Elizabeth Price Foley points out the dangerous divisive game that the Democrats are playing.
Obeying The Law
…for people to want to obey the law for reasons that go beyond avoiding punishment, several things have to be true. First, they must generally approve of the law: Maybe not of every individual provision, but they have to believe that, in general, the laws are just rather than unfair. Second, they have to feel reasonably confident that most others will obey the law, too: People like to feel like good citizens, but they don’t like to feel like suckers. Finally, they have to feel as if the people in charge also respect the law. Examples are set at the top, and if the government treats unwelcome laws as unworthy of respect, you can expect the populace to feel the same way.
Nonsense. Laws are for the little people.
California
…is so over:
…we are producing a California that is the polar opposite of Pat Brown’s creation. True, it has some virtues: greener, cleaner, and more “progressive” on social issues. But it’s also becoming increasingly feudal, defined by a super-affluent coastal class and an increasingly impoverished interior. As water prices rise, and farms and lawns are abandoned, there’s little thought about how to create a better future for the bulk of Californians. Like medieval peasants, millions of Californians have been force[d] to submit to the theology of our elected high priest and his acolytes, leaving behind any aspirations that the Golden State can work for them too.
I don’t know what it will take to break the back of this destructive aristocracy.
[Monday-morning update]
Jerry Brown’s Oedipal struggle.
[Bumped]
When Did America…
As commenters note there, it became pretty clear it had happened in 2008, but generations of indoctrination, from K-12 through academia, have brought us to this point.
Life On Mars
This is refreshing. A scientist who thinks it may be there now, and has no problems with terraforming. Usually such people are concerned about the ethics.
Yes, You Really Can Say That
My lawyers, on the limits of the First Amendment as applied to libel and slander.
Jewish Conservatism
Some thoughts from David Goldman.
[Saturday-afternoon update]
American Jewry’s moment of decision:
During the next two months, Obama will be focused on closing his deal with Iran, and Clinton will be avidly seeking to lock up the Democratic nomination for president by building an impregnable fortress of campaign funds. If the American Jewish community uses this critical period to leverage Clinton’s financial requirements to convince her to oppose Obama’s deal that paves the way for a nuclear armed Iran, then they will reassert their relevance in American politics and they will restore support for Israel to its pre-Obama position as a bipartisan position.
If they fail to do so, then Obama’s bid to transform Israel into a partisan issue will succeed. If a Republican wins the White House in 2016, he will face an anti-Israel Democratic opposition. And if Clinton wins the White House, she will have no reason to support Israel.
I’d still like to see the video of the Khalidi birthday party.
[Bumped]
[Sunday-morning update]
In Syria there are real massacres of Palestinians. But where are the Muslim mobs and their European useful idiots? Where are the drones chanting in the streets of Paris? Where are the thousands of tweets we saw in 2014? They don’t exist because Israel was not involved, which reveals the utter hypocrisy and malevolence behind the execrable anti-Jewish and anti-Israel campaign.
Shelley Neese, who is Vice President of a Christian Zionist website called “The Jerusalem Connection”, has produced a remarkable music video “There is a Storm Coming”,about the rise of anti-Jewish prejudice and bigotry.
She compares it to the horrors of seventy years ago. She also warns the French Jewish community that time is short and their future lies in the ancestral and biblical Jewish homeland: Israel.
She was assisted by Andrew McKain, a talented musician and rapper whose hard-hitting lyrics should particularly appeal to young people who so desperately need to learn the past and what the present may foretell.
They should know how the totalitarian movements defeated in the 20th century have mutated and how the Islamo-Nazis and today’s far left are making common cause to the same end as their predecessors — the destruction of the Jews and of freedom worldwide.
When they said “Never again,” they had their fingers crossed behind their backs.
Social Justice Warriors
They’re appropriately named, “angry, vicious people who want to eliminate disagreement.”
Ultimately, they want to eliminate more than just that.
Inspirational messages for "straight white men" from the Assn of Writers & Writing Programs https://t.co/HulpMI8OOb pic.twitter.com/uoZxLVaPAj
— Andrea Castillo (@anjiecast) April 18, 2015
[Afternoon update]
Here’s an example: Hey, remember that First Amendment?
I touch on these other assaults on free speech to provide a context for Hillary Clinton’s foray into the battle to shut people up (a procedure, it is worth noting, that is often a harbinger of a battle to lock people up). The constitutional amendment that Hillary Clinton told the world she would consider would be directed against the Supreme Court decision in the case of Citizens United. “We need to fix our dysfunctional political system,” quoth Hillary, “and get unaccountable money out of it once and for all, even if that takes a constitutional amendment.”
Free speech for me, not for thee.
[Update a few minutes later]
Women ejected from a conference to protect (beta, or perhaps even omega) men. This whole notion of “safe spaces” is culturally insane. What happens to these delicate flowers when they have to go out in the real world? But these people have to politicize every freaking thing. They are totalitarians.
Ubuntu
Partly out of interest, and partly because there don’t seem to be any yum packages for Kerbal, I decided to load it on a spare SSD (not using grub, I just go into the BIOS and decide which drive I want to boot). I set up an account. It didn’t ask me to create a password for root, just a personal account. I try to ‘su -i’ and it asks me for a password. I use the one I created for my personal account. Nope.
Way to go, guys.
The SpaceX Landing Attempt
Chris Bergin has a pretty detailed account. The focus still seems to be on a slow response in the throttle valve.
He seems to be ignoring Aaron Mehta’s interview with Gwynne last week, though, in which she said the next attempt would probably be on land.