WHY IS THERE SOMETHING RATHER THAN NOTHING? As this neat video explains, Leibniz came up with his “Contingency Argument” to answer that question. I’m not quite convinced about Leibniz’ argument, but I sure am glad there is.
Archive for 2020
May 1, 2020
SURPRISING NO ONE PAYING ATTENTION: Funeral Directors Blow the Whistle on Deaths Falsely Attributed to Coronavirus.
COMMUNIST CHINESE FOUR PLAY: Deng’s Four Modernizations and Four Cardinal Principles and now Xi’s Four Confidences:
The CCP and the Chinese people must be “confident in our chosen path,” “confident in our political system” and “confident in our guiding theories,” and demonstrate “confidence in our culture.”
What does Xi mean by “our culture”? Ethnic Han Chinese culture, or, more accurately, Han Chinese culture as curated by Beijing’s 21st-century urban communist authoritarian elites.
Yes, it stinks of ethnocentrism, which could be a euphemism for racism. Here’s an example. Human rights activists and crusading reporters have a tough time getting into the Xinjiang province’s Turkic Uighur areas. Though officially designated the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, the region has little autonomy.
In fact, Beijing is pursuing a “Sinicization policy,” a euphemism for settling ethnic Han in Xinjiang.
In July 2009, riots pitting ethnic Han against Uighurs erupted in Xinjiang, leaving some 200 dead and a thousand injured.
An estimated 300 million non-Han human beings live in mainland China. Since the CCP’s political interests cleanse troubling statistics, the figure could be higher.
The predominantly Muslim Uighurs reject Xi’s Four Confidences game. Han Chinese living in Hong Kong definitely reject Confidences one through three.
My latest Creators Syndicate column.
COMBINED FORCES: Another April 28 photo of the USAF Thunderbirds and USN Blue Angels flying in formation. Twelve fighters flying tight.
ROGER SIMON: Why Michael Flynn Was Set Up.
Attorney Andrew C. McCarthy said on Tucker Carlson Thursday night that Flynn wasn’t the target. It was Trump. Flynn was just a “seasoned intelligence professional” (McCarthy’s words) who had to be implicated and put out of the way in order to reach the president, the real bull’s eye.
That’s likely true, but it’s also likely that wasn’t the only reason. Flynn was by himself a target.
During the transition, it is said Obama gave Trump two pieces of advice on whom he considered to be the current greatest threats to the United States, so the new president could be forearmed—Kim Jong-un and Michael Flynn.
Michael Flynn? (I’d add several exclamation points and question marks, but it’s tacky.). Why would he be of anywhere near that importance to be put in the same conversation as the nuclear-armed dictator of North Korea?
The answer, I believe, is a four letter word: Iran.
Read the whole thing.
CHRISTIAN ADAMS: Weaponizing Coronavirus, Leftist Foundations Dedicate Millions to Transform 2020 Elections. “The left has created multiple emergency working groups to be cited compliantly by mainstream media sources as unbiased election experts. One Potemkin outfit is the self-styled National Task Force on Election Crises. In reality, the group is the usual collection of far-left race activists, liberal law professors, vendor grifters sprinkled in with one or two non-crazies to give the organization a whiff of not-entirely-nuts. It is designed to appear bipartisan but in action, it is the opposite.”
It seems clear that we need much stiffer enforcement of the various foreign-influence laws.
IT’S REAL, AND IT’S THE OPPOSITE OF SPECTACULAR:
Garbage people in our national news media, as Glenn likes to remind you.
WHY ‘MAY DAY’ SHOULD BE RENAMED ‘VICTIMS OF COMMUNISM DAY:’ Check out these 10 flicks and you will know why.
FASTER, PLEASE: A Challenge to Accept. The FDA should allow testing Covid-19 vaccines through deliberate human infection.
SPACE: Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin land contracts to build NASA’s astronaut moon lander. Dynetics also got a contract. Left out: Boeing, which is having a bad couple of years.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: The Stay-At-Home Peasants Are Revolting. “Many people have been noting recently that the likelihood of mild acts of civil disobedience will increase the longer this goes on. Heck, my governor just extended his order here in Arizona and we haven’t even been hit that badly with it. At some point I’m going to need a clearer explanation about why I can’t go see my eye doctor.”
Because shut up, prole.
ROTTEN INDEED: Andrew McCarthy: Something seems rotten in Flynn’s case — and maybe others, too. “The closer one looks, the worse it gets. We can say that narrowly about the Flynn prosecution, and more generally about the Mueller investigation.”
People need to be prosecuted and disbarred over this, as an example to others.
Plus: “The bottom line is this, it’s unfolding and what’s happening is, what Durham is actually doing is he’s painting a picture and not everyone of these acts is going to be a specific separate crime. But they are going to be, what’s called ‘overt acts in a conspiracy.’ One to defraud the United States government. One to deny the civil rights of Trump and Flynn and Page and a bunch of other people.”
REQUIRED READING: Why Was the U.S. So Late to Recognize the China Threat.
During the Cold War, the U.S. foreign policy was largely based on assumptions that the Soviet Union’s leaders were determined to spread communism worldwide; they possessed strategic patience and were adaptive in pursuing their goal. The USSR would never be America’s partner but a long-term rival, and therefore it must be contained. Moreover, U.S. decision-makers assumed that American society would fully support this approach.
However, after the end of that confrontation, strategists like former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger falsely assumed that Communist China could be changed into a benign actor, even a “responsible stakeholder,” or strategic partner of the U.S. were the U.S. to engage with China, believing that China’s rise was a positive thing.
We argue that China is not just a rival but a formidable enemy. Its goal is not just to weaken America but supplant it and the liberal international order it created with a Communist ideology-based model of global governance. The PRC is more dangerous than the Soviet Union because it is unpredictable and more formidable. It is an amalgamation of a rapidly rising power and an ideological regime with an aggressive leader in Chairman Xi Jinping. Xi is both extremely ambitious and paranoid about his regime’s security as well as his own. These factors make this enemy far less certain than the Soviets.
This is an excellent read from Bradley A. Thayer and Lianchao Han.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): China is also dangerous because it has so many of our leaders and institutions on the take or otherwise under its thumb. Just watch them pick up whatever the latest China line is, and you’ll have a good idea of who.
BUT, TO BE FAIR, ONLY WHEN HE REMEMBERS: Biden set to head most anti-gun ticket ever.
FLASHBACK TO NOVEMBER: “China today is feeling a lot like Russia in the 1990s. I am getting the sense that many Chinese companies are pessimistic about their futures and they are acting accordingly.”
CONRAD BLACK: Joe Biden is Cooked.
Well, judge for yourself.
"Did you sexually assault Tara Reade"
Joe Biden: "No. It is not true. I’m saying unequivocally it never happened."
"Do you remember her? Do you remember any types of complaints she might have made?"
Joe Biden: "I don’t remember any type of complaint she may have made." pic.twitter.com/9MKbFIY19c
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) May 1, 2020
Biden, asked why he won’t let the Univ. of Del. search his records for Tara Reade’s name, left speechless: pic.twitter.com/T24GHib7uS
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) May 1, 2020
"Do you regret what you said during the Kavanaugh hearing?"
Joe Biden: "What I said during the Kavanaugh hearings was that she had a right to be heard. The fact that she came forward, the presumption would be that she was telling the truth unless she wasn't telling the truth." pic.twitter.com/ZkG6rf281b
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) May 1, 2020