I’d be more gratified by being in this stratosphere if I could see more things happening that I’m actually influencing. But maybe I’m being too impatient. I also wish that being an influencer paid better.
[Wednesday-morning update]
The most amusingly ironic thing about this is that I'm in an ongoing war on the phrase "space exploration." https://t.co/USEAb5wfRJ
— Apostle To Morons (@Rand_Simberg) June 21, 2016
The British elites cannot continue to ignore the masses:
Somehow, over the last half-century, Western elites managed to convince themselves that nationalism was not real. Perhaps it had been real in the past, like cholera and telegraph machines, but now that we were smarter and more modern, it would be forgotten in the due course of time as better ideas supplanted it.
That now seems hopelessly naive. People do care more about people who are like them — who speak their language, eat their food, share their customs and values. And when elites try to ignore those sentiments — or banish them by declaring that they are simply racist — this doesn’t make the sentiments go away. It makes the non-elites suspect the elites of disloyalty. For though elites may find something vaguely horrifying about saying that you care more about people who are like you than you do about people who are culturally or geographically further away, the rest of the population is outraged by the never-stated corollary: that the elites running things feel no greater moral obligation to their fellow countrymen than they do to some random stranger in another country. And perhaps we can argue that this is the morally correct way to feel — but if it is truly the case, you can see why ordinary folks would be suspicious about allowing the elites to continue to exercise great power over their lives.
It’s therefore not entirely surprising that people are reacting strongly against the EU, the epitome of an elite institution: a technocratic bureaucracy designed to remove many questions from the democratic control of voters in the constituent countries. Elites can earnestly explain that a British exit will be very costly to Britain (true), that many of the promises made on Brexit’s behalf are patently ridiculous (also true), that leaving will create all sorts of security problems and also cost the masses many things they like, such as breezing through passport control en route to their cheap continental holidays. Elites can even be right about all of those things. They still shouldn’t be too shocked when ordinary people respond just as Republican primary voters did to their own establishment last spring: “But you see, I don’t trust you anymore.”
Brexit is Britain’s Trump, but it’s a much healthier response to the “elites” (they’re not particularly elite in matters of knowledge or competence) than ours has been.
I think that these are a cruel fraud on a young generation.
I agree with Michael Totten, banning either of them is not the answer to Orlando.
A new definition of research misconduct:
My previous post illustrated numerous ethical conflicts that can arise for researchers. But when it comes to conflicts between your conscience and your colleagues, or the public and your colleagues, any perceived responsibility to your colleagues has to take a back seat.
But it seems that in academic science, responsibility to your colleagues and their opinions, their declarations of consensus, their reputations, is apparently regarded by many researchers as the paramount consideration, viz. the circling of the wagons that occurred in Climategate.
This concern about ‘responsibility’ to your colleagues seems only to extend to colleagues who happen to agree with you.
Academic science, and academia in general, is very, very sick.
No, it’s leftists that display more “psychotic” traits, not conservatives.
I don’t have a high opinion of these kinds of studies in general, but the left loves them when they get the results they like.
More details are revealed in an interview with Christian Davenport at the WaPo.
[Update a couple minutes later]
And here’s kind of a dumb piece about Mars settlement at Popular Science.
I haven’t said anything about him, but my response to his death was, “Meh.” Partly, I guess, because I detest the “sport” of boxing. But I agree with this: The Nation of Islam and our national concussion:
Ali was certainly one of the most interesting Americans of the past half-century—a great athlete who, with wit and wile, marketed himself as “The Greatest” and was accepted by millions as just that. He was not a saint or nearly a saint.
He is supposed to be a hero for standing up for his religious principles. Yet the religious group that he embraced—the faction of the Nation of Islam associated with Louis Farrakhan—was one grounded in racism and in hatred for Jews, “white devils,” and America. How bad was the NOI? It negotiated with the Ku Klux Klan in an effort to achieve the two sides’ mutual goal of racial separatism. [See my blog post on the NOI, at https://capitalresearch.org/2015/04/hell-breaks-out-in-baltimore-plus-what-farrakhan-believes/ , conveniently reposted below.]
Back then, when he was under the influence of the NOI, Ali was so ignorant that he renounced his birth name, Cassius Clay Jr., as a “slave name,” when in fact the Cassius Clay for whom Ali’s father was named, the historical figure, was an abolitionist hero. Clay survived a murder plot by supporters of slavery (he killed the would-be assassin with a Bowie knife), was a founder of the Republican Party, pushed Lincoln to issue what became the Emancipation Proclamation, and, as ambassador to Russia, helped win the Civil War by keeping Russia on the Union side.
During his time in the Nation of Islam, Ali spoke out against “race mixing.” See this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVpfcq4pV5U
Ali was a draft dodger. In our country’s history, Conscientious Objectors have taken roles ranging from hospital worker to vaccine experimentee, to retain their honor while living consistently with their pacifistic principles. Ali didn’t do that. He pulled a Clinton, putting himself above the rules by which others had to live.
Yup.
[Update a few minutes later]
Thoughts on empathy and lenient sentencing from Ken White (a defense attorney).
There is no amount of alcohol that I could drink that would result in my raping anyone, let alone an unconscious woman.
Yes, it is a big one. And it’s because he’s a narcissist, who thinks that everything is about him. He’s even worse than Obama in that regard, if such a thing is possible.
[Update a few minutes later]
Who will the Republicans replace Trump with?
GOP delegates will have to decide at some point if they want to lose the election with their principles, or without them.
— Apostle To Morons (@Rand_Simberg) June 7, 2016
[Update a few minutes later]
The Trump Non Sequitur: Jonah restates what I’ve been saying since this Trump nonsense began:
This argument above is a very good example of the Trump non-sequitur. I agree entirely with Decius and Steve about the ideological base-stealing implicit in diversity-mongering. I wrote about this at length in my last book.
Where I jump ship is the claim — or to be more fair, the suggestion in Steve and Decius’ cases – that Trump is doing any of this on purpose or that it will lead to anything positive.
These are two separate claims. So let’s take them separately. Is Trump doing this on purpose for anything like the reasons enunciated above? Of course not. Trump has a long history of attacking judges for his narrow self-interest. Certainly Occam’s razor would suggest that’s what he’s doing here. The Trump University fraud case is generating very bad publicity for Trump, as he’s admitted (so was the story that he, at best, slow-walked donating money he promised to vets). So Trump goes on the offensive and changes the subject to this “Mexican” stuff. I just think it’s ridiculous to think Trump is motivated in this case by some remotely sophisticated, never mind sophisticatedly conservative, understanding of identity politics. After all, this is the guy who criticized Justice Scalia for his stance on affirmative action. It’s more like Trump is a kind of angry Chauncey Gardner who benefits from intellectuals’ reading deeply — too deeply — into his outbursts.
Yes. It’s important to remember that idiot savants are still idiots.
[Update a few minutes later]
“Mr. Speaker: Rescind your endorsement.”
This is why I have never endorsed him. I have nothing to rescind.
I will never endorse Trump, but I will never endorse Hillary ten times as much.
— Apostle To Morons (@Rand_Simberg) June 7, 2016
[Update a while later]
Hey, you leftists who want Trump to lose? Pro tip: Stop calling him a racist and a bigot. It just feeds support for him, even for people like me, who think he will be a truly awful president.
[Late-afternoon update]
In my view, Trump is grossly unfit to be president, in both mind and character — especially the latter. Even if I agreed with him on the issues — even if I thought his worldview sound — I would balk at supporting him, owing to the issue of character.
But let me spend a second on the issues. His tendency is toward big government. He says no to a reform of entitlements. He says no to free trade. He threatens to withdraw from NATO. He likes Obama’s unilateral opening to Cuba. He sings the praises of Planned Parenthood. And so on.
What he calls for, mainly, is strength, plus “winning.” This is not the mentality of a constitutional conservative or a liberal democrat. Then, overshadowing everything, there is the issue of character. Trump mocks the handicapped — physically mocks them — for the enjoyment of his audience. He insults women on the basis of their looks. He brags of the women he has bedded, including “seemingly very happily married” ones. He mocks the religions of others. (Distinctly un-American.) He implied that Ted Cruz’s father had a link to the Kennedy assassination. And on and on. By nominating him, the Republican party has disfigured itself, morally.
Democrats won’t like to hear this, but for all those years, I thought the Republican party had the high ground, morally. I feel that this ground has collapsed beneath me. That is one of the painful aspects of this moment. If someone now says to me, “Ha, ha, Donald Trump is the presidential nominee of your party!” I say, “No, he isn’t.” He represents the Republicans, who, on the basis of this nomination, are transformed. I respect, admire, and love many Republicans, of course — I was their fellow party member until two seconds ago. But, to say it again, the presidential nominee stamps the party. He is the brand of the party. As I see it, or smell it, an odor now attaches to the GOP, and it will linger long past 2016, no matter what happens on Election Day.
If I’d ever been a Republican, I would definitely feel Jay’s pain.