Arizona would like its citizens to be forced to give up their DNA for a massive state database, and pay $250 for the privilege.
American governments have gotten to big for their britches. Especially the law-enforcement branches, to include (as that essay does) the FBI and DOJ.
We need to break them to saddle.
You can't fire me!
It's a cry you hear from union workers, civil servants, and people with ironclad employment contracts. Usually not so much from restaurant workers. New York is out there on the cutting edge, considering laws to prevent restaurant operators from firing a worker when they conclude they can't stay in business if they have to pay him the new minimum wage. Will New York force the restaurants out of business? Will we then learn that the market has failed, so the government has to step in and supply this essential service? At least that way the worker can get civil service protection. Of course, the restaurants may be about as good as the DMV and siphon off a lot of New York tax dollars, which will spur Cuomo to complain even more bitterly that Florida is stealing his citizens.
MAGA Hat Threatens Armed Man
It's perfectly understandable self-defense given such a provocation.
Police in Bowling Green, Kentucky, say James Phillips was arrested after witnesses said he pulled a gun inside a Sam’s Club outlet because the victim was wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat.... Police reported that store surveillance video substantiates Phillips’ story and that he never laid a hand on the Trump-hating assailant.I have seen people wearing MAGA hats on rare occasion around here, but they're not common. I suspect the sense that you might get shot for wearing one -- or beaten, or robbed, or become the subject of a nationwide Three Minutes' Hate -- is one reason they are not all that popular even in the rural South.
Officials said that when he was arrested, Phillips had a .40 caliber Glock handgun with a bullet in the chamber sitting in his pocket . He also had two extra loaded magazines on his person.
Selective taboos
At Powerline, a refreshing look at when the concept of personal responsibility is allowed to intrude on policy discussions, and when it can be dismissed as cruel.
In the case of “Detroit,” we must decide how far to go in order to improve, in the short term, the material condition of the population. How much should we spend on welfare? How lenient should we be with criminals? Should there be monetary reparations? Should there be forced integration?
In the case of rural America, the policy questions prompted by Carlson are different. How much trade protection should certain American industries receive? To what extent should we limit legal immigration?
The answer in both cases depends in part on how much weight we place on the concept of personal responsibility. Those who take the concept seriously will be less inclined to transfer vast amounts of money, or to tolerate high risk associated with the early release of criminals, than those who don’t.
They will also be less inclined to think Americans should pay more for consumer goods as a result of trade barriers and restrictions on the number of people who can work in the U.S. They may ask how much more they should pay for cars because males in rural America are making irresponsible personal choices.
The best answer might well be “somewhat more.” Even for conservatives, the concept of personal responsibility isn’t absolute. We are willing to spend a considerable amount of money on welfare even though we know that if recipients made better choices, we would be able to spend considerably less.
Storm memento
A too-infrequent guest from Houston arrived this year with a bowl turned from a downed oak trunk that he took home with him last year. I'd forgotten he took it, so the gift was a delightful surprise.
Citizenship Tests
Perhaps we should consider stripping voting rights from anyone who can't pass the test? I am saddened to see that the South does particularly badly here, although only Vermont has a majority with a passing score (and that barely).
Seizing and pouncing
Or is it pouncing and then seizing? Let's go to the video:
Whatever it is, I'm sure it's very unfair to tasty Democrats.
Whatever it is, I'm sure it's very unfair to tasty Democrats.
Get To Work, Fellow Oppressors
Apparently we're really letting some people down by not being out there beating and harassing our opponents. I blame myself; I haven't threatened anybody in at least a week or two.
Well, not intentionally. Some people seem to be threatened by our very existence, but apparently that's not enough.
UPDATE: And then there were two.
Well, not intentionally. Some people seem to be threatened by our very existence, but apparently that's not enough.
UPDATE: And then there were two.
Small Victories
The border fight we've been having has faced stiff opposition from both Democrats and some Republicans, a few because they fear convincing Latinos that they are racists but most because they are interested in helping their donors depress the price of labor. Nevertheless, all the news isn't bad; there have been some compromises.
Trump and GOP negotiators led by Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and his team blocked several moves by Pelosi and other Democrats to fill the deal with anti-wall moves like lowering spending for ICE and slashing the number of “detention beds” to hold criminal illegal immigrants.In addition, the NYT reports, the tough border policies are causing some people to give up and go home -- or to choose life in Mexico, which offered them asylum.
“Pelosi lost. She knew her position on detentions beds was unsustainable and only playing to her fringe. She also said no new miles for the wall,” said the source. “She had to step back from all positions.”
Compared to a simple continuing resolution, or CR, with nothing extra beyond current spending levels set in fiscal 2018, Trump gained extra funding for the wall.... “nearly three times as much as would have been available under a CR,” said the source.
On detention beds, the number increased 13 percent over fiscal 2018. And when another $750 million in transfer and reprogramming authority is added in, it represents a 44 percent increase, said the source.
What’s more, the bill provides historic funding levels for ICE and Customs and Border Protection, a rejection of liberal efforts to kill the agencies. It was a 7 percent budget increase for a combined $21.5 billion.
[T]housands of caravan members who had been waiting to seek asylum in the United States appear to have given up, Mexican officials said, dealing President Trump an apparent win after a humbling week for his immigration agenda.There's reason to be annoyed that the Republican Congress never ponied up money for a wall, and there's reason to be annoyed about the use of unconstitutional emergency powers that no president should really have. If you believe that a nation has to control its borders to remain stable, however, there is some good news too.
About 6,000 asylum seekers who had traveled en masse, many of them in defiance of Mr. Trump’s demands that they turn around, arrived in Northern Mexico in late November as part of a caravan that originated in Honduras. Since then, more than 1,000 have accepted an offer to be returned home by the Mexican government, the officials said. Another 1,000 have decided to stay in Mexico, accepting work permits that were offered to them last fall, at the height of international consternation over how to deal with the growing presence of migrant caravans.
Rye Whiskey
Gringo raises the similarity between two different folk songs in the comments below. In fact there's a fair number of folk songs who have similar lines. I like this one because it pieces very many of them together.
"Jack of diamonds, Jack of Daniels.."
They know a lot of the old songs.
"Jack of diamonds, Jack of Daniels.."
They know a lot of the old songs.
Cultural Appropriation!
No, no, that should be a good American version, like this:
Er, no, wait...
All those old Prohibition songs end up being better advertisements for a drop of the pure.
It's because they were wrong, of course. But that was an American song first, you Irish cultural appropriators!
UPDATE:
Not that cigarettes are good for you. Tex Williams is dead now, more's the pity.
The Man Who Strangled a Mountain Lion Gave an Interview
I haven't found the text yet, but it looks like he's doing all right.
What's with these crushed Asians?
(Who remembers that Gilda Radner skit?) Actually what I wanted to write about is a Department of Labor lawsuit against tech giant Oracle for discriminating against the usual suspects. This caught my eye as a complaint about how Asian-heavy the tech jobs are at Oracle:
And this is what the Asian statistics look like even with the Ivy League schools grinding them into the dirt as hard as they know how.
Some of the new claims also substitute broad statistics for refined analysis. For example, as the Wall Street Journal points out, the DOL relies for its hiring discrimination claim on evidence that 82 percent of employees hired by Oracle for technical positions are Asians, whereas Asians were “only” 75 percent of applicants.It sounds to me like being in the ballpark if the racial quotas for applicants and hirees are within 10% or so, so I can't get too excited about the ratio of 75% to 82%. But seriously, 3/4 of the applicants are Asian? Are we not supposed to notice this? Are we supposed to think that's irrelevant to questions about what aspects of race might be important in job statistics besides allegations of racism?
And this is what the Asian statistics look like even with the Ivy League schools grinding them into the dirt as hard as they know how.
Got That Gentrification Problem Licked
I had thought that it was part of a Congressperson's job to try to obtain investment in their communities, but apparently that's wrong.
“Anything is possible: today was the day a group of dedicated, everyday New Yorkers & their neighbors defeated Amazon’s corporate greed, its worker exploitation, and the power of the richest man in the world."
Yeah, you sure showed him.
“Anything is possible: today was the day a group of dedicated, everyday New Yorkers & their neighbors defeated Amazon’s corporate greed, its worker exploitation, and the power of the richest man in the world."
Yeah, you sure showed him.
Lufthansa sues passenger
Okay, with a headline like that, you know it has to be good stupid. Oh boy, is it.
https://www.npr.org/2019/02/13/694352593/lufthansa-airlines-sues-customer-who-skipped-part-of-his-return-flight
In short, the passenger booked a round trip flight from Oslo to Seattle (with a layover in Frankfurt) for about $741. While returning from Seattle, he then got off in Frankfurt and thence flew to Berlin on a completely separate ticket. Lufthansa says that the cost of his flight ought to have been about $2300 more if he had bought it "properly", and wants him to pay the difference.
So let's make this simple. Let's say you want to get from New York to LA. But the flights are more expensive than a flight from New York to Lake Tahoe that has a layover in LA. So by buying the NY>LA>Tahoe ticket and just getting off in LA, you save money. But then the airline catches wind of it and demands you to pay the difference since you really wanted a NY>LA flight.
One would hope you'd tell them to pound sand. You took advantage of their pricing. "But then they can't sell the seat from LA to Tahoe!" Wrong! That seat was sold, you paid for it. Whether you use it or not is immaterial, it was paid for in full by you. And this argument is doubly rich from an industry that thinks little of double-booking seats because they expect passengers to miss flights or not fly for some reason.
But what truly amuses me is that Lufthansa's argument explicitly says that if you buy a ticket you are obligated to use all parts of the ticket, or else they'll sue. Which leads me to the idea that if they believe that missing (or not taking) a flight grants them the right to charge you for the price of a ticket from your origin to the layover city you actually stop at, then that allows them to demand money from every passenger stranded in a layover city every time there's a weather cancellation, or mechanical problem, or other flight delay. Talk about perverse incentives!
https://www.npr.org/2019/02/13/694352593/lufthansa-airlines-sues-customer-who-skipped-part-of-his-return-flight
In short, the passenger booked a round trip flight from Oslo to Seattle (with a layover in Frankfurt) for about $741. While returning from Seattle, he then got off in Frankfurt and thence flew to Berlin on a completely separate ticket. Lufthansa says that the cost of his flight ought to have been about $2300 more if he had bought it "properly", and wants him to pay the difference.
So let's make this simple. Let's say you want to get from New York to LA. But the flights are more expensive than a flight from New York to Lake Tahoe that has a layover in LA. So by buying the NY>LA>Tahoe ticket and just getting off in LA, you save money. But then the airline catches wind of it and demands you to pay the difference since you really wanted a NY>LA flight.
One would hope you'd tell them to pound sand. You took advantage of their pricing. "But then they can't sell the seat from LA to Tahoe!" Wrong! That seat was sold, you paid for it. Whether you use it or not is immaterial, it was paid for in full by you. And this argument is doubly rich from an industry that thinks little of double-booking seats because they expect passengers to miss flights or not fly for some reason.
But what truly amuses me is that Lufthansa's argument explicitly says that if you buy a ticket you are obligated to use all parts of the ticket, or else they'll sue. Which leads me to the idea that if they believe that missing (or not taking) a flight grants them the right to charge you for the price of a ticket from your origin to the layover city you actually stop at, then that allows them to demand money from every passenger stranded in a layover city every time there's a weather cancellation, or mechanical problem, or other flight delay. Talk about perverse incentives!
"Demonic Males" and Morality
A piece of Darwinian theory, which I have not finished reading, and am posting here chiefly to remind me to get back to it. It may be of interest to many of you, too.
Yeah, That Makes Sense...?
Her office pushed back against the notion that it was hypocritical for Ocasio-Cortez, who has made housing affordability one of her top policy concerns, to move into a luxury building. A spokesman pointed out that her office also uses a car with an "internal combustion engine that runs on fossil fuels," even though she thinks their use should be eliminated.Her spokesman said that.
Republicans sabotage Green New Deal... by calling for a vote?
It's true. According to Senator Markey (co-sponsor of the Green New Deal), when Sen. McConnell called for a vote on the proposal, that's sabotaging it.
http://reason.com/blog/2019/02/13/green-new-deal-vote-markey-aoc-mcconnell
No honestly, you can't make this up. "This is a list of things we want!" "Okay, let's vote on it." "You just want to avoid a national debate about it!"
No, what's more likely is that Sen. Markey realizes the same thing that Sen. McConnell has. That it's unpassable, unworkable, and that by forcing Democrats (many of whom are running for their party's nomination for President) to vote on it, they will either have the albatross of this pile of Green dung tied around their neck, or they will be forced to repudiate it and this tick off their base.
It's not sabotage, Sen. Markey. It's being hoist in your own petard.
http://reason.com/blog/2019/02/13/green-new-deal-vote-markey-aoc-mcconnell
No honestly, you can't make this up. "This is a list of things we want!" "Okay, let's vote on it." "You just want to avoid a national debate about it!"
No, what's more likely is that Sen. Markey realizes the same thing that Sen. McConnell has. That it's unpassable, unworkable, and that by forcing Democrats (many of whom are running for their party's nomination for President) to vote on it, they will either have the albatross of this pile of Green dung tied around their neck, or they will be forced to repudiate it and this tick off their base.
It's not sabotage, Sen. Markey. It's being hoist in your own petard.
Incandescent Beauty
An argument that the world is too beautiful to explained by natural selection, which begins with another bird example:
The way the theory works, of course, is that it's a kind of accident; natural selection doesn't necessarily mean that changes are useful, it just tends to strip away the ones that aren't via extinction. If the birds are 'good enough' at surviving in other ways, these kinds of extravagances can survive. But this is only one example; it turns out that nature seems to strive for beauty in many other ways.
It's a point Hannah Arendt made some years ago. She pointed out that animals are quite ugly internally -- intestines and the like -- but not externally. She reasoned that there was something about life that strives to be seen as beautiful. That's interesting, especially since so much of life lacks eyes that see; but even starfish are beautiful, in their way. In fact, it extends beyond life. Galaxies certainly are beautiful, and they're almost accidents. Waves on the ocean; sunsets.
A male flame bowerbird is a creature of incandescent beauty. The hue of his plumage transitions seamlessly from molten red to sunshine yellow. But that radiance is not enough to attract a mate. When males of most bowerbird species are ready to begin courting, they set about building the structure for which they are named: an assemblage of twigs shaped into a spire, corridor or hut. They decorate their bowers with scores of colorful objects, like flowers, berries, snail shells or, if they are near an urban area, bottle caps and plastic cutlery. Some bowerbirds even arrange the items in their collection from smallest to largest, forming a walkway that makes themselves and their trinkets all the more striking to a female — an optical illusion known as forced perspective that humans did not perfect until the 15th century.It's art, the scientists reason, and the development of such an elaborate courtship ritual is not adaptive. So why do they do it?
The way the theory works, of course, is that it's a kind of accident; natural selection doesn't necessarily mean that changes are useful, it just tends to strip away the ones that aren't via extinction. If the birds are 'good enough' at surviving in other ways, these kinds of extravagances can survive. But this is only one example; it turns out that nature seems to strive for beauty in many other ways.
It's a point Hannah Arendt made some years ago. She pointed out that animals are quite ugly internally -- intestines and the like -- but not externally. She reasoned that there was something about life that strives to be seen as beautiful. That's interesting, especially since so much of life lacks eyes that see; but even starfish are beautiful, in their way. In fact, it extends beyond life. Galaxies certainly are beautiful, and they're almost accidents. Waves on the ocean; sunsets.
Well, now that you've explained that it's economics
You all thought the Green Leap Forward was economic lunacy, but not so fast. It turns out that it's really good economics: the logical next step after the enemies of mankind crushed our hopes for the carbon tax. It's an "economic stimulus package for the planet." You love the planet, don't you? For you unsophisticated types, here's how it works. It's simple, just pay attention and shut up.
[T]he challenges and costs of relying solely on current technologies to address climate change are prohibitively high. We need investments in clean innovation to make it cheaper to reduce emissions in the future. . . . While carbon pricing is the most cost effective way to reduce emissions today, government subsidies are the most cost effective way to advance clean technologies tomorrow.We know this, because government subsidies consistently produce cost-effective results. You have to spend money to make money! You can't afford NOT to buy this! We'll lose money on every transaction, but make it up in volume. A cautionary note, because, you know, these guys are serious and sober, not just snake-oil salesmen:
Of course, the effectiveness of the proposal at spurring innovation will depend on its design, the exact details of which have yet to be ironed out.Now a nod to opposing arguments, to show we're considering all sides of the debate:
Opponents will also claim that the government is a bad venture capitalist, and that a Green New Deal will pour taxpayer dollars into clean energy boondoggles. While concerns about government waste are certainly real, they can be avoided through smart policy design.Now that makes me sad. Who would say such mean things about the government's record as a venture capitalist? They're doing the best they can. Anyway, we're going to avoid any problems by going out right now and getting us some smart policy design. Not those old bad policy designs.
This almost makes me like the deal to avert the shutdown
"Journalist and Soros Equality Fellow" Michelle Garcia complains on CNN that Democrats "gave too much away":
If Trump signs off on the deal, he gets far less border wall funding than he initially demanded, in the immediate, but he wins critical credibility for the Republicans' unsubstantiated and false claims of a border security crisis.
I may try this
You'll say, no doubt, that it's an unconventional approach, but I'm thinking it would really liven up the next Commissioners Court meeting.
Actually it reminds me of the joke with the punchline, "You don't come here for the hunting, do you?"
Actually it reminds me of the joke with the punchline, "You don't come here for the hunting, do you?"
Interesting comparison
Mr. Soros is a little concerned:
The European Council on Foreign Relations, an organization whose founding was sponsored by George Soros, has concluded that up to a third of the European Parliament may consist of “populists” after this spring’s elections, paralyzing decision-making in the EU. Mr. Soros warned that the EU may dissolve, like the Soviet Union.
Not much of a capitalist
Elizabeth Warren recently announced that billionaires should "stop being freeloaders." Robert Reich helpfully explained:
Anyone who has a billion dollars either exploited a monopoly that should have been broken up, got inside information unavailable to other investors, bribed some politicians, or inherited the money from their parents (who did one of the above).AEI, not exactly a firebreathing conservative site but at least a moderately sensible one, breathed a quiet protest after pointing out that, honestly, there are lots of OK guy who get rich by the stunning and unfair move of introducing a wildly popular and valuable product:
Calling for higher tax rates doesn’t make you a socialist. Nor does arguing for a more expansive safety net. But saying all wealth is, at best, undeserved and, at worst, pilfered, pinched, pocketed, and purloined? Well, you’re probably not much of a capitalist, that’s for sure.
Rescue
The Netflix documentary series "The Horn," about Swiss helicopter rescue teams operating near the Matterhorn, is worth catching. Beautifully filmed, without a word on toxic masculinity.
I had no idea Swiss German sounded so unlike my bit of school German. In the Swiss dialect, the long "a" in words like zehn or geht rhymes with the English "eye." Other sound shifts are too alien and too various for me to catch. Only when the doctor is talking does it sound like German to me.
It looks like those helicopter pilots could land on a flagpole.
I had no idea Swiss German sounded so unlike my bit of school German. In the Swiss dialect, the long "a" in words like zehn or geht rhymes with the English "eye." Other sound shifts are too alien and too various for me to catch. Only when the doctor is talking does it sound like German to me.
It looks like those helicopter pilots could land on a flagpole.
Bee Swarm
Crowder's Beard Launches Solo Act
God Agrees to Spare Virginia if Just 10 Democrats Who Never Wore Blackface Can Be Found
Pelosi Reveals Favorite Bible Verse: "War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Ignorance Is Strength."
Google Celebrates Noahic Covenant
Elizabeth Warren Admits to Wearing Paleface at College Costume Party
Update: Just because
God Agrees to Spare Virginia if Just 10 Democrats Who Never Wore Blackface Can Be Found
Pelosi Reveals Favorite Bible Verse: "War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Ignorance Is Strength."
Google Celebrates Noahic Covenant
Elizabeth Warren Admits to Wearing Paleface at College Costume Party
Update: Just because
Two Views on Sex/Gender
The first one is from Minding the Campus.
[A]bout 75% of all PhDs in psychology now go to women (a trend that began in the late 1980s).The second one is from Esquire. I won't excerpt it. It is wrong to try to extrapolate very far from a single example, which is the premise of the piece. But the piece is nevertheless interesting on many levels.
Since 2009, women have outnumbered men overall in doctoral degrees earned, and the gender imbalance in psychology is particularly marked. Moreover, in fields such as developmental and child psychology, women Ph.D. recipients outnumber men by more than five to one. According to the APA’s own documents, this has for years caused concern about the “feminization” of the field of psychology.
In a 2011 report, the APA affirmed that gender diversity is important, as is a diversity of viewpoints. But if the APA just redefines what desirable human characteristics are, perhaps they won’t have to bother with this problem or the fact that women are the vast majority of therapists in practice.
Are Animals Self-Conscious, or are Scientists not Self-Conscious Enough?
So Grim's recent post "Bird Thoughts" which looked at the questions of consciousness, how it may have developed, and where it may originate reminded me of some related news: a recently done experiment attempted the famous "mark test" that has been used on dolphins, higher apes, and Eurasian magpies to show the possession of self-awareness (by recognizing that seeing themselves in a mirror is not another animal, but is a reflection of themselves) on a *fish*- and lo and behold, they responded as though they did recognize themselves. So it would seem then, that they are on a level of intelligence and self-awareness on the plane of dolphins, if the test is to be believed. Now, the common sense test suggests then that perhaps the test itself isn't as good as some thought it might be (no offense to the blue streak cleaner wrasses out there).
I find this in line with my own inclinations- almost every time I hear about a test showing how smart some animal species is, with the obligatory implication from the scientists conducting the experiments that there is more to the animals than we know (and I infer from either the scientist directly, or the journalist reporting on it that maybe they're more like us than we'd like to admit, and we're not so special), I become highly skeptical, and find at least a thing or a few that seem to me to be interpretive suppositions and perhaps reflecting biases that call into question the reliability of the test used. Of course, I have to also be wary of my own biases in that I think humans are different from the animals, so I try to keep an open mind.
In the end, I think this test result will do much good in forcing some self reflection of the researchers and perhaps the development of more rigorous tests less prone to interpretive bias.
As one of the interview scientists said- "If we want to understand the complexity of life, and our place within that complexity, we must ask questions in a way that avoids the inherent bias we as narcissistic humans have."
Indeed.
The Blue Streak Cleaner Wrasse
I find this in line with my own inclinations- almost every time I hear about a test showing how smart some animal species is, with the obligatory implication from the scientists conducting the experiments that there is more to the animals than we know (and I infer from either the scientist directly, or the journalist reporting on it that maybe they're more like us than we'd like to admit, and we're not so special), I become highly skeptical, and find at least a thing or a few that seem to me to be interpretive suppositions and perhaps reflecting biases that call into question the reliability of the test used. Of course, I have to also be wary of my own biases in that I think humans are different from the animals, so I try to keep an open mind.
In the end, I think this test result will do much good in forcing some self reflection of the researchers and perhaps the development of more rigorous tests less prone to interpretive bias.
As one of the interview scientists said- "If we want to understand the complexity of life, and our place within that complexity, we must ask questions in a way that avoids the inherent bias we as narcissistic humans have."
Indeed.
Isn't That How Congress Does Work?
As readers know, I don't endorse or put up with antisemitism. However, I'm a little bemused by today's controversy over the remarks of Somali-born Representative Omar of Minnesota. She said that her fellow Congressmen are motivated principally by lobbyist money where Israel is concerned, and cited AIPAC as the source of this money. She's been forced to apologize by the Democratic leadership.
OK, I'll grant that she has a bad record, and antisemitism is likely. However, if you said on any other topic that Congressmen are motivated principally by seeking illicit personal profit, including through lobbyist dollars, would anyone bat an eye? That's why people form lobbyist groups, right? That's why most of Congress are millionaires, though not all of them were when they got there, right?
Look at the net worth of some of these Congressfolk of long service, and calculate how much of that came from their salary. This isn't a very controversial thing to say about, say, why Republicans tend to favor amnesty in spite of the fact that their constituents hotly oppose it. It's the money, right? The Chamber of Commerce and many rich industries really want to depress the price of labor, both unskilled and skilled. That's why there's always such a push for amnesty, for more H1 visas, and why eVerify never manages to get through the Republican-led houses of Congress.
Pick your topic. Does anyone doubt that Congress is being bribed in various ways, as well as being allowed to profit off prior knowledge of how they are going to legislate?
So why would it be antisemitic to assert that a Jewish lobby is behaving like every other lobby? That's treating Jews -- these particular ones -- just the same way as everyone else. It's the opposite of bias, it's genuine equality.
I have a similar concern when people cry "Antisemitism!" about complaints about George Soros' deploying his vast wealth to try to create effects in American politics. Yes, Soros is a Jew. Yes, there's an ancient trope about Foreign Jews doing things like that which has been used by actual antisemites in the past. However, Soros really is spending a lot of money on organizations designed to create effects in American politics,and he's not an American. It's not his business how we govern ourselves, and it's reasonable to object to a foreign billionaire trying to buy influence in our government. [UPDATE: Apparently at some point he became a naturalized citizen, which I did not know. Obviously an American citizen has a right to engage in our politics. See the comments.] The fact that he's Jewish is immaterial to the complaint. The existence of the trope does not alter the fact that the charge, in this case, is perfectly true and legitimately objectionable.
Now, I don't think what Omar said is actually true. My sense is that AIPAC isn't actually powerful enough to do what Omar claims they do; if they were, there would have been no Obama-era Iran deal. It's wrong to raise false charges. But it's not antisemitic, necessarily, to believe that what is true of Congress in most cases involving lobbyists is still true of Congress where there are Jewish lobbyists. It's only treating them on even terms with everyone else, which is surely fair game.
OK, I'll grant that she has a bad record, and antisemitism is likely. However, if you said on any other topic that Congressmen are motivated principally by seeking illicit personal profit, including through lobbyist dollars, would anyone bat an eye? That's why people form lobbyist groups, right? That's why most of Congress are millionaires, though not all of them were when they got there, right?
Look at the net worth of some of these Congressfolk of long service, and calculate how much of that came from their salary. This isn't a very controversial thing to say about, say, why Republicans tend to favor amnesty in spite of the fact that their constituents hotly oppose it. It's the money, right? The Chamber of Commerce and many rich industries really want to depress the price of labor, both unskilled and skilled. That's why there's always such a push for amnesty, for more H1 visas, and why eVerify never manages to get through the Republican-led houses of Congress.
Pick your topic. Does anyone doubt that Congress is being bribed in various ways, as well as being allowed to profit off prior knowledge of how they are going to legislate?
So why would it be antisemitic to assert that a Jewish lobby is behaving like every other lobby? That's treating Jews -- these particular ones -- just the same way as everyone else. It's the opposite of bias, it's genuine equality.
I have a similar concern when people cry "Antisemitism!" about complaints about George Soros' deploying his vast wealth to try to create effects in American politics. Yes, Soros is a Jew. Yes, there's an ancient trope about Foreign Jews doing things like that which has been used by actual antisemites in the past. However, Soros really is spending a lot of money on organizations designed to create effects in American politics,
Now, I don't think what Omar said is actually true. My sense is that AIPAC isn't actually powerful enough to do what Omar claims they do; if they were, there would have been no Obama-era Iran deal. It's wrong to raise false charges. But it's not antisemitic, necessarily, to believe that what is true of Congress in most cases involving lobbyists is still true of Congress where there are Jewish lobbyists. It's only treating them on even terms with everyone else, which is surely fair game.
Redistribution Never Ends
This is one of the better parodies I've seen lately.
This past weekend, thousands of protesters from the ‘Nice Guy Socialist Coalition’ marched on the Capitol to demand Congress pass a bill “guaranteeing men’s basic human right to access to women.”
“It really isn’t fair,” says Gunther Doogan, leader of the coalition. “Women want guys who are strong, ambitious, reliable, well-groomed…they only seem to care about profiting off of the virtues of good men...."
Criticisms by counter-protesters railed against the clear infringement on women’s rights by the legislation. Coalition members fired back, stating that women inherited their good looks and virtues from their parents. “Why should they have a right to their bodies?” asked Jacob Werner, a gaming streamer from Boston. “They didn’t earn them! I’d be a stud if I had parents who provided me with good genetics, basic understanding of social cues, and grooming habits!”
“I can’t believe in 2019 there are people who still don’t believe in a man’s right to be loved,” said Doogan. “While they selfishly preen over their precious ‘individual rights’, men across the country are literally starving for affection. No man should be denied access to women simply because he has no redeeming qualities.”
Prejudice and Votes for Women
So it's become the standard history of the 19th Amendment that the real reason for it was to dilute the votes of majority-male mass immigrants in the era. 1919 saw some of the worst racial violence in American history, and anti-immigrant sentiment was at an all time high. More men than women immigrated, so white men voted to give women the vote because it would buoy up traditional Americans versus those crazy Irishmen, Italians, and Germans. Though framed in moral terms, the actual motive was low.
I had thought, however, that better motives were in play out West, where women gained the vote in Wyoming territory early. I thought it was that there were many important jobs to do, the few women around had to join in doing them, and did them so well that it just seemed natural to extend the vote. After all, if a woman can be the mayor, why couldn't she vote for the mayor?
Unfortunately, my faith in human nature has betrayed me again. It turns out the real motive was to dilute the votes of freed blacks.
Recently I was listening to a rabbi who pointed out that, as a Jew, he was more interested in the action than the intention. This is distinct from the Christian view, promulgated in the Middle Ages by Peter Abelard, that intention is what really determines if an action is sinful or not.
You can see the advantage of the Jewish view here. If it was a just action, it doesn't matter why you did it. You are a just person if you do just things.
Abelard's view has advantages too, especially for those who sometimes do wrong things with good intentions. Still, it seems to make a sin out of what is ordinarily viewed by many as an act of supreme justice.
I had thought, however, that better motives were in play out West, where women gained the vote in Wyoming territory early. I thought it was that there were many important jobs to do, the few women around had to join in doing them, and did them so well that it just seemed natural to extend the vote. After all, if a woman can be the mayor, why couldn't she vote for the mayor?
Unfortunately, my faith in human nature has betrayed me again. It turns out the real motive was to dilute the votes of freed blacks.
Recently I was listening to a rabbi who pointed out that, as a Jew, he was more interested in the action than the intention. This is distinct from the Christian view, promulgated in the Middle Ages by Peter Abelard, that intention is what really determines if an action is sinful or not.
You can see the advantage of the Jewish view here. If it was a just action, it doesn't matter why you did it. You are a just person if you do just things.
Abelard's view has advantages too, especially for those who sometimes do wrong things with good intentions. Still, it seems to make a sin out of what is ordinarily viewed by many as an act of supreme justice.
Bird Thoughts
This piece in the Atlantic is rambling and undisciplined, but the subject is one of great interest.
The author is also wrong (typically) in his description of the thoughts of the ancients and Medievals on the subject. This view Chalmers is advocating is quite ancient; it was Plato's opinion, and Plotinus' model. The name for it is panpsychism, and it happens to be my opinion as well.
Aristotle thought that discursive reason was a feature of the human soul, but not the animal soul. He did not thereby assume animals were 'unconscious automatons.' For Aristotle, three kind of souls 'stack,' as it were: plants have a limited capacity to sense the sun and turn towards it, and to distinguish nutrition and absorb it; animals have an additional capacity for locomotion in search of food, which grants a higher degree of consciousness. This is because you have to be able to recognize that the thing over there is different from you, and that you need to go over to it and eat it. The capacity to reason abstractly and discursively, however, Aristotle thought was an additional layer of capacity that only humans had.
Really, the opinion the author attributes to the ancients and Medievals is most properly an Enlightenment opinion. Kant seems to have thought something like that about animals. For him, access to the order of reason is the basis for the "integrat[ion] into a smooth, continuous world picture," which was a process Kant called "transcendental apperception." Thus, if animals lacked access to discursive reason, they couldn't be conscious because reason is what does the work on Kant's model.
As is often the case -- nearly always, I think -- we find that the ancients were closer to correct than the Enlightenment thinkers, the Moderns, and so forth. This whole period from Hobbes to Kant, from Newton to Hume, from around 1500 to today, someday our descendants will regard it as a useful detour from the path of wisdom. By exploring a whole new set of false ideas, we made some rapid advances toward what might really be true. In the end, though, we will return to the path the ancients laid out, but with a better set of models for how that path is actually realized.
Plotinus will ultimately prove to have been right about everything, I'll wager.
It is alternatively described as the last frontier of science, and as a kind of immaterial magic beyond science’s reckoning. David Chalmers, one of the world’s most respected philosophers on the subject, once told me that consciousness could be a fundamental feature of the universe, like space-time or energy. He said it might be tied to the diaphanous, indeterminate workings of the quantum world, or something nonphysical.If Chalmers is right, the evolutionary picture the author takes as "likely" is wrong. There is no 'first mind,' because consciousness is a feature of reality itself. The thing to explore is how consciousness is experienced by different forms of organization of this basic reality.
These metaphysical accounts are in play because scientists have yet to furnish a satisfactory explanation of consciousness. We know the body’s sensory systems beam information about the external world into our brain, where it’s processed, sequentially, by increasingly sophisticated neural layers. But we don’t know how those signals are integrated into a smooth, continuous world picture, a flow of moments experienced by a roving locus of attention—a “witness,” as Hindu philosophers call it....
It was likely more than half a billion years ago that some sea-floor arms race between predator and prey roused Earth’s first conscious animal. That moment, when the first mind winked into being, was a cosmic event, opening up possibilities not previously contained in nature.
The author is also wrong (typically) in his description of the thoughts of the ancients and Medievals on the subject. This view Chalmers is advocating is quite ancient; it was Plato's opinion, and Plotinus' model. The name for it is panpsychism, and it happens to be my opinion as well.
Aristotle thought that discursive reason was a feature of the human soul, but not the animal soul. He did not thereby assume animals were 'unconscious automatons.' For Aristotle, three kind of souls 'stack,' as it were: plants have a limited capacity to sense the sun and turn towards it, and to distinguish nutrition and absorb it; animals have an additional capacity for locomotion in search of food, which grants a higher degree of consciousness. This is because you have to be able to recognize that the thing over there is different from you, and that you need to go over to it and eat it. The capacity to reason abstractly and discursively, however, Aristotle thought was an additional layer of capacity that only humans had.
Really, the opinion the author attributes to the ancients and Medievals is most properly an Enlightenment opinion. Kant seems to have thought something like that about animals. For him, access to the order of reason is the basis for the "integrat[ion] into a smooth, continuous world picture," which was a process Kant called "transcendental apperception." Thus, if animals lacked access to discursive reason, they couldn't be conscious because reason is what does the work on Kant's model.
As is often the case -- nearly always, I think -- we find that the ancients were closer to correct than the Enlightenment thinkers, the Moderns, and so forth. This whole period from Hobbes to Kant, from Newton to Hume, from around 1500 to today, someday our descendants will regard it as a useful detour from the path of wisdom. By exploring a whole new set of false ideas, we made some rapid advances toward what might really be true. In the end, though, we will return to the path the ancients laid out, but with a better set of models for how that path is actually realized.
Plotinus will ultimately prove to have been right about everything, I'll wager.
Trial by Ordeal in Egypt
Tom posted a bit about trials by ordeal a little while ago, suggesting that they were effective through a combination of incentives and magic tricks. With that in mind, watch this video of a woman in Egypt licking what purports to be red-hot iron (after reciting a verse of the Koran to ensure divine protection).
As you can see, it plainly doesn't bother her. Iron turns bright red above 1400 degrees Fahrenheit, which would destroy the sensitive flesh of the tongue on contact. She calmly licks it twice, and does no screaming afterwards.
I don't know how exactly this test is carried out by the imams, but I agree with the author of Tom's piece: "For example, in the early 13th century, 208 defendants in Várad in Hungary underwent hot-iron ordeals. Amazingly, nearly two-thirds of defendants were unscathed by the ‘red-hot’ irons they carried and hence exonerated. If the priests who administered these ordeals understood how to heat iron, as they surely did, that leaves only two explanations for the ‘miraculous’ results: either God really did intervene to reveal the defendants’ innocence, or the priests made sure that the iron they carried wasn’t hot."
So either God intervenes in ordinary civil cases in Egypt, or it's a kind of magic trick whose secret remains known only to the few who work it.
As you can see, it plainly doesn't bother her. Iron turns bright red above 1400 degrees Fahrenheit, which would destroy the sensitive flesh of the tongue on contact. She calmly licks it twice, and does no screaming afterwards.
I don't know how exactly this test is carried out by the imams, but I agree with the author of Tom's piece: "For example, in the early 13th century, 208 defendants in Várad in Hungary underwent hot-iron ordeals. Amazingly, nearly two-thirds of defendants were unscathed by the ‘red-hot’ irons they carried and hence exonerated. If the priests who administered these ordeals understood how to heat iron, as they surely did, that leaves only two explanations for the ‘miraculous’ results: either God really did intervene to reveal the defendants’ innocence, or the priests made sure that the iron they carried wasn’t hot."
So either God intervenes in ordinary civil cases in Egypt, or it's a kind of magic trick whose secret remains known only to the few who work it.
Self-Excommunication
It is my understanding that any priest who does this is excommunicated by his own action.
One 1998 report focused on Africa observed that “sexual harassment and even rape of sisters by priests and bishops is allegedly common.”That leaves me with a set of questions for those who understand all of this better than I do myself. If a priest like this remains a frocked member of the priesthood, what is the status of his capacity to perform the rites? What becomes of the faithful who trust that his rites are efficacious?
“When a sister becomes pregnant, the priest insists that she have an abortion,” the report added. ‘‘The sister is usually dismissed from her congregation while the priest is often only moved to another parish — or sent for studies.”
Slow Learners
A woman completing her college education writes.
Somebody apparently told her otherwise, even to the point of soliciting and publishing this article. That was deeply unfair to her.
When you ask a question at a lecture, is it secretly just your opinion ending with the phrase “do you agree?” If so, your name is something like Jake, or Chad, or Alex, and you were taught that your voice is the most important in every room. Somewhere along your academic journey, you decided your search for intellectual validation was more important than the actual exchange of information. Now how do you expect to actually learn anything?Four years? Students at these elite colleges must be a little slow. I didn't even need two paragraphs to come to doubt the merit of her voice.
American society tells men, but especially white men, that their opinions have merit and that their voice is valuable, but after four years of listening to white boys in college, I am not so convinced.
Somebody apparently told her otherwise, even to the point of soliciting and publishing this article. That was deeply unfair to her.
New fashion trends
Just think of everything as valuable fishing structure.
A local volunteer group pulled cubic yards of debris off of rookery islands, but this was the most interesting. Second look at footwear ornamentation?
A local volunteer group pulled cubic yards of debris off of rookery islands, but this was the most interesting. Second look at footwear ornamentation?
The American Dream is Freedom, Not Wealth
Not that there's any reason to be opposed to wealth, which can to some degree sometimes increase practical freedom. Still, most Americans seem to grasp that the essential thing was always liberty.
Ultimately this is all very wise, and I'm glad to see it.
What our survey found about the American dream came as a surprise to me. When Americans were asked what makes the American dream a reality, they did not select as essential factors becoming wealthy, owning a home or having a successful career. Instead, 85 percent indicated that “to have freedom of choice in how to live” was essential to achieving the American dream. In addition, 83 percent indicated that “a good family life” was essential.Contra the NYT's summation, they didn't say "community," they said "family." There's a crucial, biological difference there. The nation grows out of its families, and whether or not it sustains and supports healthy families is an important measure of its success. Blood ties remain important. People care less about whether they are 'living a better life than their parents' than about whether their children and grandchildren will still have prospects for a good life, even if they happen to define that life in terms of less-marketable choices.
The “traditional” factors (at least as I had understood them) were seen as less important. Only 16 percent said that to achieve the American dream, they believed it was essential to “become wealthy,” only 45 percent said it was essential “to have a better quality of life than your parents,” and just 49 percent said that “having a successful career” was key.
This pattern — seeing the American dream as more about community and individuality than material success and social mobility — appeared across demographic and political categories. In the case of political party affiliation, for example, 84 percent of Republicans and independents said having freedom was essential to the American dream, as did 88 percent of Democrats; less than 20 percent of those in either party held that becoming wealthy was essential.
Ultimately this is all very wise, and I'm glad to see it.
"A Plan to Reduce Emissions"
The more I think about yesterday's fiasco, the more I realize how little these people understand what they are talking about. I have to conclude that they don't actually care about the stated goal -- reducing emissions -- at all.
For example, this discourse on how to 'pay for' the Green New Deal misses a major step.
This is equivalent to saying that of course we can afford a starship line to Alpha Centauri, because we can afford anything that is for sale in our own currency. Even if it's true -- as is quite debatable -- that you can really inflate the currency without damage to the economy, there is no such product for sale in our currency.
The same is true for this deal. Take just the provision that we're going to refit or rebuild all the buildings in America in ten years. I read a claim yesterday that this roughly means refitting 39,000 buildings a day. It might be twenty thousand or fifty thousand a day, but let's go with 39,000 as a round figure. To make it easy to accomplish, we'd start with America's 100 largest cities, so we'd need 390 teams in each of these 100 cities, each team capable of refitting a building per day. So we've got 39,000 such teams nationwide.
Maybe it's possible to hire 39,000 teams, 390 teams per city. Maybe it's possible to buy all the stuff that all 39,000 teams would need to refit a house today. But what about day two? We're going to have scoured every hardware store and warehouse in America by day two, or certainly by day three or four. But we've got to keep going, every single day for ten years. Where's all the stuff we'd need? It doesn't exist. It's not for sale.
That's just one bullet point. To make the goods available for sale in our currency over a ten year period, you'd first have to build thousands of new factories. You're also going to want to build massive new amounts of wind farms and solar panels, so you'll need to make lots of electricity-expensive aluminium. You want to build a railway system that is so big and active that it eliminates air travel -- so you'll need lots of new trains, and new steel tracks, and to cut down lots of trees to make the cross-ties, and you'll need to boil lots of tar to make the creosote to soak the cross-ties as a preservative.
This plan is going to reduce emissions?
While we're building all this stuff, we don't have it yet, so even while we're building up all this renewable electrical power we'll have to ship it from the factories to wherever it's going to be set up and put to use. Since we don't yet have electric trains, we'll need to do that shipping with diesel fuel. We'll thus need more diesel fuel -- so we need new oil refineries, to make a lot more diesel, which we're going to burn moving all this stuff.
Reducing emissions is the point of all this?
Why don't we just buy the starships instead, and export people to the Offworld Colonies? If practicality like money is no object, why not shoot for the stars?
For example, this discourse on how to 'pay for' the Green New Deal misses a major step.
This is equivalent to saying that of course we can afford a starship line to Alpha Centauri, because we can afford anything that is for sale in our own currency. Even if it's true -- as is quite debatable -- that you can really inflate the currency without damage to the economy, there is no such product for sale in our currency.
The same is true for this deal. Take just the provision that we're going to refit or rebuild all the buildings in America in ten years. I read a claim yesterday that this roughly means refitting 39,000 buildings a day. It might be twenty thousand or fifty thousand a day, but let's go with 39,000 as a round figure. To make it easy to accomplish, we'd start with America's 100 largest cities, so we'd need 390 teams in each of these 100 cities, each team capable of refitting a building per day. So we've got 39,000 such teams nationwide.
Maybe it's possible to hire 39,000 teams, 390 teams per city. Maybe it's possible to buy all the stuff that all 39,000 teams would need to refit a house today. But what about day two? We're going to have scoured every hardware store and warehouse in America by day two, or certainly by day three or four. But we've got to keep going, every single day for ten years. Where's all the stuff we'd need? It doesn't exist. It's not for sale.
That's just one bullet point. To make the goods available for sale in our currency over a ten year period, you'd first have to build thousands of new factories. You're also going to want to build massive new amounts of wind farms and solar panels, so you'll need to make lots of electricity-expensive aluminium. You want to build a railway system that is so big and active that it eliminates air travel -- so you'll need lots of new trains, and new steel tracks, and to cut down lots of trees to make the cross-ties, and you'll need to boil lots of tar to make the creosote to soak the cross-ties as a preservative.
This plan is going to reduce emissions?
While we're building all this stuff, we don't have it yet, so even while we're building up all this renewable electrical power we'll have to ship it from the factories to wherever it's going to be set up and put to use. Since we don't yet have electric trains, we'll need to do that shipping with diesel fuel. We'll thus need more diesel fuel -- so we need new oil refineries, to make a lot more diesel, which we're going to burn moving all this stuff.
Reducing emissions is the point of all this?
Why don't we just buy the starships instead, and export people to the Offworld Colonies? If practicality like money is no object, why not shoot for the stars?
Development is good because it's developed and stuff
My little community wants to establish something called an "Economic Development Corporation," a 501(c)(3) entity that under some circumstances (but not ours) can glom onto a half-cent local sales tax. It has to operate under open-meeting and open-records laws like a governmental entity, but as far as I can tell it doesn't have any authority. There are said to be 700 of them in Texas already. They look to me like a sort of souped-up chamber of commerce, though I'm told that our local Chamber of Commerce doesn't do the same sorts of things at all.
Actually it's very hard to talk to the supporters about why an EDC would be a good idea. Luckily, ours apparently would be pretty low-risk, since it will have to subsist on modest handouts from local governments plus private donations, and will have no power that I can discover to make anyone do anything in particular. Most EDCs seem to operate pretty good websites with information of the sort that prospective employers would want, like demographics, available real estate, zoning philosophy, educational opportunities, tax abatements or other financial incentives, and links to local elected officials. I thought that was Chamber territory, but apparently not. Or, if it's Chamber territory, the Chamber doesn't have enough money and people to do it effectively. It's surprisingly difficult to get supporters to answer a question like, "Are you going to do what the Chamber does, but more of it and better because you'll have more money and staff? Or are you going to do completely different things, and if so, what?" They kind of look blank and say they're going to do "economic development." What does that look like? Well, it's development. Of the economy. I never understand these sorts of conversations.
On the other hand, I'd be pleased to see someone put together a good website with information that prospective employers would want to know. I've never understood why we don't have one already. You'd be amazed how hard it is just to find basic information about local codes and ordinances. Our local leadership is not what you would call wildly enthusiastic about the digital revolution.
Another question I found it hard to engage supporters on was, "How do we find out whether the 700 Texas cities who have EDCs experience better economic development than the many cities who don't?" I'm told I can easily get a list of the 700. Sure, but you see how my question is different? Not really. Well, the 700 cities worked really hard on economic development, which is obviously a good thing. Right, but concrete results? ... It's as though I were speaking a foreign language. It's just intuitively obvious that this kind of activity, whatever it is, is valuable.
Earlier this evening I managed to find a few articles nearly on point. One was a master's thesis that couldn't find any statistical correlation between imposition of a Texas EDC sales tax and anything identifiable as economic progress. The author admitted, however, that she was unable to put her finger on what people meant by economic progress: was it simple growth in key metrics like per capita income, or something to do with a qualitative change in economic activity? Either way, the pattern was murky. Another article confidently explained that you get economic development when you can attract and retain talent, but that's tricky, because it's the nature of talent that it can relocate whenever it wants, so you have to have quality of life. What's that? Whatever talent wants. Then there's probably something about making the environment business-friendly. That's actually the only part I can readily grasp: low taxes and regulations that are transparent and predictable. But then there is so little consensus on whether it's a good idea to attract businesses if you can't be sure they won't degrade quality of life, as they surely will if they're not heavily regulated! You can't trust those dang businesses! At the same time, the coolest little town ever won't last long if there aren't any jobs. It's a tough one. I remain skeptical that governments can help much. Maybe businesses can't either, but at least they employ people.
Well, as I say, the possibilities for mischief appear minimal.
Actually it's very hard to talk to the supporters about why an EDC would be a good idea. Luckily, ours apparently would be pretty low-risk, since it will have to subsist on modest handouts from local governments plus private donations, and will have no power that I can discover to make anyone do anything in particular. Most EDCs seem to operate pretty good websites with information of the sort that prospective employers would want, like demographics, available real estate, zoning philosophy, educational opportunities, tax abatements or other financial incentives, and links to local elected officials. I thought that was Chamber territory, but apparently not. Or, if it's Chamber territory, the Chamber doesn't have enough money and people to do it effectively. It's surprisingly difficult to get supporters to answer a question like, "Are you going to do what the Chamber does, but more of it and better because you'll have more money and staff? Or are you going to do completely different things, and if so, what?" They kind of look blank and say they're going to do "economic development." What does that look like? Well, it's development. Of the economy. I never understand these sorts of conversations.
On the other hand, I'd be pleased to see someone put together a good website with information that prospective employers would want to know. I've never understood why we don't have one already. You'd be amazed how hard it is just to find basic information about local codes and ordinances. Our local leadership is not what you would call wildly enthusiastic about the digital revolution.
Another question I found it hard to engage supporters on was, "How do we find out whether the 700 Texas cities who have EDCs experience better economic development than the many cities who don't?" I'm told I can easily get a list of the 700. Sure, but you see how my question is different? Not really. Well, the 700 cities worked really hard on economic development, which is obviously a good thing. Right, but concrete results? ... It's as though I were speaking a foreign language. It's just intuitively obvious that this kind of activity, whatever it is, is valuable.
Earlier this evening I managed to find a few articles nearly on point. One was a master's thesis that couldn't find any statistical correlation between imposition of a Texas EDC sales tax and anything identifiable as economic progress. The author admitted, however, that she was unable to put her finger on what people meant by economic progress: was it simple growth in key metrics like per capita income, or something to do with a qualitative change in economic activity? Either way, the pattern was murky. Another article confidently explained that you get economic development when you can attract and retain talent, but that's tricky, because it's the nature of talent that it can relocate whenever it wants, so you have to have quality of life. What's that? Whatever talent wants. Then there's probably something about making the environment business-friendly. That's actually the only part I can readily grasp: low taxes and regulations that are transparent and predictable. But then there is so little consensus on whether it's a good idea to attract businesses if you can't be sure they won't degrade quality of life, as they surely will if they're not heavily regulated! You can't trust those dang businesses! At the same time, the coolest little town ever won't last long if there aren't any jobs. It's a tough one. I remain skeptical that governments can help much. Maybe businesses can't either, but at least they employ people.
Well, as I say, the possibilities for mischief appear minimal.
"The nature of the economics didn't make sense."
Lookie here, young feller, if you wanted the economics to make sense, why were you trying to operate a socialist restaurant? This Panera chain tried to base its business model on not just a proverbial free lunch but a literal one.
Company founder Ron Shaich explained, "We had to help [customers] understand that this is a café of shared responsibility and not a handout." Now, see, that was a big problem. People weren't smart enough to pick up on that important distinction. It goes to show you that socialism can't work unless we get smarter people. I blame the schools. But I wonder whether the customers' level of understanding improved after the restaurant "helped" them with this concept?
Shockingly, the restaurants reported an atmosphere of increasing resentment and disappointment before they went broke and shut down. Maybe if they had taken advantage of economies of scale and expanded the experiment to include an entire country . . . ?
Company founder Ron Shaich explained, "We had to help [customers] understand that this is a café of shared responsibility and not a handout." Now, see, that was a big problem. People weren't smart enough to pick up on that important distinction. It goes to show you that socialism can't work unless we get smarter people. I blame the schools. But I wonder whether the customers' level of understanding improved after the restaurant "helped" them with this concept?
Shockingly, the restaurants reported an atmosphere of increasing resentment and disappointment before they went broke and shut down. Maybe if they had taken advantage of economies of scale and expanded the experiment to include an entire country . . . ?
A Modest Proposal
Details on the Green New Deal are out.
The plan is, however, just as advertised: an attempt to take over the entire American economy, so that close to 100% of what we are doing is directed by the government and paid for by the taxpayers. It is unlimited in its ambition; even if all you wanted to do was 'upgrade all existing buildings,' that would probably be too hard to accomplish in practice. But that's just bullet point one, and we'll throw in all the social justice goals as well.
As well as calling for the dramatic expansion of the country’s renewable energy resources, the plan proposes:Converting America to a centrally planned economy might lower our emissions just by depressing economic output, although even that isn't certain. China's Communist economy worsened pollution.
*“Upgrading all existing buildings" in the United States to make them energy efficient, and developing a smart grid.
*A radical overhaul of the country’s transport infrastructure to eliminate emissions “as much as technologically feasible.” This would involve expanding electric car manufacturing, installing charging stations “everywhere” and developing high-speed rail links to “a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary.”
*Restoring threatened lands and hazardous waste sites.
*Working with farmers to build a more sustainable food system that “ensures universal access to healthy food” and clean water.
*The plan also includes social justice objectives such as "high-quality health care" for all Americans, a guaranteed job "with a family-sustaining benefit provisions.” Another goal is “to promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, de-industrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth.”
The plan is, however, just as advertised: an attempt to take over the entire American economy, so that close to 100% of what we are doing is directed by the government and paid for by the taxpayers. It is unlimited in its ambition; even if all you wanted to do was 'upgrade all existing buildings,' that would probably be too hard to accomplish in practice. But that's just bullet point one, and we'll throw in all the social justice goals as well.
You knew we were lying, why'dya believe us?
Fascinating testimony from Thomas P. Miller of the American Enterprise Institute in his Statement before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce
Subcommittee on Health Hearing concerning Texas v. Azar, the Republican AG lawsuit that recently yielded a U.S. District Court ruling that the Obamacare mandate was both unconstitutional and unseverable from the statute as a whole. Miller's analysis focuses on the probable impact on Americans with pre-existing conditions and pretty much tries the usual ecumenical scolding, but now and then he makes some clear points about how badly Congress blew it.
Determining the legislative intent of Congress regarding the role of the individual mandate as it related to the rest of the law is at the heart of the severability component of the Texas v. Azar litigation. The plaintiffs contend that the Findings of Fact included in the ACA statute by the 111th Congress that passed it should be determinative on this point. That Congress essentially said that the individual mandate was essential to the functioning of several other ACA provisions, including protections against exclusions of coverage or higher premium charges for individuals with pre-existing health conditions (hereinafter more commonly referred to as “guaranteed issue” and “adjusted community rating”). Whether or not those “findings” have been borne out in practice or the economic and policy connection was quite as tight as that Congress officially assumed, the plaintiffs are not out of bounds in holding Congress to its past word, and in building on the similar reasoning used by other Supreme Court majorities to strike ACA legal challenges in NFIB v Sebelius and in King v. Burwell.
In other words, if that’s the “story” for ACA defenders, they should have to stick to it, at least until a subsequent Congress actually votes to eliminate or revise those past Findings of Fact already embedded in permanent law.
Whatever the 111th Congress “may” have really intended is far more complex. At best, one might conclude that, in the final analysis, it really aimed to pass whatever surviving, though problematic version of the ACA it could, by whatever legislative and political means would work, and then try to implement it and fix it up later, as needed, as it went along. However, this gap between what was officially said with a “wink” and what actually was the political calculation is far harder to recognize in the courts as official legislative intent.
To be blunt, one of the primary ways that the Obama administration “sold” its proposals for health policy overhaul was to exaggerate the size, scope, and nature of the potential population facing coverage problems due to pre-existing health conditions ACA advocates then argued that the only way to address those problems was with a heavy dose of (adjusted) community rated premiums and income-related tax subsidies, complemented by an individual mandate. Unfortunately, this combination also made the coverage offered in ACA exchanges less attractive to younger and healthier individuals, who were asked to pay more for insurance that they valued less. We ended up with the worst of both worlds, a mandate despised by many (low-risk) individuals that largely failed to accomplish its intended goals. To the extent that net insurance coverage gains still were achieved under the ACA, they were due overwhelmingly to the combination of generous insurance subsidies for lower income ACA exchange enrollees, plus an aggressive expansion of relatively less-expensive (but even more generously taxpayer-subsidized) Medicaid coverage in many states.
* * *
It’s important to remember that the problem of pre-existing condition coverage, before the ACA was enacted and implemented, was limited almost entirely to the individual market. A host of semi-specialized risk pools and other pre-ACA legal provisions already offered various types of such insurance protection to many otherwise vulnerable Americans. Of course, public policy to address remaining problems could and should be improved in other less prescriptive and more transparent ways than the ACA’s tangled web of less-visible regulatory cross-subsidies and income-related premium tax credits (for example, extending HIPAA’s continuous-coverage provisions and risk protections to the individual market).
* * *
Hence, if the ACA’s current, overbroad regulatory provisions involving guaranteed issue, adjusted community rating, and prohibition of coverage exclusions for pre-existing conditions were stricken down in court in the near future as inextricably tied to an unconstitutional individual mandate, there are better policy alternatives available to lawmakers.
* * *
I don’t want to neglect pointing out the disappointing results and collateral damage caused by the ACA’s execution of its stated objectives. Yes, U.S. taxpayers spent more money, or we borrowed it, and millions more Americans were covered with insurance than before while others had their coverage upgraded and subsidized more generously. At the same time, less-visible victims of the ACA lost the coverage they had preferred to keep or had to pay much more for it if they fell outside of the law’s more generously subsidized cohorts. Insurance and health care markets were substantially destabilized for years, although, with enough premium hikes and Silver-loaded subsidy alchemy in the last two years, that’s begun to change. Nevertheless, the overall size of the individual market actually have grown smaller than its pre-ACA levels.
Powerlifting and Natural Performance Enhancement
It's an irony that America's Islamic officials are the ones pushing the transgender movement in sports, but as the article from the other day pointed out it's an easier fit for some traditional cultures than accepting homosexuality.
What caught my eye about this story, though, is that this powerlifting group has a completely different standard here than strongman sports. Strongman Corporation is completely willing to accept transgender competitors. They just want you to provide evidence that your testosterone levels in the blood are low enough if you want to compete as a woman. This is what Rep. Oman is claiming is unnecessary, as I understand her remarks.
I suppose free associations can do whatever they want here, and all of these solutions make a certain degree of sense. The American way, as it were.
What caught my eye about this story, though, is that this powerlifting group has a completely different standard here than strongman sports. Strongman Corporation is completely willing to accept transgender competitors. They just want you to provide evidence that your testosterone levels in the blood are low enough if you want to compete as a woman. This is what Rep. Oman is claiming is unnecessary, as I understand her remarks.
Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar recommended Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison investigate USA Powerlifting for barring biological males from women’s events, according to a Jan. 31 letter she sent USA Powerlifting.Lest you think she's out in left field here, it turns out that another American powerlifting organization -- USPA -- has no relevant rules at all. They just say they welcome everyone, compete however you like. USPA, however, also doesn't test for performance enhancing drugs of any kind -- so if you're pumped up on steroids, and can inject as much testosterone as you like, what's the big deal about some natural testosterone?
Omar called it a “myth” that men who identify as transgender women have a “direct competitive advantage” and copied Ellison on the letter, “with a recommendation that he investigate this discriminatory behavior.”
I suppose free associations can do whatever they want here, and all of these solutions make a certain degree of sense. The American way, as it were.
A Reality Show for the Hall, Maybe?
The History Channel's Forged in Fire is something I just discovered today by accident.
It has a reality-show format and each episode pits 4 blade smiths against each other in a particular competition. Some past competitions have included forging a katana, creating a "Templar Crusader Dagger," and transforming failed blades into functional cutlasses.
It also introduced me to the American Bladesmith Society, which I know nothing about but which looks worth checking out.
Part of me is fascinated by the skills displayed, but part of me is repulsed by the reality-show format. I dunno. See what you think.
It has a reality-show format and each episode pits 4 blade smiths against each other in a particular competition. Some past competitions have included forging a katana, creating a "Templar Crusader Dagger," and transforming failed blades into functional cutlasses.
It also introduced me to the American Bladesmith Society, which I know nothing about but which looks worth checking out.
Part of me is fascinated by the skills displayed, but part of me is repulsed by the reality-show format. I dunno. See what you think.
"America Will Never Be A Socialist Country"
I am reminded of Fritz Leiber's wizard poem: "Never and forever are neither for men/ you'll be returning again and again."
All the same, consecrate yourselves to it for your lifetimes at least. We were born free, and we can at least swear to die free.
What comes after us is not ours to write, but that far at least we can write for ourselves.
All the same, consecrate yourselves to it for your lifetimes at least. We were born free, and we can at least swear to die free.
What comes after us is not ours to write, but that far at least we can write for ourselves.
Basing stories on uncorroborated allegations
I lifted this from Ace.
In short, the Lt. Gov. of Virginia is threatening legal action against a major newspaper (The Washington Post) for reporting details of "an allegation of sexual assault against him from 15 years ago". Yes, he also accuses them of "smearing" him, and various other grandstanding statements about how this has never been done before (*gag*), but none of that is relevant to what I find interesting about this.
I fully support the Lt. Gov. in lambasting the Washington Post, and actively encourage him to sue them and just about every other news organization that repeats the details of an allegation of crime with no factual basis other than one person's story. Now, I'm not saying he'll win, but I think he absolutely ought to sue. Because this idea that an accusation is something that we must blindly accept as factual (i.e. "believe victims") and therefore report-able is toxic to responsible reporting. If literally anyone can say "Person X sexually abused me" and that story makes the newspaper, then we've entered an era of sexual McCarthy-ism wherein an accusation is just about as good as a criminal conviction as far as a person's public reputation is concerned.
Now, I want to be crystal clear. I'm not saying the Lt. Gov. is innocent, or that his accuser is a liar. I'm saying a responsible news agency should not publish such an accusation unless there's either a criminal report, or a civil lawsuit filed with the accusation (i.e. a legal filing of some sort). And yes, I absolutely believe that Brett Kavanaugh ought to have sued anyone repeating Dr. Fords' accusation unless and until some form of legal filing was made (though I will consider the argument that the accusation being read into Congressional Testimony may very well count as a legal filing). And the reason is simple. Reporting based upon uncorroborated accusations is nothing more than rumor-mongering. If the news organization reports on a legal action, then that is responsible and in line with the public's interest.
Now, of course, the surest defense against libel or slander is that the accusation is true, but if Lt. Gov. Fairfax knows he is innocent, then he should have no fear of that defense working (likewise for Justice Kavanaugh). But if the veracity of the accusation simply cannot be ascertained (i.e. "he said, she said" and no further evidence) then the responsible way to report the story (absent any other form of legal filing) is simply not to report the story. And I absolutely do want newsrooms to fear a lawsuit when they publish rumors and unsupported accusations. Because I think in the Trump era far too many news organizations (both major and minor) have become comfortable with posting the most scurrilous of accusations with no more concern for the actual truth of the matter than they have concern for the heat death of the universe. A little fear of having consequences for reporting those accusations would go a long way to cleaning up that problem.
In short, the Lt. Gov. of Virginia is threatening legal action against a major newspaper (The Washington Post) for reporting details of "an allegation of sexual assault against him from 15 years ago". Yes, he also accuses them of "smearing" him, and various other grandstanding statements about how this has never been done before (*gag*), but none of that is relevant to what I find interesting about this.
I fully support the Lt. Gov. in lambasting the Washington Post, and actively encourage him to sue them and just about every other news organization that repeats the details of an allegation of crime with no factual basis other than one person's story. Now, I'm not saying he'll win, but I think he absolutely ought to sue. Because this idea that an accusation is something that we must blindly accept as factual (i.e. "believe victims") and therefore report-able is toxic to responsible reporting. If literally anyone can say "Person X sexually abused me" and that story makes the newspaper, then we've entered an era of sexual McCarthy-ism wherein an accusation is just about as good as a criminal conviction as far as a person's public reputation is concerned.
Now, I want to be crystal clear. I'm not saying the Lt. Gov. is innocent, or that his accuser is a liar. I'm saying a responsible news agency should not publish such an accusation unless there's either a criminal report, or a civil lawsuit filed with the accusation (i.e. a legal filing of some sort). And yes, I absolutely believe that Brett Kavanaugh ought to have sued anyone repeating Dr. Fords' accusation unless and until some form of legal filing was made (though I will consider the argument that the accusation being read into Congressional Testimony may very well count as a legal filing). And the reason is simple. Reporting based upon uncorroborated accusations is nothing more than rumor-mongering. If the news organization reports on a legal action, then that is responsible and in line with the public's interest.
Now, of course, the surest defense against libel or slander is that the accusation is true, but if Lt. Gov. Fairfax knows he is innocent, then he should have no fear of that defense working (likewise for Justice Kavanaugh). But if the veracity of the accusation simply cannot be ascertained (i.e. "he said, she said" and no further evidence) then the responsible way to report the story (absent any other form of legal filing) is simply not to report the story. And I absolutely do want newsrooms to fear a lawsuit when they publish rumors and unsupported accusations. Because I think in the Trump era far too many news organizations (both major and minor) have become comfortable with posting the most scurrilous of accusations with no more concern for the actual truth of the matter than they have concern for the heat death of the universe. A little fear of having consequences for reporting those accusations would go a long way to cleaning up that problem.
I'll Keep Looking Until I Find It
The Speaker of the House on her favorite Bible verse:
“I can’t find it in the Bible, but I quote it all the time,” Pelosi said as she introduced the quote. “I keep reading and reading the Bible—I know it’s there someplace. It’s supposed to be in Isaiah. I heard a bishop say, ‘To minister to the needs of God’s creation … ’ ”In fairness, the bishop may well have said something like that. Some priests sometimes feel very free in their translations from the Latin, especially if they have prayed about it and feel like this is the version of the message that their flock needs to hear right now. Pelosi's version of Catholicism strikes me as very likely to be led by priests of that spirit.
Man Kills Mountain Lion, Apparently With Bare Hands
It's not impossible -- C. Dale Petersen once killed a grizzly bear with his bare hands and teeth (by using his teeth to close off a blood vessel to the brain, rather than by tearing out the thick, tough throat).
This lion was young, too, and not full grown.
This lion was young, too, and not full grown.
The runner, whose name has not been released, fought off the cougar-- killing it in the process-- and hiked out of the area and drove himself to a hospital. The Denver Post reported that the runner suffered serious injuries that included facial bite wounds and lacerations to his body. He is expected to recover.Still, an impressive feat! Colorado's government has confirmed that he did not use a weapon, but suffocated the animal while it was trying to kill him.
Wildlife officers searching the trail found the juvenile mountain lion's body near several of the runner's possessions. They estimated that the animal weighed about 80 pounds.
Women's Brains Differ From Men's (and Vice Versa)
This science is publishable, according to the "Althouse rule," because it can be portrayed as a way in which women's brains are better. Actually, it shows they are different -- surprisingly, and both pre-puberty and post-menopause, for reasons the scientists don't understand.
Scientists found that healthy women have a “metabolic brain age” that is persistently younger than men’s of the same chronological age. The difference is apparent from early adulthood and remains into old age.The fact of the difference is important enough on its own.
The finding suggests that changes in how the brain uses energy over a person’s lifetime proceed more gradually in women than they do in men. While researchers are unsure of the medical consequences, it may help explain why women tend to stay mentally sharp for longer.
“Brain metabolism changes with age but what we noticed is that a good deal of the variation we see is down to sex differences,” said Marcus Raichle, a neurobiologist at Washington University school of medicine in St Louis.... “The great mystery is why,” said Raichle. The researchers suspect something other than hormonal differences are at work because the difference in metabolism stays the same when women enter the menopause.
“I refer to things like this as the curve balls of Mother Nature,” said Raichle. “Maybe women start off with this difference and it’s perpetuated throughout life.”
It is not clear what the difference means.
Rich-Soaking Very Popular
...polling suggests that when it comes to soaking the rich, the American public is increasingly on board.You'd think that tax cuts followed by the most robust economy in decades would suggest that this is the opposite of wisdom.
Surveys are showing overwhelming support for raising taxes on top earners, including a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll released Monday that found 76 percent of registered voters believe the wealthiest Americans should pay more in taxes. A recent Fox News survey showed that 70 percent of Americans favor raising taxes on those earning over $10 million — including 54 percent of Republicans.
A Tea Party of Their Own
This is such a familiar complaint, except that it's normally a complaint by insurgent right-wingers against "Establishment Republicans" rather than "radical conservative" Democrats. The left is having its own moment along those lines.
“I am talking about the radical conservatives in the Democratic Party,” said Saikat Chakrabarti. “That’s who we need to counter. It’s the same across any number of issues—pay-as-you-go, free college, “Medicare for all.” These are all enormously popular in the party, but they don’t pass because of the radical conservatives who are holding the party hostage.”So far their ambitions have mostly failed, even compared to the TEA Party's initial moments. However, in the young Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, they have an extraordinary platform to draw attention to their movement.
Not long ago, this would have been an outlier position even among American liberals. Today, it’s the organizing principle of a newly empowered segment of the Democratic Party, one with a foothold in the new Congress.
Chakrabarti is chief of staff to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez... Although it’s Ocasio-Cortez who gets all the headlines, she arguably wouldn’t be in Congress in the first place without the group Chakrabarti founded: Justice Democrats, a new, central player in the ongoing war for the soul of the Democratic Party. It was the Justice Democrats who recruited her in a quixotic campaign early on, providing a neophyte candidate with enough infrastructure to take down a party leader. And it is the Justice Democrats who see Ocasio-Cortez as just the opening act in an astonishingly ambitious plan to do nothing less than re-imagine liberal politics in America—and do it by whatever means necessary.
If that requires knocking out well-known elected officials and replacing them with more radical newcomers, so be it. And if it ends up ripping apart the Democratic Party in the process—well, that might be the idea.
“There is going to be a war within the party. We are going to lean into it,” said Waleed Shahid, the group’s spokesman.
Resume Inflation
Gov. Norham turns out to have inflated his service during Desert Storm in order to push his gun control agenda.
Well, he was indeed a doctor during Desert Storm, according to the NPRC... He was a child neurologist working at the Army’s Landstuhl Hospital in Germany. The way I understand neurologists, they treat brain diseases not gunshot wounds. It looks like he specialized in child neurology before, during and after the time he was at Landstuhl.... Now, he didn’t exactly lie about his service, he was a Major, he was a doctor, he served during Desert Storm, but I’m pretty sure a child neurologist wouldn’t be treating wounded soldiers, except in emergency circumstances – extreme emergencies.
"Take Care Of" Like a Hitman
Rather than say anything about this image, I'm just going to let it sit there a while for quiet reflection.
Is anyone home?
Again from Maggie's Farm, this rather wonderful Jordan Petersen clip that speaks to the thing that's been occupying me lately: when we speak to someone, are we getting through to a person?
I'll repeat here a comment I just left there: Someone recently quoted a similar passage from Dietrich Bonhoeffer--was it here? I forget--about how essentially stupid we become when we surrender our judgment to an ideology. He was talking, of course, about how Nazis got ordinary people to behave so horribly. The ideology no longer is a way to order our thoughts but instead something that makes us unthinking tools, one-note Charlies spouting empty superficial trash. And there tends to be someone standing nearby who's more than happy to use us as tools for a horrible purpose, while our brains are turned off and our souls numbed. Not by accident will it be a horrible purpose, because people with good purposes aren't as drawn to using other people as tools, rather than fighting with them as free brothers. And that's the difference between God and the Devil. Well, obviously, a difference.
Jordan Peterson is a rare exponent of moral heroism.
I'll repeat here a comment I just left there: Someone recently quoted a similar passage from Dietrich Bonhoeffer--was it here? I forget--about how essentially stupid we become when we surrender our judgment to an ideology. He was talking, of course, about how Nazis got ordinary people to behave so horribly. The ideology no longer is a way to order our thoughts but instead something that makes us unthinking tools, one-note Charlies spouting empty superficial trash. And there tends to be someone standing nearby who's more than happy to use us as tools for a horrible purpose, while our brains are turned off and our souls numbed. Not by accident will it be a horrible purpose, because people with good purposes aren't as drawn to using other people as tools, rather than fighting with them as free brothers. And that's the difference between God and the Devil. Well, obviously, a difference.
Jordan Peterson is a rare exponent of moral heroism.
Salt of the earth
My little town is losing an excellent police chief to retirement, just as I was getting to know what a rare find he is. If you're familiar with the true story on which the 1991 movie "Rush" was loosely based, he's the straight arrow cop who was brought in to clean up the mess after the two undercover cops flamed out and went to prison. Their original police chief was acquitted of evidence-rigging upon testifying he had no idea what they'd been up to, but after acquittal he was quietly chased off. So my currently outgoing police chief stepped in to straighten things out under more than usually fraught circumstances. Not too long after that he came down to my neck of the woods and ran our police department for several decades.
Last night's retirement party was in minor part a study in local politics, as revealed by the presence of a certain contingent and the absence of another. All that political tension largely faded into the background, though, as a group of very old loyal friends and family enjoyed each other's company and honored the chief. He has three grown sons who I imagine to be much like Cassandra's boys. Something about the chief and his wife also put me in mind of Cassandra and her husband--what was it she used to call him? The Unit? The young men gave some extremely touching tributes to their parents. At first I thought, "What a fine father he must have been to raise those sons." Then I met his wife and realized she was equally extraordinary, so I found myself thinking, "You don't get sons like that by accident, even if your husband is a superb father." Many of those present were the solid core of the local Baptist Church. I knew it must be an amazing congregation from the central role it has played in coordinating volunteer storm relief over the last 18 months. Now I can see more clearly what they have going for them. These people's love of God goes right down into their bones.
I have spent too much time lately in the "mean-girls" atmosphere of small-town political intrigue. I meet people who sound like they'll be reliable comrades in arms and others who obviously can't be bothered or relied on. This party made me realize there's a big society out there to be met and cherished. These are people who will know what's right and stand up for it. They don't give off the signals that are so familiar to me from my law firm days, or even from some of the more unpleasant local political gatherings, that everyone is faintly drunk and wondering, upon meeting me, whether it's to their advantage to be nice to me. They're just good people, exhibiting warmth, and ready to get to know anyone they sense will behave well and stick up for what's right. It will be an honor to serve them and be their voice.
Last night's retirement party was in minor part a study in local politics, as revealed by the presence of a certain contingent and the absence of another. All that political tension largely faded into the background, though, as a group of very old loyal friends and family enjoyed each other's company and honored the chief. He has three grown sons who I imagine to be much like Cassandra's boys. Something about the chief and his wife also put me in mind of Cassandra and her husband--what was it she used to call him? The Unit? The young men gave some extremely touching tributes to their parents. At first I thought, "What a fine father he must have been to raise those sons." Then I met his wife and realized she was equally extraordinary, so I found myself thinking, "You don't get sons like that by accident, even if your husband is a superb father." Many of those present were the solid core of the local Baptist Church. I knew it must be an amazing congregation from the central role it has played in coordinating volunteer storm relief over the last 18 months. Now I can see more clearly what they have going for them. These people's love of God goes right down into their bones.
I have spent too much time lately in the "mean-girls" atmosphere of small-town political intrigue. I meet people who sound like they'll be reliable comrades in arms and others who obviously can't be bothered or relied on. This party made me realize there's a big society out there to be met and cherished. These are people who will know what's right and stand up for it. They don't give off the signals that are so familiar to me from my law firm days, or even from some of the more unpleasant local political gatherings, that everyone is faintly drunk and wondering, upon meeting me, whether it's to their advantage to be nice to me. They're just good people, exhibiting warmth, and ready to get to know anyone they sense will behave well and stick up for what's right. It will be an honor to serve them and be their voice.
Welcome to Februrary
I've been enjoying old Waylon tunes for a little while now. He was inventive. I haven't ever been to Spain either, although I'd like to go; a Spanish girl once bought me a bottle of Spanish wine, to share a little of what her country was like, and I've never forgotten that.
Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings rented a place together, once. You can hear about it here, when he was young and clean-shaven.
Here he is a little bit later, in the late 1970s I'd guess. It was a different world.
Shel Silverstein gets mentioned here. He was a bigger force in Outlaw Country than you'd think, if you know him from books like "Where the Sidewalk Ends"; he wrote the lyrics to "A Boy Named Sue," and some other hits. He was one of my mother's favorite poets, he was. She used to read me his stuff when I was a boy. Not that one, though. That one had to wait until I became a man.
Comfort
Some kind of tipping point has been reached, evidently. Virginia Governor's bizarre chat about keeping newborn infants comfortable while we arrange to snuff them was a bridge too far, especially in the same week someone dug up yearbook photos in which he was either in blackface or wearing a KKK hood. As "the greatest chyron ever" points out, the Governor's heartfelt apology doesn't make it clear which.
Instapundit bounces the rubble with this:
UPDATE [GRIM]:
Some more rubble gets bounced.
UPDATE [GRIM]:
Instapundit bounces the rubble with this:
UPDATE [GRIM]:
Some more rubble gets bounced.
UPDATE [GRIM]:
California here I go
From Maggie's Farm, a link to a thoughtful treatment of what extreme success in one area does to the population mix of a hot town like San Francisco, since the area of hot success is suitable for a completely different demographic from what used to succeed there. Rents stay in the stratosphere, so obviously it's not that the town is literally emptying out. Still, the whole county sees the phenomenon of the California boat people. Some are emptying out just as others are pouring in. It's happening fast enough to be unusually disruptive.
A Man Speaking Plainly
A gay man -- and drag performer -- has some things he'd like to get off his chest about this whole transgender movement. His opening isn't that interesting to me, but his closing argument is pretty good.
Ultimately there is much to be said for patience in these matters.
The old paradigm presented effeminate men as homosexuals who could be cured of their sexual desires. The new paradigm presents effeminate boys as children who can be cured by declaring them girls. And since we have (falsely) decided that their sexuality is irrelevant because they are children and because gender has no relationship to sexuality, proponents can make their case without discussing the off-putting issue of sexual urges. Each child must be raised according to what the child perceives to be their “true gender.”I would say this focuses too much on the pleasure aspect of sexuality, and ignores the greater question of fertility: what if a child takes drugs that render him or her sterile, and then learns as an adult of a longing for children? What if the child were a girl, who destroys her body's ability to create life and then comes to regret it? The therapist who talked her into that will have murdered her children, all of them, and a part of her soul that she cannot get back.
In some cases, the phenomenon described as gender dysphoria is real and permanent, of course. But giving children the power to decide their true gender—or allowing them to decide that they have no gender whatsoever—makes little sense to me. Children who haven’t gone through puberty lack perspective on the ultimate consequences—both psychological and physical—of their choices. ... [W]hat if, as a child, I had decided to take hormones in order to stave off puberty? What if my penis shrank into my body? Imagine how that would affect me as an adult, when my sexual pleasure—an unknown impulse at the time I was knitting those Barbie-doll clothes—became connected with that penis. It turned out my erotic stimulus came in the form of being a man with other men, something I could never have completely understood as a child. As with legions of other gay men and women, the whole arc of my life only makes sense if one acknowledges the connection between gender and sexual attraction.
If I had self-declared as trans, hormones would have stopped the development of my penis, and there would not be enough sensitive phallic flesh to create a sensitive vagina. This would have been problematic even if I turned out not to be gay, or trans, but simply a straight man whose body now was marked by surgeries and powerful drugs. What if, as an adult, I were only turned on by being a man when I was having sex with a woman—but I now had a female body? How would I feel then?...
When I was 12 years old, I was terrified of being gay. I knew the sexual implications of my gendered behaviour. I also knew—even at a time before I experienced real sexual desire—that it was “bad” to be gay, and that being gay meant ending up alone and lonely. My mother took me aside, and quietly reassured me: “You might be gay, you might not be, but I think you’ll have to wait until you are older to think about it, because you’re just too young to think about it now.” I’m wondering if, had all this happened in 2019, she would have instead been persuaded to raise me as a girl.
I have issues with my mother. Don’t we all? I have called her names—to her face and in print. I will not repeat them here. But I want to publicly forgive her, now, for whatever I have accused her of, because she had the kindness and grace to respect my budding sexuality as I then perceived it. And she had enough respect for me to say, “You’re just too young” when I wondered what lay in store for my future. If only we all had the courage to say these same words to our own children.
Ultimately there is much to be said for patience in these matters.
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