Incitement to Violence

If quoting you directly, in context, constitutes an incitement to violence... why would that be the case? What would you have to have said that merely quoting you would put your life in danger?

Dan Crenshaw, arguably the best man in Congress, is facing a charge to that effect.

You probably know the story. It has to do with a woman who came here as a child refugee, was taken in to our country, given every privilege and honor including elevation to high office. In return, she never seems to speak of her adopted nation -- we adopted her, I mean; I'm not at all sure that she adopted us -- without censure and criticism. And, in the event, she went to a fundraiser for a named but unindicted co-conspirator supporting the terrorist group Hamas, where she spoke dismissively of the 9/11 events.

I won't mention her name, since I wouldn't want to incite anyone. Some woman. Let's leave it at that.

Well, and she's a Congresswoman. She took the oath, for whatever that's worth any more. She took the oath of citizenship, too, for whatever that was worth to her.

Towards the end of her speeches, she sometimes says it was worth something. I'd be more inclined to believe it if the rest of the speech also reflected a heartfelt love of the nation, the Constitution, and our shared history and values.

Now, Dan Crenshaw, on the other hand: there's a man whose commitment seems clear. He enlisted in the Navy, suffered the hardships of becoming and remaining a Navy SEAL, served in Afghanistan, lost an eye to a VBIED. Because he is a conservative, he went on to mockery by our moral betters at Saturday Night Live; he responded to this with good humor and decency, in a way that was good for the Republic. Then he won a seat in Congress, where I don't doubt that he takes his oath very seriously.

He's the bad guy, though. You're supposed to get that.

What has become of the nation into which I was born? Where did it go, I ask, as once the wielder of a thunderbolt sword asked after his elvish wife.

[H]e had searched by the stream by which she had prayed to the stones, and the pool where she prayed to the stars; he had called her name up every tower, and had called it wide in the dark, and had had no answer but echo; and so he had come at last to the witch Ziroonderel."Whither?" he said, saying no more than that, that the boy might not know his fears. Yet Orion knew.

And Ziroonderel all mournfully shook her head. "The way of the leaves," she said. "The way of all beauty."

So too I, but not yet.

Semantics

A lot of freaking out over AG Barr's casual statement that there was spying on the Trump campaign, and the only question is whether it was the legitimate or illegitimate sort.  As RealClearInvestigations notes:

So there we have it with all the decisive logic of a Socratic dialogue: The FBI could not possibly have spied on the Trump campaign because bureau lingo includes neither the noun “spy” nor the verb “to spy.” Whatever informants may have been employed, whatever tools of surveillance may have been utilized, the FBI did not spy on the Trump campaign – didn’t spy by definition, as the bureau doesn’t use the term (except, of course, to describe the very same activities when undertaken by foreigners).

Roger Scruton Apologizes

The famous intellectual and critic Roger Scruton was recently embroiled in one of those controversies about saying some allegedly offensive things. Today, he apologizes:

Not for the first time I am forced to acknowledge what a mistake it is to address young leftists as though they were responsible human beings.

The most egregious of these was the editing "for space" of his comments on China, in which he warned that the government was trying to impose a dangerous homogeneity on the populace, and that this gave the society a frightening aspect. What they actually quoted him as saying was simply that it was scary how Chinese people are all alike: "each Chinese person is a kind of replica of the next one."

Measuring school performance

It's an enduring topic, how to assess the performance of education.  At least two ways that might make sense are improvement in performance on standardized tests per tuition dollar, and improvement in lifetime earnings per tuition dollar.  By both measures, these authors claim charter schools leave public schools in the dust in eight U.S. cities.

Racism and the minimum wage

Thomas Sowell is always worth reading.

In the United States, as the minimum wage rate specified in the law began to be raised, beginning in the 1950s, so as to catch up with inflation and then keep up with inflation, the minimum wage law became effective in practice once again — and a racial gap in unemployment rates opened up and expanded.

As a black teenager, I was lucky enough to be looking for jobs when the minimum wage law was rendered ineffective by inflation. I was also lucky enough to have gone through New York schools at a time when they still had high educational standards.

Bibi

Echoes:

Pundits are already declaring that [Netanyahu's] government will fall sooner rather than later. Perhaps. But in the meantime, consider: Decisiveness, security-mindedness, bluntness, and economic well-being trumped political correctness, character assassination, and hand-outs in Israel. The Democratic Party should take note.

Hate speech

It's getting as hard to define as climate change.

Now THAT"S how to Honor a Hero

This is an old story, but it's new to me, and since I don't recall seeing it here before, I'm going to go ahead and assume it'll be new to you too.

If you recall the London Bridge knife attack terrorists of a few years ago, you probably remember Roy Larner.  He's the fellow who famously stood up, walked toward the attackers when they broke into the restaurant, and yelled at them to draw attention away from the other patrons, and then engaged them, deterring them but sustaining several wounds in the process.

Well, when Frequency Beer Works heard this story, they thought he deserved to be honored, and so they didn't just offer to buy him a beer (or several), but created a brew just to honor his actions that day. Here's the label:

I think they did a nice job with the graphics- particularly the nicked up St. George's Cross.

So kudos to Frequency Beer Works for doing this.  It was a great idea.

Honesty Abroad

It's interesting to me what Democratic establishment figures like Obama and Clinton say about immigration when they go to Europe.

Obama made the comments during a two-hour town hall meeting in Berlin, which hundreds of young leaders from across Europe attended.

"Immigration issues are driving a lot of the political turmoil here in Europe and in my own country," Obama said in a shared video of the talk.

Urging those in the crowd to view those who expressed opposition to immigration with empathy, Obama said: "We can't label everyone who is disturbed by migration as racist.

"If you're going to have a coherent, cohesive society, then everybody has to have some agreed-upon rules. And there are going to have to be some accommodations that everybody makes. And that includes the people who are newcomers. The question is, are those fair?" Obama said.

"Should we want to encourage newcomers to learn the language of the country that they're moving to? Of course," he continued. "Does that mean that they can never use their own language? No, of course it doesn't mean that, but it's not racist to say, 'Ah, if you're going to be here then you should learn the language of the country that you just arrived at because we need to have some sort of common language in which all of us can work, and learn and understand each other."

Ms. Clinton said something similar a while back.

“I think Europe needs to get a handle on migration because that is what lit the flame,” Clinton said, speaking as part of a series of interviews with senior centrist political figures about the rise of populists, particularly on the right, in Europe and the Americas.

“I admire the very generous and compassionate approaches that were taken particularly by leaders like Angela Merkel, but I think it is fair to say Europe has done its part, and must send a very clear message – ‘we are not going to be able to continue provide refuge and support’ – because if we don’t deal with the migration issue it will continue to roil the body politic.”

Yet somehow when they talk here, even the simple enforcement of existing law is nothing but racist and evil.

Alive, But Ready for Rebirth

The Western as a genre. I think I may have posted this one before, but I can't recall. Rather than going back and trying to figure it out, well, it's a good piece. If you missed it the first time, if there was a first time, here it is again.

Hate Music

...featuring Johnny Cash.



My favorite thing about this is the "Disney" logo on the bottom corner.

UPDATE: If you like Cash with puppets, this one's good too.

You Have Chosen... Wisely

Glock got a new spokesman.

"Border Hardliners"

We are on track for a million violators being caught this year, but sure, only "hardliners" would have a problem with the performance of the outgoing Homeland Security Secretary.

Lest We Forget

I, like probably most of you, am well past the median age for American citizens, which was 38 in 2017. Thus, the median American was born in 1981, and was too young to have political awareness in 1991 when the USSR collapsed. More and more, I notice that those who came aware after the Cold War do not remember the truth about Communism.

The Wall Street Journal in 2016 asked: “Is Communism Cool? Ask a Millennial.” Last year MIT Press published Communism for Kids and Teen Vogue ran an excited apologia for Communism. Tablet announced, with some concern, a “Cool Kid Communist Comeback.” On Twitter, there is new trend of people giving themselves communist-themed names: “Gothicommunist,” “Trans-Communist,” “Commie-Bitch,” “Eco-Communist.” The hammer and sickle flag has been re-appearing on campuses, at protests and on social media.

How could we have forgotten?

A poll in the UK by The New Culture Forum from 2015 showed that 70 percent of British people under the age of 24 had never heard of Chinese communist leader Mao Tse-Tung, while out of the 30 percent who had heard of him, 10 percent did not associate him with crimes against humanity. Chairman Mao’s communist regime was responsible for the deaths of between 30 to 70 million Chinese, making him the biggest genocidal killer of the 20th century, above Stalin and Hitler.

One of the reasons Mao’s genocides are not widely known about is because they are complex... it is precisely the ambiguity over whether Mao’s Communist Party was responsible for 30, 50 or 70 million deaths that leads to internet users giving up on the subject.

Wretchard today is warning about the Cultural Revolution, which our own young left seems to be trying its best to kick off here. If they haven't heard of Mao, they haven't heard of the Cultural Revolution either; and they don't know where this process leads. Which makes them, of course, easily led there.

National Tartan Day

It was this day in the year of our Lord 1320 that the Declaration of Arbroath was signed.

[Robert the Bruce, and not Edward like the Pope thought], too, divine providence, his right of succession according to or laws and customs which we shall maintain to the death, and the due consent and assent of us all have made our Prince and King. To him, as to the man by whom salvation has been wrought unto our people, we are bound both by law and by his merits that our freedom may be still maintained, and by him, come what may, we mean to stand.

Yet if he should give up what he has begun, and agree to make us or our kingdom subject to the King of England or the English, we should exert ourselves at once to drive him out as our enemy and a subverter of his own rights and ours, and make some other man who was well able to defend us our King; for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom — for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.

Long live that ideal of freedom.

Deep Calls to Deep

The title of this review, of a period of time after WWII when religious conversions were running high, is "Shallow Calls to Shallow." It's a reference to an old Latin phrase, which literally translated is as it appears in the title of this post.

But as often is true, you have to go to the original to grasp what is really being said. It isn't "deep," not in the sense that we use the word now if we should say that a man or a woman is "deep."

The original Latin is this: Abyssus Abyssum Invocat.

In the Proverbs, it refers to the depths of the oceans, unimaginable and impenetrable. In later Latin use, it refers as you would expect to Hell. The word "invocation" has come to us with powerful, magical connotations.

By contrast, maybe the shallow isn't so bad. It's weak, but weakness means that it lacks power. Power is not an unalloyed good.

Whistleblower reward

A Duke lab assistant (or perhaps his lawyers) stands to receive more than $30MM for taking on a powerful university researcher's federally financed research fraud.  He says he tried to get federal prosecutors to handle the matter, but when they refused, he filed a qui tam action in the name of taxpayers.  Under the applicable statute, that means he gets to keep a third of the settlement Duke just agreed to pay.

Makes you wonder how much other research fraud whistleblower money is lying around on the ground.  The hotcoldwetdry money alone, let alone the dietary research slush funds, must be mind-boggling.

A Vulgar Dignity

Looking back at Quillette again this morning to re-read the book review, I noticed also this woman's expression of a very different sort of experience with sexual banter.

What I learned that summer was that the adult world was often about sex. I learned that I didn’t need to be afraid of it. I learned that I had a lot more power over men than I originally thought—not simply because, as a cute young thing, I was awakening to my own feminine sexuality and realized how keenly the guys wanted me to like them, but because I had more power than I realized to reject their advances, to assert my sense of sexual agency not because it was a private and protected part of me, but precisely because it was so openly commented upon.

What I realized, too, is that these exchanges weren’t offensive, they were playful; that they weren’t demeaning, but led to mutual respect. It was the very indecency of the back of house culture that made working at that 24-hour restaurant a tolerable job, and it was all the vulgar insults of the workplace that gave a kind of gritty dignity to our work there. Working there one became part of family. Flouting the rules that govern social niceties, which had to be observed carefully in the restaurant dining room, was the initiation into the clan. What I’ve learned since that summer is that the culture of that greasy spoon kitchen has a rich anthropology; it’s the type of community that populates the taverns of Shakespeare’s plays, for instance, and it functions in direct opposition to officialdom.

There's a lot to what she says, and no reason to dismiss her experience from the fact that others may not share it.

Army to Name New Attack Helicopter after Elizabeth Warren

"The Warren conquered its two chief competitors, the AH-67 Redskin and V-23 Columbus, to win the Army contract."

Moral instincts all figured out

Duffle Blog makes easier going of the problem "The Goodness Paradox" wrestles with:

LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan — Gesturing the “peace” sign and telling fellow fighters that he was “totally done with this insurgent stuff, man,” hippie Taliban defector Ahmad Khan got incredibly stoned, sources confirmed today.

“Bro, did you ever just think, like, what are we doing it all for?” asked the totally lit former IED maker seconds before being stoned to death by his compatriots. “Like, did you ever think, what if we’re the bad guys and the Americans are the good guys? Or what if we’re actually both the good guys but we just don’t understand each other? Like, whoa. Damn, I’m so high.”

* * *

Khan’s parents attempted to convince the Taliban that he was going through a phase, and that within a few months they would make sure he finishes his classes at Berkeley and gets a job at his father’s law firm.

Murphy's Law

It's not every day you meet a Vietnamese Murphy, but the lady has a good point.

"I am offended by this whole conversation about socialism," Murphy said, according to the Washington Examiner. "The idea that in the greatest democracy, the greatest capitalist system in the world, we're having casual conversation about socialism, offends me."

Murphy also called herself a "proud capitalist."

"It is the system that built us the greatest nation and the greatest economy in the world. Sure, we have to fix the inequities that exist in our system. We have to make sure everybody, no matter what zip code they're born in, has a fair shot," Murphy continued. "But it is not the moment to undo the whole system and embrace something that Americans have spent blood and treasure fighting to save other countries from."

Murphy, who is of Vietnamese heritage, cited her experience growing up in a socialist country as her reason for opposing socialism.

A Fair Wager

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who has reportedly led a chant of "death to America" and recently called for a separate state for black Americans, has made more controversial comment.....

"God does not love this world. God never sent Jesus to die for this world. Jesus died because he was 2,000 years too soon to bring about the end of the civilization of the Jews. He never was on a cross, there was no Calvary for that Jesus," Farrakhan said.

Instead, he said, Jesus's name would live until the one that came that he was prefigured for.

"The real story is what I tried to tell you from the beginning. It didn’t happen back there. It’s happening right while you’re alive looking at it," Farrakhan told the audience. "I represent the Messiah. I represent the Jesus and I am that Jesus. If I am not, take my life."

I wouldn't call for violence against a man like "Calypso Gene," so don't misunderstand me. I just want to point out that that's the kind of wager that the House tends to win.

Quillette Reviews The Goodness Paradox

It's a dangerous publication reviewing a book with "a dangerous idea." Some of you will want to see what they think.

Two Warnings on Touching

Joe Biden's propensity for touching is in the news -- much of it completely at odds with contemporary standards. I don't want to run down the movement to protect women and girls from predatory behavior. I do want to repost two relevant older posts that call into question some of the assumptions we as a society seem to be operating under, and then raise two warnings about things we should try to avoid.

First post: Pulling Pigtails, which questions whether or not the assumption of male power is baked into the governing analysis. "Couldn't it be that there is a corresponding female power, one that gives them license to touch others without permission in ways that men are simply forbidden to do? Or are we obligated to cash this out as five-out-of-six expressions of male oppression of women, even though four-out-of-six appear to be choices made by a woman?"

Second post: Ah, the Patriarchy, which points out that extant law perfectly adheres to the self-described "feminist" statement of principles. That being true, how seriously should we take the assumption that our society isn't already feminist, at least in this regard?

Now, the two warnings.

First, as regards male to male touching, American society has long been entirely too restrictive of anything that might be misinterpreted as homoerotic. This was true to the extent that, when I was a boy, it was essentially inappropriate for any man to touch another except to shake hands in a firm fashion -- the mutual firmness displaying a strength that would to some degree serve as a warning-off, a display of power. Only extraordinary occasions allowed exceptions. You might slap another man's shoulders when he fathered a child or got married. I don't recall my father hugging me until I left home at 18, and he expected not to see me again for a very long time.

In fact, touch is human and healthy. I discovered that I enjoyed the experience when I started jujitsu, which by nature involves grappling. It's not a sexual experience, but it is the experience of touching others you like -- the mutual experience of pursuing the art builds a bond, and the touch is an affirmation of it. Grappling, fighting, learning to feel the other through the sword in the bind and play, those things require and reward physical contact. As an adult I've gravitated toward modes of manhood -- biker, horseman, strongman -- that are sufficiently confident to dispense with fears about touch.

So the first warning is: don't extend to heterosexuality the kind of fear of touch that arose out of American fears of homosexuality. There are fit and proper boundaries, I agree. If it becomes the case that we are afraid to touch each other, though, we lose something human and important.

Second, as much as I sometimes miss certain aspects of youth, it's already very hard to navigate that period of life without new impositions forbidding expressions of tenderness. Run a search on "Young people aren't having sex" and you'll see that the trendlines suggest it hasn't gotten easier since our day. Let's take some care not to set up standards of appropriateness (especially in law, but also in behavior codes at institutions like colleges where the young gather) that make it harder for them to navigate what are already anxious waters.

It should be possible to avoid those problems without derailing the good that is to be had from the current moment. I raise them only as considerations, not as roadblocks.

Fear of measurement

There are few themes in the endless educational debate more insistent than hostility to standardized tests.  This Atlantic story showcases the upscale version: your bright, high-achieving child may have traded her innate love of learning for a joyless scramble after grades.  The flip-side version is the underperforming student's family's ceaseless search for a kinder, gentler school environment that either measures an unmeasurable cognitive quality that's untethered from all those heartless plebeian facts, or fantasizes about a worthwhile degree free of all objective measurement.

I'm grateful that my father, a teacher himself, never bogged down in any of this.  He admired academic success and took occasional pleasure in mine, when he noticed it.  He never obsessed over it.  He had a casual working assumption that grades had something to do with achievement. On the other hand, if he'd gotten the least whiff of suspicion that the two had diverged, he wouldn't have wasted two seconds deciding which one had value.  Nor was he in any doubt about how to make the judgment after conversing with a student, including his own child.  A third person's measurement might be more or less reliable, but the education was the real thing.

I would come home sometimes to ask about something I'd heard in a chemistry class about electrons orbiting a nucleus like planets around a sun, which didn't sound like what I'd heard from him.  He'd say, well, they're probably required to teach it that way, and you don't have to argue about it, but that's not really our best knowledge of the peculiar truth these days--which he'd then do his best to explain.  The message was that someone's ability to judge your grasp of a subject is limited by his own, and it's always going to be up to you to find out best how to learn by your independent efforts and judgment. Tests were an unavoidable part of the process, not wrong often enough to worry about, but also never the point.

It goes without saying that it never would have occurred to him to bribe or cheat my way into a posh school.

We have to exclude your sort to keep this place inclusive

The Faculty of Divinity of Cambridge University invited Jordan Peterson to apply for an unpaid Visiting Scholar position, and granted his application.  The University itself then abruptly withdrew the offer, citing Peterson as a "divisive" figure:

Peterson’s fellowship had been revoked because “[Cambridge] is an inclusive environment and we expect all our staff and visitors to uphold our principles. There is no place here for anyone who cannot.”

That's inclusiveness for you.

Waco Update

Four years ago, two motorcycle clubs got into a brawl at "Twin Peaks" restaurant in Waco that was surrounded by the local police. Nine people were killed by gunfire, and 20 injured. Security cameras caught the whole thing. 200 bikers were arrested and held on million-dollar bonds. Now, the Waco DA is dropping all remaining charges. No one has ever been convicted of anything related to the event.

That's Amazing

Right-Wing Extremism: Rising, or Falling?

The New Zealand shooting attack on a mosque prompted another round of stories about right-wing extremism (although the shooter actually claims to be an "eco-fascist" who feels affinity for the People's Republic of China; but OK, 'right wing').

But what if, in fact, right wing violence is falling? What if it's because people are finding success democratically instead of needing to resort to violence?

The decline in deadly right-wing violence, which reached a historic low in Western Europe in 2014, is puzzling because it occurred under conditions commonly assumed to stimulate right-wing terrorism and violence, such as increased immigration, growing support for anti-immigrant parties, persistent Islamist terrorism and booming youth unemployment rates.

Previously, I’ve proposed six hypotheses that may help explain this conundrum, including a change in subcultural trends and more favorable political opportunities for anti-immigrant parties. Many of the attacks during the 1990s and early 2000s were carried out by neo-Nazi skinheads, an inherently violent subculture that considered violence an end in and of itself. Today, violent skinheads have been replaced by bookish Identitarians using so-called metapolitical activism to generate societal change. While keeping a safe distance from openly racist language, identitarians do believe that some people should have precedence over others in certain territories, only because of their ethnic descent. To promote this view, their metapolitical strategy is aimed at influencing cultural, intellectual and public domains to change how people think about such contested issues. This is done through a variety of mostly nonviolent means, such as writing books, hosting seminars or arranging shocking public stunts aimed at generating massive media attention, sometimes referred to as guerrilla media tactics.

At the same time, anti-immigrant parties have increasingly gained electoral support in many Western democracies, thereby offering political opportunities to people who otherwise could have ended up in more extreme forms of activism. The relative success of these parties also negates the claim made by most violent extremists that promoting anti-immigrant views via democratic channels is futile. My research shows that in Western Europe between 1990 and 2015, there is a negative relationship between electoral support to anti-immigrant parties and right-wing terrorism and violence.

The author goes on to say that "such parties do in some cases represent a threat to liberal democratic values and minority rights, which affects more people and may have more dire consequences in the long run than their violent counterparts." So maybe it'd be better if there were more right-wing terrorists, because it would mean conservatives were safely kept away from the real levers of power?

Who Does He Think He Is?

From Twitter:

New: Tricia Newbold, a current WH employee, has come forward to the House Oversight Committee to allege 25 instances in which her concerns about security clearances were overruled.

Really? The President of the United States overruled a White House employee? Thank God she came forward!

Patriarchy Abounds

A meditation on the olive branch.

Wrong Again, Commie

As good Marxists, let’s state up front that the primary function of rural areas within the larger national economy is as a supply source of raw materials: food, oil, natural gas, coal, timber, and other resources. To keep these goods flowing out of rural areas —and profit flowing into capitalists’ pockets—freethinking dissent within the extractive regions must be squashed at all costs. Compare this with urban areas, where a greater productive capacity and larger middle classes can absorb and dilute a great deal of dissent. In rural areas, those impulses have to be stamped out before they can really take off; nothing less than the unchallenged flow of profit and resources is at stake. Conservatives understand this, and it’s why one of their foremost political strategies in rural areas is that of social control.

If you live in a rural community, extractive or not, you are likely confronted every day with an onslaught of images, dogmas, and various cultural reinforcements regarding your role within the national social structure.

(Skipping the obvious joke about what constitutes "a good Marxist.")

I am not confronted, on a daily basis or even regularly, with "images" or "dogmas" or "various cultural reinforcements." Most days I don't see anyone who isn't blood kin, except my wife. I don't watch television, I almost never see a cop, and I can't remember the last time somebody tried to push a dogma off on me. They wouldn't enjoy it much if they did.

He goes on to criticize school systems in a way that makes some sense, but I don't see that as a rural problem. Public schools are awful in many ways, but one of them is that the basically fail at their mission of training free Americans to be free Americans. As Aristotle says, education should help shape the citizen for the polis. Somehow we've evolved a public school system that trains people to shut up, do what they're told, be subject to constant authority and discipline, be disarmed and controlled... and then somehow, when they graduate, they're supposed to know how to be an American.

What happens differently in rural America isn't that the schools do this more than they do in the cities, though. It's that there aren't overlapping systems of control everywhere you go. There aren't closed circuit cameras everywhere, or police, or often even other people. You can go for a hike and not see another human being, and that's great. You can do whatever you want when you're alone; you're really free.

When you get to be free, you like it. The reason progressive social programs aren't attractive to us is that they're all systems of control. The author passionately argues against control as exercised by school boards and principals, and if you listen to their podcast they've got several "All Cops are B*stards" shows, but he wants to impose Marxist degrees of control on the whole nation.

Yeah, you can keep all that.

Spear-Shaker

Another lecture on Norse mythology by our favorite U. Colorado professor.

Requiescat in Pace Carrie Constantini

Those of you who have been around long enough to remember Villainous Company will have known Carrie well; Marines of 3/5 will have known her well also. I am sorry to report that I have learned of her unexpected passing. She was a lady of great energy and joy, and my world will be lessened without her.

UPDATE: Looking back through the archives, I see that she was also a major force at BLACKFIVE during its heyday. She kept us awash with positive stories about the Marines during the hard days of the Iraq war, and the better days too.

Accidental Viking Steel

Tex's post about tin made me think of this claim I read recently about the quality of Viking swords.

[T]he majority of iron they had access to was bog iron. Bacteria in bogs oxidize trace amounts of iron to gain energy and, in so doing, concentrate the iron, enabling its collection for smithing. However, the resulting iron is impure and soft, which was a big problem for the Scandinavians....

Scandinavian smiths discovered that the bones of the dead could grant them an edge. Numerous forges scattered across Scandinavia contain the remains of animal and human bones — by incorporating the remains of the dead, their spirits could be transferred into a blade, making it stronger and more durable.

Incorporating bones into the smithing process did in fact make Scandinavian swords stronger, but it wasn't magic — it was technology. What ancient smiths could not have realized is that they were in fact mixing their bog iron with carbon to make a rudimentary form of steel.

Maybe that's true. It's an interesting theory.

Identity and America

I'm not sure if this would be characterized as "white nationalist" or "anti-semitic" or both by Facebook; but it actually argues against divisions by race or faith, and in favor of a union of Americans.

Today, the central threat to the continued existence, let alone health, of the nation is the decimation of meaning in citizenship that has followed the persistent denial of an essential American identity by both the modern Left and Right. Both peddle an ahistorical lie which abetts the trajectory of disunity and destruction: that no common history, culture, or language is required to be an American. Both have conflated these standards with racial discrimination, where no such connection is self-evident. These days, one cannot venture to define what it means to be an American—beyond the vague willingness to contribute to the economy—without enduring unfounded charges of “bigotry.”

Identity best can be understood as the unspoken knowledge of self which is sensed commonly. Its implicit character makes it a bit slippery, but that does not reduce its potency.

The American identity emerged from a shared history. This history is tied up in the habits and principles of ordered liberty, privacy, equality before the law, agrarian grit, self-reliance, Christian charity, British common law, devotion to family, and self-governance through civil society. But is rooted most strongly in the fact of common heritage. Consanguinity is one of the central pillars of any regime, including ours. America, more than any other nation, has a foundation capable of unifying diversity of origin, religion, and blood.

She mentions "the Frankfurt School," criticism of which is -- I read earlier this week -- considered anti-semitic. But it's not criticism of Jews per se, or Judaism, it's criticism of a set of ideas. That should be fair game.

Likewise, the basic idea that America's ideals are good and should be applied to everyone has lately become criticized as a sort of racism. Because America has (allegedly many) social privileges enjoyed by whites, supporting America (or Western civilization generally) is said to be a kind of white nationalism. Aspiring to eliminate racial distinctions is supposedly a way of reinforcing them, if only by hiding them.

So possibly this essay is heavily coded racism and prejudice. Or possibly she's right.

Patriots must unabashedly assert that American identity is real, that it is good, and that we, the people, collectively get to decide who may partake in our American dream according to our cultural preferences. We can honor American artists and heroes, local and national, and prioritize them over more postmodern, deconstructionist options. We can assert, loudly, that our American Founders were good men, and that what they built was entrusted to a good people.

You'll have to decide for yourselves.

Tin

"RealClearScience" is doing a series on the elements, including today's "tin."  This kind of thing is always interesting, but something I particularly enjoyed was reading that the first bronze may have been stumbled on when people made an accidental alloy from ores that naturally contained a suitable mixture of copper and tin, perhaps as early as 5800 B.C.  I'd always thought of the Bronze Age as beginning around 3500 or 3000 B.C. Of course dates for these things vary considerably over the world, and it shouldn't be too surprising that the idea crops up here and there quite early before it grabs hold and spreads.  It was a long time before cultures became complex enough to transmit this innovative idea reliably from generation to generation, then from place to place, and also to allow a robust trade in tin over continental distances.  Even slower, perhaps, was the cultural development that favored systematic experimentation with fussy recipes for alloys and counterintuitive stabs in the dark like different quenching methods.

It wasn't a "recusal" recusal

Well, that explains it:

That's a useful term, "colloquial" rather than the "legal sense," especially for a prosecutor's office explaining its legal actions to the public.  Alright, then.  Lots of things we feared were outright lies will turn out to be innocent after all.

Booker T & the M.G.'s

Favorites of my father's, these guys were often on the turntable when I was a boy. This was their biggest hit, I guess:



But this is one I like a little better, for reasons of my own.

How Do You Know Who the Experts Are?

There are two ways to know if someone is an expert. The first one is to have some expertise yourself, so that you can judge the quality of their work. However, no one can be expert in every field, and we often need to judge the quality of an 'expert' exactly when we aren't expert enough in that field (and consequently need to hire someone who is moreso to help us).

The second way is to rely on their reputation. If lots of people report that they did a good job in this field, you might have some reason to judge that they are indeed expert in that field. You might pick a plumber based on online reviews of their work, for example.

However, this method is subject to fraud. Online reviews can be concocted. What happens when a large, overlapping class of fakes mutually reinforce each other's claims to expertise?

The farce that has passed for public discourse the last two years was fueled by a concerted effort of the media and the pundit class to obscure gaping holes in logic as well as law. And yet, they all appeared to be credible because the institutions sustaining them are credible.

Michael McFaul was U.S. ambassador to Moscow—he knows everything about Russia. He wouldn’t invent stuff about national security matters out of thin air. Jane Mayer is a national treasure, one of America’s greatest living journalists who penned a long profile of Christopher Steele in the pages of the New Yorker. Susan Hennessy is a former intelligence community lawyer, who appears as an expert on TV. And how about her colleague at the Lawfare blog, Benjamin Wittes, a Brookings Institution fellow and a personal friend of James Comey? You think he didn’t have the inside dope, every time he posted a “Boom” GIF on Twitter predicting the final nail just about to be hammered in Trump’s coffin?

Many more jumped on the dog pile along with them, validating each other’s tweets and breathless insider sourcing. The point was to thicken the echo chamber, with voices from the right as well as the left in order to make it seem real. Hey, if this many experts are saying so, there must be something to it.

Except, there wasn’t—ever.

What to do about that? You can become expert yourself, or develop a better network of validators.

The sky's not falling. The sky's the limit.

Ken Paxton (Texas Attorney General) summarizes in USA Today:

It’s a sad commentary that alarms go up among Washington elites when the Trump administration defends the Constitution and holds Congress to its word. That is, after all, what the Department of Justice did this week by agreeing with a federal court that all of Obamacare is unconstitutional.

Pundits declare that this decision will have disastrous political consequences for Republicans. The Constitution’s approval rating is far higher than Congress’, so I think reports of our demise are greatly exaggerated. However, if the pundits are right, the Trump administration deserves all the more credit for putting the Constitution and the rule of law ahead of politics.

* * *

The end of Obamacare is not the end of health care reform, but the beginning. Each state can now decide for itself what type of health care system it wants and how best to provide for those with pre-existing conditions, just as the Founders intended.

States like Texas will be able to return to their plans for pre-existing conditions that use high-risk pools; other states, like Massachusetts, can opt for a system along the lines of Obamacare or something else entirely. The Trump administration knows the sky is not falling on health care — it’s now the limit.

And now for something completely different

No snark on this one, despite this week's unusually rich pickings.

OSS Man Sterling Hayden

Soldier of Fortune magazine has an article about this very interesting career: OSS, Marine Corps, smuggler, Hollywood actor. Unfortunately at points a Communist sympathizer, he had a major role in Dr. Strangelove and was also in The Godfather.

More on Male & Female Brains

Another study on the issue, this one doing actual brain scans of fetuses.

Red Flag Laws

As the Trump administration makes bump stocks a felony, the GOP-led Senate is considering allowing the police to pre-emptively seize your guns if someone files a 'red flag' report.

These laws allow law enforcement, and in some states, relatives and other concerned parties, to petition judges in order to temporarily restrict access to firearms from people who may be a harm to themselves or others.

Supporters of the laws say they can save lives by removing guns from individuals who should not have them. Some states have used the laws to successfully protect individuals from suicide, at least one study shows. Opponents of such laws say they violate the second amendment and say they do nothing to thwart the underlying issues causing the threat....

"I think passing a federal law is probably beyond what the market will bear. But creating an incentive at the federal level for states who want to go down this road...I think that's the best way, at least initially to solve this problem," [Sen.] Graham said.

Instead, he hopes to get a federal law enacted to incentivize states to create their own unique extreme risk laws.

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the committee's top Democrat, said future red flag laws should include what amounts to be a progressive wish list of gun control measures, including universal background checks, closing the so-called Charleston loophole and banning assault weapons.

"To be clear, extreme risk gun laws are a vital part of that effort," Feinstein said.

I'm not entirely sure what I think about these laws. On the one hand, there have been several cases of school shooters, etc., who were repeatedly reported to police before they carried out their murders. It might make some sense to create a mechanism for handling cases like that. On the other hand, since they haven't yet committed any crime, seizing their property -- even temporarily -- would ordinarily be out of line for the government. And, of course, there's no reason to believe that the power to 'temporarily' seize your guns, until you satisfy the government that you're fit to retain them, won't be expanded and abused. The fact that Sen. Fenstein can't help but slaver over the additional measures she wants on top of this highlights the risk of letting this camel get its nose into the tent.

So on balance, I think I'm opposed to the idea, even though I can see why it might be a reasonable thing to want to do in some cases. However, my opposition is weaker than it usually is to gun control measures.

Green New Deal Shot Down

It may rise again, but it garnered zero "yea" votes in the Senate -- not even from its co-author, not even from its co-sponsors.

NBC reports this as "the Senate fails to advance Green New Deal."

Some Minor Changes in Boston

The law hasn't changed, but the prosecutor has taken it on herself to alter the way in which the law is applied.

Not that I'm a huge fan of laws, but it is traditional to consult the legislature before effectively legalizing things like shoplifting, larceny, wanton destruction of property, trespass, breaking and entering....

The part where she is personally to be immediately informed if any personnel suspect an ICE or Homeland Security agent may be attending court is a nice touch, too.

This is absolutely hysterical!

I know this is long, but please make it to at least 4:30.

Alcosynth

I would prefer that you could come up with a way to improve the human body's ability to handle alcohol, rather than coming up with a substitute for alcohol; still, this is a potentially helpful field of research. Lots of people's lives would be improved by this.

What Nutt now knows is that there are 15 different Gaba receptor subtypes in multiple brain regions, “and alcohol is very promiscuous. It will bind to them all.” Without giving away his trade secrets, he says he has found which Gaba and other receptors can be stimulated to induce tipsiness without adverse effects. “We know where in the brain alcohol has its ‘good’ effects and ‘bad’ effects, and what particular receptors mediate that – Gaba, glutamate and other ones, such as serotonin and dopamine. The effects of alcohol are complicated but … you can target the parts of the brain you want to target.”

Handily, you can modify the way in which a molecule binds to a receptor to produce different effects. You can design a peak effect into it, so no matter how much Alcarelle you consume, you won’t get hammered. This is well-established science; in fact Nutt says a number of medicines, such as the smoking cessation drug varenicline (marketed as Champix), use a similar shut-off effect. You can create other effects, too, while still avoiding inebriation, so you could choose between a party drink or a business-lunch beverage.

Coming up with the concept was the easy bit, says Nutt. Finding the right molecule was more challenging, “but the real challenge is taking that molecule to a drink. The regulatory side is much harder than the science.”

Now that I believe.

Chicago Justice

That actor who filed a fake hate crime report? All charges dropped, records sealed.

Many years ago there was a populist politician in Knoxville politics named Cas Walker. Dad used to tell stories about him. On his famous radio show, the Cas Walker Farm and Home Hour (which sometimes featured the likes of Roy Acuff), Cas would often complain about other local politicians. One time he was complaining about the police's new habit of running DUI checkpoints around Knoxville.

'This practice has got to stop,' Dad reported him having said. 'Some of our best citizens are getting caught up in these things.'

Apparently Chicago feels much the same way.

9th Circuit Court A Little Less Wobbly

These judicial picks are good news.

The Glaciers are Growing

It's been a tough week for the major narrative.

Maybe Next Lent

An Army vet loses 25 pounds on his Lenten fast.

When Lent began March 6, Hall initiated a fully liquid diet in order to become less dependent on fatty foods and sugar.

Only, the fluid he settled on consuming to provide his greatest sustenance is beer....

Hall’s fasting inspiration comes from 17th century Bavarian monks, he said, who would observe the holy time of Lent through fasting on a “Bock Beer Diet.”

“Fasting is a big part of being human and we don’t really do that anymore,” he said in a YouTube video documenting his progress. “It’s not necessarily about the weight loss as it is the challenge of replicating what the monks did" over a 46-day fast. “It’s about the journey and learning about yourself.”

I imagine a lot of that lost weight is muscle, though, because beer isn't a great source of protein.

C'mon, would it kill you to submit a little?

That which does not kill you is not a crime, unless it involves a plastic straw or hate speech that hurts feelz.

Trump was exonerated only in the Electoral College report

Kidding.  Sheesh, his readers do take things a little literally.

Below, at Elise's suggestion:

A Good Summary

Seppuku is an option, members of the press.

The betrayal narrative was not reported as metaphor. It was not “Trump likes the Russians so much, he might as well be a spy for them.” It was literal spying, treason, and election-fixing – crimes so severe, former NSA employee John Schindler told reporters, Trump “will die in jail.”

In the early months of this scandal, the New York Times said Trump’s campaign had “repeated contacts” with Russian intelligence; the Wall Street Journal told us our spy agencies were withholding intelligence from the new President out of fear he was compromised; news leaked out our spy chiefs had even told other countries like Israel not to share their intel with us, because the Russians might have “leverages of pressure” on Trump.

CNN told us Trump officials had been in “constant contact” with “Russians known to U.S. intelligence,” and the former director of the CIA, who’d helped kick-start the investigation that led to Mueller’s probe, said the President was guilty of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” committing acts “nothing short of treasonous.”

Hillary Clinton insisted Russians “could not have known how to weaponize” political ads unless they’d been “guided” by Americans. Asked if she meant Trump, she said, “It’s pretty hard not to.” Harry Reid similarly said he had “no doubt” that the Trump campaign was “in on the deal” to help Russians with the leak.

UPDATE: I just want to say one thing about this fiasco. The whole thing began with General Flynn, who was fired as NSA for having spoken to the Russian ambassador about a possible quid pro quo relationship going forward and then not reporting that fact to the Vice President. The fact that the Russians felt the need to pursue a relationship like that going forward meant that one wasn't already established prior to the election.

The original grounds of the investigation logically entailed an absence of pre-election collusion. That no intelligence officer would ever recruit a man like Donald Trump -- reckless, careless of speech, impulsive, undisciplined -- requires experience to know. That the Flynn accusations contradicted an already-established relationship should have been instantly apparent to anyone with clarity of thought.

Comey was fired, we think, because he wouldn't let go of an investigation that logic should have forestalled. Two years of investigation followed to try to establish what was clearly not the case, just based on the very thing that the Flynn investigation was supposedly about.

This is a huge failure of the press; it is a huge failure of the security state. But it is also a failure of our education system. What do they teach in these schools on which we spend so much money?

A Song of the Beautiful Time

It's a little before '69, which AVI says is the end of the period rather than the beginning of it. I wasn't quite there, so I'll bend to the judgment of my elders on the point.



You can easily see what I like about it: the rejection of the city, the embrace of the canyon, the love of simple beauty and a renewed sort of human relation. It's interesting for those of you who follow my movie recommendation of last week, as it turns up in an interesting context.

The 2020 field

But before I laugh too much at this, I try to remember the SNL skit from the run-up to the 1992 election, when the Dem field was huge and all the contestants gave the distinct impression they'd rather not run.  SNL had them all in a room together, each explaining why he wasn't the right candidate this cycle.  Mario Cuomo kept saying "I've got mob ties."  Tipper Gore appeared for Al and objected that her husband wasn't there to defend himself.  I couldn't find the video clip, but here's a transcript.  Note the conspicuous absence of a particular candidate.

Campaign '92: The Race To Avoid Being The Guy Who Loses To Bush

Moderator: Good evening. I'm Fay Sullivan, of the League of Women Voters. Welcome to this, the first in a series of debates among the five leading Democrats who are trying to avoid being forced by their party into a hopeless race against President George Bush. Most of them have already announced that they're not interested in the nomination. But each, of course, is under enormous pressure to be the "chump" who will take on the futile task of running against this very, very popular incumbent. They are... Sen. Bill Bradley of New Jersey.

Sen. Bill Bradley: I am not a candidate for President in 1992.

Moderator: House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri..

Congressman Dick Gephardt: I do not seek my party's nomination.

Moderator: Sen. Lloyd Bentsen of Texas.

Sen. Lloyd Bentsen: I do not wish to be my party's nominee in the next election.

Moderator: Here for her husband, Sen. Al Gore of Tennessee, Tipper Gore.

Tipper Gore: He's not interested.

Moderator: And Gov. Mario Cuomo, of New York.

Gov. Mario Cuomo: No way!

Moderator: Gov. Cuomo, let's begin with you. In a way, one might say there's no reason for any of you to be forced into this race. After all, there are already several announced candidates for the Democratic nomination - Sen. Kerrey, Sen. Harkin, former Gov. Brown, and so on. Why is your party begging you, or any of you, to enter the race?

Gov. Mario Cuomo: Fay, I don't know. But I'll tell you something - if the Democratic Party were to make me its candidate in 1992, it would go down as its worse defeat in history.

Sen. Bill Bradley: Oh, come on, Mario! You're probably the best candidate we've got!

Everyone: Cuomo! Cuomo! Cuomo! Cuomo!

Gov. Mario Cuomo: Please, please! Bill! Now, I resent the implication that I'm the strongest candidate here. Let's be frank - you're far better than any of us, or have you forgotten your brilliant play as you led the New York Knicks to victory in the 1973 NBA Finals?

Everyone: Bradley! Bradley! Bradley! Bradley!

Gov. Mario Cuomo: Now, Bill, you could show me polls that have me losing to Bush by 7 points, and I can show you polls that have me losing to Bush by 40 points - that's not the issue! The issue is my record. After eight years of my mismanagement as governor, the economy of New York State is in a shambles! Now, I don't think anyone here can point to a record like that.

Congressman Dick Gephardt: Now, wait a minute.

Moderator: Congressman Gephardt?

Everyone: Gephardt! Gephardt! Gephardt! Gephardt!

Congressman Dick Gephardt: Well, hold on! Now, if you wanna talk about shambles, let's talk about the U.S. House of Representatives, of which I am the Majority Leader. You know, the real enemy facing this country isn't the Soviets, it isn't the Japanese - it's people like me! And the American people know it. The fact is, I couldn't beat David Duke in Harlem! What this party needs is someone with the vision, the integrity, and the guts of an Al Gore.

Everyone: Gore! Gore! Gore! Gore!

Tipper Gore: That isn't fair! My husband isn't here tonight to answer to that kind of smear!

Congressman Dick Gephardt: Then, I have to ask you, if your husband doesn't think he should be this party's nominee, why didn't he bother to show up here tonight?

Tipper Gore: My husband is with our kids at a gay porno theater.

Everyone: Oh, come on! Come on!

Moderator: Gentlemen, please! Sen. Bentsen, we haven't heard from you yet.

Everyone: Bentsen! Bentsen! Bentsen! Bentsen!

Moderator: Please... please... Senator, tell us why Lloyd Bentsen should not be President.

Sen. Lloyd Bentsen: Oh, Fay, there are so many reasons. But, ultimately, it comes down to one - this election is about ideas. And the fact is, I have none. Nothing, covers empty, nada, not a one! You know, I remind myself of that commercial, "Where's The Beef?" And that's the problem with Lloyd Bentsen - where's the beef?

Sen. Bill Bradley: Uh, may I?

Moderator: Sen. Bradley?

Sen. Bill Bradley: What about me? If Lloyd wants to talk about lack of substance, I say what about me? I'm an ex-jock. End of story. The fact is, Lloyd is one of the finest minds in the Senate! In fact, he reminds many of us of another great democrat - John F. Kennedy.

Sen. Lloyd Bentsen: Sen Bradley, I knew Jack Kennedy. I worked with Jack Kennedy. I am no Jack Kennedy.

Sen. Bill Bradley: Senator, that was uncalled for.

Sen. Lloyd Bentsen: The fact is, when most people hear the name Lloyd Bentsen, they don't think of Jack Kennedy; they think of two other fellows - Michael Dukakis and Willie Horton.

Tipper Gore: Lloyd, that is shameless!

Gov. Mario Cuomo: Sen. Bentsen, I resent the suggestion that you are somehow more the candidate of Willie Horton than anyone else here! The fact is, as governor of New York, I have pardoned criminals far worse than Willie Horton! Including key figures in organized crime, who happen top be close friends of mine! Yes! I'm talking about the mob!

Moderator: Well... gentlemen, Mrs. Gore...we've reached the end of our alotted time. Each of you is now allowed a brief closing statement. Let's begin with Tipper Gore.

Tipper Gore: Thank you, Fay. I'm a mother of three children, and, like any mother, I want the best possible future for my kids. When I think of a future with my husband as President, frankly, I'm scared. Thank you.

Moderator: Congressman Gephardt?

Congressman Dick Gephardt: There's a feeling abroad in this land. You can sense it from the textile workers in South Carolina, from machinists in Detroit, and ranchers in Wyoming. The feeling that Dick Gephardt represents everything that's wrong with this country. You don't want me as your president, and neither do I. I want to remain in Congress. After all, that's where the money is - your money. Thank you.

Moderator: Sen. Bradley?

Sen. Bill Bradley: Well, there are people that will tell you that I can beat George Bush. Why? Because I'm a sports celebrity. But I think you, the American people, are smarter than that. You want a leader you can defend against terrorism, not jump shots; who can make a foreign policy, not an inbound pass; a leader who can run an economy, not a three-man weave. If America ever needs a man in a low post... perhaps I'm the guy... but, when it comes to our nation's highest post, I just don't cut it. Thank you.

Moderator: And now, Sen. Bentsen.

Sen. Lloyd Bentsen: I'm old.. and I'm only gonna be getting older. Older and more confused. Hell, I can't tell you all the names of the people that are standing right here. One thing I can tell you, is that George Bush would beat the living bejebus out of me. He's done it before, just ask a couple friends of mine - Michael Dukakis and Willie Horton. 

Moderator: And, finally, Gov. Cuomo.

Gov. Mario Cuomo: Thank you, Fay. Tonight, we've heard a lot about images of perception, about what poll shows what candidate losing by the least to whom at any given time. Now, I could stand here and talk about the inaccuracy of polling, or the subjective nature of the process - but that's not the real issue here! The real issue is simple - I... have... mob ties!

Moderator: Well, that brings to a close, the first in a series of Democratic Presidential debates. Thank you, all of you, for your participation here tonight. And I'd also like to take this opportunity to remind our viewers at home that democracy works only when you vote. When you don't take the time to vote for the candidate you find the least offensive, you run the risk of electing the candidate you find the most offensive. Good night.

I did find a link, but it has an annoying ad first.

Kermit the Coffee-Obsessed Murderer

Jim Henson's early work is surprisingly horrifying.

The End of the "TrumpRussia" Probe

Open thread, if you have anything you'd like to say about it.

Knowing the Right Thing to Say

Swedes piously assert their willingness to take a refugee into their homes, until one is presented.

Assaults on Religious Ceremonies

We all heard about last week's, but did you hear about the priest who was slashed by a knife-man during Mass in Canada today? The attacker survived -- as thankfully did the priest, Father Claude Grou -- but so far he has not been identified or described at all to the public.

Dad29 points out that a dozen Christian churches were vandalized in the last week in France alone. "In 2018, the Ministry of the Interior recorded 541 anti-Semitic acts, 100 anti-Muslim acts, and 1063 anti-Christian acts." All we get by way of description here is "young men," which is at least what you'd expect.

Elite-Approved Democracy

We keep hearing about how the Electoral College is a 'threat to democracy,' since it can prevent the winner of a popular vote from becoming President (as the Founders intended, for the purpose of ensuring that a President had support across a broad set of states rather than support localized in populous regions). Democracy, we are told, is an unalloyed good.

Unless, of course, the democracy is a popular referendum that enacts Voter ID, as happened in North Carolina. There, you will recall, a single judge saw fit to set aside the will of a majority of the state's voters -- and the same people who condemn the Electoral College praised him for it.

Now, in New Mexico, a single state official has decreed that the voters may not even hold a referendum on a gun control law she favors.

Republicans cited from the state constitution that “the people reserve the power to disapprove, suspend and annul any law enacted by the Legislature.” But Toulouse Oliver said that exceptions were allowed on laws regarding “public peace, health, and safety,” according to the New Mexican....

Dozens of counties in the state have already declared themselves a “Second Amendment Sanctuary” in opposition to the Democratic-sponsored legislation. The New Mexico Sheriff’s Association previously called the laws unenforceable, saying they would punish law-abiding citizens.

(The next county over just did that "gun sanctuary" thing too. I expect it's going to become more and more common.)

A judge in Wisconsin has likewise blocked some lame-duck laws passed by the Republican legislature.

I'm beginning to get the sense that this commitment to the democratic will of the people is conditional on the people doing what the elites prefer they do.

Weirdos for President

Way back in 1969, Arlo Guthrie was among those who used the word "weirdos" to embrace himself and others like him. You can hear him do so here, in this intro to the infamous "Motorcycle Song."



That spirit of '69 has created a culture whom the weird is normal. Beto eating dirt after losing to Ted Cruz isn't even the weirdest thing about the current crop; as the author notes, even taking your mother to a porno film is not.

It's difficult to appreciate how weird it has gotten, because our culture suppresses the discussion of it. Thirty years ago it was 1988. The view of sexuality that had obtained for a thousand years or more was still broadly accepted. The military was staffed by straight men for the most part, as it had been since the introduction of formal militaries; some women performed non-combat roles, as they had since the second world war. Marriage was between a man and a woman, chiefly for the purpose of procreation and child rearing, according to a doctrine at least as old as Aquinas and arguably as old as Aristotle; people who divorced and remarried multiple times were still thought a bit scandalous. Cheating on your wife would end Presidential ambitions if it became widely known, because it was viewed as a betrayal of a sacred oath -- and the sacred oath is all that really restrains a President.

Perhaps some of those changes are for the better; I don't raise the issue to discuss that point. What I raise the issue to discuss is how rapidly everything has changed. Many of the things that are being treated as normal right now would have been unthinkable in 1988. As the cited piece suggests, Kamala Harris may eventually become the middle-of-the-road choice for nomination; if she does, both candidates for President will be acknowledged adulterers. It's not even really an issue anymore. Why should it be, when Harris et al are running on pledges to destroy the Constitutional systems their sacred oath would require them to protect? The hope isn't that her oath might restrain her; she, and the rest, are being sought out specifically to violate that oath.

Like many, I have a great deal of affection for the music of 1969 -- for the beauty which first flowered in the spirit of throwing off the old rules, and trying new things. Some of you have more affection for some of the changes that have followed, some less. But it is clear that tradition and normality have completely lost their force. Everything can be swept away in this wind; anything to be saved must be saved by main force.

It's a dangerous time. An interesting one.

Plastic Brains

A thesis that I, like most parents, devoutly hope is true.

Meanwhile, evidence points to your family environment having no bearing on personality. Twins who are reared in a family are not more similar than twins reared in different families. “Adopted siblings are basically no more similar in personality than any two strangers in the street,” he adds.

Parents might bristle at this idea, but it doesn’t downplay the importance of upbringing. Family environment contributes to our behaviour, our character and the way we adapt to the world, Mitchell notes, “so parenting has a major contribution”.

“Though our personality stays the same, our behaviour does change with our experience,” he says. Neuroscientists now view the brain as far more plastic than once assumed. It shifts with experience, much like a muscle changes with exercise.

I suspect that most parents believe otherwise, which is why we go to such lengths to try to raise our kids right. Every parent makes mistakes, though; everyone misses opportunities that are evident only in hindsight. Some of our strategies, even adopted with the best intentions for the child's socialization or success, end up looking worse in retrospect.

Still, it's a nice thought: your work might help them develop analogously to exercising helping their muscles develop, but the basic structure is going to stay the same no matter what you got wrong. It's not that what you do doesn't matter. It's just that you end up a lot less responsible for the end result than you may fear.

And to some degree, so do they. You can only exercise muscles you were born with, after all. If your son or daughter just isn't the person you'd hoped they'd become, well, to some degree it may not be your fault or theirs either. It may just be they were born to be someone else.

If the study is true, of course. I have to be suspicious of it just because I'd like for it to be.

A Beard Song

Same band as last night. There's a bit of language, but you're all spirited folk.

Asylum Claim Rejected After Conversion to Christianity

Britain’s immigration department has been condemned for citing violent Bible passages as the basis to reject an asylum claim by an Iranian national who said he had converted to Christianity because it was a “peaceful” religion.

The Home Office — which is responsible for handling immigration, security and law and order — used verses from the books of Leviticus, Exodus and Revelation in an attempt to argue that Christianity was hardly “peaceful.” The asylum seeker’s application was denied on Tuesday....

[T]he Home Office used extensive quotes from the Bible, such as “You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you,” from Leviticus, as evidence against the asylum seeker’s claim about Christianity.

“These examples are inconsistent with your claim that you converted to Christianity after discovering it is a ‘peaceful’ religion, as opposed to Islam which contains violence, rage and revenge,” read a rejection letter Mr. Stevens shared excerpts from online.

The thing is, this guy was an asylum seeker from Iran, which forbids conversion to Christianity. He will certainly be subject to violence from the state on his return, in the name of Iran's state interpretation of Islam. His experience of Christianity and Islam are surely relevant to his interpretation, which it is his right as a human being to come to on his own.

As for whether Christianity is peaceful or violent finally, well, Chesterton pointed out that its detractors make either case as fits their agenda. "It was the fault of poor old Christianity (somehow or other) both that Edward the Confessor did not fight and that Richard Coeur de Leon did."

Predictions

We were talking about this a while ago, as I recall.

https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2015/10/chinas-50-lane-traffic-jam-is-every-commuters-worst-nightmare/409639/

Eric Hines

Independence, Live and On Time

Theresa May has reportedly made peace with a no-deal Brexit next week.

Satire, or No?

Headline #1: ""The 'Burn It Down' Democrats."

Headline #2: "Candidates Propose Changes To Fix Flaw In Constitution That Allows Republicans To Be Elected."

Black Flag Cut Down

The last ISIS stronghold has fallen.

Troops here are now bringing down the black flags of ISIS. The flags no longer fly over the town, instilling fear.

The last five days, Fox News has witnessed the last major offensive up close -– with U.S.-backed SDF forces attacking ISIS from three sides, pushing the fighters back, house to house, then tent to tent, against the Euphrates River.

Egyptian Iconoclasm

Why do so many statues from ancient Egypt have broken noses?

Gaslighting Success

I've heard this so many times that I actually had come around to believing this story about 'very fine people.'

"Haters"

Facebook might turn on you, warns Joe Bob Briggs.

Multiverse

An article in Forbes argues that the multiverse is inevitably real, given cosmic inflation and quantum physics.

Some Good Kipling, Thanks to James

James mentioned this poem in the "More toxic masculinity" comments. I had never read it before, and it seems fitting for the Hall. It's almost a hundred lines, so I'll put it below the fold.

All American Polka

Shades of Helen, Georgia.



Happy Spring, killers.

UPDATE: If you'd like a live version, here it is.

Genocide Poetry

Headline: "The word 'cowboy' is now equivalent to genocide."





I don't have decent words to reject the foolishness anymore; maybe none of us do. Harder words might follow, or harder acts. In general I prefer violence to discourtesy: one might have adequate reason to kill a man without wishing to insult him.

I guess they don't get that. It's a hard road they're mapping out for themselves.

Equinox

Red flags

I've been following with interest the controversy over Boeing 737 Max 8 and 9 aircraft, without being able to make out whether the aircraft or pilot training is the biggest problem.  HotAir's Jazz Shaw published a startling piece this morning reporting that the Lion Air flight that went down last year had narrowly escaped almost exactly the same fate the day before.  They were saved by the coincidental presence in the cockpit of an off-duty co-pilot who correctly diagnosed the problem and told the crew how to disconnect the malfunctioning flight control system.

There must be strong pressures to put the cone of silence over near-misses like this. Still, how would you like to be the guy who didn't speak up, or the guy who squelched his report?

Bad Times at the El Royale

I saw this movie on the recent trip. I found it highly engaging. It is the kind of movie in which a set of secrets are buried at the beginning, and their revelation creates interference patterns with each other. It is also beautifully shot, with an ear for music.

Some of you might enjoy it.

UPDATE: It occurs to me that some might be concerned that the priest character heralds the usual abuse of Catholicism and/or Christianity in the mouth of Hollywood. Without wanting to give away any secrets, I think you may be pleasantly surprised by the handling of that matter.

Objective

A quantum experiment is said to "call into question whether or not there is objective reality."

It doesn't really do that. What it does do is suggest that objective reality may somehow contain two sets of apparently contradictory facts. If so, that is itself an objective fact about reality. It's a confusing one, to be sure; it may well reframe some of our thinking and discussions. However, it still would happen to be an objective description of reality.

"Do you really want to jump? Do you?"

Politico likes to talk about what a great idea it would be for progressives to pack the Supreme Court.  HotAir responds:

Eh, why not? All the cool kids are talking about it for 2021, according to Politico, without any apparent worry about what might happen in 2019 and 2020.

* * *

So why wait on this terrible idea? Let’s do it now. Donald Trump should announce that he has nominated six justices to the Supreme Court to expand it to 15 seats. With a 53-seat majority in the Senate, Mitch McConnell could get them all confirmed by the end of the summer at the latest.

* * *

This is not a Swiftian Modest Proposal-esque satirical suggestion. I’d like to see Trump do it — but not to get those seats added to the Supreme Court. If Trump tries it, Congress would move heaven and earth to block him from succeeding at his court-packing plan, and that would be a bipartisan effort. We’ll have more later on the bipartisan project to curtail the National Emergencies Act after Trump’s border-wall declaration, but this would generation an outrage of an order of multitude higher. Legislation to limit the Supreme Court to nine seats might even pass on unanimous votes, or at least far more than would be needed for a veto override.

Executive emergency

Congress is finally starting to think about whether the problem is that it doesn't like this president or that president, or maybe instead that it should quit handing over its functions to the executive branch with a big red bow tied on them:

The existence of the NEA is inexplicable anyway. Winston Churchill’s observation that “bad kings make for good law” was utterly confounded in 1976 when a Democrat-controlled Congress passed this power usurpation to a Republican president. Gerald Ford had assumed the office two years earlier after Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace for having abused the power of his office in numerous ways. One would have assumed under those circumstances that the Congress elected after that fiasco would have special care in preventing further executive abuse, but perhaps only if one was entirely unfamiliar with the impulse of Congress to avoid doing any of its own work.

The Return of Grim

This time, I sought different mountains.

Wyoming is interesting country. I'll be out there more often, I think.

More toxic masculinity

HotAir observes that with this guy, the drinks are on us for the rest of his life.

Smart kids/dumb kids

A Popular Mechanics series sorts through cliches and social prejudices distorting choices in education.  Are liberal arts programs fancy-pantsy hotbeds of sophomoric socialist posturing?  Are votech programs mind-numbing economic dead ends?  Do both sorts of programs bilk unsuspecting parents, students, and taxpayers out of increasingly mountainous piles of tuition that will never be reflected in paychecks?

To judge purely from the lifetime impact on earnings, many of our preconceptions don't pan out.  None of this answers the question whether we should be focusing on more than lifetime earnings, but before families and taxpayers incur big IOUs on higher education strategies, it's at least worth looking at.  I'm no fan of federal regulations in education, but I wouldn't mind seeing schools have to show wage outcome data before they get federal funding.  Pay for your own operations, and you can experiment with whatever academic philosophy suits and your customers.

I really enjoy Popular Mechanics articles.