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We’re all over the galaxy this week with our guests The Federalist’s Ben Domenech and Ricochet’s own Saturday Night Science guy himself, the always awesome anonymous. Ben stops by to discuss the unpredictable election cycle and throw some shade The Donald (you comment, we listen). Then, we get our wonk on with anonymous who explains gravitation waves (we were told there’d be no math on this podcast) as well as Apple’s tussle with the FBI. Finally, our in-house Catholic Peter Robinson has some word for the Pope, who has found himself sparring with a certain Presidential candidate (hint: he has a wicked comb-over).
Music from this week’s episode:
Catch A Wave by The Beach Boys
The opening sequence for the Ricochet Podcast was composed and produced by James Lileks.
Gnarly, EJHill!
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Published in: Science & Technology
I’m glad John talked about the Apple stuff because now I don’t have to.
John hurts me… he hurts my head and he hurts my ego. I’m lucky I can master the subtleties of the Earned Run Average (ER*9/IP). Thank God somebody understands this stuff.
This is where my brain started to cry…
I think Trump shouting “China!” needs to be added to the intro. Just saying.
Inexcusably Trump got it wrong. WMD were found in Iraq (and yes, chemical weapons are considered WMD). One of the truly infuriating things about the Bush administration was they didn’t let the news out, allowing the Leftists to bang on endlessly with their “Bush lied about WMD” canard (which itself ignored the fact that Hussein’s WMD program was on fast standby, capable of being restarted almost on an instant, and that WMD was only one of a dozen casus belli for Gulf War 2).
Having said that, Rod Dreher has an excellent piece today in The American Conservative Trump: Fishtown’s Champion Against Belmont. He talks about why Trump is resonating with voters in Fishtown. He relates an anecdote about a woman going to work with a broken hand (bold emphasis mine):
The thing that gets to me about this woman is that because of my own personal social network, I know how hard she works, and at a time in life when people her age are supposed to be able to slow down and take it easy. She will be working that hard until the day she drops, because she has nothing.
What does Jeb Bush have to offer her? Or Marco Rubio? Or Ted Cruz? Frankly, I don’t think that Donald Trump has much to offer her either (as J.D. Vance grasps), but he at least sees her, or appears to. That’s not nothing.
Yes, Trump comes across as deranged and his followers look delusional from Main Feed St. in Belmont. But spend some time in Fishtown and ask yourself if you were in their shoes how might you be tempted to vote. Like for example if you were this woman whose son was murdered by an illegal and made what to her was a hard decision to vote for Trump.
Paraphrasing Mark Steyn, when respectable leaders abdicate their responsibilities and refuse to do their jobs people turn to disrespectable leaders, which is why we’ve seen the rise of Trump.
If it’s any consolation, I always say things like “It’s pretty straightforward” to my lab (engineering) students. And then some time later, it is very apparent that it wasn’t to them.
How to win the Presidency:
Rubio gets the top spot – he is the most electable.
Cruz gets promise of nomination to the Supreme Court – it is a better use of his talent and he can have a greater impact on the course of the country over a “lifetime” appointment than an 8 year presidency.
Kasich gets the VP spot giving us Ohio to go along with Florida and winning the election.
Bush gets to bow out for the good of the country and surrenders his cash to the Republican National Committee. – We can throw in an ambassadorship if he wants it.
Yup. Trump morphed into Cindy Sheehan onstage and proved to anyone in possession of a modicum of intelligence and sanity that he is deficient in both categories. Yes, I read the CIA summary and David Kay’s report on WMD from Iraq and share Nick Stuart’s views elucidated above. And his defense of Planned Parenthood proves he does not deserve the support of pro-lifers.
And what Rob said. Twice.
Then there’s the matter of what we (as identified by Rob and Peter) do if Trump wins the GOP nomination. Easy. We leave and start a different party and call either Cruz or Rubio to be our nominee. Punkt. If Trump wants to hijack the GOP for his own self-aggrandizing purposes, let him have a corpse GOP to work with.
So your plan is to create a rump party with zero influence on national politics?
I guess suicide is always a viable option….
Good plan.
Thanks for the calculations, stunning to think about.
I generally agree with your prescription, but this is something I hear tossed around a lot and don’t see the rationale for it.
As a law student, I hear it tossed around all the time by my classmates.
Can’t this idea be refuted by simply pointing out that Cruz could appoint two or three textualist justices during an eight year term?
anonymous thank you for taking the time to come on and discuss this issue of gravitational waves. While this is something that is interesting to me, my own crazy work schedule has prevented me from noting much about it. Peter Robinson, thank you for your attempt at summarizing the difference between Newton and Einstein. The both of you worked well together in that discussion and it was much appreciated to not just hear it, but have the chance to hear it.
Yes, but I really want to put John to the test: Explain the infield fly rule.
Talk to Ronald Reagan’s ghost.
Sandra Day O’Connor, though she was the first woman on SCOTUS, which liberals ignore.
Scalia, for sure.
But then there was the buzz saw for Bork and Ginsburg (he had smoked hooch), and we got Kennedy.
This may be a bird-in-the-hand situation.
Andy Blanco
I generally agree with your prescription, but this is something I hear tossed around a lot and don’t see the rationale for it.
As a law student, I hear it tossed around all the time by my classmates.
Can’t this idea be refuted by simply pointing out that Cruz could appoint two or three textualist justices during an eight year term?
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That appears to be a reasonable assumption although I believe a Conservative Justice in the hand is worth two from the Bushes (Souter, and Roberts) – sorry for the pun but I could not resist.
Therefore I would rather get Cruz on the Court and let Rubio appoint additional Conservatives if given the opportunity. This at least assures that at least one originalist will get appointed.
Well, you’ve got it all planned out. Sounds like something a brokered convention would do: hand pick who does what. I can’t think of a bigger way to say &^#% You to voters. By the way, the guy that’s “most electable”, by definition, has to be able to actually win some states. Rubio hasn’t even come in second yet.
Listening to Ben Domenech, I realized that Donald Trump is the equivalent to the Mule in Asimov’s Foundation Series. Breaks all the rules and turns everyone’s plan to hash.
Douglas
I understand your concern. My musings were more wishful thinking than a design for a “top down” solution. It is my belief that this will shake out over time. Hopefully it will get to a three person race after Nevada (although Kasich will hang in through the mid-western states). Once it gets to a three person race it would be better for Rubio and Cruz to come to an accommodation rather than continue in a suicide pact handing the nomination to a Democrat (Trump).
Forgive me if these questions are posed and/or answered elsewhere, but how is a gravity wave detector calibrated in terms of what is being detected? Also, why does it help that the two parts of the detector, I think, are 90 degrees out of phase (forming a right angle)?
Thanks. But as to “calibration,” I though waves were being detected from a specific source. How is is the source of the waves determined?
Oh. Good. That makes sense.
Thank you anonymous for the fascinating discussion.
What’s the deal with Ann Coulter? When her name came up early in this podcast, they didn’t even mention her last name. She’s supposedly so brilliant, but she has an almost cultic devotion to Donald Trump and an irrational hatred of Marco Rubio. Is anyone going to talk about her or is she off limits?
Ahhhhh. You are speaking truth to power around minute 9, Rob. The Rob crush is firmly back in place.
Let it be known that although Rubio is my Dreamboat, I would heartily vote for Cruz if he is our nominee. If Tumperor becomes the nominee? No thanks. It would be the first time since I began voting that I would not vote for a presidential candidate. I really don’t see a difference between Trumperor and the Democrats. In fact, I think he would do more damage to our Party than the Dems.
You and I both. I suppose I may convince myself to vote for him in the booth, but I think I could trust Hillary or Bernie more than Trump, even though I don’t agree with any of these three Democrats.
Randy—I hadn’t heard that one before, but given that I frequently joke with my students about lines in their book saying, “It is therefore obvious that…”, I will start using this one.