It’s going to be 35 here tonight, heralding cold weather down the line. I took a wire brush to all the rust on the furnace. I reblacked it after I cleaned the iron.
I also cleaned the inside with a shovel and a shop vac. I put a new gasket on the inside of the door. Then I went outside and opened and cleaned the chimney pipe, which is double-walled steel.
No fire tonight, but we’re ready when the time comes.
Now, many of you probably won't like the aesthetics of this clip. Nevertheless, he makes some excellent points here -- including that the basic facts being alleged are demonstrably false. Many of his best points, I note, are aimed at understanding across cultural and racial divides. Some of them would be very surprising (perhaps even inconceivable, in The Princess Bride's terms) to many: that militias aren't per se hate groups, but are tied to a traditional Constitutional right; that the Confederate flag might be a symbol of heritage and home not only for white Southerners, but for black ones he has met and spoken to about it.
Other times he's talking about human universals, such as how all peoples are likely to stand up and defend their women against strangers who are harassing them. This sort of talk is the opposite of the racial division that we are told we are supposed to expect.
Now we were talking recently about the misuse of RICO by the Feds, famously also against this particular motorcycle club; here we're seeing the misuse of 'hate crimes' legislation (if indeed there is any correct use of what is essentially a criminalization of thoughts allegedly thunk). As Sose points out towards the beginning in talking about the Proud Boys, the effect is to define whole parts of American politics out of bounds. Criminalizing them is a short step afterwards.
Is this a reasonable way to think about our Federal law enforcement? Funny you should ask.
“Sociopolitical developments — such as narratives of fraud in the recent general election, the emboldening impact of the violent breach of the U.S. Capitol, conditions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and conspiracy theories promoting violence — will almost certainly spur some domestic terrorists to try to engage in violence,” the [FBI] report [establishing a new category of 'domestic terrorism'] stated.
Newsweek noted that each of the threats listed by federal authorities is closely associated with the MAGA Republicans who support Trump.
It's a short jump from painted-with-disapproval to criminal prosecution these days, whether for "hate crimes" or "domestic terror." One might reasonably defend those facing less than credible accusations in the hope of winning space for others disfavored by the powerful; perhaps even anyone who gains such disfavor.
UPDATE: I remembered that the Hells Angels had a documentary made about them that released in 1983. There's a section where the filmmakers asked them directly about race relations. Language and general content warning for this entire film, but it's directly relevant.
Now that was forty years ago, and it leads with Sandy -- the New York City Charter President of the Hells Angels -- stating that while some members were prejudiced, he "believes deeply that you judge a man by his behavior, not his color." That's not a hate group, not when four decades ago they were choosing themselves leaders who were rejecting racial prejudice even among the often racially-charged violence of 70s/80s NYC.
After some back and forth -- there's one of their lawyers, who says his initial impression was that they were a bunch of fascists 'but it's not true!' -- you actually see one of them wearing a t-shirt with a swastika and the words, "WHITE POWER." They ask him about why he's wearing it, and he says one of his brothers gave it to him, so he's going to wear it. Then they all have a big debate about what it actually means, and whether it should be "German power," but it's clear they're all drunk and probably high as well. Nobody has a speech prepared about white power or supremacy; even the worst guy they found is making excuses for it and laughing along with everybody else about having the guts to wear it in defiance of normal mores.
It's a pretty remarkable documentary, and this is the worst part of it. Most people would try to put forward the good and hide the bad about themselves; that's human nature. They seem to be willing to put it all out there, so you can judge for yourself how bad (and how good) they are. That part, at least, is praiseworthy.
That also happens to be the subject of my favorite line in the documentary, which comes from no less than Grateful Dead lead singer Jerry Garcia, who was performing at one of their events. Asked if he's scared of them, he affirms that he is. Asked why, he answers, "Because they're scary, man!" But then the goes on to explain how much he respects how honest they are about who and what they are, which includes being unwilling to put up with people acting like fools.
It is this grim trend of shortening life expectancy among Americans without college degrees that explains why the U.S.'s mortality rate is a stark outlier among rich nations, far lower than countries such as Japan and Switzerland.... "It is the experience of those without college degrees that accounts for America’s failure."...Case and Deaton note that they've found no precedent for this college divide in modern history except "in the former Communist countries of Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union."
There's a graph about two-thirds of the way through the piece that shows how big an outlier this is, the second of two graphs.
The American Anthropological Association now wants to pretend that there are not two biological sexes, which is even more appalling than the group’s earlier decision to pretend that there is no such thing as race (never mind the genomic evidence revealing five distinguishable races).
Is there such evidence? My understanding of the science is in accord with this National Academy paper. As far as I know, all attempts to define race or account for it scientifically have failed for all the hundreds of years it’s been attempted.
This isn’t a matter of fashion, and therefore unlikely to be the result of cognitive bias, either. At one time all the Wise believed in race, and couldn’t account for it; now none of them do, and still can’t. In the early 20th Century the same people who advocated for Darwin also were committed to race theory; generations before aristocracy used it to explain their commitment to slavery as a sort of humanitarianism. Now scientists are mostly on the Left (social science up to 44-1 Dem/Rep), and they want to use race too, for “anti-racist” action. It’s still not definable.
Is that understanding challenged by new evidence? I’m genuinely not aware of whatever this co-blogger is so confident in referencing.
An historical Sumerian twice-baked barley bread that was primarily used in ancient Mesopotamian beer brewing. Historical research done at Anchor Brewing Co. in 1989 (documented in Charlie Papazian's Home Brewer's Companion, ISBN 0-380-77287-6) reconstructed a bread made from malted barley and barley flour with honey and water and baked until hard enough to store for long periods of time; the finished product was probably crumbled and mixed with water, malt and either dates or honey and allowed to ferment, producing a somewhat sweet brew. It seems to have been drunk with a straw in the manner that yerba mate is drunk now.
The Middle French word bescuit is derived from the Latin words bis (twice) and coquere, coctus (to cook, cooked), and, hence, means "twice-cooked". This is because biscuits were originally cooked in a twofold process: first baked, and then dried out in a slow oven. This term was then adapted into English in the 14th century during the Middle Ages, in the Middle English word bisquite, to represent a hard, twice-baked product.
For now, the United States would seem to be in a strong position vis-à-vis both China and Russia. Above all, the U.S. economy is doing well. Business investment in new manufacturing facilities, some of it subsidized by new government infrastructure and technology programs, is booming. New investments by both government and business in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, robotics, and bioengineering promise to widen the technological and economic gap between the United States and every other country for years to come.
Ath. Why, do you think that you can reckon the time which has elapsed since cities first existed and men were citizens of them?Cle. Hardly.Ath. But are sure that it must be vast and incalculable?Cle. Certainly.Ath. And have not thousands and thousands of cities come into being during this period and as many perished? And has not each of them had every form of government many times over, now growing larger, now smaller, and again improving or declining?Cle. To be sure.
A couple of months ago I sold my Jeep; a couple of weeks ago, my Ford decided it needed a new transmission valve body. This is an ideal time of year for living on the back of your motorcycle, which I mostly do anyway, but there are a few chores that it’s helpful to have a truck to do. I have been working around the issue using modified pack animal techniques.
For groceries, I lashed a Duffel bag across the back. That plus the saddle bags allowed me to carry everything I needed.
The trash situation after two weeks was approaching Alice’s Restaurant territory. So, today:
Zero points for guessing what I used to create the lashing points on the bag. You can see one of them here.
A Manhattan judge on Tuesday found Donald Trump and his real-estate company liable for fraud.The judge ordered the Trump Organization's New York corporate charters revoked immediately.A receiver will be appointed to "dissolve" the company — but years of appeals may play out first.
...the penalty is so rare that the only previous time it's been attempted on such a grand scale — when James sought the corporate death penalty in her three-year-old, ongoing fraud lawsuit against the NRA — has failed."It's a staggering judgment," said John Moscow, a former financial-crimes prosecutor for the Manhattan district attorney's office."It means you are no longer a company, and the judge is appointing someone to take over the assets and distribute them as the court sees fit."
So the only two corporations in the history of Manhattan, home of Wall Street, that have merited this penalty in the eyes of the state are the NRA and the Trump Organization? That strongly suggests that corporate malfeasance isn't the real issue behind these prosecutions and the seeking of this penalty.
