into the spaace race. It will also attempt to recover the first stage booster on landing platform the Atlantic Ocean. Its launch was planned for today but cancelled early this morning.

***

A gymnist pauses for a glass of wine:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DD-crSMSNoz/?igsh=MTM1b2JiOGc3eWVjeg%3D%3D

***

Self-inflicted Wounds of the Righteous

Global warming beliefs have created dangerous waters.

The Germans have a word for periods of simultaneous low wind and sun. Literally. It's Dunkelflaute, meaning "flat, dark calm." The word elsewhere is "winter."

Dependence on unreliable energy sources (wind, solar), combined with the hasty phase-out of nuclear power, has made Germany's electricity the most expensive in Europe and compromises the country's -- and ultimately the continent's -- energy autonomy.
On December 12 of this year, for example, German electricity production from wind and solar power was thirty times lower than the demand for it.

To make up for energy shortfalls they have increased reliance on coal and lignite. This raises their carbon footprint. More importantly, they have to compete for energy on the open market.

Germany's high electricity prices are leading to the relocation of its industry, as companies look for sites where energy costs are more affordable. In Germany, industry pays up to three times more for electricity than itscompetitors.

Whole swathes of Germany's proud industry are collapsing. Not just the big names -- VW, BASF, Mercedes-Benz -- but every big company that disappears or downsizes takes with it a myriad of small and medium-sized affiliated enterprises that end up collapsing along with it.

None of this is accidental. None is the result of weather whimsy. This is administrative, the consequence of government decisions from faith-based "conceptual frameworks." Most importantly, these decisions, made by a small group of idealogues, summate to swamp the average working guy in changes that may not be shared by the law-making elite.

That is Germany's, and Europe's, true rising tide.

Government Reassigns Itself

In an unprecedented move, the Tokyo Stock Exchange sent letters to any company trading below book value to ask for a concrete plan to reverse this valuation.

***

The best car salesman in history offers simple advice “People want a fair deal from someone they like.” When questioned about his actions to get people to like him, he simply says, “I tell them that I like them.”.

***

Jon Keeley, a scientist for the U.S. Geological Survey, said that a “high-intensity fire in Southern California” is a “normal event” historically. What has changed is human settlement patterns.

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Government Reassigns Itself

--"We’re over-politicized in this country. People go to politics for a sense of belonging, for a sense of righteousness. You should go to your friends for those things.

You’re asking more of politics than politics can bear."--David Brookes

--Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has been 7,400 miles away in Africa attending the inauguration of Ghana’s president while wildfires have been raging in Los Angeles. Many have criticized Bass for the ongoing disaster after it was revealed that she cut $17.6 million from the Los Angeles Fire Department’s budget for the 2024-25 fiscal year.

Brooks and Bass highlight a significant issue in the American governmental system: politicians appear less willing—or able—to address the fundamental issues their roles demand. Instead, they seem more focused on symbolic or fleeting positions with little chance of being realized or connected to their primary responsibilities.

Politicians seem more focused on topics like equity and climate change—issues that are often uncertain and debatable in terms of government responsibility—rather than addressing crime, public safety, fire management, and water resources. We have developed a political class that finds it more rewarding to proclaim their virtues than to tackle the practical challenges at hand.

Strauss on Churchill

83% of U.S. energy and 60% of electricity came from fossil fuels in 2023.

***

“Practically every terrible idea eating away at America’s soul originated with some academician whose philosophy gelled while writing his PhD dissertation.”--Graboyes

***


Strauss on Churchill

Churchill died on January 24, 1965. When the philosopher Leo Strauss came into class and was informed of Churchill’s death, he said:

"The death of Churchill is a healthy reminder to students of political science of their limitations, the limitations of their craft.

The tyrant stood at the pinnacle of his power. The contrast between the indomitable and magnanimous statesman and the insane tyrant—this spectacle in its clear simplicity was one of the greatest lessons which men can learn, at any time.

No less enlightening is the lesson conveyed by Churchill’s failure, which is too great to be called tragedy. I mean the fact that Churchill’s heroic action on behalf of human freedom against Hitler only contributed, through no fault of Churchill’s, to increase the threat to freedom which is posed by Stalin or his successors. Churchill did the utmost that a man could do to counter that threat—publicly and most visibly in Greece and in Fulton, Missouri.

Not a whit less important than his deeds and speeches are his writings, above all his Marlborough—the greatest historical work written in our century, an inexhaustible mine of political wisdom and understanding, which should be required reading for every student of political science.

The death of Churchill reminds us of the limitations of our craft, and therewith of our duty. We have no higher duty, and no more pressing duty, than to remind ourselves and our students, of political greatness, human greatness, of the peaks of human excellence. For we are supposed to train ourselves and others in seeing things as they are, and this means above all in seeing their greatness and their misery, their excellence and their vileness, their nobility and their triumphs, and therefore never to mistake mediocrity, however brilliant, for true greatness."

So greatness--even with the highest motives--is not enough. Our very nature in this complex world distorts our noblest aims. Life cannot be directed; the unpredictable is part of our very being. We live, in our marrow, in a struggle we cannot be directed out of. True greatness understands both its promise and its limits.

The Stealth Candidate

Orlando Police Chief Eric Smith said eight people were shot in downtown Orlando. Two of the victims died, six were taken to the hospital.
The police said the suspect is 17 years old and has a previous arrest record.

***

Ford Motor is temporarily stopping production of its all-electric
F-150 Lightning pickup truck, an apparent response to slowing demand and high inventories.

***

The Stealth Candidate

Kamala Harris has a deceptive persona. She seems to be a total ditz. She is inarticulate, overwhelmed, evasive, and vague.

But she has an undeniable history. Harris favors reparations. She plans some strange program that would financially support Black startups with forgivable loans. I saw her in an interview support the banning of meat. There is no Constitutional justification for any of this stuff. She also wants to pack the Supreme Court to bypass the judicial review system, malice disguised as righteousness.

She wants to expand the entitlement state beyond even what Biden has—for elder and child care, housing, a larger Affordable Care Act, and more. Her proposed tax increases are nearly as extensive as Biden’s, running past $4 trillion over 10 years. She shows every sign of wanting to expand and accelerate the climate corporate welfare and mandates that distort investment at enormous taxpayer cost but no benefit to global temperatures. And she wants to ban fracking.

She is certainly of the modern left, with its regulatory coercion, cultural imperialism, economic statism, and desire to strip judicial independence. She is vague about Israel and Ukraine. 

On the other hand, she has no opinion on the military, the decline of military recruitment or spending, the debt, AI, illegal immigration, cartels, drugs (although she wants a carveout for Black male marijuana distributors), or inflation.

Yet 1 billion dollars have gone into her campaign, presumably for abortion.

It's hard to imagine with this history she is flying under the radar.

Interview

 

For the first time in decades, public health data shows a sudden and hopeful drop in drug overdose deaths across the U.S.

*** 

In 1969, Joshua Lederberg, a Nobel Prize-winning biologist, warned that the proliferation of biological weapons would be like making “hydrogen bombs available at the supermarket.” Biological weapons confound the Cold War paradigm of deterrence because those releasing them can evade detection and hence retaliation.--Will

***


Interview

Harris' interview on Fox last night was revealing. She was short-tempered, rigid, and hostile. It was easy to see why she has such difficulty holding on to personnel. Some of this may be exaggerated by the emptiness of her political history and the goofy, far-left positions she has adopted in the past; she starts all political discussions on her heels. But this was a fragile, brittle candidate who might be no more attractive personally than Trump himself.

After, Baer discussed the backstory of the interview. Harris was 15 minutes late for the interview. They knew Baer had a deadline where the interview would be aired minutes afterward and they knew the delay would disrupt Baer and his broadcast.

Nothing they do is honest or straightforward.

Plagiarism

Why should we expect the government to do a good job of picking winners and losers or to allocate scarce resources better than the market? If the government intervenes in markets, how will it avoid mission creep, cronyism, and corruption?--Strain

***

Britain has not built a new reservoir since 1992. Since then, Britain’s population has grown by 10 million.

***

Contrary to the prediction of underperformance, Trump judges outperform other judges, with the very top rankings of judges predominantly filled by Trump judges.
From a new paper by Stephen J. Choi and Mitu Gulati

***

Plagiarism

Plagiarism will cost a teacher his tenure. It will get a student expelled.

Christopher Rufo has an article exposing plagiarism in Kamala Harris' book, Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer.

"At the beginning of Harris’s political career, in the run-up to her campaign to serve as California’s attorney general, she and co-author Joan O’C Hamilton published a small volume, entitled Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer. The book helped to establish her credibility on criminal justice issues.

However, according to Stefan Weber, a famed Austrian “plagiarism hunter” who has taken down politicians in the German-speaking world, Harris’s book contains more than a dozen “vicious plagiarism fragments.” Some of the passages he highlighted appear to contain minor transgressions—reproducing small sections of text; insufficient paraphrasing—but others seem to reflect more serious infractions, similar in severity to those found in Harvard president Claudine Gay’s doctoral thesis. (Harris did not respond to a request for comment.)

***

Taken in total, there is certainly a breach of standards here. Harris and her co-author duplicated long passages nearly verbatim without proper citation and without quotation marks, which is the textbook definition of plagiarism. They not only lifted material from sources without proper attribution, but in at least one case, relied on a low-quality source, which potentially undermined the accuracy of their conclusion."--Rufo Substack

But it may be that the press will not allow this to become national news.

"Throughout Monday, Rufo published additional excerpts from Smart on Crime that he says prove Harris plagiarized, and he criticized legacy media outlets such as the New York Times for “refus[ing]” to cover the reports."---Wash. Examiner

But plagiarism will cost a teacher his tenure. It will get a student expelled.

Thumbnail Sketches

"In 1800, 75% of [an American's] working man's expenditures went for food alone. By 1850, that had dropped to 50%. Today it is a little more than 11%. "--WSJ


***

A preview of the coming problem of working with AI when it starts to match or exceed human capability: Doctors were given cases to diagnose, with half getting GPT-4 access to help. The control group got 73% score in diagnostic accuracy (a measure of diagnostic reasoning) & the GPT-4 group 77%. No big difference. But GPT-4 alone got 88%. The doctors didn’t change their opinions when working with AI.


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Thumbnail Sketches

In this time of war, economic instability, and philosophical foolishness, here is Zycher on our esteemed candidates who have floated to the top:

"Donald Trump is a thoroughly despicable man, a narcissist, and abject liar devoid of dignity and incapable of consistent behavior worthy of the presidency. Even now when a George Costanza-type “opposite” suppression of his instincts would advance his political interests, Trump has opted not to focus on Harris’ policy absurdities and reversals, instead criticizing Harris’ crowd size estimates, ethnic background, and other personal attributes more appropriate for a junior high school lunchroom setting.

…..

Kamala Harris is a supreme lightweight who has never thought about policy issues in a serious way, who does not know how to do so, and whose instincts are profoundly misguided. Anyone who can believe that price controls will improve economic outcomes can believe anything. But in terms of domestic policies, as president she would prove profoundly ineffective, as the likelihood of a GOP takeover of the Senate this year is very high, and the major questions doctrine as decided by the Supreme Court in West Virginia v EPA will impose real limits on regulatory policy as a circumvention of Congress. Moreover, Harris would be a poor bet for reelection in 2028 precisely because of the silliness of her thinking, the perverse results of her policy preferences, and the incoherence of her rhetoric. The comedy potential of a future debate between, say, Senator Tom Cotton and Harris is a harbinger of her reelection prospects."

Sometimes competition and selection leads down blind allwys.