A funny thing happened on the way in to the rally. I rode across the Cherokee boundary lands (not technically a reservation, in spite of the signs they put up that say, "Welcome to the Cherokee Reservation!", because they purchased the land free and clear rather than having it assigned to them by the government). The Eastern Band of Cherokee has decided to allow for recreational marijuana use and sales, and today was apparently the grand opening of their recreational dispensary. There were lots of cars in line to pull in to the dispensary, which included two drive-through lanes as well as a walk-in facility. I did not myself participate except to sit in the heavy traffic. As a consequence of the grand opening, the Cherokee tribal police were out directing traffic to ease the flow around the new dispensary.
A Fine Manly Day
A funny thing happened on the way in to the rally. I rode across the Cherokee boundary lands (not technically a reservation, in spite of the signs they put up that say, "Welcome to the Cherokee Reservation!", because they purchased the land free and clear rather than having it assigned to them by the government). The Eastern Band of Cherokee has decided to allow for recreational marijuana use and sales, and today was apparently the grand opening of their recreational dispensary. There were lots of cars in line to pull in to the dispensary, which included two drive-through lanes as well as a walk-in facility. I did not myself participate except to sit in the heavy traffic. As a consequence of the grand opening, the Cherokee tribal police were out directing traffic to ease the flow around the new dispensary.
The Last Expected Thing
“She’s been a community staple for years,” the source said. “She would pull up to different nightclubs to serve food. She’s given food to the homeless countless times. If you’re someone in her area that patronizes her business, she’s the first one to jump and go overboard.”When the business was finally able to open a storefront off of Dolley Madison Road after the pandemic, the community was excited to welcome another Black restaurant to the scene.“There’s not that many Black businesses around here,” said Mutsa Mukahanana, who visited the restaurant last year after it went viral. “There’s not a lot of options for soul food.”
It sounds like she got her start carrying plates of food to sell in nightclubs, eventually earning enough to open the brick-and-mortar store. Many of her base customers are likely 'exotic dancers,' and while she wants them to come around she also wants the community as a whole to feel like it's a decent place where they can bring their family. The motto of the restaurant, "God did it," is also suggestive of motive, as are the worshipful videos she posts on FB.
Apparently she originally became famous because of a TikTok account called Ride with Yusuf, who loved the place.
"When I had her food last year it was amazing," the TikTok star who goes by the name Ride with Yusuf, and has 140,000 followers, said on Labor Day. "The love and soul she put in that food was amazing."
It's her right and her business, he said before adding that he didn't know anything about her business policies. He said he had nothing but good interactions with her[.]
So if any of you like soul food, and happen to be in Greensboro, I hear it's pretty good.
Fear of Democracy
Happy Birthday D.A.C.
A Targeted Gun Control
The father of Colt Gray, the teen suspect in the Apalachee High School shooting, was arrested, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced Thursday.Colin Gray, 54, is being charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children, the GBI said. The 14-year-old shooting suspect has been charged with four counts of felony murder.GBI Director Chris Hosey said at a news conference Thursday night that the charges against Colin Gray stem from "knowingly allowing his son to possess a weapon." During a brief court hearing Friday morning, Judge Currie Mingledorff II told Colin Gray he faced up to 180 years in prison if he was convicted on all counts. The judge also advised him of his rights, and the father said, "Yes, sir," in response to some questions from the judge.
To my knowledge, this is only the second time this approach has been employed; to be effective, it will need to become a regular and expected thing.
It's novel to charge people with murder when they never killed anyone nor tried to kill anyone. It may be pernicious to do so even if courts and juries agree to the approach.
However, it strikes me that it is a far more likely approach to achieve success at reducing the incidence of these shootings than the sort of global gun-control efforts that tend to be suggested.
Statistically, AR-15s and similar rifles are used in almost no crime; the fact that the exceptions are spectacularly tragic doesn't change the fact that almost all such rifles are "in common use for lawful purposes." There are estimated to be around 20 million of them, but in 2022 rifles of all kinds accounted for only 541 of the ~8,000 firearm homicides. If we assumed for the sake of argument (without evidence, and as is in fact unlikely) that 500 of those were with ARs, and that each death used a separate AR, that would give you a rate of 0.0025%; that means that in a given year, 99.9975% of ARs are not used to murder anyone. Any attempt to solve the problem with global solutions is thus already way up against the point of diminishing returns. The effort required to reduce below 99.9975% is going to be huge and expensive.
Raising the cost for parents who ought to know that their own particular kid is a risk, however, localizes the effort in places where there is a heightened risk. It addresses that 'known wolf' issue: the FBI and the local police knew this kid was a risk, and had in fact interviewed him and his father about it. The tool of holding the parent or guardian responsible gives them a tool they can use to encourage safer gun storage around dangerous youth, or even a decision by the parent to forgo having guns for a few years until the teenager moves on out to other things.
I still have concerns about the morality of charging people for crimes they never even contemplated, let alone committed. Speaking merely about the effectiveness of the tactic, though, it seems like a better bet than other approaches people like to suggest.
Congratulations to AVI
WWII Unravelling
"While You Cowered, We Studied the Blade"
In the aftermath of a recent attack in which a Syrian Islamic extremist wielding a knife murdered three innocent festival goers and wounded eight others, authorities in Germany are pushing forward with a plan to ban knives.According to a report at nbcnews.com, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack by Issa Al H in the western German city of Solingen, a city of about 160,000 residents where a celebration of the city’s anniversary was taking place.
It would be a tremendous irony for Solingen, "The City of Blades," whose steel and sword-making was legendary for centuries, to be the proximate cause of such a ban. Ironic, but they are a fallen people.
UPDATE: Meanwhile in Massachusetts, a ban on blades is struck down on 2nd Amendment grounds.
Legendary
Festivities commenced with singing the national anthem, complete with a colorful prop-plane flyover by local pilots who only charged for gas. About 1,000 attendees turned out on Labor Day weekend to see a lineup that included John Ondrasik of Five for Fighting, Rome Ramirez of Sublime, Aaron Lewis, Cowboy Troy, and Lee Greenwood.
Journalists and other anti-freedom scolds pounced and seized on the specter of Flagstock, demanding answers to questions only they would ask: Should parties be fun? Should country music exist? Should celebrities be allowed to criticize Democrats in public? The New York Times, for example, reported on the handful of angsty UNC fraternity brothers who wished that "a significant portion" of the party funds would be donated to "relief efforts in Gaza." Some of the funds raised will eventually be dispersed to charities such as Back the Blue N.C., the Wounded Warrior Project, and organizations that combat anti-Semitism. The Free Beacon is still awaiting a response about how much money will be donated to Palestinian trans rights organizations.
Yeah, let us know as soon as you hear about that.
Greens Defrauded Too
"Well, it hasn't happened"
The Education of a Free People
[O]f all the things which I have mentioned that which most contributes to the permanence of constitutions is the adaptation of education to the form of government, and yet in our own day this principle is universally neglected. The best laws, though sanctioned by every citizen of the state, will be of no avail unless the young are trained by habit and education in the spirit of the constitution, if the laws are democratical, democratically or oligarchically, if the laws are oligarchical....
Now, to have been educated in the spirit of the constitution is not to perform the actions in which oligarchs or democrats delight, but those by which the existence of an oligarchy or of a democracy is made possible. Whereas among ourselves the sons of the ruling class in an oligarchy live in luxury, but the sons of the poor are hardened by exercise and toil, and hence they are both more inclined and better able to make a revolution. And in democracies of the more extreme type there has arisen a false idea of freedom which is contradictory to the true interests of the state. For two principles are characteristic of democracy, the government of the majority and freedom. Men think that what is just is equal; and that equality is the supremacy of the popular will; and that freedom means the doing what a man likes. In such democracies every one lives as he pleases, or in the words of Euripides, 'according to his fancy.' But this is all wrong; men should not think it slavery to live according to the rule of the constitution; for it is their salvation.
-Aristotle, Politics V.9
In the comments to a post below, I remarked that Tex once said that they want to turn America into the security zone of an airport, but that public schools are run much the same way.
Our public school system is terribly designed for educating a free people. All the rights of citizens are suspended while you are on school grounds. You have no freedom of speech, but may be punished for speaking without permission on any topic. You may certainly not publish and post flyers critical of the government authorities. You have no freedom of movement: you have assigned seats in assigned classes, and to skip school is punishable by law as well as administratively. You certainly have no right to keep and bear arms, nor even to self defense -- our local high school has the policy of having all parties to a fight arrested by the school resource officers, and charged with assault, even if the were clearly defending themselves from a bully with a record of harassing them. There is no freedom from unreasonable search and seizure -- just like at the airport, all bags are subject to search and seizure at any time.
There is no right to a fair trial, or any trial; punishments are meted out by administrative fiat. There is no guarantee the punishment will not be cruel or unusual. Every right an American has by birth and the grace of God is suspended by the schools, and the children are educated that way for a dozen years and more.
A free people needs a different education. Our system is unfit for our purposes. Aristotle said the same thing about his own, and it was in the next generation that democracy was swept away for almost two millennia. One of his students, indeed, was the author of that: someone who'd gotten the education Aristotle thought worthy of a prince rather than a democrat.
It is a powerful thing, education. We allow its corruption at our peril.
Jacobin Not Impressed
1. A $25,000 subsidy for first-time homebuyersThis is a bad idea. It is unfair to people who, even with the subsidy, cannot afford to buy a home and those who prefer to rent. Because it is a demand subsidy without any corresponding price controls, some of the money will also just get captured as higher home prices, negating the affordability goals of the policy....2. A tax credit for building starter homesThis is a bad idea. There is absolutely no reason to believe that the proximate barrier to building more housing is that it is not sufficiently profitable and that we need to therefore sweeten the pot with public subsidies. This is just a waste of money. Moreover, conditioning the receipt of the tax credit on whether the person who buys the home turns out to be a first-time homebuyer, as this proposal does, makes no sense. Home builders do not typically know in advance who they are going to sell it to....3. A ban on price gouging for groceries and foodIt is unclear what this even means.
As noted, these haven't been getting good reviews anywhere. If even Jacobin is against them, it's hard to know who the audience is supposed to be.
Rasmussen: Biden did not win Georgia in 2020
Let's Review: Georgia 2020 Trust DeficitForensic audit blocked100 drop boxes lack surveillance videos20K ballot images - vanished13 election routers - vanished10 Dominion tabulators - vanished148,000 Fulton Cty Mail-ballot signatures unverified
Nor yet done:
Georgia: No records were created capturing 148,000 2020 mail-in ballot outer envelope signatures for matching to Fulton County records because their new electronic sig verification equipment - wasn't used.
Here the wording is actually "Nothing was scanned, your honor." Uh Oh
Georgia:We have an electronic verification system, but we didn’t use it.We have records of voter signatures, but we didn’t use them.We could check our records for you, but it would take forever.Aside from that, judge, is there anything else you’d like?
"...And It Has to Stop."
Coors Beer Joins Harley Davidson
The Dangerous Constitution
"Spark" and School Reform
Trump ripped into “left-wing indoctrination in our schools,” slammed the 1619 Project and asserted that “propaganda” in schools was making students ashamed of their history.To fix all this, he had a solution: a new 1776 Commission that would promote patriotic education.
The first recorded school in Jackson County actually predates the formation of the county by 31 years, as a school was started in Cullowhee Township in 1820.... the East LaPorte school started by Professor A.M. Dawson was renowned for its rigor and quality. A summary written for the Historical Committee of Jackson County NCEA in 1954 recounted, “Prof. A.M. Dawson who with Prof. Hughes, Misses Amaria and Jardedie Dawson, and Misses Ida and Lula Rogers, as assistants, conducted a high school at East LaPorte. This school… was the most notable and efficient one ever taught in this county before 1881.“Dawson had graduated from Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. He came to Jackson County from Tennessee. “With well-balanced scholarship, being equally at home in mathematics, history, science and the languages, and with established reputation, Professor Dawson auspiciously began his four-year remarkable career in Jackson County. Arithmetic, Latin, Greek, philosophy and English grammar were the principal subjects of the curriculum taught. Geography and reading were also taught… Mr. Dawson was a strict disciplinarian and exacted thoroughness from his students. Intolerant of laziness, negligence, disobedience or disorder, he was a stern, unrelenting schoolmaster… There were two Literary Societies. They were the Olympiam, which meant ‘lovers of games,’ and the Phylomathin, which meant ‘lovers of learning.’ These societies met on Friday evenings. Dawson was also the first to introduce baseball as a school sport.”
Emphasis added.
This was not a public school but a private "subscription school," but its presence on the frontier showed that it was not limited to the elites of the day. Voucher programs that aim to replace public school with independent funding would begin to address the downfall our education has suffered by being brought under control of government.
Switching to a model that provided parents with the means to subscribe to a 'subscription school' would not change the fact that we have a class of teachers who are miseducated themselves; finding the right people to instruct the children could be the chief problem.
UPDATE: Dad29 sends an eighth-grade final exam from 1895. The arithmetic section's difficulty sometimes turns on the use of what are now unusual forms of measure (bushel, rod), but clearly students were expected to manage complex calculations for the exam. I'm curious what the measure for 'bushel' was myself; the exam treats it both as a measure of volume and a measure of weight. Question 2 expects you to calculate the number of bushels from a given volume; the third one asks you to calculate it from weight. That implies some specialized knowledge that most of us wouldn't have.
Still, pretty interesting to examine.
The New Yorker on Soldier of Fortune
Not long after their meeting, Donald Trump was wounded on the ear in an assassination attempt. Keating provided an update on her violence forecast: she had become surprisingly sanguine.“There have not been any follow-on attacks or counterattacks, which I think would have happened by now if this had been an Archduke Ferdinand moment,” she said. “I see the hit on Trump as another iteration of the school-shooter, mall-shooter phenomenon, and not as a political flash point. We are not headed for a civil war.”
Interesting Political Videos
From Nicole Shanahan (RFK Jr's VP choice):
From the American Independent Party (whom I'd never heard of before):
They seem to be saying the military industrial complex assassinated both Kennedys. It's well-produced and the TH White quotes are a nice touch. The AIP claims to be the "fastest growing political party in California."
Here's one from the RFK Jr campaign, posted 2 days before he endorsed Trump:
The references to civil war and unity are interesting, but I wonder how he thought he could achieve unity. Or was it just campaign blather?