Who gave this guy a mike?

A Rochester police captain takes the usual tired questions about "more gun laws," and expresses his own theories about what's causing the problem:  a removal of social consequences that starts with irresponsible child-rearing and continues with "bail reform"--basically treating grownups as children and being being bad parents to them.  He talks mostly about enforcing the gun laws that already are on the books, but I hear a different message:  what concerns us is not the guns but the actions of people with guns.  He points out that he can't think of a case of gun violence committed by a registered owner that wasn't justified.  The problem is that the gun violence committed by unregistered owners isn't justified, and isn't effectively punished or deterred.  The problem isn't that we're not punishing illegal gun ownership, it's that we aren't distinguishing between crime and self-defense, and are if anything obsessing on gun ownership instead of on whether a crime is occurring along with the gun ownership.  On top of that, we keep excusing the crime, on the basis of some kind of half-baked political theory about roots causes of robbery and murder, and distracting ourselves with the problem of the weaponry--no matter how clear the evidence is of how weapons are used differently by criminals and non-criminals.  It's as if we thought social nirvana were achieved by making people weaker and weaker until they lack tools to do any more harm.

The police captain's message throughout is that we can't solve problems if we keep lying to ourselves and each other about what's happening right in front of us.

The video link doesn't say, but the captain is Frank Umbrino.  He was involved in early decisions not to release information about the death of Daniel Prude, video of whose arrest sparked riots when it finally came out months later.  He's still standing after the decapitation of the police department leadership and the indictment of Mayor Lovely Warren on campaign fraud charges.  Was Umbirno wrong?  He accurately predicted the effects of the video, and it's easy to understand his decision, but it was futile.  You can't keep a lid on in-custody deaths, and shouldn't, no matter how clearly you see the consequences in a tinderbox like the present one.

I Think I've Got Paycheck on This One

 Merle Haggard, 1968:

Paycheck, 1977:

Happy Leif Erikson Day

 The White House calls for a day of Viking adventure. 

What to believe?

It's an article of faith among a certain excitable contingent that COVID is rapidly fatal in 100% of cases, ergo there appears to be no way to process the President's experience. AceHQ notes that some of the press are having trouble settling on a conspiracy theory:

First conspiracy theory: Trump really doesn't have covid, he's lying, this is a sympathy play.

Second revised conspiracy theory: Trump is actually dying of covid, they're covering it up.

Third revised conspiracy theory: See First Conspiracy Theory. It's a classic for a reason.

As someone noted earlier today, a surprisingly swath of the President's inveterate enemies are channeling Pat Buchanan's attitude towards people unlucky enough to contract AIDS in the 1980s:  the wages of sin is COVID.  But as Paula Poundstone said, "I imagine the wages of sin is death, but by the time you take out the taxes, it's just more of a tired feeling, really."

If we weren't in the grips of rampant black-and-white thinking, we might remember that COVID is a sporadically cruel and dangerous disease that can kill quickly and rather unexpectedly in all age groups, though particularly in the elderly and infirm, while at the same time in the vast majority of cases it is not terribly serious.  Even among patients of the President's age, it spares 95% or more of sufferers from the ultimate penalty.

Free Americans

 

If any of you are interested, I have published a collection of political philosophical essays. You can get it on Kindle now, and in paperback after I've seen the proofs -- I learned that lesson the hard way from the Arthurian novel. 

However, you can also read almost all of it for free on the SSG website, since the essays are lightly edited versions of things already published. Only the first chapter is really new, and I'd be happy to send it to any of you who wanted to review the book.

My wife did the Veterans Exempt flag for the cover. She's a much better artist than that, though. If any of you are in Asheville, her paintings will be in the Asheville Gallery of Art from next month.

Not sissies

I don't remember ever reading about Teddy Roosevelt's being shot in the chest a month before his election.

Johnny Paycheck vs. Dolly Parton

 I've done Jonny Paycheck a disservice.  I always thought he stole the basic idea of this song from Dolly Parton.  In truth, he recorded this in 1971. 

Parton got around to this in 1973.

 

Parton was still way better.

The World vs. Donald Trump

"Sose the Ghost," a self-described former member of the Crips street gang, current member of a 1% ("outlaw") motorcycle club, black Puerto Rican, talks about why he loves and respects Donald Trump.

This is not what you've been told to expect.

 

Stand-downs and self-defense

 H/t Glen Reynolds, an analysis of politically motivated police stand-down orders as a refutation of the argument that the 2d Amendment is moot in a time of effective police protection.

No cowering

The President seems more vigorous while fighting COVID than his ostensibly infection-free opponent, who called another "lid" at 9:15am this weekend. 

“Americans overwhelmingly reject the idea that presidents should isolate themselves from the citizenry for safety’s sake.”

* * *

Nor will it soon be forgotten that Trump hatred reached its creepy crescendo when the man became gravely ill.

As Trump said from his Walter Reed office suite:

I was given that alternative, stay in the White House, lock yourself in, don’t ever leave. Don’t even go to the oval office, just stay upstairs and enjoy it. Don’t see people, don’t talk to people.… This is the United States. This is the greatest country in the world. This is the most powerful country in the world. I can’t be locked up in a room upstairs and totally safe.… We have to confront problems, as a leader, you have to confront problems. There’s never been a great leader that would have done that.

Meanwhile, for all the cackling about karmic retribution against a political enemy, it remains unclear how useful lockdowns are in bending the virus transmission curve, especially considering their catastrophic cost.

Fact check: True

 From a Neo commenter:  "[T]omorrow the media will be filled with accounts from doctors who had patients who rallied from being at death’s door to releasing youtube videos and working at a desk only to die the next day."

Datil Peppers

 This post is mostly for Mike, but some of you also like spicy cooking.

So my son stopped by a spice shop a few towns over that I visit whenever I roll through. Recognizing him, the proprietor gave him a big sack of something called Datil pepper for him to bring me. The proprietor told him that she'd just gotten it in, and wanted me to see what I could do with it. 

I'd never actually heard of it before, but a little research showed that it was similar to a habanero or Scotch bonnet pepper in heat. It has a nice floral quality compared to those other two. 

I prepared a few recipes for them to thank them for the free pepper. I thought I'd share them with you, too.

Honoring the departed

 

Fact-check by USA Today pending.

Speaking of which.

That reminds me

. . . that I've still got some made used up over the destruction of my health insurance ten years ago.

The Bee:  "You have nothing to worry about, as long as you believe the right things."

Newfound Gap Run

 

A few bikes out, including a group of the Law Enforcement club  Gunfighters MC. 

Punitive liberalism

Powerline notes small, welcome signs of cognition in Seattle journalism:

Mayor Jenny Durkan appears uncomfortable interacting with the business community and has lost power to an assertive council. That body is obsessed with defunding the police without a viable Plan B. Its membership is stuffed with career activists and pols, with thin business experience at best.

No wonder the council is hostile to business. Even the smallest shop is exploitative capitalism. The council’s loudest voices are running a “revolution.” Only in a city made so prosperous by hated capitalism could this intellectual Ponzi scheme be tolerated or seem without consequences.

Never mind small business and retail shops. Big business in Seattle isn’t very happy either. Boeing announced today that it plans to discontinue manufacturing its 787 Dreamliner plane in Washington state and consolidate 787 production in (nonunion) South Carolina.

The governor is reported to be considering punitive tax consequences. 

Welcome to the party, pal

Here's a NYT editor whiffing a faint clue:

In other words, it’s not really about George Floyd or Black lives, but insurrection for insurrection’s sake.

HotAir regrets that we don't have a "Joker Award for Belatedly Discovering That Some People Want to Watch the World Burn":

[O]ne does have to ask why a major American media outlets didn’t connect these dots for itself. It’s been over four months since the start of these riots, and yet an editorial board member for one of the largest media outlets in the country just figured this out. And she only figured it out after reading [Jeremy Lee] Quinn’s blog rather than the work of the reporters she employs. What does that say about the New York Times and its ability to report the truth rather than regurgitate popular narratives?

I wonder who authorized her to start reading blogs with unapproved narratives, anyway?  How secure is her job? 

Your Friday Night Movie: The FBI Releases "The Nevernight Connection"

From American Military News, I learned that the FBI and the National Counterintelligence and Security Center have released a short movie based on a real-life case to raise awareness of how China recruits Americans with security clearances. 

I'll pop the popcorn.

Channeling Pelosi

USA Today probably should fact-check this one, too.

"Will you shut up, man?"

After Biden refused to say whether he'd pack the Supreme Court, inanely responding that he didn't want to make it an issue in the election while people were trying to vote, Zerohedge warned what would happen if Biden's party claws its way into the White House and a Senate majority:

You see, the hard-left Democrat party views our American political system the same way Turkey president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan viewed democracy before becoming a dictator for life: “Democracy is like a train. We shall get out when we arrive at the station we want.” This time around, once the Democrats win, they will change the rules so they can never lose again.

As the t-shirts put it (our modern copybook headings), Trump has his personality issues, but the other side is completely insane. Although we have two rather unappealing personalities in the race, the choice between the parties' ideas couldn't be more stark.

Low expectations

 Ed Morrissey argues that Joe Biden should quit while he's ahead:

What else is there left to prove? Biden and his team might calculate that they and the “moderators” can get Trump to say some damaging things in these debates, and that might be true. Of course, Trump can do that without debates, and there’s an almost equal risk for Biden on that same score … theoretically, anyway. His declaration that he won’t take a position on court-packing lest it become an issue in the election was one of the worst dodges in a presidential debate, maybe ever. Biden’s declaration that “the party is me” was also rather risible, especially since he then disclaimed any blame for what his party does or advocates. In a media world with more objectivity, as Jazz noted earlier, Biden’s honesty and integrity would be getting more scrutiny this morning along with Trump’s.

Even if the risk is not the same, neither is the reward. Getting back on stage with Trump changes the expectations game from will Biden fall asleep to will Biden take positions and what are they. It allows Trump to tune his game a bit better, or at least have the opportunity to do so and correct the impression left from this debate. What’s the upside for Biden in a second debate, let alone two more?

Skinflints and Skinflints

Joe Biden has, oh so proudly, released his and his wife's  MFJ Federal income tax return. It's revealing, and I have a question for him and for President Donald Trump. 

According to their return, their top-line income was $985,233 before their Standard Deduction. 

According to their Schedule A, the Bidens gave $14,700 to charity.

That's 1.5% of their income--not even a decent tithe.

On the other hand, Trump has, since taking office, donated 100% of his salary to various causes, even if not to outright charities. 

My question: Biden claims Trump isn't paying enough in taxes, but who's the real skinflint, who doesn't care about others, really?

Eric Hines

Malingering yeast

My bread has been giving me fits, refusing to rise.  I finally read up on proofing commercial dry yeast and discovered that when I add it to some water and a little sugar, I should be getting it to foam so as to double its volume in ten minutes or so.  Well, that hasn't been happening!

I figured, since I was getting at least a little reaction, there must be a few yeasts still alive in there, even if most of the package was on strike.  The inactive ones don't do any harm, so I just kept increasing the total dried yeast until I got a good double-sized proof, and then used the whole batch in the bread.  Voila, a loaf with enough rise to make sandwich bread.

Corb Lund -- "Rat Patrol"

 Rock-a-billy-ish ode to rat exterminators.

Time Travel

 It seems time travel is possible, after all, and all without that altering the (ex-)future folderol. University of Queensland professor Fabio Costa, one of the co-authors of the study purporting to solve the time travel paradox, discussed the "grandfather paradox" in the form of going back in time to prevent the Wuhan Virus patient zero from getting infected in the first place. Apparently, The Universe would take corrective action, and someone, perhaps even the time traveler (who knew The Universe might have a sense of humor), would get infected, anyway.

But the grandfather paradox has long been solved: that well-known physicist, Homer, and his equally well-known colleague, the genealogist Jethro, long ago demonstrated that it's eminently possible to be one's own grandfather, with or without time travel.

Eric Hines

Eek, a tax deduction

I'm shocked, I tell you, to learn that if someone loses $100,000 one year and gains $100,000 the next, the income tax law treats that as though he made nothing in either year.  The magic January 1 date is temporarily ignored and the two years net against each other in one big two-year income result that equals zero.  That means you pay no tax for one of those years even though on paper you made big bux in that 12-month period.  We generally expect an organization like the IRS to play by "heads I win, tails you lose" rules, but in this case the rules are what you might call rational and fair.

This net-operating-loss write-off is known as a kind of "deduction," and deductions are actually available to all of us.  Many of us ordinary people have used a "tax avoidance" technique of one kind or another, such as the mortgage deduction.  I'll bet you didn't know that, not only is it not illegal, it's not even wrong!

From Althouse:

It's unAmerican to use the phrase "get away with" to refer to following the law. It's like accusing me of speeding when I'm going 75 in a 75 mph zone. I'm not "getting away with" it. I'm going the speed limit! Change the speed limit if that's the wrong top speed. Crimes are the things that have been defined as crimes. It's particularly irksome for a legislator to talk like that — shifting the blame for the legislature's own failures.

Not to rub salt in the wound

So I just saw this over at Ace's place and just had to comment on it:
https://twitter.com/justin_fenton/status/1308851669397053440?s=20

So as someone who works in IT at a media company, something immediately jumped out at me, and let me know if you saw it as well.

Others in power

Rod Dreher writes of his long affection for NPR, and how he was recently driven from it to trying Joe Rogan on Spotify. What resonated with me was the constant battle between people who say "but how can you vote for so-and-so, knowing how awful he and his fellow-travelers are"--from both sides of the aisle.

I am sure Joe Rogan differs from Orthodox Christian socially conservative me in a number of ways, but I would a thousand million times rather live in Joe Rogan World than NPR/NYT World. The stories Joe Rogan lives by are not the stories I live by, mostly, but I would trust Joe Rogan to defend people like me against the Pink Police State that the left seems bound and determined to create. One thing he said in that Douglas Murray podcast that resonated deeply with me: him and Murray agreeing on how insane Trump is, but how people on the left simply cannot grasp that they alarm many center-right people so much that they are less worried about crazy Trump than they are about the crazy left. This seems to be the neuralgic point between my self-described anti-woke liberal reader, and me: that we look at the same things, and dislike the same things, but that he is much more alarmed by Trump than by the woke, while I come down on the opposite side.

Where will each of us be in five years? Will we be able to talk to each other at all? This is not at all a crazy question. This was the story of Spain. It went from the fall of the monarchy and the installment of a democratic republic in 1931 to civil war in 1936, because neither the left nor the right trusted each other, and each came to see liberal democracy as a menace, because it provided a means for the Other to come to power.

Faith and Law

Amy Coney Barrett explains that letting one's own moral convictions interfere with interpreting laws as written and enacted is not a problem confined to traditionally religious people:

“All people, of course–well, we hope, most people–have deeply held moral convictions, whether or not they come from faith. People who have no faith, people who are not religious, have deeply held moral convictions,” Barrett noted. “And it’s just as important for those people to be sure– I just spent time talking about the job of a judge being to set aside moral convictions, personal moral convictions, and personal preferences, and follow the law. That’s a challenge for those of faith and for those who have no faith.”

“So I think the public should be absolutely concerned about whether a nominee for judicial office will be willing and able to set aside personal preferences, be they moral, be they political, whatever convictions they are,” Barrett explained. “The public should be concerned about whether a nominee can set those aside in favor of following the law.”

“But that’s not a challenge just for religious people. I mean, that’s a challenge for everyone. And so I think it’s a dangerous road to go down to say that only religious people would not be able to separate out moral convictions from their duty,” she said.

Supreme Court Nominee

Now there's a move afoot--I have no idea how serious it is--to skip a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Supreme Court nominee, whomever she might be, and take the matter straight to the floor of the Senate for an up or down vote.

That certainly would be an interesting answer to the Progressive-Democrats' stall tactic of invoking the two-hour rule on Committee hearings (although the rule can be waived on a case by case basis by a privileged motion being voted up).

Hearings aren't required for nominations; they've just been habitually done. The Progressive-Democrats, though, with their performances on the last several Republican nominee hearings, have destroyed the utility of such hearings. On the other hand, skipping the hearing might have negative impacts on some of the more borderline Republicans.

Eric Hines

My take on the Breonna Taylor debacle

With the recent acquittal of two of the two detectives in the raid on the apartment of Breonna Taylor and her boyfriend Kenneth Walker, things are going to get violent in Louisville tonight (and apparently already have).  And I think we can all agree that while anger may be appropriate, burning and looting the town is not (and would not ever solve anything).  But I have some things to say about the incident that sparked this, and I'll put them below the fold.

U.S. death rate down

 I've been wondering if the "death from all causes" rate was going to drop in 2021, as a result of a virus whose defining characteristic may be its ability to carry off vulnerable and/or elderly people with unusually short life expectancies.  Are we already seeing the trend begin? The September number took a real dive.

Does this really play the way they think it does?

Kamala Harris's campaign managers are said to be looking forward to her grilling the President's nominee for the Supreme Court, based on her riveting question in 2019 to a candidate (later confirmed) for the U.S. District Court for Nebraska:

“Since 1993, you have been a member of the Knights of Columbus, an all-male society comprised primarily of Catholic men,” Harris began. “In 2016, Carl Anderson, leader of the Knights of Columbus, described abortion as ‘a legal regime that has resulted in more than 40 million deaths.’ Mr. Anderson went on to say that ‘abortion is the killing of the innocent on a massive scale.’ Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed a woman’s right to choose when you joined the organization?”

Way to score points. He belonged to an all-male group composed solely of Catholics! Also an all-Catholic group composed solely of men.

If I'd been Ms. Harris's campaign adviser, I'd have suggested that she be less specific about the terrible things the Knights of Columbus believe, maybe sticking with "fringe religious fanatical notions you crazy racists all agree on." Reading out phrases like "abortion is the killing of the innocent on a massive scale" can only cause people, however unconsciously, to entertain thoughts about the moral gravity of this controversy.

"Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of a group that opposes the killing of the innocent on a massive scale?"

Cuomo sounds comparatively sane

It's a tall order, but Don Lemon brings out the rational side of [correction] Fredo Cuomo:

“We’re going to have to blow up the entire system,” Lemon said.

“I don’t know about that,” Cuomo reacted, who argued that Americans just have to vote.

“You know what we’re going to have to do?… You’re going to have to get rid of the electoral college,” Lemon continued. “Because the minority in this country get to decide who our judges are and who our president is. Is that fair?”

“You need a constitutional amendment to do that,” Cuomo replied.

“And if Joe Biden wins, Democrats can stack the courts and they can do that amendment and get it passed,” Lemon shot back.

* * *

“Look, this [S. Ct. appointment] is a short-term win,” Cuomo said. [I]f they get this judge, it’s a win because if he wants people to vote for him, if he doesn’t deliver a nominee and it doesn’t get acted on by the Republicans, they’ve got trouble.”

Cuomo continued, “I know that people say, ‘Well in races that are close.’ Who’s voting or thinking about voting for a Republican who doesn’t want them to pick a judge right now?”

Political Philosophy and Honor

The American Mind just re-posted an interesting essay by this title, by one of Leo Strauss's students, Harry V. Jaffa. Below is their introduction to the essay. Click over to read it.

This September, the American Political Science Association gave its annual Leo Strauss Award for best doctoral dissertation in political philosophy to Elena Gambino for her “‘Presence in Our Own Land:’ Second Wave Feminism and the Lesbian Body Politic.” When the award was founded, Strauss’s student and Distinguished Fellow of the Claremont Institute Harry V. Jaffa wrote that “the prize will…discourage, rather than encourage the emulation of Leo Strauss.” Jaffa is quite roundly vindicated by this latest development, and so we reprint here his essay, originally published in Modern Age, Vol. 21, No. 4, Fall 1977 and reprinted as the appendix to How to Think About the American Revolution (Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 1978) and again in Crisis of the Strauss Divided: Essays on Leo Strauss and Straussianism, East and West (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012).–Eds.

And it introduced me to a new word:

meliorism (n)

1. The belief that the human condition can be improved through concerted effort.

2. The belief that there is an inherent tendency toward progress or improvement in the human condition.

Parents Just Don't Understand

And neither do some Senators.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D, NY) says it's total BS that the Progressive-Democrat-proposed $1 trillion in Federal Wuhan Virus stimulus monies aimed at State and local governments would benefit public sector unions. Whether public sector unions should or should not benefit is a separate matter.

I'm being generous, though, in suggesting that such an intelligent woman actually misunderstands.

Adding a trillion dollars, or any amount of money, to a budget means—work with me, now—that budget has those added dollars to spend. Earmark the trillion for specific purposes, or bar it from being used for public unions. Do that by sending the money as cash and tracking serial numbers. That still lets the recipient government move a different [trillion] of dollars from a different part of its budget to benefit its public unions. That's the fungibility of money. It can be moved around.

Then the Senator said this in all seriousness:

We need to fund government so that we can continue to grow the economy….

Here are the Constitutionally authorized reasons for funding the government:

to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States

Nothing in there about "growing the economy," not even under that general Welfare part. What is the general Welfare of the United States is explicitly defined by the clauses of the rest of Article I, Section 8.

Indeed, as has been demonstrated over the course of our history and across a broad range of nations, the way to grow the economy is to have a free market, capitalist economy with minimal government involvement.

In fine, the State and local governments don't need the stimulus money; they need to step back, (in many cases) end the lockdowns, and let the private economy function.

Eric Hines

2020 Democrats Vs. 2016 Democrats

 

End Threats to Pack the USSC?

 I've been thinking about Democratic threats to add seats to the USSC so they can fill them with progressive justices, and I wonder if the best solution is to end that idea with a Constitutional amendment setting a specific number of justices.

That number wouldn't have to be 9. Back in 2018, Glenn Reynolds suggested 59, with the new 50 being chosen by the states' governors and confirmed by the Senate.

But the point would be to stop this "We'll pack the courts!" nonsense.

So what do you think?

Mammy

We'd all be lucky to have a birthday greeting recorded for us by Mark Steyn.

Blackberry Smoke

 Apparently these guys have been playing for 20 years, but I only recently heard of them.

Amish Trump Parade

Not the Bee (the Babylon Bee's real news sister site) has video of the Amish turning out on horseback and in carriages in a pro-Trump parade. It's short and kinda fun, if you are into horses and Trump, or the Amish.

Get the Supreme Court back up to 9

This is the plainest and most sensible treatment I've seen of the issue whether the President should nominate, and the Senate leadership should immediately try to confirm, a replacement for the Supreme Court seat vacted by Justice Ginsberg's death.

Love this guy

Thomas Sowell via AceHQ:

Prices are important not because money is considered paramount but because prices are a fast and effective conveyor of information through a vast society in which fragmented knowledge must be coordinated.

You may be onto something

A NatureIndex article explores the problem that "scientific" writing is increasingly impenetrable.

“It is also worth considering the importance of comprehensibility of scientific texts in light of the recent controversy regarding the reproducibility of science,” they add. “Reproducibility requires that findings can be verified independently. To achieve this, reporting of methods and results must be sufficiently understandable.”

To which the authors of several recent articles replied, "Your tiny minds cannot hope to refute our elite brilliance.  You must bow to the science, and send us more grant money."

We may never understand the motivations of these orcas

These justice-involved young orcas need to turn their lives around. It's not impossible to imagine, scientists tell us, that their coordinated group behavior is purposeful. We might say "orca-strated." It's important to look at the root causes:

But orcas are still captured by whalers in some regions and sold for consumption or captivity, while others get caught in fishing nets and gear. In areas with high boat traffic, toxic waste, increased underwater noise pollution and a higher risk of collisions are all threats to these sea mammals.

After the coronavirus pandemic hit, nationwide lockdowns and restricted economic activity provided a temporary reprieve — and some are hypothesizing that orcas are just “pissed off” that humans are back in their waters.

“If we are talking about whether killer whales have the wherewithal and the cognitive capacity to intentionally strike out at someone, or to be angry, or to really know what they are doing, I would have to say the answer is yes...."

A Man I Understand

 "On the Meaning of an Oath," or, why a man who decided he could never become an American is a closer brother than many who do bear the title. 

William Barr makes heads explode

Daniel J. Flynn:

Aside from the truth, the consistent chord Barr struck involves process, a concept foreign to ends-justify-the-means fanatics. The people deputize their representatives and not strangers in lab coats to make rules, cops and not protesters to enforce rules, and the attorney general appointed by the president and not faceless bureaucrats to run the Department of Justice.

The Abraham Accord

Matthew Continetti sees signs of foreign policy sanity breaking out in the Democratic party:

The irony is that Trump's opponents are ready to accept this "very positive thing" despite warning against and objecting to the policies that contributed to it. Through his personal relationship with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump reaffirmed that there is "no daylight" between the United States and Israel after an eight-year caesura. He defied conventional wisdom when he moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, when he withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal, when he cut off aid to the Palestinians, when he recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and when he ordered the lethal strike against Qassem Soleimani. But the catastrophes that the foreign policy establishment predicted would follow each of these measures never materialized. What emerged instead were the Abraham Accords and a growing alliance against Iran.

It is in the realm of foreign policy that Trump's deviations from political norms have had the most positive and irreversible consequences. If he becomes president, Joe Biden may mistakenly try to revive the chances for Palestinian statehood by getting tough on the Israelis. He may attempt to resuscitate the moribund Iran deal. But it is highly doubtful that he will rescind the Abraham Accords, or withdraw recognition of Israel's Golan sovereignty, or return the U.S. embassy to Tel Aviv. He won't have the support for such decisions. And he won't have any good reason to make them. Anyone who has read the news lately understands that a strong and engaged Israel is good for security. Her enemies are our enemies.

I doubt his conclusion about a Biden administration. My prediction is that Pelosi would wait for Biden to go down for his nap, send a boatload of aid to Iran's nuclear program, then find an open bomb salon that could outfit her with a Palestinian suicide vest.

Insufficient

Recall that Oracle and ByteDance have a proposal on the table for Oracle to take a minority partnership position in ByteDance's TikTok.  In response to objections to that, some

Trump administration officials are looking to give American investors a majority share of the company that will take over the Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok[.]

Senators Marco Rubio (R, FL), Rick Scott (R, FL), Thom Tillis (R, NC), Roger Wicker (R, MI), Dan Sullivan (R, AK), and John Cornyn (R, TX), object to that, too.

Any deal between an American company and ByteDance must ensure that TikTok's US operations, data, and algorithms are entirely outside the control of ByteDance or any Chinese-state directed actors, including any entity that can be compelled by Chinese law to turn over or access US consumer data.

The Senators are absolutely correct. Any fraction of ownership by a People's Republic of China company that's greater than zero is too much; giving, as it would, the PRC's intelligence community access to all the data TikTok scoops up from the individuals and businesses that use it.

That intelligence access, too, was explicitly made an on-demand access by a PRC law enacted in 2017.

Eric Hines

When people take your mea culpa seriously

Princeton president Christopher Eisgruber announced recently that Princeton was a hotbed of racism, perhaps forgetting that that would actually be illegal. In response, the U.S. Department of Education has opened a formal Title VI inquiry.

Eisgruber has put Princeton in a box. It either must formally admit to engaging in unlawful discrimination, which might well result in serious financial penalties, or it must admit, in effect, that Eisgruber was blowing smoke when he copped to systemic racism at Princeton — an admission that surely would enrage the militant students and alumni Eisgruber has been working so hard to appease.

Noah

I cannot recommend this book about the Great Flood stories highly enough.  I'm only a little over halfway through, perhaps because I have it in Audiobook form, and the mosquitos that were mysteriously absent for a year or more are back in vicious multitudes.  But try these paragraphs from early in the book and see if the author is not irresistible:

In 1985 a cuneiform tablet was brought in to the British Museum by a member of the public for identification and explanation. This is in itself was nothing out of the ordinary, as answering public enquiries has always been a standard curatorial responsibility, and an exciting one to boot, for a curator never knows what might come through the door (especially where cuneiform tablets are involved).

On this occasion the member of the public was already known to me, for he had been in with Babylonian objects several times before. His name was Douglas Simmonds, and he owned a collection of miscellaneous objects and antiquities that he had inherited form his father, Leonard, Simmonds. Leonard had a lifelong eye open for curiosities, and, as a member of the RAF, was stationed in the Near East around the end of the Second World War, acquiring interesting bits and pieces of teablets at the same time. His collection included items from Egypt and China as well as from ancient Mesopotamia, among which were included cylinder seals--Douglas's personal favourite--and a handful of clay tablets. It was just such a selection of artefacts that he brought to show me on that particular afternoon.

I was more taken aback than I can say to discover that one of his cuneiform tablets was a copy of the Babylonian Flood Story.

Making this identification was not such a great achievement, because the opening lines ('Wall, wall! Reed wall, Reed wall! Atrahasis...") were about as famous as they could possibly be: other copies of the Flood Story in cuneiform had been found since Smith's time, and even a first-year student of Assyriology would have identified it on the spot. The trouble was that as one read down the inscribed surface of the unbaked tabley things got harder, and turning it over to confront the reverse for the first time was a cause for despair. I explained that it would take many hours to wrestle meaning from the broken signs, but Douglas would not by any means leave his tablet with me. As a matter of fact, he did not even seem to be especially excited at the announcement that his tablet was a Highly Important Document of the Highest Possible Interest and he quite failed to observe that I was wobbly with desire to get on with deciphering it. He blithely repacked his flood tablet and the two or three round school tablets that accompanied them and more or less bade me good day.

This Douglas Simmonds was an unusual person. Gruff, non-communicative and to me largely unfathomable, he had a conspicuously large head housing a large measure of intelligence. It was only afterwards that I learned he had been a famous child actor in a British television series entitled Here Come the Double Deckers, and that he was a more than able mathematician and a man of many other parts. The above programme was entirely new to me, as I grew to manhood in a house without television, but it must be recorded that when I gave my first lecture on the findings from this tablet and mentioned the Double Decker series a lady jumped out of her chair with excitement and wanted to know all about Douglas rather than the tablet.

It's a puzzlement

 Minneapolis city council ponders the deep question "where did all the police go?"

Jim Treacher's take on it:  remember when it was wrong to complain that you couldn't get enough police protection?

Couple Misapprehensions

…in an otherwisewell-intended and worthy effort. California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) wants to make it possible for prison inmates who have been trained in firefighting and have place[d] themselves in danger assisting firefighters to defend the life and property of Californians to join fire departments after they've been released from prison.

Some of you know that I am a firm believer in rehabilitation and redemption, and this move would open one path to each of those.

There are a couple of tweaks, though, that are necessary for making this a truly effective move. One is this: Newsom has signed into law

legislation allowing inmate firefighters to get their criminal records dismissed so they can qualify for civilian firefighting jobs after they are released.
…
The dismissal opens the door for model inmate firefighters to qualify for paramedic certification, a requirement for civilian fire departments. Currently, those with convictions are barred by state law from becoming an EMT.

I don't agree, generally, with expunging criminal records when the crimes were committed by adults. In this sort of case, though, it would be appropriate to seal an (ex-)felon's record so he can apply to a fire department.

A better option, however, would be to alter the State's law regarding EMT eligibility to permit ex-felons otherwise trained as firefighters (even if trained while in prison) to become EMTs for the purpose of joining a fire department as a firefighter. (And, if that works out after some number of years of empirical observation, expanding the eligibility of ex-felons to become EMTs more generally.)

The other is one of mindset.

Inmates who have stood on the frontlines, battling historic fires should not be denied the right to later become a professional firefighter[.]

Rather, inmates who have stood on the frontlines, battling historic fires should not be denied the opportunity to later become a professional firefighter. No one has a right to any particular job, or career, or avocation. All of us do have a right to opportunity. 

Eric Hines

Sure he's awful, but look at his cool crew!

 How to get the kids excited about Biden:

He came up with what NextGen now calls “the Democratic Avengers,” after the Marvel movie featuring an ensemble of superheroes. The idea is that by voting for Biden, you’re voting not just for him; you’re voting for all of the Democrats—many of them cool and hip!—that Biden will have in his orbit. Biden might borrow policies from Warren, for example, or have Sanders as an adviser. “If he is elected, it won’t just be Joe Biden,” this message reads. “Biden has pledged to build an administration filled with progressive leaders, experts, and activists from inside and outside of politics.”

This idea went over really well, according to Wessel and Baumann. In the focus groups, one white Millennial said “the saving grace of this (potential) presidency would be his crew. If he actually chooses true progressives and activists, I will be surprised but happy to admit I misjudged him.”

I have to admit that in 2016 I was more interested in candidate Trump's Supreme Court picks than in himself.

Not a good look

 More accidental destruction of Crossfire Hurricane records.  "Like with a cloth?"

Police face deteriorating job conditions

Goat invades cop car, trashes it, head-butts deputy, and eats her paperwork.

This is CNN

 The best line:  

“You cannot be elected president of the United States without CNN.”

CNN is happy to help get you elected as long as you play ball! Politics no issue. True, it's Michael Cohen talking to Jeff Zucker, but you don't have to take the word of either of them, because it's on tape.

Enid & Geraint

 

Enid & Geraint

Once strong, from solid
Camelot he came
Glory with him, Geraint,
Whose sword tamed the wild.
Fabled the fortune he won,
Fame, and a wife.

The beasts he battled
With horn and lance;
Stood farms where fens lay.
When bandits returned
To old beast-holds
Geraint gave them the same.

And then long peace,
Purchased by the manful blade.
Light delights filled it,
Tournaments softened, tempered
By ladies; in peace lingers
the dream of safety.

They dreamed together. Darkness
Gathered on the old wood,
Wild things troubled the edges,
Then crept closer.
The whispers of weakness
Are echoed with evil.

At last even Enid
Whose eyes are as dusk
Looked on her Lord
And weighed him wanting.
Her gaze gored him:
He dressed in red-rust mail.

And put her on palfrey
To ride before or beside
And they went to the wilds,
Which were no longer
So far. Ill-used,
His sword hung beside.

By the long wood, where
Once he laid pastures,
The knight halted, horsed,
Gazing on the grim trees.
He opened his helm
Beholding a bandit realm.

Enid cried at the charge
Of a criminal clad in mail!
The Lord turned his horse,
Set his untended shield:
There lacked time, there
Lacked thought for more.

Villanous lance licked the
Ancient shield. It split,
Broke, that badge of the knight!
The spearhead searched
Old, rust-red mail.
Geraint awoke.

Master and black mount
Rediscovered their rich love,
And armor, though old
Though red with thick rust,
Broke the felon blade.
The spear to-brast, shattered.

And now Enid sees
In Geraint's cold eyes
What shivers her to the spine.
And now his hand
Draws the ill-used sword:
Ill-used, but well-forged.

And the shock from the spear-break
Rang from bandit-towers
Rattled the wood, and the world!
Men dwelt there in wonder.
Who had heard that tone?
They did not remember that sound.

His best spear broken
On old, rusted mail,
The felon sought his forest.
Enid's dusk eyes sense
The strength of old steel:
Geraint grips his reins.

And he winds his old horn,
And he spurs his proud horse,
And the wood to his wrath trembles.
And every bird
From the wild forest flies,
But the Ravens.

Zing

I'm watching the President's Michigan rally, where he just warned the crowd that, if Biden is elected, far-left lunatics won't only be running Democratic cities, they'll be in charge of the DOJ, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Supreme Court.