Never Tempt the Gods of Stupid

 

A couple of prescient Ricochetti  wags joked that the replacement bridge in Baltimore would be the “George Floyd Memorial Bridge.”  (My sons opined the replacement honored figure  will be Freddie Gray or Elijah Cummings.) If we have learned anything from the Babylon Bee, it is to NEVER joke about the next woke stupid idea because it might cause it to actually happen.

Right on cue, within 24 hours the Washington Post has discovered that former slave-holding District of Columbia lawyer Francis Scott Key is now officially problematic:

Now We Have Transgender Visibility Day

 

I find myself strangely welcoming of this “International Transgender Day of Visibility,” a day dedicated to meditation on the maiming and sterilization of mental patients. This is not an abstract issue for me; there was a lesbian couple in my social circle many years ago who arranged a sperm donor, had a child, and then the child’s mother underwent “the process”. She knew that at the end of that process she would not be a man, merely able to more credibly present as a man. To be man-like. Which she felt was a more perfect reflection of her being and would provide their child with a father and a mother. Something closer to normalcy than lesbian parents could offer. This whole chain of events was a plan that they shared at the outset and executed patiently over some years. She weened her child and began the transition.

I have long since lost contact with them. When I think of them I pray for them. The statistics are hard. More than 40% of transgender people have attempted suicide, versus 4.6% of the general US population. Their life-expectancy is reduced by decades following a surgical transition and their medical issues are multiplied.

AEI’s Senior Fellow Emeritus Karlyn Bowman returns to answer some questions and poses others on one of the essential political puzzles of the day: the growing separation between the sexes. Plus Henry speculates on how Donald Trump might blunt Joe Biden’s cash edge, and breaks down the latest attack ad against Mike Braun.

Fraudulent People, Fraudulent Ideas

 

There seems to be a non-trivial correlation between fraudulent ideas, and the fraudulent people who promote them. From the fundamental dimness of DEI “scholars” to the perversions of Kinsey, to the DDT scare of Rachel Carson, there is a destructive path of overclaims, thinly sourced, misrepresented, or downright fraudulent research. The latest seems to involve a math “scholar”, Jo Boaler, who has been influential in California adopting “heterogeneous classes” that throttle high performers and fail to support low performers, and to delay teaching algebra until the 10th grade.

Dr Boaler gives bad advice and charges a lot for it from her coveted perch in the Stanford University education department.

Horror of horrors! NBC News hires and fires a Republican after on-air talent throws a fit. Who’s running the asylum?

Then we talk to Karen England of the Capitol Resource Institute about the battle for parental rights in America’s schools.

Climate Panic Movement Not Catching On

 

The Great Climate Change Revolution is headed for failure. You can tell that because it is already in big trouble before the ultimate heavy lifting has even started.

International accords, (i.e. Paris Agreement) passed with great fanfare to ensure cooperation on emissions reductions, are ignored by most of the signers, notably China. Consumers worldwide are balking at increased energy prices. Unsold EVs are piling up.

The Baltimore Bridge Collapse & Astoria, Oregon

 

The Francis Scott Key truss bridge was the third longest span of any continuous truss in the world, and the total length was 8,636 feet long. It was the second-longest bridge in the Baltimore metropolitan area, after the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.

The Astoria-Megler bridge in the Pacific Northwest is the longest continuous truss bridge in North America and the second longest in the world. It is four miles in length and carries traffic from Astoria, OR to Point Ellis near Megler, WA.

If the Abortion Pill: Why Not Most Drugs?

 

The Supreme Court seems likely to allow an abortion pill to be available over-the-counter, instead of requiring a prescription.

I am a committed opponent of the FDA: I hate that patients are not allowed to make our own decisions when it comes to medication (but we are encouraged to do so in all kinds of less-healthy ways, “natural” drugs and behaviors, including promiscuity). And so I wonder… is there a silver lining to be had here? Might the government allowing patients to self-prescribe certain drugs without a doctor’s prescription be extended to allow many more on the same legal basis?

MSNBC is a Cult

 

As one of the 99.9% of Americans who never or rarely ever watch MSNBC, my viewing habits were unaffected by the reports of the hissy fits triggered by the hiring and then firing of a failed RNC chairwoman.  The pull of bias at MSNBC has so completely collapsed into itself like a cognitive black hole that there is not even room for a token punching bag RINO on staff.

I used to tune in occasionally.  I was interviewed by Chris Matthews regarding a topical issue way back when the network was brand new, back when he was still using a blue-collar, regular-guy Democrat persona based on his former staff work for Tip O’Neill.  That version of Chris Matthews disappeared into the bias black hole long ago.

This week on The Learning Curve, guest co-hosts Charlie Chieppo and Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Barry Anderson interview UCLA’s classical historian, Prof. Ronald Mellor. Dr. Mellor delves into the enduring influence of Tacitus, the great Roman historian, on both America’s Founding Fathers and contemporary understanding of politics and government. He discusses Tacitus’s insights on the early Roman emperors, unchecked authority, moral judgment of leadership, and the decline of the Roman Republic, as well as ancient lessons for modern governance. Prof. Mellor closes with a reading from his book, Tacitus.

Jeff is joined by Congressman Jim Jordan (OH-4, R) to discuss some of most essential elements of a leader, as well as some of the most pressing challenges facing American today. They discuss government-sponsored threats to the First Amendment,and the challenges presented internationally by Russia and China.

Host: Jeff Sikkenga

Progressive Rabbis Support the Underdog: Hamas

 

Over the years I’ve had many conversations with friends, Jewish and non-Jewish, about the overwhelming number of Jews who are Progressives. Although in some ways, their commitment is perplexing, since many of the Progressive values must result in some cognitive dissonance for liberal Jews. But I’ve explained that many of them believe in supporting the underdog—the people who are oppressed and rejected by the larger society.

When the massacre of October 7 in Israel occurred, there was a great outcry in the Jewish community, in the U.S. and abroad. Reformed, conservative and orthodox Jews in the United States and in Israel raged about the Hamas attack. But one small group—progressive Rabbis— which has taken the view that the Palestinians in Israel are the oppressed, continue to decry Zionism and criticize Israel for its response to October 7. What is happening to these leaders of Jewish communities?

Well, That Didn’t Last Long…

 

McDaniel at the 2018 Young Women’s Leadership Summit (WikiMedia Commons)

I think it was only yesterday that I saw that Ronna McDaniel, former Chair of the Republican National Committee got a job as a contributor at NBC News.  I probably wouldn’t have even known she got the job, except that a bunch of the on-air talent was throwing a fit over her hiring.

DOJ’s Antitrust Crusade against Apple

 

With much publicity, the Department of Justice has launched a new broadside antitrust suit against Apple, an American company with a multitrillion-dollar market capitalization and an array of products that are widely used throughout the world—including by this author—to great acclaim. To read the government complaint is a dizzying experience because it is a real challenge to sort out the wheat from the chaff.

According to the DOJ, Apple stands invincible because it adopts a policy of excluding all market comers, who can gain admission only with Apple’s consent. This consent always comes with stiff fees, for Apple “demands up to 30 percent of the price of an app whose content, product, or service it did not create,” only to pile on yet another 30 percent in fees on customers at the back end of the production chain. Yet DOJ never asks why Apple does not use its supposedly inexhaustible market power to jack up prices even further. Are these customers the pawns of Apple, as the Department of Justice claims, or is the government’s general charge overinflated so long as Android is in play, highlighting both its own advances and insisting that it is easy to switch and transfer data to its open-source Linux platform?

The Challenge of Finding – and Talking With – G-d

 

Prayer is not meant to be a one-way conversation: when we get inside our own heads, we are trying to condense our own thoughts, and listen very intently. In this way, prayer (along with its cousin, meditation), has been compared to very slowly and carefully twiddling the knobs on a shortwave radio, trying to detect, and then hone in on, a specific signal.

There is actually a series of subtle hints in the Torah that tell us how conversations can be had with G-d. The first is that the voice of G-d comes to Moses from between the two gold keruvim, angels, on top of the holy ark. Those angels are reaching for each other, telling us that G-d’s voice is found where two entities seek to have a connection, a relationship. G-d can be found in the yearning that we each have for connection.

News From an Undesirable Organization

 

“RFE/RL has been declared an “undesirable organization” by the Russian government.”

If you are in Russia or the Russia-controlled parts of Ukraine and hold a Russian passport or are a stateless person residing permanently in Russia or the Russia-controlled parts of Ukraine, please note that you could face fines or imprisonment for sharing, liking, commenting on, or saving our content, or for contacting us.

Lawfare: The Corruption of our Legal System

 

The abuse of our legal system for insidious purposes seems to be growing every day. The political rewards for the Left are abundant, and the costs for the Right are horrendous. And yet the outcomes from these acts continue, with no end in sight. This is where we find ourselves:

The newest buzzword in our politics is lawfare, or using the legal system as a weapon against a political opponent. It sits before us now as a spectacle of political gluttony. How many lawsuits, court motions and judgments against Donald Trump can the Democratic Party chow down? More disturbing is the high price the American system may pay for this excess.

Viva la France!Viva la Difference!

 

I admit I am stunned. Out of France, incredibly, comes a report ordered by the French Senate, analyzing the practice of transitioning adolescent patients with gender dysphoria.

The bottom line conclusion:  This practice is the one of the greatest ethical scandals in the history of medicine.

An update on gene medicine: Speaking the words of life to make the blind see

 

So in the last few years there have been some serious advancements in genetic medicine that I have recently learned about. My first reaction was surprise that I didn’t hear about these earlier while being ceaselessly bombarded by political minutiae. Every darn day it’s Trump and Biden and Congress not doing anything. But while that’s happening or not happening as per Congress, scientists and doctors are boldly healing diseases that have never been healed before. It’s like Star Trek up in the lab.

Geordi La Forge (WikiMedia Commons)

A Family Saga in the American Southwest

 

The Oakley family lives in a farm along Little Hatchet Creek, New Mexico Territory in the postwar years of the American Civil War. They raise hogs, achieving modest prosperity selling bacon and ham in El Paso.

Little Hatchet by Phil Oakley, opens in the 1880s along the Little Hatchet Creek and runs through the 1920s. It follows the fortunes of the Oakley clan in New Mexico and Texas.

Father, James, is a Civil War veteran. A former Confederate officer, he and his wife Rebecca left Arkansas to settle along Little Hatchet Creek, raising a family along with the hogs. As the book starts the family includes five sons and two daughters.

Ike’s Genocide

 

I watched part of a tiresome interview of the always excellent Douglas Murray in which the interviewer continued to use hackneyed, intellectually lazy “genocide” to describe the Israeli war of survival against Hamas. I wondered why any network would hire a journalist too dim to realize when they are being made to look foolish by a much smarter interviewee and then remembered it is now the hiring norm in the industry .

It also occurred to me that if “genocide” applies whenever civilian casualties accrue, then General Dwight Eisenhower was a genocidal monster.  The D-Day invasion at Normandy was preceded by many thousands of tons of bombs dropped and intense naval shelling. The landings and airborne drops turned into a large scale desperate battle over the entire peninsula lasting for weeks.  An estimated 20,000 French civilians were killed, hundreds of thousands injured and most made homeless. Ike had to know this was a likely outcome.