Wednesday, April 24, 2019

Civil Asset Forfeiture

Ocasio-Cortez Appears On ‘The Price Is Right,’ Guesses Everything Is Free--Headline from Babylon Bee

Chris a lot better yesterday.

As if we don't have enough problems, the U.S. Senate will soon have an Environmental Justice Caucus, to be chaired by three Democrats: Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Tom Carper of Delaware and Cory Booker of New Jersey. Environmental Justice, no less.

I've never read this: In other words, to make the wiretaps appear to be legitimate, GCHQ and others were quietly and off-the-record approached by Brennan and associates over their fears of what a Trump presidency might mean. The British responded by initiating wiretaps that were then used by Brennan to justify further investigation of Trump’s associates. It was all neatly done and constituted completely illegal spying on American citizens by the U.S. government.
The British support of the operation was coordinated by the then-director of GCHQ Robert Hannigan who has since been forced to resign. 

Warren Buffett, the man behind a print-media empire that includes the Buffalo News and Omaha World-Herald, doesn’t think most newspapers can be saved. By 2016, the newspaper industry’s ad revenue was nearly a third of what it was a decade before, falling to $18 billion from $49 billion, according to Pew Research Center. “It upsets the people in the newsroom to talk that way, but the ads were the most important editorial content from the standpoint of the reader,” Buffett said.

More predictions by geniuses in 1970:
1. In January 1970, Life reported, “Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….”
2. Ehrlich sketched out his most alarmist scenario for the 1970 Earth Day issue of The Progressive, assuring readers that between 1980 and 1989, some 4 billion people, including 65 million Americans, would perish in the “Great Die-Off.”
3. Ecologist Kenneth Watt told Time that, “At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.”

Here's a shocker: Legendary reporter Bob Woodward said Sunday that the FBI and CIA’s reliance on the Steele dossier “needs to be investigated” now that the Mueller report has undercut many of the salacious document’s claims.

Showing downward trends in US temperatures over the last 100 years, especially since the 1930s:


Intellectuals, educators and politicians promised that sticking it to the rich was the path to socialist paradise. As government intervention in the economy—particularly through price and exchange controls—damaged living standards, Venezuelans voted for more of it. Little did they know that by targeting the rights of successful entrepreneurs in the name of social justice, they were setting up the country to fail.--O'Grady

This is the anniversary of the first day of the Easter Rebellion in Dublin, 116. 

                                            Civil Asset Forfeiture

Civil asset forfeiture is a practice that allows law enforcement to seize money and property from someone suspected of wrongdoing, but who has not yet been charged with a crime. Many are never charged with a crime and even still find it difficult, if not impossible, to get their seized property back.
At the heart of this practice rests the belief that a person’s property can be charged with a crime, even if the person themselves have not been formally charged or convicted. And the precedent for this was set in medieval England. During this time, if a person was killed by an object or weapon, that item was essentially charged with murder and forfeited to the British Crown. Initially, the item was sold and the money received was given to charitable organizations. Eventually, though, the monarchy began keeping the money for itself. And thus, the very dangerous precedent of civil asset forfeiture was set, and it would later greatly impact the American founding.
The Navigation Act of 1600, part of the broader Navigation Acts, mandated that any ship bringing cargo into the “New World” had to first go through British checkpoints for inspection. Additionally, any cargo ship leaving the American colonies with goods was also required to be checked before continuing on to its destination. The purpose of these inspections, of course, was to ensure that the Crown got its cut of the loot.
Americans were outraged at the taxation policies and unwilling to convict their fellow citizens under the law.  But by charging the property, and not the “pirates” with a crime, the Brits had found a loophole.
Recognizing that enforcing these policies through port inspections was going to be more difficult than initially expected, Britain began incentivizing captains and crews of the Royal Navy, and other agents of the state, to do their dirty work for them. In exchange for their services, those willing to enforce the rules were allowed to keep the seized ships as prizes, which only made the practice more appealing and, thus, more widespread. The Navigation Acts were one of the grievances that finally led the colonists to revolt against the Crown with the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. 
But governments, like people, can rise above principles when money is involved and this country now uses the same technique with criminal cases, particularly drug trafficking.
(from Hunter)

Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Vive la Difference: A Heresy

History is a vast early warning system.--Norman Cousins

Chris was a lot better yesterday.


Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton referred to those killed on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka as "easter worshipers in church". "Christian" could not be spoken.


In a cashless society, the banks would get a piece of every commercial transaction.


Good news: Germany’s armed forces are currently studying the possibility of acquiring nuclear bombers capable of using the new American B61-12 atomic bombs.

It's always worth remembering the predictions of settled science. From 1970:
1. “Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make,” Paul Ehrlich confidently declared in the April 1970 issue of Mademoiselle. “The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”
2. Peter Gunter, a North Texas State University professor, wrote in 1970, “Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”
3. “It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,” declared Denis Hayes, the chief organizer for Earth Day, in the Spring 1970 issue of The Living Wilderness.

Our standard of living is high because we are able to focus on the tasks that we do best and trade for everything else. Imagine life without trade. A world of cottage industry.

Sri Lanka’s government has information indicating the plotters of Easter bombings that killed more than 300 people were reacting to the New Zealand shootings that left 50 Muslims dead in March, the country’s defense minister said.
Oh, so there was a reason.


A new report in Wired magazine details how Iran has been target of a "Shadow Brokers-style" hack campaign which seeks to expose methods, names, and activities behind an elite cyber-espionage team linked to Iran's Ministry of Intelligence. The Shadow Brokers leaks from 2016 famously targeted the National Security Agency, dumping tools used by the agency online, and later resulted some of the most devastating cyberattacks in history such as the NotPetya and Wannacry attacks, which devastated networks all over the world. Now it appears it's Iran's turn to be targeted by a powerful mystery group doxing Iran's foremost hacking team

Fragging was a slang term used to describe U.S. military personnel tossing of fragmentation hand grenades (hence the term “fragging”) usually into sleeping areas to murder fellow soldiers. It was usually directed primarily against unit leaders, officers, and non-commissioned officers. In 1970, 209 fragging incidents caused the deaths of 34 men; in 1969, 96 such incidents cost 34 men their lives.

According to Business InsiderStarbucks will install needle-disposal boxes in bathrooms in stores in at least 25 US markets in the coming months

At least 80% of felony defendants on the state level can't afford an attorney. Funding is so inadequate that defendants became class-action lawsuit plaintiffs in nine states. The suits claimed that states failed to appropriate enough money for their defense, and that the failure was a violation of the defendants' Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Plaintiffs won in three states — Michigan, Montana and New York.  Less that 
of local public defender offices have enough attorneys to meet caseload standards. That drops to less than a quarter on the state level. How can this be? So why should Exxon and Simpson get all the good lawyers? How can a country that professes equality before the law insist on publicly funded birth control and not equal representation before the law? The real question is, why is the legal profession not socialized?

According to tradition, the great English dramatist and poet William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 23, 1564. It is impossible to be certain the exact day on which he was born, but church records show that he was baptized on April 26, and three days was a customary amount of time to wait before baptizing a newborn. Shakespeare’s date of death is conclusively known, however: it was April 23, 1616.

                        Vive la Difference: A Heresy

 “It does appear that on many, many different human attributes — height, weight, propensity for criminality, overall IQ, mathematical ability, scientific ability – there is relatively clear evidence that whatever the difference in means – which can be debated – there is a difference in the standard deviation, and variability of a male and a female population. And that is true with respect to attributes that are and are not plausibly, culturally determined.”
This observation was made by Lawrence Summers when he was president of Harvard and the negative reaction was so great that it cost him his job. The argument did not seem to be with the observation but that it was taken seriously rather than accepted as a distortion, the result of bigotry, harassment, deprivation and misguided social convention.

That said, there is this, collected by Perry:


 Births and Deaths 
  • For every 100 girl babies who die in the first 27 days of life 125 boy babies die.
  • For every 100 girl babies who die after the first 27 days but in the first year of life 127 boy babies die.
  • For every 100 girls ages 1 to 4 years who die 126 boys die.
  • For every 100 girls ages 5 to 14 years who die 133 boys die.
  • For every 100 girls and women ages 15 to 24 years who die 280 boys and men die.
  • For every 100 women ages 25 to 34 who die 232 men die.

2. Special Education 

Monday, April 22, 2019

Crichton on Environmentalism

Actually, the governments are not interested in eliminating monopolies; rather, they try to create conditions to enable producers to force monopoly prices on the market.--von Mises

Happy Earth Day, a creepy secular day after Easter.

An excellent dinner at Jeff and Amy's. Nice time.
The scene-setting in GoT is clever and suspenseful, but maddening.
Chris was more sore yesterday.
Ned has a plan for me and the writing project.
Christina bought Liz' brunch yesterday and Liz was going out to buy a stranger dinner. I'm not sure how it worked out--socialism always working out better with people you know.

Almost 100 students at the UK’s top universities have requested to change their gender on official records.


The British art historian Ernst Gombrich believed that, although human beings have a deep psychological attraction to order, perfect order in art is uninteresting. ‘However we analyse the difference between the regular and the irregular,’ he wrote in The Sense of Order (1979), ‘we must ultimately be able to account for the most basic fact of aesthetic experience, the fact that delight lies somewhere between boredom and confusion.’ Too much order, we lose interest. Too much disorder, and there’s nothing to be interested in. 

Among the Class of 2018, 69% of college students took out student loans, and they graduated with an average debt of $29,800, including both private and federal debt. Meanwhile, 14% of their parents took out an average of $35,600 in federal Parent PLUS loans. Americans owe over $1.56 trillion in student loan debt, spread out among about 45 million borrowers. That’s about $521 billion more than the total U.S. credit card debt. 11.5% of student loans are 90 days or more delinquent or are in default.
Average monthly student loan payment (among those not in deferment): $393.What makes the statistics even more alarming is that only about 15 percent of student debt is private debt. Most of the money borrowed by students was borrowed from the deep pockets of the government.

There is a lot going on. Here are two astonishing climate videos that are out there with a common theme, children:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=432&v=d9uTH0iprVQ
and   https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=239&v=FWsM9-_zrKo





Even more than a quarter of a century from now, the Department of Energy forecasts that fossil fuels will still be the dominant energy source, providing 79 percent of our energy needs in 2050. So, despite former President Obama’s frequent dismissals of oil and fossil fuels as “energy sources of the past,” government forecasts tell a much different story of a hydrocarbon-based energy future where fossil fuels will serve as the dominant energy source to power our vehicles, heat and light our homes, and fuel the growing economy.
Further, Obama’s energy policies focused on forcing U.S. taxpayers to “invest” in politically favored “energy sources of the future” – renewables like solar and wind — instead of expanding production of oil, natural gas, and coal. But again, government data tell a much different story. Even after billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies for renewable energy, all renewables together (including hydroelectric power, biomass, solar, and wind) last year provided only 11.4 percent of America’s energy, which was just slightly greater than the 9.3 percent share that renewables provided in 1949, nearly 70 years ago – that’s not a lot of progress for the politically popular but very expensive renewables.
When it comes to solar and wind, those two energy sources combined provided only 3.2 percent of America’s energy in 2017 – an almost insignificant amount, especially wind’s contribution of less than 0.8 percent, or just a little more than a rounding error in the overall energy picture. Even in 2050, all renewables together will provide only 14.9 percent of our nation’s energy – not that much higher than renewable’s 9.3 percent share of energy in 1949! (from Perry)

                        Crichton on Environmentalism


The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance.  
We must daily decide whether the threats we face are real, whether the solutions we are offered will do any good, whether the problems we're told exist are in fact real problems, or non-problems. Every one of us has a sense of the world, and we all know that this sense is in part given to us by what other people and society tell us; in part generated by our emotional state, which we project outward; and in part by our genuine perceptions of reality. In short, our struggle to determine what is true is the struggle to decide which of our perceptions are genuine, and which are false because they are handed down, or sold to us, or generated by our own hopes and fears.
As an example of this challenge, I want to talk today about environmentalism...... 
Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it’s a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths. There’s an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there’s a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe.
Eden, the fall of man, the loss of grace, the coming doomsday—these are deeply held mythic structures. They are profoundly conservative beliefs. They may even be hard-wired in the brain, for all I know. I certainly don’t want to talk anybody out of them, as I don’t want to talk anybody out of a belief that Jesus Christ is the son of God who rose from the dead. But the reason I don’t want to talk anybody out of these beliefs is that I know that I can’t talk anybody out of them. These are not facts that can be argued. These are issues of faith.
And so it is, sadly, with environmentalism. Increasingly it seems facts aren’t necessary, because the tenets of environmentalism are all about belief. It’s about whether you are going to be a sinner, or saved. Whether you are going to be one of the people on the side of salvation, or on the side of doom. Whether you are going to be one of us, or one of them. Am I exaggerating to make a point? I am afraid not. Because we know a lot more about the world than we did forty or fifty years ago. And what we know now is not so supportive of certain core environmental myths, yet the myths do not die.....

From REMARKS TO THE COMMONWEALTH CLUB
by Michael Crichton - San Francisco - September 15, 2003  

Sunday, April 21, 2019

Happy Easter!

I can calculate the motions of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people--Newton


Chris had an active day.

And the chicks for free: The General Medical Council in England found Dr. Andrew Wakefield's 1998 study in the Lancet claiming a link between the MMR vaccine and autism to be fraudulent. Yet Wakefield is now a celebrity anti-vaccine activist in the United States and has left his long-suffering wife for the supermodel Elle Macpherson. Anti-vax campaigning is a lucrative business. (Ridley)

An unchallenged theme has emerged on some reflective writings: The decline of the liberal world order. They note a shift to the East as China and India grow, a shift to militarism as Russia and China expand their influence and the U.S. compensates for its declining economic influence with increasing military presence, although many are claiming that the Americans are becoming dangerously disinterested. They point to a growing discontent among people of the West (populism, nationalism, nativism) as the average Western guy's influence (and economic stability) declines. Uniformly these articles blame the increased globalism as the underlying cause of this discontent and seem to suggest that its solution is more globalism. Not all of that can be right.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has a proposal to ban foreigners from buying U.S. farmland. Warren says foreigners threaten "food security," hence "national security," too. Food security.

The British Labour Party, whose charter had once propounded a complete end to capitalism, branded itself in the 1990s as the party of business.

There is a weird debate going on over the participation of women in hard science. Some academics are beginning to fear the institutionalization of anti-science thinking and affirmative action imposition on science to compensate for the lower numbers of women in the field. This is from an article by Alessandro Strumia,  a theoretical physicist at the University of Pisa and a "former guest professor at CERN:"
"...the Higher Male Variability (HMV) hypothesis was first put forward by Charles Darwin in The Descent of Man (1871), along with several other ideas now deemed “offensive.” Psychometric tests indicate that men and women perform, on average, equally well when it comes to different cognitive skills, but men are more common at both the low and the high ends of the distributions. So there’s greater variability among men when it comes to these traits than women. The relevance of HMV for physics and STEM has been discussed by, among others, the former Harvard theorist Lubos Motl, the former Harvard president Lawrence Summers, and by the former Google engineer James Damore. They were all attacked on political grounds, not primarily on scientific grounds. Indeed, in the polemics that followed most experts confirmed the HMV hypothesis, with different groups of scientists reaching the following conclusions: “Males are more variable on most measures of quantitative and visuospatial ability, which necessarily results in more males at both high- and low-ability extremes”; “Substantial evidence suggests that the male advantage in mathematics is largest at the upper end of the ability distribution”; “On average, male variability is greater than female variability on a variety of measures of cognitive ability, personality traits, and interests. This means men are more likely to be found at both the low and high end of these distributions”..."

$20 trillion dollars--$20 Trillion-- has been spent on poverty programs since 1965.

Break the box and shed the nard;
Stop not now to count the cost;
Hither bring pearl, opal, sard;
Reck not what the poor have lost;
Upon Christ throw all away:
Know ye, this is Easter Day. (Hopkins)


                                           Happy Easter!

Easter is the essential Christian event. Every aspect of the Christian church hinges on Christ's resurrection.

The gospel is extremely well written, filled with little particulars (the woman hesitant to enter the tomb, Peter being outrun to the tomb, the meticulous arrangement of the burial cloths, the assumption that the body was stolen--after the assumption by the Pharisees that the apostles would steal it)--all giving misdirection and specificity to what becomes the philosophical earthquake of all time.

Yet how does this all hinge? Hearsay? The interpretation of a sacred book? Amulets and magic rites? No. Amazingly it hinges on us.

By the time Christ rises, we know all the players. We even have some insights about them. They are not revolutionaries, not mystics and, while seemingly sincere, they are not special. They are relatively normal working folks with responsibilities and, probably, annoyed families. As seen by their behavior during the Passion, they are not fully aware of what is happening. Nor are they particularly brave. Yet, after this crisis where their leader is tortured and killed, they somehow emerge as philosophers and martyrs. They all, to a man, experience a mind-changing, life-changing event. Scattered and leaderless they raise a religious movement that challenges everything in its time and, eventually, forces mighty Rome to adapt. 

Christ performed the great, unarguable miracle. It was the behavior of men, people, who confirmed and developed it. No leap of faith was necessary. They were convinced and changed. Then they convinced and changed the world.

Saturday, April 20, 2019

Easter Eve

The turkey was fed and sheltered for 1000 consecutive days, but this did not mean the butcher loved him.--anon

Holy Saturday. Chris had a good day. The Librarian brought dinner. And he's moving well this morning.
Mom and I had a good dinner at Zinho.
Ned and Liz went to Les Mis. Mixed reviews.


Two headlines from the WashPo:

"Report Lays Out Obstruction Evidence Against Trump"
"Trump Uses Profanity."

So what team is the best in the National League so far? The Pirates are 11-6, the best in the NL Central. I know, I know. But so far, they can really pitch. (Although they are clearly not very bright. And Polanco isn't playing yet.) Polanco, Elias Diaz, Lonnie Chisenhall and Corey Dickerson are all legitimate players who have yet to play. Somebody named Shuck is playing in the outfield.



Johns Hopkins University wants to hire 100 armed police officers to patrol its campuses, hospital and surrounding neighborhoods. The hospital president, Dr. Redonda Miller testified in Annapolis hearings that patients and employees are “scared when they walk home, they’re scared when they walk to their cars.” Philadelphia’s Temple University police department is the largest university police force in the United States, with 130 campus police officers, including supervisors and detectives.
Universities have become armed camps.
A flight attendant has reportedly fallen into a “deep coma” after contracting measles, according to health authorities.
The 43-year-old female El Al Airlines flight attendant was admitted to a hospital after coming down with a fever on March 31, CBS News reports. 

Under current law, a federal tax credit of up to $7,500 is available to consumers of the first 200,000 electric vehicles sold by each manufacturer, after which the credit is phased out. This new legislation will allow for the purchase of an additional 400,000 electric vehicles to be eligible for a $7,000 credit. Almost 80% of those utilizing the EV tax credit have incomes over $100,000, making it not just a corporate handout but also a transfer from all workers to wealthier Americans. Because all personal vehicles in the United States account for only a small fraction of global greenhouse gas emissions, even an unrealistic influx of electric vehicles would prove to be negligible.
An aside: 27.4% of American electricity--including the electricity put int the batteries of EVs--comes from coal-fired plants.

Q: What did socialists use before barter? 
A: Money.
Q: What did socialists use before candles?
A: Electricity.

The UNC women's basketball coach Sylvia Hatchell has resigned after making what was said to be a racially insensitive comment.
The offending phrase was, "We're going up to Louisville. Those people are going to be waiting with nooses to hang you from trees."
While the parents differed on the exact wording of Hatchell's statement, they were unanimous in saying their daughters heard the words "noose" and "tree."
Are these illegal words or only when in the same sentence?

In 1938, 11 percent of blacks were born to unmarried women. By 1965, that number had grown to 25 percent. Now it’s about 75 percent. Even during slavery, when marriage between blacks was illegal, a higher percentage of black children were raised by their biological mothers and fathers than today. In 1940, 86 percent of black children were born inside marriage. Today, only 35 percent of black children are born inside marriage.


Perhaps they are following the advice of white liberal academics such as Johns Hopkins professor Andrew Cherlin who in the 1960s argued that “the most detrimental aspect of the absence of fathers from one-parent families is not the lack of a male presence but the lack of male income.” Cherlin’s vision suggested that fathers were unimportant and if black females “married the government,” black fathers would be redundant.


                                   Easter Eve

For all its importance, Easter in the New Testament is treated more as a challenge to Christ's followers than the challenge to nature and the intellect that it is. There are several descriptions that vary considerably; in one the confused followers find a empty tomb with some linen fallen underfoot, some strangely, neatly folded. But in most the empty tomb is mediated by some extraordinary event or individual, earthquake or angel. Then the story seems to go into suspended animation. There is no cataclysmic epiphany. The realization is gradual--in typical biblical cosmic humor, the first witness are not even legal witnesses as they are women. Christ's astonishing miracle is made clear and defined slowly to various individuals, one at a time.
As befits a collision of the physical and the spiritual which results in a new supernatural order.

Friday, April 19, 2019

Five Charts

“If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, top-heavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of ‘facts’ they feel stuffed, but absolutely ‘brilliant’ with information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving. And they’ll be happy, because facts of that sort don’t change.” ― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Good Friday. Chris had a tougher day yesterday but is still doing very well.
Mom and Mrs. Buchman went to the movies, The Aftermath, and both liked it. (Keira Knightly)
The local sports shows were horrified about how disappointed the Penguin management sounded about their team. Rutherford praised his defense but really was critical of the vets. Listening to them, I have no idea what they will do.
Last night's Washington game was wild.


What does it tell about a culture when people are hoping the President is a traitor? What does it say when a sizable portion of the citizenry thinks it likely? Or believes its own manufactured political smear? What does it mean when the Press and the Democrats are surprised by a report which was publicly summarized the previous week?
Does the presumption of innocence still apply here? Barr was attacked by the Press for obscuring a report that was to be released 90 minutes later. Schiff claimed knowledge of collusion but Mueller didn't find it; Adam Schiff is the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
Can you have collusion involving events that are not criminal, or when does defending yourself from an unjust accusation become obstruction? A lot of politicians are saying that this event casts a cloud over Trump; they may be underestimating the size of the cloud. I wonder if attacking Barr is a good plan; he looks like a guy who might take an attack on his integrity seriously. And maligning Barr for Mueller's report is pretty weird. But the weirdest was the “does not exonerate” quote Mueller threw in; has such a thing ever been done before? Or is it just a pandering self-serving judgmental non-sequitur?
Maybe Diogenes had no high aim of finding an honest man, maybe he was just looking for a grownup.

National Enquirer, along with two of its sister publications, will be purchased by the head of Hudson Media, whose family used to own the Hudson chain of airport newsstands.

The two new changes to damage savers and to punish people who believe government, the SECURE act and RESA, are both getting some popular press. Under the SECURE act, non-spousal beneficiaries would have to take out all the money within ten years. The Senate version forces all distributions to occur over five years if the account is worth more than $400,000. Make all the previous posturing about retirement, lies.

The offer of money to rebuild Notre Dame has inspired criticisms of inequality and white privilege.

"In 2014 alone, the U.S. government misspent or lost over $125 billion of taxpayer monies." I read this recently and thought it an outrageous exaggeration. Then I read this: Using public data from federal databases, Mark Skidmore, a professor of economics at Michigan State University, found that $21 trillion in unsupported adjustments had been reported by the Defense and Housing and Urban Development departments between 1998 and 2015. these are astonishing numbers, astonishing incompetence and criminality. That’s about $65,000 for every American. That's the debt.

Big day in history. On this day in 1775, 700 British troops, on a mission to capture Patriot leaders and seize a Patriot arsenal, marched into Lexington to find 77 armed minutemen under Captain John Parker waiting for them on the town’s common green. British Major John Pitcairn ordered the outnumbered Patriots to disperse, and after a moment’s hesitation the Americans began to drift off the green. Suddenly, a shot was fired from an undetermined gun, and a cloud of musket smoke soon covered the green. When the brief Battle of Lexington ended, eight Americans lay dead or dying and 10 others were wounded. Only one British soldier was injured. But that battle led to Concord later in the morning, then the retreat to Boston. The American Revolution had begun.


Concord Hymn


Sung at the Completion of the Battle Monument, July 4, 1837
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. 

The foe long since in silence slept; 
   Alike the conqueror silent sleeps; 
And Time the ruined bridge has swept 
   Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. 

On this green bank, by this soft stream, 
   We set today a votive stone; 
That memory may their deed redeem, 
   When, like our sires, our sons are gone. 

Spirit, that made those heroes dare 
   To die, and leave their children free, 
Bid Time and Nature gently spare 
   The shaft we raise to them and thee.


                                   Five Charts


Populations


It was as recently as 2012 when the number of couples without children globally surpassed the number of those with children.


Taxes in a Vacuum

Sowell's argument that taxes are only numbers and do not predict returns because it does not know the taxed victim's response is no better seen than in this graph:



So many of these government plans and ideas depend upon a static, unresponsive community. Most governments deny the very existence of incentives, whether positive or negative. Government sees its citizens as slugs.


Specific Population Declines


The decelerating pace of population decline has made Japan, once a thriving empire and global economic powerhouse, the country with the highest rate of natural population decline in the world. Some European countries, including Bulgaria and Romania, are seeing their populations decline at a faster rate, but this is mostly driven by immigration. The pace at which Japan's population is declining has even outpaced Venezuela, even as widespread starvation and societal collapse have driven millions of people out of the country over the past five years.
Japan

Long vs Short Term holdings of stocks:



Police Deaths