Is It OK to Bribe for Contracts?

 

Across most of the world (and, as we see, in the US as well), it is expected – even required – for local officials to wet their beaks on fat contracts. If you want to sell a gas turbine or power plant or engineering services into India or Kazakhstan or Nigeria, paying off the local pols (and others) is necessary.

Of course, this is also illegal. The US and the EU selectively and sporadically enforce anti-bribery laws – often guided by whether or not that same company has been dutifully paying off the US/EU politicians as well. The whole thing stinks to high heaven. Trump’s Executive Order yesterday tried to address this:

“DOGE is coming!” The Eye of Elon Swivels to the Mines of Moria

 

Well, I don’t think it’s quite that dire, but I did get a good chuckle out of a Fox News article today: Musk uncovers limestone mine used for manually processing federal workers’ retirement papers.  Musk says the retirement process at the facility is done by hand, limits the number of federal employees who can retire to 10,000 a month, and is “like a time warp.”

Oh, my giddy aunt.

It’s not often I think of Elon Musk as being a day late and a dollar (or several hundred billion dollars) short, but he’s missed the boat this time.

Flipping the Last Bit

 

Everyone understands binary math now, right? I’ve had my head inside a computer for almost fifty years, so I can’t entirely trust my sense of what non-nerds do, and don’t know, but I’m thinking that the basics of bits and bytes are common knowledge this far into the 21st century.

Certainly everyone understands the idea of place value as it applies to regular, decimal numbers; that the two in $205 is “bigger” than the five in the same number because the two is a number of hundreds and not a number of ones.

Join us this week for a conversation with Hollywood insider, public advocate and Food Network host Melissa Mayo – a fierce advocate for Israel, fighting antisemitism and radical Islam – discussing the hostage/ceasefire deal, and what to expect for Israel and the US with President Trump’s groundbreaking proposals and support for Israel.Brash, irreverent, and mostly peaceful! Stay in contact with us!

Melissa Mayo
Website: https://melissamayo.com/
IG – @themelissamayo
FB – @TheMelissaMayo

In this episode of The Learning Curve, co-hosts U-Arkansas Prof. Albert Cheng and Alisha Searcy interview Steven Wilson, a senior fellow at Pioneer Institute and a leading voice in education reform. Mr. Wilson discusses his journey into K-12 education policy, reflecting on his early work with Gov. Bill Weld and the landmark 1993 Massachusetts Education Reform Act (MERA), which helped propel the state’s schools to national and international success. Steven highlights the contributions of Linda Brown and Building Excellent Schools in fostering high-performing charter leaders and networks and addresses the political and curricular challenges charters face today. Wilson also examines the academic stagnation that continued with the 2024 NAEP results, linking it to the adoption of Common Core and broader shifts in education policy. He explores the intersection of K-12 curricula with race- and class-based politics and discusses themes from his upcoming book, The Lost Decade. He continues by discussing policy recommendations, calling for a renewed focus on rigorous academics to close achievement gaps and restore excellence and equality of opportunity in American education. In closing, Wilson reads a passage from his new book The Lost Decade.

The Pirates of the Judiciary

 

District judges are not elected. They are appointed after being nominated and approved by the Senate. Some of them appear to be doing the bidding of desperate Democrats who are rudderless and shouting epithets to the wind. For example, District Court Judge John Bates has just ruled that the Trump administration must restore information regarding transgender surgeries and transgender ideology that was removed from the websites for HHS, the CDC, and the FDA. His rationale — if it can be called that — is the following (emphasis mine):

“It bears emphasizing who ultimately bears the harm of defendants’ actions: everyday Americans, and most acutely, underprivileged Americans, seeking healthcare,” [U.S. District Judge John Bates] wrote. Citing declarations from two doctors filed in the case, Bates said if they “cannot provide these individuals the care they need (and deserve) within the scheduled and often limited time frame, there is a chance that some individuals will not receive treatment, including for severe, life-threatening conditions. The public thus has a strong interest in avoiding these serious injuries to the public health.”

What foreign policy challenges does the Trump Administration face as of February 2025? Where are the potential flashpoints of global conflict and strife? What ‘bad actors’ are out there, and are they working together?

Defense Policy expert Rebeccah Heinrichs discusses these serious issues with Jeff, and offers some ideas for how America can defend itself and work to promote and protect our national interest and citizens.

Donald Trump Threatens Hamas Again: Will it Work this Time?

 

Donald Trump has run out of patience with Hamas, and rightly so. They are trying to renege on the current criteria of the ceasefire agreement, and Trump knows they are playing games:

Hamas said late Monday that it was indefinitely postponing the next hostage-prisoner swap Saturday, accusing Israel of continuing to shoot at Palestinians, stopping them from moving back to the northern part of the strip, and delaying the entry of medical supplies and shelters.

Human Intelligence Masquerading as AI

 

“We are not judgmental, so we blame the technology and absolve the people.” – David Gelernter, Drawing Life

I once commented to a friend that I thought all of the climate change hysteria was a case of scaring ourselves to death with our own spreadsheets. Anyone who has had any experience working with spreadsheets should know by now that the extrapolations performed by them are entirely a function of the assumptions they contain. Change a single value in a single cell and the spreadsheet’s prediction can go from catastrophe to nirvana. But here is a truism that would be good for us all to remember: There are spreadsheets. And there is reality. And they are two very different things.

BREAKING: Republican Senators Have Had Enough…

 

… and, with a 52-46 vote, invoked cloture on the nomination process of Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence. If the Dems use all of the 30 allowable hours for blah-blah-blah, she’ll be confirmed just past midnight on Wednesday morning. If they don’t, around 7 PM this evening.

Immediately following Gabbard’s confirmation vote, cloture will be invoked on the nomination of RFJ Jr. for HHS. Depending on the aforementioned Dem behavior, he’ll be confirmed either Wednesday evening or in the wee hours of Thursday morning.

It’s intimidating to be in the presence of heroes

 

I drove 12 hours from Hilton Head to Cincinnati to my cousin Laura’s house to visit my Aunt Esther last weekend.  Go read that post first if you haven’t yet, so this post makes more sense.

Laura has three daughters:  An eight-year-old, a five-year-old, and a six-month-old old (This essay may flow a little weird, since I don’t use the girls’ names – sorry about that.).  And now Laura’s mother is dying of a brain tumor in her spare bedroom, on hospice.  She gets agitated and scared and in pain, and Laura goes in and gives her Mother liquid morphine until her eyes flutter shut.  But first, she must promise her Mother that this medicine will not prolong her life, just ease her suffering.  Only then will Esther accept it, so Laura can give her the dose, then go cry in the bathroom so her daughters won’t see her.

I witnessed an extraordinary 15 minutes last Saturday.  So extraordinary that I’ve thought of little else since then.  It started when the 5-year-old came crying to Laura that her older sister wouldn’t let her play basketball.  So Laura and I went out in the driveway to investigate.  The 8-year-old was shooting basketball, and wouldn’t play with her sister because this was “basketball practice for big kids” – she had just recently started playing on a team and viewed basketball as serious business now.  The way little kids do.

The State of the Union Address is Going to be Lit

 

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has invited President Trump to deliver his State of the Union address on March 4th. The event is sure to be raucous. Given all the revelations about fraud, waste, and abuse that Democrats refuse to address specifically, Trump will hopefully read out each example. Whether he pauses to shake his head or look directly at the Democrats and say, “Really?” or “Have you no shame?”…or “American taxpayers’ money to terrorists and terrorist affiliates? Really?” remains to be seen.

The Democrats are sure to heckle or stage a walkout…or perhaps all dress like handmaids. We do know that at least one Democrat congressman will dress like a woman. My suggestion would be that they all wear cones of shame around their necks…but that’s just me.

I just hope that Elon Musk is in the gallery and Trump calls on him to rise to the applause and cheers of Republicans in the chamber. I recommend the gladiatorial chant from, well, Gladiator: “Maximusk! Maximusk! Maximusk!

Trump Team Won’t Hire People Critical of Trump

 

When I first read the title of this article, I scratched my head, because I had to ask, why would Trump want to hire people who weren’t supportive of him? But then I looked into the likely reasons behind the article, and the reasons Trump’s team was going to pick people who were loyal and supported him, and it made sense.

How many times did we learn of people betraying Trump in his first term? Trump admitted that his personnel decisions seriously handicapped him his first time around. We heard about Rex Tillerson, John Kelly, Jim Mattis, John Bolton, Nikki Halley, Mike Pence, Gary Cohn and Anthony Scaramucci, who made the betrayers’ list, to name a few. They either worked against him when they served, attacked him after they left the government or were dismissed, or leaked information to the media.

Everybody’s a Critic

 

“I Was a Teenage Film Critic” sounds B-movie-ish, but it’s the truth. In 1966, Brother Thomas Allen, S.C. started the Bishop Reilly High School Film Society, and that’s where I became a dedicated lifelong film nut. Brother Thomas worked out a deal for half a dozen of us to review movies at local theaters after school each Wednesday, write reviews overnight, edit a weekly newsletter on Thursdays, copy it and hand out The Reilly Reviewer in school on Friday in time for the weekend. It was a Tinkertoy version of what actual film critics did, but when you got a strong positive reaction on Monday morning from people who followed your advice, it sure felt like the real thing. There’s the same impact when—let’s face it—they didn’t like the advice. Either way, you learn fast.

The first lesson of a reviewer: my opinion is no better or worse than yours. That’s a cold fact. But you can describe and discuss a film entertainingly without ever being able to flat-out prove its worth. Like most areas of life, experience usually counts for something. Seeing a lot of movies helps with comparisons that tell a potential viewer how the subject of this week’s review may fit in, or not, with other ones they liked, competing for their dollars and/or time. Do ‘em right, and they’ll read you every week.

My Four Big Game Changers

 

I’ve been talking to my family lately about “game changers.” These are developments that improve some area of life, ease difficulty, and boost motivation. I’ve encountered multiple game changers in the last couple of months.

Our Personal Mechanic- We should all have our own Subaru mechanic on call. Until recently, my family has been taking our old Subarus to the dealer. This involves driving to another town and forking over thousands of dollars for repairs. There are telephone calls, trips back and forth, working around a missing car for days, and uncertainty about the bill.

Questions about G-d 2: Can G-d Make a Rock So Heavy He Can’t Lift It?

 

I made a short series of videos considering questions about G-d that I have noticed get asked from time to time. Below is a rewriting based on the script for the second video, followed by the video itself. (For Ricochet old-timers, pardon the overlap with an earlier Ricochet post.)

I remember hearing some variation of “Can G-d make a rock so heavy He can’t move it?” in high school.  I don’t remember thinking much about it at the time.

My earliest memory of having any clear thought about it is probably around 2010 when, as I recall, I answered it, “Yes, and that rock is called ‘free will.’”

Proud Boys leader, Enrique Tarrio, on his 22-year sentence for J6 – despite not being in Washington that day — and (un-prosecuted) antifa stabbing attacks.

“I Will Play for Gumbo!” Notes on the Super Bowl, and a Recipe

 

Today is the Super Bowl.  I don’t have a dog in this year’s fight (at least not a two-legged one), as the Stillers–after a promising start to the season–folded, as they so often have in the past couple of decades, towards the end.  Oh well.

And without Tom Brady (Boo!) and the New England Patriots (always worth rooting against–cheaters!) in the mix, I can’t gin up all that much interest, pro or con, in the game itself.

As for the sideshows, I am delighted that nubile girls in bikinis (together with the implication that there are places in the country where it’s warm enough to wear such garments, even this early in the Spring) are back in the ads.  And that the league is at least beginning to purge meaningless virtue-signaling from the field. Poor Bud Light, though.  Their ad is a pretty sad commentary on how far they’ve yet to go to find their way back to their base.  Although, full points for the fact that the ad does seem to be full of people more closely resembling actual members of the male sex than the cringey last gasp of some Harris supporters.

The Newspaper in One Hand…

 

Rev. Kate Braestrup
Sermon: The Newspaper and the Bible
February 9, 2025
LK. 5:1-11

When Jesus had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break.

Time for the Jacksonian Response?

 

I thought we would soon see this, this material from a RedState article.

A federal judge issued an order Saturday that purports to not only stop the US DOGE Service, which is part of the Executive Office of the President, from accessing data on federal payments, but also prohibits Treasury officials from accessing the system managed by that agency. Buying into a tenuous — one might say bull**** — claim of “irreparable harm,” a leftist Obama appointee serving in the Southern District of New York blocked access to Treasury systems and demanded Trump’s audit team “immediately destroy any and all copies of material downloaded from the Treasury Department’s records and systems, if any.”

Friendships Forged Under Fire

 

Edward Salter was a solicitor working for a firm in Brighton before World War I started. Feeling a call to serve, he volunteered, and gained a commission in a regiment raised after Britain entered the war. He has just finished training.

The Fires of Gallipoli, a novel by Barney Campbell, opens in Malta, with Salter, a platoon leader, about to join the Allies Mediterranean Expeditionary Force at Gallipoli. It follows Salter and his regiment from there.

Salter, a shy, reserved man, is thrown into an inferno. While not among the first troops to land, he and his regiment endure eight months on the Peninsula.  Edward discovers unknown reserves. He proves a fast learner. He progresses from platoon leader to company commander and then battalion adjutant through a combination of courage, competence and luck. Even as his regiment is winnowed by combat, he survives uninjured.