A Conservative Revolution
This is a good piece. Bdoran will be pleased that its constitutional critique goes beyond the Bill of Rights, and invoked especially Article I Section 8.
Encryption is Good
We should oppose this law, and any other attempt to force government backdoors into our encyrption.
By the way, if you don't already use Signal, it's a pretty good system. From what I can tell, it's as secure as anything is -- which is to say, not perfectly.
By the way, if you don't already use Signal, it's a pretty good system. From what I can tell, it's as secure as anything is -- which is to say, not perfectly.
Better Watch Out
This report that people are 'panic buying' baby chickens reminds me of a story about my grandmother. This was my mother's mother.
One time there was a special deal on baby chicks, so that they could be had for a penny apiece. She bought a dollar's worth, that is a hundred baby chicks, on the assumption that many of them would die before attaining adulthood. As it happened, every single one of those chicks grew into full-grown adult chickens. As a consequence, she had to kill and pluck a hundred chickens that year.
That's the sort of thing that can happen if you don't watch out.
One time there was a special deal on baby chicks, so that they could be had for a penny apiece. She bought a dollar's worth, that is a hundred baby chicks, on the assumption that many of them would die before attaining adulthood. As it happened, every single one of those chicks grew into full-grown adult chickens. As a consequence, she had to kill and pluck a hundred chickens that year.
That's the sort of thing that can happen if you don't watch out.
Masterful Storytelling
The brilliance of this cartoon is that you don't need to see the setup to understand the dynamic. No words are required, either. This was very well done.
I've been thinking about the old cartoons lately, and how well they were able to express things. This is a good example.
I've been thinking about the old cartoons lately, and how well they were able to express things. This is a good example.
Holy Week
I guess I clean missed Palm Sunday this year. Truly, Lent seems to be going on longer than usual. Officially Easter is on Sunday.
Maybe we'll have a miracle. It happens, I've heard; maybe I've even seen one or two. Maybe more than one or two.
Maybe we'll have a miracle. It happens, I've heard; maybe I've even seen one or two. Maybe more than one or two.
Breaking ranks
For a nice change of pace, one of the President's political opponents responds to him like a human being.
Earlier I predicted that, if chloroquine proved effective, the press would switch instantly to complaining that President Trump didn't provide it quickly enough. It looks like we have an intermediate step to get through, which is to suspect that he's making money off of supplying it to needy people.
Guns are Durable Goods
The British don't seem to grasp that.
It's a false economy in another way, too: how much is the ransom for a kidnapped royal going to cost?
Royal bodyguards responsible for keeping the outcast Prince Andrew and a number of other royals safe have had their guns swapped out for cheaper tasers, it has been reported.So you're going to replace the firearm you already paid for with a taser you're buying new? It's not like you have to replace these things very often. Even with regular training fires they last a long time, and can be maintained at relatively low costs.
The royal protection officers assigned to Princess Anne and Prince Edward have also allegedly lost their firearms as part of a drive to reduce protection costs for minor royals and politicians, the Sun reports.
It's a false economy in another way, too: how much is the ransom for a kidnapped royal going to cost?
Flyting
Language warning, although it's 500 years old.
The five sections to the compilation are devoted to religious themes, moral or philosophical themes, love ballads, fables and allegories, and comedy, especially satire. The latter section is where one is most likely to encounter the swears, particularly in the poetry of William Dunbar and Walter Kennedy. Both poets feature in the poem where the notorious F-word appears: "The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie."Flyting is not just "a poetic genre in Scotland," but in fact also Old Norse. Several of the surviving stories about the Norse gods involve them mocking each other in this way, especially Lokasenna (Loki actually did have sex with a horse) and Hárbarðsljóð (in which Odin mocks Thor while in disguise as a boatman).
Flyting is a poetic genre in Scotland—essentially a poetry slam or rap battle, in which participants exchange creative insults with as much verbal pyrotechnics (doubling and tripling of rhymes, lots of alliteration) as they can muster. (It's a safe bet at this art form.)
Dunbar and Kennedy supposedly faced off for a flyting in the court of James IV of Scotland around 1500, and their exchange was set down for posterity in Bannatyne's manuscript. In the poem, Dunbar makes fun of Kennedy's Highland dialect, for instance, as well as his personal appearance, and he suggests his opponent enjoys sexual intercourse with horses. Kennedy retaliates with attacks on Dunbar's diminutive stature and lack of bowel control, suggesting his rival gets his inspiration from drinking "frogspawn" from the waters of a rural pond. You get the idea.
Golden Ring
So this is a George Jones and Tammy Wynette song.
I never liked their version, but here's a version I kind of do like.
If you only know one Tammy Wynette song, it's "Stand by Your Man," more than likely. George Jones was a difficult husband and her well of inspiration to write that song was deep. This song, which takes a love all the way from beginning to end, is probably similarly inspired.
I never liked their version, but here's a version I kind of do like.
If you only know one Tammy Wynette song, it's "Stand by Your Man," more than likely. George Jones was a difficult husband and her well of inspiration to write that song was deep. This song, which takes a love all the way from beginning to end, is probably similarly inspired.
A Novel Finished
This quarantine has lasted long enough that I actually finished editing this novel. Now I suppose I need to make some decisions about how to publish it. I guess Amazon is what everyone does now, especially since no one can go to physical bookstores anyway.
If any of you have any useful advice or suggestions, let me know. I've never published a book before.
If any of you have any useful advice or suggestions, let me know. I've never published a book before.
Long Ago in Scotland
Today is the 700th anniversary of the Declaration of Arbroath. Longtime readers of Grim's Hall know this declaration well, but just in case:
[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.It is one of the great documents of human history, from one of the best moments in human history.
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.
National Tartan Day
It's National Tartan Day, which is an opportunity for Americans to celebrate Scottish heritage -- both our personal heritage, and the tremendous contributions that Scotland has made to our national heritage. Many states have registered district tartans that residents can wear, including both the state in which I was born and the state in which I currently reside.
The Carolina District Tartan
Georgia District Tartan
New rules in, but some old rules out
Minor silver lining.As Glenn Reynolds says, let's get to work making it permanent.
Not an OPEC fan
I can live with this:
Trump said Saturday at a White House press briefing he’s opposed OPEC his whole life, and characterized it as a cartel, or monopoly. “I don’t care about OPEC,” he said. He threatened to use tariffs if needed to protect the domestic oil industry, even as he predicted that Saudi Arabia and Russia would come to an agreement.
Test fail
The botched rollout of bottlenecked coronavirus testing is fertile ground for left-vs.-right bashing: it simultaneously shows that the Trump administration callously or stupidly failed to get the CDC to do something right, and that the CDC is the deadly, bottlenecking, calcified, politicized Deep State the Trump administration is saddled with. I remain unconvinced that testing is the most important thing right now, much as I would love to have the luxury of 100% knowledge of who in this country harbors either live virus or effective antibodies.
Powerline notes that the numbers from Japan and Seoul suggest that testing isn't brilliantly correlated with death rates per capita, which is a lot more interesting data than case-positive rates. Early on, fabulous testing might allow a few sparks to be stamped out before they spread; at this point, we're probably past that strategy. It's possible that masks, or other factors such as social-distancing, ICU beds or ventilators per capita, or treatments will prove more important:
Powerline notes that the numbers from Japan and Seoul suggest that testing isn't brilliantly correlated with death rates per capita, which is a lot more interesting data than case-positive rates. Early on, fabulous testing might allow a few sparks to be stamped out before they spread; at this point, we're probably past that strategy. It's possible that masks, or other factors such as social-distancing, ICU beds or ventilators per capita, or treatments will prove more important:
Perhaps these experts should look harder at the actual data and not just their models. The data certainly suggest more testing may not be our savior. Alternatively, the Trump administration should consider asking governors to mandate, not suggest, that their citizens wear face masks in public. South Korea’s and Japan’s experience suggests that combining this policy with one that more surgically isolated the elderly and most vulnerable while allowing most of the country to go back to work would provide more effective protection from the virus and at a far, far lower cost.
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