Current Thoughts

On this day:
1265
In Westminster, the first English parliament conducts its first meeting held by Simon de Montfort in the Palace of Westminster, now also known colloquially as the “Houses of Parliament”.
1649
Charles I of England goes on trial for treason and other “high crimes”.
1783
The Kingdom of Great Britain signs a peace treaty with France and Spain, officially ending hostilities in the American Revolutionary War (also known as the American War of Independence).
1841
Hong Kong Island is occupied by the British.
1936
Edward VIII becomes King of the United Kingdom.
1969
East Pakistani police kill student activist Amanullah Asaduzzaman. The resulting outrage is in part responsible for the Bangladesh Liberation War.

***

There is no example, nor does either state cite an example in their papers, of a judge prohibiting a federal law enforcement agent from enforcing federal law in a given state. The reaction that we’ve heard from various Minnesota officials, including Attorney General Keith Ellison, when confronted with this lack of precedent and lack of case law, is essentially, “Well, this is really bad, though. Well, this is an invasion.” There is plenty of dramatic language in the complaints, but that doesn’t change the legal calculus. You can’t just take a situation that has no legal precedent and no legal support and say, “Well, yes, but our situation is really, really bad, therefore we get to invent new law.”--Honig

***

Shocking article on testosterone use in American public life, the military, and public figures. Traces back to the Nazis, Hitler. Raises a lot of questions about public combativeness and policymaking.
What guy in confrontational work doesn't want an edge?

***

The African nations of Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali have all stopped issuing visas for Americans in what they describe as a reciprocal move, given the treatment of their citizens.

***

***

Our model of the universe is deeply flawed — unless space is actually a 'sticky fluid,' new research hints. I assume they'll get back to us on this.

***

Current Thoughts

A terrific football weekend. The college championship may have been the best.

The country should stick with fair competition and leave politics to the sideshow.

***

Trump has been using executive power casually, but has anything he has done approached the enormous power assumed by the Biden Regency during Covid?

***

Greenland is in NATO, right? So why do they need an additional umbrella?

***

Trump's confrontational style may get results, but it is really obnoxious. On the other hand, it may be a correct assessment of his single term's short influence. 

***

Where are the city cops in Minnesota? Is this a special riot?

***

There were several infants treated for tear gas exposure. How could a parent put a child at that risk?

***

Confrontation with armed, harassed men is dangerous. Strangely, violence by the police is what these people hope to provoke.

***

The mayor of Minneapolis looks sincere. He also sounds unhinged. Apparently, these domestic disturbances are an outpouring of 'love.'

***

So, the reason ICE is in Minneapolis is that there are many illegal immigrants there. The reason is that it is a 'sanctuary city,' so the locals will not release the targeted illegals. The reason they are there is that the border was open during the Biden Regency. Is this conflict over the nullification of the federal law? Resistance to immigration law? Resistance--or indifference--to the very notion of borders--and the ability of a state to define itself?

***

Invading the church was a tactical mistake. Many who don't care about these disturbances care a lot about the integrity of churches.

***

Why are there so many women among these rioters? Is it a 'chicks up front' tactic? Is there some gender selection here?

***

It has been reported that Ms Good's wife was shocked that the ICE had live ammo. Is that true? Does she know what killed the kids at Kent State? Is that 'outdated history'?

***

Is abolishing ICE like defunding the police?

***

Is a sanctuary city incompatible with church sanctuary?

Some Questions

49ers tight end George Kittle suffered a torn Achilles in Sunday's 23-19 wild-card win over the Philadelphia Eagles


***

A Chinese billionaire was seeking parental rights to at least four unborn children, and the court’s additional research showed that he had already fathered or was in the process of fathering at least eight more—all through surrogates.

When Xu Bo was called in for a confidential hearing in the summer of 2023, he never entered the courtroom, according to people who attended the hearing. The maker of fantasy video games lived in China and appeared via video, speaking through an interpreter. He said he hoped to have 20 or so U.S.-born children through surrogacy—boys, because they’re superior to girls—to one day take over his business.

Several of his kids were being raised by nannies in nearby Irvine as they awaited paperwork to travel to China. He hadn’t yet met them, he told the judge, because work had been busy…

Some Chinese parents, inspired by Elon Musk’s 14 known children, pay millions in surrogacy fees to hire women in the U.S. to help them build families of jaw-dropping size. Xu calls himself “China’s first father” and is known in China as a vocal critic of feminism. On social media, his company said he has more than 100 children born through surrogacy in the U.S.

Another wealthy Chinese executive, Wang Huiwu, hired U.S. models and others as egg donors to have 10 girls, with the aim of one day marrying them off to powerful men, according to people close to the executive’s education company.

…“Elon Musk is becoming a role model now,” said Zhang. An increasing number of “crazy rich” clients are commissioning dozens, or even hundreds, of U.S.-born babies with the goal of “forging an unstoppable family dynasty,” he said.

***

Some Questions

What are the implications of one NATO power hectoring another? Is it just diplomacy in public? 

***

There is an argument that superintelligent AI would be able to utilize all the water, energy, and land, as well as minerals, in the world, so why would it allow humanity to have any for ourselves? Why wouldn’t it just take everything and let the rest of us starve?

But an AI that was able to rewrite its utility function would simply have no use for infinite water, energy, or land. If you can reengineer yourself to reach a bliss point, then local nonsatiation fails; you just don’t want to devour the Universe, because you don’t need to want that.

In fact, we can already see humanity trending in that direction, even without an AI-level ability to modify our own desires.

So, why do we assume that AI will be completely efficient and reasonable?

***

Why is the lesson of Minneapolis not the confusion and inaccuracies of human plans and motives?

***

The Left has a lot of opinions. Why the silence about the Iran situation?

***

Nullification is the opposition of higher legal powers by lesser ones. It caused the Civil War. Our current efforts at nullification are the enforcement of immigration laws.

What other laws can we break with impunity?

Notes

On this day:

1006
Supernova SN 1006, the brightest supernova in recorded history, appeared in the constellation Lupus.
1789
On the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City, George Washington took the oath of office to become the first elected President of the United States.
1803
Louisiana Purchase: The United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million, more than doubling the size of the young nation.
1945: World War II: Führerbunker: Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide after being married for one day. Soviet soldiers raise the Victory Banner over the Reichstag building.
1975
Fall of Saigon (or Liberation of Saigon from the Communist perspective): Communist forces gained control of Saigon. The Vietnam War formally ended with the unconditional surrender of South Vietnamese President Duong Van Minh

***.

Notes

There is a hair-raising account of the captivity and death of a 27-year-old Ukrainian journalist, Viktoriia Roshchyna, by the Russians in The Guardian. 

Suffice it to say this young girl was tortured to death--just in case anyone forgets what's going on. Tortured to death.

***

During the battle for Nanking in the Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945, the U.S. gunboat Panay was attacked and sunk by Japanese warplanes in Chinese waters. The American vessel, neutral in the Chinese-Japanese conflict, was escorting U.S. evacuees and three Standard Oil barges away from Nanking, the war-torn Chinese capital on the Yangtze River. After the Panay was sunk, the Japanese fighters machine-gunned lifeboats and survivors huddling on the shore of the Yangtze. Two U.S. sailors and a civilian passenger were killed and 11 personnel seriously wounded, setting off a major crisis in U.S.-Japanese relations.

Although the Panay‘s position had been reported to the Japanese as required, the neutral vessel was clearly marked, and the day was sunny and clear, the Japanese maintained that the attack was unintentional, and they agreed to pay $2 million in reparations. Two neutral British vessels were also attacked by the Japanese in the final days of the battle for Nanking.

It sounds like The Liberty in the Middle East. These war scenarios do get messy. 

Then, of course, Nanking fell. And things got worse.

Oh, well.

***

Sometimes a guy does something inexplicable and succeeds in convincing himself he's smart. Or favored by Fate.

On August 26, 2003, Pirate GM David Littlefield, for no obvious reason,  traded Brian Giles, a great player and a fan favorite, for Jason Bay, a journeyman minor leaguer who had been traded three times in the minors. The entire baseball world held Littlefield in low regard; this confirmed it. 

Bay was drafted by the Expos in Round 22. Bay hoped he might catch on as a fourth outfielder. Littlefield told Bay the Pirates had no third outfielder and he would be the left fielder. He went on to become the Pirates' best player. a good defensive player, a power hitter for average, and the Rookie of the Year. He was an All-Star twice. He had a notable career, cut short by his fearless tendency to run himself into walls and unconsciousness.

One might wonder if this strange accidental success hasn't haunted the Pirates since.

***

In the spring of 1938, unemployment in the building trades averaged more than 40%. Nationwide, one in five workers found themselves still jobless, or jobless yet again.

After the initial crash from a market high of 381 in 1929, the market stayed low for more than a generation, attaining its 1929 level only in the 1950s. Read that again.

Economists, especially economics professors, will readily blame the rough post-crash period on the Federal Reserve’s failure to supply sufficient liquidity – money.

But with a few exceptions, the economics trade neglects the obvious next question. What about the years that followed? Why did recovery not return after five years, or after seven? It was the duration that made the Depression great.

***

First, the labor market is no longer polarizing— employment in low- and middle-paid occupations has declined, while highly paid employment has grown. Second, employment growth has stalled in low-paid service jobs. Third, the share of employment in STEM jobs has increased by more than 50 percent since 2010, fueled by growth in software and computer-related occupations. Fourth, retail sales employment has declined by 25 percent in the last decade, likely because of technological improvements in online retail.

That is from a recent NBER working paper by David J. Deming, Christopher Ong, and Lawrence M. Summers.

***

As a categorical institution, government can deal with things that we categorically do not want, such as murder, or which we categorically do want, such as protection from military attacks by foreign countries. But decisions and actions requiring more finely detailed knowledge for making nuanced incremental adjustments are often better handled by decision-making processes with more intimate knowledge and involvement – and especially more compelling feedback from the actual consequences of the decisions made.--Sowell

Some Guy's List

NPR did a piece on the declining birth rate, which focused on some guys opposed to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Nazis and European racists, early 20th Century Progressive eugenicists, and a couple cosplaying Amish who chose their kids' names (Industry Americus, Titan Invictus, Octavian George, Torsten Savage) in hopes of launching them toward impressive careers.
Well, just as long as NPR is looking at this birth problem seriously...

***

There seem to be growing numbers of people who feel that those who disagree with them are not merely mistaken but malign, not merely in error but in sin.--Sowell

***

There was a bomb threat on Shen Yun performance at the Kennedy Center recently.

***

On this day

  In 1953, the magazine Nature published an article by biologists Francis Crick and James Watson, describing the “double helix” of DNA. 

  In 1859, work began on the Suez Canal in Egypt.

***


Some Guy's List

From a guy named Kevin Bryan on Twitter/X. Don't know him, but these are glib, sometimes silly, and I disagree with many of them. But they are also fun.

A List:
1) Ukrainians are heroes who suffered a ton.
2) Putin obviously covets Georgia and the Baltics also.
3) EU not in talks because they basically have no hard power; France even lost the Sahel.
4) The far right European parties are bad.
5) Pretending parties that win state and EU elections, and are in govt in NL and AT and IT, aren’t legitimate will not end well.
6) And in fact EU & UK speech laws not on side of liberty.
7) (but EU food and kid culture is better!)
8) Europe’s demographic crisis is really severe; not sure what the solution is.
9) Engineer training esp in France, Italy, Switz is excellent.
10) That talent should produce better econ outcomes, so econ policy must be dreadful.
11) Trump clearly doesn’t value democracy.
12) Most of his actual actions are much milder than his words.
12) Would be a disaster if that changed.
13) Censorious right wing culture will cause backlash just like woke culture did (put another way, 90s civic culture was better!)
14) Decline in trust in universities, media, and public health was our own fault.
15) Broader ideological diversity would be a huge improvement.
16) “Smart people in private sector” are much more ideologically diverse.
16) Canada has resources and good demographics so future is strong.
17) But culture based on “we aren’t US” is a dead end.
18) CA attitude to US like Calif attitude towards Texas: many stereotypes, little knowledge, and getting crushed on growth.
19) Most Middle East problems easy to solve but populace even crazier than leaders.
20) With exception of Iran, who would be great ally of West based only on median “voter”.
21) Dubai isn’t somewhere I’d live, but economically it is most fascinating success of recent decades.
22) Future of India very bright – English, young, educated, democratic, globally focused, successful expats.
23) Bangladesh as well.
24) Pakistan has problems that are very hard to fix, though Hunza is prettiest place in the world.
25) China underrated: the growth is actually staggering and tech leapfrogging in many areas is clear.
26) Chinese universities getting very strong, many foreign students from dev world.
27) But society way more closed than when I worked there 20 yrs ago, HK stolen, Taiwan?
28) Korea and Japan are delightful, but what will happen to countries who lose 20% of population in a generation?
29) Vietnam and Indonesia are very interesting going forward, esp former, as important powers.
30) Australia as well: resources and culture.
31) The future is African: tautology based on demographics.
32) The Sahel can easily get much much worse.
33) As can Central Africa, largely because of Kagame.
34) Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Bénin as growth miracles seems possible, though.
35) Latin America is joyous and way underappreciated for cultural interest.
36) But highly polarized Presidential systems make it so hard to improve.
37) And the educational underperformance is a real barrier to growth.
38) US is clearly economic engine of world, and more so now than 10 years ago, and you are deluded to think otherwise.
39) Why? Energy costs and tech sector, esp AI, plus growing pop of high grit immigrants. Have to get these right.
40) Avg US govt quality is not good but generally it doesn’t try to do very much, which makes it less of a problem.
41) But it isn’t filled with fraud – it is almost all old age transfers and military and interest.
42) More federalism, weaker courts would be better (this is Canada’s secret – federal courts don’t matter).
43) More transfers to young would be better: preK, service opps, parental leave, guaranteed vacation.
44) That said, US policy directionally right, and Germany has more to learn economically from Texas than vice versa (let people build, keep energy cheap).
45) Still, institutions matter, and hard to rebuild once destroyed.
46) EU = no war in W Eur for 80 years = it is good.
47) NATO, UN, World Bank have flaws, but they are so cheap and global stability so rare historically that they are good.
48) Greenland in CoFA, free labor movement with Canada and US: both good, made harder by DT rhetoric.
49) Shame is useful to keep public servants and regular Joes on straight and narrow path.
50) But at the end of day, success more important than words. Strong countries and societies and global orders are not build on words & soft power, but on growing liberty & prosperity.

Notes

This day in 1815: The Mount Tambora volcano begins a three-month-long eruption, lasting until July 15. The eruption ultimately kills 71,000 people and affects Earth’s climate for the next two years.
And in 1963, 129 people die when the submarine USS Thresher sinks at sea.

***

A year and a half since fires devastated the historic town of Lahaina on the island of Maui, Hawaii, only six houses have been rebuilt—six out of more than 2,000. The main challenge now is dealing with a crushing permitting regime that slows or outright bans construction. But local political dysfunction has discouraged state and local leaders from taking emergency action to cut through this red tape.
Many of the buildings are illegal to rebuild under the current zoning laws.

***

Great Britain is home to 170+ unicorns and boasts the third largest tech ecosystem in the world.

***

America’s cattle supply is at its lowest level since 1951

***

Notes (Others)

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off (the) shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die."-the last words of character Roy Batty (portrayed by Rutger Hauer) in the 1982 Ridley Scott film Blade Runner. This speech is not in the book.

*

In 2024, Missouri passed a ballot initiative that overturned a near-total abortion ban and made abortion legal in the state until the point of viability, thanks in part to millions of dollars in foreign funding.

Proponents of the measure far outspent their opponents, with more than $31 million spent on getting voters to support the ballot measure.

That includes millions of dollars in foreign funds contributed to the “Vote Yes” campaign by the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a D.C.-based dark money group that has taken nearly $300 million from Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss. The group was one of the top donors to the ballot initiative, with $4.6 million spent.

While foreign money is banned in elections, it is allowed in ballot initiatives.

As an aside, who are these people, and why do they want to influence the inner workings of our government? $300 million is a lot of caring.

*

Marine Le Pen was at the heart of an embezzlement scheme that led to her election ban.

A review of court documents, emails, and testimony from her trial shows how the French far-right leader was at the center of a system to create phony contracts that directed the equivalent of $4.8 million in EU funding to her inner circle and party officials. Although it's peanuts compared to $300 million.

*

North Korea has swiped more than $6 billion in cryptocurrency over the past decade—a sum so large that no one else compares.

The country’s hackers are both patient and brazen. To get into companies’ computers, they comb through employees’ Facebook and Instagram pages and invent tailor-made stories to trick them into clicking on links with viruses. Some North Korean hackers have even become employees themselves, fooling U.S. companies into hiring them as remote IT workers and gaining access to their networks.

And, investigators say, they have used algorithms to spread funds through global crypto networks faster than any human could, making it almost impossible for authorities to catch up.

*

In 2008, the U.S. economy was about the same size as the euro zone’s; now, it is nearly twice the size. In 1990, average U.S. wages were about 20 percent greater than the overall average in the advanced industrial world; they are now about 40 percent higher. In 1995, a Japanese person was 50 percent richer than an American in terms of GDP per capita; today, an American is about 150 percent richer than a Japanese person. 

In fact, the poorest American state, Mississippi, has a higher per capita GDP than Britain, France, or Japan.

*

23andMe.  The past year didn’t change 23andMe’s trajectory. The stock fell even more, and layoffs continued. Its CEO, Wojcicki, tried to buy the company—and had the inside track with super-voting shares. The board of directors rejected her offer, then resigned. She brought in a new board that rejected her new bid.

Recently, the company filed for bankruptcy protection.

The moral of the 23andMe story may be that the company was just too early. DNA testing has evolved, and soon medical grade tests will be so cheap, they may be common for doctors to order.

Meanwhile, 23andMe is stuck with the non-medical-grade test it bet on 19 years ago.

*

At the University of Michigan (UM), professor Jessica Kenyatta Walker specializes in “critical food studies” and helped develop “in-class activities” on the “racialization of food in the United States.” Professor Adi Saleem’s recent book, Queer Jews, Queer Muslims: Race, Religion, and Representation, focuses on “triangulating the Jewish-Muslim dyad with a third variable: queerness.” Jennifer Dominique Jones, meantime, teaches courses in “Black Queer Histories” and “Black Intimacies.”

These 'scholars' share more than an affinity for critical theory: each was hired through the university’s Collegiate Fellows Program. Established in 2016, the CFP hires postdoctoral fellows who show a “commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.” The fellows are guaranteed a tenure-track position after two years, bypassing the rigors of a normal competitive job search.

Questions

Questions

A new four-lane highway cutting through tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest is being built for the COP30 climate summit in the Brazilian city of Belém.

***

The government now wants to dismantle the DOE and move education to the states. Is there any evidence at all that local officials will do any better? Are the mayors, councils, and education boards of higher quality?

***

Why is it that violent, destructive demonstrators are tolerated, and furious, red-faced dads at school boards are not?

***

Is vandalism really a free speech question?

***

In every public appearance, Kamala Harris has seemed impaired. Yet she was nominated for president and got 75 million votes. Less impressive were her electoral college results but still a lot of votes for an impaired candidate. And Biden was demented. How could the people vote for them? How could a serious party nominate them? And what does that say about their opinion of the American system of government?

***

Ukraine has agreed to a peace conference. "The ball is in Putin's court." In the court of a KGB killer who has invaded his neighbor, killed tens of thousands, and initiated a world-threatening conflict. Are we, and the Ukraine, to rely on the better angels of his nature?

***

Israel was created out of the British Mandate by vote of the United Nations. They are responsible for this mess, so, are they hard at work on the problem?

***

What are the aims of the anti-Israel demonstrators? What do they expect will happen to Israel--and their 200 nukes? Or is this just an anti-US tantrum and self-gratification?

***

Why does the nation have to put up with disruptive, destructive foreign nationals in the country?

***

We seem to be encouraging children to perform better than the established low norms. Is that in opposition to the new Law of Equity?" Shouldn't achieving the norm be the ideal?

 

The News

 

The News

Some observations on the news of the last day:


--Biden has a Hollywood agency contract. What possible value does this inept and physically destroyed man bring to the table of any enterprise? Who would want to reward this man in any way? Or maybe it's just the reward of white privilege and male hierarchy.

--Several wild-eyed demonstrators have criticized Musk, crying out "I did not vote for him!" This is true, but what has he done so far? He is only an adviser. But it inconveniently--for them--raises the big question he is investigating, that of unsupervised government legislation by unelected bureaucrats. So their unhappiness with Musk should be generalized to all unbridled bureaucrats.

And...who voted for Jill Biden?


--The USAID kerfluffle has wisely avoided the content of the USAID actions (many quite outlandish and peripheral) and centers on the process of attacking it. How, the critics say, can the program be interfered with by executive action? It should be monitored and shaped by the only lawgiver, Congress. They are concerned over the assumption of executive action outside its purview. This is a lovely meal, rare and delicious, because the USAIDS program was not created by the legislature but rather by JFK's executive order. I am no fan of Trump's assumption of executive orders but I am opposed to all assumptions of power. The controlling of USAID by executive order is almost poetic in its symmetry.


--Gaza. I am unsure what Trump is offering with his grand suggestion the U.S. take over the Gaza Strip. But it is heart-stopping in its clear implication. He is saying, I think, that the current state of management of the Gaza Strip is humanitarianly intolerable. More, a military solution threatens the world and is inconceivable. Israel will not suffer terrorism any longer. And they will not suffer a knockout or take a standing eight-count. Israel will punctuate any defeat that compromises the country with nuclear retaliation. That will mean the end of the Middle East as a functioning entity.

So the current endgame in the Gaza dispute cannot be military. Period. Military positions will not be enhanced through negotiations. Intrangecence is homicidal and suicidal. There is no interest in this country to police crazies anymore. Being the only grownup at the table costs us too much--especially since everyone else at the table has no vision larger than their own provincial myopia. (What is the intent of the madmen in Yemen other than death and destruction and commercial disruption?)

Questions

Questions

Netflix has a bio of Andy Warhol, very creepy but with a couple of interesting observations. Warhol seemed to be in a constant state of remaking, refashioning himself and what he saw. And his Greek Orthodox art background might explain his preoccupation with two-dimensional paintings.

***

Doug Burgum will be head of the Department of Interior and is Trump's proposed head of the newly created National Energy Council — a body that will oversee regulatory processes across government agencies where he'd have considerable power to push fossil fuel extraction.

***

Re Drones on the East Coast: Was anyone reassured by Mayorkis' reassurances? Is there any reason why Trump's simple and benign explanation was not issued earlier? Is alarming the electorate an objective?

***

The Thompson murder wasn't followed by a clamor for gun control. Rare.

***

17 states in the U.S. require physician participation in euthanasia, and 18 allow it.
Is it a good idea to have physicians involved? Should they participate in executions?

***

The COP29 climate change meeting debated giving 2.4.trillion dollars to undeveloped nations over 6 years as a sort of mea culpa tax because the developed countries had an accelerated growth out of poverty over the last 200 years fueled by petroleum and the poor nations, strangled by corruption and tyranny and locked in charcoal power, did not.

Would the U.S. with its 36 trillion dollar debt qualify for assistance?

***

The European tax rate is 34%. It is 17% in Africa.

***

There are 3.5 million Muslims in Europe. If 10% are radicalized, they would outnumber the entire European military.

***

When did illegal immigrants become "workers?"
What does their occupation have to do with their illegal entrance to the country?

***

On Thursday, Karoline Leavitt’s failed congressional campaign amended every FEC filing it had ever made to reveal that she failed to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in excessive contributions that she never paid back, in violation of the law.

Questions

'Did they suspect that Covid spawned from US taxpayer-funded research, or an adjacent Chinese military programme?
Why did we fund the work of EcoHealth Alliance, which sent researchers into remote Chinese caves to extract novel coronaviruses? Is “gain of function” research a byword for a bioweapons programme? And how did our government stop the spread of such questions on social media?'-questions raised by Thiel in a highly criticized FT op-ed.

***

Colorado’s highest court on Tuesday ruled that five elderly elephants don’t have legal standing to sue to leave a local zoo because they’re not human.

***

Holy Philadelphia Elgses:
During defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth's confirmation hearing, a senator questioning Hegseth employed a prop sign that misspelled the word military as "miltary."

***
  

Questions

John Locke, argued that every human life had its own rationale, none being created for the use of another. David Hume, wrote that all men are nearly equal “in their mental power and faculties, till cultivated by education.”

***

The amount of land owned by the National Park Service alone is larger than Italy. The land owned by the Fish and Wildlife Service is larger than Germany. The land owned by the Forest Service is larger than Britain and Spain combined. The land owned by the Bureau of Land Management is larger than Japan, North Korea, South Korea, and the Philippines combined.

Why?

***

In July Mr. Biden told us that “extreme heat is the number one weather-related killer in the United States.” Data actually show that cold kills far more.

***

South Koreans now overwhelmingly support developing nuclear weapons, with 73% in favor

***

Can the condition of man be resolved by force or circumstance?

***

What would happen if your mind "would chew through everything — through our usual self-justifications, through the conceit of inevitability that attaches to our habits and customs, through the thin scaffolding of reason that holds life together. Such a mind would become, as Ulrich once describes himself, “a machine for the relentless devaluation of life”. The only way to avoid this result is to give the mind a task worthy of its powers, by presenting it with the sorts of questions one can, without shyness, think hard about. But that entails some hope of arriving at answers. This is one way to think about writing on philosophy: a safe space for the unfettered operation of mind."--Agnes Callard writing on The Man Without Qualities

***

The James Beard Award semifinalists have been announced, with three Pittsburgh chefs — all with numerous past nods — and one Pittsburgh restaurant contender in this edition.
In Pittsburgh, the Nordic seafood restaurant Fet-Fisk is a semifinalist in the best new restaurant category.
Apteka, in Bloomfield, and Chengdu Gourmet, in Squirrel Hill, are entrees for the best chef, Mid-Atlantic award.

Questions

New York City became the first city in the country to introduce congestion pricing. From now on, most drivers entering Manhattan on 60th Street or below will be charged $9. But combined with the cost of crossing into the borough by tunnel or bridge, and depending on whether one has an EZ Pass or uses toll by plate, it could be more like $27, and even higher for trucks and larger vehicles.
A work tax.

***

75% of containers that come to the US from overseas return to their origin empty

***

Peter Yarrow died.

***

Questions

Astonishing fire in California in hurricane winds. No water in the fire hydrants.

Were Jimmy Carter's Secret Service agents elderly?

The New Orleans police supervisor's interviews are unforgettable. She seeks the exposure despite what it reveals. If she were a school crossing guard no parent could rest.

U.N.R.A., the UN relief organization, was an agent for Hamas in the Middle East. How seriously should the world take the UN pronouncements on Israel?

Is the UNRA an international metaphor for the New Orleans leadership?

Is the New Orleans leadership a metaphor that explains Kamala Harris and Biden?

Could we have DEI include the hiring from the Competent Minority?

Carter's presidency shows that intelligence, education, a great work ethic, and kindness do not necessarily translate to successful political leadership.

The offering of "thoughts and prayers" after a public attack is as routine as the search for a motive. However, the declaration of an ideology prior to a mad act does not exclude madness as the cause.

Biden's final incoherence tour includes awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Hilary Clinton and George Soros.

As the Cartels are Mexico's fifth largest employer, how motivated will the Mexicans be to change?

Questions/Fragments

A Russian prosecutor “admitted that about a fifth of the Defense Ministry’s budget was stolen; other officials said that it could be as high as two-fifths”

***

The West, including Germany, has given Ukraine substantial succor. But absent many more weapons, with fewer restraints upon their use, the West might be purchasing protracted defeat, thereby vindicating Putin’s estimation of the West’s inability to persevere.--will

***

Questions/Fragments

One would think a community described as "a fish tank of bad behavior" would have a police superintendent who looked serious rather than like your great aunt.

Then the FBI spokeswoman reveals she doesn't understand either terrorism or syntyx.

These reminders that government attracts and promotes the inept should solidify the basic, unique American suspicion of government and should call into question why anyone would ask government to do anything more than the basics.

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New York restaurants responded to the crazed restrictions of Covid with outdoor dining. It was spontaneous and surprisingly successful. 13,000 outdoor dining options emerged in New York.

Then the regulators with their fees moved in.

Of the approximately 13,000 outdoor dining setups that once lined NYC's streets, fewer than 3,000 restaurants have applied for permits for next season. Among them, about 1,400 are for dining sheds, while the rest are for traditional sidewalk cafes.

"The King's men are here."

Predatory

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Tesla sales dropped in 2024. Some numbers from Europe:

In August 2024, new EU car registrations saw a sharp decrease (-18.3%) with negative results across the region’s four major markets: double-digit losses were witnessed in Germany (-27.8%), France (-24.3%), and Italy (-13.4%), with the Spanish market declining by 6.5%.

Battery-electric vehicles (BEVS, “full” electric vehicles) saw their market share drop from around 21 percent in August 2023 to 14.4 percent in August 2024. Sales dropped from 165,000 to 92,000. This decline was above all driven by massive falls in Germany and France.  

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...lawlessness is one reason so many Americans discount the left’s assertions that Donald Trump endangers democracy. Mr. Biden acts like he’s king, and Democrats and media voices cheering him on have no standing to object if Mr. Trump follows the Biden precedent.--wsj

“People violate laws any time they want.”

Those words, shrugging off an alleged unlawful move last week, did not come from some Chicago gangbanger or Washington car thief. Those words of wisdom came from Democrat Commissioner Diane Marseglia in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

They came in response to the fact that the Democratic majority on the election commission had decided to ignore a binding state Supreme Court ruling in an attempt to engineer the election of Democratic incumbent Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.).

Democrat Commissioner Diane Marseglia in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. spoke as she and Democratic Board chairman Robert Harvie, Jr., dismissed the earlier Pa. Supreme Court rulings in order to accept ballots without required signatures or mandatory dates. She declared that she would not second the motion to enforce the rulings “mostly because I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country and people violate laws any time they want. So, for me, if I violate this law, it’s because I want a court to pay attention to it.”

Reminds you of Sanctuary Cities, doesn't it? Or Biden's persisting in invalidating loans.

This is more than inept.

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A new age of government guidance:

...the most fashionable female economist in the world nowadays, Mariana Mazzucato...[in her]... elegant and self-confident and economically primitive books, such as one reviving the labour theory of value, inspire in my own country Senator Elizabeth Warren from the Left and Senator Marco Rubio from the Right. The senators recommend therefore a Mazzucatian ‘industrial policy’. Let us have arts graduates in governmental offices arrange for innovations. The European Commission under Mario Draghi is about to spend 800 billion euros every year choosing winners from Brussels.--McCloskey

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America’s revolutionary leaders — by English standards, minor gentry at best — worked hard to adopt the new liberal characteristics that had come to define what it meant to be truly civilized — politeness, taste, sociability, learning, compassion and benevolence — and also what it meant to be good political leaders: an aversion to corruption and courtier-like behavior. These enlightened and classically republican ideals, values and standards came to circumscribe and control their behavior. Life became a theater, and the leaders became actors and characters. Jefferson was obsessed with politeness, and it became the source of much of his success in life. Washington always acted as if he were a character on a stage.

The revolutionary leaders thus committed themselves to behave in a certain moral, virtuous, and civilized manner. The intense, self-conscious seriousness with which they made that commitment is what ultimately separates them from later generations of American leaders. But that commitment also sets them sharply apart from the older world of their fathers and grandfathers. --Wood

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There is a plan to build two islands off the European coast to manage the development and distribution of alternative energy sources. Apparently united Europe is having trouble doing that within national borders.

Faith-based problems demand faith-based solutions.

Questions

Money is never unlimited. If private or public insurers have to blindly cover everyone, as Obamacare mandated, they will try to limit what they will cover. If insurers are further compelled to blindly cover everything, they will look harder at specific claims. If they can limit neither whom they cover nor what they cover, they will either raise their policy premiums or get out of the business.
It’s rich for progressives who have pushed for all of these developments – from the guaranteed issue of policies to people with pre-existing conditions to mandates of what those policies cover – to now complain about increasing premiums and rising claim denial rates. What did they think would happen?
So now, they are reduced to cheering for literally shooting the messenger.---McLaughlin

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Questions

Does prudence modify principles?

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It will be interesting to see, with the Healthcare CEO murder, how the NY DA office handles a real criminal. 

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Luigi Mangione is charged with killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson - but police have now announced he wasn't even a client of the medical insurer. He potentially targeted the medical insurer because of its size and influence, a senior police official said Thursday.

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Does populism come with a rise in vigilanteism?

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A few years ago, a poll found that whereas 63 percent of voters said they viewed the Founding Fathers as heroes, among the under-thirties 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?

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Kylie Kelce, wife of former NFL player turned media personality Jason Kelce, beat out Joe Rogan for the top podcast spot on both Apple and Spotify this week.

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John Kerry met with Assad at least six times, including in February 2009, while he was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Gabbard met with him once as a member of the House of Representatives.

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A year-long investigation by the General Accounting Committee found, that during the transition to the incoming Bush administration, Clinton’s staff had caused about $15000-worth of ‘damage, theft, vandalism and pranks’ although there were no prosecutions.

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The Economist has chosen kakistocracy as its word of the year.
kakistocracy is a government run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens. The word was coined as early as the seventeenth century
The word is derived from two Greek words, kakistos (κάκιστος; worst) and kratos (κράτος; rule), with a literal meaning of government by the worst people

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Much of the trouble in the world can be attributed to people taking bad studies seriously.
A study of whatever quality raises a bad idea to another power.

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Russia stole $5 million John Deere tractors from Ukraine only to find they could be remotely disabled. 

Imagine that happening with other imported technologies.

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Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, only 6% of defense spending went to defense specialists — so-called traditionals. Today that 6% has ballooned to 86%. 

The S&P 500 last added a defense company 46 years ago — until Palantir’s addition in September 2024. 

 

Questions

 

Questions

Can a pardon be 'pre-emptive?'

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UnitedHealth Group reported about $100 billion in revenue over the three months ending in September. The CEO pay package includes several million dollars a year.
A reward of $10,000 has been offered for information on the CEO's killer.
Curious?

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Biden fell asleep during a meeting in Africa and the meeting --and the President--continued undisturbed. How much tolerance of incapacity in leadership does the nation--and the world--have?

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Alex Cooper, the host of "Call Her Daddy," signed a $125 million deal with SiriusXM in August.
It is the second most popular podcast behind Rogan.

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So, the Never Trumpers' righteousness hinged upon Trump's inferior character. Has that assessment changed with Biden's recent decisions?

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Why is the PBS broadcasting schedule so different during Pledge Week?

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Has Football refereeing deteriorated? 

With betting's influence on the game, is that tenable? Could betting actually improve quality?

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When will the national debt become important to 'leaders' and citizens?

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On the eve of the Civil War,  George Fitzhugh was considered the most prominent pro-slavery theorist in the United States. Fitzhugh opens his book, not by attacking the abolitionists outright, but by attacking the doctrine of free trade and laissez-faire economics. Fitzhugh declares that free-market capitalism is “at war with slavery” by introducing a free-labor system and styles of production that he sees as unsuited to the agrarian slave economy.--magness

So slavery is incompatible with free trade?

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Autocracies are egocentric, expansive, and aggressive by definition. Why would they share technologies with each other?

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Questions

Questions

Can the Russia-Ukrain conflict be evaluated by simple cost-benefit analysis? Or is it more involved?

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If we have to bail out Europe's energy shortages, how will that impact American consumer energy costs?

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There are many models that suppress merit in the decision-making process. Primogenitor. Bribery. Bigotry.

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Who took over the Department of Defense when Austin disappeared? Or, put another way, who is Kathleen Hicks?

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Who is more qualified for the position they have applied for, Kamala Harris or Hegseth? Was Kamala checked for offensive tattoos?

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If a belief is good for everybody, why must it be compulsory?

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500,000 civilians were killed in the Algerian war against the French. Is that the model for Hamas?

Weekend Catch-Up

Weekend Catch-Up

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket at sunset with a payload that has been shrouded in secrecy to the point of not disclosing any specifics of the mission, and not using its original name.
All regulatory filings and U.S. government agencies, like the Space Force and the Federal Aviation Administration, call the payload ‘Optus-X,’ while SpaceX calls the mission ‘TD7.’ SpaceX’s commentator noted that it was a communications satellite during the company’s livestream.

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Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski visited President-elect Donald Trump at Mar-A-Lago over the weekend.

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America's biggest budget airline, Spirit Airlines, has filed for bankruptcy.

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US President Joe Biden has authorized Ukraine to launch limited strikes into Russia using US-made long-range missiles, in a big policy shift
What could have inspired this aggressive change?

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Good hours. Good pay. Rare emergency call.
Medical residency applications for dermatology slots are up 50% over the past five years,
A younger generation of physicians wants better work-life balance than their predecessors
Dermatologists earn a median $541,000 a year,
Seventy-one percent of applicants who selected dermatology as their first choice when applying for their residency match this year were women,
A 2020 study found dermatology was the second-least-racially-diverse specialty in medicine, behind orthopedic surgery.

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Organic and baby carrots sold at grocery stores across the US have been recalled after an E. coli outbreak that has killed one person.

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Portugal is implementing tax breaks and housing incentives to retain young talent and combat the brain drain to wealthier European countries.

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Zelena Zeto writes that 2000, not 2016 and 2024, were the American outliers.

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Several Trump appointees are being attacked for their lack of administration experience. Worse than Kamala?

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Sweden, Finland Urge Residents To Be Ready For War--Barron's headline

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There's a big campaign called "Stand up to Hate." Will they have bumper stickers and pins like "Whip Inflation Now?"

Notes

 

Notes

Clearing up some notes post-election:

Trump outperformed many of Republicans down-ballot.

Trump carried the 18-25 year old demographic.

FEC records show that Mothership Strategies, which has been scrutinized in the past for its aggressive fundraising tactics, has collected at least $48,712,448 over the last two years from advising an extensive array of Democratic PACs. That total does not include the money spent over the last few weeks given the FEC’s quarterly disclosure schedule. It is likely to be much higher. Many of the PACs tied to Mothership Strategies similarly used alarmist messages demanding donations to defeat Trump yet funneled vast sums of donor money back to consulting firms.

Migrants are abandoning a caravan headed for the United States because Donald Trump's election win has dashed their "dream of getting out".

There was an attack on Jews in Amsterdam after a soccer game. Very pogrom-like.

When the FBI released its numbers for 2023 in September 2024, it hid that it had revised its earlier crime data for 2021 and 2022, hiding the increase in 2022 and that there had been a net increase in crime over 2022 and 2023.

Professors at Harvard and Princeton have canceled classes following Trump's victory, and other units within the universities are offering "spaces" to process the election results.

12 officers of a New York environmental agency made an unannounced raid on a private home, captured the family's private pet--a squirrel with 500,000 followers on social media--and killed it.

New York City is ending its controversial scheme that gave migrant families prepaid debit cards worth a total of $18,500 each.

Some Thoughts

Campaign-finance reports reveal that Republicans overwhelmingly outspend Democrats at every major steakhouse in the city… At the Capital Grille, Republicans have outspent Democrats nearly 13 to 1 so far this election cycle.

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On the 1st of October, all chickens in Britain must be registered with the state by law. It will be a criminal offense to keep unregistered chickens.

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Some Thoughts

Is Emhoff really changing America's definition of masculinity?

Politics insincere but omnipresent feigned empathy has placed a burden on the politicians with this incredible storm. An empathy Olympics.

Israel has become America's 'vengeance proxy' in the Middle East. Years of attacks from the Beirut bombing to the Red Sea attacks have been ignored by the Americans and the Americans continue with the Biden policies of 'stop' and 'don't.' Yet the White House called Nasrallah's murder 'a measure of justice.'

How is it possible that a woman who six months ago was a national unknown and has never won a single national vote will likely be the next American president?

Notes

 

Notes

The horizon is obscured by the dark clouds as scary as the clouds of Independence Day. These political events are astonishing. How could these unbelievable disparities be exorcised? 

How about a sentimental argument encouraging a symbolic write-in campaign for Biden.

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The U.S. economy from April last year to March this year created 30 percent fewer jobs than the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) originally reported. An error of 810,000 jobs.

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So, Kamala is a serious political thinker, she has had a significant political impact over the last four years, and the administration over the last four years is really Trump's.

You can sell anything.

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An amazing Pirate game last night. They started a guy who pitched a perfect game last year for the Yankees. He pitched 7 shutout innings and looked really good. How did they get him? Waivers, after he got drunk, beat up his wife, and then broke up the manager's room.
Probably won't be doing a lot of Pirate Charities appearances.

Notes and Notables

Notes and Notables

22 days ago Biden dropped out of the presidential race and neither Biden nor Harris have publicly commented.

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Harris has said she wants to eliminate taxes on tips.

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There is a definitive tape of Gov. Walz' stolen valor speech. Why would someone do this and why would the press not care?

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US Intelligence Shows Flawed China Missiles Led Xi to Purge Army

China missiles filled with water, not fuel according to US intelligence.

And:…vast fields of missile silos in western China with lids that don’t function in a way that would allow the missiles to launch effectively

Notes and Notables

 

Notes and Notables

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

20% of all EV chargers do not work.

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

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