PROFESSOR CARRINGTON, CALL YOUR OFFICE: Wild solar weather is causing satellites to plummet from orbit. It’s only going to get worse.
Archive for 2022
June 23, 2022
IT STILL MAKES ME CRY: Four years ago today, 12 boys–members of a youth soccer team–and their 25-year-old assistant coach were trapped by floodwaters deep in the Tham Luang Nang Non cave in Northern Thailand. What followed was an amazing international rescue effort–a jaw-dropping combination of courage, skill, selflessness, and coolheadedness.
It took weeks to get all the children and their coach out. But, against all the odds, all of them survived. Alas, the same was not true of all their rescuers. Former Thai Navy SEAL Saman Kunan lost consciousness during one of his dives and died. Another Thai Navy SEAL, Beirut Pakbara, died a year later of a blood infection acquired during the rescue. Bless them and their fellow divers. They are heroes.
Here’s something I probably don’t need to tell you: Many people–both men and women–helped in the rescue. And that’s great. But all the divers–the ones who risked their lives to save these children–were men. Maybe, just maybe, masculinity isn’t so toxic after all.
OBESITY IS A PUBLIC HEALTH CRISIS: Bizarre news story of the day: Jupiter apparently ‘eats’ other planets.
ROGER SIMON: No More ‘Reportorial Bias’—The Epoch Times to Host New Kind of Political Debate.
We are hosting a Republican primary debate in the Tennessee 5th Congressional District without reporters.
Replacing the reporters will be domain (subject matter) experts in key areas of interest to voters—health, immigration, the economy, and so forth. These experts—not journalists— will ask the questions of the candidates.
For example, as of now, Gordon Chang will ask questions regarding foreign policy and China and Hans van Spakovsky will ask questions regarding election integrity. (More of these expert questioners will be announced shortly.)
The experts will be encouraged to ask probing follow-up questions to the candidates’ responses in a way that reporters, without serious domain knowledge, could not.
We realize, of course, that experts are human and will have prejudices of their own, but we are hoping their allegiance to the truth of their subjects will prevail over bias.
Further, we aren’t encouraging “gotcha” questions. The object here is not to embarrass the candidates or catch them in a gaffe, but actually to clarify where they stand on the important issues of our time, to give a better idea of what they might do if they were to win the office.
This doesn’t mean they can’t disagree with each other. They can and should. But their disagreements should be based on the specific issue at hand and be substantive, not personal.
Participating in the event will be four or five of the leading candidates (to be announced) who are on the Republican primary ballot in the Tennessee 5th District race. That’s the southern portion of Davidson County (contiguous with Nashville), portions of Wilson and Williamson counties, and the entirety of Maury, Lewis, and Marshall counties.
Regrettably, we can’t accommodate a greater number of candidates and still hope to achieve the kind of event we are attempting.
The debate will be held on July 12 at the magnificent Grand Lodge of Tennessee in downtown Nashville, with plenty of room for those who would like to attend in person. This is three days in advance of the beginning of early voting, with the primary itself on Aug. 4.
Tickets to the debate are now available at Eventbrite, ranging from free for general admission to $100 for VIP seats that include a post-debate reception, where you can meet the expert questioners and the candidates.
The event also will be streamed live by Epoch TV, starting at 6 p.m. local time. We encourage all to watch—even those far from Tennessee—because this is intended to be the first pass at an early form of “pilot” for possible debates to come across the nation. The format and style —indeed, everything about it—are open for discussion and suggestions, which are encouraged. We will be making plenty of mistakes. This is only the beginning, a first attempt, at a new approach.
But please, no adverse comments about the moderator. He will be yours truly and he promises to be the very soul of impartiality.
Good luck!
HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI’S HUSBAND PAUL CHARGED WITH DUI AFTER MAY CRASH IN CALIFORNIA: “A press release from the district attorney’s office states that Paul Pelosi had a blood alcohol content level of .082% after the crash, and said the blood sample was taken at 12:32 a.m., which was two hours after the collision occurred at 10:17 p.m.”
WELL, OKAY THEN: A Large-Scale Experiment Used Human Pee to Fertilize Crops. Here’s What Happened. “Making industrial fertilizer usually involves intensive mining of ores containing phosphorus and potassium. Burning natural gas at high temperatures sequesters the much-needed nitrogen from the air we breathe – in one of the most CO2-intensive chemical making reactions. Among many other things, plants use all three of these elements for photosynthesis. Yet our urine is packed full of phosphorus, potassium and nitrogen already in an easy-to-access form. . . . If we used this product in industrialized countries too it could not only increase crop yields and reduce the fossil fuel intensive resources needed to grow them but make our sanitation systems more sustainable as well. Groups in Sweden, the US and Australia are also looking into using widespread urine fertilizer.”
Obviously we need government-mandated pissoirs with storage in every home and office.
WELL, NINA TOTENBERG DIDN’T USE ANYTHING FROM MY INTERVIEW. Here’s the segment, in which I do not appear.
UPDATE: Okay, I’m not in the audio, but they did a write-through on the print story and I’m quoted as follows:
Not all scholars agreed that the results of Thursday’s ruling would be dire. University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds said that in his view, the court’s decision won’t change much. Referring to a statement by New York City’s mayor, Reynolds said: “I heard Eric Adams say that now it’s going to be the wild west in New York, and I’m, like yeah, you’re going to have what? Running gun battles in the streets and on the subway. Oh wait, you already have that.”
I’ll take it. Hey, it’s already getting me lefty hate mail.
WELL, THAT’S JUST BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T KNOW HOW BAD THE SECOND YEAR WOULD BE: People may not have been as anxious, depressed in pandemic’s first year as once thought.
TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE! Biden’s cue cards are…awfully specific:
The card title is “sequence of events”, and the word “YOU” appears in caps throughout the list. The list even reminds the president to say “hello”.
The list of instructions includes:
-YOU enter the Roosevelt Room and say hello to participants
-YOU take YOUR seat
-YOU give brief comments
Click here for a shot of the cards, and here for a closeup with a better look at the text.
Biden was caught using cue cards earlier this year, including one labeled “Tough Putin Q&A Talking Points,” but I don’t recall seeing a photograph with instructions for Joe to enter the room and then “take YOUR seat” before now.
UPDATE: “To be fair, we don’t know if previous presidents have received similar sets of instructions, but we’ve also never before wondered if the president needed this level of detail.”
AS A FRIEND NOTES, YOU CAN TELL ALITO’S RESPONSE TO BREYER WAS EFFECTIVE BECAUSE THE NEW YORK TIMES IS MISREPRESENTING IT:
I like how this was written as if Alito brought up Buffalo out of nowhere, and not that he was responding to Breyer, who brought it up first. I guess misleading the families of shooting victims isn't too unethical for NYT: https://t.co/q2EPqoAfeV pic.twitter.com/yMtyyh1gp1
— Rob Romano (@2Aupdates) June 23, 2022
I remember when it was dangerous misinformation to say that a branch of the government was illegitimate.
I KNOW IT’S SILLY, BUT I FIND MYSELF FASCINATED WITH Ford’s generator/pickup truck combination. Okay, not really silly, just not really me. Besides, if I need to borrow some sort of truck, my sister has a whole fleet.
ARE THEY RISK-PROFILING? U.S. moves to increase monkeypox testing amid growing outbreak. “Monkeypox is a rare disease that produces a rash that looks like pimples or blisters, and is spread through coming into contact with the rash or the body fluids of an infected person. Being exposed to respiratory droplets during prolonged face-to-face contact, such as kissing, cuddling and sex, can also cause transmission, according to the CDC.”
Obviously, everyone must mask up again.
IT’S ALMOST LIKE SOME THINGS (THAT ARE EXPLICITLY PROTECTED BY THE CONSTITUTION) GET CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTION, AND OTHER THINGS (THAT AREN’T) DO NOT, leaving it up to the states in the latter case.
I would say that Katyal knows better than this, but maybe he doesn’t.
HMM: Did Feinstein Just Sabotage The New Gun Bill?
The Supreme Court’s action today, as someone noted in the comments, also gives Republicans who signed on to the “compromise” bill an out if they want to say that they need to “study” the decision before supporting new legislation.
READER FAVORITE: LED Floor Lamp. CommissionEarned
CONTAGION: Poliovirus may be spreading in London; virus detected in sewage for months: Vaccine-derived poliovirus spreads with poor hygiene, sanitation, and low vaccination. “No polio cases have been reported so far, nor any identified cases of paralysis. But sewage sampling in one London treatment plant has repeatedly detected closely related vaccine-derived polioviruses between February and May. This suggests ‘it is likely there has been some spread between closely-linked individuals in North and East London and that they are now shedding the type 2 poliovirus strain in their feces,’ the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said.”
One of the original selling points of the live-virus vaccine was that the vaccinated could pass it to the unvaccinated, improving herd immunity.
UPDATE (FROM THE COMMENTS): “Polio season already! I haven’t taken down my monkey pox decorations yet.”
WELL, GOOD: Breast duct treatment for early breast cancer eliminates all signs of disease in laboratory experiments. Faster, please.
PRIORITIES: NYC destroys nearly 100 ‘destructive’ and ‘dangerous’ dirt bikes.
The photos make it clear that Mayor Eric Adams really enjoys breaking other people’s stuff.
SO I’VE READ/SKIMMED THE BRUEN OPINION, and it’s a big victory on the Second Amendment. It’s also the culmination of a multidecade litigation/advocacy strategy, which I’ll have more to say about later.
UPDATE: Just got interviewed by Nina Totenberg. I don’t think she liked my take much, but we’ll see how it comes out.
ANOTHER UPDATE: So a few more thoughts. First, I want to shout out to the late Don Kates, whose article in the Michigan Law Review, Handgun Prohibition and the Original Meaning of the Second Amendment was the rock that started this avalanche. And it’s awfully close to Justice Thomas’s opinion today. This has been a long campaign of scholarship, litigation, and advocacy and it has made a difference. Ideas do sometimes matter. The Court also cleared up the standard of review issue, making it plain that the Second Amendment isn’t a second-class right, and that strict scrutiny, not some kludged-up form of “intermediate scrutiny,” should apply.
Second, the direct impact of this decision isn’t as big as you’d think. It will make essentially no difference in the 43 states that have shall-issue carry now. Its immediate impact will be limitedto those may-issue states that make permits available at the discretion of the authorities. I found it hilarious that Eric Adams invoked the “the wild, wild West,” in response. I guess that means we’ll have gun-toting thugs shooting people on the streets of New York, and engaging in running gun battles on the subways. Oh, wait, that’s what New York has now.
The affected states will do their best to frustrate the impact of the opinion, of course — call it a campaign of “massive resistance” — which will only ensure more litigation. The lower courts have been notably unsympathetic to gun rights, most judges possessing as they do the values of the educated Gentry Class on social matters regardless of political affiliation, but this is a direct instruction from the Court to take gun rights seriously. I expect a few summary reversals of courts that try to dodge the decision’s import.
Third, the notion that “urban” areas should have different gun regimes than rural areas seems to be to be racially suspect. In the music business, “urban” is largely a synonym for “black,” and for most people “rural” is a synonym for white. The notion that black areas should have more restrictive gun regimes than white areas seems . . . problematic. (Not to say that people, like Justice Breyer, who employ this notion are necessarily themselves racist, only that they’re deploying a trope with troubling racial implications. Likewise talk of getting guns “off the streets.”) And we don’t generally treat constitutional rights differently based on locality; the Court sort of did that with obscenity for a while but largely gave it up, and with good reason.
Fourth, and don’t make too much of this, there’s the timing. Now that we’ve come to think of Roberts as a politician, I can’t help but wonder if he’s released this opinion, which will play well on the right, with an eye toward the Dobbs opinion. If it’s a retreat from the draft, maybe he thinks this will help him keep some respect on the right. On the other hand, if it were me and I were being political, I’d have released both opinions on the same day, so that the left would have trouble deciding what to be outraged about. I dunno, I’m not a great Supreme Court tea-leaf reader, and I don’t think many people are, but that’s the thought that crossed my mind.