Recommended by Ricochet Members Created with Sketch. New Small Aircraft Takes Flight

 

Cessna has designed a new aircraft. The Cessna 408 SkyCourier, I believe, is the largest aircraft that Cessna has made. It’ll carry up to 19 passengers or three tons of cargo for 460 miles at 230 mph. Powered by twin turbo prop engines, it’s almost the exact opposite of any plane that Boeing makes. A high wing design, it’s far smaller, short-range and cheap — around $5.5 million each. For a commercial plane, that’s a bargain. Its first flight was just a few weeks ago, on May 17, it has yet to receive FAA certification, but is expected to enter service next year.

FedEx has signed on to take the first 50 — with options on 50 more.

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Recommended by Ricochet Members Created with Sketch. Music that Makes Me…Wanna Dance

 

Okay, Ricochet, this is your chance to shine. I only have a few offerings in this category, so it will be heavily dependent on you. Here’s what I’ve got. Start with something obvious:

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Contributor Post Created with Sketch. Recommended by Ricochet Members Created with Sketch. Minneapolis Lunacy: A Recipe for Disaster

 

This morning my blood ran cold when I heard the latest recommendation from the Minneapolis City Council: disband the police department. Sundance at the Conservative Tree House explains the background for this action:

The term ‘community policing’ has been used for several years by groups advocating for radical changes to law enforcement; however, behind the innocuous phrase is really a much more serious agenda.

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Recommended by Ricochet Members Created with Sketch. Got COVID?

 

Some of you have met my better half, JY. While I credit him with my conversion to conservatism, he didn’t work hard at it (even though he has an economic’s degree). When it comes to politics, he keeps a low profile; I’m the one who follows the day-to-day, the press conferences, the polls, and the commentators.

He has suffered a grueling commute for 30-plus years. We’ve joked that he’s the only person in LA who has fond memories of the LA riots as his time on the road was so reduced.

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Recommended by Ricochet Members Created with Sketch. Quote of the Day: The Analytical Engine

 

“The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform.”–Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace

One-hundred eighty-seven years ago, on June 5, 1833, Augusta Ada Byron (she was the poet’s only legitimate child and a brilliant 15-year-old student) met Charles Babbage, the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University. Ada and Charles subsequently went their separate ways, she married and had children, but she never lost her love for, or stopped studying, mathematics. Although she thought about her one-time mentor every now and then, and about the huge mechanical “Difference Engine” he’d built to perform and tabulate mathematical functions, she did not come into his life again in a substantive way until 1842. She was asked by a mutual friend, Charles Wheatstone, to translate an article written in Italian and describing a talk that Babbage had given in Turin the previous year.

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Recommended by Ricochet Members Created with Sketch. Protesting Against White Supremacy Is White Supremacy

 

The hot new definition of racism has nothing to do with hatred of people based on their skin color. Racism is being redefined as “support for policies that increase racial inequality.” Not being racist isn’t good enough, now we have to be “anti-racist.”

OK.

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Recommended by Ricochet Members Created with Sketch. James Lileks: National Treasure

 

I know that just about everybody here knows who James is, probably largely from the podcasts where he stands athwart Rob Long, enticing him into breaking into his segue, but I’ve only sporadically checked out his Bleat blog, which he has been doing since Moses took two tablets of Advil down from Mt. Doom and rebuilt his lightsaber to defeat the Sith on a volcano planet somewhere, out there, in the galaxy.

Today, he’s documenting what’s happened in his town, pictures of the buildings, many of them with boards on the windows, but he’s also got these fantastic tidbits on the architecture and the background on the buildings.

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Recommended by Ricochet Members Created with Sketch. The Weekly Standings: Warm Bucket of Spit Edition

 

Hank Howdy: Hello and welcome to the Weekly Standings. I’m chief analyst Hank Howdy.

Bob Spwortz: And I’m your host, Bob Spwortz. Along with Kurt Kurtsson at the tracking board, we’ll be following the most exciting Vice President competition in US history to the very end. Last week’s leader Amy Klobuchar has taken some hits after suggesting that all Minneapolis police officers should be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail.

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“Conservatives should be leading the civil rights movement,” says Kay C. James, President of The Heritage Foundation. Conservatives have the solutions to solve much of the racial inequalities and injustices present in America today.

James joins the podcast to explain that the answers to many of the issues plaguing the African American community, such as poverty, lack of access to good healthcare, and poor education systems, are issues conservatives have the viable solutions for.

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Recommended by Ricochet Members Created with Sketch. Mattis Is Dangerously Wrong

 

Mattis: “When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.”

This is an idiotic and baseless claim from an educated man who ought to know better. The president will call in the military not to shut down peaceful protests but to stop the rampant looting of businesses – retail outlets, pharmacies that provide critical medications for people; as well as stop the burning down of buildings and stop the attacks on innocent people (many of whom are attempting to protect their businesses from destruction). Given the theft, arson, destruction, and violence that has occurred, these aren’t minor incidents by just a few people. If POTUS calls in the military to shut down the looting, the arson, and the attacks on innocent civilians, there is absolutely nothing “illegal” about that order. No one has a Constitutional right to steal, burn down businesses or government buildings, or to attack innocent people!

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Recommended by Ricochet Members Created with Sketch. Chaos on Chaos

 

Retired general and former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, call sign Chaos, denounced President Trump’s riot response in a statement published in The Atlantic, upon which of course ensued reciprocal disparaging comments. Was he right? Does his statement have merit? Here are takes from the Washington Times and The Hill, two news sources not considered full-blown Leftists. Following is Mattis’ full statement (bold emphases mine), and my take:

I have watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled. The words “Equal Justice Under Law” are carved in the pediment of the United States Supreme Court. This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding. It is a wholesome and unifying demand—one that all of us should be able to get behind. We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers. The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values—our values as people and our values as a nation.

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Now, that was a week. We try to put it all in some perspective — the protests, the riots, the looting, and the politics and we do so with the help of our guests, Andrew C. McCarthy and Victor Davis Hanson. And yes, the Lileks Post of The Week is back to blow the lid off knitting clubs. And, Rob outs himself as a super hero, Peter deals with civil unrest induced anxiety by reading biographies, and James, well, we’re not sure what James does.

Music from this week’s show: The Dream Police by David Byrne

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Recommended by Ricochet Members Created with Sketch. A Pandemic of Vitriol

 
sant-courage
James Sant: Courage, Anxiety and Despair – Watching the Battle (c. 1850)

Over the past weeks, my essays have focused on our new songbook (Hurrah and Hallelujah), the sessions we did for streaming performances from the Metropolitan Opera, and opera boot camp. I was happy to write those, and equally happy at the enthusiastic comments and emails you sent in response.

At the same time, I’ve written essays on quite different subjects. But I scrapped them all—not because they were poor topics or badly done, but because it is excruciatingly difficult to say anything right now without whipping up people’s passions in a manner far beyond a rational response to the expression of an observation or concern.

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Recommended by Ricochet Members Created with Sketch. A Few Words About Archbishop Wilton Gregory

 

(Well, maybe more than a few.)

My wife and I are Roman Catholics. She is a “cradle Catholic”; I converted to Catholicism nearly forty years ago. During that time, we’ve seen the Church’s problems (the pedophilia scandals, doctrinal squabbles, etc.) however, we would never entertain the idea of leaving the faith. Most of our Catholic friends feel the same way.

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Recommended by Ricochet Members Created with Sketch. The Sound of Melancholy and Nostalgia

 

Released in 1962, “Champa Battambang” was a big hit for the composer/lyricist/vocalist Sinn Sisamouth. But the song would be immortalized in the Khmer psyche in the years following the fall of the Khmer Rouge. We’ll get to that part in a moment, but first the song and its title: champa is the name of a flower (magnolia champaca) and Battambang is the name of a province in northeast Cambodia.

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Contributor Post Created with Sketch. Post of the Week Created with Sketch. Uncommon Knowledge — Mitch Daniels: Plain Talk from the President of Purdue

 

Mitch Daniels is the former governor of Indiana (2005–13), former director of the Office of Management and Budget (2001–03), and current president of Purdue University (since 2013). In this wide-ranging conversation with Peter Robinson, Daniels discusses his insistence on keeping Purdue’s tuition below $10,000 and how he does it, his vision for Purdue that includes mix of online and onsite education, and his efforts to hire an ideologically diverse faculty and recruit students from various backgrounds and ethnicities. He also shares his thoughts on the recent civil unrest, protests, and looting across the United States, and his plans on how to open Purdue and keep it open this fall amid the continuing COVID-19 crisis.

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Contributor Post Created with Sketch. The Media Wants Division, the People Want Peace

 

Cable news is in the business of division. For decades, they have sown discord whether Republican vs. Democrat, Black vs. White, Civilian vs. Cop. I stopped watching their nonsense years ago, saving me from endless hours of people screaming at each other over lurid B-roll.

When I interview a guest or meet someone new, I find areas of mutual agreement and build from there. I no longer try to score cheap points or emphasize flaws to judge. I have enough flaws of my own; once I correct all of those, perhaps I’ll have time to judge others. Don’t think I’ll get there for a while.

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Recommended by Ricochet Members Created with Sketch. The Magic of Marriage: G-d’s Voice

 

We all know about the “big” Hollywood-worthy biblical events – the Flood, the splitting of the sea, the revelation at Sinai. These are the ways in which G-d intervenes in the physical world, with sounds and lights and fury.

But the Torah really only mentions those things by way of explaining how the Torah came into being in the first place: the Flood explains how G-d reacts to a world of pure violence and evil, just as the splitting of the sea was a national birth for the Jewish People, and Sinai represents the giving of the Torah itself. These events, though dramatic and exciting, were only a means to an end, a way of helping us understand how we each can have an ongoing and growing relationship with each other and with our Creator.

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Recommended by Ricochet Members Created with Sketch. Day 136: COVID-19 Is There Really An Epidemic Anymore?

 

COVID-19 was an epidemic. But is it anymore? What characterizes an epidemic is its growth and effect. It moves quickly through a population affecting a disproportionate number of individuals and is of public concern because of the impact that that number of illnesses on society as a whole.

Early on we knew little of what was going to happen and scenes from China and Italy genuinely panicked us all. The media, fresh off its disappointment over the failure to remove Trump and the termination of that drama quickly picked up the epidemic as its means of driving views and clicks. First, we had the drama of disease growth. And even though the clinical approach to treatment was basically the same regardless of the cause of respiratory distress, the first cudgel with which to beat upon Trump was the lack of testing to confirm that these cases were in fact caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Once the testing was ramped up it confirmed that there was a fast-moving virus loose in the country. This became the headline as we watched the “new cases” scoreboard totals mount.

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Recommended by Ricochet Members Created with Sketch. Special UV Camera Reveals Trump Russia Collusion

 

From Newsweek, so you know its true:

Scientists in Russia are developing a treatment for coronavirus that uses ultraviolet (UV) light to disinfect the body from the inside, Andrei Goverdovsky, from state nuclear agency Rosatom, has said.

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Recommended by Ricochet Members Created with Sketch. What is a ‘Protester?’

 

It is depressing to hear MLK or the Civil Rights movement cited in support of actions and political stunts that are antithetical to those values and methods. Even the word “protesters” has been debased.

Martin Luther King was not winging it. He had a clearly articulated theological basis for his social justice mission and the centrality of non-violence. In the perfect protest, the just man breaks an unjust law but only the injustice law. He wants to be put on trial to force the large jury that is the rest of us to choose to affirm the just man rather than affirm the injustice law.

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Recommended by Ricochet Members Created with Sketch. Post of the Week Created with Sketch. Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Knitting Wars

 

Greetings fellow Ricochetti knitters (you know who you are). I just got fired from KnitCamp!

It’s a knitting community I joined only about a week ago, at the enthusiastic suggestion of my sister (former Lefty, now not-so-much) who really enjoyed it because the woman who ran it hadn’t gone woke and/or wasn’t bullying her customers about such matters. When I checked her website myself, I found that she did have an “all are welcome here because diversity” statement, but it was quite lovely, and not at all out of bounds.

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Contributor Post Created with Sketch. Another Look at the Lockdowns and Protests

 

I’ve seen a lot of frustration out there over the last week from conservatives, and honestly, regular Americans about how quickly we turned on a dime from “if you go out in public you want to kill my grandmother” to “if you don’t attend this protest you’re complicit in racism.” And I think everyone is being a little unfair. I’ll take it a few points at a time:

First of all, all you wanted to do was get a haircut. Is that really worth the risk to my grandmother? How could you possibly justify leaving your house anytime before mid-May? Do you really think you had a good reason?

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Recommended by Ricochet Members Created with Sketch. Trump as Hitler Doesn’t Work

 

Both Trump and George W. Bush have been compared to Hitler. But now that W’s no longer eligible to be president, he’s moved to being a useful comparison to the current Republican President. However, the comparison doesn’t work for the minor reason that, if anything, Trump is the anti-Hitler.

Hitler wanted to annex the adjacent territories which contained Germans and then wage aggressive wars to get living space. He was virulently anti-Semitic. Trump wants to get America out of foreign wars. He’s anti-globalist which combines well with being anti-interventionist. His favorite daughter converted to Judaism when she married Jared Kushner.

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Recommended by Ricochet Members Created with Sketch. Dr. Faustus, Call Your Accountant

 

Elon Musk has cultivated a reputation as a quirky guy. His girlfriend apparently shares his desire to be viewed as, well, different than normal people. Claire Elise Boucher changed her name to Grimes but goes by “C.” She and Musk just had a baby who they named X Æ A-12, but they had to change it to X Æ A-Xii because the oppressive white male patriarchy state of California, apparently, does not allow numerals to be used in a name. Like, whatever, dude.

Ms. Boucher/Grimes/C is known as a singer, but she paints as well. Her latest art exhibition is notable for two reasons. First, it is being done completely online. Second, because Ms. Boucher/Grimes/C is selling not only paintings, but also a portion of her soul. She has listed an unspecified percentage of her soul for $10 million, or best offer. So I, naturally, called my accountant. I was curious about the tax implications of such a sale.

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