De-escalation’s Empty Promises

 

The past two years have witnessed sustained and bitter differences between the Biden administration and two Western democracies that it has pledged to protect against foreign attack and invasion: Israel and Ukraine. The differences in these ongoing conflicts are not over ends but over means. Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, about six months after the Biden administration executed its botched withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, a move that went against the advice of all the president’s military and civilian advisers. And then, on October 7, 2023, Hamas broke its tenuous cease-fire with Israel with a full-scale assault on both Israeli settlements and the Nova music peace festival near the Gazan border. The one element that links these three conflicts is not just the perceived weakness of the three target nations, but also the inescapable perception that the United States cares more about short-term peace than long-term security in these vital theaters of war.

That perception has hardened over recent years as it becomes possible to extract a consistent, if disastrous, policy pursued by the Biden administration. The dominant impulse is to make sure that these localized conflicts will not expand into an open war that will lead to intensification of the current hostilities, followed by further entanglements with other nations, followed by an increase in the amount of death, injury, and property destruction. To achieve that end, the consistent Biden trope is to always play defense, never offense. The supposed logic of this position is that it will prevent Russia (along with, as it turns out, its allies China, Iran, and North Korea) from taking over Ukraine, even though it will not be enough to stop the continued bloody encroachment into key towns and cities in the Donbas, located in the far southeast of Ukraine. Similarly, the Biden administration has put a go-slow sign on Israel, seeking to delay its military efforts to remove the last elements of Hamas from Rafah by negotiating a cease-fire that could not, definitionally, result in the decapitation of Hamas, which would have to be a signatory to any such agreement. Any proposed deal might be for a short hiatus, or, as seems more likely, one that would insensibly morph into a permanent arrangement—at least until a rebuilt Hamas renewed its efforts to obliterate Israel and its citizenry.

An Intriguing Autumnal Painter: John Atkinson Grimshaw

 

Autumn is my favorite season. It signals the end of the heavy-handed heat of late summer, and there is always plenty to eat.

As someone who is often out hiking with the dog, and sometimes with Mark accompanying us both, I appreciate how the entire outdoor arena is bathed in a special type of light that illuminates the splendidly colored trees. At twilight the air is tinged with the scent of burning leaves and a sense of mystery and intrigue.

The economic consequences of our feckless immigration system

 

Free-market economist Milton Friedman was hardly anti-immigration. He acknowledged that pre-1914 immigrants came “for a better life for them and their children. In the main they succeeded,” broadly benefiting their adopted country.

But there was an important caveat. “It is one thing to have free immigration to jobs. It is another thing to have free immigration to welfare.” Immigrants dependent on public benefits don’t boost their host country, they have the effect of “a reduction of everybody to the same, uniform level.”

The Big Stories for your week ahead:

  • JD Vance takes on the NY Times and gets badgered (as usual)
  • Money in Politics is now a good thing
  • Is Trump going senile or just getting cranky?
  • Polling Update: Still tied!
  • A nation of homebodies

For Eisenhower’s Birthday

 

I strongly recommend a book that goes deep into the character and actions of a truly principled and patriotic President. Eisenhower For Our Time looks at defining moments of Ike’s political life, including his decision to run for office, along with his handling of McCarthy, the Indochina War, the beginning of the space race, and school segregation.

What is clear is that Eisenhower sought balance in everything he did. He took a lot of criticism for it, but he was true to his “Middle Way.” We could use that sort of principled patriotism. I’d be glad if there was a politician in the present landscape that I could look up to as a person, whether I agreed with them or not.

As with all of my Audible titles, drop me a note if you would like a promo code for a free review copy.

Fish is Dead, RIP Fish

 

In September 2006, at St. Monica’s final Octoberfair parish fair, we won a goldfish in the classic parish fair ping-pong ball in the fish bowl game. Last weekend, 18 years later, that fish, known as Fish-Fish or just Fish for short, crossed the rainbow bridge. This hearty fish lived his 18 years in a cubic foot of water on our kitchen counter.

Fish was small when he started his time with us. Here he is in December 2007, just over a year old.

From Startup to Industry Standard

 

Over the last fifteen years, Elon Musk’s SpaceX has redefined the space industry. Launching rockets has changed from a stodgy plodding business mired in the 20th century to a dynamic 21st-century multiple-weekly-launch industry. It has reduced launch costs by a factor of 100.

Reentry: SpaceX, Elon Musk, and the Reusable Rockets that Launched a Second Space Age by Eric Berger tells how SpaceX accomplished it. The book follows the history of SpaceX from the start of the Falcon 9 project to the present.

Berger opens after the successful launches of Falcon 1. Berger picks up where his previous history of SpaceX, Liftoff, ended. Berger shows how and why Musk chose to abandon the successful but commercially questionable Falcon 1 and leapfrogged past the next development planned: the five-engine Falcon 5.  Instead, Musk shifted to the Falcon 9, capable of putting 23,000 pounds into orbit as compared to Falcon 1’s 1,000 pounds. He also insisted Falcon 9 was to be fully reusable and launch multiple times, a vision then mocked as unachievable.

Successful Booster Catch by Launch Tower “Chopsticks”

 

This morning SpaceX conducted its first successful landing of the Starship first stage booster.  After separation from the Starship payload, the booster returned to Earth where it was caught by the “chopsticks” on the launch tower.  The amazing video below is queued to a few seconds before landing, when the booster emerges from the clouds, hurtling groundward at 3,500 kilometers per hour.  At less than a kilometer in altitude, the rockets ignite, slowing the booster to a standstill and gently depositing it into the waiting arms of the launch tower from which it had departed 7 minutes earlier.

The Measure of Man

 

Joseph Wood Krutch

I like the pleasure of reading a hardcover book, especially if it is used and cheap! The one in hand was in “very good” condition. It had apparently been given as a gift “with love, from Jane and Floyd” in June of 1955. Since I was born in October of 1956, the nearly 70-year lapse of time gave perspective on the observations and predictions. The book was written in 1953.

It opens with:

Praying in Scotland

 

In the interest of full disclosure, and it shouldn’t be a shock given my last name, I am of Scottish ancestry, even on both sides of my family. Given the Left turn that Scotland has taken, I must say that I am immensely grateful that my ancestors emigrated to America. This was even before new abortion laws in Scotland could criminalize praying within a “safe access zone” of abortion clinics, even if a homeowner living within the designated zone can be heard or seen praying within their own home.

It is immensely revealing that abortionists and those so intent to kill unborn children are either offended, fearful, or spitting angry that someone may actually be praying for the soul of the mother to hopefully change her mind, for the soul of the child about to be killed, and even for the soul of the abortionist and his or her helpers to end their vile practice — which some have thankfully done over the years. That politicians and the police in Scotland consider praying in one’s home as potentially reckless and a crime…is a crime — against humanity.

Yes, in very extreme medical cases where an expectant mother is likely to die if the child is delivered, there is a necessity to curtail the birth. But abortion clinics rarely deal with such cases. Hospitals tend to deal with those cases. Abortion clinics by and large exist to provide abortion-on-demand because the unborn child is considered an inconvenience.

Quote of the Day – Getting Ahead

 

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. – Mark Twain

I delivered another book to my editor yesterday. It now goes through the edit cycle before release.  It was due at the end of this month. I delivered early.

The CBS 60-Minute Kamala Campaign Infomercial

 

I realize there are fanboys and fangirls somewhere of the <cough> honest network news sources of CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, and CNN who aren’t particularly troubled about the current story of CBS editing the word salad answer by Kamala Harris on “60-Minutes” to make her sound…oh, what’s the word?…intelligent. No, for some, the real story is Donald Trump complaining that CBS edited Kamala’s rambling, incoherent answer. Trump has called for CBS to lose its broadcast license over the editing scandal, which sadly won’t happen anytime soon.

For context, here is Megyn Kelly on Sirius XM discussing the CBS clean-up of Kamala’s word salad:

Saturday Night Classics

 

The song I chose for tonight is probably in my personal top 10 favorites. The song is “Waterloo Sunset.” It is by the Kinks, was written by Ray Davies, and is on their 1967 album Something Else. It was released as a single at the time and made the top 10 in Britain, but made nary a dent in the U.S. pop charts. I just think it’s a lovely song.

Contemplating Rome and finding the bunny at the bottom of the bowl. Um-m. All Gone!

James will next visit the Diner in a fortnight. See you then!

The best meal I ever ate…..

 

It was September 1969. The future Mrs. Pessimist and her roommate had moved into the apartment just above the one that my two roommates and I occupied. My two friends had asked them out for pizza and I met my future bride that night when they came back to our apartment. Strangely enough, I was actually studying for a college assignment and had not joined them. That was the last time she saw me studying for quite some time. I heard my roommates talking later that night about how hot Mrs. Pessimist was and I decided I should preempt any attempt on their part to claim her affections. I went up to her apartment the next day and invited her to a Jose Feliciano concert that was scheduled for later that week. My enthusiasm and Jose’s romantic charm made for a delightful first date.

So she invited me up to her apartment the next day. Her roommate was working the evening shift at the hospital. She cooked the best meal I have ever eaten although I suspect it might have been the first meal she had ever cooked. She served store-bought breaded veal patties sautéed in a pan with mozzarella cheese on top with a side of canned Franco-American spaghetti. I didn’t know that spaghetti came in a can but it was absolutely delicious. They don’t make that anymore. The closest thing is Spaghettios which is not nearly the same.

Obama Admonishes Black Males for Low Harris Support

 

Former president Barack Obama “[spoke] some truths” about his problem with the relatively low enthusiasm for Vice President Harris’s presidential bid compared to his own 16 years ago. His stern remarks, delivered at a campaign field office in Pittsburgh, were particularly directed at “the brothers,” whom he believes may be reluctant to support Harris because they “aren’t feeling the idea” of having a female president.

Treading the Boards

 

Looking back at my life, I find many examples of interests that come and go. Sometimes I will become quite passionate about something, even obsessed, for a while, before dropping it unceremoniously and moving on to something else. I used to view this as a character flaw, a short attention span; but as I have gotten older I have realized that it comes instead from a desire to constantly seek out new things to learn. I tend to take on hobbies and pursue them long enough to get a feel for what they’re like. But once I reach the “been there, done that” stage, I lose interest.

One of the earliest of these flings was acting. My entire career as a stage actor was coextensive with my years in high school. When I say “career,” of course, what I mean is that I was active in the drama club; I auditioned for pretty much every play, and I always got cast. That was my main extracurricular activity in high school, and in fact, I lettered in drama. (I still have the sew-on letter somewhere, but I never bought a letter jacket to attach it to.) There were at least two big productions each school year, one in the fall and one in the spring, and occasional smaller ones; it seemed that I was always auditioning or rehearsing for something.

An Evening with John Carpenter

 

As Halloween approaches, many of us will think of the 1978 film Halloween. Some of us even have the theme music going through our heads right now. That music is as iconic as the theme from Psycho, but Bernard Herman, not Alfred Hitchcock wrote Psycho’s theme. John Carpenter didn’t merely direct Halloween, he wrote the music, too. And he wrote the screenplay. This is a talented guy.

It was great fun to hear this talented but cranky man, John Carpenter, in person, at Joe Bob Briggs’ International Drive-In Jamboree at the West Wind Drive-In in Las Vegas. He’d been invited to talk about his filmmaking career. Last year, at the Fourth Annual Jamboree, the honored filmmaker was Roger Corman in his last interview.

Carpenter was introduced with a fun montage with scenes from Starman, Christine, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, They Live, Vampires, The Fog, and others mentioned throughout this post. His first, a student project made at USC that received a theatrical release, came out in 1974. And his last film, The Ward, was released in 2010. He is 76 years old and for the last decade and a half, he has concentrated on music.

Will it Take Another 9/11?

 

As we watch the fires of anti-Semitism flare up across the country, and college students think they are being heroic for defending Hamas and Hezbollah, we have to wonder if it’s even possible to turn this country around to the virtue and values it has been known for. When violence, Nazi-like behavior, and protests attacking Jews in this country and worldwide are increasingly celebrated, who will put the brakes on and stop this nihilistic behavior? The academies have built fortresses of Marxism and anti-Americanism, and their militaristic resistance to resurrecting the values of the Founders continues to flourish.

Where do we go from here?

This week we cover a handful of great tug-of-war games, past, present, and future. Charles McElwee, founding editor of RealClearPennsylvania, returns to the podcast to give an election season tour of the swingy Keystone State. Next, Tevi Troy joins for a discussion about the epic clashes between America’s masters of the universe and their presidents. (Be sure to get a copy of his new book, The Power and the Money.)

Steve, Charlie and James also chatter about Florida’s latest roaringly windy Wednesday, and end on the neutral note of AI symphonies.

Britannia under the Waves

 

Despite my last name being Gallagher, I’ve always been something of an Anglophile. I took two years of English History during my long-ago college days and when I graduated I took a six-week backpacking trip around England. I never ventured any farther north than Wales, but along with hanging out in pubs, I did manage to take what I called the Castle Tour. Starting with the grim fortress of Dover Castle overlooking the English Channel, I visited Arundel Castle, Carnarvon Castle, Conwy Castle, Harlech Castle, and Caerphilly Castle with its still-intact moat.

My travels weren’t just confined to castles, however. I visited the British Museum, where I viewed one of the early copies of the Magna Carta, which contains Articles 39 and 40, two of the foundation stones of our modern freedoms. I also visited the Imperial War Museum, the Tudor Palace of Hampton Court, Sir Christopher Wren’s St. Paul’s Cathedral, and Westminister Abbey with its walls covered with plaques honoring Britons both famous and obscure.

Yom Kippur: Regrounding and Rolling Onward

 

I have often described Judaism like a wagon wheel on a road. The wheel turns, and so in a sense, we are going through a cycle each and every day, and each and every year. A wheel in a wheel, as the gospel song goes.

The difference between Judaism and classic circular religions (basically all religions that model themselves after the natural world with its seasons), is that our wheel is not suspended in space. Instead, we are bouncing along a road. We have an origin, and we have a destination. And it is the touchpoints of the road that give us continuity and a sense of belonging. It is why we sing familiar melodies. We reground at the very same time as we look forward.

Our Friday round-up of the week’s big stories:

  • Biden and Harris take on “misinformation” in the aftermath of back-to-back hurricanes
  • Happy Birthday, Reverend Al!
  • Lesbian Navy runs aground
  • Mika seeks professional help
  • Ron doesn’t take Kamala’s phone calls

The Saint Louis Ricochet Meetup, October 3-6

 

A handful of us had a splendid Saint Louis Ricochet Meetup the first weekend of October. This started out with LC and myself saying that, one day, we need to go to a science fiction convention together. We live far from one another, and Saint Louis is about halfway between, so when I saw that Archon was going to have Bob Eggleton as one of its guests, I thought this would be the convention. There were some other Ricochetti who were going to join us, but due to Hurricane Helene or other reasons had to drop out. But we did have @lidenscheng, @omegapaladin, and @katiekoppelman, along with some non-Ricochet companions.

My wife and I went to the Saint Louis Art Museum as soon as we got to town on Thursday afternoon. It is a nice museum, but unfortunately, none of the other Ricochetti got there until after closing time. They did get to see a handful of outdoor sculptures. Next stop was the Chuck Berry statue, which happily turned out to be just a block from Ranoush, the restaurant where we all met for supper. If anyone is looking for good Syrian cuisine in Saint Louis, I recommend it, although Lidens’s boyfriend thought it made his pants smell funny.