Russian tactics, mind you. Democratic operatives.
Originally they used these in the Senate race against Roy Moore, who was admittedly a lousy guy and deserved to lose. That success brought them more funding, apparently, because they pushed this campaign through the 2018 midterms, suppressing Republican turnout and targeting close districts.
I suppose this will be a huge story, right?
Nothing Says "Right Wing Extremist" Like A Nose Ring
A video making the rounds purports to be of a young German lady who was stopped by the police and questioned about her political opinions 'for wearing braids.'
I'm not sure of the truth of the facts, but it's something to watch out for as the elite begins to worry more and more about 'the right.' Ironically for all that he's painted as a fascist/Nazi/Hitler, President Trump is a bulwark against this kind of thing happening in America. It was President Obama's crew who engaged in targeting exercises like the IRS scandal, or Operation Choke Point. No similar things are likely to happen under Trump, whose relations with DOJ are spectacularly bad.
I'm not sure of the truth of the facts, but it's something to watch out for as the elite begins to worry more and more about 'the right.' Ironically for all that he's painted as a fascist/Nazi/Hitler, President Trump is a bulwark against this kind of thing happening in America. It was President Obama's crew who engaged in targeting exercises like the IRS scandal, or Operation Choke Point. No similar things are likely to happen under Trump, whose relations with DOJ are spectacularly bad.
Tulsi Gabbard vs. Anti-Catholic Bigots
For reasons best known to her, Rep. Gabbard -- a veteran of honorable service -- decided to support Syria's tyrant, Bashar al-Assad. I was sorry about that, as it was a significant error in judgment. It's nice to see her getting this one right.
In the process, she's taking on two more powerful Democratic legislators, Sens. Kamala Harris and Mazie Hirono, as well as Diane Feinstein by name. I hope it will prove a useful corrective.
In the process, she's taking on two more powerful Democratic legislators, Sens. Kamala Harris and Mazie Hirono, as well as Diane Feinstein by name. I hope it will prove a useful corrective.
Universal Goods
California's new governor promises "Sanctuary to all that shall seek it." New York City promises "comprehensive health care for all."
Leaving apart the problem of building any kind of community with a constantly shifting population who shares neither common values nor history nor even a common tongue, did I sleep through the part where economic scarcity was finally overcome?
Leaving apart the problem of building any kind of community with a constantly shifting population who shares neither common values nor history nor even a common tongue, did I sleep through the part where economic scarcity was finally overcome?
BB: With Gov't Shut Down, Citizens Must Interfere in Own Lives
One of the primary functions of the government is to ignorantly muck around in the business of others, but the shutdown has hampered that. Thus citizens have been forced to try to fill that void themselves. “Today I just suddenly decided large sodas weren’t allowed,” said Morgan. “It was an annoying, pointless obstacle the whole day—it was like the government was still around.”I've imposed Prohibition on myself for the month of January, rather than waiting for Lent like usual. So far I haven't started a criminal organization to smuggle booze, but I suppose there's still time.
“I arbitrarily decided I couldn’t use plastic bags in school lunches,” said Arlene Williams, mother of three. “It was really irritating to deal with. It really made me feel like there was still some bureaucrat out there not caring about me.”
Broadcasting In the Clear
For a fairly long time now, those of us concerned about criticisms of 'toxic' masculinity have wondered if it wasn't really just a criticism of masculinity. The APA has finally dropped the mask.
You can't unring a bell, and bad philosophy can poison a culture as thoroughly as Romans salting the earth of Carthage.
APA has issued its first-ever guidelines for practice with men and boys. They draw on more than 40 years of research showing that traditional masculinity is psychologically harmful and that socializing boys to suppress their emotions causes damage[.]More and more I think that psychology/psychiatry is chiefly just bad philosophy -- but dressed up as medicine, so people act as if it were a technologically secure basis for decision-making. Freud did more damage to our society perhaps even than Marx, though we rarely talk about how badly he's damaged us by convincing us that people are largely unconscious machines in need of programming and shaping rather than convincing and persuading. That convinced our governing elites that the people were a dangerous mob in need of systems of control, and our fellow citizens that the half who disagreed with them were monsters persuaded only by the Id.
You can't unring a bell, and bad philosophy can poison a culture as thoroughly as Romans salting the earth of Carthage.
Conservatives Against... Conservatives
The Bulwark is the title of a new online magazine designed to oppose Trump. From the right, allegedly, but 'opposing Trump' is what it's all about.
Going Both Ways
Angela Davis -- heroine of the Civil Rights Movement, Black Panther, once honored by the Rolling Stones while facing murder charges, also a member of the Communist Party USA -- has been denied a high honor by the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.
She was originally approved, and then the offer was withdrawn after public comment. They didn't explain exactly what it was that caused them to change their mind. I'd be interested to know.
She was originally approved, and then the offer was withdrawn after public comment. They didn't explain exactly what it was that caused them to change their mind. I'd be interested to know.
Hymn of the Northmen
Ok, it's advertising, so I apologize for that, but- wow! It's perhaps the best 'commercial' I've ever watched, and the advertising is of things I'd very much like (though can't afford, alas)- things made with the wisdom of tradition and the care of the fine craftsman. I actually got led to this through a video on timber framing (and I think my dream vacation just changed because of it). It happens rarely, but sometimes the algorithms get one or two right.
Belated good luck and prosperity
A neighbor brought this cabbage-slaw-blackeyed-pea dish to a next-door New Year's Eve Party, to fulfill the traditional requirement for greens and peas. I tried to reproduce it last night from a general description, and it was as good as I remembered, though I see now I left out the green onions. It doesn't sound like it would be that great, does it?--but it was a big hit at the party. Just be sure to salt the peas appropriately and don't overcook them.
9/8
Johnny Cash and Bruce Springsteen both covered this 1996 Sting song, but unaccountably changed its interesting 9/8 time signature to a standard 4/4. The beat is odd, one-two-THREE-four/one-two-three-FOUR-five with some other variations like ONE-two-three/ONE-two-THREE-four-FIVE-six, and the tune is syncopated on top of that. The lyrics, in contrast, are a simple old-fashioned cowboy morality play, along the lines of "Long Black Veil."
Now You're Talking
Schumper: Trump threatened to keep government shut down for 'years.'
The jobs numbers are amazing. What better time for former government employees to find work in the productive part of the economy instead? Congress might have to eventually compromise, but even if we could keep it going for six or eight months, a lot of people would be forced by the long furlough to go find a job in the private sector. But we've got two years to play with, minimum.
OK, there are problems with that -- especially an inability to pay people like soldiers and Border Patrol agents. The biggest problem is that we've classified as 'essential' or 'entitlement' all the things that are really dispensable, while things that are actually essential -- protecting the country from invasion, say -- are classified as dispensable. All the same, think about it. Maybe a long, long shutdown is just what we need to get some priorities straight.
The jobs numbers are amazing. What better time for former government employees to find work in the productive part of the economy instead? Congress might have to eventually compromise, but even if we could keep it going for six or eight months, a lot of people would be forced by the long furlough to go find a job in the private sector. But we've got two years to play with, minimum.
OK, there are problems with that -- especially an inability to pay people like soldiers and Border Patrol agents. The biggest problem is that we've classified as 'essential' or 'entitlement' all the things that are really dispensable, while things that are actually essential -- protecting the country from invasion, say -- are classified as dispensable. All the same, think about it. Maybe a long, long shutdown is just what we need to get some priorities straight.
Letter of Recommendation: Old English
On the same topic as Pidgin BBC news, here's a letter recommending that you try Old English.
And once you have Middle English, you're almost a thousand years closer to Old English. It's a major change -- the biggest one ever in the English language -- but you'll be as well-placed as possible to leap backwards over the Norman Conquest with its introduction of the French and Latin roots.
It’s written in a slightly different alphabet to the one we have now, with the extra characters æ (said like the a in “cat”), þ (like the th in “thorn”), ð (interchangeable with þ) and ƿ (which sounds like w). It sounds musical, guttural, dark and rich, the aural equivalent of a peaty Scotch or a towering cumulonimbus cloud.If it still seems daunting, Middle English is even easier: if you can read Shakespeare, Middle English will only require a modicum of work. I recommend the Norton Critical Edition of Le Morte Darthur, which provides plenty of footnotes to help you work through the relatively few words that don't have cognates in Modern English. One of the delights, though, is being able to read it just as Malory wrote it with increasing smoothness and ease.
Old English became my favorite thing about college. The grammar is easy, so it’s not difficult to learn. And enough early medieval words survived into modern English that the vocabulary seems to unlock as you learn it — the Old English word is unlucan — like a long-stuck door to a hidden room in your own house. It feels like receiving a message that has looped around the entire intervening mess of modernity to find you.
And once you have Middle English, you're almost a thousand years closer to Old English. It's a major change -- the biggest one ever in the English language -- but you'll be as well-placed as possible to leap backwards over the Norman Conquest with its introduction of the French and Latin roots.
Progress!
A new Justice Ministry regulation taking effect Sunday will make it mandatory for women to be notified by text message when a court issues their husbands divorce decrees, Saudi lawyer Nisreen al-Ghamdi said.
Currently, some men register divorce deeds at the courts without even telling their wives, al-Ghamdi said by phone from Jeddah.
"The new measure ensures women get their rights when they’re divorced,” she said, referring to alimony. “It also ensures that any powers of attorney issued before the divorce are not misused."
The Wisdom of the Ancients
Well, pre-Columbians, anyway. They were originally contemporaneous with the Viking Age, but still being practiced as the Renaissance was well under way.
How Long to Live Somewhere?
It's a worthy question, actually. We make foreigners reside in America for at least seven years before pursuing citizenship. Should states be required to grant it at once?
The case touches on liquor laws in Tennessee, but there's a similar issue with pistol permits in North Carolina. If you move to North Carolina from another state, even though you may have had a license to carry firearms in that state that North Carolina would recognize as valid, your permit to carry is immediately invalidated by the move. But your right to purchase a pistol in North Carolina is subject to a year's delay: North Carolina insists on a pistol purchase permit for every such firearm, issued by the sheriff, and these permits may not be issued to someone who has been resident for less than a year.
There's a loophole in the latter case, as you can apply for a NC concealed carry permit and, if granted it, purchase pistols using it instead of having to apply for a permit to purchase a pistol. However, this doesn't obviate the issue, since concealed carry permits take a while to obtain too: they're shall-issue with a mandatory 45 day window, except that NC interprets that as meaning "45 days from the completion of all relevant background checks and paperwork," so it might be 3-4 months. In other words, you lose your rights from your old state citizenship immediately on moving, but you don't obtain new rights (or privileges) pertaining to new citizenship for some time.
I imagine there are a number of similar examples, especially as pertain to goods such as alcohol and firearms that our betters have wanted to ban us from owning. It would be nice to have limits set on the power of government to do that, especially in 2A cases.
The case touches on liquor laws in Tennessee, but there's a similar issue with pistol permits in North Carolina. If you move to North Carolina from another state, even though you may have had a license to carry firearms in that state that North Carolina would recognize as valid, your permit to carry is immediately invalidated by the move. But your right to purchase a pistol in North Carolina is subject to a year's delay: North Carolina insists on a pistol purchase permit for every such firearm, issued by the sheriff, and these permits may not be issued to someone who has been resident for less than a year.
There's a loophole in the latter case, as you can apply for a NC concealed carry permit and, if granted it, purchase pistols using it instead of having to apply for a permit to purchase a pistol. However, this doesn't obviate the issue, since concealed carry permits take a while to obtain too: they're shall-issue with a mandatory 45 day window, except that NC interprets that as meaning "45 days from the completion of all relevant background checks and paperwork," so it might be 3-4 months. In other words, you lose your rights from your old state citizenship immediately on moving, but you don't obtain new rights (or privileges) pertaining to new citizenship for some time.
I imagine there are a number of similar examples, especially as pertain to goods such as alcohol and firearms that our betters have wanted to ban us from owning. It would be nice to have limits set on the power of government to do that, especially in 2A cases.
Why Not Totalitarianism?
As China rises, with its 'social credit' monitoring of every aspect of human life, we see a new kind of totalitarianism: not one pointed at an ideology, such as Communism, but totalitarianism for its own sake.
It has all the downsides for human expressions of religion as the liberalism ascendant in America, coupled with the state actually inserting agents into your home to monitor religious expression, and sending you to concentration camps for reeducation if they don't like what they see.
Should we believe that this will remain confined to China, or at least to its sphere of influence once it is done with its intended expansion? Perhaps not, since the Chinese have made use of the American tech elite as partners in effecting their totalitarianism. Coincidentally, perhaps, these same giants -- Google, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube among them -- have all decided to suppress American conservative speech.
Nor is it only China that is interested in this project. The European Union has enlisted these same tech giants to suppress what they call 'extremist' speech. And, of course, our own IRS has admitted to targeting conservative nonprofits for extra scrutiny under the Obama administration, a clear attempt to prevent political organization on the right.
The cultural power being wielded against our traditions is immense. I wonder what limits, if any, our opponents are prepared to accept on their accumulation of power over us?
It has all the downsides for human expressions of religion as the liberalism ascendant in America, coupled with the state actually inserting agents into your home to monitor religious expression, and sending you to concentration camps for reeducation if they don't like what they see.
Should we believe that this will remain confined to China, or at least to its sphere of influence once it is done with its intended expansion? Perhaps not, since the Chinese have made use of the American tech elite as partners in effecting their totalitarianism. Coincidentally, perhaps, these same giants -- Google, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube among them -- have all decided to suppress American conservative speech.
Nor is it only China that is interested in this project. The European Union has enlisted these same tech giants to suppress what they call 'extremist' speech. And, of course, our own IRS has admitted to targeting conservative nonprofits for extra scrutiny under the Obama administration, a clear attempt to prevent political organization on the right.
The cultural power being wielded against our traditions is immense. I wonder what limits, if any, our opponents are prepared to accept on their accumulation of power over us?
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