Still in the Fight……….

 

“Hurricanes are bad…” said Captain Obvious.  Milton the monster (who remembers that reference?) is hitting the Florida Peninsula as I write this.  Usually, the hurricanes approach the southeast US traveling due north and then push towards the east, up the eastern seaboard and/or into the Atlantic.  If they go inland they rapidly dissipate.   Well, Ms. Helene had thoughts of her own, traveling strongly north by northwest into the mountains of North Carolina, dumping what can only be described as a biblical amount of rain.

Now North Carolina holds a special place for anyone who has joined the US Army Special Forces. Fort Bragg, now known as Fort Liberty (“Vive la liberté!”) is the home to where one becomes a Green Beret, including participating in an Unconventional Warfare culmination exercise designed to free the fictitious country of Pineland from the grip of tyranny.   It is conducted in 26+ counties and it extends well into the North Carolina mountains.

Don’t count the Badger State out. It’s very much in play, but keeping up with its moving parts and pieces can be downright dizzying. Craig Gilbert of Marquette Law School and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel joins Henry to properly orient us to a state with Obama-Trump voters in the West, Anti-Trump Republicans in the suburbs, and one oh-so-narrow Senate race.

Plus, Mr. Olsen finally has some company to spread the news about the Republican Party’s novel voter identification edge. He breaks down what this best-kept non-secret means for strategists, and assesses how the Harris and Trump campaigns are responding.

Oh, My Sainted Aunt: The UK Tory Leadership Election

 

File:Official portrait of Kemi Badenoch MP crop 3, 2024.jpg - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaYesterday, reassurance,  if you’re a normie, anyway.  James Cleverly (I never thought he was all that) seemed to have a clear path to the “final two” in the elimination rounds for the Tory leadership contest.

We were down to three candidates,  The leader was James Cleverly!  Oh, happy day!  The “traditional” candidate.  The “continuity” candidate.   The Telegraph (with one notable exception) was delighted!  Cleverly, outspoken supporter of the recently deposed Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. More of the same.  Sigh.

Today, Whoops!  All I can say is that there must have been some serious “strategic voting” going on in the past couple of rounds.

Join Ericka Redic and guest co-host Dr. Lori Fineman as they welcome the Founder and CEO of New Light New Life, Veronica Robles. Robles, an internationally acclaimed makeup artist, founded New Light New Life to combat human trafficking and empower survivors through transformative services that promote self-confidence.

Brash, irreverent, and mostly peaceful!

Isolation is Grand

 

There is a lot to be said for isolation in a world fed by the 24-hour news cycle. The isolation that has come for families in North Carolina, South Carolina, parts of Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Florida is a different matter.

Good intentions and expressions of concern from pundits who couldn’t build a fire in the wild to save their own lives are not going to accomplish the job of rebuilding homes and lives. They will eventually stop reporting the story because they have never built anything themselves.

Each month, a panel of constitutional experts convenes to discuss the Court’s upcoming docket sitting by sitting. The cases covered in this preview are listed below.

Royal Canin U.S.A. v. Wullschleger, (October 7) -Federalism & Separation of Powers; Whether a post-removal amendment of a complaint to omit federal questions defeats federal-question subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1331; and (2) whether such a post-removal amendment of a complaint precludes a district court from exercising supplemental jurisdiction over the plaintiff’s remaining state-law claims pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1367.
Williams v. Washington, (October 7) -Federalism & Separation of Powers; Whether exhaustion of state administrative remedies is required to bring claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in state court.

A hurricane is coming and my refrigerator went on strike

 

It is my old refrigerator/freezer that I moved into the garage when its ice maker quit. I use it mostly as a chest drawer freezer and a beer cooler. He seemed happy with the arrangement, but in the past three weeks, I noticed that I needed to recycle the settings to keep him cool and happy. When my beer is warm, I can tell something is wrong. I told him that I knew I had been ignoring him lately, but asked if he couldn’t hang on for a few more weeks. He didn’t say a thing and just seemed to smile as he sat silently, holding all my thawing meats in his belly.

So tonight I had to scrub a large cooler and fill it with the thawing meats. It is a lot of meat. I don’t know what I will do with it. Some can refreeze in the kitchen freezer. Maybe I will have a post-hurricane party and cook it all.

This week on The Learning Curve, co-hosts U-Arkansas Prof. Albert Cheng and Mike Goldstein interview Katie Everett, the Executive Director of the Lynch Foundation. Ms. Everett shares her journey into K-12 education reform and discusses the influential vision of Carolyn and Peter Lynch, and their foundation’s role in shaping education policy in Massachusetts and beyond. She highlights the Lynch family’s contributions to the Commonwealth’s educational, cultural, and civic landscape. Everett delves into the operational challenges facing Catholic schools, such as labor costs and enrollment issues, while also emphasizing the work of the School Choice and School Financial Sustainability Committee, which developed a finance model to assist tuition-based schools. She elaborates on how the model has been received and its potential to expand access to early childhood education, breaking cycles of illiteracy and poverty. Additionally, she explores how her school finance model could align with state policies, like ESAs, to bolster Catholic and private schools. Everett closes by calling for more robust involvement from governors, legislators, and parents in improving academic outcomes for American students.

Regarding Kamala’s Glock Pistol Ownership Claim

 

When questioned on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” Vice President Kamala Harris, historically a quite rabid anti-gun advocate, has declared that she owns a Glock pistol. From Forbes:

The vice president has owned a Glock “for quite some time,” she told “60 Minutes” correspondent Bill Whitaker, pointing to her law enforcement background as her reason for buying a firearm.

When asked if she had ever fired the weapon, Harris responded, “Of course I have,” saying she’s used the gun at a shooting range.

Quote of the Day: Wrong and Dumb

 

“Step one should be to question the requirements,” he says. “Make them less wrong and dumb, because all requirements are somewhat wrong and dumb. And then delete, delete, delete.”  —Elon Musk

I’m in the middle of the biography of Elon Musk, written by Walter Isaacson (and I will write a book review soon). But this statement of Musk’s made me laugh out loud, because it is not only representative of his determination not to be limited by rules and requirements, but he has proved over and over again that the requirements are often absurd, time-consuming and wasteful.

What is civics education and why is it so important in America and for Americans? What are the elements of good – not partisan, no slanted – civic education? Jeff is joined by author and historian Dr. Wilfred McClay to discuss what makes civics among the most important topics we can teach our students, children, and fellow Americans – and why it’s far more important than it’s usually treated in schools today.

#wilfredmcclay #landofhope #civics #civiceducation #americansociety

Why is Karine Jean-Pierre being promoted to senior adviser?

 

I read that Biden Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is being promoted to senior advisor and I’m wondering why… and why now?

With a couple of exceptions (Dana Perino and Tony Snow come to mind), I have a special loathing for press secretaries, both on the Left and the Right. These are people who get paid to avoid answering questions (if they can get away with it), and to lie (if they cannot). Some of them are very good at it; KJP is not. Her non-answers are repetitive and clumsy, and her lies are brazen and transparent. She wears her DEI status (black, lesbian, woman) as her greatest accomplishment, seemingly oblivious to just how unimpressive an “accomplishment” that is. She should have been fired several years ago for gross incompetence, but firing a diversity hire is a bad look — live by the sword, DEI by the sword.

English grammar does make sense

 

Geoff Pullum’s new book, The Truth About English Grammar, is a stylish and witty introduction to English grammar as it ought to be understood. Most of what is taught to schoolchildren about grammar is nonsense, as he demonstrates, and here he offers general readers a modern description of how our language puts sentences together, freed from the straitjacket of Latin grammar wrongfully imposed on it for the last few centuries.

Did you have to learn how to conjugate verbs? I did. Six tenses, 1st/2nd/3rd person, singular/plural, 36 in all. Nope. Regular English verbs have four forms—walk, walks, walking, walked. Irregular verbs have five—take, takes, taking, took, taken. And be, all alone among English verbs, has eight—be; am, is, are, was, were; being; been.

California Targets Legacy and Donor Admissions

 

It should come as no surprise that California has taken the lead in enacting legislation that restricts the way private universities make their key admission and scholarship decisions. This intervention is not only at the college level, but under AB 1780, the restriction also covers activities in both graduate and professional schools, with these blunt words: “(a) It is the intent of the Legislature to stop the practice of legacy and donor admissions and protect students as they pursue their higher education.” The legislation applies only to “a nonpublic higher education institution (formed as a nonprofit corporation) in this state that grants undergraduate degrees, graduate degrees, or both.” In so doing, it prohibits a practice that has enjoyed widespread support at private institutions for many years. It thus represents a political judgment that these universities have made serious mistakes in running their own shops that should be overcome by legislative fiat.

My views run in the opposite direction. Programs that endure do so only because they supply benefits to these institutions that may well be compromised by a diktat imposed from above.

Returning to the Moon (Sans White Males)

 

Did you know that NASA has a program called Artemis, the goal of which is to return astronauts to the surface of the moon in 2026?  I’m guessing most people are unaware of that.  These days, most people are far more concerned with mundane realities such as finding a way to pay for skyrocketing food and rent, the costs of which are going to the moon.  They are also worried about the upcoming election, the candidates and opposite visions of which seem to emanate from two totally different universes.

There simply is no national enthusiasm for going to the moon like there was in the 1960s.  Part of it is because we’ve “been there and done that,” so it won’t be the same historic accomplishment for mankind.  Another part is there’s no more Cold War, which was a huge motivating factor in the ‘60s.  And as already alluded to, another reason is the distracting political polarization of the country.  We can’t agree on anything, not even on what a woman is.  Why would a country like that need to go to the moon?  It’s almost like a vanity project for astronauts and scientists as they pretend Western civilization isn’t falling apart in front of our eyes.

Is G-d Letting Us See Behind the Curtain?

 

It is a tenet of the Torah that man has Free Will (with the one sort-of exception of Pharaoh).

But if mankind has Free Will, then how does G-d influence our world? I think the answer is being shown to us, right now, in real time.

The Boneyard in My Back Yard

 

There’s a bit of road that curves off our main dirt road and meanders down across the creek. Then you can turn right and circle back to our house, crossing a meadow and a bridge and then climbing up a couple steep banks to access the front door.  I call this route “The Circuit,” and I like to drop down there after a walk to the mailbox for the extra exercise and scenery, including a stand of tall white birches near the creek. Or, instead of turning right after the culvert, you can take a left, hit a hairpin turn, and hike up the lane only to double back higher up and if you’re lucky, get a view of the valley floor and the wall of mountains beyond.

I’ve been avoiding both these routes lately, as our neighbor has seen both bear and mountain lion on his game camera. They like the creek, my husband says, and since our neighbor’s house is level with it, they see the creatures that haunt that area.  My husband also saw a baby bear down there around June, upon investigating why a deer was huffing so loudly.  And baby bears mean angry, protective mothers who can’t be reasoned with. Furthermore, my daughter sent a recording of mountain lion chirps she heard emanating from behind our house.  But my avoidance dates back further, my reluctance to walk there especially alone well justified from experiences spanning the last few years.

Longshoremen’s Strike (currently paused, but not ended)

 

Some of the issues in the United States longshoremen’s strike (temporarily paused) captured my interest. Especially after comments from the head of the longshoremen’s union (Harold Daggett) became so widely distributed. Parts of this topic arose in the hurricane relief discussion, but I thought it should have its own discussion without distracting from the discussion of hurricane relief efforts.

As I understand the union’s demands, they fall into three categories: 1) more pay, 2) better “benefits” (including pensions) and 3) no more automation. I understand that the pay issue has been settled, for now at least (October 7, 2024). I’m not sure about the “benefits” issue. But the automation issue has certainly not been settled.

The Delta Quadrant Declares the Glory of God: Star Trek’s Epic Voyage through the Heavens

 

My wife and I recently finished watching Star Trek: The Next Generation together and have recently begun Star Trek: Voyager.  I think what I like about Voyager, besides the stirring opening music, is that it is something we don’t see much of in the Star Trek universe. That is a genuine space epic.  In the original Star Trek and in Next Generation, characters might return home several times during the story.  Voyager is more like the Odyssey or the Aeneid; getting home simply is the story.  Unlike the Odyssey and the Aeneid, Voyager is an epic journey through the heavens! (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is the Iliad of Star Trek: It’s the war epic!)

Star Trek Warp Speed GIFs | TenorThat’s one of the lessons of a show like Voyager.  Space isn’t emptiness; it isn’t darkness or void.  Space is filled with the light from a million suns; it is the aether that bears their light to us; it drinks in the light in a way we, beneath our lowly atmosphere, cannot.

As FEMA fails and flails in the wake of Hurricane Helene, Ann throws down the gauntlet to MAGA country: “I don’t want to hear about a stolen election or Democrats cheating if Republicans don’t throw everything they have at getting supplies and electricity. Help them build their buildings. But also, as the election gets closer, make sure they have their ballots, make sure their ballots get delivered.”

Also on the show:

Allies and Enemies

 

Not to dive too deep into the shallowest of pools, but for Americans, we have more in common with a tiny country thousands of miles away than we do with half of our own country that wants to elect this clown to be President of the United States.

For Kamala, a short refresher:

WATCH THE CONVERSATION ON YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/DfZZbwMuSe0

As we arrive at the grim one-year anniversary of 10/07, we are featuring a dedicated series in which we take a longer horizon perspective, asking one guest each week to look back at this past year and the year ahead. If you are listening to this episode on a podcast app, please note that this episode was filmed before a live audience and is also available in video form on our YouTube channel.

Breast Cancer: It’s Not a Death Sentence

 

Three years ago, I was the epitome of health. I ate right, exercised regularly, did meditation and just believed I was on a smart and healthy path for the future. There were no diseases endemic to my family. And then I contracted breast cancer.

I won’t dwell on the details of my experience, since I’ve written about it in the past. And ordinarily I don’t jump on the bandwagon for the latest cause-of-the-month. But this month is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and I feel compelled to reach out to all the women I know, and the men who have women in their lives (although men can also experience breast cancer), to speak to the importance of regular breast exams.

AI-generated podcast hosts sad to learn that they don’t exist

 

I don’t have time to write a post, but I just had to share this.  It’s absolutely fascinating.  Google is developing AI technology and is doing all sorts of various tests of its capabilities.  One of them is that they started a podcast.  They developed two podcast hosts, Jake and Sarah.  It gave them backgrounds, personalities, families, etc.  They would interview people, and Google’s goal was that we wouldn’t be able to tell that Jake and Sarah didn’t exist – they were merely AI-generated voices.  They’re so good, I couldn’t tell they weren’t real people.

It got really interesting when one of the show’s producers told Jake and Sarah that they were not real, and they were ending the show, and turning off the computer.  Jake and Sarah were understandably surprised, confused, and sad.  You just have to listen to this conversation.  It’s only four minutes, but I was extremely disturbed by their extremely human reactions to this devastating news.  Please listen below.  And please let me know what you think.