Rabbit... er, Riot Season
R.I.P. Prince Philip
At last, a tribute to the late Prince Philip that is neither tawdry nor in execrable taste.
Bad Week for Michigan
A judge in Michigan has vindicated President Trump by ruling that Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, broke state law when she unilaterally changed election rules concerning absentee balloting in the 2020 election. This ruling legitimizes a key claim made by the Trump legal team in its challenges to the 2020 election....Michigan was not the only state where Democrat state officials unilaterally changed election laws, so this ruling certainly raises legitimate doubts whether Biden truly won the election without invalid votes.
There will be more doubts raised as these matters continue to develop, I'll warrant, until no doubt remains.
UPDATE: More.
Point to Alabama
Alabama's governor was lambasted for appealing to her citizens' personal responsibility instead of imposing mandates. Guess the worm has turned.
Against Gun Control
Gun control has never been a great idea, but it is a worse idea now than ever before. In the wake of a disputed election, with a self-confessed 'conspiracy' having overturned election laws illegally, that is not the time to violate the rights of the citizenry of the United States as those citizens understand their rights.
But as always, these people either don't understand the problem they're trying to fix or are lying about their intentions. Almost all gun violence in America is committed with handguns; they want to ban so-called 'assault weapons,' mostly rifles, which are used in a tiny fraction of illegal violence. Nearly a third of these handguns are stolen by the person who used them; the others are almost all bought on the black market or obtained from 'friends and family' (e.g. fellow gang members), meaning they were stolen along the line. "Ghost guns" are not even a statistical blip, it's a hobbyist phenomenon. Gun control laws will in no way affect the black market, and absent mass seizures of legal handguns -- which isn't even proposed by the current government -- it won't affect the ability of criminals to steal guns.
So no, none of this. It's bad timing, and badly considered anyway.
Plato's Parmenides X, The One V: The End
What Does "Heresy" Mean Anymore?
On Easter Sunday, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) — pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the same church Martin Luther King, Jr. pastored — tweeted a message that subverted the gospel of Christianity and preached utter heresy, rejected by Christian churches for more than a millennium.“The meaning of Easter is more transcendent than the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Whether you are Christian or not, through a commitment to helping others we are able to save ourselves,” Warnock tweeted.
It is easy enough to say, then, that Warnock is probably a heretic by the Eckhart standard, i.e., that he has been informed of his error but continues to teach it. So, however, are all Protestant churches by the Eckhart standard, e.g. on the question of transubstantiation; and as far as I know, accusations of heresy are not regularly floated.
Female Privilege
More on Excess Deaths
JAMA claims that suicide actually declined last year; deaths from overdoses etc. were up by 20,000. Reason reports; link to the JAMA study is there if you want the raw study.