It could happen to a town near you.
I could understand why Nancy left Los Angeles, but not why she moved to Portland.
Category Archives: Law
Lunar Resources
Is there a conflict between science and sustainability?
Meanwhile, there is a symposium on space settlement in DC today. You can follow the livestream.
[Late-afternoon update]
I know this is what you’ve all been waiting for: The Slate article about this crap.
Though most of the symposium was actually useful and interesting, ignoring the nonsense about colonialism in North America.
The Epstein Case
It’s unlike anything Ken White has seen before (which is saying something).
I don’t know whether to be amused or appalled at the degree to which the Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) are trying to simultaneously hide all of the Democrat/Clinton connections (including Wikipedia), while trying to pin it on Trump.
[Update a while later]
Was Epstein running honey traps to blackmail the power elite? It seems like the most-likely explanation.
J. K. Rowling
Why she may have done more for libertarianism than even Milton Friedman: Harry Potter and the Half-Crazed Bureaucracy.
Reparations
…and the racial republic:
In academia it is increasingly common, as Harvard College’s dean Rakesh Khurana told graduates recently, that individual achievement is seen as less important than the “dynastic” forces of race. This underpins the notion that students “of color” need to be treated differently than others. This follows from the notion that “group rights,” not individual rights, are what matters. As one liberal observer noted, the West is “now inculcating in a new generation ideas where the whole concept of an individual who exists apart from group identity is slipping from the discourse. The very Enlightenment principles that underlay the liberal ideal are being largely cast away.”
Once the party of racism, always the party of racism.
Dear Alexandria
Thoughts from a descendant of one of those Ellis Island arrivers who “snuck on to a boat.”
He’s a cruel man, but fair. My grandparents on my father’s side came through as well, a century or so ago.
Insinuendo
Why the Mueller report is so repetitive.
Gee, it’s almost as if Mueller isn’t the “boy scout” that all the right people were telling me he was.
The “Anti-Fascist” Fascists
Apparently it’s OK to both physically and verbally attack a gay Asian man for covering “Antifa” riots, both by “Antifa” and the media. In fact, the Portland mayor approves.
Commentary from The Spectator:
…the real enablers here are the politicians and journalists who’ve championed Antifa, such as the CNN presenter Chris Cuomo, as well as the Portland authorities who have consistently turned a blind eye to the criminal behavior of the group. Indeed, Andy himself was assaulted by an Antifa activist at his gym last month and the Portland Police took no action. And he was punched in the stomach while covering an Antifa May Day protest in Portland while a police officer stood by and did nothing.
Let’s hope this sickening attack finally shames the Portland authorities into taking action against the group. Beating up a journalist because he or she criticises your political ideology is what the Nazi party did in Germany in the 1930s.
Don’t count on it. More from Reason, and American Conservative.
[Update a few minutes later]
“Trump supporters should thank Antifa, et al., as they are terrific motivators for Trump’s voters, and, in fact, recruiters for the Trump coalition. It’s already reached the point where Trump, once considered a crazy man, now looks like the reasonable adult in the room.”
[Update a few more minutes later]
Michelle Malkin has set up a fund for Andy.
[Monday-morning update]
By any means necessary — it won’t stop with Andy Ngo.
The Western elite had been dominant for so long that their virtue, no less than their wealth, was undoubted. It was as if Dorian Gray said of his portrait: that can’t be me; I must have been infected by conservatives. The idea that the Thing Western society assured itself did not exist had come for them, at last, was totally unexpected as was the realization that all their tokens of virtue were not keeping It at bay.
Perhaps the magnitude of Hillary’s 2016 loss is only now becoming apparent. Clinton didn’t just lose the White House, she also lost the Democratic center to the radical ornaments. The diminution of Brooks, Stevens, Kristof, and even Biden are the consequence of that defeat. The radicals who once served the useful purpose of putting fear into the other side are taking center stage. It’s not surprising that the French Terror began with the purge of the moderates and the urgency of virtue. As Robespierre put it, virtuous men have no choice but to employ any means necessary:If the basis of popular government in peacetime is virtue, the basis of popular government during a revolution is both virtue and terror; virtue, without which terror is baneful; terror, without which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing more than speedy, severe and inflexible justice; it is thus an emanation of virtue; it is less a principle in itself, than a consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing needs of the patrie.
The Thing is older than one would think. And more voracious. The intellectual Old Bolsheviks thought their illustrious records would protect them from the ruffian Stalin. Bukharin, who was eventually executed by Stalin, once said: “Koba, you used to be grateful for the support of your Bolshevik comrades.” “Gratitude is a dog’s disease,” Stalin shot back.
It will get worse before it gets better, unfortunately.
But Ted Cruz has called for federal action against the mayor of Portland: “To federal law enforcement: investigate & bring legal action against a Mayor who has, for political reasons, ordered his police officers to let citizens be attacked by domestic terrorists.”
Yes. This is insurrection.
[Update a while later]
If you don’t stand up for Andy Ngo, you could be next:
What you just saw was a pack of privileged white dudes in masks beating up a smaller guy who’s a minority (Ngo is Vietnamese-American) and a member of the LGBTQ community (he’s gay). These cowards punched him and threw things at him in the middle of the street, in broad daylight, because they knew the cops wouldn’t stop them. It might as well be Alabama in the ’50s. The only difference between Antifa and the Klan is fashion.
First the fascists came for the gay Asians, and I said nothing, because I was not gay, or Asian.
[Update a while later]
Good, Harmeet is on the case:
Here’s the story at the “right wing” Quillette.
[Update a few minutes later]
Leftist “journalists” respond to the attack with the flippancy you’d expect.
[Update a few minutes later]
Yes, it’s insane that we’re having a debate over whether it’s acceptable to violently attack a journalist.
Am I “Able” to Open the Exit-Row Door?
OK, this post reminds me of a conversation I had Friday night on the flight I managed to escape to (not “from,” despite the movie) LA last night.
I’d gotten the ticket with miles, because the last-minute prices to DC were nuts, the only way to do so was to (a) go out of IAD instead of DCA and (b) fly into SNA (John Wayne Airport in Orange County) instead of LAX. Thursday, I asked American if I could change it by going same-day standby, and they said, sure, if you want to burn more miles. So I was resigned to going to Dulles, and flying into Orange County, and Patricia picking me up there, with at least a 45-minute drive each way.
Fortunately, God (or whoever controls the weather) intervened, and my flight from IAD was delayed sufficiently that I missed my connection to SNA, and managed to get reassigned to a flight that went to LAX, with no penalty.
So I’m in an exit row on the flight, and the flight attendant comes by with the usual FAA-required question: “Are you willing and able to assist in opening the door in the case of an emergency?”
I’d been asked this question before in similar situations, but this time, I realized that I couldn’t say “yes” with any honesty. Because I had never actually opened an emergency door. Sure, I’d read the instructions, but had I ever done it? No.
So I said to the flight attendant (because I can occasionally be a pain in the ass from my pedantry, and it had been a long day), “Well, sure, I’m willing, but how can I know that I’m ‘able’? I’ve never done it before.”
There was an American captain sitting next to me, dead heading, and I said, “I’d bet no one in this row, except him, has ever opened an emergency door in an aircraft, so when you ask us if we’re able, there’s no way for us to know.”
The flight attendant is now flustered, and asks if I want to be moved.
“No, I’m sort of kidding, but it’s not a useful question, despite the FAA rules. What you should be asking is if I’m willing and have sufficient strength. I am and do. But none of us know if we are able, and we all hope that we don’t have to find out.”
Mueller’s Upcoming Testimony
The ghost of Hunter Thompson looms over it.