Archive for 2020
July 6, 2020
WE’RE NOT TALKING SUB-MOA ACCURACY HERE: Rifle Accuracy for Home Defense. “For example, the oft- referenced minute of angle (MOA) equals 1.0472 inches at 100 yards. At 50 feet, 1 MOA is just .17 inches. Therefore, even if you have a rack-grade 2-MOA or (gasp) 3-MOA gun, your potential “group” capability at this longer-than-normal distance is going to be .34 to .51 inch, respectively. Unless your house is being swarmed by armed micro drones, there’s a pretty solid chance that a half-inch variance in shot placement is going to get the job done.”
MY HOME TOWN: Rowdy Protestors Return to Armed St Louis Couple’s Home Threatening ‘Justice.’ “I used to live maybe a whole mile from where this happened, on Lindell Boulevard a bit east of Kingshighway, and have nothing but fond memories of the area. I remember it as an eclectic, almost-entirely peaceful mix of rich and middle class and poor, of black and white, and of gay and straight. But that was 30 years ago.”
THE HOUSMAN EFFECT: Researchers find fans of apocalyptic movies may be coping with pandemic better. A.E. Housman argued that thinking about bad things was prophylactic, like Mithridates of Pontus’ habit of dosing himself with small doses of arsenic to protect against being poisoned: “Mithridates, he died old.”
HOW DO YOU SAY ‘GLEICHSCHALTUNG’ IN MANDARIN? China requiring churches to praise communist government, sing national anthem in order to reopen after lockdown.
SURE, BUT WHAT YOU WANT DOESN’T MATTER WHEN DEMS WANT YOU TO BE DEPENDENT ON AN EMPLOYER THEY CAN CONTROL: I Don’t Want To Be Anybody’s Employee: The push to reclassify independent contractors is harming many of the workers it’s supposed to help.
DOWN BUT NOT OUT: China’s threats on behalf of Huawei are becoming desperate.
In the face of growing momentum against Huawei, which many Western governments fear will be forced to spy for Beijing, Chinese embassies have been doing a full court press in countries that have not yet made a decision.
In Germany, the Chinese ambassador threatened that country’s auto industry in China. The Chinese envoy to Denmark threatened the free-trade agreement with the Faroe Islands. In France, Beijing’s ambassador warned the government not to discriminate against Huawei, lest it threaten the development of European companies in China – this is the same envoy who, during his previous appointment to Canada, threatened “repercussions” if Ottawa rejected the Chinese company.
In the U.K., where the government had agreed in January to allow Huawei to supply as much as 35 per cent of the 5G network’s peripheral system, political pressure has mounted to reverse that decision. The government has initiated a club of 10 countries, called the D-10 – with “D” representing democracy – comprising the G7 plus India, South Korea and Australia to collaborate on 5G technology alternatives. The Chinese ambassador to Britain has now said that China would put a halt to its planned nuclear reactors and high-speed rail network in the U.K. if Huawei equipment is banned. And the chair of British bank HSBC warned the bank would face reprisals in China.
Chinese Communists are just bullies with money.
Mobsters, in other words.
JOE BIDEN IS MOVING LEFT BUT THAT ISN’T STOPPING GOP NEVER-TRUMPERS FROM ENDORSING HIM: The Issues & Insights gang noticed this trend and offer some trenchant thoughts on what it means and why it’s happening.
“Not to be overly dramatic, but this is sheer lunacy. Whatever his faults – and they are many – Trump has run one of, if not the, most conservative administrations, including Ronald Reagan’s. From the military buildup to supply-side tax cuts and deregulation, to judicial nominees, to immigration policies and education reform, he’s made a lasting difference on issues these never-Trump Republicans supposedly hold dear. And while he can be and often is his own worst enemy, Trump has been the victim of the most vicious, sustained smear campaign ever mounted by the liberal establishment,” I&I observes.
As usual from these guys, definitely worth a serious read.
DAN MITCHELL: Three Cheers for “Neoliberalism.”
I don’t know whether I’ll live 3 more years or 30 more years.
But I’m increasingly convinced that my “Never-Answered Question” will still be unanswered when I kick the bucket.
One of the reasons for my confidence is that folks on the left have remarkably shoddy arguments on economic issues.
For instance, in a column for the New York Times, Mehrsa Baradaran condemns the “neoliberal” revolution in the United States.
A law professor from the University of California, Irvine, Ms. Baradaran is unhappy that this modern version of classical liberalism resulted in more economic freedom.
I find “neoliberal” to be the new “fascist” — a largely meaningless term, except as a catch-all for what the speaker dislikes. But the unhappiness with additional freedom on the part of the populace seems to be a constant.
USEFUL AMMO ADVICE FROM TAMARA KEEL:
Buy it cheap and stack it deep when times are good. Be the ant, not the grasshopper.
If you’re just now buying your first gun because of ‘Rona and looting, you have an excuse.
If you owned a firearm at any time from November 2016 or earlier, and you’re not sitting on at least a six month stockpile at your normal rate of consumption, over and above whatever you deem necessary for a “Break Glass In Case Of Emergency” stash, you have no excuse. You’ve seen this before.
The American gun owner is (collectively speaking) a panicky, easily-spooked herd animal. Any random headline could cause the throngs to descend on the local ammo shelves like locusts, and then they talk about it online and the online retailers get cleared out by the case lot.
The domestic commercial ammo supply is predicated on the average gun owner buying a box of pistol ammo every month or two to shoot up at the range and a box of long gun ammo once or twice a year for ditto. It’s not geared for everyone who owns a gun to run out and buy three cases at once.
Though you’d think the suppliers would have learned by now, too. . .
SUPREME COURT V ALEXANDER HAMILTON? Did the Supreme Court Just Eviscerate the Central Purpose of the Electoral College?
WHO? BidenWatch for July 6, 2020. “Biden wants to raid your wallet and destroy your suburbs. And the many, many, many oversea trips of Hunter.”
INTERESTING WHAT YOU ARE STILL ALLOWED TO SAY IN THESE OH-SO-SENSITIVE DAYS: Here’s someone whose Linkedin profile identifies her as an Assistant Attorney General in Vermont arguing, if I interpret this word salad correctly, that if a Jewish student isn’t actively working to undermine Israel, he or she should not be in college. Somehow, I don’t trust her to administer justice in a nondiscriminatory way.
RIP: Ennio Morricone, Prolific Italian Soundtrack Composer, Dies at 91. “Morricone’s ripe, pulsating sounds enriched [Sergio] Leone’s low-budget shoot-’em-ups A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) — those three starred Eastwood — Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) and Duck, You Sucker [aka A Fistful of Dynamite] (1971)…Morricone won his Oscar for his work on Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight (2015) and also was nominated for his original scores for Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven (1978), Roland Joffe’s The Mission (1986), Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables (1987), Barry Levinson’s Bugsy (1991) and Giuseppe Tornatore’s Malena (2000).”
How did radical ideas like abolishing or defunding the police move from the fringes to official policy seemingly overnight in cities like Minneapolis, Los Angeles and New York? And after George Floyd’s killing by police touched off protests, why did so many prominent journalists and intellectuals rationalize looting and violence? For an answer, look to the nation’s politicized college campuses.
A well-known professional standard for college professors warns against “taking unfair advantage of the student’s immaturity by indoctrinating him with the teacher’s own opinions before the student has had an opportunity fairly to examine other opinions upon the matters in question, and before he has sufficient knowledge and ripeness of judgment to be entitled to form any definitive opinion of his own.” That statement, from the American Association of University Professors, dates from 1915 but is still in force.
Most campuses have similar rules of their own. Yet across the country, these categorical prohibitions are now ignored. Academia has become politicized from top to bottom.
A typical example: California’s constitution spells out that the University of California “shall be entirely independent of all political or sectarian influence and kept free therefrom.” Yet politicization is now routine. UC Santa Barbara’s History Department offers a minor in “poverty, inequality, and social justice”—that is, radical-left politics. UC Berkeley’s School of Social Welfare says it’s committed to “developing leaders for social justice.” Professors indoctrinate students, seemingly unconcerned with the vast gulf between what their rules forbid them to do and what they are openly doing.
Bitter experience has now shown us that those rules were there for good reason. Educators used to understand that politics would destroy academia’s public credibility and internal ability to function. Political ends would stifle free inquiry, tribalism would erode analytical thought, and emotion would replace reason. Those forebodings match exactly the distortions of higher education we are now seeing—and their results.
How long before “Defund the Police” becomes “Defund Higher Education?” Which one can society function better without?
IN HIS OWN WORDS: Patriotism Wasn’t Racist When Obama Celebrated Independence Day.