I don't know how to embed twitter videos here, so here's a link to America's youngest Roman legionnaires. (H/t Ace's Overnight Thread on Twitter)
Relaxing Neighbors
The mother was just out of frame. These little fellows are here most evenings. The sign you can barely make out behind them reads, “NO HUNTING,” which may partly explain their comfort on my land. I have enforced that rule since moving here. Even the wildlife may have picked up on it.
Big guy
This fellow is probably about 11 feet long. A neighbor snapped that picture from the local beach road, probably about 30 feet away. We'd seen him at that location on the same day.
Weaving and Power
Archaeologist Michèle Hayeur Smith at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, has discovered that Viking women weaved a highly standardized cloth valued as a currency in Iceland in the Viking era....
"Textiles and what women made were as critical as hunting, building houses, and power struggles," Hayeur Smith said... Smith has a fashion degree in Paris and has focused on Viking women's cloth during her Ph.D. studies at Glasgow University in the 1990s.
This is not exactly a groundbreaking discovery, as the role of women in producing woven cloth was hardly shrouded in mystery. Rather, it is documented extensively in sagas, histories, epics, even mythology -- think of the Norns weaving fate.
She is putting the cart before the horse, though, in claiming that weaving gave women power in Viking society. Women in ancient Greece were extremely talented weavers too. They didn't parlay that into power in their society; in fact, it was one of the qualities that made even aristocratic women sought-after slaves. The fear of the Trojan women in the Iliad is that their husbands and sons will be killed, but that they will spend the rest of their lives weaving for a Greek master.
Why didn't they just go on strike? The idea of women striking in other ways occurred to the Greeks. Their skills were highly valuable: arguably quality cloth was one of the main forms of wealth produced in the ancient and medieval worlds.
Fear of violence, I suppose. So why were free Viking women also free of violence? The laws of the North punished any transgression against them especially harshly -- as did the culture. In Njals Saga, Gunnar's wife Hallgerður rebukes her husband's having struck her by refusing to braid some of her hair into a bowstring that might have saved him from an attack. He accepted this even though it meant his death.
No, the cart goes after the horse. Women in the North were treated with a kind of rough equality and much greater respect than in the south, even though they both could perform excellent weaving. The mastery of the craft did not drive the respect and equality: the respect and equality came first.
Yeah, Us Too, Kids
The Intercept has an investigative journalism piece about the CIA's, and Russia's, failures in Ukraine. I was struck by this explanation for Russian combat inefficiency:
Additionally, Putin imposed an invasion plan on the Russian military that was impossible to achieve, one current U.S. official argued. “You can’t really separate out the issue of Russian military competency from the fact that they were shackled to an impossible plan, which led to poor military preparation,” the official said.
Let's make some slight substitutions to that.
Additionally, [the Biden administration] imposed an [Afghanistan withdrawal] plan on the [American] military that was impossible to achieve... “You can’t really separate out the issue of [American] military competency from the fact that they were shackled to an impossible plan, which led to poor military preparation[.]"
Ultimately the military leadership in both places is corrupted by their proximity to power, and their refusal to take the professional hit that would come from resigning in protest rather than executing terrible orders. I don't know that the VDV is nearly as good as the 82nd Airborne, but neither of them can execute until the corruption problem is fixed, because the corruption problem handcuffs the military to an incompetence problem. Elected leadership controlling the military's policy may make good sense, but strategy, operations, and tactics should be left to the professionals.
Some 2nd Amendment Links
The law in NY that was allowed to go into effect even though it was unconstitutional has now been partly halted, for being unconstitutional.
Support for red flag laws turns into opposition to red flags once people are told what red flag laws actually entail.
FBI data on active shooters is massively flawed, argues John Lott's newest research: in non-gun-free zones, 50% of active shootings are stopped by lawfully armed citizens. Including all of America, the number is 34%. The FBI put it at four percent.
Wonderful
Forbes has taken up with something called the "National Voter Education Week Steering Committee." Nothing called a "steering committee" steers otherwise than to the left.
In a poll taken last November, 77% of Americans said they consider their employer the most trusted institution in their lives - ahead of the government and media sources. Consumers are prioritizing socially responsible businesses. The upshot: Corporate America has an unprecedented opportunity to support civic engagement in the United States. Voter education specifically provides a unique space for businesses to support their communities’ civic health, and strengthen their relationships with customers and employees in the process.
If I am reading that right the idea this: having destroyed faith in government and media institutions, the 'steering committee' would like to capture another institution in which you still might have some faith and use that to try to 'steer' you instead. Towards 'socially responsible' things, of course.
Of course, voter education isn’t the only avenue through which businesses can demonstrate values that align with younger voters. America’s youngest generations are the most diverse in the country’s history and care deeply about racial justice. Businesses can also stand more broadly for civic values and practices - specifically in defense against rising threats to democracy.
Great, just what we needed. Thanks Forbes -- and the long list of activist organizations, printed at the bottom of the article -- for trying to bring coerced conformity with your politics into one more area of our lives.
Finding Academic Papers
The old cyberpunk motto from the late 70s/early 80s was 'information wants to be free.' The internet's promise was that it would bring much of human knowledge to everyone. In some ways that promise has been fulfilled -- Project Gutenberg, for example. Yet the twin problems of political/tribal censorship and gatekeeping prevent a lot of knowledge from being accessible.
The problem in academia is that publishing is necessary for a successful career, and the journals with the most prestigious names are not open-source. Academics will generally be more than happy to share their work with you if you can find them and ask for a copy. However, if they want to be successful they have no choice but to try to publish it in a journal that is very likely to be behind gates. This system is terribly corrupt, to my way of thinking: young scholars toil for free, are paid nothing even once they get accepted, and the journals profit off their work by selling it at exorbitant prices to academic universities, where the people cannot read it. My own work is nearly always published in the open sources, which means that I will never be hired by an academic department; but it also means that anyone, anywhere can read it for free.
Here is a list of several ways of getting at academic papers you may be interested in, with a summary of just how legal each method is for anyone concerned about that. To summarize:
How to access papers for free1. Sci-Hub2. Unpaywall3. Open Access Button4. Paper Panda5. 12ft ladder
If you are like me, and occasionally see a story about a paper you'd like to examine for yourself, this may be useful to you.
The Glories of October
October is my favorite month of the year. The color has only just begun to appear here, and is very far from its eventual glory. The riding weather remains excellent in spite of the sudden drop in temperature following the equinox. My motorcycle is currently in need of a new rear tire -- I noticed cloth showing through on Monday -- but I hope to have it back up and running by Saturday once the new tire is delivered.
This month contains the nicest weather of the year except for arguably a similar period in the spring. It has the glorious color absent in the spring. It has my birthday and my wife's, Halloween, and all the pleasures of fall. If I'm posting a little less often, it is chiefly because I am out in the weather as much as I can get away from my desk.
In the smoker: Chuck Roast for Carne Asada, Beef Ribs, and some last summer Poblanos being Converted into Anchos
Goodbye, Loretta Lynn
Another gone home.
UPDATE: Any Loretta Lynn fans might find my choice of songs surprising. She had 14 songs banned from the radio, often for raising feminist perspectives in 1960s country music; and she was the artist of the year in 1972, the first time a woman ever was.
This song, by contrast, is just as she describes it, laughing: "a silly song." I've always liked it, though. It is both playful and illuminating. I'm struck by the way the female she is playing keeps saying things like, "Do what you want, I don't care," though in fact she obviously does care; indeed, she is the one who wants it. It proves that the boy 'doesn't know why we're here,' and is still trying to play Tom-Sawyer tricks to get the attention of a young woman whose attention he already has.
You rarely see those aspects of romance successfully portrayed in a song, and here in a way in which the inevitable miscommunication leaves them still friendly and romantic. I think it's a nice piece, and she and Conway Twitty are clearly having fun with each other singing it.
A Lonely Life
The [University of Georgia's] comparative literature, English, history, religion and sociology departments do not have any Republicans teaching their students. The classics, geography and philosophy departments each have one Republican professor...
Actually I know that guy, and he isn't lonely: he is one of the few -- only? -- professors in that department to have a complete and flourishing family life, a religious community, as well as many professional friends and relationships. He is universally beloved even eventually by his students, to whom he is a terrifying master during doctoral research.
Artist's Representation of UGA's Sole Republican Philosopher
So Why Haven't You?
Whoever writes these things for Joe has a great opening line.
My dad used to say, “Joey, don’t compare me to the Almighty. Compare me to the alternative.”And here’s the deal: Democrats want to codify Roe. Republicans want a national ban on abortion. The choice is clear.
I don't know that it's clear that "Republicans" want a national ban on abortion, although Lindsey Graham claims that he does -- claims, I say, since he proposed it knowing that he had nowhere near the votes to effectuate it. I have noticed that Republican politicians frequently propose doing things right up until they have the votes to do them, at which point they suddenly don't manage it -- repealing Obamacare, say, which they ran on for years and years until they had to have McCain defect at the last minute to avoid actually doing it.
But isn't that also true now of Democrats? If "Democrats want to codify Roe," what's stopping it from happening? Democratic politicians have 51 votes in the Senate, a majority in the House, and the Presidency. Republicans in the Senate, if anything, seem to be hedging in favor of at least a federalist approach to abortion rather than daring to support anything like a ban. Maybe one could get a few of them to overcome a filibuster; or otherwise, set the filibuster aside on abortion issues.
They aren't any of them serious about this stuff, I begin to think. It's just a way of keeping people divided and fired up, and keeping the donations rolling in.
Permanent National Interests
George Washington's Farewell Address is increasingly relevant today. One of its three lessons was that faction must not come to dominate American political life lest the "alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension" should destroy the institutions of liberty. This would, he argued, incline people to prefer the dominion of one powerful enough never to lose power again, so that the hated other could be suppressed forever; this is the very issue at play in yesterday's discussion of the suppression of protected political speech for factional reasons.
Truly, there are many matters here worthy of discussion. Just one: "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens."
Another: "As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible... avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertion in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear."
Most famously, though, Washington warned against entangling alliances and permanent animosities or friendships with foreign nations. Rather, he advocated a commercial approach to foreign affairs, guided by commerce, seeking peace when possible wherever in the world American merchants could do business. "Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing[.]"
Within a few years, we had a Navy in practice as well as in name, and were at war with the Barbary Pirates.
Partly this was due to the change of administrations, and indeed of factions: Washington was roughly aligned with the Federalists, and the war was led by Jefferson (founder of what was then called the Republican faction, but which later became the Democratic Party). Yet partly it was a fulfillment of Washington's vision: a permanent American interest, just because it aimed to be a nation of international commerce, was the freedom of shipping. This was especially true for American ships, but also for any ships of any nation that were involved in trade with the United States.
The United States had tried Washington's approach, and had treaties with all four of the Barbary States. Indeed Jefferson had himself helped negotiate those treaties, and later -- as Secretary of State -- had reported to Congress on their violation. It was not Jefferson, but the pasha, who declared the war and initiated hostilities. Yet Jefferson had long ago realized that it would be necessary to use force to secure the freedom of the seas.
This is an interest of a nation like America that is so permanent that I cannot see how it can ever be surrendered except with nationality itself; even then, whatever succeeds the nation will retain the interest and will have to find ways to pursue it. Thus the Constitution establishes a permanent Navy, even as it warns against a standing Army. One way or another, commerce must flow if a nation founded on peaceful commerce is to flourish, or even to survive. Washington's gentle vision may be coupled to an isolationist bent in terms of involvement in foreign wars, but the capacity to defend our shipping and secure the sea lanes is something we cannot lay down.
What Political Speech is Protected?
Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH) says that he is being told by FBI insiders that there is a purge against whistleblowers criticizing the FBI's pursuit of politicized "law enforcement."
The FBI is allegedly engaging in a "purge" of employees with conservative viewpoints and retaliating against whistleblowers who have made protected disclosures to Congress by revoking security clearances, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee Rep. Jim Jordan told Fox News Digital.
Generally one might doubt a partisan's word in a partisan debate, but on this occasion there is good reason to believe him: Attorney General Merrick Garland explicitly said that he would go after anyone in DOJ who spoke to Congress about their concerns. He claims it is illegal to talk to your Congressman about your concerns.
Mr. Garland wrote that all communication with Congress must be conducted through the department’s office of legislative affairs.The policy is “to protect our criminal and civil law enforcement decisions, and our legal judgment from partisans or other inappropriate influences, whether real or perceived or indirect,” he said in the memo, sent late Tuesday.He stressed that the new policies “are not intended to conflict with or limit whistleblower protections” and that “Congress may carry out its legislative oversight functions.”Kurt Siuzdak, a former FBI agent and a lawyer who represents bureau whistleblowers, said the memo is targeting employees who want to speak out against misconduct.“There’s no whistleblower status, per se. If you make a protected disclosure of criminal wrongdoing or serious misconduct, and then they retaliate, you go to the office of attorney recruitment and management and they basically will remove any personnel actions after two to five years, and people know it’s two to five years. And they know the office of general counsel is going to fight and cause [sic] them lots of money,” he said.“‘So if it’s not a whistleblower, then we’re coming after you’ is what they would say,’” he said. “‘If we determine you’re not a whistleblower, then we’re going to retaliate. … Because if you’re going to report misconduct to the Congress, and that doesn’t rise to the level of misconduct, then we’re going to take action.’’’
The First Amendment clearly intends to protect political speech above all forms of speech; and the right to appeal to Congress, which is the branch the Founders addressed in Article I of the Constitution before they gave a thought to the executive or judicial, is surely the most important subset of this kind of political speech. The representative branch is the first branch, and the right to petition it for redress of grievances is part of the first freedom.
It seems to me Congress ought to impeach any executive branch official who bars employees from talking with their elected legislator about concerns of executive branch misconduct. That ought to be a bipartisan, nonpartisan front that Congress cared about as a defense of its own prerogatives as a co-equal Constitutional branch (or even, one could readily argue from the Founding commentary and very organization of the Constitution, the primus inter pares of the three Constitutional branches).
Unfortunately, partisanship is now stronger than the interests of the different branches in protecting their part of the division of powers. This indicates a serious disease in the bone structure of the republic; that the courts increasingly appear to be dividing on the partisan lines of judges' personal politics is another symptom.
Sunset on the far Wall
The rain was still in Savannah at sunset, but the farthest cloud wall was visible in the south. Rain originally was predicted to start tonight, but now it sounds like the afternoon or evening of Friday. We should be perfectly ready.
Bank Robbery by the FBI
Legal Insurrection cites the LA Times: In asking for a warrant to search private safe deposit boxes, FBI did not disclose its intention to steal everything it found worth more than $5,000.
The language in the two versions differs, as one would expect, but it is pretty strong even in the LAT version which can be expected to have no right-wing sympathies (but, probably, connections to aggrieved rich LA people who lost property in the raid). I'll quote from that one.
FBI misled judge who signed warrant for Beverly Hills seizure of $86 million in cash
The privacy invasion was vast when FBI agents drilled and pried their way into 1,400 safe-deposit boxes at the U.S. Private Vaults store in Beverly Hills.
They rummaged through personal belongings of a jazz saxophone player, an interior designer, a retired doctor, a flooring contractor, two Century City lawyers and hundreds of others....
Eighteen months later, newly unsealed court documents show that the FBI and U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles got their warrant for that raid by misleading the judge who approved it.
They omitted from their warrant request a central part of the FBI’s plan: Permanent confiscation of everything inside every box containing at least $5,000 in cash or goods, a senior FBI agent recently testified.
The FBI’s justification for the dragnet forfeiture was its presumption that hundreds of unknown box holders were all storing assets somehow tied to unknown crimes, court records show.
Now, I'm not a lawyer, but that looks like a prima facie, plain language violation of the 4th Amendment.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
No warrants shall issue except on probable cause of a crime, not a presumption that unknown crimes may have occurred; and property to be seized is to be particularly described, not just generally entailed by a broad warrant.
That police are not supposed to keep from the judge that the purpose of the raid is to collect vast wealth and then keep it didn't make it into the text, probably because the Founders thought you'd need a letter of marque and reprisal for that kind of wholesale privateering and seizure. That was already covered in Article I, Sec. 8:
"To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water[.]"
This should have required issuance of such a letter by Congress, following a declaration of war on the people (citizens of Los Angeles, I suppose) who were to be subject to such piratical predations by armed agents of the state.
Massive Hells Angel Funeral Addressed by... Tucker Carlson
D29 wrote to ask if I'd known about this. I knew about Sonny Barger's death, which was memorialized here, and about the massive funeral being planned for it. I did not know, and would not have imagined, that Tucker Carlson would be invited (or even allowed) to speak there. Maybe they didn't know who he was.
I'm amused that he thought he needed to explain to bikers that Maine was "at the other end of the country," as if they didn't know the physical layout of America better than anyone except perhaps truckers.
UPDATE: There is surprisingly minimal coverage of this event, because the press generally wasn't welcome. Video of the event was controlled by the biker community, available online on a pay-per-view basis; I haven't seen any pirated clips floating around, which is indicative of how self-supporting the community is. Nobody seems to be giving interviews.
Here's a local TV station who found a vendor from inside the event who was willing to talk to them; and the police, who of course spent "millions of dollars" on whatever it was they did to 'secure' a perfectly peaceful memorial gathering.
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