Archive for 2021
July 29, 2021
SAD: Longtime blog Catallaxy Files is calling it quits.
THIRD TIME’S THE CHARM? Virus booster shot rollout to over-60s to begin next week, Israeli Health Ministry says.
SOMETHING GOOD: Trio of U.S. Shooters Claim Olympic Gold.
THAT WAS FAST: Twitter has closed its San Francisco and New York offices just two weeks after reopening them as virus cases surge. “The closure is a blow to San Francisco’s nascent economic recovery and another sign of disruption to the tech industry’s return to work. Google and Apple are also delaying mandatory office returns until at least October. Google and Facebook will require employee vaccinations.”
TYLER O’NEIL: The Most Influential Conservative Scholar You May Have Never Heard Of. “Barry Goldwater may have lost the 1964 presidential election, but his speech at the Republican National Convention that year reinvigorated conservatism. One line particularly stood out: ‘I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.’ That line came from Harry V. Jaffa (1918-2015), a professor at Claremont McKenna College and a giant of the conservative movement who does not get the credit he deserves.”
AT HELEN’S PAGE: Books of interest: Indian Summer (Earl Town Book 1), and KidVenture: Twelve Weeks To Midnight Blue.
CDC’S NEW MASK GUIDANCE BASED ON FAILED STUDY: Turns out, Just the News reports this morning, that our betters have no problem depending upon a study that failed peer review to justify their new mask guidance.
SETH BARRETT TILLMAN: Letter to the Editor responding to Atossa Araxia Abrahamian, There Is No Good Reason You Should Have to Be a Citizen to Vote, The New York Times. Worth quoting in full:
Ms Abrahamian tells us that she “lived in New York since 2004, but haven’t once had a chance to cast a ballot here.” That is not quite true is it? Legal residents can apply for U.S. citizenship after residing in the U.S. for as little as 5 years—after which the federal government will process your application. It is now 2021. So Ms Abrahamian has had roughly 12 years to apply for U.S. citizenship and then, having secured it, to vote in U.S. elections. If she has chosen not to apply for citizenship, or not to apply in a timely manner, then it makes no sense for her to claim that she has not had “a chance” to vote. She has had that chance: a substantial one.
Legal residents are just that. They get to reside in the United States. No one will ask them or make them share the common fate of other Americans. No one in a position of authority in the U.S. government will ask a legal resident to stay in the U.S., and no one in a position of authority will ask a legal resident to leave. Ms Abrahamian is such legal resident, and as such, she can always leave and return to her former Swiss home. Once in Switzerland, the United States government will have no claim to tax her future income, and it cannot prosecute her for crimes she may commit abroad, and it cannot dragoon to her return to the United States to serve in its armed forces. It is altogether different for U.S. citizens, like me, living abroad. As a U.S. citizen, the U.S. government can tax my income earned abroad, prosecute me for crimes committed abroad, and draft me into its armed forces. And, that is why an American citizen, like me, although living abroad, gets to vote in U.S. elections, and that is why Ms Abrahamian does not, notwithstanding her being legally resident in the United States.
If you want the right to vote, you should have to commit to sharing our polity’s common fate. And if you choose not to take on American citizenship and to share that fate, then you ought not complain that you are excluded from the democratic process that will in large part determine that common fate.
I think you shouldn’t have to be a member of the editorial board, or even an employee, to choose NYT opeds, so I think Seth should get a whole column. In fact, I think that everyone who’s been reading the NYT for a while should be entitled to a column there.
LIVE AT 3:30PM EASTERN: ‘Five O’Clock Somewhere’ with Kruiser, Preston, VodkaPundit.
MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: North Carolina Congressman Proposes to Kill 2,378 Pet Projects in New Budget.
TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE! ‘Freudian Slip’: Biden Confuses Trump and Obama, Claims He Drove 18-Wheeler.
BIDENFLATION: Fed Chair Makes an Ominous Admission About Inflation. ““As the reopening continues, bottlenecks, hiring difficulties, and other constraints could continue to limit how quickly supply can adjust, raising the possibility that inflation could turn out to be higher and more persistent than we expected.”
The only things we don’t seem to be running out of are make-believe dollars and unexpectedlies.
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: The Biden Administration just revealed its plan to stop the next Colonial Pipeline hack. But I’m not full of confidence.
GET WOKE…: Ratings for Tuesday’s Woke Olympics Plummet 55%.
Speaking of which: Costa Rican Gymnast Puts Up BLM Fist During Olympic Performance, Fails to Qualify.
Related: VDH: What Is American Wokeness Really About?
EVEN THE L.A. TIMES MUST ACKNOWLEDGE THE MOVEMENT: Orange County Board of Education gets an earful from parents and panelists about the indoctrination of children through CRT.
FREE BOOK (starting tomorrow) : Howard McEwen’s Daddy Issues: A Hard Man Novel is now free to read this week.
UPDATE FROM THE AUTHOR: “It was scheduled to be free today and for the next five days but there was a glitch. It will be free starting tomorrow.”