The fundamental challenge that Tocqueville’s book poses to American dogma arises from his refusal to assume that equality and freedom are always mutually reinforcing. The American creed since the Declaration of Independence and especially since Lincoln has linked the two values, assuming that an increase in one naturally accompanies an increase in the other. Tocqueville …
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Meme extinction
The definition of a meme Dilbert walks into a meeting and asks, “Who called this meeting?” The male coworker replies, “We thought you did.” The coworker continues, “I think we should discuss issues and assign tasks so it’s not a complete waste of time.” Dilbert responds, “Maybe meetings have become a lifeform capable of calling …
Until the correct results are obtained
ISTANBUL — The party of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey applied to the country’s election commission on Tuesday for a rerun of the Istanbul mayor’s race, after two weeks of appeals and recounting of ballots still showed the opposition candidate ahead. NYT
Why not tax the snow?
Maybe the biggest existential danger to humanity are UN bureaucrats with trillion dollar terraforming schemes. As a result of global warming, winters are only going to get more severe, but there’s at least one silver lining as researchers from UCLA have come up with a way to harness electricity from all that snow. Gizmodo
Even Jaws flees
Ever since the 1975 movie “Jaws,” great white sharks have been considered the most fearsome predators in the ocean. But new research published Tuesday shows that may not be the case. Mercury News
Go thermal to find dangerous asteroids
Instead of using visible light to spot incoming objects, Mainzer’s team at JPL/Caltech has leveraged a characteristic signature of NEOs—their heat. Asteroids and comets are warmed by the sun and so glow brightly at thermal wavelengths (infrared), making them easier to spot with the Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) telescope. “With the NEOWISE …
If you see a glowing impact crater be careful
The man who argues interstellar object Oumuamua could have been an alien spacecraft now says a meteor that hit Earth’s atmosphere in 2014 also came from elsewhere in the Milky Way, perhaps carrying life with it. … “The reported meteor entered the solar system with a speed of 60 km/s (134,216 mph) relative to the …
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Money expected from Russia
It’s not new. The Soviets funded the Communist Party of Italy, the 2nd biggest postwar, for a long time. According to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, four out of the 28 European countries do not have any restrictions on foreign donations to political parties. They are Belgium, Denmark, Italy and the Netherlands. …
Macron won’t talk trade with US unless it embraces climate change
French President Emmanuel Macron has already staked out his position on talks: Europe should not negotiate a trade deal with a country that is not part of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate. CNN Macron says that unless Trump signs up, the USA will have a competitive advantage over Europe. Trump must ‘wake up’ before …
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Pelosi to nix trade deal with UK if it has a border with the EU
But it’s the French who want the border to come with Brexit, hence Pelosi is essentially saying the UK should stay in the EU. She added: ‘First of all it is very hard to pass a trade bill in the Congress of the United States, so it’s no given anyway. ‘But if there were any …
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Australian court finds sacking of climate critic unlawful
A Federal Court judge has ruled James Cook University acted unlawfully when it sacked physics professor Peter Ridd after he publicly criticised the institution and one of its star scientists over claims about the global warming impact on the Great Barrier Reef … Judge Vasta found that a clause in the university’s enterprise agreement, which …
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How bad could the OPM hack be?
The Jack Ryan novel, True Faith and Allegiance, is a fictionalized account of just how destructive the OPM hack could be. The power of data fusion is amazing, especially when deployed against clueless persons who don’t even know what they’ve lost, or those determined to minimize the extent of what they’ve lost to avoid embarrassment. …
Coming back from near death
Moving a university from curtailing free speech on campus to protecting it is a momentous task. It often requires years of effort from students, professors, administrators, and public policy organizations… Taylor said the most difficult obstacle to overcome was administrative inertia rather than hostility or active resistance to change. James Martin Center
Andy McCarthy asks why Assange charges make no sense
Despite a dearth of evidence that he was complicit in Moscow’s hacking, President Trump was forced by the Justice Department and the FBI, urged on by congressional Democrats, to endure a two-year investigation and to govern under a cloud of suspicion that he was an agent of the Kremlin. Now we have Assange, as to …
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New at the Belmont Club
Why Washington’s trust systems need an upgrade in the global world.
What about medicare for all and the Green New Deal?
Economic growth won’t last as the U.S. labors under the burden of growing entitlement programs and weakness around the world, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told CNBC. The long-time central bank chief repeated his warnings about the weight that Social Security, Medicare and other programs are having on what have been otherwise solid gains …
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Conservative sprayed on campus by protesters who did not want to be offended
Opposition to conservative political commentator Michael Knowles on the University of Missouri-Kansas City campus required the intervention of law enforcement after a protester attempted to squirt Knowles with an unidentified white substance. The Young Americans Foundation invited Knowles to the Kansas City campus on Thursday, where he delivered a lecture titled “Men are Not Women.” …
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Is Huawei a “foreign power” or “agent of a foreign power”?
The long-running debate over the relationship of Huawei to the Chinese government took an interesting and unexpected turn last week, as the Justice Department disclosed (in the context of the prosecution of Huawei and its CFO for bank fraud and sanctions-busting) that it had obtained orders under Title I of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, …
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Sanctuary cities
The Trump administration pressured the Department of Homeland Security to release immigrants detained at the southern border into so-called sanctuary cities in part to retaliate against Democrats who oppose President Donald Trump’s plans for a border wall, a source familiar with the discussions told CNN on Thursday. CNN
The Assange mystery
Podesta, Hillary, Trump, Seth Rich. The timing of Mr. Assange’s actions fueled suspicions. His June 2016 interview announcing the impending release of Democratic emails came three days after a meeting at Trump Tower in New York between Russians and senior Trump campaign officials — a meeting set up on the promise that the Russians would …