I’ve been protecting him from bear hunters for five years, and I’ve often seen his scat, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen him. He’s obviously thriven wonderfully under my protection.
He’s a good neighbor. Never bothered me, or my flock, or my garden except to roll the logs back from the raised beds to eat the ants, to which he is wholly welcome.
How did the United States turn 180-degrees from supporting Israel in the first days of the war to where it functions now as a shield for Hamas, from understanding its paradigm had collapsed along with the parallel reigning paradigms in Israel – “they now get it” or as the Israelis say, “the token dropped” – to seeing the United States appearing to double down on policies that seem to emanate from those failed paradigms.... First, let me set aside ideology and the particular way in which this administration reacted to the collapse of paradigms – it just doubled down in its imagery. It saw October 7 confirming the imperative of establishing a Palestinian State under the PLO and the necessity of reaching a strategic condominium with Iran to stabilize the region[.]
If you read the whole article, you'll find that he doesn't actually believe that the Biden administration ever supported Israel, and in fact that they saw the greatest threat from the beginning as Israel actually crushing its enemies (or, as State likes to call them, "partners for peace"). The bureaucracy just carried on doing what it could to undermine Israel until the President finally caught up with them.
What I want to focus on, though, is this 'doubling down' in the face of clear evidence that the earlier belief was false. A "Two State Solution" was never viable, but it was pursued lovingly for decades by State Department diplomats and Democratic politicians. October 7 should have been the moment 'the token dropped,' and everyone realized that there was just no peace to be had with a politics like the Palestinians' embrace of Hamas or the PLO. However, that's not how human brains work.
Have you ever noticed that when you present people with facts that are contrary to their deepest held beliefs they always change their minds? Me neither. In fact, people seem to double down on their beliefs in the teeth of overwhelming evidence against them. The reason is related to the worldview perceived to be under threat by the conflicting data.
Both of those articles draw their examples from a left-leaning perspective, but the point is well understood. It's not just cultists who return to their belief in the coming spaceship or apocalypse in the face of clear evidence that their initial prediction was wrong. It's a cognitive bias that afflicts most people, maybe all of us.
In the grip of such an irrational, though perfectly normal, impulse to reaffirm a worldview proven false, it is no surprise that irrational decisions are made. Here is a partial list of the ones being made right now. I would add to that list the fact that they claim to be concerned about innocent suffering, but they are denying Israel precision weapons that would limit innocent suffering. Israel has plenty of dumb bombs they can drop if we won't sell them the smart ones. If you want a really ugly war, like the one we just had in Syria, reduce their ability to be discriminate. The Israelis are not going to stop fighting just because they have to use less precise weapons, not against an enemy that could do an October 7, not against one that has promised to keep doing it over and over if they can. This is a betrayal of the Israelis, but also of the noncombatants under fire in a war they can't escape.
Some are talking about how this is an impeachable offense, since Trump was impeached for a lesser version of the same thing. It's not, though; Trump was impeached for being Trump, and not a member of the establishment in good standing. There's no way Congress will hold Joe Biden to the same standard, especially since it's what State really wants him to do. The establishment will back this most establishment of ideas, irrational and destructive though it is. That's the real standard, membership in the club, which you obtain in large part by fidelity to the club's ideas and values especially when those ideas and values are disproven by the facts of the world. That's how you show your real loyalty. Anybody can do things that work; you're proving that you'll do stupid stuff that emphatically and repeatedly fails in pursuit of these things.
If any of them read this, which they won't, it wouldn't matter at all. They'd just come up with another story about why they were right after all, and this was the only way.
“In some markets," Carl Elsener, the fourth-generation CEO of Victorinox explained, "the blade creates an image of a weapon."
By federal law, the interior of these vehicles are required to contain flame retardants, or chemicals that make it harder for them to combust in a crash.These chemicals have been a legally mandated part of modern cars since the 1970s, when the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) passed a law requiring their use.It’s arguable how effective this protection is.Patrick Morrison, of the International Association of Firefighters, said in a statement on the study that these chemicals do little to prevent blazes — but instead simply make them “smokier and more toxic.”
But, as the U.S. shifted its focus toward adversaries such as China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, the Army had to examine its role, and how it would fit into the new strategy. The Army sees its role as providing major ground combat power for large-scale combat operations. To do that, they’ll have to fight with divisions and corps — which range from 12,000 to 45,000 soldiers, respectively. Those formations’ headquarters units will orchestrate the battle, striking deep with long-range fires, attack aircraft and hooking into joint capabilities from the Air Force, Navy and Marines.The last time the service fought with a division was in the 2003 Iraq invasion. Before that, the last major combat operation of that scale was in 1991 during the Persian Gulf War.
The Army, at least, is expecting more and bigger wars in the years to come. I keep seeing similar worrying signs from our European allies. They all seem to think that there's a big war coming, and that we'd best be preparing for it.
Cannon unsealed a trove of new documents in the case that also revealed that an FBI agent had testified that the General Services Administration (GSA) was in possession of Trump's boxes in Virginia before ordering Trump's team to come get them. The same boxes that the GSA had been holding and ordered Trump’s team to retrieve ended up being the boxes that contained classified markings, raising questions about whether the Biden administration had set up Trump."So an entire pallet full of boxes that had been held by GSA somewhere outside of DC is dumped at Mar-a-Lago," independent journalist Julie Kelly noted. "Apparently these are the boxes that ended up containing papers with 'classified markings.'"
Its like the J6 cases. Republicans like law and order as a rule. They’d have let those people go down without complaint, if only the prosecution had been evenhanded and applied the ordinary law. Instead, we’ve seen novel theories of law applied to them at the same time that administration-friendly protesters have been let to walk free.
So the FBI maybe seeded the residence with classified documents, then leaked its raid to the press, to whom it announced having found classified documents. Trial was scheduled for the height of the Presidential election campaign season. One of several.
Don’t think we don’t see what you’re doing with the rule of law. Do fear the consequences of convincing ordinary people that the laws are corrupt.
Contrary to Colangelo's spin, there is nothing "pure and simple" about Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's case against Trump. To begin with, Trump is not charged with "conspiracy" or "election fraud." He is charged with violating a New York law against "falsifying business records" with "intent to defraud."... Ordinarily, falsifying business records is a misdemeanor. But it becomes a felony when the defendant's "intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof." Bragg says Trump had such an intent, which is why the 34 counts are charged as felonies.Bragg had long been cagey about exactly what crime Trump allegedly tried to conceal. But during a sidebar discussion last week, Colangelo said "the primary crime that we have alleged is New York State Election Law Section 17-152." That provision says "any two or more persons who conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means and which conspiracy is acted upon by one or more of the parties thereto, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor."In other words, Bragg is relying on this misdemeanor to transform another misdemeanor (falsifying business records) into a felony. But the only "unlawful means" that he has identified is Cohen's payment to Daniels.... [and] Trump was never prosecuted for soliciting that contribution. There are good reasons for that. The question of whether this arrangement violated federal election law hinges on whether the hush money is properly viewed as a campaign expense or a personal expense.... proving that allegation beyond a reasonable doubt would have been hard, as illustrated by the unsuccessful 2012 prosecution of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards.... Given the fuzziness of that distinction, it is plausible that Trump did not think the payment to Daniels was illegal....The fact that Bragg is relying on an obscure offense that apparently has never been prosecuted speaks volumes about his eagerness to convert the Daniels hush payment into 34 felonies. That strategy will prove "twisty," Connor said, because "you're having an underlying crime within an underlying crime to get to that felony."If Trump did not recognize the hush payment as "unlawful," it is hard to see how his "intent" in falsifying business records could have included an intent to conceal "another crime." And that's assuming a purported violation of federal campaign finance restrictions counts as "unlawful means" under Section 17-152.
Ironically but cleverly, most of that footage didn't make the final cut of the movie, including the song overlay, so you don't really feel like they put all the best parts in the trailer. The trailer is another good part.
Now I also thought I'd like this movie because I remember the old television show it was based upon. That show was made at a time when Hollywood stunts were still all real, and it was an ode to stuntmen and their work as much as anything else. This movie is like that too. It celebrates stuntmen publicly and visibly, and rather pointedly notes in the movie that there is no Academy Award for stuntwork. As such, it's exactly the kind of celebration of the labor of the unknown hard working man (and woman) that I like to see.
Speaking of the old TV show, there are several points in the film that pay homage to it. The two stars, Lee Majors and Heather Thomas, have a prominent cameo at the end. They have what looks like the original truck to drive around in scenes set in California, and new-model trucks done up to look like it in the Australia scenes. As the ending credits roll (the cameo scene actually follows them), they play a slightly-altered version of the original TV theme song.
