A Heckuva Gun Violence Awareness Day

This headline is a bit of a shocker:

Federal Judge Overturns California’s 32-Year Assault Weapons Ban

Whoa, what? Don't get me started on the "logic" of an AWB. My basic position is that semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines are dangerous; making them black and adding a pistol grip and a bayonet mount does not make them significantly more dangerous. Consequently, the AWB is a brain-locked yet highly emotive debate centered on ignorance and fear and focused on cosmetics rather than substance. Fighting an epidemic of alcohol deaths (about 80,000 per year) by banning gin but not vodka would be about as sensible.

That said, the ignorant and fearful get votes, too, and the idea that California (or NY, Massachusetts, Illinois, or pick your favorite Blue state) can not regulate this aspect of public safety will cause a MAJOR political storm. If the Supreme Court restricts abortion and expands gun rights prior to November 2022, prepare for un-civil war.

But what is the likely timing? This is one judge - normally the liberal Ninth Circuit would rein him in. A solid clue on timing is this:

Judge Benitez was appointed as a district court judge in 2003 and confirmed by the Senate the following year.

In 2017, he blocked a new California law that would have banned magazines of more than 10 rounds. A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld his ruling last year in a split decision, but the appeals court said in February that an 11-judge panel would rehear the case.

A 2017 ruling is still up in the air? I can see why the gun comntrollers want to keep this away from the Supreme Court but this is a strong delay game. Long time NCAA hoops fans are recalling the old "four corners" attack. Sorry, 'attack'>

Comments

[henry]

The ignorant and fearful almost destroyed us through lockdowns. We have a MAJOR political storm ongoing as it is.

The Supreme Court games serve to undermine any faith in the legal system. Is that the left’s true goal here? (Aside from totalitarian move number one: disarm the population).

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Nice rant, MM. Inspiring. Here's mine. :)

I'm afraid it's another one on the danger and destruction of ideology and it's inspired by three articles linked here yesterday.
The older I get the more I learn to regret and in some ways revile the "Enlightenment" the very name of which, like "Progressivism", is a tell that you're about to be told how great someone is when you happen upon an adherent. The primary conceit of the Enlightenment is that those who went before it were pretty dim, just as the other silly name for the enlightened knuckleheads, The Age of Reason indicates those who went before were not just dim bulbs but unreasonable ones.
The product of that conceit is the fundamental and in many ways childish flaw in the ideologies the Enlightenment produced.
The Enlightenment gave us two divergent and seemingly opposite traditions and movements; social liberalism and classical liberalism. The first became known as just "liberals", and when they wore that out "progressives". I know Marxism is often described as outside social liberalism's watershed but I disagree. It may have started there but it cut a channel and became a tributary of the mainstream and not only adulterates the flow but tends to dominate it.
Classical liberals are more commonly called libertarians these days. But they are both ideologies and therefore broken, as all ideologies are.

The three articles were the one by Joel Kotkin, the one by the guy from the Mises institute and the one regarding Solzhenitsyn.
Kotkin, a progressive not too far advanced along the spectrum of prog pathologic disorder himself, rejects as 'noxious' Trump's 'rebellion'. In its place and dwarfing that rebellion he senses a better, more 'reasonable' rebellion that recognizes the many progressive improvements each one of us requires to be molded into better people, but rejects the raving Marxists now flying the banners at the head of his movement. Just a little trimming around the edges and those silly commies can be reined in and our march to, if not utopia, at least somewhere on the outskirts of its tony neighborhood can continue.
He, as an ideologue who does not know he is, lacks any insight that progressivism is no more reformable in this nibbling, mincing manner than Islam is, and for the same reason. They're both quasi-religious in nature but mostly utopian political movements. A prog can reform and ratchet back the excesses of the commies momentarily but they last only until we begin to progress on our road to utopia once again. There are no stop lights or stop signs or offramps on that freeway and while there is a supposed speed limit it's one that is enforced only by the self discipline of the idiots who built the freeway to perdition in the first place. And so as soon as the craziers push crazy Joel's foot off the brake on we'll roar to the new Gulag.

The classical liberals OTOH are far less crazy and do 'believe in' [because despite their claims to reason, both are embarked on a leap of foolish faith] an ideology that has self contained limits. But they are just as irrational and lead inevitably to their replacement, usually by social liberalism or other tyrannies. Classical liberals believe, just as progs do, that people are basically good, but that something impedes them, that if it were only removed we'd be moving into that same tony neighborhood their distant cousins are aiming for.

For the prog the problem is all that went before that we have inherited to our detriment. All the systemic class, race, economic, social and now sexual injustices that are outside of man [constructs, as they like to put it] and that progs have magnanimously stepped forward as our uninvited champions to finally conquer, to place us on their highway to hell.
The libertarians view government as the problem and if it would only stay out of the way of people they would live in general harmony and take a different, self guided tour to nirvana. And so you have someone like the guy from the Mises institute arguing that this colossal enemy we face of all our major formal institutions, public and private, banding together to silence, squelch and eventually crush any opposition to their weird but all too common mixture of a ruling class made up of bought and paid for peasants, collectivists and oligarchs can be brought to heel by just a little bit more free market competition. You almost feel sorry for a person so naively swept up in the irrationality of their ideology that they really do think standing astride history and yelling stop will halt the Socialist Superchief bearing down on them in its tracks.
The fundamental flaw neither side can see [or if they do see, don't think is a flaw] but that they operate from is that man is basically good and maybe not perfectable but, if they roll up their sleeves and get to work, he's pretty close. Their ideologies are them rolling up their sleeves and turning off their brains, at least the observational and critical thinking lobes of it. Their premise is that something external to man is the problem and if only they were allowed to remove it we'd all be strumming ukuleles and finger-painting sunsets as that insipid clown Pelosi imagined upon the passing of Obamacare or some other welfare inanity. To the prog those impediments are all those nasty race, class, etc slaveries from our dreary past. And their solution is an increasingly radical collectivist movement to eradicate them and replace them with a new utopian government-free nirvana? Nah, not in practice. Their solution is a new slaveowner with the absolute power of the state behind him rather than his own selfish interests.
The libertarian embarks on a much more reasonable road, but because it is an ideology it is doomed to fail when it bumps up against it's cousin or just your everyday foreign tyrant looking for a fight. As they dither over how to fix the inevitable chaos that ensues from their rejection of not only governmental but also social constraints via some nostrum from their warped views of Saints Adam, Ludwig, Friedrich and Ayn, the collectivists and tyrants swoop in and gobble them up.
Which brings us to the third essay on Solzhenitsyn. He saw through modernisms conceits [and the Enlightenment was the real origin of modernism] and infuriated both sides by describing both great projects as twin millstones. Very different ones, but ones that still grind those they claim to save to dust. And he was right because he began from a premise not fundamentally flawed by the priests of 'reason'; the problems of the world are not even remotely caused by a particular class, race or tribe. Nor are they caused by an overbearing state, though that is a much more reasonable argument. But our problems are not external. Those problems both sides correctly see, are the product of our universal, irreparable, internal flaws. If you can't acknowledge that, you not only don't understand their source but you mistakenly think the very wellspring of our problems is somehow the cure for them as well. How many mountains of corpses does it take to disprove that premise to the infants from the Age of Reason?
The Founders lived in an age before the two branches of liberalism convinced themselves that God is dead and the one thing that limited the arrogant conceits of both channels of thought was removed. And so classical liberalism could survive for a time as a self limited but also responsive and self correcting ideology because it incorporated the humility and common sense, the philosophy, of a great External who our trust in keeps us one step from the barbarism of man as the captain of his own ship. Even the many unbelievers and skeptics still swam in the warm waters of, and received the benefits from, that sea of Godly humility. Classical liberalism swimming in the sea of Judeo-Christian wisdom and humility and tempered by it and relieved of its suicidal messianic ideological tendencies IS, practically speaking, a or perhaps the definition of conservatism, which is the only non ideological political and social worldview I can think of.
As Solzhenitsyn knew, there is no earthly salvation or utopia and we will forever live on the wrong side of the tracks here on earth. And every attempt to cross those tracks by whatever route leads to the misery of either a catastrophic derailment of the Socialist Superchief or being the libertarian bugs on its windshield.
The irony is what the enlightened liberals of both persuasions both condescendingly dismiss as irrational and unreasonable is the one thing that keeps the men of reason from killing us all. As they, in the end, refuse their place in creation, just as Satan did, and desire to play god, they think they embrace reason but in fact reject it because they are not suited for the role they aspire to. With the loss of perspective and humility that acknowledging God gives, they have no idea, or at least refuse to admit, the puny, human 'reason' they employ is utterly useless against the flawed and broken nature from which it springs and against the enemy they dismiss as a silly myth, who uses that nature to hurry us, over and over down these twin, well paved roads to misery.
Fear of the Lord [Godly humility] is the beginning of wisdom.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

That turned out a little long. Oh well.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

--If the Supreme Court restricts abortion and expands gun rights prior to November 2022, prepare for un-civil war.--

Indeed. If on the other hand it expands abortion and restricts gun rights prior to then, one might want to prepare for un-civil war eventually as well.
The triumph of the Marxist New Left by burrowing into America hurried us along that uncivil course fifty years ago.
Its current rise to cultural dominance now is going to make any other course improbable, but not yet completely impossible.

[MissMarple2]

From the end of the last thread:

Joseph J Flynn
@JosephJFlynn1
·
57m
It was not a leak it was a bio weapon and our intelligence agencies know it.... there are patriots inside trying hard to get the truth out... we need them to step up the leaks or whistle blow ...this was an act of war by the CCP and it needs to be brought to the light of day.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

TWIP; Grouchy Fauci edition.

[Narciso]

Very good ignatz

I tried to be more prolix last night but thats the gist.

[MissMarple2]

Bernie Kerik is introducing Vernon Jones at the Georgia GOP convention in a few minutes. He will call for an audit of the 2020 election.

President Trump will speak at the North Carolina GOP convention tonight.

[Neo]

G-7 adopts global minimum corporate tax rate
Not that it matters among G-7 countries, since the 15% floor is almost a joke. Germany charges 30%, France 26.5%, Italy 28% from two different levies, and it’s 19% in the UK, 28% in Canada (but net 15%, they claim), and 30.62% in Japan. The G-7 might just as well have committed to a floor of 1% for all the impact this will have on their actual tax policies. It’s certainly not going to put pressure on lower-tax countries to kneecap their competitiveness against the wealthiest nations in the world.

[Buford Gooch]

I stop by from time to time now (used to be here a few times per day) and I'm glad I did. Excellent rant, Iggy!

[Narciso]

Its not about logic, its not really about effectiveness either, such are many diktats favoring skydragons moloch chimera (shepeople) just another brick at the wall of western civilization to paraphrase roger daultrey

[Narciso]

Interesting about ben lisun if he is indeed the source the dia is relying on he was educated in the west well australia new south wales yet that didnt stop from being xis enforcer in the province amd the cleaner in wuhan, think of him like krennic in rogue one.

In my novel there are a number of characters like that on the arab side just becausr they were educated in the west doesnt impart western habit a yamamoto is very rare.

[matt - deplore me if you must]

Very well said, Ig. The recognition of our imperfection and that the world is by definition imperfect is a part of the beginning of knowledge. In addition, we must recognize that evil exists and often has just as much influence on the actions of men as good, and that the good sustains itself through humility.

Hubris plagues us with false assertions of perfectibility. We are imperfect, screwed up individuals who only through our better natures and faith strive to be the better versions of ourselves.

Utopianism, progressivism, Marxism, whatever you want to call the ideal of making mankind perfect is based upon false premises.

The plagues of the 13th Century, the 100 Years War, the beginnings of the Renaissance and Reformation all caused a fundamental rethink of our understanding of our place in the universe. The struggle for survival in times of radical change shook the West to its intellectual and spiritual bones.

What then emerged was a new class of thinker and experimenter. In the beginning they were grounded in faith, but then like Icarus began to fly ever closer to the sun. Perspective was lost.

Isaiah 55 says it all, written somewhere around 700-550 B.C. by someone without much of a "classical" education.

[Narciso]

I got the name wrong but the mindset right.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-reveals-probe-of-another-top-law-enforcement-official-11587367534

[Narciso]

Finally they took you out of the phantom zone

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/06/are_our_federal_intelligence_agencies_compromised.html#.YLt4L9N8Dak.facebook

[Narciso]

Apologies not on your life

https://www.westernjournal.com/dc-police-department-finally-admits-role-big-scandal-one-year-media-pinned-blame-trump/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=PostSideSharingButtons&utm_campaign=websitesharingbuttons&fbclid=IwAR1E0QJdAVEKd9n9vGdtPYzem13y3aiZddgPPsQ9AiO52FBTabqDVbpLgtI

[Narciso]

Let me try again:

https://tinyurl.com/5ayjv6pz

[Narciso]

What we suspected

https://redstate.com/scotthounsell/2021/06/04/as-pandemic-exploded-wuhans-bat-lady-asked-scientists-to-change-the-name-for-the-chinese-people-n391202

[Manuel Transmission]

Levin on his radio show yesterday had some segments on a lady shredding her school board.

Here is the full session:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxu3wdiXRF0

Breathtakingly to the point. She should run for office.

[clarice]

narciso, where so you see the speculation about the identity of the DIA defector?

[Jane]

Good to see you Buford!

Clarice, I hope his identity doesn’t leak. He’ll be dead the next day.

[matt - deplore me if you must]

A number of senior Chinese officials and businessmen have disappeared. Who knows where one of them may have ended up?

Now that the bat is out of the bag, perhaps the enquiring minds at the WaPo and NY Times can figure it out.

[clarice]

https://www.theepochtimes.com/3-points-the-media-is-still-getting-wrong-about-wuhan-lab-theory-and-the-documents-to-prove-it_3844792.html

we funded (included Fauci) Wuhan directly for gain of function research

[Davod]

This is a good one.

https://i2.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2021/06/IMG_0130.jpeg?w=692&ssl=1

[Jane]

They don’t want to figure it out Matt.

[Jane]

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/06/breaking-exclusive-un-us-facebook-smartmatic-executives-connived-together-2020-election-now-trying-stop-derail-2020-election-audits-taking-place/

[clarice]

Gateway needs an editor for that article--it's a maze to me.

[Stephanie Nene Not Your Normal Granma]

Michael Smith
·
Conservatives have made two glaring errors (among others - these are the only two that suit my coffee-fueled purposes this morning) over the past 30 years or so, both that have come back to bite us smack in the a$$.

1. We trusted corporations to champion the free market, and

2. We wanted "character education" to be taught in our schools (remember the days when we were told George W. Bush was a "conservative"? Good times, good times...).

Both leave a bad taste and quite frankly, we should have known better. I cannot help but think about what Eric Stratton (Otter) told Kent Dorfman (Flounder) in Animal House:

"You f*cked up, you trusted us!"

Robert Conquest's (American historian) Three Laws of Politics told us what was going to happen:

1. Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.

2. Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.

3. The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.

We know how the corporations, especially the mega-corps, have become an enforcement arm of the Democrat Party. The social media giants police society, the Tech Oligarchs control approved speech and what information we are allowed to see and the rest of them enforce unwritten public law, deciding what entities should be able to advertise, use financial services or even buy their products.

American corporations imported Chinese state capitalism while we slept comfortably in our beds, dreaming we were doing the Lord's work in defending business from government - while those same businesses and government were carrying on sexy, torrid affairs behind our gullible backs.

Call it crony capitalism, corporatism or fascism, we got it by the bushel.

In the "be careful what you wish for" file is "character education" in schools. Remember how conservatives used to think, since parents failed in teaching children "values", we should get the schools involved in remedial character education? Remember how the left initially fought this idea and then more or less stopped fighting?

That was the moment when they thought "Hmmm. Never interfere when your enemy is destroying themselves. We can work with this."

This idea opened the door for school administrators, teachers' unions and school boards to become the moral arbiters of our society.

Guess what folks? Unsurprisingly, you have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting, you racist.

Your children now must be taught just how horribly racist you are.

Schools are now taxpayer funded, government owned and operated social justice indoctrination centers that teach math, history, and science when they have spare time between classes in newspeak, rightthink, community organizing, systemic racism, gender fluidity, equity creation and how to fill out government benefit forms.

In short, the entire curriculum is now just Ingsoc, 24/7.

Often, we are our own worst enemies.

[Stephanie Nene Not Your Normal Granma]

Your guide to Leftspeak:
"White supremacy" = Western civilization
"Fundamental change" = total destruction
"Legitimate grievances" = complete bullshit
"have a conversation about..." = agree with us or die
"Rights" = things not in the Constitution we want
"Settled science" = we just made it up but so what
~ HT Michael Walsh

[GUS]

WAPO and NYT are MAD MAGAZINE and CRACKED.

[Narciso]

The treehouse piece based on where he was operating they donst spell out how he got out

Hursti seems surprising turnabout because that argument about dominion voting was as obviously as octobers frontline

[Davod]

Covid 19 and HIV

"...The technology behind Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 jab, for instance, was first developed as a strategy to tackle HIV because it triggers a strong immune response (SN: 2/27/21). The shot uses a common cold virus that has been altered so that it no longer causes disease. That carrier delivers instructions to cells to make the viral proteins needed to train the immune system to recognize the invader. Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine uses a virus called adenovirus 26; the first HIV vaccine candidates used adenovirus 5...."

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/aids-hiv-vaccine-anniversary-immunity-antibodies

[Narciso]

But weve always been at war with eastasia.

[Narciso]

The brennan center im not surprised in its participation at all.

[Davod]

Re "WAPO and NYT are MAD MAGAZINE and CRACKED."

Wouldn't it be great if the truth could be covertly inserted into the papers, maybe like the advertisement inserts.

[Narciso]

So now then:

http://www.hackingdemocracy.com/about

[Davod]

PS. Or maybe replacing the front pages of the papers that sit in a frame in front of news stands.

[Melinda]

narc-

Who was controlled the media focus such that the timing of the virus’ definitive quiet release into Evergreen was Jan. 25th?

Seems kinda glaring now, when you look back at it…

[Jane]

It’s time for the revolution!

[GUS]

I just read Mad Magazine AND Cracked for my REAL NEWS.

[bubarooni]

MM, I was surprised when you said you don't hear cicadas. I'm about 60 miles south of you and right now I can barely hear myself think because they are so loud.

I have three large pin oaks. You can walk to the base of those trees and literally scoop up handfuls of their shells. btw, they stink like a rotting dead critter.

As I was mowing today, I brushed off 15 to 20. I finally gave up and at open point had about 5 on me. Except for the one that landed in my right ear and began screaming, they were harmless.

They are everywhere and they are noisy.

[clarice]

The cicadas here are deafening even with the windows closed.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

--1. We trusted corporations to champion the free market...--

I've noted many times, and I was hardly the first, that the greatest enemies of capitalism on earth are capitalists. The last thing anyone trying to make a buck wants is competition and so they look for any method by which they can eliminate it.
Free markets are not for capitalists. They're for society.
They are to control and force capitalists to compete for society's business.
That's one reason I discourage the use of 'capitalism' and urge 'free markets' instead. The first conjures an image of the cute but rapacious Monopoly Man while the other conjures FREEDOM and MARKETS; both of which most people like.

[Jane]

We have no cicadas, but my God I can barely watch golf because they are screaming! How long before they go back to sleep?

[Melinda]

No cicadas here on the shores of Lake Michigan. Not due for five more years, I believe

[Melinda]

Nope. 3 years away.

https://web.extension.illinois.edu/cicadas/13or17year.html

[Narciso]

Yep

https://tinyurl.com/47ce7kka

[Narciso]

Bon appetit

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ladies-your-5-000-racism-supper-is-ready-dont-choke-on-the-guilt-qgfspzlbc

[Marlene]

Good afternoon! We went to the local pub with our neighbors down the road last night. I showed them a picture of the cicadas that the daughter had sent us. They couldn't believe the size of them. I laughed and said, "and we complain about the mosquitoes!"

[Narciso]

Yep

https://humanevents.com/2021/06/05/an-invented-insurrection/

[Narciso]

Now tater

https://mobile.twitter.com/bonchieredstate/status/1401177215170236419

[clarice]

https://the-pipeline.org/every-wildflower-is-sacred-even-buckwheat/
A blog I did for pipeline

[bubarooni]

Well written Clarice.

The absurdity of the issue, alarming.

[GUS]

Clarice, why do you hate BUTT WHEAT.

[clarice]

never mind, Gus

[Jane]

My golf cart has a lithium battery. No charging required. I love it!

[Jane]

If you don’t read Clarice’s 5:37, you will have no idea why I said that!

[Narciso]

I think most of them are on lithium, these are dangerous people.

[Tom Bowler]

[T]he AWB is a brain-locked yet highly emotive debate centered on ignorance and fear and focused on cosmetics rather than substance.

Now tell me some Democrat issue that is not centered on ignorance and fear and focused on cosmetics rather than substance. Betcha can't.

[Jane]

Most golf carts are not in lithium. It’s very new.

[Jim Eagle]

Lithium batteries are a game changer, and the greens know that. Ipso facto, the resisintence.

[GUS]

I read it Jane. Interesting. And this country has plenty of it. That's one of the things the COMMIES hate. Us being self sufficient as a nation.

[Neo]

The subpoena, served on Gannett in April, seeks information about who accessed the news article online during a 35-minute window starting just after 8 p.m. on the day of the shootings.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/03/usa-today-subpeona-florida-shooting-491847

[MissMarple2]

bubarooni,

I have no idea. I keep expecting them and nothing shows up. Its not an absence of trees. We had a drought about 5 years ago and a lot of people in this neighborhood didnt realize their big trees needed watering and they died. That’s the only thing I can think of. So far nada.

[Neo]

There was a report a years ago now that was looking for some resource that would make Afghanistan a valuable property.
One surprise was that Afghanistan had huge deposits of lithium.

[Narciso]

The thing that makes me go hmm, is what was the result of that raid.

[MissMarple2]

bubarooni,

Called my son. He said we didn’t have any the last time, either. His theory is that we don't have old growth forest around here, plus between new construction and people getting their lawns treated, not many show up around here.

[MissMarple2]

Axios has a report that the Bush Foundation took $5 million from some Chinese Communist group and didn’t report it.

[Jane]

Jib,

Why are they a game changer?

[MissMarple2]

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2021/06/05/interesting-timing-obama-administration-lifted-block-on-gain-of-function-research-just-eleven-days-before-president-trump-took-office-january-9-2017/#more-212664

[Jane]

So what’s your thought? Are the democrats in bed with China? Do they just want to destroy this country? Or are they just stupid? I know all 3 are true, but what do you think is the real push?

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

--but what do you think is the real push?--

Do I need to go on another rant?
They don't write themselves you know. :)

[MissMarple2]

Trump coming up on Newsmax.

[MissMarple2]

Ugh. Mark Halperen is on as a commenter. Before the break he was pushing Chris Christie.

[Jim Eagle]

Jane,

Replaces convential batteries, takes watts off the grid, puts more focus on energy savings versus production.

[MissMarple2]

Peter Navarro on, yay! Says Fauci opposed the China travel ban adamantly.

[Jane]

Thanks Jib.

[Davod]

Neo. The problem with Afghanistan is that it is surrounded by belligerent nations.

[Davod]

Jim Eagle.

I received a book from a guy who spent ten years in the CIA. He basically markets a lot of books and equipment that reflect what he learned while in the CIA.

Spec Ops Power explains how Spec ops stay powered up while on covert operations. Everything is based upon lead acid batteries linked up in series.

[Narciso]

Yes jane all of the above.

[Davod]

There is a LED light globe that looks like a normal light globe. It also has a small lithium battery in it. If the power goes off, the battery takes over.

[Davod]

Clarice. Excellent article. This is part of the continuing effort to deny the US access to its raw materials.

[MissMarple2]

Essential Quality won the Belmont.

[MissMarple2]

Here he is!

[Jim Eagle]

Davod,

Nuclear Power Plants utilize lead batteries in a bank of series for Uniterruptible Power Supply (UPS). The one battery room at Calvert Cliffs had over 60 batteries in series.

[John S]

Great article, Clarice. But my take is different. It is because the wackos both demand an end to fossil fuels and also oppose all efforts to move a single stone in the effort to produce clean energy that they will bring themselves down. This is shown by for example the bullet train fiasco, where it can't get built because of lawsuits. It's too simplistic to say they just want to shut down everything. No, they assume they can keep living their modern lives while trying to stop all development, including environmental projects. This is good news, because it will turn the public against them.

[Stephanie Nene Not Your Normal Granma]

Michael Smith
·
America has always been a reluctant superpower but accepted the role because the alternatives were so much worse. There was no doubt that if the Soviet Union had become the world’s number one – or the sole – superpower, the world would have been a much more dangerous place.

We did participate in a few adventures during the years in between WWII and the fall of the Wall, but both were never about capturing territory or a quest for riches or resources, both Korea and Vietnam were proxy wars, active defenses against the spread of the Chinese form of communism. It gets lost in the dust of history, but America’s opponent in both Korea and Vietnam was China by proxy. In real terms, America’s conflict with China began on June 25, 1950 when Chinese backed North Korean forces invaded American backed South Korea.

The false narrative that America was hegemonic and interested in imperialistic expansion was one sold to American liberals at the time by the Soviet Union and the Chinese Communist Party to be used by their American fan base in their anti-war protests – while the USSR was invading eastern European states (Czechoslovakia was the last country in Eastern Europe to fully fall to communism in 1948) and China annexed Tibet in 1959 with the intent of executing Mao’s Five Fingers of Tibet , the Chinese strategy to annex Ladakh (India), Nepal, Sikkim (India), Bhutan, and Arunachal Pradesh (India).

It seems only logical we wanted Korea and Vietnam to adopt America capitalism and form of government, because that was seen as the best barrier against communist expansionism.

I did not really appreciate how reluctant America was until the Soviet Union began its slow-motion collapse with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and ending with the official dissolution of the USSR two years later in 1991. Shortly thereafter, decades of military planning, base locations, force sizes and political strategies went onto the ash heap along with the Supreme Soviet. America was like a dog that had been chasing the same car for years and finally catching it, was stuck wondering what they were going to do with it.

China was just beginning to figure out how to build its own global influence in the 90’s, so the end of the USSR left America as the last man standing, the world’s lone superpower.

I raise this reluctance, not as a negative, merely to counter the constant cacophonous din from the left about how American hegemony and imperialism have ruined the world.

There are forces out there that have or currently do seek global domination. Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Soviet Union, Mao’s China, to a great extent, the Mad Mullah’s of Persia seek regional domination over a part of the world that if successful, would give them de facto domination of the world, and one could include radical Islamists, have all tried to spin the wheel of hegemonic fortune at one time or the other – and who stopped them?
America, of course.

And what did we ask in return?

Nothing.

America’s reluctance to be the 800-pound gorilla became acutely obvious during the last two Democrat presidential administrations – and it has hurt our foreign policy efforts. No matter how great an athlete is, it is hard to trust him with the last shot of the game with the clock running down if everything he telegraphs to the team says he will not take the shot, that he does not see himself as the best player on the floor.

Republicans have done themselves no favors with misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq, neither have been confidence boosters. In general terms, it could be said America in on an 0 for 4 streak in winning wars and now that China is building islands to expand their control over greater ocean resources, some think it is possible, maybe even likely, that China will challenge the US by invading Taiwan, a prize for which they have lusted since Chang Kai-Shek fled there in December of 1949.

Given the posture China’s diplomats have taken by openly challenging the clearly unprepared Biden State Department, they most certainly believe they are, at least, on equal footing with the US on the world stage.

Foreign policy requires the projection of power as a credible threat. Sanctions alone are a poor substitute.

America must discard the belief that we are just one country of many, not really any better or worse, just average, something that took hold during the Obama years of “leading from behind”.

American political leaders must end their practice of hanging out America’s domestic dirty laundry for our enemies around the world to see – Russia and China have already chastised us for being a racist nation, echoing the claims coming from the American left.

America is going to be called on to save the world once again. It may not be today or tomorrow, but our historical reluctance and the weakness being telegraphed to the world by the current administration assure it is coming.

I wish I were sure we will answer the bell.

[matt - deplore me if you must]

Lithium batteries have lower loss factors and store more energy and can be recharged hundreds of times, but they are still batteries. The trillion dollar question in energy generation is storage, and while lithium is an improvement it still does not answer most needs.

[MissMarple2]

President Trump just said Barron is 6’7”!!!!

[Jane]

Stephanie,

Smith is amazing.

[Davod]

Jim Eagle. Interesting.

[1/2aboy&1/2aman]

Here is something worthy of a rant:
In a stunning turn of events, the 2021 Memorial Tournament frontrunner Jon Rahm was forced to withdraw from the event after learning he tested positive for COVID-19 live on television.
https://ftw.usatoday.com/2021/06/jon-rahm-withdraws-from-memorial-tournament-covid-19-reaction

[matt - deplore me if you must]

Speaking of the athlete ready to take the last shot, how about that Lebron James fellow? Maybe it's time for xe to hang up xis non-birthing parent thingy protection device.

[Davod]

!/2. I wonder if he wasted with the discredited (PCR?)Test?

[Davod]

Sorry.
1/2. I wonder if he was tested with the discredited Covid test.

[Narciso]

They rarely learn

https://mobile.twitter.com/ArthurSchwartz/status/1401218389666787336

[Davod]

"Steve Bannon: Three Georgia GOP Senate Seats Are Coming Back after Full Forensic Audit Completed"

How can the election overturned once it is certified?

https://conservativebrief.com/coming-back-41945/

[MissMarple2]

Standing ovation for making China pay!

Says we need a 100% tariff on Chinese goods.

[1/2aboy&1/2aman]

Most likely, Davod.
Some good questions from twitter references:
Another question: If the PGA Tour knew of Jon Rahm's positive result before he finished – even if it was just two holes earlier or whatever – why would they deem him capable and safe enough to remain around his caddie, playing partners, fans, etc., but only forced to WD after?

The PGA Tour knew Jon Rahm tested positive for COVID, let him go around having the round of his life to pull way ahead of the field, and told him about it *after the round was over.* What, on like six levels, are we doing here?