tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60103875896355288182024-03-18T20:10:26.125-04:00The KHIT BlogNOW REPORTING FROM BALTIMORE. An eclectic, iconoclastic, independent, private, non-commercial blog begun in 2010 in support of the federal Meaningful Use REC initiative, and Health IT and Heathcare improvement more broadly. Moving now toward important broader STEM and societal/ethics topics. Formerly known as "The REC Blog." Best viewed with Safari, FireFox, or Chrome.
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Comments are moderated, thanks to trolls.BobbyGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807934795994985233noreply@blogger.comBlogger1393125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010387589635528818.post-66929046498572394422024-03-17T19:16:00.014-04:002024-03-18T20:09:53.714-04:00Let Us Prey<div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">U.S. "Christian Nationalists" are making plans for us. </span></b><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5UooSjw_w0s_d5GPhUrewwtWwO5u_ETdWkOg78p56iIEUO5ggzLOtH02Uxr7Qsi6fuLPZLq84y6l8XRWudXIVKpZ67OLi-OG54gZz6bGvJbqYIeMTAc8JxyWA1DFX5tso1zA8rt2joPD_-qDf0qInPCy5OLr1tiCtlPXIqYUVaHqLu11_DGfSznPtN_MW/s600/GuardianSACRstory.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="566" data-original-width="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5UooSjw_w0s_d5GPhUrewwtWwO5u_ETdWkOg78p56iIEUO5ggzLOtH02Uxr7Qsi6fuLPZLq84y6l8XRWudXIVKpZ67OLi-OG54gZz6bGvJbqYIeMTAc8JxyWA1DFX5tso1zA8rt2joPD_-qDf0qInPCy5OLr1tiCtlPXIqYUVaHqLu11_DGfSznPtN_MW/s16000/GuardianSACRstory.jpg" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The <a href="https://regionalextensioncenter.blogspot.com/2024/01/a-breadth-of-anti-woke-cultural-elites.html" target="_blank">Project 2025 BC</a> folks have some “competition.”</span></b><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b> Get a load of <i>this</i> crew</b></span>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAVaM27WzkKOk_2Ooxnc69C8ER7Cb79AynScate_b-JiRTPFc-J66iZPrqbMcN-2kjMAWmsLWmHiEl0RjUzvb1sD8dU-eWUEf4WicS3a_1gB3sdg4WM0dPNL8yLSQMuLA7jFwsdsGxEYRthhGfDf0cZmBLq7T5iqTjUGTxjgW7JVEZgnE52xBtpHtGdzxS/s1051/SACRmoble.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1051" data-original-width="600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAVaM27WzkKOk_2Ooxnc69C8ER7Cb79AynScate_b-JiRTPFc-J66iZPrqbMcN-2kjMAWmsLWmHiEl0RjUzvb1sD8dU-eWUEf4WicS3a_1gB3sdg4WM0dPNL8yLSQMuLA7jFwsdsGxEYRthhGfDf0cZmBLq7T5iqTjUGTxjgW7JVEZgnE52xBtpHtGdzxS/w365-h640/SACRmoble.jpg" width="365" /></a></div><b>Below,</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>the <i>entirety</i> of their website.</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><blockquote><span style="color: #0c343d;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">THE VISION</span></b><br />We foresee a nation building great projects of civic and cultural renaissance. A society with strong leadership committed to family and culture. A society that nurtures, rather than rejects, virtue. A society that seeks the good and the beautiful, and abjures ideology.<br /><br />We are raising accountable leaders to help build thriving communities of free citizens, who will reclaim a humane vision of society while rebuilding the frontier-conquering spirit of America. A new thing for a new day, informed by the wisdom of the past but facing the future.<br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: medium;">A brotherhood of faith and solidarity.</span></b><br /><br />The past is sealed. The future is open. As the great men of the West bequeathed their deeds to us, so must we leave a legacy for our children. Through associations bound by a common vision, we strengthen the ties that bind us together as Americans and free men. The works raised by our hands to this end will last long after we are buried.<br /><b><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">CIVILIZATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT AS A SHARED GOAL</span></b><br />A man is no longer encouraged to fly to the stars, to tame the wilderness, to plant the seeds that his children will inherit. Rather, those who rule today spit on such ambitions; they corrupt the sinews of America. They have alienated men from family, community, and God. We counter and conquer this poison, rebuilding a society where a man can find genuine fulfilment, true to his nature and calling, rejoicing in virtue and vitality.<br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><b>THE MARK</b></span><br />The mark and its seal evoke the goals of the Society and signify what binds the members of the Society.<br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: medium;">CHRISTIANITY</span></b><br />The mark evokes two versions of the Cross used in early Christianity: Saint Peter’s Cross and the Anchor Cross. The former is a symbol of faithful humility; the latter of stability and hope—both within a Trinitarian framework, and rejecting Modernist philosophies and heresies.<br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: medium;">AUTHORITY AND THE EXERCISE OF POWER</span></b><br />The mark is both sword and shield, the first the traditional symbol of temporal authority, the second a symbol of defense of the weak, the widow and the orphan, and of all those under sustained attack by the powers of the current age.<br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>RENAISSANCE</b></span><br />The mark looks backward, but it also looks forward and upward. A new America, for a new age, informed by the wisdom of the old—the future Renaissance. The goal of the Society is renewal, returning to success, heedless of nostalgia. The mark shows a supported reaching for the sky, demanding of us that we excel in the works of Man, under the eyes of God.<br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><b>A word on joining the effort.</b><br /></span><br />Membership in the Society, which is organized primarily around local groups overseen by a national superstructure, is by invitation only.</span></blockquote></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">That's it. No contact links, nothing else. Below, a couple of media sources have unearthred some rather jiggy internal documentation:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><blockquote><span style="color: #20124d;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">SOCIETY FOR AMERICAN CIVIC RENEWAL</span></b><br /><br /><b>Mission Statement - Internal </b><br />Our aim is to build and maintain a robust network of capable men who can reverse our society's decline and return us to the successful path off which America has strayed. <br /><br />We acknowledge our intellectual, political, and social inheritance, of both America's founding and of Christendom. We are un-hyphenated Americans and we believe in a particular Christianity that is not blurred by modernist philosophies. We ambitiously point to an ideal based on that dual inheritance. We are willing to act decisively to secure permanently, as much as anything is permanent, the political and social dominance of that ideal. <br /><br />To that end, our organization seeks to recruit men of good character whose loyalties are grounded in strong virtue, correct religion, the moral life, and piety toward their forebears. Most of all, we seek those who understand the nature of authority and its legitimate forceful exercise in the temporal realm. Our conviction is that a brotherhood of these men will form the backbone of a renewed American regime that will reflect the past while facing, and vigorously shaping, the future. <br /><br /><b>Mission Statement - Public </b><br />America is in a state of crisis. Decadence and corruption abound, from the streets of West Hollywood to the board rooms of Wall Street, and in many unnamed and unknown places in between. "Citizenship" has little meaning in the morass of social dysfunction and unaccountability that has become our republic. ''Virtue" has become a term of derision rather than an achievable ideal. <br /><br />Our aim is to provide the framework, and the resources, for a way forward for ordinary citizens to reclaim a humane vision of society. Community, virtue, wisdom, strength, and solidarity are our watchwords. We seek a vigorous civic renewal that will reflect the past while facing the future. <br /><br /><b>Objectives </b><br />1: Identify and provide formation for local elites who are today largely outside formal power structures but who are capable of exercising authority and who are aligned with our goal of complete civic renewal. We believe in intellectual and spiritual development, but our formation is aimed at concrete temporal achievements, not furthering intellectual discussion. <br /><br />2: Actively assist local elites to build-out and maintain fraternal networks which will advance both the members of those networks and our collective goals, in all areas of life. Such advancement will include direct preferential treatment for members, especially in business. <br /><br />3: Coordinate allied fraternal networks, in business and other organizational areas, to achieve our goals in activities to which a political awareness can be brought, but has not traditionally been brought by those wishing to defend our values. These include hiring and promotion; award of contracts; internal policies and procedures; and leadership succession. <br /><br />4: Defend fraternal networks, our own and allies, against attacks by those opposed to civic renewal, and strongly deter such attacks. <br /><br />5: Collect, curate and document a list of potential appointees and hires for an aligned future regime. These may be the same men described in Objective 1, but need not be necessarily. More likely, they would be next generation-not founding participants, but those who joined as the project of civic renewal grows deep roots. That is, men who "grow up in the system." <br />________________<br /><br /><b>SOCIETY FOR AMERICAN CIVIC RENEWAL </b><br /><b><br />WORKING MEMBERSHIP AND RECRUITING GUIDE FOR CHAPTER LEADERSHIP <br /><br />I.MEMBERSHIP CRITERIA</b><br /><br />Membership in SACR is predicated on political alignment and faithfulness to the Christian religion, combined with virtue and with any of community influence, capability, or wealth. Once a prospective member passes the minimal bar of alignment and Trinitarian identity, he should demonstrably embody the virtuous practice of our faith and possess the qualities that will ensure his ability to contribute meaningfully to our project. Each quality is explained further below; they are in no particular order, and should not be considered exhaustive. <br /><br />Alignment: To be aligned is to acknowledge "our political and social inheritance, of both America's founding and of Christendom," which entails deference to and acceptance of the wisdom of our American and European Christian forebears in the political realm, a traditional understanding of patriarchal leadership in the household, and an acceptance of traditional Natural Law in ethics more broadly. <br /><br />Virtue: Evidence of long-lasting relationships; restraint and self-denial; household management; leadership and orderliness; and courage in speaking against the injustices of our age. <br /><br />Faithfulness: Submission to the authority and standards of behavior of a particular Trinitarian Christian body; adherence to traditional Christian sexual ethics; taking ownership as head of the household in terms of leading regular prayer and spiritual reading and reflection; involvement in parish/church ministries; regular tithing. <br /><br />One or more of: <br /><br /><b>Influence</b>: To be influential in this context is to possess the ability to make a mark primarily on culture and social discourse but also in politics and business. The positions here can range from equity ownership in productive enterprises to positions of influence in cultural, religious and intellectual institutions.<br /><br /><b>Capability</b>: This entails high capability in skills useful for our organization and the businesses it will be affiliated with (e.g., any skill conducive to the technical work of productive entrepreneurship; lawfare; cybersecurity).<br /><br /><b>Wealth</b>: This is measured in terms of overall financial attainment as well as ultimately, willingness to put such resources to use in our cause.<br /><br /><b>Levels of membership: </b><br /><br />We conceive of Chapter membership as consisting of multiple levels: "Junior" membership and regular membership, which will be furrher split into "associate" and "full" membership, roughly corresponding to level of professional and personal experience and abilities as well as demonstrated level of commitment 1-0 our objectives. <br /><b><br />Junior Membership</b>: Junior Members will be younger (20s to early 30s) men who demonstrate the qualities above, but in nascent form. Dues will be at a reduced rate, and they will not be included, generally in national discussions.<br /><b><br />Regular Membership</b>: Regular Members will be men of all ages who demonstrate the qualities above in a matured and accomplished form. Dues will be slightly higher, and they will be included at varying levels in national discussions and have access to information at the national and inter-chapter level. A further distinction should be made between "associate" and "full" Members.<br /><b><br />Associate Membership</b>: The primary distinction between Junior Members and Regular Associate Members will be age (though this is not determinative, and some Associate Members may be younger), experience and accomplishments.<br /><br /><b>Full Membership</b>: Full Membership is reserved for those with significant skin in the game with respect to our mission and objectives and demo111strated commitment over time.<br /><br /><b>National leadership</b> is reserved for those members the national Board deem appropriate to include in national planning, strategy and operations. In most cases these will be Full Members. <br /><br />All members are obligated to pay dues timely, attend at least twelve gatherings per year, and to adhere to the Rules for Gatherings noted below. <br /><b><br />II. MEMBERSHIP VETTING</b><br /><br />The process of vetting begins with the passive knowledge of or pre-existing relationships with prospects among members. <br /><br />The above membership criteria should be distributed among Chapter members so they can internalize it and be on the lookout for prospects. <br />Once identified, a prospect should be discussed with Chapter leadership with the following knowledge: <br /></span><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="color: #20124d;">Denominational affiliation</span></li><li><span style="color: #20124d;">Profession</span></li><li><span style="color: #20124d;">Marital status</span></li><li><span style="color: #20124d;">Brief description of fitness for membership based on above criteria</span></li></ul><span style="color: #20124d;">If Chapter leadership deems the prospect worthy of consideration, the prospect should be invited to a Chapter event, where the Rules for Gatherings for all attendees are explained and agreed to in advance. <br /><br />At the gathering, the following are some suggested prompts for discussion with the prospect to gauge alignment and fit: <br /></span><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="color: #20124d;">What are your thoughts on the Republican Party?</span></li><li><span style="color: #20124d;">What are your thoughts on "Christian Nationalism"?</span></li><li><span style="color: #20124d;">Comment on the Trump presidency and what it entails for the future.</span></li><li><span style="color: #20124d;">Describe the dynamic of your household in terms of your role and that of your wife.</span></li></ul><span style="color: #20124d;">____________________<br /><b><br />SOCIETY FOR AMERICAN CIVIC RENEWAL <br /><br />PRAYERS FOR CHAPTER EVENTS </b><br /><br />In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit we call upon the help of God to establish, empower, and guide us in our mission of civic renewal. May God unite us in this mission as Joshua’s men when they defeated the mighty walls of Jericho as Nehemiah’s men who rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, as Saint Constantine's men when they conquered in the sign of the Cross. May the light of Christendom be restored in our homeland and may America not fall to those who hate God. May God establish our civil authorities as his ministers of justice and may we and our sons never partake from the table-scraps of the enemies of God but rely forever on God's generous providence. Through our loyal cooperation and perseverance under God, may he develop in us all necessary shrewdness and strength, and may our sons live to see the commonplace grateful reception in our homeland of God's gifts: of human nature, sanctified marriage and children and grandchildren, and the renewal of all good and proper earthly labors, especially those of the patriarch and statesman. May God show his mercy upon America and bless us as we entrust our lives and mission to God in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. <br /><br /><b>Short Prayer - Regular Meetings </b><br /><br />As we gather this evening/ we call upon the help of God to establish, empower, and guide us in our mission of civic renewal. Through our loyal cooperation and perseverance under God, may he develop in us all necessary shrewdness and strength, and may our sons live to see the commonplace grateful reception in our homeland of the natural law, Christian truth, and all good and proper earthly labors, especially those of the patriarch and statesman. May God show his mercy upon America and bless us as we entrust our lives and mission to God in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ Amen. </span></blockquote></span><b><span style="font-size: medium;">YEAH. AND, IT GETS EVEN BETTER</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4Hi7p-SrKl4hp975dMca1GkpeB9LHhzX63rPOfv1klXwt-LZ7tDbB8uYwZjCP1jUZSGC9hMSGTINOz9ygOqBGhPfCd-PXmoUhMTdukkFLnq5kNycmwxQfazkdMXlDIgB4GTu7OONKn-qDxb-xm-KQpJnfeJqhXSbjh0P2UngjBeC0-d42nZ0dY90_Nal0/s402/ChristianNationalism.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="195" data-original-width="402" height="155" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4Hi7p-SrKl4hp975dMca1GkpeB9LHhzX63rPOfv1klXwt-LZ7tDbB8uYwZjCP1jUZSGC9hMSGTINOz9ygOqBGhPfCd-PXmoUhMTdukkFLnq5kNycmwxQfazkdMXlDIgB4GTu7OONKn-qDxb-xm-KQpJnfeJqhXSbjh0P2UngjBeC0-d42nZ0dY90_Nal0/s320/ChristianNationalism.png" width="320" /></a></div><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #073763;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://buckscountybeacon.com/2024/03/shocking-online-manifesto-reveals-project-2025s-link-to-a-coordinated-christian-nationalism-project/" target="_blank">Shocking Online Manifesto Reveals Project 2025’S Link To A Coordinated ‘Christian Nationalism Project’</a></span></b><br /><b>“<i>The Statement on Christian Nationalism” seeks to implement a Scripture-based system of government whereby Christ-ordained “civil magistrates” exercise authority over the American public.</i></b><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Draft Authors: James Silberman, Dusty Deevers. <br />Contributing Editors: William Wolfe, Joel Webbon, Jeff Wright, Cory Anderson.</span><br /><br /><b>DEFINITION</b><br />CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM is a set of governing principles rooted in Scripture’s teaching that Christ rules as supreme Lord and King of all creation, who has ordained civil magistrates with delegated authority to be under Him, over the people, to order their ordained jurisdiction by punishing evil and promoting good for His own glory and the common good of the nation.<br /><br /><b>INTRODUCTION</b><br />Christian Nationalism is primarily concerned with the righteous rule of civil authorities, not spiritual matters pertaining to salvation. The desire for a Christian nation is not a distraction from the Gospel but rather an effort to faithfully apply all of Scripture to all of life, including the public square. As such, Christian Nationalism is not just for civil authorities, just as submitting to Christ’s Lordship is not just for civil authorities but for all people. After the Lord Jesus declared His sovereign authority (Matthew 28:18), He gave the Great Commission and commanded His followers, empowered by His everlasting presence, to make disciples of “all nations” and to baptize them and “teach them to obey all that I have commanded” (Matthew 28:19-20). Our Lord did not exclude all civil authorities from the command to submit to His authority and display allegiance to Him…<br />___________<br /><br /><b>Article I: The Source of Truth</b><br />WE AFFIRM that the Bible is God’s Word, breathed out by Him as the only sufficient, certain, inerrant, infallible, necessary, and final authority for all saving knowledge, faith (what we must believe), and obedience (how we must live). We affirm that the light of nature in man and God’s works in creation and providence reveal God’s power and nature, leaving civil authorities without excuse for failing to govern justly as His servants, yet this knowledge is insufficient for repentance unto life in salvation. All truth claims and ethical standards must be tested by God’s final Word, which is Scripture alone. We affirm that the Bible is clear in all essential matters. <br /><br />WE DENY that true beliefs, good character, or good conduct can be dictated by any authority other than God’s revelation.<br /><br /><b>Article II: Orthodox Christian Faith</b><br />WE AFFIRM that nations are commanded to honor God by officially affirming the orthodox Christian faith as historically and universally defined and affirmed in the creeds (e.g., Apostle’s Creed, Nicene Creed, Athanasian Creed). We affirm that many denominational confessions articulate the orthodox Christian faith. We affirm that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, revealed in Scripture alone, to the glory of God alone. <br /><b><br />Article III: The Standard of Justice</b><br />WE AFFIRM that God’s Word is authoritative on everything to which it speaks, and we affirm that God’s Word speaks abundantly regarding the nature and importance of civil government and justice. We affirm that God's moral law is enduring and binding on all people throughout all time, including civil authorities and nations, and that it is summarily comprehended in the Ten Commandments. We further affirm that every political thought must be taken captive to the obedience of Christ. We affirm that Christ will judge every civil authority according to their conformity to His command.<br /><br />WE DENY that there is any objective standard by which to discern justice from injustice outside of God’s revelation, written on the heart and most perfectly revealed in Scripture. We deny that faithful civil authorities may rule autonomously from the rule of Christ. We deny that God approves of Christians embracing any political ideology or position prohibited by Scripture.<br /><br /><b>Article IV: The Definition of a Nation</b><br />WE AFFIRM that a nation is not merely an idea, abstract principle, or ideology but tangibly defined by a particular body of people in a particular place. We affirm that a particular people are necessarily bound together by a shared culture, customs, history, and lineage while sharing common interests, virtues, languages, and worship. We affirm, in regards to “place” that a nation is definitively set by both its borders and times physically defined by God (Acts 17:26). Thus, we affirm that nations should rightly maintain autonomous government of their people and place, with the necessary rights and duties to (1) prioritize the security of its people by maintaining its borders, providing for its common defense, and repelling invasions from without and insurrections from within; (2) promote the prosperity of its citizens; and, (3) enforce justice. <br /><br />WE DENY that a nation should cede its sovereignty to international bodies that may subvert the will of the national interest for a global order. We deny any efforts to establish a “one world” governmental system before the return of Christ, as such efforts are a reenactment of the Tower of Babel. We further deny that sovereign nations must only be composed of mono-ethnic populations to be united under God. Therefore, as Christian Nationalists, we utterly repudiate sinful ethnic partiality in all its various forms. <br /><br /><b>Article V: The Nature of Christ’s Lordship and Kingdom</b><br />WE AFFIRM that in addition to possessing the titles of Savior, Messiah, and many others, Jesus, the Son of God, Who is truly God, is also the King of all earthly kings, the Lord of all earthly lords, and the Lawmaker for all earthly lawmakers. He is the possessor of all authority in heaven and on earth. We affirm that as God, Jesus Christ is preeminent over all creation, sovereignly rules over all things visible and invisible in heaven, earth, and hell, and ordains all things according to the counsel of His perfect will for the good of those in Him. We affirm that in His mediatorial rule, Christ rules by His Spirit and Word through the saints in their earthly authority. We also affirm that as sovereign King of kings, Christ has commanded all civil authorities, Christian and non-Christian alike, to execute His will on the earth to orient humankind toward Himself through the moral law. We affirm that Christ alone, through the blood of His cross, grants repentance and forgiveness of sins to reconcile sinners to His Father.<br /> <br />WE DENY any theology which would seek to segregate sacred aspects of life, where God’s Word is authoritative, and supposedly secular aspects of life, where the Christian must operate by a standard other than God’s Word. We deny any theology which claims that bringing God’s Word into the civil sphere is unwise, unfruitful, sinful, or anything other than fitting and required. We deny that Jesus’ kingship and lordship are merely heavenly or that His Word is only authoritative over confessing Christians. We deny that, solely by virtue of their claims to authority or the claims of those who support them, any human or group of humans who claim to be civil authorities are, in actuality, recognized by God to be civil authorities...<br /></span></span></blockquote><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">OK, you get the idea. Upon reconsideration, I took out the rest. A waste of bandwidth. They ramble on through more than s dozen more "Articles" asserting patriarchal Christian biblical authority over every detail of American life.</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">Props to <a href="https://buckscountybeacon.com/2024/03/shocking-online-manifesto-reveals-project-2025s-link-to-a-coordinated-christian-nationalism-project/" target="_blank">Jennifer Cohn</a>, <i>Bucks County Beacon</i>.</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">_____</span><b><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"> <br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">STILL TO COME...</span></b></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS4s0SQuE7vxSS7efhdfB2YS_Zc-pgfX0hXnxdtJ_g2_IKxkD9PGqQf2abJj2ogRY31zrZdMmU4d_-93jBE03eEtwjTKbw1h2R2IJFrjcsw6zYXXOwY5OhAZs2fQNb_LDYm3nKErs0JRyoHXHoCHT4bng5LT4KWjYe4heJtd-AqfnmniMxAjl_iqZIJHIO/s402/CFRA.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="156" data-original-width="402" height="124" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS4s0SQuE7vxSS7efhdfB2YS_Zc-pgfX0hXnxdtJ_g2_IKxkD9PGqQf2abJj2ogRY31zrZdMmU4d_-93jBE03eEtwjTKbw1h2R2IJFrjcsw6zYXXOwY5OhAZs2fQNb_LDYm3nKErs0JRyoHXHoCHT4bng5LT4KWjYe4heJtd-AqfnmniMxAjl_iqZIJHIO/s320/CFRA.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Pretty much the <a href="https://citizensrenewingamerica.com" target="_blank">same schtick,</a> perhaps a tad less snarlingly aggressive</b>.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSF2wYXGESRhYfnZSkjIzZWrSQtfH85ebCaRzqNa5qtVZb15P0kThte44k10uylhzzDB9WnXgkRBTj0rFQiSgxaCnavWyyDwppPsAwOQ_OwCpvaxaeva58uNGFZ_05di18R8Wo2LW3EC6d3SaUcqczCbsOcfZQ_WKcIQ9BMhvc-W0ZGldA-ZEC-vc_vB_a/s1024/EPPCbanner.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="151" data-original-width="1024" height="82" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSF2wYXGESRhYfnZSkjIzZWrSQtfH85ebCaRzqNa5qtVZb15P0kThte44k10uylhzzDB9WnXgkRBTj0rFQiSgxaCnavWyyDwppPsAwOQ_OwCpvaxaeva58uNGFZ_05di18R8Wo2LW3EC6d3SaUcqczCbsOcfZQ_WKcIQ9BMhvc-W0ZGldA-ZEC-vc_vB_a/w559-h82/EPPCbanner.png" width="559" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">Among other things, these folks want to <i>outlaw</i> IVF.</span></b><br /></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLHZjkZXQQbzUWQN3BLBI9V3mr8iR3TA-MiTghdxrh9C3vhn4fBwpIqpUJU4N50gqWedle60lCNd-17ONNheq3C_OHRzDnhRkLIRqGxQjHKjQKvN-sfLXku5MvkvHrRCsNfsYa-D5X2DqHypOue6EMvhVdZiWzAQyHqxUy8vZ-NeZeDxYDSgRb6G3zrIfQ/s600/IVFend.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="600" height="173" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLHZjkZXQQbzUWQN3BLBI9V3mr8iR3TA-MiTghdxrh9C3vhn4fBwpIqpUJU4N50gqWedle60lCNd-17ONNheq3C_OHRzDnhRkLIRqGxQjHKjQKvN-sfLXku5MvkvHrRCsNfsYa-D5X2DqHypOue6EMvhVdZiWzAQyHqxUy8vZ-NeZeDxYDSgRb6G3zrIfQ/w400-h173/IVFend.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: arial;"><blockquote>To IVF critics … an embryo is just a very young person. “The only real difference between those frozen embryos and me sitting here having this conversation with you is time,” Katy Faust, the president of the anti-abortion nonprofit Them Before Us, told me. “If you believe that children have a right to life, and that life begins at conception, then ‘Big Fertility’ as an industry is responsible for more child deaths than the abortion industry.” Faust’s organization argues from a “children’s rights” perspective, meaning it also believes that IVF is wrong, in part, because it allows single women and homosexual couples to have babies, which deprives children of having both a mother and a father.<br /><br />This leads to the other major criticism of IVF: that the process itself is so unnatural that it devalues sex and treats children as a commodity. The argument to which many religious Americans subscribe is that having children is a “cooperative act among husband, wife, and God himself,” John M. Haas, a former president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, has written. “Children, in the final analysis, should be begotten not made.”…</blockquote></span>Full article <b><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/03/in-vitro-fertilization-alabama-abortion/677695/" target="_blank">here</a></b>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>LET US PREY</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHROFwG42vCW0WxAAkF-8aWxs3puaTxZXgqi8GXFZrkm8JIYCqfH_hIERgCIj2EkuxEFRG2GhPulLybS7qV_m_fG0JwE7b8Hc2zZ93NYUDHilWoFSklJBeF-iCWnpFonFMblQL3dCR_So8B-AbhtA8V9Z300S4Rq173eDnaqBxmenexShn1c03SafAdnRl/s600/HEisRISEN.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="406" data-original-width="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHROFwG42vCW0WxAAkF-8aWxs3puaTxZXgqi8GXFZrkm8JIYCqfH_hIERgCIj2EkuxEFRG2GhPulLybS7qV_m_fG0JwE7b8Hc2zZ93NYUDHilWoFSklJBeF-iCWnpFonFMblQL3dCR_So8B-AbhtA8V9Z300S4Rq173eDnaqBxmenexShn1c03SafAdnRl/s16000/HEisRISEN.jpg" /></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXrFbJTlCXkLHwthSnN0swCLiQIZhyb_Vy5EW_VLpup-1QuMKzCOiY8OAOysERz7S7QvY4OWibT7qvet0mA31HevaM08QV2rq_hk-cQSHDb6aZNgyTn1Pilgp5YmLnu1hd55mRl-T9-MRyYCS46W9zSNvi90kRf7vf-HoNt1YUD_t7rjy5R2cOLbWKYXjm/s600/DJTbible.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="527" data-original-width="600" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXrFbJTlCXkLHwthSnN0swCLiQIZhyb_Vy5EW_VLpup-1QuMKzCOiY8OAOysERz7S7QvY4OWibT7qvet0mA31HevaM08QV2rq_hk-cQSHDb6aZNgyTn1Pilgp5YmLnu1hd55mRl-T9-MRyYCS46W9zSNvi90kRf7vf-HoNt1YUD_t7rjy5R2cOLbWKYXjm/s320/DJTbible.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR0CDGIGtrV0eOWm4P7tS5RiCzcYaWNupj-eNW2-4NBi_26PKGijbYaX64o2IWVaDzvNFzzHEdrH2BjXtw976-hoh_J79zcPU3u0Pm4tyAOsHFprLNOQtX3W3qS2N5-U8BRh9ovgkCOqYJACj49IoOKDt8yBoouduLWfUtgX4e5wkPVsUq2v3m5pEAfsVo/s760/trump-with-evangelical-leaders.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="570" data-original-width="760" height="324" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR0CDGIGtrV0eOWm4P7tS5RiCzcYaWNupj-eNW2-4NBi_26PKGijbYaX64o2IWVaDzvNFzzHEdrH2BjXtw976-hoh_J79zcPU3u0Pm4tyAOsHFprLNOQtX3W3qS2N5-U8BRh9ovgkCOqYJACj49IoOKDt8yBoouduLWfUtgX4e5wkPVsUq2v3m5pEAfsVo/w432-h324/trump-with-evangelical-leaders.jpg" width="432" /></a></div><br />Yeah, <i>right</i>. Mr. Piety.<br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b> </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Random note</b>: I'm a "small-a" atheist, which simply means "without theology," nothing more. A fully-recovered Episcopalian, subsequently a dilettante UU, and a stable, long-time secular Zen Sympathizer. I find anthropomorphic / speciocentric wishful-thinking stuff of nil interest. There's too much of exigent importance to reflect and act upon.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">UPDATE</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> <br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ78gEcmcgrUiU5quCH5qCm79_Cf_IQjyqGmmTDPoagjEDGS5WlWJRDKVkpOdjDsPiO2w_6iDpET9extPQkyRL2a-nTZnuMVTtlCnAsO-pHnvfJRerzZzpVw7qA6PjsMZzqo00-ANtX3ilYdXcvE2zF6JRo9fX1qAoGudRUEV6zzCaRB8uU4M6qKIHO_LE/s600/CNfish.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="561" data-original-width="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ78gEcmcgrUiU5quCH5qCm79_Cf_IQjyqGmmTDPoagjEDGS5WlWJRDKVkpOdjDsPiO2w_6iDpET9extPQkyRL2a-nTZnuMVTtlCnAsO-pHnvfJRerzZzpVw7qA6PjsMZzqo00-ANtX3ilYdXcvE2zF6JRo9fX1qAoGudRUEV6zzCaRB8uU4M6qKIHO_LE/s16000/CNfish.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><blockquote><span style="color: #660000;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://religioninpublic.blog/2024/03/18/christian-nationalism-is-both-smear-and-savior-to-many-christians/" target="_blank">Christian Nationalism is Both Smear and Savior to Many Christians</a></span><br /><i>By Paul A. Djupe, Denison University</i></b><br /><br />All it took was some imprecise language from a Politico reporter to fire up the outrage machine. If it means that the rights and liberties of the Constitution were granted by God, then “Christian nationalism” is a smear applied to the broadest swath of the population that simply associates democracy with godliness…<br /><br />It seems clear that many Christian nationalists do not like being labeled as such even as they see Christian nationalism as a substantive idea that they agree with for restoring Christians to societal dominance. The elite ploy, of course, has been to try and delegitimize opponents who are accurately labeling them. And they use accusations that opponents are trying to take away their rights by calling them Christian nationalists to feed the Christian persecution complex that has been so successful at mobilizing supporters. The fact that those feigning outrage are actually supporters is unlikely to stop them.</span></blockquote></span><b>Fine piece. Read all of it</b><div style="text-align: left;">_________</div><div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><iframe allowtansparency="true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets/tweet_button.html" style="height: 20px; width: 130px;"></iframe><br />BobbyGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807934795994985233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010387589635528818.post-33728019014104310922024-03-13T20:23:00.015-04:002024-03-17T16:21:51.133-04:00In fewer than eight months,<div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">the arc of history may well take a sharp, adverse turn away from any rational notion of civilized justice.</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhylvRkrfMsnv7oogYIHBb3iFYvSpSYUh-8zPWK670HE4-OLKecpRv6WLHyLpifp3G1ZwTxXYp9laMZVupEByoKkUfxUryTLBrKVbWFlLw6kGYrr4a2IPH3-0l3hWnAUy8rsE2tCPfHtdQ_YWwZbhVMfdFPlOwNEwEqa7UEySKWH0blD8v5MTAeYgmgDQEA/s1069/IMG_3408.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1027" data-original-width="1069" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhylvRkrfMsnv7oogYIHBb3iFYvSpSYUh-8zPWK670HE4-OLKecpRv6WLHyLpifp3G1ZwTxXYp9laMZVupEByoKkUfxUryTLBrKVbWFlLw6kGYrr4a2IPH3-0l3hWnAUy8rsE2tCPfHtdQ_YWwZbhVMfdFPlOwNEwEqa7UEySKWH0blD8v5MTAeYgmgDQEA/w400-h384/IMG_3408.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFz8RmLxpI9P6nYghE90A2izk9LliS0SObiFpK7RR5KRiLuwrcx1g0usWItxq2-cpT1Uhcf8jTFumxYrwHgFBBOE_wkT7sKR9UWIDlwygq-7q69qYsO1ESgfIyNbO06neLw1l2zhBvZI7FNfQXTQ1swl-5bo6C_RKxE7fVSx2jTcwHul1HFOqbC96PXHML/s1089/IMG_3409.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1059" data-original-width="1089" height="389" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFz8RmLxpI9P6nYghE90A2izk9LliS0SObiFpK7RR5KRiLuwrcx1g0usWItxq2-cpT1Uhcf8jTFumxYrwHgFBBOE_wkT7sKR9UWIDlwygq-7q69qYsO1ESgfIyNbO06neLw1l2zhBvZI7FNfQXTQ1swl-5bo6C_RKxE7fVSx2jTcwHul1HFOqbC96PXHML/w400-h389/IMG_3409.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1052" data-original-width="1098" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu0y9KgX9y1727wzTePWlpwWjJIfi_qcAA233aMqrTk3N2xmnYmAc5HtIytbk309Kli4oK4BBioYayIcXeh_h8oLK1rPtE_4aV7yEg3ALWiIiRm2lCrkQbq8_-EeNGYbuskQ8X8MdQ8jx0XW7tXQVV4fJuMlNYvvkV_1XdeyBCYde68p0KYflekvGMd01Q/w400-h384/IMG_3411.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg93tPf6Vo-95rx3Cso4ygEfnHnQfPf_SPRll62JrYd4vKZrJjpd3dkaJ_9oU92Ng99jwsgtgcprYDUXnOqeTDWEs2P5K2viXe1lYbZ_S0eFh4yHJ7u8Nm812F07kMYl_t4vUecF9VsiEm1FnB-JhP2gPS63bVnAvClcre6G4mAEIR8hinBA_VcPRfvTPZe/s1101/IMG_3412.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1059" data-original-width="1101" height="385" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg93tPf6Vo-95rx3Cso4ygEfnHnQfPf_SPRll62JrYd4vKZrJjpd3dkaJ_9oU92Ng99jwsgtgcprYDUXnOqeTDWEs2P5K2viXe1lYbZ_S0eFh4yHJ7u8Nm812F07kMYl_t4vUecF9VsiEm1FnB-JhP2gPS63bVnAvClcre6G4mAEIR8hinBA_VcPRfvTPZe/w400-h385/IMG_3412.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJKcLWnhdTmr58Iqr4qnJWvFIKp9dor4GvxhVVJUG8koKTTyz-WDFGyeM0gevts2K3B6RaULJVFj29k4RZc2ZJ__gfy8F2pp1D_Aw6mMi5d5ONCu6r92dDZqS6RTbFKEbytZ9WlRTW2CkjWzHp5ym60SpAysqyxUd9OWNKrbNPq18v6E0-qr18XhSKGrZS/s547/IMG_3413.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="547" data-original-width="355" height="834" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJKcLWnhdTmr58Iqr4qnJWvFIKp9dor4GvxhVVJUG8koKTTyz-WDFGyeM0gevts2K3B6RaULJVFj29k4RZc2ZJ__gfy8F2pp1D_Aw6mMi5d5ONCu6r92dDZqS6RTbFKEbytZ9WlRTW2CkjWzHp5ym60SpAysqyxUd9OWNKrbNPq18v6E0-qr18XhSKGrZS/w543-h834/IMG_3413.jpeg" width="543" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJejSL9tFx3JiEtITrFuKPZ6OZjlkYTshyphenhyphenkp6QXfURALsU-4uH8b3bgn7K7iFn8oyUBZerocxjm1-utKKR5GNmLX8iXHJRfS6I7eCvpaYBpmtbnahn7EJ-7GfZHnbnLDGHgk472TlkqNbIVmxUUu-iGiJ33QKa_A50-G0LNkxjv-jnLqjAYJdKgRZnG_f2/s1085/IMG_3419.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1053" data-original-width="1085" height="389" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJejSL9tFx3JiEtITrFuKPZ6OZjlkYTshyphenhyphenkp6QXfURALsU-4uH8b3bgn7K7iFn8oyUBZerocxjm1-utKKR5GNmLX8iXHJRfS6I7eCvpaYBpmtbnahn7EJ-7GfZHnbnLDGHgk472TlkqNbIVmxUUu-iGiJ33QKa_A50-G0LNkxjv-jnLqjAYJdKgRZnG_f2/w400-h389/IMG_3419.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdSsVTI38Gv13MLx8G97auOw3ZMesGBjzPXQOMdDFnp7J7o3NaDuXNZds9ZT-IdRUx0DPjTjA0AYoyUVwOcm7H26o9VzhyphenhyphenlENy-KLGyVymk03Z9NYae3hhWjQf0f2Bya-XjhvFuuOOzyT90EhmJt1Iqhmi11v7svEHYmtqEQTl-T3qaGWyzNGsnsM_alL5/s1090/IMG_3420.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1051" data-original-width="1090" height="386" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdSsVTI38Gv13MLx8G97auOw3ZMesGBjzPXQOMdDFnp7J7o3NaDuXNZds9ZT-IdRUx0DPjTjA0AYoyUVwOcm7H26o9VzhyphenhyphenlENy-KLGyVymk03Z9NYae3hhWjQf0f2Bya-XjhvFuuOOzyT90EhmJt1Iqhmi11v7svEHYmtqEQTl-T3qaGWyzNGsnsM_alL5/w400-h386/IMG_3420.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div>A painfully hilarious read. <b>Andrew Marantz</b> is an Old Soul of a writer at the age of 39. I’m having an interesting reaction. I have not been feeling well lately (Parkinson’s getting worse). Curiously, this book is making me feel better physically. OK, back to reading. More to come. Stay tuned.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVoOeApTlRPzU1a86XjaOIjhcCbICS0IHepVQyFGjvVLWLYDDkLZtvlhbEItLN8e0GATodlo71YE7pQqZdrP4ph9x4NloPXElA2DA2bagrr6VTggaR74dH4KiKbM1mEzdbd_eK3N4gpviyd6eX4bZeiGzM10WrOqgALNDtqLmhrgGLsq3vv5_9dKXEW5wT/s1102/IMG_3422.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1041" data-original-width="1102" height="378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVoOeApTlRPzU1a86XjaOIjhcCbICS0IHepVQyFGjvVLWLYDDkLZtvlhbEItLN8e0GATodlo71YE7pQqZdrP4ph9x4NloPXElA2DA2bagrr6VTggaR74dH4KiKbM1mEzdbd_eK3N4gpviyd6eX4bZeiGzM10WrOqgALNDtqLmhrgGLsq3vv5_9dKXEW5wT/w400-h378/IMG_3422.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgff-532QYmBKc7mObunIxSECPM7v4IF7M3k9CV5MqKn6dtG2GSmPzt870hmGSR1MENhjljbCePu2HWymj7UewJB0snKcNOpC7MoZaGssg7XFt0KaTvMgCA4TVVlONFifet6XsLFQ_yFA8t7bM94FXKQXLfZw3v6c-iC_Od5HeGLk-u9IjTbmV1Drxv1h5G/s1063/IMG_3425.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1063" data-original-width="1052" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgff-532QYmBKc7mObunIxSECPM7v4IF7M3k9CV5MqKn6dtG2GSmPzt870hmGSR1MENhjljbCePu2HWymj7UewJB0snKcNOpC7MoZaGssg7XFt0KaTvMgCA4TVVlONFifet6XsLFQ_yFA8t7bM94FXKQXLfZw3v6c-iC_Od5HeGLk-u9IjTbmV1Drxv1h5G/w396-h400/IMG_3425.jpeg" width="396" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfABXxYpa5c_lgsOQNegDC9cN5ruSzj3sdQvL3ovj0yQFRbA0ojQ0TAsqvhOP2T6RT3tIfgclArA_qH5SSpY9mfbfcX0pmhkpbpLs_aoGDccl9GmEG_TvNC5a2-D8crqJ8UPwz8U_OSlGsBEkAHT0MUQh4quFSeha0uuHwpKil8C8abSQtSgrFbS6PE2kc/s1110/IMG_3426.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1054" data-original-width="1110" height="475" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfABXxYpa5c_lgsOQNegDC9cN5ruSzj3sdQvL3ovj0yQFRbA0ojQ0TAsqvhOP2T6RT3tIfgclArA_qH5SSpY9mfbfcX0pmhkpbpLs_aoGDccl9GmEG_TvNC5a2-D8crqJ8UPwz8U_OSlGsBEkAHT0MUQh4quFSeha0uuHwpKil8C8abSQtSgrFbS6PE2kc/w500-h475/IMG_3426.jpeg" width="500" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>I finally finished this book. Kindle Reader pegs it at 15 hours, 2 minutes. Lotta book here, lotta fine writing. This is the first post in which I've cited all my my excerpts using the Kindle Reader #<b>Kindle</b>quotes functionality. I would click-drag-highlight sections as I was going through the book and save them iteratively as jpegs.<br /></div><div> </div><div>This book is a 2019 release. Things don't appear to be getting materially better in the aggregate with respect to ill-will / bad faith polarizing mis/disinformation. See some of my priors posts citing "<b><a href="https://regionalextensioncenter.blogspot.com/search?q=disinformation" target="_blank">disinformation</a></b>."<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>I came to the author via one of his recent <b><i><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/03/18/among-the-ai-doomsayers" target="_blank">New Yorker</a></i></b> articles.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhodGYxzGcRLO9iNCIu7803XG9L40OUuhajKQ3OmeyFizAo9tQsx49udputaQYTRqygUqw5p1My-yc9-gt8aCEkH26XJz82mibmRFGmcIqh_N59xDKxt38RJUon9rP1KeZxS4HPPUDAxMJ3B5LjBUiVlHvrI7YQQj9wAJBGjmN9zhIz6QT3RF6R599-gEy8/s738/AIdoomsayers.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="738" data-original-width="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhodGYxzGcRLO9iNCIu7803XG9L40OUuhajKQ3OmeyFizAo9tQsx49udputaQYTRqygUqw5p1My-yc9-gt8aCEkH26XJz82mibmRFGmcIqh_N59xDKxt38RJUon9rP1KeZxS4HPPUDAxMJ3B5LjBUiVlHvrI7YQQj9wAJBGjmN9zhIz6QT3RF6R599-gEy8/s16000/AIdoomsayers.jpg" /></a></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><blockquote><span style="color: #20124d;">...A camp of techno-optimists rebuffs A.I. doomerism with old-fashioned libertarian boomerism, insisting that all the hand-wringing about existential risk is a kind of mass hysteria. They call themselves “effective accelerationists,” or e/accs (pronounced “e-acks”), and they believe A.I. will usher in a utopian future—interstellar travel, the end of disease—as long as the worriers get out of the way. On social media, they troll doomsayers as “decels,” “psyops,” “basically terrorists,” or, worst of all, “regulation-loving bureaucrats.” “We must steal the fire of intelligence from the gods [and] use it to propel humanity towards the stars,” a leading e/acc recently tweeted. (And then there are the normies, based anywhere other than the Bay Area or the Internet, who have mostly tuned out the debate, attributing it to sci-fi fume-huffing or corporate hot air.)...</span></blockquote></span> </div><div>_________</div><div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><iframe allowtansparency="true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets/tweet_button.html" style="height: 20px; width: 130px;"></iframe><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />BobbyGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807934795994985233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010387589635528818.post-84071513323814535332024-03-11T21:30:00.010-04:002024-03-13T10:53:20.647-04:00primus inter pares?<div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Can SCOTUS summarily and unilaterally revise the U.S. Constitution?<br /></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> <br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbr7jujkNS1x3UujwIb2Mq7FDsCXC3QiJsPRmVlHa3MLAxzUKyQPOBaiuXr2__xbNv-tZgk0_WtBa0Jg7mfqaznJYyIpUy4PUQHBpRlRMAmmrNPpywZeJ1_wQMY8AWDM58Mn3XzvH05bICjT1P826VvEEhdxfqD9JvaJ2-N_12pzNa8VhY2cJ4E-bUuXW3/s662/WeThePeople.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="662" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbr7jujkNS1x3UujwIb2Mq7FDsCXC3QiJsPRmVlHa3MLAxzUKyQPOBaiuXr2__xbNv-tZgk0_WtBa0Jg7mfqaznJYyIpUy4PUQHBpRlRMAmmrNPpywZeJ1_wQMY8AWDM58Mn3XzvH05bICjT1P826VvEEhdxfqD9JvaJ2-N_12pzNa8VhY2cJ4E-bUuXW3/w363-h400/WeThePeople.jpg" width="363" /></a></div><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV4NYCTnCrs1_B7ptU3BXcOfEkF_xSXtSHJKniaSNdAA9AAWgDWn8ezAj3HcoVLHKDj-ejBI6HZdtfiTfD_ScNuqDSXiXsFQyDE23M44DjI1FIPt-65783RzgYGukr9Veyz-bFGZgezoKuaQ9d3xZ4BZG1nLTamBLgf9pDINcE2V43jq3vdQRyHqdBKgm9/s501/ScotusLeporeRewrite.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="415" data-original-width="501" height="372" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV4NYCTnCrs1_B7ptU3BXcOfEkF_xSXtSHJKniaSNdAA9AAWgDWn8ezAj3HcoVLHKDj-ejBI6HZdtfiTfD_ScNuqDSXiXsFQyDE23M44DjI1FIPt-65783RzgYGukr9Veyz-bFGZgezoKuaQ9d3xZ4BZG1nLTamBLgf9pDINcE2V43jq3vdQRyHqdBKgm9/w450-h372/ScotusLeporeRewrite.jpg" width="450" /></a></div></b></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b> </b></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The answer appears to be "yes" these days.</b><br /></span></span><blockquote><span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">There’s more than one way to skin a Constitution. Here are two: a court might base a decision on the original intention, meaning, and public understanding, the “history and tradition,” of a constitutional provision, or it might base a decision on a consideration of the consequences. Ordinarily, a judge might apply both these and other methods, but a strict originalist might argue that the jurisprudence of originalism is fundamentally opposed to the jurisprudence of consequentialism—that it’s best to heed the past and damn the consequences. During oral arguments at the Supreme Court in <i>Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization</i>, for instance, Justice Samuel Alito asked about origins (“Can it be said that the right to abortion is deeply rooted in the history and traditions of the American people?”), and Justice Sonia Sotomayor inquired after consequences (“When does the life of a woman and putting her at risk enter the calculus?”). Alito wrote the majority opinion, declaring that no right to an abortion can be found in the Constitution’s history and tradition, and that therefore “the Fourteenth Amendment does not protect the right to an abortion.” Sotomayor joined a dissent that denounced “the majority’s refusal even to consider the life-altering consequences” of its decision.<br /><br />This term, the tables turned. In <i>Trump v. Anderson</i>, the Court agreed to review a decision by the Colorado Supreme Court to strike the former President’s name from that state’s Republican primary ballot. That court had found that Donald Trump, owing to his role in the events of January 6th, had been disqualified under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits people who have sworn an oath to the Constitution and then engaged in an insurrection against it from holding office. Maine and Illinois also determined that Trump had disqualified himself.<br /><br />There are strong arguments against disqualifying Trump, but none involve the historical record: the evidence of history supported affirming the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision. (I and the historians David Blight, Drew Gilpin Faust, and John Fabian Witt made this argument in an amicus brief.) During oral arguments, Justice Sotomayor asked about origins: “History proves a lot to me.” Justice Alito worried about outcomes: “The consequences of what the Colorado Supreme Court did, some people claim, would be quite severe.” So did Chief Justice John Roberts, who asked Jason Murray, the lawyer representing Colorado voters, what he’d do with what “would seem to me to be plain consequences of your position?” Alito asked Murray “to grapple with what some people have seen as the consequences of the argument that you’re advancing.” Posing one hypothetical after another, Alito asked, “Then what would we do?”…<br /><br />If the Court is now interested in consequentialist arguments, here’s one: in the past quarter century, more than three hundred thousand American children have experienced armed civilians attacking their schools. Last year, there were six hundred and fifty-six mass shootings in the United States. Four out of five murders and more than half of all suicides in this country involve a gun. Gun ownership is rising, and so is political violence. For nearly a century, beginning with the earliest public-opinion surveys, Americans have consistently supported safety measures and curbs on gun ownership. Since 2008, the Court has thwarted them…</span><span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: arial; font-size: small;"></span></blockquote><b><span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Stay tuned. <i>apropos</i>, See my March 5th post on the topic. <br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; orphans: auto; position: relative; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><blockquote><span style="color: #0c343d;"><a href="https://regionalextensioncenter.blogspot.com/2024/03/per-curious-per-curiam.html" target="_blank">PER CURIOUS PER CURIAM</a>. <b><span style="font-size: large;">Did SCOTUS just summarily amend the Constitution,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>via </i>5 votes?</span></b><b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /></span></b></span></blockquote></h3></div><div style="text-align: left;">I refer us all back to Article V. It specifies but <i>two</i> methods of amending. Inclusive.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: small;"><blockquote><b style="color: #20124d;">The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.</b></blockquote></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">See also "<a href="https://regionalextensioncenter.blogspot.com/2023/05/a-professor-with-twitter-account.html" target="_blank"><u>The Shadow Docket.</u></a>" </span></b><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">_________</div><div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><iframe allowtansparency="true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets/tweet_button.html" style="height: 20px; width: 130px;"></iframe>BobbyGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807934795994985233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010387589635528818.post-64283337465806379082024-03-11T11:53:00.005-04:002024-03-11T19:23:10.479-04:00Academy Awards Night 2024<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ2Bt_Hjg1BmNi2JViHhiMMTF7bE8-hK6O8Z5Pz0cWpvkW1s2Pd8ohlOzPxVh-Sa5EtKuzcS3q-k526LdvIgdu-54aqfusnt_m6Uy60_y2gmd7X2dSTKEmdB-7R9gZ0AcRCo-wOeml7Uaj6uo6IS5_iOAyDxyo-loO3ekI3h-7fFQ9oU_BrVNPNcbZUK6V/s383/Kimmel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="383" data-original-width="313" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ2Bt_Hjg1BmNi2JViHhiMMTF7bE8-hK6O8Z5Pz0cWpvkW1s2Pd8ohlOzPxVh-Sa5EtKuzcS3q-k526LdvIgdu-54aqfusnt_m6Uy60_y2gmd7X2dSTKEmdB-7R9gZ0AcRCo-wOeml7Uaj6uo6IS5_iOAyDxyo-loO3ekI3h-7fFQ9oU_BrVNPNcbZUK6V/w328-h400/Kimmel.jpg" width="328" /></a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAC65ZoEjdWagll7l_rqhPr-SRs0xbnafMetMLXPdyFH-r8PYXg_cJYCHBGiEDqgYpgThRI3k-2pbRx_m_CYsLwWouzEy060qnFKll-ooIft2xf95hPmlQovmZB7TOhFaDAFIOU_XWt-36gsxXDTWcQ0D6hd59-9tr3Yy9EtlQu-o7kznV36nwF91gvauy/s1549/IMG_3403.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1549" data-original-width="1169" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAC65ZoEjdWagll7l_rqhPr-SRs0xbnafMetMLXPdyFH-r8PYXg_cJYCHBGiEDqgYpgThRI3k-2pbRx_m_CYsLwWouzEy060qnFKll-ooIft2xf95hPmlQovmZB7TOhFaDAFIOU_XWt-36gsxXDTWcQ0D6hd59-9tr3Yy9EtlQu-o7kznV36nwF91gvauy/w482-h640/IMG_3403.jpeg" width="482" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="325" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Dtfopm3hvGM" width="560" youtube-src-id="Dtfopm3hvGM"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I have so <i>much</i> to be grateful for. Knowing that there is <i>zero</i> chance of ever tuning in to The Oscars and seeing Donald Trump sitting at one of the tables ranks right up at the top.<br /></div>BobbyGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807934795994985233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010387589635528818.post-27554733795653922812024-03-09T18:24:00.014-05:002024-03-10T20:24:26.668-04:00Pentagon Valley? Moving fast and breaking “things” (including human non-combatants)?<div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">What could <i>possibly</i> go wrong? Not wholly a forward-looking speculation, it turns out.</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCFzjH-n2lvZNU14DnKjb9HUmNO4zgqjZFotABG7RbJWLAoUjoHv94IGvHw0emD48q0sjvLR9ueErPH0RJcHkGvEcV55tUX7B1klNfXttQ_Ai45Irad8hjcRNKGHfCEvJJLIfuaS6BhxJUP_Diu6tNx5yjDUqdZem-7GQgP5ddAv3WvEZ0C0IUGLIkwVR9/s816/PentagonSV.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="816" data-original-width="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCFzjH-n2lvZNU14DnKjb9HUmNO4zgqjZFotABG7RbJWLAoUjoHv94IGvHw0emD48q0sjvLR9ueErPH0RJcHkGvEcV55tUX7B1klNfXttQ_Ai45Irad8hjcRNKGHfCEvJJLIfuaS6BhxJUP_Diu6tNx5yjDUqdZem-7GQgP5ddAv3WvEZ0C0IUGLIkwVR9/s16000/PentagonSV.jpg" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://harpers.org/archive/2024/03/the-pentagons-silicon-valley-problem-andrew-cockburn/" target="_blank"><br />This</a> jumped in my face today. Been lying there on the coffee table for a couple of days. Finally got around to it. Totally coheres with the<a href="https://regionalextensioncenter.blogspot.com/2024/03/when-you-need-job-done-right.html" target="_blank"> Kara Swisher stuff</a> of my prior post.<br /></span></b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><blockquote><span style="color: #0c343d; font-size: small;"><span>Three months before Hamas attacked Israel, Ronen Bar, the director of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, announced that his agency had developed its own generative artificial intelligence platform—similar to ChatGPT—and that the technology had been incorporated quite naturally into the agency’s “interdiction machine,” assisting in decision-making “like a partner at the table, a co-pilot.” As the Israeli news site <i>Tech12</i> explained in a preview of his speech.<i><blockquote><span style="color: #660000;">The system knows everything about [the terrorist]: where he went, who his friends are, who his family is, what keeps him busy, what he said and what he published. Using artificial intelligence, the system analyzes behavior, predicts risks, raises alerts.</span></blockquote></i>Nevertheless, Hamas’s devastating attack on October 7 caught Shin Bet and the rest of Israel’s multibillion-dollar defense system entirely by surprise. The intelligence disaster was even more striking considering Hamas carried out much of its preparations in plain sight, including practice assaults on mock-ups of the border fence and Israeli settlements—activities that were openly reported. Hamas-led militant groups even posted videos of their training online. Israelis living close to the border observed and publicized these exercises with mounting alarm, but were ignored in favor of intelligence bureaucracies’ analyses and, by extension, the software that had informed them. Israeli conscripts, mostly young women, monitoring developments through the ubiquitous surveillance cameras along the Gaza border, composed and presented a detailed report on Hamas’s preparations to breach the fence and take hostages, only to have their findings dismissed as “an imaginary scenario.” The Israeli intelligence apparatus had for more than a year been in possession of a Hamas document that detailed the group’s plan for an attack.<br /><br />Well aware of Israel’s intelligence methods, Hamas members fed their enemy the data that they wanted to hear, using informants they knew would report to the Israelis. They signaled that the ruling group inside Gaza was concentrating on improving the local economy by gaining access to the Israeli job market, and that Hamas had been deterred from action by Israel’s overwhelming military might. Such reports confirmed that Israel’s intelligence system had rigid assumptions of Hamas behavior, overlaid with a racial arrogance that considered Palestinians incapable of such a large-scale operation. AI, it turned out, knew everything about the terrorist except what he was thinking…</span></span></blockquote></span><span style="font-size: small;">Imagine our surprise. It gets worse.</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><blockquote><span style="color: #0c343d;"><span style="font-size: small;">…[M]isplaced confidence was evidently not confined to Israeli intelligence. The November/December issue of <i>Foreign Affairs</i> not only carried a risibly ill-timed boast by national security adviser Jake Sullivan that “we have de-escalated crises in Gaza,” but also a paean to AI by Michèle Flournoy. Flournoy is a seasoned denizen of the military-industrial complex. The undersecretary of defense for policy under Barack Obama, she transitioned to, among other engagements, a lucrative founding leadership position with the defense consultancy WestExec Advisors. “Building bridges between Silicon Valley and the U.S. government is really, really important,” she told The American Prospect in 2020. Headlined ai is already at war, Flournoy’s Foreign Affairs article invoked the intelligence analysts who made “better judgments” thanks to AI’s help in analyzing information. “In the future, Americans can expect AI to change how the United States and its adversaries fight on the battlefield,” she wrote. “In short, AI has sparked a security revolution—one that is just starting to unfold.” This wondrous new technology, she asserted, would enable America not only to detect enemy threats, but also to maintain complex weapons systems and help estimate the cost of strategic decisions. Only a tortuous and hidebound Pentagon bureaucracy was holding it back.<br /><br />Lamenting obstructive Pentagon bureaucrats is a trope of tech pitches, one that plays well in the media. tech start-ups try to sell a cautious pentagon on a.i. ran a headline in the New York Times last November over a glowing report on Shield AI, a money-losing drone company for which Flournoy has been an adviser…<br /></span></span></blockquote></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And, it gets worse.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSPEoNsJDPbOuFGq6C7DNNzBQ75Toeufn_NxzLXl5FfpGM-UEvkOEBiIaBXhdd_kgUeN9LHebiPoCD2DCgQclx5AhbOEYSH0glxlPkXQrlKdx2BuJ2YFqSu4k66DAM23pmadUCCShVM1hX0GEL37mubMvGQplUhNF-m3cTJSF-PE30d541xFBjbSre9DCW/s600/GazaNightBombing.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSPEoNsJDPbOuFGq6C7DNNzBQ75Toeufn_NxzLXl5FfpGM-UEvkOEBiIaBXhdd_kgUeN9LHebiPoCD2DCgQclx5AhbOEYSH0glxlPkXQrlKdx2BuJ2YFqSu4k66DAM23pmadUCCShVM1hX0GEL37mubMvGQplUhNF-m3cTJSF-PE30d541xFBjbSre9DCW/s16000/GazaNightBombing.jpg" /></a></div></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGunxj2DrPORNOEMurNu7RiRdx0y67fIL0_c3qbXM3Qbhe_aLgYRum-g1n5NwaVNK9Gy0I574B96vLLj3vNcvzz6V45Gz0zeJyp3lE6H4OwfXzAmXibAMnNfmJlfaN4SOurqlypR1hK8_j1TGepHXNkGzx3tL3C3SgrcbZiu95dzV9WWnruwdt4FHhtL3a/s600/GazaDestroyed.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="338" data-original-width="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGunxj2DrPORNOEMurNu7RiRdx0y67fIL0_c3qbXM3Qbhe_aLgYRum-g1n5NwaVNK9Gy0I574B96vLLj3vNcvzz6V45Gz0zeJyp3lE6H4OwfXzAmXibAMnNfmJlfaN4SOurqlypR1hK8_j1TGepHXNkGzx3tL3C3SgrcbZiu95dzV9WWnruwdt4FHhtL3a/s16000/GazaDestroyed.jpg" /></a></div><br /></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This shit makes me ill.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: arial;"></span><blockquote><span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><span>The belief that software can solve problems of human conflict has a long history in U.S. war-making. Beginning in the late Sixties, the Air Force deployed a vast array of sensors across the jungles of Southeast Asia, masking the Ho Chi Minh trail along which North Vietnam supplied its forces in the south. Devised by scientists advising the Pentagon, the operation, code-named Igloo White, and designed to detect human activity by the sounds of marching feet, the smell of ammonia from urine, or the electronic sparks of engine ignitions, relayed information to giant IBM computers housed in a secret base in Thailand. The machines were the most powerful then in existence; they processed the signals to pinpoint enemy supply columns otherwise invisible under the jungle canopy. The scheme, in operation from 1967 to 1972 at a cost of at least hundreds of millions a year, was a total failure. The Vietnamese swiftly devised means to counter it; just as Hamas would short-circuit Shin Bet algorithms by feeding the system false information, the Vietnamese also faked data, with buckets of urine hung in trees off the trail, or herds of livestock steered down unused byways, which were then dutifully processed by the humming computers as enemy movements. Meanwhile, North Vietnamese forces in the south were well supplied. In 1972, they launched a powerful offensive using hundreds of tanks that went entirely undetected by Igloo White. The operation was abandoned shortly thereafter…</span></span><span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: arial;"></span></blockquote></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">No, hardly a forward-looking speculative concern.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht55Pv5ih3rXzgzRfLGcp00td-SWZRwBaW89yC4nVP3umpDf4uDSQL-DVVCeczHjA69CgZo7pwSEO8BuMvxUkLN7h5gFnG0ZUxS4WnA69u7NBnK-nBMivaUSh-J3iKEloXLTpodv5XvsqW_nUcj68DDDLBojih4TA7cYR599Pd8sbc_P1q84X4qp4nFzbc/s600/MilitaryAGI.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="343" data-original-width="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht55Pv5ih3rXzgzRfLGcp00td-SWZRwBaW89yC4nVP3umpDf4uDSQL-DVVCeczHjA69CgZo7pwSEO8BuMvxUkLN7h5gFnG0ZUxS4WnA69u7NBnK-nBMivaUSh-J3iKEloXLTpodv5XvsqW_nUcj68DDDLBojih4TA7cYR599Pd8sbc_P1q84X4qp4nFzbc/s16000/MilitaryAGI.jpg" /></a></div><br /> Move fast and kill people. Armed or not.<br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF1G0Rg5WGMhuGwEnFMOHqz9u7aIVT6tyinUoMTiQIfII0byH1QhzM1Mttjq4ioKrVdf0m8jo4-B5umYkWgPW-k-WIClMl1Nhparc8flGYRWQJ5_GGzbG9WbDzU3DcTHVv_2jnxBjuv_EkaMOVkcSdVTmO2D9MsX_8drCuE3pQ9aseinzQDGCAxPA_GAbM/s840/90.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="560" data-original-width="840" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF1G0Rg5WGMhuGwEnFMOHqz9u7aIVT6tyinUoMTiQIfII0byH1QhzM1Mttjq4ioKrVdf0m8jo4-B5umYkWgPW-k-WIClMl1Nhparc8flGYRWQJ5_GGzbG9WbDzU3DcTHVv_2jnxBjuv_EkaMOVkcSdVTmO2D9MsX_8drCuE3pQ9aseinzQDGCAxPA_GAbM/w457-h304/90.jpg" width="457" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHSraSfzvwKmKEI3pnsFMPn6NOMulrJ8WHV_uTZ2e8IW3A4AdN-9NnICOGjdt6HbhDrt0f8vUxJgUptb_cj2W1VDqTYC9QfOeKqnMbwSDHEHnfdxjBJehdDkJhlMh-9qQYvXbMcrme54ajgHgP0Wb4WmL1lntEX9uD4QhAEtAez5GNXFuMii4YqrYmhoIQ/s1200/GazaBabies.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="882" data-original-width="1200" height="402" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHSraSfzvwKmKEI3pnsFMPn6NOMulrJ8WHV_uTZ2e8IW3A4AdN-9NnICOGjdt6HbhDrt0f8vUxJgUptb_cj2W1VDqTYC9QfOeKqnMbwSDHEHnfdxjBJehdDkJhlMh-9qQYvXbMcrme54ajgHgP0Wb4WmL1lntEX9uD4QhAEtAez5GNXFuMii4YqrYmhoIQ/w547-h402/GazaBabies.jpg" width="547" /></a></div></span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">We'll leave things here for now. <b>Andrew Cockburn:</b><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: #990000; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">I was curious about Palantir, whose stock indeed soared amid the 2023 AI frenzy. I had been told that the Israeli security sector’s AI systems might rely on Palantir’s technology. Furthermore, Shin Bet’s humiliating failure to predict the Hamas assault had not blunted the Israeli Defense Force’s appetite for the technology; the unceasing rain of bombs upon densely packed Gaza neighborhoods, according to a well-sourced report by Israeli reporter Yuval Abraham in +</span><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">972 Magazine,</span><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: #990000; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>was in fact partly controlled by an AI target-creation platform called the Gospel. The Gospel produces automatic recommendations for where to strike based on what the technology identifies as being connected with Hamas, such as the private home of a suspected rank-and-file member of the organization. It also calculates how many civilians, including women and children, would die in the process—which, as of this writing, amounted to at least twenty-two thousand people, some 70 percent of them women and children. One of Abraham’s intelligence sources termed the technology a “mass assassination factory.” Despite the high-tech gloss on the massacre, the result has been no different than the slaughter inflicted, with comparatively more primitive means, against Dresden and Tokyo during World War II.</span></span></blockquote><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"></span></i></b></span> </div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE-N3lddCSnBw3nt97kUB4OTVuq_GXP1udE8iVHX0H3eC3alfIycslcPfRnqaHwsneHHbDTKDuPHMbZkDsI5T-HiUVSlaYlkV_DsP5Gp-8m9u8qZ4XF0xeGBfnFQF-6jhg9e-W6DMML6n_iQiaaPMwTunptbCYk2pfy9DEECXnVlzoynfXsC1sCzJTmGpm/s282/Exigencies282.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="282" data-original-width="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE-N3lddCSnBw3nt97kUB4OTVuq_GXP1udE8iVHX0H3eC3alfIycslcPfRnqaHwsneHHbDTKDuPHMbZkDsI5T-HiUVSlaYlkV_DsP5Gp-8m9u8qZ4XF0xeGBfnFQF-6jhg9e-W6DMML6n_iQiaaPMwTunptbCYk2pfy9DEECXnVlzoynfXsC1sCzJTmGpm/s16000/Exigencies282.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #351c75; font-size: medium;">My links column ongoing list of concerns.<br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Armed State Conflicts + Malign Technologies ... No surprises here.<br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b> </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>CODA</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">An old 2002 beef of mine with the DARPA <i><b>"<a href="https://www.bgladd.com/Total_Information_Awareness/" target="_blank">Total Information Awareness</a>"</b></i> tech+surveilance+military thing. (uh, has link rot). And, yeah, I actually <a href="https://www.bgladd.com/Total_Information_Awareness//TIA_Report.html" target="_blank">sent this to Admiral Poindexter.</a> I have long been outa [bleeps] to give.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b> </b>_________</div><div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><iframe allowtansparency="true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets/tweet_button.html" style="height: 20px; width: 130px;"></iframe>BobbyGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807934795994985233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010387589635528818.post-22794919860554189822024-03-06T13:32:00.015-05:002024-03-09T12:31:49.549-05:00"When you need the job done right,<div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">bring in the women."</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOVXVK7DhrRLkS_j3xXhQQzeSm7Lymy98T-mZ6QMvLabEni-29KNy1yptasjWKOdNUHIO6oNcm6YCRjhGYfCFstmCRqdr_WuKMf5SFvpN2CgTUvHTQvUgu6asouEcYdsoMwpGRbFJmBE0mU-uTj3eGqqf6hZeIOBiQTYfwYfrBCB60_tsaJ3T-CmH9nQLW/s528/AttackFromWithin.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="528" data-original-width="355" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOVXVK7DhrRLkS_j3xXhQQzeSm7Lymy98T-mZ6QMvLabEni-29KNy1yptasjWKOdNUHIO6oNcm6YCRjhGYfCFstmCRqdr_WuKMf5SFvpN2CgTUvHTQvUgu6asouEcYdsoMwpGRbFJmBE0mU-uTj3eGqqf6hZeIOBiQTYfwYfrBCB60_tsaJ3T-CmH9nQLW/w269-h400/AttackFromWithin.jpg" width="269" /><img border="0" data-original-height="536" data-original-width="355" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuCO2pzf8OnSnYvaHiNNMtvyRa3wfU4NZgunxWm2NQuiHbrs3r4qwHda9D16ofOK64dj5tr5453IZL_YXunV3N9pNy9av8aKPGpQK02-ZabPzP4PNhBPA-_ZKejk4lR30_ptdrcOaOufkKy5aBnbx_PINS8BNuuRhjPmd6m85V6gyofIvtKWJ5yXLn1ytT/w265-h400/BurnBook.jpg" width="265" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">A long-favorite riff of mine, that post title.</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>OK, I finished <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Attack-Within-Disinformation-Sabotaging-America/dp/164421363X" target="_blank">Barb McQuade's book</a> the other day and have now plowed well into <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Burn-Book-Tech-Love-Story/dp/1982163895/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.FM8cBCpWVjk-hhWnwzpLlX0FMjTZPzKAoZCVc70s5pgmYjzl0KNPG5fBwyZz5-I2iIerKx4Oo1quP5Ahb5bvuLJ2TZyF7KviSuSms_a8a17JOgkLxiPAkD43f_kbYCJjql8NjssTQkob9PmZ0XyxavC6p8vrUx7yBm1iW3B5f4Wy1QFYAJXUvcD4xmZZTcMbsopixHamYg_8PMcel7VkFhEfFIbp1ELwuduHD3IR74D74x_usUUCGtrsGgYP47zvn8MRh68OLr5taiCrzQtOtkslFm0PY_p7tVyEm-BA_WE.fFoU94w2Q8kPh4Ow3ScP9mH85T6ovmI7DnxC-VoufFA&qid=1709748866&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Kara Swisher's</a> killer read. This stuff could not be more timely. I present below for your convenient edification one extended cite from each. You hardly need <i>my</i> take; these formidable women (like all of the many I cite here) are eloquent, logical, and clear (and more). Both of these books are must-reads.</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>____<br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>BARB, "CH 10: THE WAY FORWARD"</b></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><blockquote><span style="color: #20124d;"><b>I was visiting Ireland</b> in the spring of 2018, when the country was considering a referendum that would end the nation’s prohibition on abortion. In a country with an official Catholic faith, I imagined that the debate would be raging with the passion of a blood feud. Instead, I was surprised to find that advocates on both sides of the issue stood on street corners, passing out literature and politely engaging passersby who expressed interest in learning more about the issue. To this day, I still keep on my desk a button that says “Tá,” Irish Gaelic for “yes”—the choice that would change the law to permit abortion and the side that ultimately prevailed in the election by an overwhelming margin. Irish feminist Ailbhe Smyth observed that the country was able to conduct the vote without becoming split. She attributed that success to “creating an empathetic framework of discourse so that people are not at each other’s throats.”<br /><br />Combating disinformation is a massive undertaking, and defeating it will require the kind of empathy I saw in Ireland. The Irish people were committed to preserving their national unity above all else. As I saw in Ireland, I do not expect us to find unity on the substance of issues—we will always have differences of opinion on issues such as criminal justice and government spending—but we must be united in the process of how we solve problems. The ability to solve any problem requires a shared understanding of facts and truth. <br /><br />What is truth? Philosophers and religious scholars debate the meaning of the term. There are some truths that may be unknowable to the human mind, such as the meaning of life or whether intelligent beings exist elsewhere in the cosmos. But truth is different from fact. Facts can be verified, even if our perceptions of them may vary. The color of the traffic light at the time of a car accident is often a knowable fact. So is the number of votes a particular candidate received in an election. Finding facts requires investigation, discovery, documentation, and testing. Scientists find facts. Researchers find facts. Ordinary people find facts every day. <i>Are we out of milk? Did Dad take the car?</i> These are facts that are knowable. Our opinions about facts may vary: <i>Is the coffee hot? Do we need to fill the gas tank?</i> Reaching conclusions requires interpretation, and reasonable minds may disagree. What I deem “hot” may be different from the preferences of others; the fuel level at which I think a car requires a refill likely varies from the risk tolerance of others. We can tell the difference between opinion and facts. And while we are all free to form our own views, we must commit to debating them from a shared set of facts. <br /><br /><b>Overcoming Fear <br /></b><br />How do we preserve our democracy when political opportunists are willing to grab power through lies instead of adhering to democratic norms? I think the answer lies in the same strategy basic to every relationship: we need to care more about maintaining the relationship than getting our way. In American government, that means needing to care more about ensuring democracy than about imposing our will. <br /><br />In <b><u>How Democracies Die</u></b>, authors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt examine not only the demise of democratic governments but the factors that permit them to survive. They conclude that democracies thrive when leaders abide by “unwritten democratic norms.” In America, these norms have been “mutual toleration” and “forbearance.” They define mutual toleration as the acceptance of the opposing party as a legitimate part of our political system. In the United States, political candidates engage in mutual toleration when they concede elections to the winning opponent. Forbearance is the use of restraint in exercising power. Presidents exercise forbearance when they refrain from using their veto power over measures enacted by other branches of government. <br /><br />In American history, both parties have been guilty of failing to exercise forbearance at times. Legislatures engage in gerrymandering to create voting districts that will give advantages to their party. Both Republican and Democratic presidents have granted ill-advised pardons. But in recent years, the Republican Party seems to have abandoned forbearance, perhaps because its leaders see their political power dwindling. While losing the popular vote for the presidency in five of the six elections between 2000 and 2020, the GOP nonetheless managed to capture five of eight open seats on the Supreme Court during that same period, in part by violating norms. Senator Mitch McConnell was unabashedly duplicitous in holding a confirmation vote for President Trump’s nominee Amy Coney Barrett following the death of a sitting justice in an election year, after refusing to provide a hearing for President Obama’s nominee under similar circumstances. <br /><br />And now, we have reached the point where some political opportunists have even sacrificed the democratic norm of mutual toleration, the acceptance of the legitimacy of political rivals. Is this the natural end of American democracy? <br /><br />Sometimes democracies die. Perhaps ours has outlived its natural life. But the alternatives to democracy, as Churchill said, are inferior forms of government. Democracies protect the sovereign power of the people to choose who will serve and represent them. The people can hold leaders accountable and express their dissatisfaction by voting them out of office. Allowing decisions to be made in any way except by the will of the people risks creating preferences for one group of people over another, a far cry from the self-evident truth that all of us are created equal. <br /><br /><b>Demanding Leaders Who Speak the Truth <br /></b><br />To preserve our democracy, we must commit to working together for the greater public good. That means choosing leaders who will reject the use of disinformation to achieve political gain. Democracy requires an informed electorate. While our pluralistic society will always contain differing opinions, we must start from common ground so that we may engage in meaningful debate and make decisions that are in the best interests of our country. The solutions suggested in the last chapter can help us reduce disinformation and blunt its impact, but defeating disinformation will require something more. <br /><br />We have real problems to solve—climate change, persistent racial injustice, growing disparities in wealth distribution, a changing economy, public health challenges, global conflict, refugee crises, poverty, crime, cyber threats, and many more. To rise to the challenges we collectively face, we need leadership that can bring us together. Our abilities to solve problems have never been greater: Technology offers unimaginable advances in medicine, food distribution, and alternative energy. Distance learning presents opportunities for job retraining and access to higher education. Social media allow us to maintain relationships with family members and friends and to collaborate with people on the other side of the world. Certainly, we face significant challenges, but leaders who offer rational solutions give us our best chance to solve them. Navigating that world requires leaders who will bring out our best hopes rather than prey on our worst fears. As he took office during the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appealed to people’s courage when he told them, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” assuring Americans that they could meet any threat that might come. At this moment, America needs leaders who can unite us to face our challenges with courage and optimism. <br /><br /><b>We the People </b><br /><br />But leaders in a democracy, of course, are simply a reflection of the voters who elect them—all of us. In a time when we spend inordinate amounts of time and money on spectator sports, movies, and reality television shows, it can be argued that we get the leaders we deserve. In a democracy, a government of the people, we need responsible leadership not just from our elected officials but from our citizenry. We the people need to recognize that the use of disinformation as a weapon to exercise political power is a threat to democracy, and we must work to abolish it. We must use our voting power to insist on leaders who use facts to solve problems instead of lies to divide us. Voters must accept reasonable compromise from our leaders rather than demanding ideological purity at any cost. We can hold candidates and leaders accountable by refusing to elect or reelect those who knowingly perpetuate false claims and engage in deliberately divisive rhetoric. We should call out those who stand with any political party over country, who allow political ends to justify unscrupulous means. We should condemn leaders who glorify violence and bigotry. If we do not, we will be opening the door wider to greedy hucksters and power-hungry opportunists. <br /><br />We must also exercise mutual tolerance and forbearance in our own lives. We need to do the work to verify facts needed to make informed decisions about significant societal issues, such as health crises and climate stabilization. We must avoid the temptation to go along with the con when our own side uses disinformation to advance its goals. We need to exercise restraint when we see a snarky comment online. Sharing, liking, and adding a mocking comment for cheap, fleeting laughs to “own” our opponents just exacerbate divisions and fuel disinformers. <br /><br /><b>Lasting Peace among Ourselves </b><br /><br />An essential way to begin to heal our divide is by offering olive branches to people with whom we disagree. We must see people with different views not just as our political opponents but as our fellow Americans. People who have been duped by constant lies, as we have seen, will be reluctant to change their minds. The way to persuade them of the facts is not by mocking their foolishness or judging their enabling behavior. According to Ruth Ben-Ghiat, those who have followed duplicitous leaders “may feel ashamed and unwilling to admit their errors in judgment unless they are approached with the right spirit of openness, at the right time.” In a polarized society, people can “dig their trenches deeper, or they can reach across the lines to stop a new cycle of destruction, knowing that solidarity, love, and dialogue” can conquer political demagogues. Taking this approach requires grace. <br /><br />According to journalist Anand Giridharadas, author of <b><u>The Persuaders</u></b>, a book on political reconciliation, we must meet people where they are. If we want to win over the hearts and minds of our fellow Americans, we can’t insist that everyone share all of our views. “In a time of escalating and cynical right-wing attacks on so-called wokeness,” he writes, we should all work to make space for “the still waking.” While we may have strong commitments to certain values like fighting hate and respecting personal pronouns, we should express “gentleness toward people who haven’t got it all figured out, who are confused or even unsettled by the onrushing future.” <br /><br />This model is not a fantasy. It was at work in Ireland in 2018. It has worked in our own history. As president, Abraham Lincoln understood the need to welcome fellow citizens back into the fold, even after a bloody civil war. As the war ended, he delivered his second inaugural address, which ended with a plea for reconciliation: <br /><blockquote><i style="color: #4c1130;">With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. </i></blockquote>Respecting each other means telling each other the truth. While we can never rid politics of spin and advocacy, we can insist on facts and refuse to perpetuate assertions we know to be lies simply to make a buck or somehow get ahead. Allowing public leaders, media, businesses, and institutions to propagate falsehoods assaults the integrity of our democracy. If we want to protect our rights from tyrants and con men, we must fight disinformation as unpatriotic, a betrayal of the American people. We must denounce as traitors the liars who use members of the public as their unsuspecting political pawns. To love America is to love the truth. We must make truth in democracy our national purpose. <br /><br />Only an unyielding commitment to the truth can save us from the fate that met Rosanne Boyland, Ashli Babbitt, and Brian Sicknick. We can best honor their memory, and the memories of the service members who have sacrificed their lives for our country, by working to save American democracy from death by disinformation.</span><br /><br />McQuade, Barbara. <u><b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Attack-Within-Disinformation-Sabotaging-America/dp/164421363X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=16GXDZL53FG2T&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.TNpMgKIeQZgUcUY5dWlioEzqoFJXo6cWWslMUvawogeMI8acjtYJR83Fl-2MH4bC5oBAs4JlrLC4qB21g-xYuRXd4tqgG73vw5axyIPakB9ciHZCimX-87eJXGISPrIgM1CmYKxaLXbrUESN-fVxaRYkJMzUlrWxpZ19Xz0-YszFcNGwV4Vu2b_Xy-Bo8WM5BoDkUR1FjUqrNm8YkjGBRRunT5hPwxIbw-IAW8Xy1b4.3uYlJCa65UUrTl2tP7p-NNJYA8CdA9QnfqGDzTt0rXU&dib_tag=se&keywords=attack+from+within&qid=1709748964&s=books&sprefix=attack%2Cstripbooks%2C145&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Attack from Within</a></b></u> (pp. 308-315). Seven Stories Press. Kindle Edition. </blockquote></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">BURN, KARA, BURN</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><blockquote><span style="color: #0c343d;">Social media sites were built and monetized on engagement, and nothing, as I pointed out often, fueled engagement like enragement. Zuckerberg kept yammering about “creating community,” while forgetting that nothing pulls a community together faster than hating on another community. Zuckerberg once called me late at night in early 2017, to get feedback on an essay he wrote with the riveting title “About Community Standards.” In one of its first sentences, he asked: “Today I want to focus on the most important question of all: Are we building the world we all want?” Zuckerberg mused on this subject for six thousand words, finally arriving at the conclusion: “There are many of us who stand for bringing people together and connecting the world. I hope we have the focus to take the long view and build the new social infrastructure to create the world we want for generations to come.” <br /><br />I dubbed the essay, “The Mark Manifesto,” and while I thought it was in desperate need of a copy editor, I appreciated his incessant need to virtue signal for a better experience, even when it never seemed to happen. Yet, I was also astonished at his inability to anticipate just how badly things on his platform could go. I told Zuckerberg that I did not share his hopefulness of creating a constructive community. In fact, I was certain that Facebook was moving toward becoming a mecca for those intent on destruction. <br /><br />In our interview in 2018, Zuckerberg remained painfully simplistic, as if all he really needed to know about free speech that he learned from CliffsNotes. “Freedom of speech and hate speech and offensive content. Where is the line, right?” he said. “And the reality is that different people are drawn to different places, we serve people in a lot of countries around the world, a lot of different opinions on that.” You can still make choices, I told a man who did not want to make choices, other than the choice of capitalism over community. <br /><br />What Zuckerberg wanted most was to wash his hands of it. “You know, what I would really like to do is find a way to get our policies set in the way that reflects the values of the community, so I’m not the one making those decisions. Right?” he said. “I feel fundamentally uncomfortable sitting here in California at an office, making content policy decisions for people around the world. But things like, where is the line on hate speech? I mean, who chose me to be the person that [decided].” <br /><br />Well, Mark, you did. And what he was saying in 2018 was disingenuous since the hands-off attitude was already deeply entrenched at Facebook. That much was clear in 2016, when a memo titled “The Ugly Truth” was leaked to BuzzFeed just days after the 2018 FTC settlement announcement. Written by Facebook vice president Andrew Bosworth, one of Zuckerberg’s tight circle of advisers, the memo addressed the thorny issue explicitly: “Maybe it costs a life by exposing someone to bullies. Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack coordinated on our tools. And still, we connect people. The ugly truth is that we believe in connecting people so deeply that anything that allows us to connect more people more often is *de facto* good.” <br /><br />Reaction to the memo was very fast and very furious. Zuckerberg said Bosworth got it wrong and clarified that “We’ve never believed the ends justify the means.” He added: “We recognize that connecting people isn’t enough by itself. We also need to work to bring people closer together. We changed our whole mission and company focus to reflect this last year.” Bosworth himself backed away from his own memo, deleting it once it was leaked and insisting he only posed this terrible scenario and immoral conclusion to start a debate internally. His how-dare-you-question-me defense was painful to witness. “If we have to live in fear that even our bad ideas will be exposed then we won’t explore them or understand them as such,” he wrote in his 2018 memo about his 2016 memo. “We run a much greater risk of stumbling on them later.” <br /><br />But stumble Facebook had and stumble they would continue to do. Many began to question what role the company played in the 2016 presidential election and whether the Russian government manipulated Facebook’s platform to help elect Donald Trump. While I do not believe it was the only venue for the malevolent players of that country, initially Facebook tried to act as if it had no part. When he was asked in 2016 about possible Russian interference via spreading misinformation, Zuckerberg’s original reaction was to pooh-pooh the very notion. “The idea that fake news on Facebook—of which, you know, it’s a very small amount of the content—influenced the election in any way, I think, is a pretty crazy idea,” he said in an interview with David Kirkpatrick at the Techonomy conference. “Voters make decisions based on their lived experience.” <br /><br />While Zuckerberg was right that many underestimated the appeal of Trump, to then pole-vault that into an argument that it was crazy to ascribe any impact from Facebook seemed disingenuous verging on ignorant. The kneejerk dismissal of the assertion as “crazy” made me wonder if the company had tried to gauge the extent of the problem at all. As famed management guru Peter Drucker said: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” <br /><br />In fact, Russian attempts to interfere and impact the election on Facebook were ongoing and persistent, which was no surprise since it was the biggest platform. Facebook engineers had already detected suspicious Russian activity months before that. Years later, the Justice Department would act against more than a dozen Russians and three companies “for executing a scheme to subvert the 2016 election and support Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign,” according to the <i>New York Times</i>. “While the indictment does not accuse Facebook of any wrongdoing, it provided the first comprehensive account from the authorities of how critical the company’s platforms had been to the Russian campaign to disrupt the 2016 election,” the <i>Times</i> noted. “Facebook and Instagram were mentioned 41 times, while other technology that the Russians used was featured far less.” <br /><br />When I first heard the disturbing “crazy” quote from Zuckerberg, I dialed up Sandberg, who was politically savvy. Sandberg had spent time in D.C., including working at the Treasury Department as Larry Summers’s chief of staff. It seemed like she would understand my concerns about possible foreign influence and the need to investigate before speaking. I was trying to catch a flight to John F. Kennedy Airport, so when we connected on the phone, I was unable to take notes. Still, I remember clearly that I unloaded on her about Zuckerberg making statements about important issues that might be inaccurate. There was no way, I said, without a proper and deep investigation, for anyone at Facebook to know the extent of the potential manipulation by those seeking to misinform for political gains. I added, if this turned out to be true, even in part, who would take responsibility for allowing it to happen? As someone deeply concerned about propaganda and its impact on our democracy, I was intense, especially when I added, “This is going to end very badly for Facebook.” <br /><br />Sandberg, for her part, listened and then said in her silky-smoothest of voices some version of “Calm down, Kara. We’re handling it.” Well, they didn’t handle the propaganda. Not from the Russians. Not in Iran. And not in Sri Lanka, where a Buddhist mob attacked Muslims over false information spread on Facebook, prompting a government official to tell the <i>New York Times</i> in the most perfect of metaphors: “The germs are ours, but Facebook is the wind.” More like a hurricane. There have been deeply reported and detailed stories about the misinformation that flooded Facebook and the platform’s weak efforts to stop it, full of examples from across the world. <br /><br /><i>The New Yorker’s</i> Evan Osnos put it best in a piece about the reckoning coming for Big Tech, most especially Facebook, writing, “Zuckerberg and Sandberg have attributed their mistakes to excessive optimism, a blindness to the darker applications of their service. But that explanation ignores their fixation on growth, and their unwillingness to heed warnings.” <i>Bingo</i>. Whether it was used to boost fears of Hillary Clinton or spread anti-vax nonsense, Facebook was a platform designed to create crisis and rage as the rubles rolled in. It was a system-wide problem and company execs continued to act as if it was easily fixable. If that were true, why didn’t they ever fix it? The truth is moderating the flood of information they facilitated was an impossible task. <br /><br />What was particularly galling was that Facebook executives repeatedly made the argument that not many people were impacted, like it was a minor leak in its social network basement, and they might have mopped up the dampness while missing the large mold infestation. And when the mold flared up again, they would shift to saying their job was to just create tools and that they had no responsibility for what happened when people used those tools as weapons. Zuckerberg never seemed to deviate from this attitude, including in 2018 when I asked him if anyone at Facebook should have been fired for the Cambridge Analytica mess. <br /><br />“Well, I think it’s a big issue. But look, I designed the platform, so if someone’s going to get fired for this, it should be me,” Zuckerberg said with a “mistakes happen” verbal shrug. <br /><br />I naturally followed up. “But to be clear, you’re not going to fire yourself right now? Is that right?” I was not trolling him—I wanted to know what level of responsibility he felt for the unintended consequences of his creation. <br /><br />It seemed to me that he wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. “Not on this podcast right now. Do you really want me to fire myself right now? Just for the news?” he said. “I think we should do what’s going to be right for the community.” And what was right in his estimation, at least, was more Mark Zuckerberg since Facebook was born as and always would be a Mark Zuckerberg production. The rest of us would continue to pay the price for his education. <br /><br />Into this mess and void, naturally, moved a master manipulator and chaos creator like Trump, whom Facebook and Zuckerberg would inevitably cozy up to, until he went too far on January 6, 2021. Trump—the greatest troll in social media, as I dubbed him—understood intuitively that much of his success would depend on connecting with his base, whether it was in person or, at scale, via social media. Which is why Trump—with a big assist from Facebook investor and board member Peter Thiel—summoned all the tech leaders, including Sandberg, to that gilded room at Trump Tower. He had needed and used the help of Silicon Valley to spread his propaganda. And now that Trump had squeaked out a win in three pivotal states, they needed him. <br /><br />So, I didn’t even bother to dial up Sandberg either before or after that meeting, because she seemed long past listening and what was the point? I did call one person, though, whom I thought could make a difference. <br /><br />Hello, Elon. It’s me.</span><br /><br />Swisher, Kara. <u><b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Burn-Book-Tech-Love-Story/dp/1982163895/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.FM8cBCpWVjk-hhWnwzpLlX0FMjTZPzKAoZCVc70s5pgmYjzl0KNPG5fBwyZz5-I2iIerKx4Oo1quP5Ahb5bvuLJ2TZyF7KviSuSms_a8a17JOgkLxiPAkD43f_kbYCJjql8NjssTQkob9PmZ0XyxavC6p8vrUx7yBm1iW3B5f4Wy1QFYAJXUvcD4xmZZTcMbsopixHamYg_8PMcel7VkFhEfFIbp1ELwuduHD3IR74D74x_usUUCGtrsGgYP47zvn8MRh68OLr5taiCrzQtOtkslFm0PY_p7tVyEm-BA_WE.fFoU94w2Q8kPh4Ow3ScP9mH85T6ovmI7DnxC-VoufFA&qid=1709748866&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Burn Book: A Tech Love Story</a></b></u> (pp. 208-214). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. </blockquote></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>See my Dec 2016 <i>"<a href="https://regionalextensioncenter.blogspot.com/2016/12/his-serene-highness-trumplethinskin.html" target="_blank">TrumpleThinSkin</a>"</i> post, just fer grins.</b><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EbxKPzCwGNQ" width="560" youtube-src-id="EbxKPzCwGNQ"></iframe></div></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>It is to my indelible, wistful regret that I never got to meet Kara back when I was posing as a Silicon Valley<a href="https://regionalextensioncenter.blogspot.com/search?q=%23Health2con" target="_blank"> Health IT Startup Photojournalist </a>while doing my actual QIO gig. She <i>rocks!</i></b><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Personal note: Kara, your recounting of the loss of your Dad... Sister, there are no words.</div><div style="text-align: left;">_____</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>OFF-TOPIC ERRATUM</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So, Nikki Haley has reportedly dropped out ot the MAGA Party Primary race, eh? How long before her husband changes his name to Heidi? (<i>arf, arf</i>) Word is that Mitch is changing his name to Coco Chow. (<i>arf, arf</i>)<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>UPDATE</b><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Interesting <a href="https://plus.flux.community/p/trump-supporters-are-almost-impossible" target="_blank"><b><i>Substack</i></b></a> piece:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><blockquote><span style="color: #073763;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Trump super fans are impossible to argue with because they don’t actually believe in logic</span></b><br /><b><i><span style="font-size: medium;">The far-right worldview is incomprehensible until you realize that devotees believe truth flows from authority rather than reality</span></i></b><br /><br />Ever since Donald Trump emerged on the American political scene, many of his critics have sought tirelessly to raise many different arguments about his policies, rhetoric, and criminal actions to help his supporters see just what their unrequited loyalty is enabling. Occasionally, these efforts have yielded fruit, but overwhelmingly, they are unsuccessful.<br /><br />Last September, the head of an anti-Trump Republican political action committee called Win It Back, formalized the despair of many critics in a memorandum summarizing what his group had learned after testing more than 40 different television ads on 12 in-person focus groups.<br /><br />“All attempts to undermine his conservative credentials on specific issues were ineffective,” David McIntosh wrote...</span></blockquote></span>The essay continues:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><i><span style="font-size: medium;"><blockquote><span style="color: #990000;">The roots of authoritarian morality extend deep into human history. Many ancient civilizations operated under theocratic or monarchic systems where rulers were seen as divinely appointed or even incarnations of deity. These systems established a precedent where the ruler’s will was equated with moral rightness, a moral order centered around authority and obedience...</span></blockquote></span></i></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;">Y'know, maybe I need to cash in on this stuff. Couple of minutes in Photoshop for starters...<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAC_KU-vT0cX2us6Qgs-x6QOVpXuJS6LIqsmdC_85vd4Hkn95hSOqGVHf071ty69csKoGcIx0eepmPDKirirWWCGCogJLabS9FxXpRkW7YyXP-tSQ6QPfP-8N_gOuRjJEEPS3X6Bqa6qSHzzB9Yk1aY54iUP4GgeQW9iuT_yKHngz-xAFP1BraHNt7wP4M/s600/HEisRISEN.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="406" data-original-width="600" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAC_KU-vT0cX2us6Qgs-x6QOVpXuJS6LIqsmdC_85vd4Hkn95hSOqGVHf071ty69csKoGcIx0eepmPDKirirWWCGCogJLabS9FxXpRkW7YyXP-tSQ6QPfP-8N_gOuRjJEEPS3X6Bqa6qSHzzB9Yk1aY54iUP4GgeQW9iuT_yKHngz-xAFP1BraHNt7wP4M/w462-h313/HEisRISEN.jpg" width="462" /></a></div><p></p><p>Hardly an original idea. Search <b><i>"Make America Godly Again"</i></b> on <b>Amazon</b>. The swag is voluminous.<br /></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #4c1130; font-size: x-large;"><i><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Our Father,</span></b></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #4c1130; font-size: x-large;"><i><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">In Mar-a-lago,</span></b></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #4c1130; font-size: x-large;"><i><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Hallowed be Thy Game...</span></b></i></span><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7Ndp92BEuFomORUyc_H3nai0qfU957sIWE8VBzvuR7Nv7FEolJhe4qneB_MbA7uR63D7G43Lo0I0wovKCegU2EKSTScbBEt2E0YKnNPL0R1UPwHnyjx6W9k3TD-GG3U-Xz5R06pEpd9RKj8hdRaE9EoXKc48vrujSTgvRhMx0i3U4MK1wWcRAXnGtVkjS/s600/LetUsPrey.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="335" data-original-width="600" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7Ndp92BEuFomORUyc_H3nai0qfU957sIWE8VBzvuR7Nv7FEolJhe4qneB_MbA7uR63D7G43Lo0I0wovKCegU2EKSTScbBEt2E0YKnNPL0R1UPwHnyjx6W9k3TD-GG3U-Xz5R06pEpd9RKj8hdRaE9EoXKc48vrujSTgvRhMx0i3U4MK1wWcRAXnGtVkjS/w400-h224/LetUsPrey.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i>LET US PREY</i></b><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">'eh? <b><i>"2 Corinthians walk in to a bar..."</i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i> </i></b><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">[And, yeah, I know, it's not really funny.] <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b> </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>BACK TO REALITY: SISTERS IN LAW PODCAST</b> <br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> <iframe allow="autoplay" allowtransparency="allowtransparency" frameborder="0" height="95" sandbox="allow-downloads allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" scrolling="no" src="https://embeds.audioboom.com/posts/8471013/embed?v=202301" style="background-color: transparent; display: block; padding: 0; width: 100%;" title="Audioboom player" width="100%"></iframe><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">_______</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><iframe allowtansparency="true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets/tweet_button.html" style="height: 20px; width: 130px;"></iframe></div>BobbyGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807934795994985233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010387589635528818.post-71023847753636918852024-03-05T12:46:00.006-05:002024-03-05T20:23:27.957-05:00PER CURIOUS PER CURIAM<div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Did SCOTUS just summarily amend the Constitution, <i>via</i> 5 votes?</span></b><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2mxGxJxXPoqXX0Gkl60l2fPt-TnnDpMjyddfEI4hz-VL9lZa18hsf9Nh9WHl0-vXNNqXuyV03wqERXEBvo95bsu7rZnfICCYgr7PUMU1pLm4vphyphenhyphenwx0b_byDYocuAHTvdiT34TmHc8vs9S2XUh8CnQottYilUs5rO8EaxB1t-ZUBbyFmtDDjUOe8Ugp7U/s820/SCOTUS030424.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="820" data-original-width="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2mxGxJxXPoqXX0Gkl60l2fPt-TnnDpMjyddfEI4hz-VL9lZa18hsf9Nh9WHl0-vXNNqXuyV03wqERXEBvo95bsu7rZnfICCYgr7PUMU1pLm4vphyphenhyphenwx0b_byDYocuAHTvdiT34TmHc8vs9S2XUh8CnQottYilUs5rO8EaxB1t-ZUBbyFmtDDjUOe8Ugp7U/s16000/SCOTUS030424.jpg" /></a></div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />Recall my <a href="https://regionalextensioncenter.blogspot.com/2023/12/14th-amendment-section-3-and-donald.html" target="_blank">December 20, 2023</a> post.</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKCsEZaiv73FmKbBwZxuXkLevyuWz4lqtpYufFyrTniN9rYUbTexrZGh9ue7KU65Zq8Sr0fPQda_MrJptbDFxpmpDHOs57IzWNjSYY7YtPNokTwDtr7zuCEsKatqT6tmhw43sGoxbihvBWY7HGxd6Dc6tCDnzT7hB3iV1K7tsortqIPPDYHkY0f-pmJxO5/s625/Blog122023.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="625" data-original-width="550" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKCsEZaiv73FmKbBwZxuXkLevyuWz4lqtpYufFyrTniN9rYUbTexrZGh9ue7KU65Zq8Sr0fPQda_MrJptbDFxpmpDHOs57IzWNjSYY7YtPNokTwDtr7zuCEsKatqT6tmhw43sGoxbihvBWY7HGxd6Dc6tCDnzT7hB3iV1K7tsortqIPPDYHkY0f-pmJxO5/s16000/Blog122023.png" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />OK</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><blockquote><b><span style="font-size: large;"><u>Article V</u>:</span></b><br /><i><b><span style="color: #0c343d;">The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.</span></b></i></blockquote></span> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Whether any of us agree/disagree with SCOTUS decisions pursuant to any specific case, their <i>primus inter pares</i> authority with respect to <i>statutory</i> constitutional evaluation is beyond any rational dispute. I would think.<br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br />But, what of <i>this</i> case? Do we properly need a clarifying additional Amendment, rather than <i>d</i>e <i>facto</i> "amendment by 'footnote'?" Pertaining to both Amendment 14, Section 3 (which now seems effectively nullified, politically), <i>and</i> to Article V itself?</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b> </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>This decision has been reflexively touted as a "unifying, dispositive 9-0 Slam-Dunk."</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b> </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Hardly. Not so fast.</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixKYSCpT7BSdqxmbeFdBRkXIyYlNmvtxWcSNAtSYLwM5bgY4J1t4vWqM0aHPgDhPZEbgx3WZ3n_G71A_Oo8U9TXWiy7oWdYRDmw2RbIC4GNhQ0sWRGJEM8FvngAp8kVF8DgK22b4mB0qILU3mUeXhbIYPSI4zV6cxzOPE4A4Ozinjb17jDLmvND0UmbkMx/s412/SerwerSCOTUS.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="412" data-original-width="360" height="375" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixKYSCpT7BSdqxmbeFdBRkXIyYlNmvtxWcSNAtSYLwM5bgY4J1t4vWqM0aHPgDhPZEbgx3WZ3n_G71A_Oo8U9TXWiy7oWdYRDmw2RbIC4GNhQ0sWRGJEM8FvngAp8kVF8DgK22b4mB0qILU3mUeXhbIYPSI4zV6cxzOPE4A4Ozinjb17jDLmvND0UmbkMx/w328-h375/SerwerSCOTUS.png" width="328" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;">The justices did not want to throw Trump off the ballot, and so they didn’t.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #20124d; font-weight: normal;">It was always unlikely that the Supreme Court, with its right-wing majority, would uphold Colorado’s ruling throwing Donald Trump off the ballot merely because he tried to execute a coup after losing the 2020 election. As the unanimous per curiam ruling issued Monday overturning Colorado’s decision suggests, a Court made up of nine liberal justices may not have done so either.<br /><br />That’s because sustaining the Fourteenth Amendment’s bar on insurrectionists holding office as written would put the justices in the difficult political position of looking like they were deciding an election. Such a thing could undermine popular support for the Court as an institution. It might prompt Congress to act to constrain the Court’s power. It could have led to a massive and potentially violent backlash from Trump supporters.<br /><br />The unanimous part of the decision found that states do not have the authority to disqualify candidates for federal office, the least absurd and damaging rationale for avoiding disqualification, one that sidestepped rewriting history or contorting the English language on Trump’s behalf. The justices did not declare that January 6 was not an insurrection or that Trump did not engage in such, as elite pundits have twisted themselves into pretzels to argue in these past months; they did not decide that the president is not an officer “under” or “of” the United States, as acolytes of the conservative legal movement have urged.<br /><br />Instead, the justices argued that allowing state enforcement would lead to anarchy that could “dramatically change the behavior of voters, parties, and States across the country, in different ways and at different times.” Referring to the potential problems that could be caused by individual state enforcement of the prohibition, the justices write that “nothing in the Constitution requires that we endure such chaos—arriving at any time or different times, up to and perhaps beyond the Inauguration.”<br /><br />Not that this should have mattered to the Court’s originalists, whose commitment to that doctrine supposedly prevents them from deciding cases on the basis of their personal preferences rather than the law itself. But in this case, as the conservative legal scholars William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen wrote last year, originalists’ preferred interpretive prisms—the plain text of the amendment, how it was understood at the time, the intent of its framers—would have led to Trump being disqualified, a result that, apparently, none of the justices liked.<br /><br />Every one of them decided, as transparently as possible in this case, that the text of the Constitution would have forced them to do something they did not want to do or did not think was a good idea, and so they would not do it. The justices did not want to throw Trump off the ballot, and so they didn’t. Not only that, but in order to head off the unlikely scenario of Congress trying to disqualify Trump after the election, they said that Congress must specifically disqualify individual insurrectionists, despite such a requirement having no basis in the text. Even if you agree with the majority that this was a wise decision politically, it cannot be justified as an “originalist” one; it was invented out of whole cloth—and in doing so, the justices basically nullified the section entirely. As the three Democratic-appointed justices note, “Although federal enforcement of Section 3 is in no way at issue, the majority announces novel rules for how that enforcement must operate.”<br /><br />The thing to understand about this case is that, with the exception of the ruling’s partial unanimity, it is little different from many other recent big cases in which “originalism” supposedly carried the day, whether the topic was abortion rights, guns, voting rights, or something else. The conservative justices have a majority, and they may work their will. But the originalism they purport to adhere to is nothing more than a framework for reaching their preferred result in any particular circumstance. They felt that a plain reading of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment would lead to chaotic or adverse outcomes, so they not only ignored it but also essentially amended the Constitution by fiat…</span></blockquote></span></b><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Yikes. Read <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/03/supreme-court-trump-v-anderson-fourteenth-amendment-originalism/677636/" target="_blank">all of it</a>.</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b> </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>14.3 has always bothered me, in light of the lack of any detail going to what criteria we are to use to dispositively label someone an "insurrectionist" subsequently to be disqualified from federal office eligibility. Nonetheless, the rank expedient majority hypocrisy comprising this decision is no cause for jurisprudential Warm Fuzzies either.</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b> </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Alito's Gadfly Serwer concludes:</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><blockquote><span style="color: #990000;">This case reveals originalism as practiced by the justices for the fraud it actually is: a framework for justifying the results that the jurists handpicked by the conservative legal movement wish to reach. Americans should keep that in mind the next time the justices invoke originalism to impose their austere, selective vision of liberty on a public they insist must remain gratefully silent. </span></blockquote></i></span></span></b> <span style="font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://regionalextensioncenter.blogspot.com/2022/05/commander-alito-patriarch-of-new-gilead.html" target="_blank">Sammy</a> gonna have an aneurism. Might we soon see another irascible WATB OpEd?</b><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>UPDATE</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><h1 class="post-title unpublished" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; caret-color: rgb(64, 64, 64); color: #404040; font-family: var(--font_family_headings, var(--font_family_headings_preset, var(--font-family-title))); font-size: var(--font-size-32); font-weight: var(--font_weight_headings_preset, bold); line-height: var(--line-height-36); margin: 0px;">KIM WEHLE: <a href="https://plus.thebulwark.com/p/scotus-rules-trump-colorado-ballot-insurrection?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web" target="_blank">In Mess of an Opinion, SCOTUS Rules Trump Must Stay on Colorado Ballot</a></h1></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; caret-color: rgb(64, 64, 64); color: #404040; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="color: #660000; font-family: arial;"></span></p><blockquote><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; caret-color: rgb(64, 64, 64); line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: arial;">DON’T BE FOOLED BY THE HEADLINES <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/03/04/us/trump-supreme-court-colorado-ballot" rel="" style="text-decoration: none;">heralding</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/04/supreme-court-trump-ballot-decision/" rel="" style="text-decoration: none;">as</a> “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/03/04/1230453714/supreme-court-trump-colorado-ballot" rel="" style="text-decoration: none;">unanimous</a>” today’s Supreme Court decision striking down the Colorado ballot ineligibility ruling. All nine justices did agree that no state, including Colorado, has the constitutional authority to put <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt14-S3-1-1/" rel="" style="text-decoration: none;">Section 3</a> of the Fourteenth Amendment to work. All nine justices thus effectively agreed that the horrors of January 6th are not bad enough to keep Donald Trump from running again this year. Had that been all the majority held, the decision might in fact have been unanimous. But the majority went further, making it virtually impossible that Section 3 will ever have a role in federal elections moving forward.</span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; caret-color: rgb(64, 64, 64); line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: arial;">The Court did not have to do this. And four of the justices—all of the women on the Court—made clear that they would have preferred the Court <i>not</i> do it…</span></p></blockquote><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; caret-color: rgb(64, 64, 64); color: #404040; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>RANDOM NOTE</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I suppose it ought be noted that the 14th amendment has a Section 5:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 18.4px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 18.36px;"></span></p><blockquote><b><span style="color: #660000;">Sec 5: The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.</span></b></blockquote><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Is that enough to justify the contentious concurrences? Note that it doesn’t say “shall have the sole power.”</span></div></div><div style="text-align: left;">__________</div><div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><iframe allowtansparency="true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets/tweet_button.html" style="height: 20px; width: 130px;"></iframe>BobbyGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807934795994985233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010387589635528818.post-68425195092780404682024-03-02T15:11:00.004-05:002024-03-02T15:13:08.583-05:00Online "Pig Butchering?"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbNgIITzvXulp2UO9yX6fZDVsE6NmiaooY9w0MOX-w9EWXMMx03H2VJlpaoVGJR0g4cgPpGgSQV1FElfI3pRun6fdmcWMrqQqdgOmPPyXbMjJDyqorzQvtnGgohXn7nJkbAQwaenoBYIAbBzkVEk8wwvYxnY139QQmDCfjHAxo8qVqbllqQ2jR5EJh-2cm/s480/PigButchering.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="358" data-original-width="480" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbNgIITzvXulp2UO9yX6fZDVsE6NmiaooY9w0MOX-w9EWXMMx03H2VJlpaoVGJR0g4cgPpGgSQV1FElfI3pRun6fdmcWMrqQqdgOmPPyXbMjJDyqorzQvtnGgohXn7nJkbAQwaenoBYIAbBzkVEk8wwvYxnY139QQmDCfjHAxo8qVqbllqQ2jR5EJh-2cm/s320/PigButchering.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pLPpl2ISKTg" width="560" youtube-src-id="pLPpl2ISKTg"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">I'd say this is a must-watch. At once painfully funny and infuriating.<br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>apropos</i> of <b>Barb McQuade's</b> <a href="https://regionalextensioncenter.blogspot.com/2024/02/more-readings-on-deck.html" target="_blank">new book</a> I'm now deep into:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq0011yDyww-u0wYktvIZLXPO4r1z0garPu91E5X7hCJ-uF2GeoBdCbmSakq3QVVlALcATV62qIVOvhV5JUHMG46DBKka45yH-pBQvCjFhCQNBmyf7lledA9GltNQQ48nBK1_BgCBQXLjWqKJK8GHD8DCVhWQBSoCoXR9Y0NbfHcscUADSCTF6YwbJCSJy/s528/AttackFromWithin.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="528" data-original-width="355" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq0011yDyww-u0wYktvIZLXPO4r1z0garPu91E5X7hCJ-uF2GeoBdCbmSakq3QVVlALcATV62qIVOvhV5JUHMG46DBKka45yH-pBQvCjFhCQNBmyf7lledA9GltNQQ48nBK1_BgCBQXLjWqKJK8GHD8DCVhWQBSoCoXR9Y0NbfHcscUADSCTF6YwbJCSJy/s320/AttackFromWithin.jpg" width="215" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><blockquote><span style="color: #073763;">According to <a href="http://www.dan.sperber.fr/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/MercierSperberWhydohumansreason.pdf" target="_blank">Mercier and Sperber</a>, humans have developed the ability to reason in a way that helps us to resolve the problems that arise when we live in groups. As a result, we place high value on the ability to win arguments. And research shows that we actually feel physical pleasure when we process information that is consistent with our beliefs. Psychiatrist Jack Gorman and his daughter Sara Gorman, a public health specialist, have concluded, “It feels good to ‘stick to our guns’ even if we are wrong.” <br /><br />When I worked as a prosecutor, I saw this phenomenon in action in the case of Dr. Farid Fata and others. Sometimes people refused to admit that they had been victims of fraud, even when the facts bore it out. They had become so convinced that their stockbroker or their doctor was looking out for their best interests that they could not believe they had been manipulated. People who fall for fraud scams often decline to report crimes to the police because of the shame they feel for having been duped. The Department of Justice website notes that when people become victims of fraud, their trust in their own judgment may be “shattered.”…</span><br /><br />McQuade, Barbara. <b><u>Attack from Within</u></b> (pp. 115-116). Seven Stories Press. Kindle Edition.</blockquote></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">See also some of my prior postings going to the <b><a href="https://regionalextensioncenter.blogspot.com/2023/10/creative-commons-cross-post-sam-bankman.html" target="_blank">cryptocurrency</a></b> scams.</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Zeke Faux's</b> awesome book <b><u><a href="https://regionalextensioncenter.blogspot.com/2023/10/number-go-up.html" target="_blank">Number Go Up</a></u></b> is particularly relevant to the <b>John Oliver</b> episode above..</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWTea1k7C3PlxsuWKFpwtqZOMXUy-ruQeO6C0mtYD_WYSMY2F-Fp10Qcn-bYzdv7QWwKiFJEOxDxBXNvuf_xyuQ-jUUVPFHF14eGttbZHXJgkQH46rP7sbVikY_4esvMjuCF8mEM1373sPc9xCfJ1OfrTYxC8-AmzdMyQEJvOoU2T7Hf21QrWlrKEClJIl/s539/NumberGoUp.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="539" data-original-width="355" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWTea1k7C3PlxsuWKFpwtqZOMXUy-ruQeO6C0mtYD_WYSMY2F-Fp10Qcn-bYzdv7QWwKiFJEOxDxBXNvuf_xyuQ-jUUVPFHF14eGttbZHXJgkQH46rP7sbVikY_4esvMjuCF8mEM1373sPc9xCfJ1OfrTYxC8-AmzdMyQEJvOoU2T7Hf21QrWlrKEClJIl/s320/NumberGoUp.jpg" width="211" /></a></div>Much more ASAP...<br />__________<div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><iframe allowtansparency="true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets/tweet_button.html" style="height: 20px; width: 130px;"></iframe>BobbyGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807934795994985233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010387589635528818.post-39365129362627215532024-02-29T17:44:00.010-05:002024-03-01T22:43:16.128-05:00Is Donald Trump above the law? We may soon find out.<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b style="background-color: #fff2cc;">WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2024<br />CERTIORARI GRANTED<br />23-939 TRUMP, DONALD J. V. UNITED STATES (23A745) </b></span><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-family: arial;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /> <b>The application for a stay presented to The Chief Justice is referred by him to the Court. The Special Counsel’s request to treat the stay application as a petition for a writ of certiorari is granted, and that petition is granted limited to the following question: Whether and if so to what extent does a former President enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office. Without expressing a view on the merits, this Court directs the Court of Appeals to continue withholding issuance of the mandate until the sending down of the judgment of this Court. The application for a stay is dismissed as moot. <br /><br /> The case will be set for oral argument during the week of April 22, 2024. Petitioner’s brief on the merits, and any amicus curiae briefs in support or in support of neither party, are to be filed on or before Tuesday, March 19, 2024. Respondent’s brief on the merits, and any amicus curiae briefs in support, are to be filed on or before Monday, April 8, 2024. The reply brief, if any, is to be filed on or before 5 p.m., Monday, April 15, 2024.</b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;">___ </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">The <b><i>"question presented"—</i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;"><i><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Whether and if so to what extent does a former President enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office?" <br /></span></b></i></span></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;">The question not at this point explicitly presented in the above, but clearly the one that matters—<br /><blockquote><span style="color: #741b47; font-size: large;"><i><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">"</span></b></i></span><span style="color: #741b47; font-size: large;"><i><b>T</b></i></span><span style="color: #741b47; font-size: large;"><i><b><span style="font-family: georgia;">o what extent (if any) do the behaviors, incitements, and directives (express or implied) of now-former President Donald Trump relating to the 2020 Presidential election result dispute which culminated in the January 6th, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol constitute 'official acts'?"</span></b></i></span></blockquote><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;"><i><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></b></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">Game on... <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Fundamental to Donald Trump’s argument on this self-serving immunity claim is that whole <i>“chief law enforcement officer of the United States” </i>assertion. In order to fulfill his sacred Article II Outer Perimeter obligation that he <i>“faithfully execute the laws,”</i> it was Officially imperative that he continually reviewed the 2020 election to verify its legitimacy (which, of course, would <i>never</i> be found)..</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><b>Never mind</b></i> his blatant personal conflict of vested interest in the outcome. His constitutionally proper response would have been to appoint a <i>beat-to-Quarters</i> DefCon5 DOJ special counsel and staff (via AG Barr) to independently review the 2020 election results. It continues to irritate the stew out of me that the various national media legal pundits don’t pound on this centrally salient point.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">250 days to go until the 2024 U.S. national elections, folks.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>ONE VOTE FOR BLANKET INDEMNITY AT THE OUTSET?</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0v3MCAeLsfY" width="560" youtube-src-id="0v3MCAeLsfY"></iframe></div><div><br /></div><div><b>DIFFERENT VENUE, SAME FATUOUS IMMUNITY ASSERTION</b></div><div><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-style: italic;"><span style="color: #0c343d;">“Trump’s argument is conclusory. No evidence was presented to support it, and Trump has not explained how hiring and making payments to a personal attorney to handle personal affairs carries out a constitutional duty. Reimbursing Cohen for advancing hush money to Stephanie Clifford cannot be considered the performance of a constitutional duty. Falsifying business records to hide such reimbursement, and to transform the reimbursement into a business expense for Trump and income to Cohen, likewise does not relate to a presidential duty. Trump is not immune from the People’s prosecution in New York Supreme Court. His argument of immunity is not a colorable defense.”</span></span><span class="s2">—NY State Judge Alvin Hellerstein, Trump pornstar “Stormy Daniels” hush money criminal fraud case.</span></span></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"> Might it help to paraphrase from Justice Roberts’ Feb 28th cert words?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"><blockquote><span style="color: #990000; font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">NONE of the behaviors, incitements, and directives (express or implied) of Trump relating to the 2020 Presidential election result dispute which culminated in the January 6th, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol constitute any elements of “presidential duty.” In fact, they were plainly and wholly to the contrary, resulting in destructively violent mayhem, injuries, and deaths—leaving a black civic moral stain glaringly unworthy of the honorable self-governing republic we claim to be.</span></blockquote></span></div></div><div style="text-align: left;">__________</div><p></p></div><div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><iframe allowtansparency="true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets/tweet_button.html" style="height: 20px; width: 130px;"></iframe>BobbyGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807934795994985233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010387589635528818.post-74791743712663218502024-02-28T17:01:00.000-05:002024-02-28T17:01:13.881-05:00Oklahoma Republican State Senator Tom Woods:<div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #783f04; font-family: verdana; font-size: x-large;">FILTH.</span></b></div>BobbyGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807934795994985233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010387589635528818.post-49488453272139964822024-02-27T12:11:00.005-05:002024-02-29T17:00:01.817-05:00More readings on deck<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1VnriSvJqc_T8qzx_6kuP3Payzaa2G6UPjq0p9ZEHalRHtFDvoQkmZ9kFGl2uHfxzz7u_yQUIR0ovA2rpbtIGmWU9-8tQUnW7fyVciEzvBR-U43x5B9nTSNsdn5R3yU7KTOOuZubjftBXXTA4il_762-V2KHioeY463EhnqcsNrDg0T5kTAWAv9ZMx3wJ/s552/TakingDownTrump.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="552" data-original-width="355" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1VnriSvJqc_T8qzx_6kuP3Payzaa2G6UPjq0p9ZEHalRHtFDvoQkmZ9kFGl2uHfxzz7u_yQUIR0ovA2rpbtIGmWU9-8tQUnW7fyVciEzvBR-U43x5B9nTSNsdn5R3yU7KTOOuZubjftBXXTA4il_762-V2KHioeY463EhnqcsNrDg0T5kTAWAv9ZMx3wJ/w258-h400/TakingDownTrump.jpg" width="258" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga62ntFCcTgYJ6oibGjrBX9chXVn0k8w-xuFE1k7-z6TEZuuOI0tkFWB7_TnhRk0Qoam07qISZoDfDgNLpBwhjg8npbF9Pnuzl2R9w5eEAEadeEBU9cbpC9e2nkceazl09b3iR4QR8UY0-27bHV73_Mo33gRMtpj0pz2ukP2t4bgJdrnSvXCkRXGEgveH-/s528/AttackFromWithin.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="528" data-original-width="355" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga62ntFCcTgYJ6oibGjrBX9chXVn0k8w-xuFE1k7-z6TEZuuOI0tkFWB7_TnhRk0Qoam07qISZoDfDgNLpBwhjg8npbF9Pnuzl2R9w5eEAEadeEBU9cbpC9e2nkceazl09b3iR4QR8UY0-27bHV73_Mo33gRMtpj0pz2ukP2t4bgJdrnSvXCkRXGEgveH-/w269-h400/AttackFromWithin.jpg" width="269" /></a></div></div><br /><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Lots going on this week. Barb McQuade's book was just released this morning. With various court actions in process and pending against Our Favorite President, these are timely.<br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">Different topic. Coming <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adn9364" target="_blank">March 5th</a>:</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Cqu_miLwbOO2pU_s5Dv0a476QgHPHwp-YzO0nS2B6ayIfU3nXbxPaEStLQWe5UiTUAaYqOaYS79KF1-2ImB7Fyd2UamgA0NANcX3z3_jtvFq2j8Ch_xahWNsIim3j34dpzbJjSKPt9_81eDwFWQYAMQKYyRyYB-AdX51Vf3Qqukg0WGtVj9VIaHn-QkP/s551/WavesInImpossibleSea.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="551" data-original-width="355" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Cqu_miLwbOO2pU_s5Dv0a476QgHPHwp-YzO0nS2B6ayIfU3nXbxPaEStLQWe5UiTUAaYqOaYS79KF1-2ImB7Fyd2UamgA0NANcX3z3_jtvFq2j8Ch_xahWNsIim3j34dpzbJjSKPt9_81eDwFWQYAMQKYyRyYB-AdX51Vf3Qqukg0WGtVj9VIaHn-QkP/s320/WavesInImpossibleSea.jpg" width="206" /></a></div> </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">In addition to new and ongoing book readings, I've spent a lot of time listening to the latest <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/oral_arguments.aspx" target="_blank">live audio Orals</a> at the U.S. Supreme Court. Fascinating (well, <i>most</i> of it).<br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"> <br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">Stay tuned... </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">FEB 29TH UPDATE </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">Finished the <b>Tristan Snell</b> book. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><blockquote><span style="color: #073763;">For decades, Trump had appeared invincible. But once we had proven that he wasn’t, more cases have followed in our wake. And while the earlier cases merely imposed some fines and repayments on Trump, these newest cases may dismantle his businesses and send him to prison. <br /><br />Perhaps above all, what has changed in the legal battles against Trump is that he finally ran out of prosecutors and litigants he could buy off or intimidate. Campaign contributions and charity donations have suddenly become useless for Trump. Bullying and threats are not working. Our team at the New York AG’s office was not scared of Trump. Tish James and Fani Willis and Jack Smith are not scared, and they are not backing down. The same has been true of E. Jean Carroll, Michael Cohen, and their attorneys. <br /><br />The courage and the relentless dedication that it requires to bring a case against a powerful figure, against all odds, against all opposition—<i>that</i> is the most indispensable element in holding such figures accountable and finally bringing them to justice. And we cannot and must not rely solely on elected officials and special counsel to have that courage for us. That courage requires <i>all</i> of us. It requires us all to have the collective determination to enforce the laws fairly, objectively, and persistently, no matter who is on the receiving end, no matter what the outcome is and whether we agree with it personally. It requires us all to fight, to vote, to advocate, to raise our voices, to insist upon people and policies to make accountability a reality rather than just an empty abstraction. Justice is not something that just happens: it’s a choice we make, not merely by our words or pleasant thoughts, but by our actions, with every ounce of zealousness we can muster.</span><br /><br />Snell, Tristan. <b><u>Taking Down Trump</u></b> (pp. 177-178). Melville House. Kindle Edition. </blockquote></span>Very enjoyable and enlightening read. Now, I need to finish <b><u>Attack From Within</u></b> ASAP. Things are moving quickly this week.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>BARB MCQUADE </b><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KokMIuwcucc" width="560" youtube-src-id="KokMIuwcucc"></iframe></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">__________</div><div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><iframe allowtansparency="true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets/tweet_button.html" style="height: 20px; width: 130px;"></iframe>BobbyGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807934795994985233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010387589635528818.post-28499656165879721792024-02-24T09:32:00.001-05:002024-02-24T09:32:42.044-05:00February 24th, 2024:<div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Day 730 of Vladimir Putin’s 3-day conquest of Ukraine.</span></b></div>BobbyGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807934795994985233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010387589635528818.post-31695604736287900642024-02-23T13:28:00.006-05:002024-02-23T19:45:12.333-05:00Klaas is in Session<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTvagCLD0Jp0rnqZCKKVl2FwSfBjjPLslUkzcByZvvPppVqNewMzow7TdDtKOQzGONdWI0XG4jAS9qdvpfwHuWb1rYsfAEOaIFdkPPlKS4W67hMZGIo8UlTD99FRJ1vt48BX8eevtjUcEojzbJXnc2P61cUpRHqm3VjqJ6_h_dPFakw5Z59V0YYtOfy5UP/s538/Fluke.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="538" data-original-width="355" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTvagCLD0Jp0rnqZCKKVl2FwSfBjjPLslUkzcByZvvPppVqNewMzow7TdDtKOQzGONdWI0XG4jAS9qdvpfwHuWb1rYsfAEOaIFdkPPlKS4W67hMZGIo8UlTD99FRJ1vt48BX8eevtjUcEojzbJXnc2P61cUpRHqm3VjqJ6_h_dPFakw5Z59V0YYtOfy5UP/w264-h400/Fluke.jpg" width="264" /></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtQYW6Dm8cKv5t045Iw-vp1Ct8lwyUXbiN187ixGTThvl4QSAds2b5u6-H2sjDrGmfh147MMCOfpc_P0apZ-n-lWtdrYsAYQI_DmxBTmeFHakiUvt_iVApofkYhDhWirZ33XrHQY9clX3OW1Z2CeQNZD1iC29eJKT7GQuMQKs2pa3gjyKcnhswSSAD9iBK/s1633/KlaasCh9.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1633" data-original-width="1355" height="595" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtQYW6Dm8cKv5t045Iw-vp1Ct8lwyUXbiN187ixGTThvl4QSAds2b5u6-H2sjDrGmfh147MMCOfpc_P0apZ-n-lWtdrYsAYQI_DmxBTmeFHakiUvt_iVApofkYhDhWirZ33XrHQY9clX3OW1Z2CeQNZD1iC29eJKT7GQuMQKs2pa3gjyKcnhswSSAD9iBK/w495-h595/KlaasCh9.jpg" width="495" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><blockquote><span style="color: #0c343d;">…On the day it happens, change any detail—no matter how seemingly insignificant—and you end up with a different child.I Suddenly, you have a daughter instead of a son, or vice versa—or just a different son or daughter. Siblings often diverge in unexpected ways, so any change in <i>who</i> is born will radically change your life—and the lives of countless others. But it’s not just the one day that a child is conceived that matters. Instead, amplify that contingency by <i>every</i> moment of your life. Each detail in the entire chain-link architecture of your lifetime had to be exactly as it was for the exact child who was born to be born. That’s true for you, for me, for everyone. <br /><br />Yet again, the motivational posters have sold you short. “You’re one in a million!” they shout at you with uplifting glee. Try one in a <i>hundred</i> million, because that’s how many competitors, on average, your single-celled predecessor outswam to successfully become half of yourself. <br /><br />You matter. That’s not self-help advice. It’s scientific truth. If someone else had been born instead of you—the unborn ghost whom you outcompeted in the existence sweepstakes—countless other people’s lives would be profoundly different, so our world would be different, too. The ripples of every life spread out, in unexpected ways, for eternity. <br /><br />These are awe-inspiring truths. Yet, in modern life, many of us feel like easily replaced cogs in a vast, cold machine. As global corporations sprawl and we seek help from call centers rather than corner stores, many modern systems make us feel interchangeable. Workers robotically follow protocols, checklists, and scripts, engines of efficiency that strip us of our individuality. Humans begin to feel like robots who eat. It dehumanizes us. It doesn’t matter who turns the crank, so long as it gets turned. <br /><br />But what if that dystopian viewpoint is completely wrong? <br /><br />Let’s consider two opposite conceptions of how history works. In one vision of historical change, there’s the storybook reality: Change is ordered and structured. The convergent trajectory of events means that individuals come and go, but trends dominate. Where do the trends come from? We’re never explicitly told, only that the aggregation of humans has produced a path toward an inevitable outcome and we’d better prepare ourselves. The trend is destiny. History is written by unseen social forces, and the main characters are powerless to alter the plot. <br /><br />On the opposite extreme, individuals reign supreme because the idiosyncratic behavior of a single person can reroute us all onto a different path. The logical extension of that viewpoint—rooted in chaos theory—means that every individual isn’t just capable of changing history. Rather, we are each changing history constantly, with every action—even every thought. Who is doing something can matter as much as what they’re doing. If that’s true, it would yield an empowering fact: it’s not just that everything you do matters, but also that it’s you, and not someone else, who’s doing it. Perhaps every one of us creates our own butterfly effect because each of us flaps our wings a little bit differently. <br /><br />These two conceptions of change are fundamentally different. So, are we just along for the ride, or does each of us determine the destination? </span><br /><br />Klaas, Brian. <u>Fluke: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters</u> (pp. 159-162). Scribner. Kindle Edition.</blockquote></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">So, I'm into Chapter 9 of 13, and just have to share what I'm finding thus far. A totally fun read, much more edifying and enjoyable than the shitshow comprising our news this week. I gushed <i>a la</i> Fanboy on "Twitter" that <i>"Chapter 6 was worth the entire cost."</i> I meant it. <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">BTW, Brian has a <i><a href="https://substack.com/@brianklaas" target="_blank"><b>Substack</b></a></i>. I signed up. 50 bucks for a year.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp4hU48QSLN3Axk0VRLH3j1A_slmFVuOawH2W8mPIxP15YLZaKGqgdloJwr-n-03JRkBz2qbrjXp9oNkbp7hvILPv53ZV7qSOLRK4nOR2m7vJNaTSk87z-zWgN1tqB_wuxBP3crw52CVOQx-XPhsoQ-H0CF8DH7-o_c9ki3ReTRQk9AkukcQ5hhctYbho1/s1226/KlaasSubstack.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1226" data-original-width="1213" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp4hU48QSLN3Axk0VRLH3j1A_slmFVuOawH2W8mPIxP15YLZaKGqgdloJwr-n-03JRkBz2qbrjXp9oNkbp7hvILPv53ZV7qSOLRK4nOR2m7vJNaTSk87z-zWgN1tqB_wuxBP3crw52CVOQx-XPhsoQ-H0CF8DH7-o_c9ki3ReTRQk9AkukcQ5hhctYbho1/s320/KlaasSubstack.jpg" width="317" /></a></div><p></p><div style="text-align: left;">I have my picks with <b><i>Substack</i></b> broadly (weak, limied formatting capabilities, like <a href="https://medium.com/@BobbyGvegas/we-cannot-claim-to-not-have-been-warned-c35b54ebbdfb" target="_blank"><b><i>Medium</i></b></a>), but Brian's <b><i>Substack</i></b> has a lot of cool stuff on it.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Interesting Brian Klaas presentation below. <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/W_Oab42VZRE" width="560" youtube-src-id="W_Oab42VZRE"></iframe></div></div><div style="text-align: left;">____</div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i> </i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>Science Magazine</i></b> has certainly been quite the book citation resource of late: "<a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adn5394" target="_blank"><b><u>Flukes</u></b></a>," "<a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adn2591" target="_blank"><b><u>Countdown</u></b></a>," and "<a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adn3943" target="_blank"><b><u>Imagination</u></b></a>."<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>QUICK SHITSHOW ERRATA</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b> </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcSUdVMbsDyzcS0QJhFkbdUb8U2ZCMvIqCLXhoqgJe_PG0GT-fwPwdrk4aYhKXEQWmpGqHcK2imVf2O1h2Xeu0Wxn84wpL7v4gbh3FzKqWzkgUXzJF_P8jpWBWRmEx3lndxQ65j15-uXDeD2zHnJHI2pv84Wni85EnHIy5m8LRi3a5eNEwO1rj-ho-R1z-/s600/ALchildrenIVF.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="523" data-original-width="600" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcSUdVMbsDyzcS0QJhFkbdUb8U2ZCMvIqCLXhoqgJe_PG0GT-fwPwdrk4aYhKXEQWmpGqHcK2imVf2O1h2Xeu0Wxn84wpL7v4gbh3FzKqWzkgUXzJF_P8jpWBWRmEx3lndxQ65j15-uXDeD2zHnJHI2pv84Wni85EnHIy5m8LRi3a5eNEwO1rj-ho-R1z-/s320/ALchildrenIVF.jpg" width="320" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_DAAOuL6pP-Y1ppF02GluWxhegp8BfLnh6FHMXyp-QD7COz4EYnISTLp4Vap2qAHOac4GRzEQ1choiwJh1X74R8THuRIYLYx174zQNuVuEOGcFpf_cvu8C-PugxipmgckQ62AuwADo5X5wZid3hGoc8tjjhdvCJp5vdAP80KbXW9h1-FBhNdzuHiLIVlw/s540/GOPvaxBS.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="471" data-original-width="540" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_DAAOuL6pP-Y1ppF02GluWxhegp8BfLnh6FHMXyp-QD7COz4EYnISTLp4Vap2qAHOac4GRzEQ1choiwJh1X74R8THuRIYLYx174zQNuVuEOGcFpf_cvu8C-PugxipmgckQ62AuwADo5X5wZid3hGoc8tjjhdvCJp5vdAP80KbXW9h1-FBhNdzuHiLIVlw/s320/GOPvaxBS.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Okeee-Dokeee, then.<br />____ <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><u>Flukes</u></b>, only Ch's 12 & 13 to go.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">More to come ASAP.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">__________</div><div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><iframe allowtansparency="true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets/tweet_button.html" style="height: 20px; width: 130px;"></iframe>BobbyGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807934795994985233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010387589635528818.post-77144948379403090052024-02-22T13:37:00.004-05:002024-02-22T13:39:25.968-05:00“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/z3a8MdloAAM" width="560" youtube-src-id="z3a8MdloAAM"></iframe></div><br />BobbyGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807934795994985233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010387589635528818.post-10038112818864389392024-02-19T18:01:00.017-05:002024-02-21T12:12:13.412-05:00“Countdown,” continuing review of Sarah Scoles’ new book<div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">“The Blinding Future of Nuclear Weapons”</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span><br /></b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS6GN4qKDBTS7BO2JT1RVpCdScfx_c_-NEOGZmVqTx3NjGoNk_lkf-ewR-rJL5I2fVOG0EcZCuAWFCq6PSjpqN-w8wWyZ_oYEKae0qcjCQlKBLYmA5RoWGjgFZamLeajQbpNwUrMCCrccopFfLDrgV8qi9yTdq4L5TEYBdAhV6lm84MKHyUIp8ITGu6wPP/s2000/IMG_3317.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1495" data-original-width="2000" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS6GN4qKDBTS7BO2JT1RVpCdScfx_c_-NEOGZmVqTx3NjGoNk_lkf-ewR-rJL5I2fVOG0EcZCuAWFCq6PSjpqN-w8wWyZ_oYEKae0qcjCQlKBLYmA5RoWGjgFZamLeajQbpNwUrMCCrccopFfLDrgV8qi9yTdq4L5TEYBdAhV6lm84MKHyUIp8ITGu6wPP/w400-h299/IMG_3317.jpeg" width="400" /></a> </div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="352" loading="lazy" src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/episode/2NDMWqDwVcBALEEMb60tSu?utm_source=generator" style="border-radius: 12px;" width="100%"></iframe><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8R4480llV7E-wDbqMeIaBxJa_mKyL3KpQifPXjFo1JK2HYfzAcTWW96SbJh9XC0ChtwgITIv-VpYC3u6UJAcX9YvB1g1ieeumZWC76pr3W5LuJ4Jksmo48gYdEohY-QE5npABxIHUYbOaxMYw3y2oC7U_P9kHATMI6PpnNByw1LD5dvEdWfst9MEJWcs6/s1521/IMG_3276.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1521" data-original-width="978" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8R4480llV7E-wDbqMeIaBxJa_mKyL3KpQifPXjFo1JK2HYfzAcTWW96SbJh9XC0ChtwgITIv-VpYC3u6UJAcX9YvB1g1ieeumZWC76pr3W5LuJ4Jksmo48gYdEohY-QE5npABxIHUYbOaxMYw3y2oC7U_P9kHATMI6PpnNByw1LD5dvEdWfst9MEJWcs6/w258-h400/IMG_3276.jpeg" width="258" /></a></div><b><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> <br /></span></b><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Lots to <a href="https://regionalextensioncenter.blogspot.com/2024/02/ok-recess-is-over-kiddies.html" target="_blank">continue to cover</a> here. But, first, let's scare and depress the crap out of you. <i>"What if we nuke a city?"<br /></i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><b><br /></b></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5iPH-br_eJQ" width="560" youtube-src-id="5iPH-br_eJQ"></iframe></div><br /><b> Oh, and this was just released on Netflix.</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVrB6Trz7nrsupHpCooCdJscbbIAq4PzJNOEeeJanQ-ukNWKvRezFiCtbp2AhcEYHjAOe7GBEXblmgCwn-96-LNWvADfM1rjzUuD0c0M9R5kfz1ETJeTMiFjQlMu0oxF-TpLferwy4NYORXFabmJII1rzhbV2GR8gaAN-cmgkYWZDxUGsVI9d3cSRFT1ym/s867/EinsteinNetflix.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="867" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVrB6Trz7nrsupHpCooCdJscbbIAq4PzJNOEeeJanQ-ukNWKvRezFiCtbp2AhcEYHjAOe7GBEXblmgCwn-96-LNWvADfM1rjzUuD0c0M9R5kfz1ETJeTMiFjQlMu0oxF-TpLferwy4NYORXFabmJII1rzhbV2GR8gaAN-cmgkYWZDxUGsVI9d3cSRFT1ym/w276-h400/EinsteinNetflix.jpg" width="276" /></a></div> <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Rather nicely done. I have both of the major Einstein biographies, by Clark and Isaacson. The docudrama squares fairly well, albeit in brief.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Before deep diving into Sarah's book, a quick (<i>apropos</i>?) diversion</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><blockquote><span style="color: #0c343d;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">KOKURA’S LUCK</span></b><br /><br />On October 30, 1926, Mr. and Mrs. H. L. Stimson stepped off a steam train in Kyoto, Japan, and checked into room number 56 at the nearby Miyako Hotel. Once settled, they strolled through the former imperial capital, soaking up the city’s autumnal explosion of color, as the Japanese maples turned crimson and the ginkgo trees burst into a golden shade of yellow, their trunks rising above a bed of lush green moss. They visited Kyoto’s pristine gardens, tucked into the mudstone hills that frame the city. They marveled at its historic temples, the rich heritage of a bygone shogunate embedded in each timber. Six days later, Mr. and Mrs. Stimson packed up, paid their bill, and left. <br /><br />But this was no ordinary tourist visit. The Stimson name in the ledger at the Miyako Hotel would become a historical record, a relic marking a chain of events in which one man played God, sparing one hundred thousand lives while condemning a similar number to death elsewhere. It was, perhaps, the most consequential sightseeing trip in human history. <br /><br />Nineteen years later, far from the Japanese maples, in the sagebrush-dotted hills of New Mexico, an unlikely group of physicists and generals gathered at a top-secret location code-named Site Y. It was May 10, 1945, three days after the Nazis had surrendered. The focus now shifted to the Pacific, where a bloody war of attrition seemed to have no end in sight. However, in this remote outpost of New Mexico, the scientists and soldiers saw a potential savior: a new weapon of unimaginable destruction that they called the Gadget. <br /><br />No successful test had yet been carried out to demonstrate the weapon’s full potential, but everyone at Site Y sensed they were getting close. In preparation, thirteen men were asked to join the Target Committee, an elite group that would decide how to introduce the Gadget to the world. Which city should be destroyed? They agreed targeting Tokyo wasn’t a good idea, as heavy bombing had already devastated the new capital. After weighing up the alternatives, they agreed on a target. The first bomb would be dropped on Kyoto. <br /><br />Kyoto was home to new wartime factories, including one that could churn out four hundred aircraft engines per month. Furthermore, leveling a former capital would deal a crushing blow to Japan’s morale. The Target Committee also noted a small, but perhaps crucial, point: Kyoto was an intellectual hub with an educated population, home to the prestigious Kyoto University. Those who survived would, the committee supposed, recognize that this weapon represented a new era in human history—and that the war had already been lost. The Target Committee agreed: Kyoto must be destroyed. <br /><br />The committee also agreed on three backup targets: Hiroshima, Yokohama, and Kokura. The target list was sent to President Truman. All they needed to do was wait for the bomb to be ready. <br /><br />The Atomic Age dawned on July 16, 1945, with a successful test explosion in the vast emptiness of rural New Mexico. The Target Committee’s decisions were no longer theoretical. Military strategists consulted detailed maps of Kyoto and decided on ground zero for the explosion: the city’s railway yards. The intended blast site was only half a mile away from the Miyako Hotel, where Mr. and Mrs. H. L. Stimson had stayed two decades earlier. <br /><br />On August 6, 1945, the bomb code-named Little Boy fell from the sky not on Kyoto, but on Hiroshima, dropped from the Enola Gay. As many as 140,000 people were killed, most of them civilians. Three days later, on August 9, Bockscar dropped Fat Man on Nagasaki, adding roughly 80,000 casualties to the horrifying death toll. <br /><br />But why was Kyoto spared? And why was Nagasaki—a city that hadn’t even been considered a top-tier bombing target—destroyed? Remarkably, the lives of roughly two hundred thousand people teetered between life and death because of a tourist couple and a cloud. <br /><br />By 1945, Mr. H. (Henry) L. Stimson had become America’s secretary of war, the top civilian overseeing wartime operations. As a man without a uniform, Stimson felt it was his job to develop strategic goals, not to micromanage generals on how best to achieve them. But that all changed when the Target Committee picked Kyoto for destruction. <br /><br />Stimson sprang into action. In a meeting with the head of the Manhattan Project, Stimson put his foot down: “I don’t want Kyoto bombed.” In a discussion with the commander of the U.S. armed forces, Stimson insisted that there was “one city that they must not bomb without my permission and that was Kyoto.” Yet, despite his insistence, Kyoto kept reappearing on the targeting list. It ticked all the boxes, the generals insisted. It needed to be bombed. Why, they wondered, was Stimson hell-bent on protecting a nerve center of the Japanese war machine? <br /><br />The generals didn’t know about the Miyako Hotel, the majestic Japanese maples, or the golden ginkgo trees. <br /><br />Stimson, unwavering, went straight to the top. He met with President Truman twice in late July 1945, each time outlining his vehement opposition to destroying Kyoto. Truman finally relented. Kyoto was taken out of consideration. The final targeting list contained four cities: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, and a late addition, Nagasaki. Stimson had saved what the generals called his “pet city.” The first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima instead. <br /><br />The second bomb was to be dropped on the city of Kokura. But as the B-29 bomber approached the city, cloud cover made it difficult to see the ground below. The clouds were unexpected. A team of army meteorologists had predicted clear skies. The pilot circled, hoping the clouds would clear. When they didn’t, the crew decided to attack a secondary target rather than risking a botched drop. As they approached Nagasaki, that city was also obscured by cloud cover. With fuel running low, they made one last pass, and the clouds parted at the last possible minute. The bomb fell at 11:02 a.m. on August 9, 1945. Nagasaki’s civilians were doubly unlucky: the city was a last-minute addition to the backup targeting list, and it was leveled because of a fleeting window of poor weather over another city. If the bomber had taken off a few minutes earlier or a few minutes later, countless residents of Kokura might have been incinerated instead. To this day, the Japanese refer to “Kokura’s luck” whenever someone unknowingly escapes from disaster…</span><br /><br />Klaas, Brian (2024-01-22T22:58:59.000). <u>Fluke: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters</u>. Scribner. Kindle Edition. </blockquote></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adn5394" target="_blank">Another killer read</a>.</span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqAevGMJ8KApX8tH-njfilf3U2oyx3U0nWmGT0-MzhdcZEldTo_CPKn-BIMUhnAigYEUfa6Yk4M-O8f6PsE38SxC7ZdNyCKbEz-daY135trgfJBZBO8BZHC5WJ7Z6d-zKSqLjLeKrJc8M2JDpCnSnlbpgtM4_5K5UUnBSZ5Z1-d7aZ8ZP-KXnUgmy7sBoO/s538/Fluke.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="538" data-original-width="355" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqAevGMJ8KApX8tH-njfilf3U2oyx3U0nWmGT0-MzhdcZEldTo_CPKn-BIMUhnAigYEUfa6Yk4M-O8f6PsE38SxC7ZdNyCKbEz-daY135trgfJBZBO8BZHC5WJ7Z6d-zKSqLjLeKrJc8M2JDpCnSnlbpgtM4_5K5UUnBSZ5Z1-d7aZ8ZP-KXnUgmy7sBoO/s320/Fluke.jpg" width="211" /></a></div></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>_____ <br /></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b> </b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>SARAH SCOLES, cont’…</b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Some random quotes, jumping around.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCZZYb6RPQhdduDZ8v0EJlE61o4pS7WROZ45wZ3Bpdd_XMKV8efnjPA8A4P29MevPY9EibLjVrO-r_RdZa7vHFcVapo00ZsYTgnrqtELawD_-_x6ZxPlveyeKBUVBxnJ9Itlx_tvZDBlEPowR5CX-S0CSKKW9Gp-P2wDk14qN7J7OFZsmYoN0WZuuQdDiu/s600/IMG_3284.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="580" data-original-width="600" height="386" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCZZYb6RPQhdduDZ8v0EJlE61o4pS7WROZ45wZ3Bpdd_XMKV8efnjPA8A4P29MevPY9EibLjVrO-r_RdZa7vHFcVapo00ZsYTgnrqtELawD_-_x6ZxPlveyeKBUVBxnJ9Itlx_tvZDBlEPowR5CX-S0CSKKW9Gp-P2wDk14qN7J7OFZsmYoN0WZuuQdDiu/w400-h386/IMG_3284.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></b>Yeah.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">We can attest. <br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Below, 1993. my wife (li'l cutey), 130 miles above the Article Circle, for the summer and fall, Point Hope, Alaska on the far NW Chukchi Sea. DOE Project Chariot nuke waste cleanup (<a href="https://www.energy.gov/lm/chariot-alaska-site" target="_blank">long story</a>). That's <a href="https://decarbllc.com/team-member/joseph-g-yeasted-phd-pe/" target="_blank">Dr. Joe Yeasted </a>in the orange vest and cap. Major League dude. We all remain tight.<br /></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b> </b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>We'd just moved to Las Vegas the prior year for her to be QA mgr. for the Nevada Test Site remediation work as DOE prime contractor DOE foisted the Chariot gig off on her company. And, then, of course, took credit for a successful (mostly enviro PR) mission.<br /></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b> </b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6FtL7FaYAYBAVEwkM1hnCxsXB8ag_-LzVjwnU8Ldso2_I_xmh4Bhl6kdKVDmVr8vFB4Ra4zDYlq-Tz53KDLxcOho_jHSVoe5mqESJgEZNPDYIjECm5jUjKditfT-PeKoOf7Gj4DY-dhS10aTz1uOPReSQuz3GxnNjqbxLIL37SwUXV2TI-uRQbpj_Eocr/s1200/cherylchariot.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="401" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6FtL7FaYAYBAVEwkM1hnCxsXB8ag_-LzVjwnU8Ldso2_I_xmh4Bhl6kdKVDmVr8vFB4Ra4zDYlq-Tz53KDLxcOho_jHSVoe5mqESJgEZNPDYIjECm5jUjKditfT-PeKoOf7Gj4DY-dhS10aTz1uOPReSQuz3GxnNjqbxLIL37SwUXV2TI-uRQbpj_Eocr/w602-h401/cherylchariot.jpg" width="602" /></a></div><br />Cheryl and I got into nuke work in Oak Ridge in the 80's. From <a href="https://regionalextensioncenter.blogspot.com/2023/12/jen-taubs-latest-podcast.html" target="_blank">another of my posts</a>:</b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b> </b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;">Another
personal history: In January 1986, just prior to my 40th birthday I got my
"first day gig" at a radiation laboratory in Oak Ridge after getting my
undergrad at UTK in 1985 (yeah, I'm slow; old washed-up <a href="https://Busking.BGladd.Com" target="_blank">guitar player</a>). "ASL" ("<b>Applied Sciences Laboratory</b>"). It was founded by PhD nuclear engineer <b><a href="https://hps.org/aboutthesociety/people/inmemoriam/JohnAldenAuxier.html" target="_blank">John A. Auxier</a></b>,
the nation's premier "certified health physicist" (CHP, basically a
radiation dose/exposire epidemiologist). John had just retired as the
Director of Industrial Health and Safety at ORNL (Oak Ridge National
Laboratory). He'd been a member of the Three Mile Island Commission. He
was a pilot since his days in the military. He owned several fixed-wing
aircraft and a helicopter, serviced by the <b>Smoky Mountain Aero</b> FBO at McGhee-Tyson Airport near Alcoa TN. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">My wife was the customer service manager there while I was in school at UT. She managed his aviation account.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Recognizing supreme talent (she's <a href="https://alabamaalumnifootballleague.blogspot.com" target="_blank">the smartest woman I ever met</a>),
he pilfered her to become his Customer Service/Marketing Manager (and
eventually QA Lead). Through her he learned of my studies in applied
statistics.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>"We need to computerize our operations and QC analysis, Cheryl. Would Bobby like to come out and work for us?"</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I
arrived right after New Year's Day 1986. QC data were computed on
yellow pads in pencil by old school scientists brandishing slide rules.
Sums of squares done long-hand for QC Sigma limits.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Interesting.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I
stayed 5 1/2 yrs. We went from a single building on Bear Creek Rd with 9
employees to a complex of 3 buildings running 24/7, employing many
dozens of radiochemists, CHPs, technicians, and biz peeps.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I began using an IBM-XT, the only PC on the property. I wrote <a href="https://www.bgladd.com/papers/ITORL2.PDF" target="_blank">all of their code</a>
(what we now call "apps"), and installed and managed their Novell
Network. I'd never touched a PC before. I was blissfully unaware that
you couldn't do these things.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Eventually, ASL got bought by a growing company called "<b>International Technology Corporation</b>" (IT Corp), based in Pittsburgh. We became "<b>IT/ORL</b>."</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">IT
Corp grew and grew and grew. in 1992 they won the DOE environmental
remediation contract to assess and clean up the Nevada Test Site nuke
mess. Cheryl was the QA Manager. I'd moved on to<a href="https://www.bgladd.com/papers/CSIPDM1.PDF" target="_blank"> Digital Industrial Diagnostics</a> (FFT analytics).<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">I quit. We moved to Las Vegas. We then lived there for 21 years.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">IT Corp was now public (ITX), had grown massively via acquisitions, and had ironically now come into the takeover crosshairs of <b>The Carlyle Group</b>. The new CEO was essentially a plant.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Carlyle</b> de-boned and BK'd them in short order. I'll spare you the myriad plunderers' particulars. The CEO made Bank.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Cheryl landed on her feet (most ITX people were not so lucky). ITX was sold to <b>The Shaw Group</b>
of Baton Rouge (SGR). Shaw named her Director of Quality of the new
"Environmental Division"—her entire former company. Those to whom she'd
once reported now reported to <i>her</i>. (Like I said; <i>crazy</i>, scary smart.)<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">That was a wild period. She spent <a href="https://santafeandthefatcityhorns.blogspot.com/2006/02/laisse-bon-ton-roulette.html" target="_blank">the entire fall post-Katrina working on the remediation</a>. SGR was the contractor that pumped NOLA out, and ran the "blue tarp" and emergency mobile homes initiatives.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Eventually
SGR had an internal political C-Suite dustup, the upshot of which was a
demand for Cheryl to relocate from Vegas to Baton Rouge (surely for The
Contrarian Bitch to be reined in).</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">She quit. Finished her career as worldwide Corporate Director of Quality for the esteemed Rhode Island-based <b>Gilbane Building Companies</b>, working out of Concord, CA. <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Carlyle's
Rubenstein—[bleep] you and your philanthropy and rep-washing PBS
hustle. Y'all ruined a technologically adept and committed company. But,
I'm sure <i>you</i> did well.</div><div style="text-align: left;">_____ <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiawlvgd2nsLIwZeC8zX2U8doQPUe1Bq1lJf9mWHjjyJi9TwqGAFXdd1KjrUl594Q2xYqIsJ6lzsAP0YaxftTGGCsNTzYmwSeeTrnfYbOagbbNaf3RuNuQpXs2JNNs3ifXvl3NSI9IowrZCILmVExK5mQYgplypQ7C5ehCXl6wsAtWcTGUC3LGmzeK2h2Wa/s600/IMG_3307.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="570" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiawlvgd2nsLIwZeC8zX2U8doQPUe1Bq1lJf9mWHjjyJi9TwqGAFXdd1KjrUl594Q2xYqIsJ6lzsAP0YaxftTGGCsNTzYmwSeeTrnfYbOagbbNaf3RuNuQpXs2JNNs3ifXvl3NSI9IowrZCILmVExK5mQYgplypQ7C5ehCXl6wsAtWcTGUC3LGmzeK2h2Wa/w421-h400/IMG_3307.jpg" width="421" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i> </i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>"Buy time for our political leaders to find a better way..."</i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Do do <i><u>what</u></i>? Kill people more efficiently and "cleanly?" Not sure yet what he meant. Achieve durable global peace? Short of that, materially diminish the "false positives (innocent noncombatants) and false negatives (dangerous enemies missed)?" I'll have to keep digging on this guy to clarify. Beyond that, there're perhaps wafts of Steve Pinker-isms in the foregoing—and, there's no denying the aggregate worldwide collateral damage declining trend data (which won’t however, boost spirits in Gaza these days).<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">_____<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgESDdcKhORbDsU2N5m6rAkTR7y6YSMfUP5CPUb31P37PnACjDC0DEwcexuf6Fn3DwwQVltfHf9DVDKX01Uj9TTqMezLFDfAR2r6rwke8ncqZrMVDkNfHkb-YPyXZy3j0aGAmXindec7BmHQTzO69Vj6rmziCv3tMqouwsJ0faFqr3izL1N6kgxEaTzeRMI/s600/IMG_3282.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="585" data-original-width="600" height="412" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgESDdcKhORbDsU2N5m6rAkTR7y6YSMfUP5CPUb31P37PnACjDC0DEwcexuf6Fn3DwwQVltfHf9DVDKX01Uj9TTqMezLFDfAR2r6rwke8ncqZrMVDkNfHkb-YPyXZy3j0aGAmXindec7BmHQTzO69Vj6rmziCv3tMqouwsJ0faFqr3izL1N6kgxEaTzeRMI/w422-h412/IMG_3282.jpg" width="422" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Yeah. Tru' 'dat. <i>"To the optimist the glass is half-full. To the pessimist the glass is half-empty."</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">To the <b><i>engineer</i></b>, the glass was designed and mfg'd 2x too large. Yeah, old joke.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">_____</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIlMTUrG8_P0WaJ579Ypzsy39V5qzrt5RqflY8s4-MRHdlWn0RCcgT7eYGWAEMBrgDVgYTYCkEWgIRzcAg-3QVe-I4-_SC6LnP2CRWOaDaQqpFCmb9QbP7oicMW2BrLutvJuh5bn3WhGzovE-7NxFqnHPYWFtUAhyGm26ZqOVFkANp7QDMywDfT-ruNob1/s600/IMG_3285.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="579" data-original-width="600" height="386" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIlMTUrG8_P0WaJ579Ypzsy39V5qzrt5RqflY8s4-MRHdlWn0RCcgT7eYGWAEMBrgDVgYTYCkEWgIRzcAg-3QVe-I4-_SC6LnP2CRWOaDaQqpFCmb9QbP7oicMW2BrLutvJuh5bn3WhGzovE-7NxFqnHPYWFtUAhyGm26ZqOVFkANp7QDMywDfT-ruNob1/w400-h386/IMG_3285.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Once, during my Oak Ridge radlab tenure, we got called in on a dustup at the Mexico-TX border, where an incoming tractor-trailer rig had set off radiation detectors. The I-beams undergirding the flatbed were "hot" (radioactive). We gumshoe'd the stuff all the way back to its source.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Not far from where Cheryl and I lived in South Knoxville was a scrap yard, "Knox Metals," which had for many years been buying trace-level rad waste scrap stuff from the Oak Ridge Y-12 and K-25 weapons facilities. Some of this scrap steel got re-sold, re-smelted, and ended up in a truck bed that made it to Mexico and back, setting off the TexMex border detectors. Lordy.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>BACKING UP A TAD: CHERNOBYL?</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><blockquote><span style="color: #0c343d;">IT WAS LIVERMORE’S SCIENTIFIC EXPERTISE THAT LED TO NARAC’S founding in the first place (National Atmospheric Release Advisory Center). The organization began, in a less official capacity, during the 1979 Three Mile Island incident, when an American nuclear power reactor partially melted down and later released radioactive gases into the air. As the almost-catastrophic event was in motion, the Jimmy Carter administration reached out to Livermore: Could the lab provide any useful information to teams headed to the affected area? They could, it turns out. In the 1960s and 1970s, the lab had worked on the global circulation model, which showed how air moved around the world. The model could also be refined, harnessed, and directed toward the catastrophe, revealing how contaminants would spread across the world and what their ultimate fate would be. [Scoles, <u>Countdown</u>, p. 146]</span></blockquote></span>In April 1986 I was managing a database and reporting script I'd developed to track environmental rad baselines at a proposed civilian nuke powerplant startup in Perry, Ohio, part of a 5 yr requisite REMP study (Radiological Environmental Monitoring Program). Weekly environmental and bioassay baselines sampling across a breadth of matrices—soil, water, vegetation, dairy cow milk, fish, misc other local wildlife, and air.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">My air assays always came back "below LLD," Below Lower Limit of Detection (<i>"less than 0.04 picocuries per cubic meter"</i>). I would just run a quick macro appending the data to reflect the latest <i>"<0.04 pCi/cu.m."</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">A week after Chernobyl blew, we got significant quantifiable positive readings in <i>all</i> of the Perry air filter sampling stations. Airborne alpha-emitting Iodine-131 (I-131). Half-life 8.05 days, so by after a subsequent 4 weeks or so the assays had gone back down below LLD.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In the ensuing years, though, scientists were busily studying stuff like Cs-137 radionuclide uptake in arctic caribou.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Small world, 'eh?<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">_____<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Much more shortly...<br /></b></span></span></div></div>__________<div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><iframe allowtansparency="true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets/tweet_button.html" style="height: 20px; width: 130px;"></iframe>BobbyGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807934795994985233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010387589635528818.post-38292631355239273932024-02-18T11:47:00.005-05:002024-02-19T12:26:07.050-05:00Hurry! Supplies are limited…<div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">"We hold these shoes to be self-evident."<br /></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBQ4_zXRYwTyqRJqLfywlPsyFAIJJOFp2wJPOEDt-XxuSNZbUjwhqxpzI_Gj2yG6kmiWSJD_7YfyvBLRyF4G5bCfzyCHHnZIisWs37YnmUfCHFKZJYjuDxzr6MmzstAH5uUo1Le3XOaxsot_oZkbi5iE5sVXSlUEPDj8AV17XEHWzLS5LmCAUjEoKhnfsz/s600/DonDashCon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBQ4_zXRYwTyqRJqLfywlPsyFAIJJOFp2wJPOEDt-XxuSNZbUjwhqxpzI_Gj2yG6kmiWSJD_7YfyvBLRyF4G5bCfzyCHHnZIisWs37YnmUfCHFKZJYjuDxzr6MmzstAH5uUo1Le3XOaxsot_oZkbi5iE5sVXSlUEPDj8AV17XEHWzLS5LmCAUjEoKhnfsz/w400-h300/DonDashCon.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UcHd3cCHftE" width="560" youtube-src-id="UcHd3cCHftE"></iframe></div>__________<div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><iframe allowtansparency="true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets/tweet_button.html" style="height: 20px; width: 130px;"></iframe>BobbyGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807934795994985233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010387589635528818.post-80509104155145080172024-02-16T16:14:00.011-05:002024-02-18T16:41:58.233-05:00Alexei Navalny<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDI5mqdygEQU0YzQbU0B5mzblL3XY4gqLLcGKH8jKWgzD5GbdMeZ-ZZKiqIXGQ19-nWKiNEZQVpituDDvQFBmqCn6WolGSGTMq7p84ddTwlGS9bJR13Ho_ZxuduB3vod8tSHOV9lnPWIyUUAvAs6qB93yLX0gN3EQpbephXoRYGemXRA-zzu7SqKwUrpTK/s600/NavalniDeath.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="555" data-original-width="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDI5mqdygEQU0YzQbU0B5mzblL3XY4gqLLcGKH8jKWgzD5GbdMeZ-ZZKiqIXGQ19-nWKiNEZQVpituDDvQFBmqCn6WolGSGTMq7p84ddTwlGS9bJR13Ho_ZxuduB3vod8tSHOV9lnPWIyUUAvAs6qB93yLX0gN3EQpbephXoRYGemXRA-zzu7SqKwUrpTK/s16000/NavalniDeath.jpeg" /></a><span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: arial; text-align: left;"><b>“Alexey Navalny spent at least a decade standing up to the Kremlin when it seemed impossible. He was jailed and released. He was poisoned, and survived. He was warned to stay away from Russia and didn’t. He was arrested in front of dozens of cameras, with millions of people watching. In prison, he was defiant and consistently funny. For three years, his jailers put him in solitary confinement, cut off his access to and arrested his lawyers, piled on sentence after sentence, sent him all the way across the world’s largest country to serve out his time in the Arctic, and still, when he appeared on video in court, he laughed at his jailers. Year after year, he faced down the might of one of the world’s cruellest states and the vengeance of one of the world’s cruellest men. His promise was that he would outlive them and lead what he called the Beautiful Russia of the Future. On Friday, they killed him. He was forty-seven years old…”</b></span><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;">—</span><i style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;">Masha Gessen, The New Yorker</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;"><br /></i></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/81AAlzoKNPU" width="560" youtube-src-id="81AAlzoKNPU"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>I can’t claim that I’m surprised at his murder.</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b> </b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>Good luck getting his body back to his family. <br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>UPDATE</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcT7XP1AwigK49PHrM9xum0WK1ErdT40II9ORHarwI6kRvKKll27eGIwXddEHA_pW_ZoTK8TL_UDFgmYqQB5XIXQy2lpg55SkcL9cnEzXZ-dK9AIsBsIQYUGcyN7vVXAifdTjdbRxa_uBQiA3ItTcRwDVxx4D0N5MTwhq5ma2v9hkSJcMdXf62jok-y8aV/s600/Crackdown.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="416" data-original-width="600" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcT7XP1AwigK49PHrM9xum0WK1ErdT40II9ORHarwI6kRvKKll27eGIwXddEHA_pW_ZoTK8TL_UDFgmYqQB5XIXQy2lpg55SkcL9cnEzXZ-dK9AIsBsIQYUGcyN7vVXAifdTjdbRxa_uBQiA3ItTcRwDVxx4D0N5MTwhq5ma2v9hkSJcMdXf62jok-y8aV/w433-h301/Crackdown.jpg" width="433" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipVzsoZ7_WOEgIYCEYxaOr8ps_QpBVrprEUlBnS9Us1-SEgP9ai33GehtEMJodwamLgcAFaXSVoBoUdpFstj915omETtCz9QWVsblOHVDfzt57jwJYKxF_ZnOyvq7gGd1WhWkMQOw4z7-5lJIvHFAmDp-sheFSnIBw4a9fPttNX2_sbG-eFrQAGsqacU42/s1287/IMG_3306.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="725" data-original-width="1287" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipVzsoZ7_WOEgIYCEYxaOr8ps_QpBVrprEUlBnS9Us1-SEgP9ai33GehtEMJodwamLgcAFaXSVoBoUdpFstj915omETtCz9QWVsblOHVDfzt57jwJYKxF_ZnOyvq7gGd1WhWkMQOw4z7-5lJIvHFAmDp-sheFSnIBw4a9fPttNX2_sbG-eFrQAGsqacU42/w400-h225/IMG_3306.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>__________</div><div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><iframe allowtansparency="true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets/tweet_button.html" style="height: 20px; width: 130px;"></iframe>BobbyGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807934795994985233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010387589635528818.post-39066140290338798342024-02-13T12:51:00.011-05:002024-02-18T12:24:03.189-05:00OK, recess is over, kiddies.<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Back to</span></b><b> <span style="font-size: x-large;">work</span>.</b><div><b><br /></b><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NpBPm0b9deQ" width="560" youtube-src-id="NpBPm0b9deQ"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;">⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️</div></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>ON DECK</b></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adn2591" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="1521" data-original-width="978" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT8tkcHp3vrqPQ9LqhirDao9zWz-nEK6NnAkEewY22QNjFd6vIlLnb9DjaAdb1Qv-6hOKmcX5NzNKPNaHddwD4_Cy5g9Px_y8ZEvXcXyAKQiDqh9Kxzrmnvz_-sVV4kiar2LQQhUhGHtjvnlbx9kyFJ_3oI86sf9qOHkNdD613xi9ho0VOO0EvVN2K6oSd/w258-h400/IMG_3276.jpeg" width="258" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click the cover.</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4ZeMC8zRp0E" width="560" youtube-src-id="4ZeMC8zRp0E"></iframe></div><br /><b>FRIDAY UPDATE</b><div><br /><div>I finished this fine book this morning. I could not recommend it more highly. I will have to get back to it with a blog post of its own as soon as possible. Lots of other crazy stuff going on this week. The mass shooting in Kansas City (where my elder grandson and family live), the Navalny murder, and a totally unexpected death in the extended family. Stay tuned...<br /></div><div><div style="text-align: left;">__________</div><div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><iframe allowtansparency="true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets/tweet_button.html" style="height: 20px; width: 130px;"></iframe></div></div>BobbyGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807934795994985233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010387589635528818.post-56099034081097311592024-02-11T14:16:00.005-05:002024-02-12T11:11:02.512-05:00Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEZh01AqgVdmOlufv9JTnNdyERNUJE08kD-Vm1Ge5X27j_FCQCHweaXiMWfjXgXEABL5fBrWhFHAK9dMjQ2oX5wS4NSA0CvcFRoZqsdnEFq5rouRsVMholPF6A5fHCVo07Ff6nK9yr3FExiYLPdTATGjf4HHFu0IYret_bBJaZ9uilQJ3eHdzGjl0xYPGL/s1520/IMG_3270.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1520" data-original-width="1519" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEZh01AqgVdmOlufv9JTnNdyERNUJE08kD-Vm1Ge5X27j_FCQCHweaXiMWfjXgXEABL5fBrWhFHAK9dMjQ2oX5wS4NSA0CvcFRoZqsdnEFq5rouRsVMholPF6A5fHCVo07Ff6nK9yr3FExiYLPdTATGjf4HHFu0IYret_bBJaZ9uilQJ3eHdzGjl0xYPGL/w400-h400/IMG_3270.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #660000; font-size: small;">But, well, he's nonetheless still got the loyalty of mega-billionaire<br />music stars Kid Rock and Ted Nugent, right?</span></b><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_-8qHrANy-PoC1H5sMVqDR-WjX1N8G-U74Ip-vrkPwW4Gh6fBaL__eGMCATqINhmsLdGGbJp3-HEh2xv1EYObg7p_BDUvAiJMuOyjYkB6j53INOpR_gqLB9CVORZtpfVhyphenhyphenMF7nWRJVmflNDjnxXZ4pGXAiUkp0TjDxqQds7gNVhyphenhyphenoe-v5Z-RMd1-lWStu/s1170/IMG_3271.jpeg"><img border="0" data-original-height="877" data-original-width="1170" height="398" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_-8qHrANy-PoC1H5sMVqDR-WjX1N8G-U74Ip-vrkPwW4Gh6fBaL__eGMCATqINhmsLdGGbJp3-HEh2xv1EYObg7p_BDUvAiJMuOyjYkB6j53INOpR_gqLB9CVORZtpfVhyphenhyphenMF7nWRJVmflNDjnxXZ4pGXAiUkp0TjDxqQds7gNVhyphenhyphenoe-v5Z-RMd1-lWStu/w531-h398/IMG_3271.jpeg" width="531" /></a> </div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #990000;">268 days until November 5th.</span><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: xx-small;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JkOPW88ahuU" width="560" youtube-src-id="JkOPW88ahuU"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>OUTCOME </b><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="color: #4c1130; font-size: x-large;">KC 25, SF 22, in Overtime</span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFYYsE9jthruIVPe9bgwv5gpm1huvrSa0vCskF_SlfNcWLz7qa3_0nkQ_uUuZkKXcuffnHRsBUEtMM4RweFKlq6hM5DQJAdJN36IuP8SlJcX9FnHrWjio_Omd_nDNsiVgbBFo_nC7jQinxiQqWFC80Wq9Yt6rnC9OJAn0SZdx88QxUhxfz8ZXB4JRmlrlS/s549/TSTK.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="309" data-original-width="549" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFYYsE9jthruIVPe9bgwv5gpm1huvrSa0vCskF_SlfNcWLz7qa3_0nkQ_uUuZkKXcuffnHRsBUEtMM4RweFKlq6hM5DQJAdJN36IuP8SlJcX9FnHrWjio_Omd_nDNsiVgbBFo_nC7jQinxiQqWFC80Wq9Yt6rnC9OJAn0SZdx88QxUhxfz8ZXB4JRmlrlS/w400-h225/TSTK.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: left;">__________</div><div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><iframe allowtansparency="true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets/tweet_button.html" style="height: 20px; width: 130px;"></iframe>BobbyGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807934795994985233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010387589635528818.post-55823945582153060652024-02-09T13:16:00.012-05:002024-02-10T12:31:16.509-05:00Climate Science News: Dr. Michael E. Mann<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqEsz6h4M25ZxQfUQGyhayapZ-0LX7I61aCrfkj_cQZ2jxqju7xCB4qV0O8ZWy6tW5exDs_Gy55Hig5JrI_hi7adTeXDhCraDgXNeRA_fIsEsKVjfRZMy6JkENy0guY2xMioue6uBetxE0hG8TY1s-j4UQfbSxFj9drQ9pvlx5x9Y1VKrlomFG-LqVOdOv/s1376/IMG_3256.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1322" data-original-width="1376" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqEsz6h4M25ZxQfUQGyhayapZ-0LX7I61aCrfkj_cQZ2jxqju7xCB4qV0O8ZWy6tW5exDs_Gy55Hig5JrI_hi7adTeXDhCraDgXNeRA_fIsEsKVjfRZMy6JkENy0guY2xMioue6uBetxE0hG8TY1s-j4UQfbSxFj9drQ9pvlx5x9Y1VKrlomFG-LqVOdOv/w400-h384/IMG_3256.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="color: #0c343d; font-size: large;">Punitive Damages Awarded to Climate-Change Scientist Dr. Michael Mann in Decade-Long Defamation Case </span><span style="color: #0c343d;"><br /><br />We secured a decisive victory in our long-standing defamation claims against an adjunct scholar with the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), Rand Simberg, and a TV/radio personality who wrote for the National Review, Mark Steyn. Following a four-week jury trial, we were awarded punitive damages of $1,000 against Simberg and $1,000,000 against Steyn by a jury in the District of Columbia Superior Court. </span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="color: #0c343d;"><br />Dr. Mann’s trial team was led by John Willian1s, a Washington, D.C. based defamation lawyer, and Pete Fontaine, a Philadelphia-based environmental lawyer with Cozen O'Conner. Williams and Fontaine were joined by Patrick Coyne of Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP and Amorie Hammel of Cozen O'Connor. <br /><br />Today's verdict followed 12 years of litigation by Dr. Mann and the entire legal team. <br /><br />Dr. Mann, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and currently a Presidential Distinguished Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, was a lead author with Dr. Raymond Bradley and Dr. Malcolm Hughes of groundbreaking research in 1998 and 1999 which demonstrated a sharp increase in global temperatures linked to increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Dr. Mann’s research reconstructed historical temperatures over the past 1,000 years using national temperature archives. That temperature reconstruction is represented on a graph shaped like a hockey stick lying on its side with the blade pointing upward. The graph, which came to be known as the "Hockey Stick" graph, was prominently featured by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its 2001 report on climate change. <br /><br />Dr. Mann filed his defamation suit in 2012 after Rand Simberg writing for CEI and Mark Steyn writing for National Review published articles comparing Dr. Mann to the convicted child molester arid fo1mer Penn State football coach, Jerry Sandusky. The articles asserted that Dr. Mann had falsified his Hockey Stick research and called Dr. Mann "the Jerry Sandusky of climate science" who "molested and tortured data" arid committed “scientific and academic misconduct.” <br /><br />Under the Supreme Court's New York Times v. Sullivan standard, Dr. Mann was required to show by clear and convincing evidence that the defendants published their writings with “actual malice," a heavy burden under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The trial team showed that the defendants either knew or recklessly disregarded multiple investigations clearing Dr. Mann of misconduct in the wake of the 2009 ClimateGate controversy involving stolen emails from a research unit in the United Kingdom. Two of those investigations were key pieces of evidence in the case: one completed by Pennsylvania State University (where Dr. Mann was a professor for 17 years) and a second by the National Science Foundation, which funded the research. <br /><br />According to Mr. Fontaine, "Today's verdict vindicates Mike Mann’s good name and reputation. It also is a big victory for truth and scientists everywhere who dedicate their lives answering vital scientific questions impacting human health arid the planet." <br /><br />According to Dr. Mann, "I hope this verdict sends a message that falsely attacking climate scientists is not protected speech." </span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>MICHAEL'S NEWEST BOOK</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg67MjzPCXaON7ThD_6GyyPqHBrhRdY7RYUpg04SeSWWYux_giSXcgB7QCdivd3jxN_bAo8coKYx38jULJv-9O_PzjXm1hFuHwsAlGohXM6R_WoAprpJVANVbwtAzzO81J2HLbRbY0TgsqMiFxoH9UJElP6UiHUB_2SmfN6x8Tx2abOB9DI_3J7eqqJQAhy/s549/OurFragileMoment.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="549" data-original-width="355" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg67MjzPCXaON7ThD_6GyyPqHBrhRdY7RYUpg04SeSWWYux_giSXcgB7QCdivd3jxN_bAo8coKYx38jULJv-9O_PzjXm1hFuHwsAlGohXM6R_WoAprpJVANVbwtAzzO81J2HLbRbY0TgsqMiFxoH9UJElP6UiHUB_2SmfN6x8Tx2abOB9DI_3J7eqqJQAhy/w259-h400/OurFragileMoment.jpg" width="259" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><blockquote><span style="color: #073763;"><b>In this <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Our-Fragile-Moment-Lessons-Survive-ebook/dp/B0BRJ6SCFM/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1707499443&sr=8-3" target="_blank">sweeping work of science and history</a>, the renowned climate scientist and author of The New Climate War shows us the conditions on Earth that allowed humans not only to exist but thrive, and how they are imperiled if we veer off course.</b><br /> <br />For the vast majority of its 4.54 billion years, Earth has proven it can manage just fine without human beings. Then came the first proto-humans, who emerged just a little more than 2 million years ago—a fleeting moment in geological time. What is it that made this benevolent moment of ours possible? Ironically, it’s the very same thing that now threatens us—climate change.<br /><br />The drying of the tropics during the Pleistocene period created a niche for early hominids, who could hunt prey as forests gave way to savannahs in the African tropics. The sudden cooling episode known as the “Younger Dryas” 13,000 years ago, which occurred just as Earth was thawing out of the last Ice Age, spurred the development of agriculture in the fertile crescent. The “Little Ice Age” cooling of the 16th-19th centuries led to famines and pestilence for much of Europe, yet it was a boon for the Dutch, who were able to take advantage of stronger winds to shorten their ocean voyages.<br /><br />The conditions that allowed humans to live on this earth are fragile, incredibly so. Climate variability has at times created new niches that humans or their ancestors could potentially exploit, and challenges that at times have spurred innovation. But there’s a relatively narrow envelope of climate variability within which human civilization remains viable. And our survival depends on conditions remaining within that range.<br /> <br />In this book, renowned climate scientist Michael Mann will arm readers with the knowledge necessary to appreciate the gravity of the unfolding climate crisis, while emboldening them—and others--to act before it truly does become too late.</span></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"> </div></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe65e6cVG6IwEPpC_El6b7c7_B5HMd4ZN-bRRLxW5iMSwcrOTqscGfyZVDsCqPCuIdkyViq_sjHAb2P1s_-TuGrMaN622Tyj5pV1R-HujANk1G4RgvaX4TgD_CIFd_Wi7A38vib1g35QdY_rXHAxq33u13xh2_zaOdyAl6yRkYC3RfuGYxc_bnCl8tS9ou/s1100/IMG_3255.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1078" data-original-width="1100" height="431" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe65e6cVG6IwEPpC_El6b7c7_B5HMd4ZN-bRRLxW5iMSwcrOTqscGfyZVDsCqPCuIdkyViq_sjHAb2P1s_-TuGrMaN622Tyj5pV1R-HujANk1G4RgvaX4TgD_CIFd_Wi7A38vib1g35QdY_rXHAxq33u13xh2_zaOdyAl6yRkYC3RfuGYxc_bnCl8tS9ou/w438-h431/IMG_3255.jpeg" width="438" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>I've cited Dr. Mann <a href="https://regionalextensioncenter.blogspot.com/search?q=Michael+E.+Mann" target="_blank">numerous times</a>.</b><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>UPDATE</b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqdRCRaXqrfzUNWkgYpL3h4tnTXhCMWIFd7MLy1W6CnOj8SJRGc2F-EkizGT02SNXD81jrq-oxRuSVn9DQ3g_j2qO30TucCz8eoqaed-_4jXzWYv8LmLOYmrwOfk9XjDtlaWIBXWAyTu4Zg8DCAkhPpdN-8IF5fV4xe2g39TKNgdyoV-lp8UoKQlKt-7gK/s1328/IMG_3258.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="965" data-original-width="1328" height="322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqdRCRaXqrfzUNWkgYpL3h4tnTXhCMWIFd7MLy1W6CnOj8SJRGc2F-EkizGT02SNXD81jrq-oxRuSVn9DQ3g_j2qO30TucCz8eoqaed-_4jXzWYv8LmLOYmrwOfk9XjDtlaWIBXWAyTu4Zg8DCAkhPpdN-8IF5fV4xe2g39TKNgdyoV-lp8UoKQlKt-7gK/w443-h322/IMG_3258.jpeg" width="443" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmSPGcpGVjFSqQt0Amw0d67_thrvLkSeXc-6jS9hoNyxA6OMZauwSYW2Ov_6MM1KjlDa6r0JZ1q4jjgxqaEKla88qkSFro0XT6utZwRcllBjiLfOCvz9ryIzlAXRhcODVMgRwaiV4E6ozV-kPRr94Ntn_gbL9q6y-iTWTgtPNkJAgl0nVbHI-6r4_6OCN2/s533/DeadlyRiseAntiScience.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="355" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmSPGcpGVjFSqQt0Amw0d67_thrvLkSeXc-6jS9hoNyxA6OMZauwSYW2Ov_6MM1KjlDa6r0JZ1q4jjgxqaEKla88qkSFro0XT6utZwRcllBjiLfOCvz9ryIzlAXRhcODVMgRwaiV4E6ozV-kPRr94Ntn_gbL9q6y-iTWTgtPNkJAgl0nVbHI-6r4_6OCN2/s320/DeadlyRiseAntiScience.jpg" width="213" /></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk7-zvu3twhHMgpzfjn91sz9ZE0rVoeiGyGxv8zKz8CltHz_U5h7C4gJi2tandMwiYeSnynOEB9gzZP0cC8LPyVuQBHwBSjbSbDoCERbBVcJq7yI478VzoVOktito72-5vx4gpb5VEoVuEwTYX8IdhI4IsbsPmE5mHRq1rERPKBl51SxJWPvsVNETpfFa_/s600/Hotez1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="589" data-original-width="600" height="393" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk7-zvu3twhHMgpzfjn91sz9ZE0rVoeiGyGxv8zKz8CltHz_U5h7C4gJi2tandMwiYeSnynOEB9gzZP0cC8LPyVuQBHwBSjbSbDoCERbBVcJq7yI478VzoVOktito72-5vx4gpb5VEoVuEwTYX8IdhI4IsbsPmE5mHRq1rERPKBl51SxJWPvsVNETpfFa_/w400-h393/Hotez1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;">__________</div><div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><iframe allowtansparency="true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets/tweet_button.html" style="height: 20px; width: 130px;"></iframe><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />BobbyGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807934795994985233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010387589635528818.post-18801480140856321882024-02-05T12:34:00.009-05:002024-02-08T11:23:06.793-05:00“However loathsome or loving we are, so will we be.“<div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">“The first step is to stop policing the borders of your own imagination.”</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> <br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsv5dfjuO-vSe2EtFRkroMWLwl3zQ7MNgzzBx9Uq8tc5qB_gHoC9iMnBSrcx1Aae6BpRFJWAp7UltsMrPg7zQhTGVfSogP75EYR3Rdwtg2PP7uQE7yRfPq9pLmFpLutYlYs6uvJXBsKAavcrE86YWLiJoapBS9vCZlxKNivuCdUDdfL6AMDKRwf6iDJHAw/s522/ImaginationManifesto.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="522" data-original-width="343" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsv5dfjuO-vSe2EtFRkroMWLwl3zQ7MNgzzBx9Uq8tc5qB_gHoC9iMnBSrcx1Aae6BpRFJWAp7UltsMrPg7zQhTGVfSogP75EYR3Rdwtg2PP7uQE7yRfPq9pLmFpLutYlYs6uvJXBsKAavcrE86YWLiJoapBS9vCZlxKNivuCdUDdfL6AMDKRwf6iDJHAw/w263-h400/ImaginationManifesto.jpg" width="263" /></a></div><i><b><span style="font-size: medium;">What?</span></b></i><br /> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Rooting around in the online edition of my forthcoming next issue of my <i>Science Magazine.</i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i> </i><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDtsWdWJ5_3nxHFg6FT7vmyCwqHlSjizFhdD8Si3kAuU77yOMWLi72pMl3PwwIVFGhDnhutcX4BYCXQkCplD173WznnhQil_fEKAmJDWXQ33VNhTQX3ayPHM_ntgHrVehQHJNEpPuN_tksWxMcb1Q5hzcFNVzAFcT4gBITKNXCG_vA3Y2eUnW-cfQsvlNu/s1591/SCIENCE_3240.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1591" data-original-width="1250" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDtsWdWJ5_3nxHFg6FT7vmyCwqHlSjizFhdD8Si3kAuU77yOMWLi72pMl3PwwIVFGhDnhutcX4BYCXQkCplD173WznnhQil_fEKAmJDWXQ33VNhTQX3ayPHM_ntgHrVehQHJNEpPuN_tksWxMcb1Q5hzcFNVzAFcT4gBITKNXCG_vA3Y2eUnW-cfQsvlNu/s320/SCIENCE_3240.jpg" width="251" /></a></div></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adn3943" target="_blank">Book review</a>:</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #073763;">Sociologist Ruha Benjamin’s <u>Imagination: A Manifesto</u></span></span><span style="color: #073763;"> is a short, punchy book designed to kick-start expansive thinking about society’s most pressing collective problems. Joining works such as historian Robin Kelley’s classic <u>Freedom Dreams</u> (1), Benjamin’s new book argues that scholars and activists committed to justice should look to the utopian imaginings of those ill-served by current distributions of power, privilege, and resources. Victims of oppressive structures often have insight into the kinds of social transformations that would alleviate their suffering, she observes.<br /><br /> In the tradition of the best manifestos, Benjamin encourages readers to think through seemingly audacious suggestions, such as the abolition of oppressive systems and the creation of “a world in which everyone can thrive.” Rights now thought of as inalienable were often first envisioned by radical dreamers, she reminds us, inviting readers to join their ranks...<br /><br />The book is strongest when it draws on concrete examples of scholars, artists, activists, and even states that are imagining more equal power relations and more inclusive futures. For instance, Benjamin describes how, in collaboration with Breonna Taylor’s mother and boyfriend, the artist Lady Pheønix created an app that reframes negative media portrayals of Taylor, who was unarmed when she was killed by police in her Kentucky home in 2020. Pheønix’s work helps to contextualize Taylor’s life, creating an experience that includes a hologram of the 26-year-old medical worker with her favorite flowers, her art, and messages from people who cared for her. Benjamin explores how art helped to interrupt a victim-blaming narrative, imagining a more compassionate framing in the face of dehumanization…</span></blockquote></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">Ahhh... No <i>"Praise-Criticism-Praise sandwich"</i> in the review. Gotta be a good'un. I'll know tomorrow, pre-ordered it (release date Feb 6th). <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Imagination-Manifesto-Norton-Ruha-Benjamin-ebook/dp/B0C97HJHWG/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1707152731&sr=1-1" target="_blank"><b><i>Amazon</i></b> blurb</a>:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><blockquote><span style="color: #20124d;"><b>In this revelatory work, Ruha Benjamin calls on us to take imagination seriously as a site of struggle and a place of possibility for reshaping the future.</b><br /><br />A world without prisons? Ridiculous. Schools that foster the genius of every child? Impossible. Work that doesn’t strangle the life out of people? Naive. A society where everyone has food, shelter, love? In your dreams. Exactly. Ruha Benjamin, Princeton University professor, insists that imagination isn’t a luxury. It is a vital resource and powerful tool for collective liberation.<br /><br /><u>Imagination: A Manifesto</u> is her proclamation that we have the power to use our imaginations to challenge systems of oppression and to create a world in which everyone can thrive. But obstacles abound. We have inherited destructive ideas that trap us inside a dominant imagination. Consider how racism, sexism, and classism make hierarchies, exploitation, and violence seem natural and inevitable—but all emerged from the human imagination.<br /><br />The most effective way to disrupt these deadly systems is to do so collectively. Benjamin highlights the educators, artists, activists, and many others who are refuting powerful narratives that justify the status quo, crafting new stories that reflect our interconnection, and offering creative approaches to seemingly intractable problems.<br /><br /><u>Imagination: A Manifesto</u> offers visionary examples and tactics to push beyond the constraints of what we think, and are told, is possible. This book is for anyone who is ready to take to heart Toni Morrison’s instruction: “Dream a little before you think.”</span></blockquote></span><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QO3nY_u6hos" width="560" youtube-src-id="QO3nY_u6hos"></iframe></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i><span style="color: #351c75; font-size: large;">"Dream a little before you think."</span></i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Copy that.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>All <i>apropos</i> of <a href="https://regionalextensioncenter.blogspot.com/2024/01/a-breadth-of-anti-woke-cultural-elites.html" target="_blank">recent heavy topics</a>, I would say.</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b> </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie9x2Fvn-2b4yQFjDYnwt_S36fFxcJKSVkglZh8TiqfiHH5cyfV_fvQtG50Dsy3RxZ7a3Fu7YsqycEbn7NNlxCZthFObVhEXF52xuIQzQwHA9QSWnb1Wwhu0zOjlc5CfbJFmQHuEyOdIETI6CihwS4DgCz_Vp76_WSEkcmqx5ki_wWdclMhp2drFgFmcXQ/s600/2022exigencies.Y.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie9x2Fvn-2b4yQFjDYnwt_S36fFxcJKSVkglZh8TiqfiHH5cyfV_fvQtG50Dsy3RxZ7a3Fu7YsqycEbn7NNlxCZthFObVhEXF52xuIQzQwHA9QSWnb1Wwhu0zOjlc5CfbJFmQHuEyOdIETI6CihwS4DgCz_Vp76_WSEkcmqx5ki_wWdclMhp2drFgFmcXQ/s320/2022exigencies.Y.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> </b></div><div style="text-align: left;">Oh, yeah, on <i>"thinking."</i> I read this book in one sitting on Saturday.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij5gMctlP280tMQVOpf9JPv1e_2eARv8XGVD6nKIhWaAbWtb6bQqHo4aZVAEzSILUnkSoOsG78gYc0q5w5N5g5GF1Y01kD258h-PP00ft-7-ej23vQly_JCB8HIS0UbkFG-s4M0HYlfaVBFDr9GqyAdHzl7yMz4DZwzJdMQFRTc-UkAIkMfOmn2ks9gEJO/s572/OnThinkingForYourself.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="572" data-original-width="355" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij5gMctlP280tMQVOpf9JPv1e_2eARv8XGVD6nKIhWaAbWtb6bQqHo4aZVAEzSILUnkSoOsG78gYc0q5w5N5g5GF1Y01kD258h-PP00ft-7-ej23vQly_JCB8HIS0UbkFG-s4M0HYlfaVBFDr9GqyAdHzl7yMz4DZwzJdMQFRTc-UkAIkMfOmn2ks9gEJO/s320/OnThinkingForYourself.jpg" width="199" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><blockquote><span style="color: #0c343d;">THIS LITTLE BOOK IS A collection of essays I wrote for <i>The Atlantic</i> that emanates from my stubborn desire to think for myself. Any time a person in authority tells me that I must believe their version of events—even when the truth is so obviously different—has my attention. Some of them are about very serious subjects, such as the brutal attack on Salman Rushdie or the media’s certainty that a video of an adolescent on the Washington Mall shows him committing a hate crime. Others are about extremely nonserious subjects, such as … well, you’ll see. They all come from the same impulse, however—and they are certainly a product of George Orwell’s observation that <i>“to see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” </i><br /><br />It’s more true now than in his day: Here is what you have to believe to be a “good” person—someone “clubbable,” to use an old phrase—and here are the facts on the ground. <br /><br />I can tell you that each time I finished one of these essays, I heard a tiny, satisfying kind of “click.” I had done the best I could to find out what had happened, correct the record, and draw a conclusion supported by facts. <br /><br />The world is full of glittering images and salesmen eager to get you to buy one of them. But it’s your life and your mind, and—as of present writing—you have every right to think and speak and write for yourself. You’re needed out here…</span><br /><br />Flanagan, Caitlin. <u>On Thinking for Yourself</u> (Atlantic Editions) (pp. xiii-xiv). Zando. Kindle Edition. </blockquote></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">A fine writer. Great sense of humor.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>ALSO ON DECK</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhskpPtRa2eJdwa6lgmKP168mS4DNNUfHWJfQDVRtz2VMB_5bnKvsS3OD2WDuVKDHAqQsKNzqhN1IV-3O0_IUULmTY15Oxjmm8xprYVK5lFA2VR7FfCxNVCEu_TOLTKV1z_MBJzFEThGMFy7lMhebBFDUtLyUEpQISGQsLRo9KMuDnJUhhuG_yOh847krV6/s600/SportsGaming.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="346" data-original-width="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhskpPtRa2eJdwa6lgmKP168mS4DNNUfHWJfQDVRtz2VMB_5bnKvsS3OD2WDuVKDHAqQsKNzqhN1IV-3O0_IUULmTY15Oxjmm8xprYVK5lFA2VR7FfCxNVCEu_TOLTKV1z_MBJzFEThGMFy7lMhebBFDUtLyUEpQISGQsLRo9KMuDnJUhhuG_yOh847krV6/s16000/SportsGaming.jpg" /></a></div><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Saw this on <i>60 Minute</i>s last night. Goes to my <a href="https://alabamaalumnifootballleague.blogspot.com" target="_blank">now-abandoned absurd non-starter</a> proposal.</b><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vDsLu0CWcgk" width="560" youtube-src-id="vDsLu0CWcgk"></iframe></div><br />Interesting. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>TUESDAY UPDATE</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Dr. Benjamin's new book is out. I'm whacked upside the head from the very first page.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTkc1BRKx6HzEYv_ugekA646b37wiZqN6cu4-eaiKZsedEuYmYXjOHByDYCNiXZOFg90G711Nl2SbRh10Im_RTaR6f0Nj5dC-1AJ0S0xmIKopOnvyrZd7NO6zDXUKKr_sIYlnGY-WyvG-63I7fpnkZha_m0iXCEZfMTa_4sXJ5yCV6o3SUZHTBI6sdPhrn/s877/Imagination1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="877" data-original-width="600" height="686" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTkc1BRKx6HzEYv_ugekA646b37wiZqN6cu4-eaiKZsedEuYmYXjOHByDYCNiXZOFg90G711Nl2SbRh10Im_RTaR6f0Nj5dC-1AJ0S0xmIKopOnvyrZd7NO6zDXUKKr_sIYlnGY-WyvG-63I7fpnkZha_m0iXCEZfMTa_4sXJ5yCV6o3SUZHTBI6sdPhrn/w470-h686/Imagination1.jpg" width="470" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;">Yikes.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>THURSDAY UPDATE</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">I bought Dr. Benjamin's book on Tuesday, finished it yesterday. A lot to ponder. Elegantly written, tightly argued, a pleasure to read. Princeton is lucky to have her. More on it shortly. I'm listening to SCOTUS Orals at the moment, re: the Trump CO primary election ballot removal thing per Amendment 14, Section 3 ("insurrection").<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">__________</div><div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><iframe allowtansparency="true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets/tweet_button.html" style="height: 20px; width: 130px;"></iframe>BobbyGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807934795994985233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010387589635528818.post-35936858543301587032024-02-03T12:48:00.005-05:002024-02-03T13:06:26.890-05:00Rx: We interrupt our endless litany of intractable exigencies for some pure inspiring Goodness<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GncLhjDe8Aw" width="560" youtube-src-id="GncLhjDe8Aw"></iframe></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>At 2:33 this relatively polite, kind chorale ballad rockets off into breathtaking <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Collier" target="_blank">genius</a> orbit.</b><br /></div>BobbyGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807934795994985233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010387589635528818.post-63048858911383904902024-01-29T14:43:00.035-05:002024-02-04T11:58:27.903-05:00A breadth of sneering anti-"Woke Cultural Elites" vitriol.<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b> One Convenient Location.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b> </b></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq4RtPw8GB4ZspridY7W-C5VwnaXP7nqWiFIuAtGfToSdg7Spz7C1CC9-KL17P4qhoNpqp5-FEa6oNtfrd-EEC15gVDGrVWabMZkCK_49PrkPeX_F_Mxv6BiIO8xEgrXxQb206ZtGAkPsHX5rhnvpMNmG3SEtgSvsnwXoULX4_mEnK965SsXy1LavqDvPf/s856/Heritanon2025BC.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="856" data-original-width="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq4RtPw8GB4ZspridY7W-C5VwnaXP7nqWiFIuAtGfToSdg7Spz7C1CC9-KL17P4qhoNpqp5-FEa6oNtfrd-EEC15gVDGrVWabMZkCK_49PrkPeX_F_Mxv6BiIO8xEgrXxQb206ZtGAkPsHX5rhnvpMNmG3SEtgSvsnwXoULX4_mEnK965SsXy1LavqDvPf/s16000/Heritanon2025BC.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>~ <a href="https://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/project2025/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf" target="_blank">900 pages</a> </b></span><span style="font-size: medium;">[pdf]</span><span style="font-size: large;"><b> of what they call their "Opening Salvo."</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b> </b></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJw-3iMqO234OL2GtWbjW6VAbeDC77fpatyFiNtNeC4ZDjumoCfwQYbqDHvPjm6wK4T5H3lXG_mrsK4H01xmuT1I9emTypKNlWUzhWn0gUCgl8sjWrwIAT9nxGbLDUtVQrGObKRBTv9g2xmc6hsS2Gs0RVBeM7DZfXkOBXEfCy7dBhadG2LuuYocpGWXq7/s1690/Project2025MandatePgs4-5.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1690" data-original-width="1184" height="702" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJw-3iMqO234OL2GtWbjW6VAbeDC77fpatyFiNtNeC4ZDjumoCfwQYbqDHvPjm6wK4T5H3lXG_mrsK4H01xmuT1I9emTypKNlWUzhWn0gUCgl8sjWrwIAT9nxGbLDUtVQrGObKRBTv9g2xmc6hsS2Gs0RVBeM7DZfXkOBXEfCy7dBhadG2LuuYocpGWXq7/w491-h702/Project2025MandatePgs4-5.jpg" width="491" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #4c1130;">Any logical incoherence in the foregoing paragraph jump out at you?<br /><i>"Americans' First Amendment rights?"</i> As long as you, minmally, abstain from citing<br />or writing favorably about the words & phrases fundamental to the "Woke" cohort?<br />Moreover, your use of such terminology (unless evoked disparagingly)<br />precludes your eligibility for federal employment in 2025 and beyond.<br /></b></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>LATE BREAKING ADDITION, FEB 4:</b></span><span style="font-size: small;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><blockquote><span style="color: #0c343d;">THE CONCEPT OF FREE SPEECH evolved in the West for 2,000 years, beginning with the Athenians (although not without a few setbacks, such as the death of Socrates). But America was the first country in history to enshrine a formal, legal, and enforceable protection for free expression, ensuring that people have the right to speak no matter who’s pissed off or how powerful they are. <br /><br />Whenever a society collapses in on itself, free speech is the first thing to go. That’s how you know we’re in the process of closing up shop. Our legal protections remain in place—that’s why so many of us were able to smack the Trump piñata to such effect—but the <i>culture</i> of free speech is eroding every day. Ask an Oberlin student—fresh outta Shaker Heights, coming in hot, with a heart as big as all outdoors and a 3 in AP Bio—to tell you what speech is acceptable, and she’ll tell you that it’s speech that doesn’t hurt the feelings of anyone belonging to a protected class.</span><br /><br />Flanagan, Caitlin. <u>On Thinking for Yoursel</u>f (Atlantic Editions) (pp. 72-73). Zando. Kindle Edition.<span style="font-size: medium;"><b> <br /></b></span></blockquote></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>On the heels of my prior <a href="https://regionalextensioncenter.blogspot.com/2024/01/npr-while-in-car-another-author-and.html" target="_blank">Dr. Blackstock</a> post, some interesting and timely reading.</b></span><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Lots more shortly. Gotta go fetch Calvin... </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>UPDATE</b> <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaXprYjLmp_Gr0tbsTbcS_Lzlm-S1lwDNAWvW7ux-7DN4M-PKLtHKMCCXIcxlIp6aibFKKegpWRCCt4yhGlHZzOR-3e3k3zw4lhYQKqiKLvLROxj-JhIwxiJG8DGfUESQG4X6ze-Na_F0qln2M39x3PMlBMdXV9Djc-hDemYbI1Z4hJvQwOEhSE7lg926S/s666/RacialDrumbeat.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="666" data-original-width="600" height="618" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaXprYjLmp_Gr0tbsTbcS_Lzlm-S1lwDNAWvW7ux-7DN4M-PKLtHKMCCXIcxlIp6aibFKKegpWRCCt4yhGlHZzOR-3e3k3zw4lhYQKqiKLvLROxj-JhIwxiJG8DGfUESQG4X6ze-Na_F0qln2M39x3PMlBMdXV9Djc-hDemYbI1Z4hJvQwOEhSE7lg926S/w557-h618/RacialDrumbeat.jpg" width="557" /></a> <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: arial;"><b><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/01/dei-lawsuit-penn-state/677268/" target="_blank">Zack De Piero</a></b> taught writing for four years in the English department at Penn State’s Abington campus. Then he resigned and, in 2023, filed a lawsuit alleging that administrators and other faculty members discriminated against him because he is white. In his telling, the school’s diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by creating a hostile work environment. In response, hundreds of academics signed an open letter calling the lawsuit a reactionary attack on “ongoing efforts in diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.”</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: arial;">The dispute, like so many in higher education, pits a faction that believes that the prevailing campus attitudes toward identity are racist against a faction that believes that they help fight racism. It is hardly unique in raising the question of whether DEI initiatives ever go too far. Still, this case stands out, not only because it resulted in a federal lawsuit, but because earlier this month, a judge denied Penn State’s motion to dismiss De Piero’s hostile-workplace claim. The case can now go to trial.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: arial;"><br />The ruling comes as backlash against DEI initiatives is growing and questions about when they violate antidiscrimination law remain unsettled. More significant, it establishes a standard that federal judges of varying ideologies could plausibly adopt, and that other plaintiffs can use to bring bias claims to trial.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: arial;"><br />This isn’t a case where, say, a white Donald Trump appointee who hates academia took an extreme position, like “Any departure from color-blindness is illegal,” that would be overturned on appeal. This particular judge is more difficult for DEI partisans to dismiss. Wendy Beetlestone, a Black district-court judge born in Nigeria, was appointed to the bench by Barack Obama. She was announced last year as the University of Liverpool’s next chancellor; she is clearly not hostile to higher education. And the substance of her ruling is hard for would-be critics to reject in full…<br />____<br /></span></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm5yBdToNjh15udhGLFnW_LkXtAV2EF4CTInS_MB6wBFssFykUdCjSGVRxvD6NnlLYDYSwnp9LwTQZ-7gRr92oCEwsvEg2WyfOFCuQV_H5_4TNbdiZ-Qi16rIgzhe6KMp9LZEOWyyNm8PhWTZorLxlfTmO8wxZ4a2CT_pCXM6E21DlrglwIyiLhB0dFTzt/s600/AgainstDEI.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="556" data-original-width="600" height="501" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm5yBdToNjh15udhGLFnW_LkXtAV2EF4CTInS_MB6wBFssFykUdCjSGVRxvD6NnlLYDYSwnp9LwTQZ-7gRr92oCEwsvEg2WyfOFCuQV_H5_4TNbdiZ-Qi16rIgzhe6KMp9LZEOWyyNm8PhWTZorLxlfTmO8wxZ4a2CT_pCXM6E21DlrglwIyiLhB0dFTzt/w540-h501/AgainstDEI.jpg" width="540" /></a></div><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: arial;"><b><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-campaign-against-dei" target="_blank">Critical race theory</a></b> was yesterday’s scandal. Today, diversity-equity-and-inclusion initiatives are in the crosshairs of critics across the political spectrum who seek to dismantle any notion that racism is systemic and thus deserving of systemic remedies. Though the crisis at Harvard University began with questions concerning the prevalence of antisemitism and ended with charges of plagiarism against its president, Claudine Gay—who then resigned—for many of Gay’s opponents, D.E.I. initiatives appear to have been the main target. When the conservative activist Chris Rufo wrote in the Wall Street Journal about the role of conservatives, including himself, in ending Gay’s presidency, antisemitism and plagiarism received no meaningful mention. Instead, Rufo focussed on conservatives’ efforts to end D.E.I. in higher education. In his own long statement, Gay’s chief critic, the billionaire hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman, said that D.E.I. was the “root cause” of antisemitism on Harvard’s campus…</span></blockquote><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span>There's a ton more. These will serve illustratively <i>apropos</i> of the broad cultural gnashing for the moment.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>MORE PROJECT 2025 BC PRIOR TO NITE-NITE<br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxAtnGjfmxxyzz4-11bFVz2ufvw6lI5_tRG7AVeXxDVFYMX3RfC6144Q3wu-gvcwIxiIlAlwm255lneLQv1xZdelob-HslPbZEV9aL9O13v9n-n8tj11IHdSJJHRHf7Z1ahfKDkODDSb20iYZEpqc8cLHTgB1181J_KeL1r_UaMbMGbyI7qtcuhQ0EdIPq/s600/Porn2025.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="279" data-original-width="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxAtnGjfmxxyzz4-11bFVz2ufvw6lI5_tRG7AVeXxDVFYMX3RfC6144Q3wu-gvcwIxiIlAlwm255lneLQv1xZdelob-HslPbZEV9aL9O13v9n-n8tj11IHdSJJHRHf7Z1ahfKDkODDSb20iYZEpqc8cLHTgB1181J_KeL1r_UaMbMGbyI7qtcuhQ0EdIPq/s16000/Porn2025.jpg" /></a></div><p></p><p>OK, whatever your opinion of the breadth of consenting adults' erotica proclivities and indulgences (irrespective of media expression format), <i>this</i> lame willful conflation is, well,—utterly predictable, I guess. First, gauzy as it may be jurisprudentially, it's <i>"obscenity"</i> that crosses the <i>decisis</i> ConLaw line. Moreover, the characterization of porn as "omnipresently manifested" in "transgender ideology and sexualization of chlldren..."</p><div style="text-align: left;"><b><i>What?</i></b> Need I really elaborate? Flamboyant adult hetero "swinger" Roger Stone apparently didn't get The Memo. Neither did the FL anti-woke book banners “Moms For Liberty” FFM video hotties.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The foregoing rather exemplifies the aggregate problem with this poignant "Opening Salvo." I am currently close to 400 pages through these ~900 pages.<b><span style="color: #990000;">**</span></b> This crew simply <i>cannot resist</i> larding up even otherwise often relatively unremarkable policy reform propositions (however "illiberal") with their fevered (projective?) visions of innocent toddlers fellating Cultural Elite Woke Trannies.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>(<b><span style="color: #990000;">**</span></b> <span style="color: #20124d;">And, I've keyword/phrase-searched most of the principal red-meat straw-gender-fluid fallacies spanning the text in pursuit of their conclusionary contexts. Yeah, the riff is endemic. Don't take me at my word. <i>"Do Your Own Research."</i></span> Cmd-F is Your Friend.)<br /></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYNOw_oZlKCX0q_FRbn9zr08VQO-He8CIqSG7SV8o4TbwDxbykyutaglHOLvX_uNvFRLzHTHeeWTEKSZmu02Cy6VHSTS526BcPDe6G1D_8ANrvJRxcPozfSgU7bqxXof-dgm6Yl2nzYAlcx3Xj-PAZiAchmePCkzeP-jc6TpBAWP3hLLYLb0rDLUZXggNl/s836/TC1.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="836" data-original-width="552" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYNOw_oZlKCX0q_FRbn9zr08VQO-He8CIqSG7SV8o4TbwDxbykyutaglHOLvX_uNvFRLzHTHeeWTEKSZmu02Cy6VHSTS526BcPDe6G1D_8ANrvJRxcPozfSgU7bqxXof-dgm6Yl2nzYAlcx3Xj-PAZiAchmePCkzeP-jc6TpBAWP3hLLYLb0rDLUZXggNl/s16000/TC1.png" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiznk-ujWWv_az08sR2fR9Y49SsNhyphenhyphenIOMjqc86necvTwU58l0wFnZqMI9EFtw_1VZA_XzOzBDnfJ9EapFIcLJTXYf6tYgNQsv5lQXrzl9IewvNINy50la_6B8KrudTcZpTt9S9ImM5DJCZU4qPaqwBnRbqpOMP5_QKHkldffHNrcfz6NDc_6n1jGvZJcXsm/s584/TC2.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="584" data-original-width="562" height="575" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiznk-ujWWv_az08sR2fR9Y49SsNhyphenhyphenIOMjqc86necvTwU58l0wFnZqMI9EFtw_1VZA_XzOzBDnfJ9EapFIcLJTXYf6tYgNQsv5lQXrzl9IewvNINy50la_6B8KrudTcZpTt9S9ImM5DJCZU4qPaqwBnRbqpOMP5_QKHkldffHNrcfz6NDc_6n1jGvZJcXsm/w553-h575/TC2.png" width="553" /></a></div></div><b><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinbpOwQUydHBUAaBqupQnw0lAG490On2aSbPIceEN5kI9_EHe0Vemj6m8sVkyFPJX_CqKgevI6vuw-dmHFObO-HRxNuVralNWrNS26xqqAh9IXqycoHKLWQjZY2QA5nqm0DzKIP7NbahBPpKkAdC9lTafU5UunC9M1nxsigM-YJx1PGSUDljj1M1lelpMM/s755/TC3.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="755" data-original-width="562" height="738" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinbpOwQUydHBUAaBqupQnw0lAG490On2aSbPIceEN5kI9_EHe0Vemj6m8sVkyFPJX_CqKgevI6vuw-dmHFObO-HRxNuVralNWrNS26xqqAh9IXqycoHKLWQjZY2QA5nqm0DzKIP7NbahBPpKkAdC9lTafU5UunC9M1nxsigM-YJx1PGSUDljj1M1lelpMM/w550-h738/TC3.png" width="550" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #990000;">**</span> Gotta love SECTION 4(26), by Peter Navarro,<br />now convicted & sentenced for Contempt of Congress.</b><br /></td></tr></tbody></table></b><b>TUESDAY UPDATE</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><blockquote><span style="color: #073763;">...On the right there is constant complaints of the “liberal bias” in the media, and on the left there are complaints of the rise of right-wing media which they feel is biased and radicalizing. The culture wars focus mainly on schools, because those schools teach not only facts and knowledge but convey the values of our society. The left views DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiates as promoting social justice while the right views it as brainwashing the next generation with liberal propaganda. This is an oversimplification, but it is the basic dynamic. Even industry has been targeted by the culture wars… </span><i>—<a href="https://theness.com/neurologicablog/controlling-the-narrative-with-ai/" target="_blank">The Neurologica Blog</a></i><a href="https://theness.com/neurologicablog/controlling-the-narrative-with-ai/" target="_blank"><i><br /></i></a></blockquote></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>MORE PROJECT 2025 BC FUN</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbJ9bdpWp4J_C3SVYJXh4WVlJZ4gbnNBQ_ualuJvIK7C3zYja-5y7V23BYvhnxZ798nqAk_GWiMWx3VwpwxSaWv-zZRHC0Wc8ofEyTDJ_fiyfn2Tv-4FX9iWkFhrCCen9xVsesr59WgxnJcUDsIz1nAxZmQbcfejMCuCxBIEPDsPukjlvm6KuV-9oQrh2V/s542/P2025hiring.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="542" data-original-width="537" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbJ9bdpWp4J_C3SVYJXh4WVlJZ4gbnNBQ_ualuJvIK7C3zYja-5y7V23BYvhnxZ798nqAk_GWiMWx3VwpwxSaWv-zZRHC0Wc8ofEyTDJ_fiyfn2Tv-4FX9iWkFhrCCen9xVsesr59WgxnJcUDsIz1nAxZmQbcfejMCuCxBIEPDsPukjlvm6KuV-9oQrh2V/w396-h400/P2025hiring.jpg" width="396" /></a></div><br />Hmmm... they're gonna be hiring? (A sort of "temp agency?" I’m seein’ a Netflix Series…) What could <i>possibly</i> go wrong?</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN9fgjhjJ1ULpACfz74iaDzTlsBzL1NcBPxIiiEsSQGl9VPYu9w82e1Ai1EZtwej74d7Fv56Ogk-vmrAHlWakS5Iw0qPQq7sKwzLYwzwM_sJresukG4pZ7TK_Xen-qv-yMQwQNoXxgOgQriEASRXexH2p_XZzhial0m2-2ZmiDjC-9QZm_96yBWYq6a1RR/s505/P2025submitPhone.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="505" data-original-width="501" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN9fgjhjJ1ULpACfz74iaDzTlsBzL1NcBPxIiiEsSQGl9VPYu9w82e1Ai1EZtwej74d7Fv56Ogk-vmrAHlWakS5Iw0qPQq7sKwzLYwzwM_sJresukG4pZ7TK_Xen-qv-yMQwQNoXxgOgQriEASRXexH2p_XZzhial0m2-2ZmiDjC-9QZm_96yBWYq6a1RR/s320/P2025submitPhone.jpg" width="317" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">Well, you have to give up personal info to simply get a peek at the application. Congratulations, you are now a donor prospect. (<i>"Your monthly donation commitment will prioritize your application ranking."</i>)<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;">Just let me <i>guess</i> as to what kinds of CV/personal "vetting" info you'll have to submit? Will it include a gamut of ideological purity questions? A list of all your social media accounts?<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Seriously, kiddies?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Spend a bit of time surfing their website. Draw your own conclusions.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">THE PROJECT 2025 BC <a href="https://www.project2025.org/training/presidential-administration-academy/" target="_blank">PRESIDENTIAL ADMINISTRATION ACADEMY</a></span></b><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Wafts of Trump University in the air?</b></span></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>BRIEF GRATUITOUS OFF-TOPIC ERRATUM</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I'm 10 days out from my 78th birthday. I think a new car is in order.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIE79ECJtx-glGLQHLnoJu9Z1PK0rMxCkKPxisRWwXE8n18_fobgsJm0e94AW32WVZLlS-z3rusVP5ba6vkvRSscYX3jGlD7tuuEkB2UYAPPUzeqVYmw9zFd7TFMLE3i3FFmGVSeyztGj52JYYgNGW0FM3Tf2EwCVXZ5RDbM3pm0zUfizOfEzZNnGKJ4SB/s575/OldDriver.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="492" data-original-width="575" height="343" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIE79ECJtx-glGLQHLnoJu9Z1PK0rMxCkKPxisRWwXE8n18_fobgsJm0e94AW32WVZLlS-z3rusVP5ba6vkvRSscYX3jGlD7tuuEkB2UYAPPUzeqVYmw9zFd7TFMLE3i3FFmGVSeyztGj52JYYgNGW0FM3Tf2EwCVXZ5RDbM3pm0zUfizOfEzZNnGKJ4SB/w400-h343/OldDriver.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: left;">arf, arf...</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>UPDATE</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="color: #660000;">ragion di stato</span></i></span></b><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Get a load of <i>this</i> dude:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></span></p><blockquote><p><b><span style="color: #0c343d; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">...<span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Alternatively, in a formulation I prefer, one can imagine an<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><i style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">illiberal legalism</i><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>that
is not “conservative” at all, insofar as standard conservatism is
content to play defensively within the procedural rules of the liberal
order.</span></span></span></b></p>
<p><b><span style="color: #0c343d; font-size: small;"><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">This
approach should take as its starting point substantive moral principles
that conduce to the common good, principles that officials (including,
but by no means limited to, judges) should read into the majestic
generalities and ambiguities of the written Constitution. These
principles include respect for the authority of rule and of rulers;
respect for the hierarchies needed for society to function; solidarity
within and among families, social groups, and workers’ unions, trade
associations, and professions; appropriate subsidiarity, or respect for
the legitimate roles of public bodies and associations at all levels of
government and society; and a candid willingness to “legislate
morality”—indeed, a recognition that all legislation is necessarily
founded on some substantive conception of morality, and that the
promotion of morality is a core and legitimate function of authority.
Such principles promote the common good and make for a just and
well-ordered society.</span></span></b></p>
<p><b><span style="color: #0c343d; font-size: small;"><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">To be sure, some have attempted to ground an idea of the common good<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a data-event-element="inline link" href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07T8HN95S/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: underline 0.05em; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; text-underline-offset: 0.2em; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">on an originalist understanding</a><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">,
taking advantage of the natural-rights orientation of the founding era.
Yet that approach leaves originalism in ultimate control, hoping that
the original understanding will happen to be morally appealing. I am
talking about a different, more ambitious project, one that<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a data-event-element="inline link" href="https://balkin.blogspot.com/2016/05/abandoning-defensive-crouch-liberal.html" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: underline 0.05em; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; text-underline-offset: 0.2em; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">abandons the defensive crouch</a><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>of
originalism and that refuses any longer to play within the terms set by
legal liberalism. Ronald Dworkin, the legal scholar and philosopher,
used to urge “</span><a data-event-element="inline link" href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1996/03/21/the-moral-reading-of-the-constitution/" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: underline 0.05em; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; text-underline-offset: 0.2em; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">moral readings of the Constitution</a><u style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">.”</u><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Common-good
constitutionalism is methodologically Dworkinian, but advocates a very
different set of substantive moral commitments and priorities from
Dworkin’s, which were of a conventionally left-liberal bent.</span></span></b></p>
<p><b><span style="color: #0c343d; font-size: small;"><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Common-good
constitutionalism is not legal positivism, meaning that it is not
tethered to particular written instruments of civil law or the will of
the legislators who created them. Instead it draws upon an immemorial
tradition that includes, in addition to positive law, sources such as
the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><i style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">ius gentium</i><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">—the
law of nations or the “general law” common to all civilized legal
systems—and principles of objective natural morality, including legal
morality in the sense used by the American legal theorist<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a data-event-element="inline link" href="https://www.amazon.com/Morality-Law-Revised-Storrs-Lectures/dp/0300010702" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: underline 0.05em; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; text-underline-offset: 0.2em; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Lon Fuller</a><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">: the inner logic that the activity of law should follow in order to function well as law.</span></span></b></p>
<p><b><span style="color: #0c343d; font-size: small;"><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Common-good
constitutionalism is also not legal liberalism or libertarianism. Its
main aim is certainly not to maximize individual autonomy or to minimize
the abuse of power (an<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a data-event-element="inline link" href="https://www.amazon.com/Constitution-Risk-Adrian-Vermeule/dp/1107043727" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: underline 0.05em; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; text-underline-offset: 0.2em; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">incoherent goal</a><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>in
any event), but instead to ensure that the ruler has the power needed
to rule well. A corollary is that to act outside or against inherent
norms of good rule is to act tyrannically, forfeiting the right to rule,
but the central aim of the constitutional order is to promote good
rule, not to “protect liberty” as an end in itself. Constraints on power
are good only derivatively, insofar as they contribute to the common
good; the emphasis should not be on liberty as an abstract object of
quasi-religious devotion, but on particular human liberties whose
protection is a duty of justice or prudence on the part of the ruler.</span></span></b></p>
<p><b><span style="color: #0c343d; font-size: small;"><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Finally,
unlike legal liberalism, common-good constitutionalism does not suffer
from a horror of political domination and hierarchy, because it sees
that law is parental, a wise teacher and an inculcator of good habits.
Just authority in rulers can be exercised for the good of subjects, if
necessary even<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a data-event-element="inline link" href="http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102185.htm" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: underline 0.05em; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; text-underline-offset: 0.2em; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">against the subjects’ own perceptions</a><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>of
what is best for them—perceptions that may change over time anyway, as
the law teaches, habituates, and re-forms them. Subjects will come to
thank the ruler whose legal strictures, possibly experienced at first as
coercive, encourage subjects to form more authentic desires for the
individual and common goods,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a data-event-element="inline link" href="http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2095.htm" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: underline 0.05em; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; text-underline-offset: 0.2em; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">better habits</a><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">, and beliefs that better track and promote communal well-being.</span></span></b></p>
<p><b><span style="color: #0c343d; font-size: small;"><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Common-good constitutionalism draws inspiration from the early modern theory of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><i style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">ragion di stato—</i><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">“</span><a data-event-element="inline link" href="https://www.amazon.com/Botero-Cambridge-History-Political-Thought/dp/131650672X" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: underline 0.05em; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; text-underline-offset: 0.2em; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">reason of state</a><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">,”
which, despite the connotations that have become attached to its name,
is not at all a tradition of unscrupulous machination. (Indeed, it was
formulated precisely to<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a data-event-element="inline link" href="https://www.amazon.com/Counter-Reformation-Prince-Anti-Machiavellianism-Catholic-Statecraft/dp/0807819255" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: underline 0.05em; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; text-underline-offset: 0.2em; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">combat amoral technocratic visions of rule</a><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>as the maximization of princely power.) Instead the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><i style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">ragion di stato</i><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>tradition
elaborates a set of principles for the just exercise of authority.
Promoting a substantive vision of the good is, always and everywhere,
the proper function of rulers. Every act of public-regarding government
has been founded on such a vision; any contrary view is an<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a data-event-element="inline link" href="https://www.amazon.com/Liberal-Illusion-louis-veuillot/dp/1892331322/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: underline 0.05em; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; text-underline-offset: 0.2em; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">illusion</a><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">.
Liberal and libertarian constitutional decisions that claim to rule out
“morality” as a ground for public action are incoherent, even
fraudulent, for they rest on merely a particular account of morality, an
implausible account.</span></span></b></p>
<p><b><span style="color: #0c343d; font-size: small;"><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Given
that it is legitimate for rulers to pursue the common good,
constitutional law should elaborate subsidiary principles that make such
rule efficacious. Constitutional law must afford broad scope for rulers
to promote—as the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><i style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">ragion di stato</i><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>put it, in a famous trinity of principles—</span><i style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">peace</i><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">,</span><i style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>justice</i><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">, and</span><i style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>abundance</i><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">. Today, we may add<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><i style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">health</i><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><i style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">safety</i><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>to
that list, in very much the same spirit. In a globalized world that
relates to the natural and biological environment in a deeply disordered
way, a just state is a state that has ample authority to protect the
vulnerable from the ravages of pandemics, natural disasters, and climate
change, and from the underlying structures of corporate power that
contribute to these events. Because the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><i style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">ragion di stato</i><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>is not ashamed of strong rule, does not see it as presumptively suspect in the way liberalism does, a further corollary is that<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><i style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">authority</i><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><i style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">hierarchy</i><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>are also principles of constitutionalism. Finally, and perhaps most important, just rule emphasizes<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><i style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">solidarity<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></i><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">and</span><i style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>subsidiarity.</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Authority
is held in trust for and exercised on behalf of the community and the
subsidiary groups that make up a community, not for the benefit of
individuals taken one by one.</span></span></b></p>
<p><b><span style="color: #0c343d; font-size: small;"><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">How,
if at all, are these principles to be grounded in the constitutional
text and in conventional legal sources? The sweeping generalities and
famous ambiguities of our Constitution, an old and in places obscure
document, afford ample space for substantive moral readings that promote
peace, justice, abundance, health, and safety, by means of just
authority, hierarchy, solidarity, and subsidiarity. The general-welfare
clause, which gives Congress “power to … provide for the common Defence
and general Welfare of the United States,” is an obvious place to ground
principles of common-good constitutionalism (despite<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a data-event-element="inline link" href="https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/general-welfare-clause/" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: underline 0.05em; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; text-underline-offset: 0.2em; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">a liberal tradition of reading the clause in a cramped fashion</a><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">),
as is the Constitution’s preamble, with its references to general
welfare and domestic tranquility, to the perfection of the union, and to
justice. Constitutional words such as<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><i style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">freedom</i><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><i style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">liberty</i><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>need not be given libertarian readings; instead they can be read in light of a<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a data-event-element="inline link" href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_20061888_libertas.html" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: underline 0.05em; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; text-underline-offset: 0.2em; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">better conception of liberty</a><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>as the natural human capacity to act in accordance with reasoned morality.</span></span></b></p>
<p><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: #0c343d; display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">...</span><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: #0c343d; display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">The
Court’s jurisprudence on free speech, abortion, sexual liberties, and
related matters will prove vulnerable under a regime of common-good
constitutionalism. The<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a data-event-element="inline link" href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/505/833/%2523tab-opinion-1959105" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: underline 0.05em; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; text-underline-offset: 0.2em; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">claim</a><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">, from the notorious joint opinion in<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><i style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: georgia; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Planned Parenthood v. Casey</i><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">,
that each individual may “define one’s own concept of existence, of
meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life” should be
not only rejected but stamped as abominable, beyond the realm of the
acceptable forever after. So too should the libertarian assumptions
central to free-speech law and free-speech ideology—that government is
forbidden to judge the quality and moral worth of public speech, that “</span><a data-event-element="inline link" href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/403/15" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: underline 0.05em; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; text-underline-offset: 0.2em; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">one man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric</a><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">,” and so on—fall under the ax.<span class="Apple-converted-space">..</span></span></span></b></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: georgia; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"></span></span></span></p>
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/common-good-constitutionalism/609037/" target="_blank">Adrian Vermeule </a></span></b><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">After </span></span>reading up on His Opus Dei-ness in finer depth (he's got a Thing for Monarchism), I tweeted him (he's at Harvard) with a question concerning a couple of core specifics <i>apropos</i> of "<i>the Common Good."</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> </i></div><div style="text-align: left;">His response was simply to block me for my Great Unwashed Temerity.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieNuvrk7rsu9YWIFLUSkYWS-oUPvLxr_yJZQpJgfoDT41dzfBg2ufYCZoKnWheLGh2MxayYG9hyphenhyphen-OLNJHCe2HK9Ae-aYkDvCSsTSCHYRoJCZwNhckKprPwjP97_Ww665Tn7F5DWm0iSAhSE1nt4cch4hxzUKGBEDE2bUpuerRQWQY6MknyxkI5H4C-5aGo/s600/AdrianVermeule.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="600" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieNuvrk7rsu9YWIFLUSkYWS-oUPvLxr_yJZQpJgfoDT41dzfBg2ufYCZoKnWheLGh2MxayYG9hyphenhyphen-OLNJHCe2HK9Ae-aYkDvCSsTSCHYRoJCZwNhckKprPwjP97_Ww665Tn7F5DWm0iSAhSE1nt4cch4hxzUKGBEDE2bUpuerRQWQY6MknyxkI5H4C-5aGo/w371-h263/AdrianVermeule.jpg" width="371" /></a></div> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Reproductive rights? <a href="https://regionalextensioncenter.blogspot.com/2023/11/womens-lesser-rights-back-in-headlines.html" target="_blank">Suck it up</a>, sistahs.</b><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>UPDATE</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b> </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y44fyh4ap7k" width="560" youtube-src-id="Y44fyh4ap7k"></iframe></div><br /> Watch it all closely.<br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b> </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>278 days to Nov 5th…</b></div><div style="text-align: left;">_______</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><iframe allowtansparency="true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets/tweet_button.html" style="height: 20px; width: 130px;"></iframe> <br /></div>BobbyGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807934795994985233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010387589635528818.post-31153421645669146382024-01-23T12:45:00.021-05:002024-01-27T20:38:19.890-05:00NPR while in the car: Another author and book come to my attention <div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Cheryl and I typically fetch our 4 yr old Grandson Calvin from his preschool on Mondays through Thursdays, so the kids can finish their workdays.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHYCFnYFfxVFBCODZLd13vVLmV8SJiFc2SFY42mgw3Bd2FvtkF6fKP3jEqfrhwf1YtGzo5KLgT8yPFD2kloaed7DK1MFoa5j9BS5Ncd1-Sn-7_LCffin7Qau9VoVaBsLflfk4yuWtBbtUVxffmukUNkJ82_gC3iXHT8V3r9xA9Q5uVonFHcziNvD19QvHf/s566/IMG_3191.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="566" data-original-width="531" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHYCFnYFfxVFBCODZLd13vVLmV8SJiFc2SFY42mgw3Bd2FvtkF6fKP3jEqfrhwf1YtGzo5KLgT8yPFD2kloaed7DK1MFoa5j9BS5Ncd1-Sn-7_LCffin7Qau9VoVaBsLflfk4yuWtBbtUVxffmukUNkJ82_gC3iXHT8V3r9xA9Q5uVonFHcziNvD19QvHf/w216-h230/IMG_3191.jpeg" width="216" /></a></div><b><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk0EwDMgrJIYP1MSFE9QwkDpFPgGTf7x-vD86J6HzO16QcVd6NeDF8EUkPU8QUKqRlvqbKLLM6wAWgFdrbvihrIFc42bY_ZZNQl-5FNEEuMPYC6KQ31vhgitaO7fe-lhhjgWTqnIjAA0sSLHgaqz8F5OEGa-cgNCcDEWtktM0VvhB8ljL8zON7wcg-4Ufj/s1536/IMG_2901.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="1308" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk0EwDMgrJIYP1MSFE9QwkDpFPgGTf7x-vD86J6HzO16QcVd6NeDF8EUkPU8QUKqRlvqbKLLM6wAWgFdrbvihrIFc42bY_ZZNQl-5FNEEuMPYC6KQ31vhgitaO7fe-lhhjgWTqnIjAA0sSLHgaqz8F5OEGa-cgNCcDEWtktM0VvhB8ljL8zON7wcg-4Ufj/w216-h253/IMG_2901.jpeg" width="216" /></a></div><b><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div>Yesterday while schlepping down to Fell's Point we had <a href="https://www.npr.org" target="_blank">NPR</a>'s <i>Fresh Air</i> on the radio.</b></span></div></b></span></div><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><iframe frameborder="0" height="206" scrolling="no" src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1197961989/1226126933" title="NPR embedded audio player" width="100%"></iframe></p><div style="text-align: left;"><b>I noted the author and book title in my iPhone. The book was released this morning.</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b> </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht3_J9XRzTpSqF2xFvsO6uuvpBSxqZfb0clhdykDH6ordw4H97-pbh773nKvoGXBrCGGSz1WQfeMYtdMQoQBmZYAfCc5E7WtebleAa3SQ1kwjPP61tfgcpvBcTUphtAVszvmfiL0-t11_mR5zBbniv6DTI3vPNooonugjvIqlA_iZUzYeNbuBD0CifRLK5/s534/Legacy.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="534" data-original-width="355" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht3_J9XRzTpSqF2xFvsO6uuvpBSxqZfb0clhdykDH6ordw4H97-pbh773nKvoGXBrCGGSz1WQfeMYtdMQoQBmZYAfCc5E7WtebleAa3SQ1kwjPP61tfgcpvBcTUphtAVszvmfiL0-t11_mR5zBbniv6DTI3vPNooonugjvIqlA_iZUzYeNbuBD0CifRLK5/w266-h400/Legacy.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://ucheblackstock.com" target="_blank">ucheblackstock.com</a></span></b></td></tr></tbody></table>Downloaded it first thing when I got up.</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b> </b></div><div style="text-align: left;">Reading it sort of "in reverse" at the outset, following the Intro: Epilogue, Acknowledgements, Chapters 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, and then back to 1 and moving forward... <i>"The Benjamin Button Analytical Reading Method."</i> I do this kind of path sometimes when I am conversant in the topic (retired Medicare analyst), feel like I can trust the author(s), and want to get a quick take on the policy/solutions recommendations.<i> e.g.,</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><blockquote><span style="color: #20124d;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">From CHAPTER 15: Actions Speak Louder than Words</span></b><br /><br /><b><i>To The Nation’s Health-Care Institutions</i></b>: You have historically, intentionally, and currently proven yourselves untrustworthy to Black communities. You have not treated Black patients with the humanity they deserve. You have excluded community partners in critical decision-making that has affected their neighborhoods and lives. You lack community members on the boards of your institutions. You have not formed meaningful and generative relationships with the community-based organizations that have been embedded in our communities for decades. In your hospital systems, you continue to use race-based tools to calculate, for example, kidney function, and health-care technologies with bias embedded in them, such as pulse oximeters that reinforce and even exacerbate racial health inequities. We need you to do better. We need you to provide structurally competent and culturally centered care to Black communities—care that takes into consideration the social, economic, and political context in which people live. We need you to be intentional about earning the trust of Black communities so that people will be more willing to seek care even before they really need it and have the opportunity to form meaningful and healthy relationships with health-care professionals. <br /><br /><b><i>To Medical Schools and Academic Medical Centers</i></b>: You have one of the most important jobs. You are educating our future physicians, but you are not doing enough. I left NYU and many more will leave academic medical centers because of empty and performative diversity statements; creating chief diversity officer or dean of diversity positions that are set up to fail by providing too little commitment in funding, administrative support, and empowerment; your pushback against feedback from Black students, staff, and faculty; and your upholding and relentless centering of white supremacist cultural values—like individualism, defensiveness, fear of open conflict, overemphasis of the written word, and quantity over quality—that the educator and activist Dr. Tema Jon Okun has written about so eloquently…<br /><br />Blackstock, Uché. <b><u>Legacy</u></b> </span>(pp. 256-257<span style="color: #20124d;">). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.<br /><br /><b><i>To White Physicians and Health-care Professionals</i></b>: This is not our struggle to fight alone. Your Black colleagues are exhausted. Your Black patients are dying. The first step toward fixing racial health inequities is for you to acknowledge that systemic racism exists and do your own due diligence to understand how it operates and impacts health outcomes. You must recognize your own individual biases and racism, no matter how altruistic or well intentioned you think you are. You may think you are treating all your patients the same, that you are colorblind, that you are giving everyone the best possible care, but you may be reinforcing systemic inequities in your interactions with Black patients by ignoring how interpersonal and systemic racism impact their health…</span>[pg 259]<span style="color: #20124d;"><br /><br /><b><i>To Elected Officials and Leaders</i></b>: Closing the gap of long-standing racial health inequities will require sustained investment and commitment at all levels of government to dismantle racism and the degree to which it impacts the social determinants of health in Black communities—housing, education, employment, transportation, access to health care and healthy foods, and structural racism within health-care systems…</span>[pg 260]<span style="color: #20124d;"><br /><br /><b><i>To White Americans</i></b>: You have work to do around your kitchen tables. No more hollow promises. No more ignoring our calls for action. And if you consider yourself liberal or a progressive or a supporter of Black Lives Matter, then that requires you to talk with your family, friends, loved ones, and acquaintances about systemic racism and their own biases, harmful decisions, and silence. Participating in the latest social media hashtag trend does not mean you have reckoned with anything. Our collective grief and the generational and systemic issues we face did not magically appear—white supremacy and privilege have manifested it all. We are living in two Americas because of systemic racism. I’m still angry that it took the savage murder of a Black man, George Floyd, by a white police officer for some white Americans to see the horror of racism. He and so many others of us should be alive today, and it should never have taken that heinous incident to wake you up… </span>[pg 262]<span style="color: #20124d;"><br /><br /><b><i>To The United States</i></b>: However tragic, depressing, and preventable this current moment is, I also think it’s a moment in which we are called upon to think about transformative change more broadly for Black Americans, including how we can and must provide more equitable and quality health care. <br /><br />If arguably the wealthiest, most well-resourced country in the world cannot take care of its own people, especially those who are crumbling under the weight of oppression, then I am deeply concerned about where we go from here. <br /><br />I hope that this book is an urgent reminder of the work we have left to do. It takes all of us, from each of our seats on the arc of justice, to make a real difference in people’s lives. Beyond rhetoric, we need everyone on board to dismantle systemic racism and white supremacy—these ills are greater than any one of us.</span> [pp 263-4]</blockquote></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">My first reaction was <b><i>"oh, boy, Tucker Carlson will have an aneurism!"</i><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">My next thought was <b><i>"Y'all gotta hook up with Mark Cuban. He is smacking the absolute shit outa the whiny-assed racist anti-DEI MAGA crowd these days."</i></b></span><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">BTW: See my 2015 riff on <b>"<a href="https://regionalextensioncenter.blogspot.com/2015/09/blackdocsmatter-race-and-health-its-not.html" target="_blank">#BlackDocsMatter</a>" </b>(please forgive the link rot).</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>"<a href="https://regionalextensioncenter.blogspot.com/2020/05/aghast-murder-of-george-floyd.html" target="_blank">George Floyd</a>?"</b> With ya there, this ole Whitey.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> <b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">Much more to come. This had not been on my radar for today.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>THURSDAY UPDATE</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdNLozCNRN8H-4ohOXqYLS7Gk5BpKIlFsAPHbgHhxo9lPBi-RIUeO1GWpDb_GKIiP6gPz6iHW6k3O6ITp1KDLdPMrpdT7Ef_7sN9qhZ_nPiQ7-qwFArl5zl_idjF-S7KbqDw3x268k12oAUz0tPK0Y3Ivg2zM0HZEZYhzTUNUJ5erQZgOvqmclG25_VT-U/s600/Uche4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="590" data-original-width="600" height="394" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdNLozCNRN8H-4ohOXqYLS7Gk5BpKIlFsAPHbgHhxo9lPBi-RIUeO1GWpDb_GKIiP6gPz6iHW6k3O6ITp1KDLdPMrpdT7Ef_7sN9qhZ_nPiQ7-qwFArl5zl_idjF-S7KbqDw3x268k12oAUz0tPK0Y3Ivg2zM0HZEZYhzTUNUJ5erQZgOvqmclG25_VT-U/w400-h394/Uche4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><div style="text-align: left;">Yeah. I am reminded of<a href="https://bgladd.blogspot.com/2009/05/us-health-care-policy-morass.html" target="_blank"> some 15 yr-old musings</a> of mine.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: arial;"><blockquote><b>THE U.S. "HEALTH CARE" "SYSTEM"?</b><br /><br />I will by no means be the first to note that our medical industry is not really a "system," nor is it predominantly about "health care." It is more aptly described as a patchwork post hoc disease and injury management and remediation enterprise, one that is more or less "systematic" in any true sense only at the clinical level. Beyond that it comprises a confounding perplex of endlessly contending for-profit and not-for-profit entities acting far too often at ruinously expensive cross-purposes.<br /><br />Another quick personal story:<br /><br />During my first tenure (early 1990's) serving as an analyst for the Nevada/Utah Medicare Peer Review Agency (they're now called "QIO's" - Quality Improvement Organizations), in addition to our core Medicare oversight work, we had a number of small sidebar contracts, one of which involved ongoing analytical assessments of the Clark County Nevada self-funded employee health plan. One morning I accompanied my Sup, our Senior Analyst Dr. Moore, to a regular meeting of the plan's Executive Committee, wherein we would report on our latest plan utilization/outcomes evaluation.<br /><br />A portion of the morning -- perhaps a half-hour, IIRC -- was always devoted to hearing claims denials appeals brought by Clark County employees. This day, two appeals were heard: one regarding an outpatient medical claim, the other concerning a dental encounter. The total sum at issue was about $350. Both appeals were denied, thereby "saving" the plan this nominal amount.<br /><br />Bored by this administrative tedium, as I sat at the conference table, I did a quick, rough estimate back-of-the-envelope calculation. About a dozen executive/professional people consumed a half hour adjudicating these disputes, or, equivalently, 6 FTE hours. Assume a plausible blended G&A-multiplied cost estimate of the total compensation time for all these folks, plus all of the clerical/administrative time consumed in the processing (and subsequently denying) of these minor claims from the moment of their filing to this very hour.<br /><br />Clark County <i>easily</i> spent well in excess of an <i>additional</i> $1,000 to "save" $350 at the expense of these two hapless employees, by my reckoning.<br /><br />Similar scenarios -- public and private -- surely play out every day within our "health care system." Clark County would have been way ahead to have simply vetted the initial claims for fraud and then <i>paid</i> them! (This is one observation implicitly at the heart of the "Universal Coverage / Single Payer" model.)<br /><br />But, as my Senior Medical Director was fond of pointing out, <i>"every misspent dollar in our health care system goes into <b>someone's</b> paycheck."</i></blockquote></span><b>I took a shot at "Single Payer" in 1994 via my first grad school paper—on "<a href="https://www.bgladd.com/PDF/JAMA1994SinglePayerProposalAssessment.pdf" target="_blank">Argument Analysis & Evaluation</a>." </b>[pdf]</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><blockquote><span style="color: #073763;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Argument synopsis:</span></b><br /><br /><b>Notwithstanding public misgivings about making significant public policy driven changes in the U.S.health care industry, there is extensive and persuasive empirical evidence of costly inadequacies in the system-such as lack of access/coverage uneven levels of quality of service and outcomes, market-driven rather clinical priorities, waste and duplication, etc., that can best be corrected by a unified approach to improvement driven by a scientific focus on quality issues (broadly defined) rather than those of short-term cost-control, competition, and piecemeal regulatory strategies and tactics.A single-payer health care system reformed by implementation of the ten principles detailed herein would at once extend medical access to all, reduce costs, improve clinical outcomes of the sick and injured, and elevate the overall health status of the nation, resulting in win-win consequences for providers and citizens alike. </b></span></blockquote></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">30 years later, the problems largely remain, or have worsened in some ways—particularly with respect to racial inequities.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>ERRATUM FROM 10 YRS AGO</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; position: relative; text-align: center;">“<a href="https://regionalextensioncenter.blogspot.com/2014/01/when-it-comes-to-health-your-zip-code.html" target="_blank">When it comes to health, your zip code matters more than your genetic code</a>.”</h3></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And, fast forward.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4-O8RjH72ks" width="560" youtube-src-id="4-O8RjH72ks"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>A BOBBYG RANT</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJWayVAz_kpIei00PmpRFWHpYXhuSYkCbCIlNJCcSPVKhkGyANN-n7TsjX1yPEtw29Bk5-NGrR4HvBShOL2FHcZ9-AVBnR_k7fwHGHAySIfGn03rtWA8rbbltGA9QvzKrUG47VnCDFI9zqrCLodA_8vRV_1Btn9HAYTzw1fchDrblZAefFzGuY2IWm1siz/s1460/IMG_3205.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1356" data-original-width="1460" height="429" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJWayVAz_kpIei00PmpRFWHpYXhuSYkCbCIlNJCcSPVKhkGyANN-n7TsjX1yPEtw29Bk5-NGrR4HvBShOL2FHcZ9-AVBnR_k7fwHGHAySIfGn03rtWA8rbbltGA9QvzKrUG47VnCDFI9zqrCLodA_8vRV_1Btn9HAYTzw1fchDrblZAefFzGuY2IWm1siz/w463-h429/IMG_3205.jpeg" width="463" /></a><b style="text-align: left;"> </b></div></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>ON THE CANARD OF "RACE"</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhURo_jFlcvLf1qRBT97f8wZqPAumc78vaeT2IXk4bdb-XwEkpOsu4vHGKGWf226WOzkjdTTeWswBTuG-bGy2jafRL52M20Qd69T5m9jovmggQmw2y4R5EpZWr126dfxeld-rFNhrvg5A_xdwQKLKHfYAL0pB6UftPGhqfo_f5yX3AyRVPpJUAAQdSlKkZy/s437/Unique.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="437" data-original-width="282" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhURo_jFlcvLf1qRBT97f8wZqPAumc78vaeT2IXk4bdb-XwEkpOsu4vHGKGWf226WOzkjdTTeWswBTuG-bGy2jafRL52M20Qd69T5m9jovmggQmw2y4R5EpZWr126dfxeld-rFNhrvg5A_xdwQKLKHfYAL0pB6UftPGhqfo_f5yX3AyRVPpJUAAQdSlKkZy/s320/Unique.jpg" width="206" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span><blockquote><span style="color: #660000; font-family: arial;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">A DAY AT THE RACES</span></b></span><span style="color: #660000;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #660000;">LET’S MOVE ON TO the final tenet of pseudoscientific racism: <br /></span><blockquote><span style="color: #783f04;">One can predict average human behavioral and cognitive traits based on these broad racial categories. Racial traits are heritable and immutable, and so will be deeply resistant to any social intervention, thereby excusing ongoing oppression and denial of educational and economic opportunity to broadly defined “racial” groups. </span></blockquote><span style="color: #660000;">If, as is widely held by racists, genetic differences account for a large share of the remaining IQ test score gap between blacks and whites in the United States, then there must be average differences in the prevalence of gene variants, starting with the thousand or so intelligence-related genes that have been revealed by the large GWAS investigations. Furthermore, those average racial differences must be sufficient to account for a large part of the remaining nine-point gap in IQ test score. <br /><br />I can’t say this loudly enough: <i>There is no evidence for significant average differences in intelligence-related genes between “races.” Not between self-identified whites and blacks in the United States, nor between any pair of self-defined racial groups. Not only that, there is no evidence for racial group differences in genes that have been linked to any behavioral or cognitive trait.</i> Not aggression. Not ADHD. Not extraversion. Not depression. Nada, niente, nichts, bupkis. <br /><br />Science is not about what <i>could</i> happen; it’s about what we can prove <i>did</i> happen. To assert that genetic variants underlying “racial” differences in cognitive or behavioral traits must exist because of some just-so story about continent-wide selective pressure, without providing the genetic evidence, is nonsense. It is the very definition of nonscientific, self-serving racial bigotry.</span><br /><br />Linden, David. <u>Unique</u> (pp. 246-247). Basic Books. Kindle Edition. </span></blockquote>From Chapter 8, about 30 minutes of dispositive whup-ass. I <i>love</i> that book. The ongoing simplistic conflation of culturally/ socially/ environmentally evolved (<i>"adaptive"</i>) phenotype with biochemical DNA <i>genotype</i> is one of our most severe chronic cognitive (and political) maladies.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbV9bU5JgCZO_oIK4fZeI0jGKeXHdGTRxj8XJfyiVBZZ4243ibv1rDme9S8FjP_-GYxb6VhyZMHqwuiDT0Zs4AOUZrkppFL4Lkc3N0r5BuuzLvx-O4HiD0oSoS57H5lhkYtaKCXZxPQq1zwpIsV3uuTAvIzcK-B3gGhRQvQL026ka1zQBYhyEWj8TaXNSC/s600/Uche6.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="577" data-original-width="600" height="385" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbV9bU5JgCZO_oIK4fZeI0jGKeXHdGTRxj8XJfyiVBZZ4243ibv1rDme9S8FjP_-GYxb6VhyZMHqwuiDT0Zs4AOUZrkppFL4Lkc3N0r5BuuzLvx-O4HiD0oSoS57H5lhkYtaKCXZxPQq1zwpIsV3uuTAvIzcK-B3gGhRQvQL026ka1zQBYhyEWj8TaXNSC/w400-h385/Uche6.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHCBSc29dsC-AMCiJWQrXGV2O7_LFFSILBJeH-BixtDt4xsY4crRyowDC7kL-rjRMfhI1ue1yDcqeZh040u1sUJlhEpYdP_qiwR3agzLemD1J7mdGufPgD7fHGRjB7VCelFMox3ID9C4MR_a2ChTlA5OYSMqQcZlr9RCe5ZZwtsbVeNwbJjRKdsRGSwXYZ/s600/Uche5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="579" data-original-width="600" height="386" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHCBSc29dsC-AMCiJWQrXGV2O7_LFFSILBJeH-BixtDt4xsY4crRyowDC7kL-rjRMfhI1ue1yDcqeZh040u1sUJlhEpYdP_qiwR3agzLemD1J7mdGufPgD7fHGRjB7VCelFMox3ID9C4MR_a2ChTlA5OYSMqQcZlr9RCe5ZZwtsbVeNwbJjRKdsRGSwXYZ/w400-h386/Uche5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Yeah.<br />____</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">More to come, including equally-deserved props for twin sister <b><a href="https://www.healthjustice.co/our-team/" target="_blank">Oni</a></b> and <i>her</i> important work.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_3cpLTEpybFfZjdo2e8xH4rxFy3vNW5c66QppK2OgmN6IYv9hkd12R2oavh-fLBi8JRvy2xO6alHK5Ip0Xrc1hXocOD2kh2uVZ9HEMu0_5PKbEi__6Orz4-u4LWMVD9WbpifgCzwARenzS31lifykQcnvnIiYv9P-CT5UMnhFM-I-gIHoqk2ClCkPWfyA/s372/IMG_3201.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="372" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_3cpLTEpybFfZjdo2e8xH4rxFy3vNW5c66QppK2OgmN6IYv9hkd12R2oavh-fLBi8JRvy2xO6alHK5Ip0Xrc1hXocOD2kh2uVZ9HEMu0_5PKbEi__6Orz4-u4LWMVD9WbpifgCzwARenzS31lifykQcnvnIiYv9P-CT5UMnhFM-I-gIHoqk2ClCkPWfyA/w200-h188/IMG_3201.jpeg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;">A humbling family.</div>__________<div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><iframe allowtansparency="true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets/tweet_button.html" style="height: 20px; width: 130px;"></iframe>BobbyGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807934795994985233noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6010387589635528818.post-57132971766513633062024-01-23T07:49:00.003-05:002024-01-23T10:09:07.794-05:00DING DING DING DING BOOM WHOOSH BOOM<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFENmylfh3IUIzrITBUFnYKVZRoewz_6NfD1rRwPIl7Cw15W7fBMobFauRg6CqTyrLrBgfl_Hmy_XNnDbgsUp90sumOkmYSsrwFt5hlVhqQ0qBVFgVWRTY978NRwCHh2HSqm7cggByJ3Pizs0hvFF7fuEAZvzsW5Syn3srFrQcBhFOTa-k6vMpHgr63m18/s1408/IMG_0499.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1408" data-original-width="1290" height="577" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFENmylfh3IUIzrITBUFnYKVZRoewz_6NfD1rRwPIl7Cw15W7fBMobFauRg6CqTyrLrBgfl_Hmy_XNnDbgsUp90sumOkmYSsrwFt5hlVhqQ0qBVFgVWRTY978NRwCHh2HSqm7cggByJ3Pizs0hvFF7fuEAZvzsW5Syn3srFrQcBhFOTa-k6vMpHgr63m18/w528-h577/IMG_0499.jpeg" width="528" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">287 days to election day.</span></b></div>BobbyGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03807934795994985233noreply@blogger.com0