Some New Year Notes

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

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What is going on inside Iran?

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Mandani is now Mayor of New York.

This is going to be so much fun.

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

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

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

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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 those under thirty, that figure shrank to 39 percent. Meanwhile, fully 31 percent of U.S. voters under 30 said they saw the Founders as “villains.”

"Villains."

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

That is true nihilism.

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

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

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

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We have become obsessed with the outlier. 

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

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

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

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

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

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Americans and Europe

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

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

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

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

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

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

…..

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

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

Hogmanay

On this day:

1066
Granada massacre: A Muslim mob storms the royal palace in Granada, crucifies Jewish vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela, and massacres most of the Jewish population of the city.

So, maybe there's a problem older than the modern Israeli state?
1853
Gadsden Purchase: The United States buys land from Mexico to facilitate railroad building in the Southwest.
1903
A fire at the Iroquois Theater in Chicago, Illinois, kills at least 605.
1906
The All India Muslim League is founded in Dacca, East Bengal, British India Empire, which later laid down the foundations of Pakistan.
1924
Edwin Hubble announces the existence of other galaxies.

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“It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.” --Einstein

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According to Politico, There is a massive, growing opportunity for Democrats to tap into rising anxiety, fear and anger about the havoc AI could wreak in people’s lives, they say, on issues from energy affordability to large-scale job losses, and channel it toward a populist movement — and not doing it, or not doing it strongly enough, will hurt the party.
Often, reporting makes it so.

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Stingless bees from the Amazon have become the first insects to be granted legal rights anywhere in the world, in a breakthrough that supporters hope will be a catalyst for similar moves to protect bees elsewhere.

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Biden said the Russian invasion of Ukraine was an 'excursion.'
The Trump administration voted against a United Nations resolution condemning Russian aggression against Ukraine and calling for the withdrawal of Russian forces.
Which of these positions makes the most sense?

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Hogmanay

Hogmanay is the Scottish New Year, a blend of ancient traditions and possibly a more modern response to the strict Cromwellian restrictions of the Middle Ages. It has several characteristics. Bonfires are a part, perhaps from Viking or Clan days. "Redding" the house is another. It is a ritualistic cleaning, a 'readying' for the new year. The fireplace is swept and some read the ashes, like auguries. After midnight, neighbors visit, bringing small gifts, usually food, and receiving them, usually whiskey. 

Importance was placed on the first to enter in the new year, the "first foot." (Tall handsome men were good, redheaded women bad.) The house and the livestock are blessed with water from a local stream--which sounds really old--and then the woman of the house would go from room to room with a smoldering juniper branch, seemingly counteracting all the "redding" with smoke. Robert Burn's version of the traditional Scottish Auld Lang Syne, which translates to “times gone by,” is sung.

Plymouth Plantation

On this day:

1792
French Revolution: King Louis XVI of France is put on trial for treason by the National Convention.
1927
Guangzhou Uprising: Communist militia and worker Red Guards launch an uprising in the Chinese city of Guangzhou, taking over most of the city and announcing the formation of a Guangzhou Soviet.
1936
Abdication Crisis: Edward VIII’s abdication as King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the British Dominions beyond the Seas, and Emperor of India becomes effective.
1941
World War II: Germany and Italy declare war on the United States, following the Americans’ declaration of war on Japan in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The United States, in turn, declares war on Germany and Italy.
1948
The United Nations passes General Assembly Resolution 194, which established and defined the role of the United Nations Conciliation Commission as an organization to facilitate peace in the British Mandate for Palestine.
1964
Che Guevara speaks at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City.
1972
Apollo 17 becomes the sixth and last Apollo mission to land on the Moon.
2008
Bernard Madoff is arrested and charged with securities fraud in a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.

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Q: What did you learn about college football this year?
A: I learned the difference between a team and a gang.

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So, are we attacking the boats from Venezuela because they are intruding on our turf?

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In the same vein, what is the world's reaction to the American attack on Iran? Is the world allowing Trump leeway because he is doing things they would never have the strength to do, but they believe the world needs? In essence, is Trump their sin-eater?


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Plymouth Plantation

In 1620 Plymouth Plantation was founded with a system of communal property rights. Food and supplies were held in common and then distributed based on equality and need as determined by Plantation officials. People received the same rations whether or not they contributed to producing the food, and residents were forbidden from producing their own food. Governor William Bradford, in his 1647 history, Of Plymouth Plantation, wrote that this system was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. The problem was that young men, that were most able and fit for labour, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense. Because of the poor incentives, little food was produced.

Faced with potential starvation in the spring of 1623, the colony decided to implement a new economic system. Every family was assigned a private parcel of land. They could then keep all they grew for themselves, but now they alone were responsible for feeding themselves. While not a complete private property system, the move away from communal ownership had dramatic results.


This change, Bradford wrote, had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been. Giving people economic incentives changed their behavior. Once the new system of property rights was in place, the women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability.

Once the Pilgrims in the Plymouth Plantation abandoned their communal economic system and adopted one with greater individual property rights, they never again faced the starvation and food shortages of the first three years. It was only after allowing greater property rights that they could feast without worrying that famine was just around the corner.--Benjamin Powell, “The Pilgrims’ Real Thanksgiving Lesson,” Independent Institute, November 25, 2008.

So incentives matter. This proposition, which seems so reasonable, nonetheless must constantly struggle with the irrational. Incredibly bad ideas always get an open hearing. Defund the police, open borders, 1619, modern monetary theory, and critical racial theory are all presented on an equal footing with sensible, reasonable concepts. So the prima facie is invalid.

In such an atmosphere, vigilance--which seems to be an over-response--is essential.

Sinterklaas

Sinterklaas

Amsterdam hosts the largest Saint Nicholas parade in the world. The white-bearded legend traditionally makes his spectacular entrance into the city by sailing down the Amstel River then trades his boat for his white horse Amerigo, and the parade continues through the streets. Although the feast of Saint Nicolas falls on 6 December, the evening of 5 December is the main gift-giving occasion during the holiday season in the Netherlands. Called 'sinterklaasavond' (Sinterklaas evening) or'pakjesavond' (presents evening), Sint drops off a sack full of gifts on the doorstep before heading back to Spain. Following his late-night visit, much like at Christmas, everyone unwraps their presents from Sinterklaas and reads aloud the poems that have been written especially for each recipient. The author of these light-hearted poems remains anonymous.

Saint Nicholas has had close ties with Amsterdam since 343 AD. Legend has it that Sinterklaas originally came from Turkey to Amsterdam as St. Nicolaus, the Bishop of Mira. He is specifically described as a benefactor of young women. No one really knows why he then chose to live in Spain but historians point to the Spanish domination over the Netherlands in the past. His name appears on the oldest Greek list and on five other lists of participants in the Council of Nicaea and he is said to have physically attacked and beaten the major Arian bishop over the nature of the Trinity--and is often pictured as having a broken nose as a result.

The Christmas-like celebration on Dec. 5 has in recent years become part of the polarized discourse about race in the Netherlands. At the heart of the discussion is "Black Pete," Sinterklaas' helper--often the Saint's "enforcer" who punishes naughty children--who is often played by white people in blackface makeup and Afro wigs. Opponents see him as an outdated and offensive caricature that harks back to slavery, while the majority of Dutch people see Pete as a harmless children's character who has come to symbolize what they see as attacks on Dutch culture and traditions. Even the sacred United Nations has weighed in, with its Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, urging the Netherlands to "actively promote the elimination of those features of the character of Black Pete which reflect negative stereotypes and are experienced by many people of African descent as a vestige of slavery."
This has persisted in the country's public debate with the Black minority increasingly annoyed and the traditional Dutch surprisingly resistant to change. Some additions have been made with Zwarte Pieten evolving into a sort of sooty chimney-sweep.

Dutch Stamps:

Intel

On this day:
9
Arminius’ alliance of six Germanic tribes ambushes and annihilates three Roman legions of Publius Quinctilius Varus in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.
1543
Mary Stuart, at nine months old, is crowned “Queen of Scots” in the central Scottish town of Stirling
1855
Crimean War: The Siege of Sevastopol comes to an end when Russian forces abandon the city.
1942
World War II: A Japanese floatplane drops incendiary bombs on Oregon.
1945
Second Sino-Japanese War: Japan formally surrenders to China.
1956
Elvis Presley appears on The Ed Sullivan Show for the first time.
1971
The four-day Attica Prison riot begins, which eventually results in 39 dead, most killed by state troopers retaking the prison.
2001
Ahmed Shah Massoud, leader of the Northern Alliance, is assassinated in Afghanistan by two al Qaeda assassins who claimed to be Arab journalists wanting an interview.

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Politics is the art of making your selfish desires seem like the national interest.--Sowell

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Vermont’s socialist U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders only likes markets when they’re broken. Therefore his support for President Donald Trump’s foray into the semiconductor industry is the clearest sign yet that the federal government owning a piece of chip maker Intel is bad news for U.S. technology.

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US Navy SEALs reportedly tried to sneak into North Korea and plant a listening device amid 2019 high-level nuclear talks with then-president Donald Trump. The mission failed after the US operatives, thinking they’d been discovered, opened fire on a vessel that apparently turned out to be a boat of unarmed fishermen, all two or three of whom died.(nyt)

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Intel

Steven Rattner, the Wall Street financier who led the 2009 emergency rescue, said the Obama administration had little choice but to save GM and Chrysler from collapse. “It would have been an economic calamity. You would have had a couple million people out of work. We just felt it was an unacceptable risk to take,” said Rattner.

He spoke on March 9 at Stanford GSB about his five-month stint leading the Obama administration’s task force on restructuring the auto industry.

The rescue team put GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy, overhauling operations and finances with money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, which Congress had approved to rescue the financial sector.

TARP. When Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapsed, its U.S. operations had 1.2 million derivatives transactions outstanding with 6,500 trading partners. Many of them were far from Wall Street, including schools such as Beaver Country Day School outside of Boston or companies like Metavante Corp. in Milwaukee, which had relied on Lehman to help reduce their exposure to fluctuating interest rates through derivatives. In all, the contracts, which were tied to interest rates, bonds, currencies, commodities, and stocks, had a "notional," or theoretical, value of $39 trillion. (wsj)

The notional value of the world's derivatives actually was estimated at more than $600 trillion. Yes, $600 trillion. Notional value is the total value of a leveraged position's assets. This distinction is necessary because when you're talking about leveraged assets like options and derivatives, a little bit of money can control a disproportionately large position that may be as much as 5, 10, 30, or, in extreme cases, 100 times greater than investments that could be funded only in cash instruments. This was done by people who thought they knew what they were doing.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) estimated the net notional value of uncollateralized derivatives risks was between $2 trillion and $8 trillion, a staggering amount of money.

Freedom and risk. Trillions invested by idiots. The world teetering on insolvency.

GM, Chrysler, TARP. And conservatives are worried about a cashless purchase of a little bit of little Intel?

Who are we kidding?

Trump may be philosophy-free, but so are we.

Labor Day

On this day:
1864
American Civil War: Confederate General John Bell Hood evacuates Atlanta, Georgia after a four-month siege by General Sherman
1923
The Great Kantō earthquake devastates Tokyo and Yokohama, killing about 105,000 people.
1939
Adolf Hitler signs an order to begin the systematic euthanasia of mentally ill and disabled people
1939
World War II: Nazi Germany and Slovakia invade Poland, beginning World War II.
1972
In Reykjavík, Iceland, American Bobby Fischer beats Russian Boris Spassky to become the world chess champion.
1983
Cold War: Korean Air Flight 007 is shot down by a Soviet Union jet fighter when the commercial aircraft enters Soviet airspace. All 269 on board die, including Congressman Lawrence McDonald.
1985
A joint American–French expedition locates the wreckage of the RMS Titanic.
2004
Beslan school hostage crisis commences when armed terrorists take children and adults hostage in Beslan in North Ossetia, Russia.

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The Trump administration is drawing up plans to rebrand the Department of Defense as the Department of War, according to a White House official, following up on the president’s push to revive a name last used in 1947.

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AI fiction authorship has created a strange, obtuse, intelligent-sounding gibberish. 

If AI learns from us, what does that mean?

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Populist or far-right parties are leading the polls in the U.K., France, and Germany simultaneously.

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Under President Trump, the government has become a minority owner of Intel and will take a cut of Nvidia’s and Advanced Micro Devices’ sales of artificial-intelligence chips to China. This might sound like Chinese-style state capitalism, not classic U.S. free enterprise. However, government investment in companies is as American as apple pie and was common in the 19th century, Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Zweig writes. Unfortunately, history suggests the likely results will be massive misallocation of capital and a surge in waste, corruption, and conflicts of interest. --wsj

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India is meeting with China, China is meeting with Russia. We are meeting with ourselves. 

Now, if Russia would just give China some of that eastern land...

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Florida State true freshman linebacker Ethan Pritchard was injured and subsequently hospitalized following a shooting incident in Havana, Florida, on Sunday evening.

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The navigation system of a plane carrying Ursula von der Leyen was disrupted due to suspected Russian interference, the European Commission said.
A spokesperson said the "GPS jamming" happened while the Commission president was about to arrive in southern Bulgaria on Sunday, but she still landed safely.

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Labor Day


A Labor Day parable I stole off a blog:

A guy looked at my Porsche the other day and said I wonder how many people could have been fed for the money that sports car costs. I replied I am not sure, it fed a lot of families in Bowling Green, Kentucky who built it, it fed the people who make the tires, it fed the people who made the components that went into it, it fed the people in the copper mine who mined the copper for the wires, it fed people in Decatur IL, at Caterpillar who make the trucks that haul the copper ore. It fed the trucking people who hauled it from the plant to the dealer and fed the people working at the dealership and their families. BUT,… I have to admit, I guess I really don’t know how many people it fed.

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Another thought on labor for Labor Day.

"Growing cotton, further, unlike sugar or rice, never required slavery. By 1870, freedmen and whites produced as much cotton as the South produced in the slave time of 1860. Cotton was not a slave crop in India or in southwest China, where it was grown in bulk anciently. And many whites in the South grew it, too, before the war and after. That slaves produced cotton does not imply that they were essential or causal in the production.

Economists have been thinking about such issues for half a century. You wouldn’t know it from the King Cottoners. They assert, for example, that a slave was “cheap labor.” Mistaken again. After all, slaves ate, and they didn’t produce until they grew up. Stanley Engerman and the late Nobel Prize winner Robert Fogel confirmed in 1974 what economic common sense would suggest: that productivity was incorporated into the market price of a slave. It’s how any capital market works. If you bought a slave, you faced the cost of alternative uses of the capital. No supernormal profits accrued from the purchase. Slave labor was not a free lunch. The wealth was not piled up.
….
We need to stop using the history of slavery to bolster anti-capitalist ideology. Ingenuity, not exploitation by slavery or imperialism or finance, is the story of the modern world."--McCloskey

Gospel/CRT and Mothers-in-Law

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.
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.

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ESPN will not air Spike Lee's docuseries on Colin Kaepernick, citing 'creative differences'

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Marathon Fusion says it has discovered a method for turning mercury into gold.

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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

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“Is there anything – ANYTHING – Big Tech won’t do for a quick buck?” Sen. Hawley wrote in a post on X announcing an investigation into the accusation that Meta's AI system flirts with children. 

As shallow and grasping as politicians?

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Gospel/CRT and Mothers-in-Law

Christ taught a religion of peace and gentleness, empathy and compassion. But it was disruptive and, as such, wrenching and painful. The spiritual elements are in contrast to the very emotional and material gifts that enable success and advancement in the world. Gifts that allowed the species to evolve. Displacing them requires serious effort because the material is more than natural; it is advantageous. 

To rise above the material requires the identification of those currents so basic in us, so helpful in our early development, and to substitute Christ's spirituality. And the foundation stone of that old world--that ancient homo sapien, that Old Testament--is identity. 

Joining is also a rejecting.

We are a product of our ability to see ourselves in a larger context, as a part of a larger group of people: Family, Friends, Community, Tribe, Nation, and Race. That identification creates opponents and strengthens us against them. What is called "xenophobia" by our moderns was, in history, a lifesaver. And now, in our more crowded world, a killer. Christ urges us to remove the old, restrictive mindset of exclusion and embrace a new Testament of inclusion, universal acceptance for all humanity.

A conflict that begins with the self and spreads out to the self's

intimates. An overwriting of a code that is used as a rallying cry.

In today's Gospel, Christ says how hard that evolution will be:

Jesus said to his disciples:
“I have come to set the earth on fire,
and how I wish it were already blazing!
There is a baptism with which I must be baptized,
and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!
Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth?
No, I tell you, but rather division.
From now on a household of five will be divided,
three against two and two against three;
a father will be divided against his son
and a son against his father,
a mother against her daughter
and a daughter against her mother,
a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”

Well, at least the first part of it is working.

Socialism and Groups

On this day:

1503
King James IV of Scotland marries Margaret Tudor, daughter of King Henry VII of England at Holyrood Abbey, Edinburgh, Scotland.
1588
Anglo-Spanish War: Battle of Gravelines – The naval engagement ends, ending the Spanish Armada’s attempt to invade England.
1844
The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, headed by Brigham Young, is reaffirmed as the leading body of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).
1863
American Civil War: following his defeat in the Battle of Gettysburg, General Robert E. Lee sends a letter of resignation to Confederate President Jefferson Davis (which is refused upon receipt).
1908
Wilbur Wright makes his first flight at a racecourse at Le Mans, France. It is the Wright Brothers’ first public flight.
1942
Quit India Movement is launched in India against the British rule in response to Mahatma Gandhi’s call for swaraj or complete independence.
1945
World War II: The Soviet Union declares war on Japan and begins the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation.

***

Israel’s security cabinet has approved a plan to take control of Gaza City. The announcement stopped short of explicitly stating that Israel would take full control of the Gaza Strip, although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu previously said that was the intention.

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Don wants you to know who Erzsébet Báthory is. It's pretty amazing.

 https://crimereads.com/the-internets-erzsebet-bathory-obsession/?utm_source=Klaviyo&utm_medium=campaign&utm_id=01K231BAA3TF6J6YPCTSF6PPKA&_kx=qu6GjtO9ct7T7B5M3-rlihP1yndZrVuN9wO9KX0xWdc.U5D8ER

***

Ex-Pirate David Bednar became the first Yankees pitcher in 43 years to record a save with all five outs by strikeouts since Goose Gossage did so on May 14, 1982 against the Oakland Athletics on the road.


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OpenAI released its new GPT-5 model — the engine that will power its key products, including the free and paid versions of ChatGPT — challenging its arch-competitor Anthropic. Anthropic's Claude is frequently viewed as the best AI for writing code, which could be the reason OpenAI leaned so heavily on GPT-5's coding skills as the company introduced its new model Thursday.

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Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey said Texas Republicans and Donald Trump “have left us no choice” when asked if she, too, would attempt to redraw the state’s congressional districts to get rid of its GOP representatives. She seems to have forgotten that each of the Bay State’s nine congressional districts is already represented by Democrats.  

Amazing.

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Germany's Economy Minister Katharina Reiche warned on Wednesday that flawed site selection and shifting market dynamics were undermining offshore wind tenders, as the country's latest offshore auctions received no bids.

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Socialism and Groups


"The goal of socialism is communism." - Vladimir Lenin
 
"In theory, Socialism may wish to enhance freedom, but in practice, every kind of collectivism consistently carried through must produce the characteristic features which Fascism, Nazism, and Communism have in common. Totalitarianism is nothing but consistent collectivism."--Hayek

Discussions over Socialism are rare. Emotions and hopes do not withstand much scrutiny. Discussions within Socialism are rarer still.

One element that has always been interesting is the Socialists' view of the group, the Collective. We humans are drawn to groups: family, community, church, and social groups. Socialism promises another, larger and spiritual, united and visionary. Socialism seems to answer an inner need.

But the Socialism group is not a merging, a maturation, or a fulfilling. Socialism is not a next step, a flowering. Instead, it fills a void, a void it creates. Stuart Finkel had the startling observation that communists have always acted more forcibly to undermine free association than to undermine free enterprise. Socialism must always overcome the status quo. Replace the norm. That's what a revolution is.

But that new Collective is also hard to trust; it might elect someone like Trump. So the group needs a filter, a real control, should the group not fall in line and the ideals waver. Hence Red Guards. Gulags. Inquisitors. And the new group can only be so accommodating; focus and efficiency are important. The group must be streamlined, sometimes pruned. 

The very first thing that suffers under collectivism is deviation from the norm.

Who Are These People?

On this day:
1794
U.S. President George Washington invokes the Militia Law of 1792 to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania.
1942
World War II: the Battle of Guadalcanal begins – United States Marines initiate the first American offensive of the war with landings on Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the Solomon Islands.
1947
Thor Heyerdahl’s balsa wood raft, the Kon-Tiki, smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands after a 101-day, 7000 km journey across the Pacific Ocean in an attempt to prove that prehistoric peoples could have traveled from South America.
1964
Vietnam War: the U.S. Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving US President Lyndon B. Johnson broad war powers to deal with North Vietnamese attacks on American forces.
1998
The United States embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, kill approximately 212 people.
2007
Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants breaks baseball great Hank Aaron’s record by hitting his 756th home run.

***

This weekend, Jen Pawol will make history by becoming the first woman to umpire a Major League Baseball game. She's set to work the series between the Miami Marlins and Atlanta Braves.

***

In 2024, Nancy Pelosi made more money on investments than any large hedge fund in the United States.

***

The Indian and Philippine navies have conducted their first joint drills in the South China Sea, the same day the Philippine president arrived in India on a state visit.

***

Grownups with nukes: Seoul has started removing border loudspeakers in a bid to ease tensions with the autocratic North. The South resumed blasting K-pop and pro-democracy propaganda last summer in response to the North’s trash balloons, which were in turn a response to the South’s activists floating leaflets, cash, and Bibles over the border.

***



Who Are These People?

According to Corey Robin, professor of political science at Brooklyn College, "the socialist argument against capitalism isn’t that it makes us poor. It’s that it makes us unfree. When my well-being depends upon your whim, when the basic needs of life compel submission to the market and subjugation at work, we live not in freedom but in domination. Socialists want to end that domination: to establish freedom from rule by the boss, from the need to smile for the sake of a sale, from the obligation to sell for the sake of survival." He continues, “The socialist believes that making things free makes people free.”

Freedom "from the need to smile for the sake of a sale?" From the unexplained bodega closing? The freedom to be rude? Impolite? Disinterested? Unmotivated?

And, more importantly, who is making these free things and why?

You can’t have socialism with a scarce good or service, especially among strangers, without the dreaded word unheard in socialism: allocation. Scarce goods and services must be allocated. Allocated. By someone. Not by the market, but by some person based on some uncertain criterion. 

Who are the allocators? What will be the criterion? 

This is a professor at a university, and this is simply not serious thinking.

Redoing Socialism

On this day:

70
The destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans.
1265
Second Barons’ War: Battle of Evesham – the army of Prince Edward (the future king Edward I of England) defeats the forces of rebellious barons led by Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, killing de Montfort and many of his allies.
1327
First War of Scottish Independence: James Douglas leads a raid into Weardale and almost kills Edward III of England.
1704
War of the Spanish Succession: Gibraltar is captured by an English and Dutch fleet, commanded by Admiral Sir George Rooke and allied with Archduke Charles.
1789
In France members of the National Constituent Assembly take an oath to end feudalism and abandon their privileges.
1914
World War I: Germany invades Belgium. In response, the United Kingdom declares war on Germany. The United States declare their neutrality.
1964
American civil rights movement: civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney are found dead in Mississippi after disappearing on June 21.
1964
Gulf of Tonkin Incident: U.S. destroyers USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy report coming under attack in the Gulf of Tonkin.

***

Good news. We now know Sydney Sweeney's voter registration thanks to a crack reporter's intrepid investigations. Trump has weighed in.

And if anyone is interested in the more global and intergalactic implications of this insightful discussion, there's this, from CNN written, apparently, by grown-ups:

https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/02/entertainment/sydney-sweeney-american-eagle-ad-dunkin-drama-cec

***

“I think it's important to emphasize first that if we make a trade involving a player on a contract, as we did in the case with Ke’Bryan, we would never make a trade in order to save money. That's never part of the calculus.”--Cherington

***

U.S. states have built less than 400 electric vehicle charging ports through April under $7.5 billion federal infrastructure programs, the Government Accountability Office said .

***

Redoing Socialism

There is an interesting article on the socialism revival by Kristian Niemietz. This is a portion:

"This socialist revival is, of course, neither a homogeneous movement, nor a fully worked-out policy program. But if there is a common thread, it is the belief that emerging forms of socialism could be completely different from anything that has flown under that ideological banner in the past. For these new socialists, socialism doesn’t necessarily mean a society run by large, hierarchical government bureaucracies. Nor does it mean a command-and-control economy, directed by a distant, technocratic elite. It means experimenting with new forms of social ownership and democratic decision-making, devolving power to the grassroots, and empowering ordinary working people.

When explaining away the failures of the past, it was assumed that the hierarchical, stratified character of failed socialist projects had been a result of some deliberate political choice. Which is to say: It was believed that previous socialist experiments had failed because the leaders of these movements caused them to be centralized and autocratic as a matter of design—as opposed to a democratic socialist system based on mass participation and a radical decentralisation of power.

But the truth is that mass participation and radical democratization always had been idealized by socialists, including by socialist leaders who led successful national movements. But these dreams never survived, because it simply isn’t feasible to run a large society and a complex economy in this kind of participatory way. Democratic socialism works perfectly fine in small, self-selecting and homogeneous high-trust communities with relatively simple economies, the prime example being the Israeli Kibbutz. But that model is not scalable (and hasn’t even aged particularly well in Israel itself). There is a reason that, even at the height of the Kibbutz movement, Kibbutzim never grew beyond a certain size. There seems to be an upper limit of around 1,500 people, and even that is rare: Most Kibbutzim have fewer than 500 members.

Regardless of what socialists say they want to build, socialism can only mean a society run by large, hierarchical government bureaucracies. It can only mean a command-and-control economy directed by a distant, technocratic elite. The reason it always turns out that way isn’t because revolutions are “betrayed” by selfish or undisciplined actors, but because no other path is possible. Unfortunately, this is a lesson that every generation needs to learn for itself..."

As Mr. Williams says, "Sharing is fine when you know everybody's name."

So socialism's problem is a lot bigger than its cruel, unmanageable, and unachievable distribution system. It is believed that socialism, in its implementation, somehow becomes inexplicably bent. Distorted. There persists this curious search for what goes wrong with socialism, why it turns on those it says it wants to help, and why, on a large scale, it becomes so dangerous, as if this were not the very nature of the beast. Sure, socialism is adopted as a crusade by homicidal, self-obsessed psychopaths, but certainly not all socialists are nuts, they say.

This is similar to the search for why dogs bite; they are so cute and playful when they are young.

The Scarce and the Non-scarce

On this day:
30 BC
Octavian (later known as Augustus) enters Alexandria, Egypt, bringing it under the control of the Roman Republic.
1800
The Act of Union 1800 is passed in which merges the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
1801
First Barbary War: The American schooner USS Enterprise captures the Tripolitan polacca Tripoli in a single-ship action off the coast of modern-day Libya.
1834
Slavery is abolished in the British Empire as the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 comes into force.
1894
The First Sino-Japanese War erupts between Japan and China over Korea.
1927
The Nanchang Uprising marks the first significant battle in the Chinese Civil War between the Kuomintang and Communist Party of China. This day is commemorated as the anniversary of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army
1944
The Warsaw Uprising against the Nazi occupation breaks out in Warsaw, Poland.
1966
Charles Whitman kills 16 people at The University of Texas at Austin before being killed by the police.
2004
A supermarket fire kills 396 people and injures 500 in Asunción, Paraguay.

***

The solution proposed by Spears and Geruso's book on population decline related to birth rate decline in After the Spike is no less than a total restructuring of society around family and child care, in which parenting is so well supported socially, culturally, economically, and medically that it is seen as a joy, not a relentless struggle. 

Now, at last, is a project to satisfy the meddling instincts of social engineers, unemployable sociologists, do-gooders, and busybodies that no one could oppose: a social project aimed at encouraging and helping young families. My bet is that few people apply to solve the problem because it is not grand enough or revolutionary enough for their ambitions. And, of course, not enough of their enemies are killed.

***

White people make up 15% of the world's population. How are populations evaluated so that Whites are presented as the majority in the public eye?

***

I hope The Sweeney Crisis prompts people to remember the intellectual origins of the eugenics movement in the West. It was not the intellectuals' finest hour. Eugenics is, however, the combination of science and utilitarianism, exactly what the Left loves.

***

The Scarce and the Non-scarce

Economics is the study of the allocation of limited resources.

In a clever article in AIER, Tucker discusses Munger's explanation of the distinctions between capitalism and socialism. The pro-capitalist camp believes in ownership, the evolution of prices, and production structures for scarce goods. There is no better, more peaceful, more productive way to deal with the fact that sometimes there is not enough of everything for everyone. The best solution is to adopt a peaceful method of exchange and production, allowing for more wealth to be distributed among everyone over time.

At the same time, capitalists believe in the universal sharing of non-scarce goods like knowledge. This distinction between scarce and non-scarce helps explain so much about the world around us. We have to learn to distinguish them so that we can apply tools of production and allocation in the proper way. Scarce goods absolutely require the application of economizing; non-scarce goods can be freely and expansively shared without the need for economizing.

The socialist left makes a mess of this distinction, mixing up the two things. They want socialism for scarce goods and private ownership for non-scarce goods. How so? They want free college for everyone, health care for everyone, food for everyone, and they advocate all this with near-zero appreciation for the reality that these are scarce goods and so there are massive costs associated with these plans and everyone must bear them, not to mention endless force to make people do what they would otherwise not want to do.

At the same time, these same people apply the limitations of scarcity where it need not apply. They say there can be no cultural appropriation even though culture is a non-scarce good that is malleable and universally shareable. They demand identity politics even though identity is something anyone can adopt without taking away anything from anyone else. Identity is a non-scarce good and need not be commodified like a physical good.

Socialists are mostly intellectuals. Their most valued personal production is within the realm of ideas. They share these ideas constantly with anyone who will listen. Their goal is to seek influence, which can occur without the need for allocating and apportioning their product. They are producing goods that are non-scarce.
They can’t understand why doctors, colleges, food growers, and factories cannot do the same. The problem of scarcity does not present itself in their profession, so they remain oblivious to the reality that scarcity exists for every single good other than ideas.

Why the rising popularity of socialism? Munger suggests, “Much of the new wealth is digital, and takes the form of music, movies, or other entertainment or software, code that once written down can be reproduced at no cost and transmitted worldwide essentially for free.”

The great migration from the physical world to the digital world has vastly expanded the realm and pool of non-scarce wealth. That’s a wonderful thing. But this might tempt intellectuals to believe the same thing can happen in the physical world. And yet no matter how much we digitize, it doesn’t obliterate the essential distinction between scarce and non-scarce.
If a Twitter post can be universally distributed, why not vegan dinners and brain surgeries? Now you know the answer; it is the difference between scarce and non-scarce. One cannot be shared unto infinity and the other can. That’s a huge difference.

If we can’t get that straight, we can never learn to think with economic rationality. Even worse, failing to understand this, and barreling ahead with a system that mixes the two up, can destroy both prosperity and liberty.
 

The Will of the People

On this day:
30 BC
Battle of Alexandria: Mark Antony achieves a minor victory over Octavian’s forces, but most of his army subsequently deserts, leading to his suicide.
1492 The Jews are expelled from Spain when the Alhambra Decree takes effect.
1790
The very first U.S. patent is issued: to inventor Samuel Hopkins for a potash process.
2007
Operation Banner, the presence of the British Army in Northern Ireland, and the longest-running British Army operation ever, comes to an end.

***

Kamala Harris has dropped out of the California gubernatorial race. Her political success is very hard to explain but seems unconnected with philosophy or voter appeal.

***

The Sweeney jeans commercial controversy is funny, but does the White House really have to comment on it?

***

How's Biden's "minor incursion" into Ukraine doing?

***

The success of Pirate pitching is all the greater when you realize they don't get to pitch against the worst hitters in baseball, the Pirates.

***

The Will of the People

Whenever you hear someone defer to the "will of the people," you know it's time to hide the women. It sounds suspiciously like "manifest destiny," an undefinable excuse to do a lot of things.

The "General Will" is a concept introduced by Rousseau in Article Six of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, composed in 1789 during the French Revolution: "The law is the expression of the general will. All citizens have the right to contribute personally, or through their representatives, to its formation. It must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in its eyes, are equally admissible to all public dignities, positions, and employments, according to their capacities, and without any other distinction than that of their virtues and their talents." Elsewhere he defines "law" as, "a public and solemn declaration of the general will on an object of common interest." Here is Rousseau trying to come to grips with a new idea in the West: Freedom and the people, not the nobility, not God, making law.

There is an organic, cohesive quality about the idea that does not hold up well to serious scrutiny, though. Individuals themselves are often conflicted. Households have only rare themes, and they are mostly defensive. It is hard to visualize a societal "general will" in any but the most extreme of circumstances. And law, at its best, is nothing more than a hodgepodge of interests--or the result of a successful campaign of special interest. 51% of votes can make a law; is that the "General Will?" Or is the general will more spontaneous, enthusiastic, and impassioned, like a riot?

Isaiah Berlin argued that Rousseau's association of freedom with obedience to the General Will allowed totalitarian leaders to defend oppression in the name of freedom, and made Rousseau "one of the most sinister and formidable enemies of liberty in the whole history of human thought."

Sunday/The Seduction of Angels

On this day:
1054
Siward, Earl of Northumbria invades Scotland and defeats Macbeth, King of Scotland, somewhere north of the Firth of Forth.
1794
French Revolution: Maximilien Robespierre is arrested after encouraging the execution of more than 17,000 “enemies of the Revolution”.
1919
The Chicago Race Riot erupts after a racial incident occurred on a South Side beach, leading to 38 fatalities and 537 injuries over a five-day period.
1964
Vietnam War: 5,000 more American military advisers are sent to South Vietnam bringing the total number of United States forces in Vietnam to 21,000.
1974
Watergate Scandal: the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee votes 27 to 11 to recommend the first article of impeachment (for obstruction of justice) against President Richard Nixon.
1996
Centennial Olympic Park bombing: in Atlanta, United States, a pipe bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park during the 1996 Summer Olympics. One woman (Alice Hawthorne) is killed, and a cameraman suffers a heart attack fleeing the scene. 111 are injured.
2005
STS-114: NASA grounds the Space Shuttle, pending an investigation of the continuing problem with the shedding of foam insulation from the external fuel tank. During ascent, the external tank of the Space Shuttle Discovery sheds a piece of foam slightly smaller than the piece that caused the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster; this foam does not strike the spacecraft.

***

U.S. states have built less than 400 electric vehicle charging ports through April under $7.5 billion federal infrastructure programs, the Government Accountability Office said Tuesday.

***

A survey:
1. Less than half of all adult Americans can name the first book of the Bible (Genesis, in Hebrew, unfortunately, Bereshit,) or the four Gospels of the New Testament (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John).
2. More than 80 percent of born-again or evangelical Chris­tians believe that "God helps those who help themselves" is a Bible verse.
3. More than half of graduating high school seniors guess that Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife.
4. One in ten adults believes that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife. (My personal favorite.)

***


Sunday/The Seduction of Angels

In those days, the LORD said: "The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great,
and their sin so grave,
that I must go down and see whether or not their actions
fully correspond to the cry against them that comes to me.
I mean to find out."

God as explorer? As learner? And Sodom's crime is extraordinary: the attempted seduction of angels.

In today's Old Testament reading, God goes on an expedition to learn about Sodom. Abraham negotiates with God over the future of the city. It is a wild story, funny and grim. God seems to be egging Abraham on, conceding moral points, finally settling on not destroying the city if ten good men could be found.

The gospel reading has another parallel point. It is the "ask and you will receive" gospel where Christ introduces a rather surprising element of life to spirituality: Persistence. He encourages continual prayer as if God can be fatigued into acquiescing. Tenacity, not righteousness, rules. It is a funny idea, especially when connected to the Old Testament reading where Abraham bargains with God over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah.  
God sits in almighty judgment; man wheedles.

But it should be remembered, God does destroy Sodom.

The Night King

On this day:
306
Constantine I is proclaimed Roman emperor by his troops.
1603
James VI of Scotland is crowned as king of England (James I of England), bringing the Kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland into personal union. Political union would occur in 1707.
1609
The English ship Sea Venture, en route to Virginia, is deliberately driven ashore during a storm at Bermuda to prevent its sinking; the survivors go on to found a new colony there.
1755
British governor Charles Lawrence and the Nova Scotia Council order the deportation of the Acadians. Thousands of Acadians are sent to the British Colonies in America, France and England. Some later move to Louisiana, while others resettle in New Brunswick.
1759
French and Indian War: in Western New York, British forces capture Fort Niagara from the French, who subsequently abandon Fort Rouillé.
1783
American Revolutionary War: The war’s last action, the Siege of Cuddalore, is ended by preliminary peace agreement.
1799
At Aboukir in Egypt, Napoleon I of France defeats 10,000 Ottomans under Mustafa Pasha.
1814
War of 1812: Battle of Lundy’s Lane – reinforcements arrive near Niagara Falls for General Riall’s British and Canadian forces and a bloody, all-night battle with Jacob Brown’s Americans commences at 18.00; the Americans retreat to Fort Erie.
1861
American Civil War: The United States Congress passes the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution, stating that the war is being fought to preserve the Union and not to end slavery.
1934
The Nazis assassinate Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss in a failed coup attempt.
1943
World War II: Benito Mussolini is forced out of office by his own Italian Grand Council and is replaced by Pietro Badoglio.
1978
Louise Brown, the world’s first “test tube baby” is born.
1993
Israel launches a massive attack against Lebanon in what the Israelis call Operation Accountability, and the Lebanese call Seven-Day War.
1994
Israel and Jordan sign the Washington Declaration, which formally ends the state of war that had existed between the nations since 1948.

***

Police in India have arrested a man accused of running a fake embassy for illicit activities like scamming folks looking for overseas employment. The alleged grifter went to serious lengths to appear legit, like photoshopping himself next to world leaders, adorning luxury cars with fake diplomatic plates, and faking seals for a dozen different countries.

He apparently told his victims he was an ambassador for the fictional countries of Seborga and Westarctica.

***

Apparently, 7/22/25 was 1.34 milliseconds shorter than the normal 24 hours due to Earth’s rotation, making it one of the shortest days in recorded history.

***

Approximately 28,000 IRS employees have been eliminated by buyouts and layoffs through May, according to a new report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. The cuts will return the agency to a workforce of about 77,000, roughly where it stood before Biden supersized it.

***

A UK study suggests cooling your home by smearing yogurt on your windows.
Where would we be without these studies?

***

Is it really true that Ghislaine Maxwell has never been interviewed by federal prosecutors?

***

Pirate prospect K.onnor Griffin was ranked No. 43 on the preseason Top 100 and has had an in-season jump to No. 1. That is unprecedented.
That said, whatever happened to Termarr Johnson?

***



The Night King

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

The death of communism was perfectly predictable, and those critics who predicted it can be rightfully proud. But they must be surprised by its stubborn death throes. How many people were drafted into its horrible, morbid experiment? How many had to die to prove this was a stupid, unworkable, and unnatural pipe-dream? And what are the responsibilities of those clear-thinking observers who coolly watched this nightmare without interfering? After all, it took the Russian communist state three generations to die.

And how should those people react when confronted with communism's new iterations, like socialism and Nazism?

A Kind, Painless, Stable Life

On this day:

1405
Ming admiral Zheng He sets sail to explore the world for the first time.
1789
Jacques Necker is dismissed as France’s Finance Minister, sparking the Storming of the Bastille.
1804
A duel occurs in which the Vice President of the United States, Aaron Burr, mortally wounds former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton.
1864
American Civil War: Battle of Fort Stevens; Confederate forces attempt to invade Washington, D.C.
1940
World War II: Vichy France regime is formally established. Henri Philippe Pétain becomes Prime Minister of France.
1947
The Exodus 1947 heads to Palestine from France.
1972
The first game of the World Chess Championship 1972 between challenger Bobby Fischer and defending champion Boris Spassky starts.

***

"The flood crisis was someone's fault." The agitator always summons the same god.

***

Why do tennis coaching boxes seem to be filled with family and lab assistants?

***

Spam calls masquerade as polite and intimate. They create a miasma of insincerity and inspire rudeness.

***

It's been fun watching the dim-bulb Mamdani flickering and his smug supporters rationalizing.

***

A Kind, Painless, Stable Life

Socialism despises competition and its fallout of failure. In a way, it is an intolerance of the nature of life with its ups and downs--and eventual fatal denouement. Those who relentlessly try to interfere with all social and economic events are actually attempting to smooth the uncertainties of living and homogenize the outcomes of social and economic interactions.

We see encountering risk and overcoming it as success. They see risk as a basic enemy of life. And they are willing to sacrifice progress--the result of risk-taking--to eliminate it. In the back of their self-declared kind minds, they believe their ingenuity can substitute for the creative destruction of the marketplace. It's a wonder that they allow our dangerous social interactions, like school and romance.

Perhaps this explains the Left's hysterical, aggressive reaction to the chaotic Virus.

But the Left is tolerant; they do allow for some disorder. They are quite willing to put up with the messy period of social disruption while they sort out who they will allow to assist their leadership. And, of course, the purges. The New State must eliminate all those incapable of seeing the new future. Unanimity is the enemy of risk; the creation of unanimity is not.

Creative disorder, for all its positives, is disorder and will leave pain and failure in its wake. The socialist prefers their own power to create painless stability. And things that look like it, like stasis. And death.

Socialism and Free Association

On this day:
1755
French and Indian War: Braddock Expedition – British troops and colonial militiamen are ambushed and suffer a devastating defeat by French and Native American forces.
1815
Talleyrand becomes the first Prime Minister of France.
1821
470 prominent Cypriots, including Archbishop Kyprianos, are executed in response to Cypriot aid to the Greek War of Independence
1850
U.S. President Zachary Taylor dies, and Millard Fillmore becomes the 13th President of the United States.
1868
The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing African Americans full citizenship and all persons in the United States due process of law.
1875
Outbreak of the Herzegovina Uprising against Ottoman rule, which would last until 1878 and have far-reaching implications throughout the Balkans
1944
World War II: Battle of Tali-Ihantala – Finland wins the Battle of Tali-Ihantala, the largest battle ever fought in northern Europe. The Red Army withdraws its troops from Ihantala and digs into defensive position, thus ending the Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive.
1958
Lituya Bay is hit by a mega-tsunami. The wave is recorded at 524 meters high, the largest in recorded history.
1962
The Starfish Prime high-altitude nuclear test is conducted by the United States of America.
1972
The Troubles: In Belfast, British Army snipers shoot five civilians dead in the Springhill Massacre.

***

Pittsburgh Pirates center fielder Oneil Cruz accepted an invitation Tuesday to compete in Monday's Home Run Derby in Atlanta.


***

In the 1960s and 1970s, scientist Paul Ehrlich popularized the idea that the Earth was being threatened by what he described as a population bomb.

"No intelligent, patriotic American family should have more than two children, and preferably only one," Ehrlich said in a 1970 interview,  warning that crowded U.S. cities faced a "fatal disease — it's called overpopulation."

Prophecy is tougher than it looks.

***

After graduation, many top international students can extend their stays temporarily to work in their fields of study, boosting American companies. This opportunity comes through the Optional Practical Training program—which would end if Mr. Trump’s nominee for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Joseph Edlow, has his way. Such a move would threaten the ability to attract top international students and would jeopardize a talent pipeline for American business.--wsj


***

Socialism and Free Association

The drift towards tyranny is always with us; like gravity, there is always some man or idea spreading an attracting field. Energy is always necessary to prevent a people from being pulled into the tyrant's orbit.

Anne Applebaum, in Iron Curtain, details Stalin's dynastic efforts in Eastern Europe, first as a Nazi partner then as an independent totalitarian contractor. It contains some interesting observations on tyranny as practiced by real experts, first Hitler, then Stalin. Hidden in it is some practical advice for free people.

She references the historian Stuart Finkel, who had the startling observation that communists have always acted more forcibly to undermine free association than to undermine free enterprise. When Lenin launched the New Economic Plan in the 1920s, Applebaum notes, the "systematic destruction of literary, philosophical, and spiritual societies continued unabated." Similarly, in Poland under the Nazis, Germany's war aims were not completely military."The object of the German occupation of Poland," she writes, "had been to destroy Polish civilization." After signing a pact to divide up the region between them, both Hitler and Stalin invaded Poland in September 1939. Under Hitler, much of the country's upper class was executed or sent to concentration camps. Stalin recognized a master when he saw him. The Soviets committed Nazi-style mass murders, most infamously the Katyń Forest massacre, which saw 22,000 Polish officers and other prisoners of war executed. "The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were, for twenty-two months, real allies," Applebaum writes. At the end of the war, there was almost literally nothing left of Warsaw.

After the war, the Soviets in Poland continued this broad cultural warfare. They attacked anti-Nazi groups(!), the Polish Boy Scouts, for example. Catholic Church groups were a high priority with their close-knit communities and their international connections. Some organizations were absorbed. The Polish Women's League, a group of earnest volunteers set up to feed refugees in train stations, was infiltrated by Soviet bureaucrats and turned into a mouthpiece for party dogma.

What Hitler and Stalin later did in Eastern Europe was not an attempt at a simple military victory. Both were attempting to destroy a people, to obliterate the social fabric, to deconstruct the very infrastructure that people used to live and work. Why? Because tyranny can be resisted by a people who see themselves as a people, as an entity. The nucleus of a "people" is hard to control.

Finkle's observation should not be forgotten: Free association is much more dangerous to tyranny than free enterprise.