Assange

Cindy Tappe, a former director of finance and administration at NYU's Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and Transformation of Schools, sent about $3.5 million to a pair of shell companies she controlled between 2012 and 2018, according to prosecutors and the state comptroller's office.


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In May of ’21, CDC falsely claimed that children accounted for 4% of Covid deaths. But the real data showed the true number was four-hundredths of one percent (.04%). Is it a coincidence that this mistake coincided w/CDC’s controversial decision to recommend Pfizer’s Covid vaccine for kids as young as 12? Who’s been held accountable for these mistakes and misinformation?--Atkissson


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Assange

What to do with Mr. Assange...Some cry "Treason!"--but he's not a U.S. citizen. Some say "Spy!"--but he only publicized what was already exposed by the American Manning. (Who is a traitor.) The libertarians are thrilled with his exposing insincerity and duplicity of government--as if this were some news.

Truth is not the question. What was published were copies. True copies. But does truth always have to be said? Is it important to the moral balance of the universe that the lady in the stupid hat--who spent all day working with it and wears it proudly and confidently into the world--knows that everyone around her thinks it's stupid? Or is that truthful insight gratuitously cruel and self important?

But Assange is more than arrogant and gauche; he is destructive. He has a plan of chaos and disorder and the victims of that plan are us. Read what he said to Time magazine: "It is not our goal to achieve a more transparent society; it's our goal to achieve a more just society."..... (If leaks cause U.S. officials to) ...."lock down internally and to balkanize," ...(they will)... "cease to be as efficient as they were." What he wants is to make the system inefficient. He wants the system not to work.

For some reason those with confidence in state power often attack it by asking more of it than it can do.

Well, which part of the system should fail. The electrical grid that runs the respirators? The economic grid that controls contracts and exchange? The military grid and its fail safe mechanisms?

The world is getting more dangerous. Imagine a malicious soul in a commodity exchange computer. Or a bank computer. Or a military one.

The well-poisoner does not want to kill anyone; he wants to destroy the village.

Wills and Obama

Half the protein in your body comes from artificially created nitrogen, a process invented a hundred years ago by Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch. This process combines nitrogen from the air with hydrogen to make ammonia, which is used in fertilizer. In the past century, the Haber-Bosch process improved crop yields, saving the lives of 2.7 billion people who would have otherwise starved to death.

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In Iceland, it was legal to kill Basque people until 2015.

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Twice as many women get tattoos as men: 39% of women and 21% of men have tattoos. The ratio is the same for hidden tattoos, too: 30.2% of women have a hidden tattoo, compared to 16.7% of men.

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Wills and Obama

Garry Wills wrote on Lincoln at Gettysburg, a book that reshaped the relationship between the Constitution, the Civil War, and Lincoln.

Sam Tanenhaus has an article in Prospect on Garry Wills, whom he says "has written better than anybody else about modern America."

An author, historian, and anti-clerical Catholic, Wills has written significant analysis of America and American culture, the most famous work on the Gettysburg Address and its pivotal place in Lincoln's--and America's--history. He is tough, opinionated, and argumentative, a proud mid-westerner, a sports fan, and the husband of a stewardess. But, as Tanenhaus says, "For Wills to argue is not to quarrel, accuse, or even opine. It is to state a hypothesis and then work through it with Euclidean rigor and arcane examples."

"It was Wills who saw, long before it became accepted dogma, that Richard Nixon, the bête noire of American liberals, was himself the “last liberal,” ferociously clinging to the national myth of “the self-made man.” It was Wills who cleared away the nostalgic mist surrounding John F Kennedy and exposed him as the originator of the modern “insurgency presidency,” addicted to reckless “covert actions” that paralleled his illicit bedroom adventures." Wills told Clinton to resign the presidency over Lewinsky the same week Clinton awarded him the National Humanities Medal.

In June 2009. Obama, newly in office and acutely aware of his place in history, wanted to hear what experts had to say. Doris Kearns Goodwin, whose Team of Rivals Obama drew on when he assembled his cabinet (the book also inspired Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln), arranged for eight historians to join Obama and a few staffers for dinner in the White House. The guest list included, among others, Robert Caro (the legendary biographer of President Lyndon Johnson), Robert Dallek (biographies of Kennedy and Johnson), and inevitably, Garry Wills. “It’s a strange thing,” one of the group told Wills afterwards. “You imagine you have a lot to tell the president. But as soon as you’re with him, all you can think to do is tell him how great he is.” Wills argued that Afghanistan was a mistake and would harm him.

The following year the group was invited back--except for Wills. The lesson seems to be that, for politicians, admiration is more important than good advice.

Democracy and its Enemies

 

 

In the 2020 election, The Center for Tech and Civic Life, a previously small Chicago-based nonprofit, quickly amassed hundreds of millions of dollars it donated to local election offices — most notably, $350 million from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.

Where did that money go, exactly, and what influence did it have?

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It seems the important question about Biden is whether he can win, not whether he can lead.

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Democracy and its Enemies

January 6th was the day Biden kicked off his reelection campaign. He picked January 6th as it is the anniversary of the attempt of some enthusiasts to demonstrate in favor of Trump's assertion that the election of 2020 had been rigged. What looked like a riot to the whole world became, in the eyes of the press, a tipping point of near Gettysburg or Shiloh proportion. The Republic trembled and nearly fell before an assault of scores of unarmed citizens led by a guy wearing deer antlers.

If only Lee had known.

Let's say these misguided fools and the Antler Guy actually had plans of upsetting the election. It's a big country; how would they have done it?  We don't know. But let's say they had some secret plan. How would you rate their chances of success? (Assuming the Antler Guy has some wonderful--if, as yet unseen--planning and leadership qualities.) How would they have fared? Against the Feds? The U.S. Marine Corps? 2500 SEALS?

On the other hand, what if the President of the United States promises 'fundamentally transforming the United States of America.' What if the President is so infirm that all of the executive decisions are deferred to a faceless cadre of unelected government employees? What if the national debt rises so high it destabilizes the currency, prompting an alternative world currency and leaving its citizenry impoverished and in despair? What if the integrity and safety of the country are threatened by hundreds of thousands of unvetted, illegal immigrants crossing the border every month with only cursory attention? What if the government becomes so venal, so corrupt, so insincere, and so inept that the people become estranged?

Which scenario threatens the democracy?

Fourth of July

Fourth of July


America had an exceptional revolution, one that did not attempt to define and deliver happiness, but one that set people free to define and pursue it as they please.--Will

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Isonomy guaranteed … equality, but not because all men were born or created equal, but, on the contrary, because men were by nature ... not equal, and needed an artificial institution, the polis, which by virtue of its νόμος would make them equal. --Arendt

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The American Constitution is, as far as I can see, the most wonderful work ever struck off at any given time by the brain and purpose of man---Gladstone

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Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.--Thacher

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Jay Leno had a recurring skit where he asked questions to passers-by on the street--questions most people think are rather simple and obvious. He asked several people what the Fourth of July celebrated, when independence was declared, and who the country separated from. Of course, the results were embarrassing to most of those interviewed. One was particularly interesting. A college instructor knew nothing about the Revolution at all, thought it occurred in the 1920s, and thought China might have been involved.

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A survey published recently said that 27% of people questioned did not know the American Revolution was waged against the British.

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When I was a child in the '50s, the Fourth of July was a great event. The kids decorated their bikes, small local parades were held--every community had some commemoration and the larger communities had fireworks. It was unlike other secular events like Thanksgiving which were delightfully family-oriented; this was a commonly held social event. It was a birthday party. And it was heartfelt. Everyone felt that years ago something of value had been accomplished, something special in the world created. There was a glow.

When Obama was first campaigning, he was asked about American Exceptionalism. (The phrase was de Tocqueville's, from Democracy in America, 1835: "The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one. Their strictly Puritanical origin, their exclusively commercial habits, even the country they inhabit, which seems to divert their minds from the pursuit of science, literature, and the arts, the proximity of Europe, which allows them to neglect these pursuits without relapsing into barbarism, a thousand special causes, of which I have only been able to point out the most important, have singularly concurred to fix the mind of the American upon purely practical objects. His passions, his wants, his education, and everything about him seem to unite in drawing the native of the United States earthward; his religion alone bids him turn, from time to time, a transient and distracted glance to heaven. Let us cease, then, to view all democratic nations under the example of the American people.")

American exceptionalism is a description of how America developed, not what it was.

The phrase has been used since by those who saw America as a point of reference in man's search for freedom and liberty. (It was also used by Stalin as a slur, decrying America's self-held belief that it was somehow excluded from the Marxian class warfare generality.) Obama saw a trap--it would not do to talk of "exceptionalism" when we want all people to be the same, all nations indistinguishable. So, he hedged and said, "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." He, unlike those Americans of just a generation or two ago, does not think that America is unique.

Unique. If that element is lost in this country, a lot has been lost. So, buy a small flag. Decorate your bike.

A Manual of Patriotism

P. O. Joseph signs with St. Louis.

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Henderson wryly notes that, in 2015, a person acquired status by seeing “Hamilton.” By 2020, however, when the masses had made the musical contemptibly popular, former enthusiasts turned against it, saying it insufficiently reflected America’s failings. Its creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, performed the expected grovel: “All the criticisms are valid.”--will

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45 American citizens were killed in the Hamas attack last October 7th and 12 were taken hostage. It was not brought up in the 'Debate."

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A Manual of Patriotism

A recent note suggested citizens read the Declaration of Independence. An interesting idea.

From an article I lost somewhere. Maybe Noonan?

"I’ve spent the past few days reading an old book, one that couldn’t possibly be published today because it’s so full of respect for America. “Manual of Patriotism: For Use in the Public Schools of the State of New York,” runs 461 pages of text and was published in 1900.  

The manual was written after the Legislature passed an 1898 law requiring public schools to display the American flag and “encourage patriotic exercises.” Organized veterans of the Civil War and of the Women’s Relief Corps, who were nurses on the battlefield, pushed for it to “awaken in the minds and hearts of the young” an “appreciation” for “the great deeds” of their nation.

Memorial Day meant a lot to those old veterans, but more was needed. Their generation was passing; they’d given everything to hold the nation together; they wanted the young to understand why.

Unsaid but between the lines: America at the turn of the 20th century was being engulfed by waves of immigrants; they too needed to understand what America is and means to be, so they would love it too.

What a book the manual is, what a flag-waving old classic.

How do you encourage love of country among schoolchildren? You let them have fun. You hold pageants and parades, have them read poems and learn songs. Let them dress up as figures in history and enact great events. This need not be costly: “An old-time coat or dress found in a garrett or unused drawer at home may serve all needful purposes.”

Tell the story of the American flag. The Continental Congress in 1777 said we need a national banner. Here enters the heroic Mrs. Elizabeth Ross of Philadelphia, known as Betsy, who, on the personal request of General Washington, started sewing. The stars and stripes from her hand, “were unfurled at the battle of Brandywine, in 1777. . . . They sang their song of triumph over defeated Burgoyne at Saratoga. . . . They saw the surrender of the enemy at Yorktown; they fluttered their ‘Goodbye’ to the British evacuating New York.”

Have children memorize and recite Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride.” Have them enact the battle of Lexington and Concord and read aloud Emerson’s “Concord Hymn”:

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,

Here once the embattled farmers stood,

And fired the shot heard round the world.

Tell the story of the Mayflower, of the making and meaning of the Compact, of the landing on Plymouth Rock: Quote an old poem: “Here, on this rock, and on this sterile soil, / Began the kingdom, not of kings, but men; / Began the making of the world again.”

Remind children, as Sen. James G. Blaine once said, that the U.S. was long “the only country with a known birthday. All the rest began they know not when, and grew into power, they knew not how.” America wasn’t just some brute force that pushed up from the mud; we announced our birth with a Declaration that was “a revelation”: All men are created equal.

The manual includes a lot of opinions on historical events. One I liked was the assertion that the Civil War ended the day Ulysses S. Grant was buried in 1885. Why? Because America saw who his pallbearers were: “Johnston and Buckner on one side of his bier, and Sherman and Sheridan upon the other.” The first two were generals of the Confederate army, the last two of the Union Army. Henry Ward Beecher wrote that their marching Grant to his tomb was “a silent symbol that liberty had conquered slavery, and peace war.”

You come away from that vignette thinking not only “what men,” but “what a country” that could tear itself in two, murder itself, forgive itself, go on.

Parents, help your children love this country. It will be good for them, and more to the point this country deserves it.

Also when you don’t love something you lose it. We don’t want that to happen."

What the Debate Really Revealed

 

72% of Americans feel Biden is not competent to be president. Yet the race is within 2 points.

How is that possible?

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Murray debated playing in Wimbledon this year. He had back surgery and still has bilateral leg weakness.

Djokovic had knee surgery three weeks ago but will play. Meniscus.

Aryna Sabalenka withdraws with a shoulder injury.

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And, for those who look to the BBC to calm discussions down, David Aaronovitch, who presents Radio 4's Briefing Room show, took to X/Twitter shortly after 5 pm and said: “If I was Biden I'd hurry up and have Trump murdered on the basis that he is a threat to America's security #SCOTUS”.

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Sotomayer's dissent over the 'presidential immunity' decision was so bizarre and unserious that I worry the Supreme Court's high ground of 'designated grownup' might slip away. It was like a Twitter rant.

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The guy breathing easier after the 'immunity' decision is Obama, who ordered a lethal strike on an American citizen without due process.

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What the Debate Really Revealed

In a discussion on the debate this weekend the participants had a surprising take on the event. They felt the Democrats were teetering on a precipice of chaos if they tried to displace Biden but the emphasis was misplaced. The real problem was that Trump had to be defeated because he was of poor character and the proof was he lied 33 times in the debate.

It was surprising to hear that Truth had returned from its long exile from the national stage. Especially the demand for Truth from Biden and his organization. Biden is a notorious confabulator and has been so for his entire political career. (Before his more recent deterioration, he was simply a liar.) But essential to this 'presidential' behavior is its gigantic support system of the media and the party, whose loyalty is solely to winning--to the exclusion of everything, including the health and wellbeing of the nation.

That sacrifice of the safety and betterment of the nation for personal gains, of course, is the definition of the behavior one would characterize as the nation's enemies.

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.