When hundreds of parents raised religious ob-jections, the Board for the first time eliminated notice and opt-outs—directing administrators and teachers
that parents could no longer be notified when the books were taught or be allowed to opt their children out. The Board’s own documents reveal that its goal in compelling children to participate in this instruction is to “disrupt” their “either/or thinking” on gender and sexuality. And the Board concedes that children may “come away from [such] instruction with a new perspective not easily contravened by their parents.
There is a movement for school vouchers because of all this activism. Most people would be satisfied if their public school basically used the lowest common denominator for cultural influence. That’s the way I remember it, total nothing burger, with the exception of evolution.
The people who run for school boards and politics in general tend to be activists. Sometimes i think our government would be much better off if positions were randomly assigned to citizens.
This is from the defendant (school board)
Teachers are expected to fold them into the curriculum as they would any other book: They can put the storybooks on shelves for students to find themselves, recommend a particular storybook to a student who would enjoy it, read the storybooks aloud, or offer them as an option for reading groups.
Pet.App.604a-605a.
“Read alouds” means kids cannot avoid the book. Elementary school childen are generally expected to pay attention when a teacher reads aloud. If the kid is assigned to read it aloud, that’s a lot of interaction foe the kid.
As or “option” for reading groups : that’s assigned reading.
Indeed, a guidance document for teachers states that “[n]o child who does not agree with or under-stand another student’s gender, expression, or their sex-ual identity is asked to change how they feel about it.”
But if the book itself advocates students should change how the feel about it, then this advocacy is happening in the classroom.
After the storybooks were introduced, some parents requested that their children be excused from class
when the storybooks were read or discussed. Pet.App.606a. Some opt-out requests were religion-based and others were not.
The parents are asking for opt-outs only when the book is read or discussed. They aren’t asking for the book to not be on a shelf or for other kids not to get to read it.
If it’s read and discussed, that’s quite a bit of interaction.
At first, teachers and principals sought to accommo-date these requests by excusing students when the
books were read in class. Pet.App.606a-607a. The grow-ing number of opt-out requests, however, gave rise to three related concerns: high student absenteeism, the in-feasibility of administering opt-outs across classrooms and schools, and the risk of exposing students who be-lieve the storybooks represent them and their families to social stigma and isolation.
The reason they are not allowing optouts is too many people want them! (That’s pretty hilareous actually.)
I also think Roberts has, in the past, pointed out that free freedom of religion is in the constitution. Freedom from social stigma or isolation is not. I mean… that might be sad. But it seems to me that board doesn’t really care if some people are stigmatized socially. They just don’t like a particular group ( i.e. trans) to be stigmatized socially.
The court thus explained that, “to show a cognizable burden” on religious exercise, peti-tioners were required to “show that the absence of an opt-out opportunity coerces them or their children to be-lieve or act contrary to their religious views.” Pet.App.31a. That coercion could be “direct or indirect.”
Id.
But in the case of the Roman Catholics, not allowing the opt out does coerce those parents to act contrary to their religious views. According to their religious views Catholics are supposed to shield their kids from certain topics presented unnecessarily and too early an age.
“otherwise affirmatively act in vio-
lation of their religious beliefs.” Id.
Allowing their kids to be exposed to certain believes would be an affirmative act that violates RC religious beliefs. That would mean parents who do this are affirmatively acting in violation of those RC believes. (There are how many RC justices?) I get Sotomoyor may allow this bit of belief to escape her, but it’s pretty long standing. (Yeah… fallen away RC here. But I like to read RC trivia.)
I don’t think a parent can ask for an opt-out because they don’t like the general morality of what the duly elected school board has approved, they need to either run for the school board or elect better representatives.
The religious exception is something they can legally ask for. I imagine plenty of secular parents aren’t too happy about this either. Once the opt-out is allowed I suppose anybody can do it.
However raising a gigantic stink about it is also usually enough. Who wants that headache for trans story time? Montgomery county defending this all the way to the SC wasn’t too wise IMO. I can see some board members facing some tough reelection races.
“gave rise to three related concerns: high student absenteeism”
This ended up being a red herring. Somebody actually looked into this claim and high absenteeism was due to the usual stuff and had nothing to do with this issue. They county immediately folded when challenged by Kavanaugh or Alito on this.
CNN: “Some US allies are highly alarmed by the president’s plan to let Russia keep most of the land it has seized from Ukraine”
OK. What’s their plan? I also wish that wouldn’t happen but a wish is not an army that will push Russia out of Ukraine.
Tom Scharf wrote: “I don’t think a parent can ask for an opt-out because they don’t like the general morality of what the duly elected school board has approved, they need to either run for the school board or elect better representatives.”
That sounds like the solution is to win a culture war. Or maybe a civil war.
Kenneth has a MUCH better solution: Allow parents to choose where their kids go to school.
Mike M,
Or move somewhere else, where crazy lefties don’t sit on the local school board.
I suspect it is inevitable that school boards (and all local elected positions) are more likely to be occupied by people who to want to impose a certain value system on public policies. Some places those values don’t generate much pushback because they are reasonably inoffensive and reasonably evenhanded. This is a case where the board is not being at all evenhanded and imposing values quite offensive to many people. The SC will smack down the school board. That won’t end the conflict, any more than the SC can stop Harvard from discriminating based on race.
On a different subject: The fellow who runs my wife’s non-profit sewing school in Haiti contacted my wife today by email and said criminal gangs now control 3/4 of the capitol of Port au Prince. and people are fleeing the gang controlled areas to the remaining non-gang area….. which is shrinking daily. Shipping goods/materials to the school is currently just about impossible.
It sounds like total social collapse in Haiti may not be far away.
Tom Scharf,
I think once opt out is allowed for religious reasons, pretty much anyone will have access to it. Technically it might not be required, but otherwise the school personnel are going to have to say the parent’s claim about their religious belief is not in good faith. How are they going to go about figuring out which parents are making good faith assertions about their religious beliefs? That really would be unworkable. “You don’t even go to church!” isn’t considered much in the way of evidence.
Also, it’s going to be impossible for the school to achieve their goal of increasing “acceptance” of trans kids if numerous students are stepping out of the class. If 1/4 of the kids in class are opting out, the other kids are going to ask why. It becomes difficult for the teacher to not talk about the fact that many people disagree with some of the ideas in the book. After all, that’s why the other kids aren’t in the class!!!
Lucia’s post:
“Allowing their kids to be exposed to certain believes would be an affirmative act that violates RC religious beliefs. That would mean parents who do this are affirmatively acting in violation of those RC believes. “
In my entire twelve years of Roman Catholic education I managed to not learn that rule.
Then I put two sons through eight years of Catholic education and four of public schools and never once checked their math books for blasphemy.
I’ll be goin’ straight to hell.
The judge who issued the protection order for the “Maryland Bro” did not make an error by not referring to El Salvador for protection in the protective order. When he referred to Guatemala, he ment Guatemala.
On rereading the order, I found :
Family moved from El Salvador to Guatemala
Family received death threats in Guatemala
No changed circumstances in Guatemala
Order bars subject from being deported to Guatemala
In my entire twelve years of Roman Catholic education I managed to not learn that rule.
And yet it is one. Teachers do not introduce young children to heresies. You wait to discuss heresies until they are older and even then, generally only those delving deeply bother to do it.
Few learn it’s actually a rule to not introduce and discuss heretical idea as a method of better understanding the non-heretical ones. But it is.
Can I find this rule now? Nope. But it is one.
I mean seriously: did you have any classes on “The history of heresies” in Catholic grade school? Arian through Zorastrian? I bet not. Those heresies are very interesting and clarify what the heck the Apostle’s creed even means. But no one has that class until possibly college level.
The teachers didn’t announce and explain why you don’t have classes about the heresies in k-12. But they don’t have them.
Lucia, Your post:
“I mean seriously: did you have any classes on “The history of heresies” in Catholic grade school? “
No, not in Catholic grade school. But I attend a special college preparatory Catholic High school, taught by the Christian Brothers of St. John Baptist de La Salle:
Pittsburgh Central Catholic:
“To inspire boys to become Men of Faith, Men of Scholarship, Men of Service.” https://www.centralcatholichs.com/pages/mission-history
Religion was a core class required all four years [as was two years of Latin!].
We studied many religions and heresies. Once I did a term paper on Judaism that required research in a Jewish library. [The Rabbis were delighted to help!]
The Catholic Church has been writing laws for 2,000 years, most of which have been lost in time.
I had a 5th grade teacher who read books to the class, all focused on the horrors and evil nature of slavery and racism. In no way was this part of any formal curriculum…. he was trying to convince the students of a specific moral point of view, no matter what they heard at home; in the early 60’s racism wasn’t that uncommon. The book reading never took place when an administrator sat in to evaluate the teacher.
Lucia’s post talking about Catholic education into the heresies reminded me of our studies of the Protestant Reformation.
There is a great parallel to today.
One reason the two great heresies of the Reformation spread so quickly was the invention of the printing press: https://credomag.com/2020/11/how-the-invention-of-the-printing-press-helped-advance-the-reformation/
It is similar to how today’s revolution in social media changed political campaigns in the US.
Russell,
paper on Judaism that required research in a Jewish library.
Judaism is not a heresy.
[as was two years of Latin!].
Latin is also not heresy.
Religion was a core class required all four years
Also not a heresy.
Did you write any papers on Zorastrian Heresy? Or the Nestorian Heresy? Or the beliefs of the Abigensians (i.e. Cathars?)
The public viewing of Pope Francis is taking place at St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. It is being broadcast live on:
Vatican Media Live https://www.youtube.com/live/J6MqpK91bEA?si=K6SXgZgc8CNzHCFF
Some of the Gregorian Chants [Catholic Latin Hymns] are beautiful.
Funeral services will be broadcast livestarting at 10 AM [Rome Time] tomorrow.
Lucia;
“Did you write any papers on Zorastrian Heresy? Or the Nestorian Heresy? Or the beliefs of the Abigensians (i.e. Cathars?)”
No, and I don’t recall those but it was 50 years ago.
I do recall quite a lot [probably a semester] on the heresies of the Protestant Reformation. There was no hesitancy on the part of the Brothers to discuss this and delve into current Protestant religions.
Your basis:
“Few learn it’s actually a rule to not introduce and discuss heretical idea as a method of better understanding the non-heretical ones. But it is.”
is pure bunk.
Russell,
No, and I don’t recall those but it was 50 years ago.
But you recall writing one about Judaism.
The protestant reformation can’t be dealt with by ignoring. All the changes in government and the killings during fairly modern history can’t be ignored, so the fact that it had to do with religious beliefs can’t be ignored. So by high school addressing discussing the reformation is “necessary”.
Avoiding unnecessary discussions of things that violate the religion when students are too young is “the rule”. It’s not unlike the general rule of “age appropriate” in secular schools– it’s just that it applies to things that are specifically religious in nature.
is pure bunk.
Nope. You did not study the Albigensian heresy. Nor the Zoroastrian heresy. You are simply unaware that it’s “not done”.
Lucia,
I can find no Canon Law against the study of Heresy as a way of understanding. Show me the text if you have it.
So, I ask Grok.
Grok on Canon Law and Studying Heresy
“ The Church encourages scholarly study of heresy to understand historical, theological, and pastoral implications. This is evident in the works of theologians like St. Augustine or St. Thomas Aquinas, who analyzed heresies (e.g., Arianism, Gnosticism) to defend orthodox doctrine.”
“Cautions: Engaging with heretical texts directly (e.g., Gnostic gospels) requires discernment to avoid undermining faith. Canon Law indirectly supports this through canons on censorship of books (Canons 822–832), which urge caution with materials that could harm faith or morals.”
Full Canon Law analysis: https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_9afb1a72-a48d-47e5-8119-e83b3594baa5
Russell,
The Church encourages scholarly study of heresy
I wrote this is only when you are older.
Note what I actually wrote
According to their religious views Catholics are supposed to shield their kids from certain topics presented unnecessarily and too early an age.
Also
scholarly study
Kids in k-5th grade are not doing “scholarly study”.
Also, when you do introduce heresies, you must teach that the are wrong ideas.
This is google AI
AI Overview
Learn more
In Roman Catholic theology, teaching children about heresies, or beliefs that contradict established doctrine, can be a valid part of religious education. This approach allows students to critically examine their faith, understand the history of the Church, and strengthen their own understanding of the Catholic faith by seeing how heresies have been refuted. However, it’s crucial to present heresies in a way that emphasizes their refutation by the Church’s teachings and avoids causing confusion or undermining the student’s faith.
Why Teach Heresies?
Critical Thinking:
Examining heresies encourages critical thinking about faith and helps students understand how the Church’s teachings are defended against alternative interpretations.
Understanding Church History:
Studying heresies provides insights into the historical development of Catholic doctrine and how the Church has responded to challenges.
Strengthening Faith: By understanding how heresies are refuted, students can strengthen their own faith and commitment to the Church’s teachings.
Discernment:
Learning about heresies helps students develop the ability to discern true teachings from false ones, a skill essential for navigating the world.
How to Teach Heresies Effectively:
Emphasize Refutation:
Always present heresies in the context of their refutation by the Church’s official teachings.
Provide Context:
Explain the historical context in which the heresy arose and the reasons why the Church condemned it.
Focus on Truth:
Clearly and repeatedly emphasize the truth of the Catholic faith and the reasons why it is the true and enduring teaching.
Use Critical Thinking Tools:
Encourage students to ask questions, analyze arguments, and engage in thoughtful discussion about the different perspectives.
Note: Students are absolutely not to get the “wrong answer”.
Be Sensitive:
Be mindful of the potential for confusion or discouragement and ensure that students are presented with the information in a way that is clear, respectful, and encouraging.
Example:
When teaching about Arianism (the belief that Jesus was not fully God), a teacher could explain how this heresy arose, the arguments made by Arians, and then clearly present the Church’s Council of Nicaea’s definition of the divinity of Jesus Christ. This would allow students to see how the Church’s teachings are grounded in scripture and tradition and why Arianism was rejected.
Catholics would not allow heresies to be taught without discussing that they are wrong. They also don’t discuss these when the kids are too young to “reason” or “pseudo reason”. (I mean… clearly, it’s “pseudo reasoning” if you are required to come to the ‘realization’ that Catholic teachings are the correct ones.)
Russell
“Cautions: Engaging with heretical texts directly (e.g., Gnostic gospels) requires discernment to avoid undermining faith. Canon Law indirectly supports this through canons on censorship of books (Canons 822–832), which urge caution with materials that could harm faith or morals.”
You know who doesn’t have “discernment”? Kindergardeners.
From yur cannons
§2. Books which regard questions pertaining to sacred scripture, theology, canon law, ecclesiastical history, and religious or moral disciplines cannot be used as texts on which instruction is based in elementary, middle, or higher schools unless they have been published with the approval of competent ecclesiastical authority or have been approved by it subsequently.
§3. It is recommended that books dealing with the matters mentioned in §2, although not used as texts in instruction, as well as writings which especially concern religion or good morals are submitted to the judgment of the local ordinary.
§4. Books or other writings dealing with questions of religion or morals cannot be exhibited, sold, or distributed in churches or oratories unless they have been published with the permission of competent ecclesiastical authority or approved by it subsequently.
Lucia,
I don’t have time to study that now. I’ll look at it later. Do you have any references to Canon Law that I didn’t find?
Ed Forbes,
The judge granted Garcia’s motion for withholding of removal. Do you know if that motion specified El Salvador or Guatemala?
If the latter, then the administration could make the whole thing disappear with a wave of a motion. They have not. Of course, it could be that Trump is following Napoleon’s advice to never interrupt the enemy when he is making a mistake.
Russell,
Do you have any references to Canon Law that I didn’t find?
I showed you that the references you found tell the faithful that their children’s education should not include texts whose moral teachings are not approved by eclesiastical authorities.
The books in question include teachings that would fall in the category of “moral”. Not only are these books not approved by any ecclesiastical authority, they clearly contain “moral” teaching that are repugnant to Catholics and easily recognized by parents as such.
I don’t know what more you want from Cannon law. It seems to be the ones you found show precisely what I claimed.
Russell,
I guess if the parents wanted more fire power they could follow the dictates of §3 and submit the books and the guidelines to teachers to their “local ordinary” and see what they have to say. I’m pretty sure we know what the “local ordinary” would say.
When I called them “your cannons” they were the numbers mentioned in your Grok link==822-833
You will also find a special requirement that parents attend to the christian education of their children
Can. 226
…
§2. Since they have given life to their children, parents have a most grave obligation and possess the right to educate them. Therefore, it is for Christian parents particularly to take care of the Christian education of their children according to the doctrine handed on by the Church.
Parents don’t get a pass on letting the kids be led into immoral teachings just because the public school thinks something is right.
Christians must announce and defend their doctrine
Can. 229 §1. Lay persons are bound by the obligation and possess the right to acquire knowledge of Christian doctrine appropriate to the capacity and condition of each in order for them to be able to live according to this doctrine, announce it themselves, defend it if necessary, and take their part in exercising the apostolate.
To the extent that teaching that believing you were born in the “wrong body” or “wrong sex” violates Catholic teachings, based on the above, parents are obligated to prevent their children from being taught the opposite.
Can. 795 Since true education must strive for complete formation of the human person that looks to his or her final end as well as to the common good of societies, children and youth are to be nurtured in such a way that they are able to develop their physical, moral, and intellectual talents harmoniously, acquire a more perfect sense of responsibility and right use of freedom, and are formed to participate actively in social life.
To the extent that teaching its moral to believe God gave you the wrong body violates Catholic teaching, permitting your kids to be taught that when they are too young is not “nurtur[ing] in such a way that they are able to develop their physical, moral, and intellectual talents harmoniously, …”
Can. 796
§2. Parents must cooperate closely with the teachers of the schools to which they entrust their children to be educated; moreover, teachers in fulfilling their duty are to collaborate very closely with parents, who are to be heard willingly and for whom associations or meetings are to be established and highly esteemed.
Parents can’t just let the teachers do… whatever…
Can. 798 Parents are to entrust their children to those schools which provide a Catholic education. If they are unable to do this, they are obliged to take care that suitable Catholic education is provided for their children outside the schools.
If the school is providing teachings contrary to a Catholic education, the parents must spend time telling the kids the school is wrong.
Can. 799 The Christian faithful are to strive so that in civil society the laws which regulate the formation of youth also provide for their religious and moral education in the schools themselves, according to the conscience of the parents.
The parents kinda sort of have to object to immoral teachings, and perhaps sue the school board. . .
All in all: parents can’t just passively allow schools to subject their kids to immoral teachings. Although if they have no other choice, they can tell their kids the teachers are wrong (and must do so), they are required to strive to engage with the teachers or school and get things changed.
The people who run for school boards and politics in general tend to be activists. Sometimes i think our government would be much better off if positions were randomly assigned to citizens.
Bingo.
There were thoughts early in our nations history when serving in elected government positions was consider more of a duty/burden than a privilege. It was get my duty over so I can get back to my business, trade or profession.
As for local elections for school boards, my experiences are in line with Tom’s comment. I would add that those voting regularly in those elections tend to have political agendas.
I listened to comments from those running for school board positions in a forum sponsored by the League of Woman Voters. The incumbents had bs comments in efforts to hide their agendas. The two young ladies for whom I voted were not incumbents and commented about problems that the other candidates ignored. Unfortunately incumbents win most elections in my locale simply by being incumbents.
William F. Buckley: “I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.”
Kenneth Fritsch wrote: “those voting regularly in those elections tend to have political agendas … incumbents had bs comments in efforts to hide their agendas … incumbents win most elections in my locale simply by being incumbents”.
I suspect that most incumbents win by serving the agendas of the activists who often exert so much influence in local elections. Incumbent hide their agendas because revealing them would motivate people to vote and drown out the activists.
Lucia, I appreciate your dive into Canon Law and Russell as adversario.
I wonder how many parents today have the interest in their children’s education as Canon Law prescibes – and even good Catholics. They might think they have little control and thus send their kids to school and hope for the best. They would or should have at least retained influence over what their children see and hear about morals and principles of a good life and put them in a position to be able to chose what ideas from school to accept or deny.
Kenneth,
I first became interested in this issue of teachers teaching things when I took “20th century problems” as a religion class in high school. This was last semester senior year. The nun has “plans”, which were not working out because largely owing to me, two of the other students were not making the “right conclusions”.
Mid-semester, she dropped the topics she planned and we just switched to rote doctrine stuff. Literally memorizing the holy days of obligation. She told us she couldn’t continue to class if we…. uhmm…. well basically came to the wrong conclusions. ( I had, fwiw, pretty much suggested she was trying to insist on pre-ordained conclusions. She eventually admitted it when she decreed she couldn’t stick to the plan of these topics any more.)
I know one of the things was whether we could know there was objective right and wrong and how. (It’s ‘supposed’ to come from God. Cultural norms is the wrong answer. I didn’t think that was the answer either. But from god? No. I didn’t think that.)
Mike M.
I cannot find the reference but shortly after Buckley made the comment about the first 2,000 names in the Boston Phone Book, someone analyzed the list and found (IIRC and may not) that the first 2’000 names were largely Irish Catholic. I doubt that the Harvard faculty has ever been largely Irish Catholic.
For younger children—typically those of elementary or middle school age—the Church generally discourages the study of heresy. At this stage, the focus is on catechesis, the religious instruction that teaches the fundamentals of the Catholic faith, such as the sacraments, the life of Christ, and the Ten Commandments. The Church emphasizes that parents, as the primary educators (Canon 226 and Canon 793 of the Code of Canon Law), have the duty to ensure their children receive proper formation in the faith. Introducing heretical ideas to young children could risk confusing them or weakening their understanding of Catholic teachings, potentially leading to what the Church calls “scandal”—actions or ideas that might lead someone to sin or doubt their faith. Therefore, the priority is to build a strong, age-appropriate grounding in orthodoxy before exposing them to contrary beliefs.
I’ll skip older children because Mahmoud is about younger children. (K-5th grade) Russell objected to my discussion which was about younger children, not adults or even teens.
Conclusion
In summary, the Roman Catholic Church generally discourages children from studying heresy, particularly younger children, to ensure they first develop a strong foundation in Catholic doctrine. For older children, such study may be allowed as part of their education, but only under careful guidance and in a manner that strengthens their faith. This cautious, developmental approach reflects the Church’s commitment to safeguarding the spiritual formation of its youngest members while preparing them to navigate a complex world of ideas as they mature.
Even if many Roman Catholics are not aware of it (and some– possibly especially those who went to Roman Catholic schools k-12), the RC church discourages even exposing children to heretical ideas when they are too young. The reason those who went to Catholic school are less likely to be aware of this is that the school simply does not bring up heresies in elementary school. So there are no “controversies” about what teachers are teaching when the kids get home from schools. Those who went to RC schools and did not develop any particular interest in any heresy– did not fall away blah, blah blah are often pretty unaware of the position on teaching this stuff because it was a non-issue to their life.
But it is, in fact, the case that if a RC parent has a young kid in public school and the school starts advocating or teaching heresies, the RC parent has a big problem and the parent is supposed to take action.
Roman Catholic parents letting their young kid sit in class and intentionally taught or exposed to heresies technically does violate cannon law. So saying this would violate their faith isn’t attributing to them some sort of odd controversial views.
I would guess that even if many Catholics are blithely unaware of this Roberts, Coney-Barret, Alito and Thomas are very aware of it. Sotomoyor should be. Gorsuch is protestant but was sent to Catholic schools. He may also know this.
I suspect we’ll read a lot of language on what “expose” means. It’s probably not going to be just having a book on the shelf, nor someone blurting something unplanned out. But structured lessons using books that take points of view that violate someone’s religion is different from some passing statement.
And there is nothing to balance– the teacher or school district don’t have some “right” to teach others that gender is not binary!
I’m looking at cited cases and examining similarities and differences with the parents complaintg in Mahmoud. I’ll put in comments as I read them.
Parents did not want their kids to read stories about mental telepathy or magic because that violated their religion.
Similar: to Mahmoud. Kids just read.
Difference to Mahmoud: Teachers almost certainly were not claiming mental telepathy was real. No one claims they were encouraging students to believe in ESP. The purpose in introducing the books is not specifically to broaden the children’s minds to the idea that ESP is a real thing. There is/was no significant political movement advocating that ESP or magic is real. It is almost certainly the case that all the teachers consider the idea that characters have psychic powers is fiction.
Possible difference. There are 14 kids in Mozert; I can only find the age range of one. That was a 6th grader. The kids in Mahmoud include kindergarteners. As kids age, they develop the ability to express disagreements.
United States District Court, E.D. Tennessee, Northeastern Division. ruling: the kids got to opt out of the reading program.
Sixth circuit: They don’t get to opt out of reading. The case didn’t go any further.
Wikipedia:
This case set further precedent for the free expression clause used in public schools. It allows for state schools to teach controversial religious material to students, provided that they are not endorsing, condoning, or in any way encouraging either the belief or expression, or any aspect of a student’s faith.
In Mahmoud, the parents highlight teacher prep material that trains teachers to push back on the idea that being gay, or transgender is, in some way, wrong.
____
If (likely when) SCOTUS rules against the school board in Mahmoud, and don’t think they will have any trouble pointing out the differences in the level of “compulsion”. The school board in Mahmoud almost certainly is trying to instill values with respect to the particular religious views under discussion. The one in Mozert…. no.
But first, he briefly points out how unreasonable that dogmatism is:
What explains this fervent dogmatism? After all, it is possible to be for trade liberalization in some industries or in some eras and for protectionism of various kinds in others. Tariffs, for example, have different uses; they can be used to raise revenue; as a bargaining chip in negotiations to open foreign markets; or to protect national industries against foreign competition, in the interest of national security or domestic economic diversification and growth. Tariffs are merely instruments of economic statecraft, like taxes of other kinds, tax deductions and exemptions, direct grants, regulations, price controls, capital controls, financial sanctions, public ownership, and other tools of government, all of which are appropriate in some cases and not in others. The only rational answer to the question of whether free trade or protection is the best policy is: it depends.
The most striking moment at the funeral for me was the Byzantine Archbishops chanting the ‘Christos anesti’ in Greek while their Patriarch swings incense around the Pope’s casket.
Video: https://x.com/jkenney/status/1916325366697730093?s=61&t=7w4bCW3a8ve2DqoeniQatQ
Notice the elaborate bejeweled headgear on some of them. They are often referred to as Greek Catholics. They are in full communion with the Roman Catholics. Their priests can marry.
Once each year, my entire high school would attend mass at The Greek Catholic cathedral In Pittsburgh.
Wait, I said that wrong; married men can be ordained as Greek Catholic priests, though priests cannot marry after ordination.
Russel,
Incense waving is cool.
Lucia,
Almost makes up for all the BS
Can’t access the site from my mobile. Complains about an invalid SSL certificate, error 526. Tried multiple browsers. Tried just http, but even with secure connections turned off, it switches to https.
Lucia’s incense post reminded me of a joke from my alter boy days….
The priest instructs the alter boy;
When I sing during the service ‘and the angels lit the candles’ you come out and light the candles.
So, during the service, the priest sings:
“And the angels lit the candles”
And nothing happened, so the priest again sings:
“ And the angels lit the candles”
And after a few moments, the altar boy from back in the sacristy sings:
“And the cat pissed on the matches”
I’m trying to get something sorted out with the SSL certificate. It’s been an issue, and things are touchy since I requested one at Dreamhost. There seems to be a Dreamhost/Cloudflare issue.
I have a ticket in. Dreamhost replied. We’ll be trying to get this sorted out.
Lucia, a few days I had the exact same error message on my windows desktop. I just cut and paste the URL from my iPad and I haven’t had any trouble since.
Huzzah! Thanks for sorting this out Lucia.
That certification error message kept me out of this site on my comnputer, my table and phone and just this PM am I getting back in.
It seems my phone didn’t have the certificate problem but my computers did. odd. I use Chrome, but also tried Firefox and both hung on the certificate.
“Tariffs are merely instruments of economic statecraft, like taxes of other kinds, tax deductions and exemptions, direct grants, regulations, price controls, capital controls, financial sanctions, public ownership, and other tools of government, all of which are appropriate in some cases and not in others. The only rational answer to the question of whether free trade or protection is the best policy is: it depends.”
Today I’ll be a socialist and tomorrow a capitalist and maybe next week a fascist: it depends. Situational dogmatism.
My daughter-in-law’s mother married a former Catholic priest who wrote a book that ended with the reuniting of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. Reading it I learned a few things I did not know just as was the case with the Canon Law discussion here.
I haven’t seen the site in about 2 days due to the SSL error. I think I only tried on my PC, not on the phone.
I too was frozen out for lack of a ‘valid certificate’. Both phone and desktop.
Interesting observation: one adamant non-believer on this thread appears to know 10x more about Catholicism than most practicing Catholics. Seems ironic, and a little funny.
Hamas is now offering to release all prisoners in exchange for 5 years of cease-fire, AKA liberty to re-arm, dig tunnels and plan more attacks on Israel. Oddly enough, Israel shows no interest. They will not stop until Hamas is gone. Another year? Hard to say.
I Ukraine, there seems little prospect for a cease-fire in the near term, and even less prospect for anything except a cease-fire combined with a ‘frozen conflict’ long term. Unfortunately, the killing will continue for a while.
I did manage to write more code in the last couple of days that I otherwise would have. 😉
I was out for a few days due to a SSL error.
Thanks for supporting the site Lucia.
My Dad finally moved to Florida so I have been to church a couple times lately. It’s about the same as I remember. The priest was pretty good down here, makes a big difference.
They need to be very careful here, if it comes off as elite universities resisting the will of the public (funding) then it may further erode support for higher education. I think they live in a bubble and are bound to screw this up big time.
The certificate problem was on and off. It may or may not be fully vanquished. If it recurrs, it’s not you. It should be fixed soon though.
Au contrair SteveF.
Some sort of Ukraine truce in next 2 weeks.
Hamas ? No idea.
Big issue is Iran and if a strike will occur when Ukraine out of the way.
Only guessing
angech,
We will see.
WRT Iran? Difficult to say for sure, but I am guessing Trump means it when he says no nuclear weapons for Iran. The mullahs need to be very careful about where they sleep….. unless they really do want to meet all those virgins.
Peace in Ukraine seems a long way off. Lavrov in an interview laid out Russians demands. They are the same as months ago. Trump is getting nowhere:
“In an interview with Brazil’s O Globo, Russia’s foreign minister laid out a list of demands:
Kyiv must abandon its NATO ambitions and remain neutral.
The “neo-Nazi regime” must stop eradicating everything Russian in Ukraine — language, media, culture, traditions, and canonical Orthodoxy.
Crimea, Sevastopol, and the so-called DNR, LNR, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions must be officially recognized as Russian.
Ukraine must undergo demilitarization and denazification.
All sanctions against Russia must be lifted, legal claims and arrest warrants canceled, and frozen assets returned.
Moscow must receive “reliable security guarantees” against threats allegedly created by NATO’s hostile activities.” https://x.com/nexta_tv/status/1916797842414280734?s=61&t=7w4bCW3a8ve2DqoeniQatQ
Fox News, yesterday:
Senator John Kennedy on Putin: “He broke every promise made to Trump. He wants to keep the territory he’s seized and stop Ukraine from joining NATO. He thinks we fear him. Putin has deceived Trump at every turn. The situation won’t improve until we make it clear that we’re ready to turn him and his country into fish food. I’m not talking nuclear weapons—I’d start with oil.”
It was worth trying to end the Ukraine war. It aint happening.
Now what? Back to Plan A I guess, keep grinding Russia down and make them pay for every inch until Ukraine themselves concede. Still likely to not end well for them, they have been fighting heroically all things said.
The EU is no doubt still making plans to plan on doing something.
Another disastrous weekend for Snow White in worldwide theaters. Current estimate for total money loss is over $200 million. Get woke, go broke strikes again.
Monday morning headlines:
“With humiliating box office numbers and historic audience backlash, Disney’s live-action Snow White becomes one of the biggest failures in Hollywood history”
“Snow White Box Office Run Is Almost Over, Cementing All-Time Flop For Disney”
Tom, Your comment:
“Back to Plan A I guess, keep grinding Russia down and make them pay for every inch until Ukraine themselves concede.”
And
“The EU is no doubt still making plans to plan on doing something.”
I am still of the mind that Europe is happy with the status quo; Ukraine is spending US money and spilling their own blood and destroying Russia’s war machine.
I don’t know that much can be made of Russia not changing its public bargaining position. They might very well not move on that until there is a deal.
When Trump was promising that he could get a quick peace deal in Ukraine, Russell (I think) wondered what leverage Trump figured he had with Russia. That was a good point. So far, it looks like if Trump has such leverage, Putin does not seem to know about it.
Russell wrote: “I am still of the mind that Europe is happy with the status quo; Ukraine is spending US money and spilling their own blood and destroying Russia’s war machine.”
That might well be true. Totally unprincipled on the part of Europe, but true. But if Ukraine really is destroying the Russian military, then Putin ought to be willing to bargain.
Maybe Trump thinks his real leverage is with Europe. Try to broker a deal. If he succeeds, great. If not, tell the Europeans that Ukraine is now their problem.
Sigh.
I wonder what Sen. Kennedy has in mind when he says “I’d start with oil”. Seize or sink some tankers carrying Russian oil? It would not take many to put an end to most Russian oil exports.
Can OPEC make up for the loss of Russian oil? Would they? Even if they can, they probably won’t until oil prices go through the roof.
Maybe cutting off Russian oil exports is Trump’s leverage. If so, then he obviously won’t want to play that card unless he absolutely has to. So maybe Putin is betting that Trump won’t do it, and Trump is trying to convince Putin that he is not bluffing.
We live in interesting times. Dang it.
Interestingly, not known for aligning to conservative stances, Randi Weingarten would not read these books to 4-6 year olds.
Randi Weingarten admits she wouldn't read the books parents want to opt their children out of in Mahmoud v. Taylor: "These are not the books I would be reading as a classroom teacher to kids who kids who are four and six years old."
Mike, your post:
“I don’t know that much can be made of Russia not changing its public bargaining position. They might very well not move on that until there is a deal.”
Yes, I didn’t think of that. Laryov’s barking may be a negotiation ploy.
Lucia,
This is a question I hesitate to ask for a few different reasons, not least of which is that in a sense it is rude to ask a question that is difficult to answer in fewer words than a dissertation would require.
You said above in a response to Kenneth,
I know one of the things was whether we could know there was objective right and wrong and how. (It’s ‘supposed’ to come from God. Cultural norms is the wrong answer. I didn’t think that was the answer either. But from god? No. I didn’t think that.)
Where do you think objective right and wrong comes from? If this is too onerous to answer (and it would be too onerous for me to answer if you asked me), would you consider answering with a brief sketch of the direction in which you believe the answer lies? I do not have an good answer to this question that I consider satisfactory and would like to find one.
[Edit: Or rather, I am not satisfied with the answers I can produce to this question, maybe that’s a better way to put it.]
My understanding of the Russian position on Ukraine has not changed as Russia has been very consistent on their requirements to end the war.
Russia is taking the long view for its interests. A ceasefire in place that allows for emplacing NATO troops into Ukraine is completely unacceptable to Russia. Russia takes the same position on this issue as would the US with Mexico if Mexico allowed the Chinese to station Chinese army divisions on the US / Mexico border. Not going to happen.
The Russian are winning the war of attrition against Ukraine with the goal of destroying Ukraine military manpower. Once Ukraine manpower falls below sustainable levels, the Ukraine army will collapse. Very much what happened to Germany in WWI.
There is an extended power outage ongoing that affects all of Spain and Portugal, and part of France. The official explanation is the cause was ‘Rare Atmospheric Phenomenon’. I can find no sun spots reports or outages anywhere else on the planet. I am wondering what this could be?
Russell,
Shellenberger says it’s overreliance on renewables and insufficient ‘inertia’ in the grid in Spain that has caused this.
Obviously I don’t actually know, but it wouldn’t surp[r]ise me the teeniest bit if it turns out that he is correct.
Mark,
Well I guess they are calling cloudy skies and calm winds a rare atmospheric phenomenon
I don’t know how you lose almost all power to a modern country and 8 hours later you officially don’t know what caused it.
We all braced for India to invade Pakistan and Pakistan to nuke them in response? It could happen, apparently.
[I miss the days when mutually assured destruction seemed to work as a deterrent.]
The longer it takes, the more likely it is that Russell is correct. Which isn’t to say there won’t be some truthy hypotheses, masquerading as facts, presented in the meantime.
It would seem they are spending an inordinate amount of time getting their story straight, That usually signals incompetence one way or the other.
CNN: “There is no conclusive information on what caused the power outage that has affected Spain, Portugal and parts of France, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Monday.
He said officials were trying to determine the cause and had not yet ruled out any theories, but he urged the public to avoid speculation.”
Yes, don’t speculate people! Ha ha.
I consider the 10 Kw (continuous) generator and the 50 gals of gasoline I keep on hand, and I do not get too worked up about short term energy interruptions. That said, I am happy I do not live in Spain…… where energy outages seem part of the official energy plan for the country.
“Shellenberger says it’s overreliance on renewables and insufficient ‘inertia’ in the grid in Spain that has caused this.”
He is likely right about this. There is no “inertial kinetic” energy that backs up solar and wind against sudden load changes, but is a normal part of all conventional energy systems. Easy enough (although expensive!) to add said inertia…. giant rotating motor/generators that sit on the line, ready to add or absorb sudden energy changes, or instant-response battery systems which resist sudden load changes. Not likely to happen in eco-sensitive Europe.
Europe:
1) No free speech.
2) High taxes
3) Absurd energy policies
4) Squelching of all political opposition.
Unfortunately, Europe seems doomed to a gradual decline in wealth and concurrent increase in poverty and misery.
Mark
Where do you think objective right and wrong comes from?
I’m not sure there is objective right and wrong. But I don’t think God exists, so if it does exist, it doesn’t come from God.
I just know the “correct” answers in my religion class were that there was objective right and wrong and that it came from God. We were supposed to all agree to this pretty quickly and then move on. I think we were supposed to decide what things were right or wrong.
There was an attempt to have some illusion of reasoning– but it was important to get the right answers.
To some extent, I don’t think whether right and wrong is “objective” is all that important. I think what’s more important is if we agree on what is right and wrong– even if someone sees the reasons as “subjective”.
This initiative has already earned a nickname in Germany: the “lying ban.” Even within the CDU, the proposal sparked ridicule. Friedrich Merz, the party leader and incoming chancellor, promised fiscal discipline during the campaign, then swiftly unveiled the largest debt package in German history. One German columnist asked: “When will Merz turn himself in to the authorities?””
“Where do you think objective right and wrong comes from?”
Beating a dog with a whip is objectively wrong. Why? Because the dog suffers for no reason. A dog has no capacity for rationally evaluating its behavior, nor understanding why its behavior should change.
Beating a person with a whip is objectify wrong, unless the suffering that person experiences is justified by that person’s past behavior. Unlike the suffering of a beaten dog, the person has objective capacity to rationally evaluate his/her past behavior. Did that behavior add to or detract from overall human happiness? Added overall happiness or added overall suffering? If I were an elected democrat, I would be nervous.
Steve,
I have heard people make a persuasive argument that, while it might be difficult to nail down what ‘good’ is, it’s relatively easy to identify an ‘evil’ vector and avoid it. Promoting needless suffering is a good example; if promoting needless suffering isn’t evil, then I think most people would agree that the term ‘evil’ doesn’t have much meaning.
It’s a good starting point anyway. [Not a bad starting point, perhaps would be the way to say that!]
I actually do think this is important, and I don’t think the subjective social convention idea is ‘good enough’. What do I mean by ‘good enough’? Well, is whether or not it’d be ‘good’ for us to be free or slaves of some person or State merely a social convention? If enough people agreed we should be slaves, would that have the same moral significance as people wanting to be free? My answer to all of these questions is an emphatic ‘no, indeed’.
It’s quite the rectal pain however to derive objective morality, or even morality that might be objective in principle.
I don’t necessarily think it is important to discuss here. I was only asking Lucia because the subject came up peripherally.
Do the political convictions people exhibit here flow from some other spring than moral conviction?
Practicality, perhaps. I mean, why be a conservative instead of a liberal if morality is subjective or just a social construct? One answer might be ‘well, conservative policies work better’, by some metric.
But maybe this is of interest primarily just to me, in which case I’ll shush up about it.
If I were an elected democrat, I would be nervous.
Telling people exactly what to do usually, and quite reasonably, pisses them off. There is no up-side to this. Democrats are the party of “you must do this”, no matter how absurd “this” might be.
Given a fair election, without distortions and deceptions, democrats usually lose. That is why they lost the 7 swing sates in 2024. It is also why J D Vance will likely be sworn in January 2028.
Sorry, sworn in January, 2029
Tom Scharf,
” I do wonder who they will target.”
They will target anyone who is a) visible, and b) not promoting ideals of the left.
The left never relents and never compromises on substance.
Evil people doing evil things.
Glimmer of hope or false dawn. Putin offers partial cease fire.
Fingers xed.
Enough dead on both sides.
Mark Bofill
Where do you think objective right and wrong comes from?”
–
A cat plays with (tortures) a mouse, then eats it.
I eat some lamb chops.
–
Evil or not?
–
Subjective, objective, perspective.
When you ask Lucia that question you have already moved far past an unsolvable three body problem.
–
Objective right can only come from a determination by a group of synchronous minded individuals and only lasts for as long as that group maintains that mindset.
–
If we fix a large number of parameters, that is, agree that they are the basis of “righteousness “, we can establish an agreed set of objective values that everyone should accept.
–
What I am trying to say is that if different groups of people have different objective rights and wrongs but do not enforce them on other people outside of their group and respect the right of other groups to have their own rights and wrongs then that is OK?
What I am trying to say is that if different groups of people have different objective rights and wrongs but do not enforce them on other people outside of their group and respect the right of other groups to have their own rights and wrongs then that is OK?
I don’t know. Let’s see how it plays out in the playground of our minds:
Let’s say you and I have different ideas about right and wrong (obviously we are talking subjective and not objective here, despite your use of the word ‘objective’, since we can’t both objectively be right if we disagree, but this aside.) I think I should be able to torture and kill small children, say as an offering to my god Moloch. You disagree. Is it OK for you not to enforce your ideas on me and the children I kill and respect my ‘right’ to have my own rights and wrongs?
Suppose I am part of a cult of Moloch worshippers if that makes a difference; if I need a group to justify my claim to right and wrong. I don’t see that that makes much difference, personally.
Objective right can only come from a determination by a group of synchronous minded individuals and only lasts for as long as that group maintains that mindset.
You can assert that, but it has not been demonstrated. Objectively, 2+2 = 4, and it doesn’t matter at all what ‘synchronous minded individuals’ determine about it or how long that group maintains that mindset. In fact, we can refresh our memory and look at what the word ‘objective’ means:
(of a person or their judgment) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.
So, basically the opposite of what you were suggesting.
Finally, regarding your ‘cat’ query, I think we should stipulate that we are discussing human morality and leave other species out of it to simplify.
I’m sorry, that was not the definition of objective best cited. Rather, we should go with Merriam Webster 2a in this context:
of, relating to, or being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers : having reality independent of the mind
(emphasis added)
I think that a lot of our ideas of objective right and wrong are part of our nature. Our inborn ideas get amplified by rules of behavior learned early in childhood. Religion clarifies and reinforces those ideas.
Since much of that seems innate, we think it must come from somewhere, just as we do with complexity and order in the natural world. So we attribute such things to God. It really does not matter if God exists.
If God exists, the above is the only way we perceive His existence. He does not directly appear to us or hand out written lists of rules.
If God does not exist, we still perceive His existence. And postulating the existence of God is still a good way to think about rules and order in Creation. Especially so with things like Good and Evil, which do not lend themselves to scientific analysis.
angech
Putin offers partial cease fire.
Putin is playing people. Putin is playing Trump.
I submit that at least six of these qualify for identification of objective right and wrong:
I am the Lord your God: You shall not have strange Gods before me.
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Day.
Honor your father and mother.
You shall not kill.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.
You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods.
Russell
I am the Lord your God: You shall not have strange Gods before me.
Sure. That’s statement is objectively wrong. There is no God. The only reason to not have other strange gods before Thor or Odin is the other gos are also fictional.
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
Objectively, “Huh?” What’s the name of the lord your God? If there is no lord or God, then he/she/it doesn’t have a name. Obviously, I can’t take it in vain because it doesn’t exist! On the other hand, I rarely take Odin’s name in vain. So I’m in the clear!
Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Day.
Also, Huh? There is no lord. There is no day.
Look, I know you are sincere about this. But you need to see these are not in the list of “objective” rules.
Honor your father and mother.
What if the tell me to take the Lord’s name in vain? I couldn’t do that without violating the above. And what does “honor” mean? It’s not “obey”, right? Is it enough to find them a good nursing home? Which they or the government pay for? Sorry for the rhetoricals, but I don’t know that this rule even means.
You shall not kill.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
We now have the four things that are concrete and meaningful. I mostly agree with this. But the… war. Is killing allowed? Most cultures think it is. What about the death penalty for murderers? What about self defense? Lots of people who are all about the 10 commandments think some of these killings are ok. I personally don’t think I need to avoid killing so much I would let someone kill me or some other innocent person.
I think everyone has done the ubiquitous either/or, “Is it ok to steal to save someone’s life?”. This is as ubiquitous as the “Trolley Problem”.
You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.
You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods.
I don’t know the definition of “covet” as used here. I agree stealing from them is bad. But I’m not sure just wishing I had similarly nice things is wrong. I don’t think it would be wrong for my dance teacher to year to possess my brother in laws’s Ferrari!
Russel,
I don’t entirely want to be flip. But questions about right and wrong are just not that easy. And those that presuppose God are always inherently dicey. I think God doesn’t exist. And simplistic “rules” like the 10 commandments just don’t work. What the are is starting points to discuss right and wrong. They just are useful and hard and fast rules.
Mark
“the definition of objective best cited. Is Merriam Webster 2a in this context: of, relating to, or being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers : having reality independent of the mind”
–
Thanks.
It seems a rather precise, concrete definition.
To me though there is a subtle difference between being objective and being an objective when we use the term in the sense of an objective or subjective point of view.
–
Since we are talking about a point of view the MW definition above falls a bit flat because despite it being perhaps a phenomenon it certainly is not independent of the mind or something that is actually perceptible by all individuals.
–
I guess that is why I said restricting or defining a large number of parameters and having a like minded group is the only way to ensure true objectivity and that only for that group and in that group of observers.
–
“Let’s say you and I have different ideas about right and wrong (obviously we are talking subjective and not objective here, despite your use of the word ‘objective’, since we can’t both objectively be right if we disagree, but this aside.)”
–
An objective truth can only be true and objective if agreed on by all members of a like minded group independent of and isolated from any other group with a different mindset.
“I think I should be able to X say as an offering to my god Moloch. You disagree.
Is it OK for you not to enforce your ideas on me and respect my ‘right’ to have my own rights and wrongs?”
–
Objectively the answer in my group is and should be yes.
One proviso would be if my group had an objective belief that I/we must enforce our ideas on you if we believed you were wrong then unfortunately my group would have an objective right to do so.
–
Re the comment on needing to belong to a group importance.
The idea raised about objective right and wrong presupposes that right and wrong exist in a group setting of human beings.
Absent said group with the ability to have a concept of right or wrong no such animal exists.
In any such group an objective truth is defined as one all members of the group agree is both true and objective,
To an outsider or observer such objective truths are no longer necessarily true or objective.
Lucia, my comment said:
“I submit that at least six of these qualify for identification of objective right and wrong”
You agreed (sort of) with six of them. So we have no argument.
Thanks Mike. That’s interesting! I appreciate your giving me something to think about.
angech,
I don’t know why you insist on misusing the word ‘objective’ like that. It strikes me as Orwellian to try to pretend that the word ‘objective’ means subjective.
I’m not cooperating with that.
I think the problem may be that you have already predefined morality to mean subjective morality. It’s perfectly fine in you don’t think objective morality exists. But that’s not the same as saying subjective morality is objective morality.
It is objectively true that people hold subjective viewpoints. This doesn’t mean those subjective viewpoints are objective viewpoints, they are not.
Objective morality means morality that is not a subjective viewpoint. That doesn’t depend on what a group believes. I’m not making this up, this is what people mean when they say ‘objective morality’
Russell,
I was thinking of a posting similar to yours – remove the first 3 (maybe 4, but maybe not – keeping the sabbath is about taking a day off, which is good for the body and soul).
The rest are how to deal with each other. Add the golden rule (treat others as you want them to treat you), and you have the basis for social morality. I see these as objective truths. Are they “from God”? or are they just a really good ideas that the ancient society codified and attributed to “god”? I’ll leave that for each of us to decide individually.
Mark Bofill,
I just try to not hurt people without good cause….. which seems good enough in most circumstances.
There is indeed objective reality: all points on a circle are equidistant from its center; the first derivative of x^2 is 2x; electrons can be displaced from their associated nucleus by electromagnetic radiation, all masses attract each other, etc.
I think there is clear immorality in refusing to accept objective reality to advance a philosophy. That way lies immense potential for harm. Unfortunately, rejection of objective reality is often a foundational basis for many who claim to have identified “objective morality” through their philosophical, religious, or political views .
DeanP,
The Ten Commandments worked as a foundation for the Israeli nation, and they have been around for 4,000 years. Seems like a good place for an individual to start.
Thanks Steve.
I certainly agree that accepting objective reality has to be an ingredient to moral behavior. At its root, the question of morality is something like ‘what should I do or not do?’ or something similar. Without accepting objective reality few to no aims will be achieved, or at last far fewer and less efficiently than otherwise, so it seems to me to stand to reason that: for those who believe it is moral to do anything at all, it must follow that one must accept objective reality, since little to nothing can be done elsewise.
I think there is more to it that you think. It’s not just not hurting people. Why do we have unalienable rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness (or property)? Why is slavery wrong, specifically, so we can recognize the wrong in other forms, like totalitarian systems. Why not vote for Sanders or AOC? Do all of these have moral valence or are they merely optimization or empirical decisions? Are practical or empirical decisions fundamentally different from moral decisions anyway?
I asked a bunch of questions. I don’t think I’m breaking the rhetorical question rule, because what my asking these questions was intended to illustrate was just that there’s a lot of ground under the umbrella of ‘moral’ or in answer to the question ‘what should we do or not do’.
I am not arguing for a religious viewpoint at the moment. I am however suggesting that it’s a bad idea to coast on inertia, borrowing ideas about right and wrong from past generations who derived these ideas from a religious viewpoint. I think it behooves atheists to realize some other basis for objective morality or to reject it. But ultimately I am asking about this because I don’t personally have good answers to these questions and I hope that somebody gives me something I can use.
Russell,
You agreed (sort of) with six of them. So we have no argument.
Huh? I don’t know how you get six. I don’t even know what “covet” is supposed to mean! I certainly don’t agree you shouldn’t do it.
At most, I agree with four— and those are still open questions. Someone has to tell me precisely what they mean by “though shalt not kill”. Because if self defense is not allowed, I don’t agree with that.
I’ll take four as a win.
Mark, Angech,
I agree with Mark. Angech is trying to redefine “objective morality” to be “subjective morality”. The fact that you can find a group with members who all agree on a moral issue doesn’t make it “objective morality”. Gangs often have members who agree on certain moral issues. That can be that they will send hit men out to kill their rivals. Meanwhile, people outside the gang think that behavior is immoral.
Looking at what successfully functioning groups and societies have thought moral and immoral might be a way to help figure out what is “objectively” moral. But the fact that the group holds a view doesn’t make it “objectively” true. It can seem so to members of the group, especially if the group is large enough and members have no exposure to any other thinking. But that’s still not “objective” in the way ” ii + ii = iiii” (i.e. 2+2=4, shown with toothpicks.) If everyone in a group insisted “iii + ii = iiii” (3+2 = 5) that would still be incorrect.
Moral truths are more difficult. We don’t need to spend a lot of time asking things like “How do we know what is objectively true” in math.
Russel,
I’ll take four as a win.,
I’m not sure what you consider to be a win! Objectively four is not at least 6! Perhaps you are an “arithmetic relatvivist”?
Thanks Lucia.
It’s hard for me to figure out the line sometimes between me being pedantic and me making important distinctions. I think the conversation would quickly break down though if we used terms to mean the opposite of what other commonly understand them to mean.
Shrug
DeanP
Add the golden rule (treat others as you want them to treat you), and you have the basis for social morality.
Well… it depends what “basis” means. The Golden Rule itself needs quite a bit of elaboration on “what does it mean”. You may not be related to people whose reasoning often goes like party B:
A: “You opened my mail without my permission!!!”
B: “Of course. I wouldn’t mind if you opened my mail without my permission! ”
And B honestly thinks there is nothing “wrong” with what they did and A should put up with it. They think they are following the “Golden Rule”. The Golden Rule still needs a lot more detail. The Golden Rule is a good start and better than some other possible rules like “This King has a divine right to do whatever he wants. You, peaon, should put up with it.”
(Relatives who argue back like that in my family were Mom and a brother. We need not get into what A argues back or does. Nor need we debate whether ‘B’s claim is actually true. I think they believe it true in the moment they say it. I would be surprised if anyone has never come across someone like “B”. )
Mark,
When arguing about “subjective morality” vs “objective morality”, the definitions of objective and subjective are important.
Arguing about the issue is itself somewhat pedantic. But if you are going engage in discussing a pendantic subject, you must be pedantic about some definitions.
I only introduced this topic to explain how difficult it was for my senior year religion teacher to handle it in religion class. She was, I think, a novitiate (novice?); it was her first year teaching. She wanted very much to touch on a “deep meaningful” topics instead of the “Q: deep question” , A:” Student spouts memorized answer– or paraphrases it.” But then cannon law does say you shouldn’t go into this if can lead the students into “heresy” or “false ideas”. And the problem with “deep questions” is you can’t really discuss them and if you deem one answer “clearly right”– and also if you want to march through a syllabus “fast”.
Is there objective morality is a very deep question that people have pondered a long, long time. You can’t really address it without being open to the possibility that some people will answer “yes”, some “no” and some, “I don’t think we really know.”
If, when teaching, you feel the answer must be “yes” and the answer to “how do we know”, is “we take guidance from the teachings of the Catholic Church” and moreover, you want to get to that answer in the first few weeks so you can move on to “What about ‘X’?” And then have students turn to reading what the Catholic Church has to say about the morality of ‘X’?
Sometimes what the Catholic Church has to say is interesting. You do often have to put up with a lot of language I would call “church-ease” especially in prefaces. But it can be interesting. A class on “what does the Catholic Church have to say about things” could be pretty interesting.
Lucia,
Yes. I was raised Catholic but I never investigated Church canon law and the proscription against teaching heresy. It stands to reason that this would be so, when you think about it. I was glad you mentioned it. I certainly see how rules interfering with or forbidding an unbiased investigation might be counterproductive at arriving at an understanding of the truth, or even an understanding of the relevant issues and questions surrounding an issue. It’s not a useful approach, unless the goal is conformity and indoctrination, something like that anyway; something other than discovery. Maybe the goal is to perpetuate dogma? I don’t know exactly.
Thanks!
I know the subject is a heavy lift, but I still think it has practical implications on a daily basis. If you have a child who is confused about their gender for instance, abstract pedantic philosophical questions might suddenly take on a horrific concrete vital importance. (I’m not sure this is precisely a moral question though. It might be.)
This may be helpful:
“Of the Morals of the Catholic Church”
Written by St. Augustine of Hippo in A.D. 388
I am not suggesting this is the authority, it’s been 60 years since I was forced to study it. I didn’t like it at the time. Augustine was an oft quoted philosopher by the religious eggheads that thought me.
Russell,
It is certainly true that reading writings of St. Augustine are important if you want to learn what the Roman Catholic church teachings are. The nun teaching my senior course didn’t use it. Perhaps she would have if our conversations had gotten to the “right answers” earlier.
She’s also framed this as “modern problems” of some such thing. If she written the description as “Applying the teaching of St. Augustine to modern problems”, I probably would still have picked that class. Technically religious classes were electives– but you had to take some certain number and I needed one more to graduate.
For some reason she chose to describe something different. Maybe she thought describing it as a class about reading St. Augustine would fail to attract students. dunno.
Mark,
I think at a minimum, what to do about a child who has gender dysphoria is a values– and so moral– question. Also, what obligations others have toward that child and what obligations that child has towards others with regard to the kids dysphoria and a moral question.
And they are moral questions even when the person with dysphoria is an adult. It’s just the specific answers might differ owing to the maturity of the person with the issue.
Moral issues arise if we are discussing “What to do about a person who is psychotic?”, “What to do about a person who has a painful debilitating illness, two months to live and expresses a desire to commit suicide?”
One thing I notice is that with respect to the questions in the paragraph just previous, people are generally somewhat respectful of the fact that disagreements exist.
For example Chapter 15 is on point, and it doesn’t spout Catholic doctrine, just Agustine’s personal ideas on virtue:
As to virtue leading us to a happy life, I hold virtue to be nothing else than perfect love of God. For the fourfold division of virtue I regard as taken from four forms of love. For these four virtues (would that all felt their influence in their minds as they have their names in their mouths!), I should have no hesitation in defining them: that temperance is love giving itself entirely to that which is loved; fortitude is love readily bearing all things for the sake of the loved object; justice is love serving only the loved object, and therefore ruling rightly; prudence is love distinguishing with sagacity between what hinders it and what helps it. The object of this love is not anything, but only God, the chief good, the highest wisdom, the perfect harmony. So we may express the definition thus: that temperance is love keeping itself entire and incorrupt for God; fortitude is love bearing everything readily for the sake of God; justice is love serving God only, and therefore ruling well all else, as subject to man; prudence is love making a right distinction between what helps it towards God and what might hinder it. https://www.logoslibrary.org/augustine/morals/15.html
Lucia,
One thing I notice is that with respect to the questions in the paragraph just previous, people are generally somewhat respectful of the fact that disagreements exist.
Hmm. I’m not sure what you mean by ‘respectful’ there. Do you mean ‘people are aware that disagreements exist’, or do you mean ‘people are tolerant of disagreements that exist? [or do you mean something else entirely?] I’m also not sure where you’re going with that.
Paragraphs 26,27,and 28 speak to what is known colloquially today as the ‘Golden Rule’.
An excerpt:
“And every one knows how many and how weighty are the words to be found everywhere in these books on the love of our neighbor. But as a man may sin against another in two ways, either by injuring him or by not helping him when it is in his power, and as it is for these things which no loving man would do that men are called wicked, all that is required is, I think, proved by these words, “The love of our neighbor works no ill.” And if we cannot attain to good unless we first desist from working evil, our love of our neighbor is a sort of cradle of our love to God, so that, as it is said, “the love of our neighbor works no ill,” we may rise from this to these other words, “We know that all things issue in good to them that love God.” https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1401.htm
Russell,
The problem I have with a lot of that is the meaning of ‘serving God’ or ‘for the sake of God’ is largely opaque to those who don’t already believe in God. I will freely admit I don’t understand what Aquinas is trying to say when he says such things.
The meaning might actually be unclear to those who already do believe in God as well. It’s very easy to dismiss ‘serving God’ as ‘obedience to the Church’ or obedience to Church leaders or Church dogma / teachings.
I am skeptical of the idea that there can be an objective morality, at least not without basing it on God.
I searched on “objective definition” and found the following as the first two definitions. The other definitions do not seem relevant.
1. Existing independent of or external to the mind; actual or real.
2. Based on observable phenomena; empirical.
Using the first definition, I can see where there could be an objective morality, but only if one assumes the existence of God.
I don’t see how there can be an objective morality according to the second definition.
Russel
Dean thinks this is the golden rule
Add the golden rule (treat others as you want them to treat you),
That’s the definition I usually hear people use.
On to yours…
And every one knows how many and how weighty are the words to be found everywhere in these books on the love of our neighbor.
This is what I call “church-ese”. Or perhaps, Catholic Church-ese”.
For the fourfold division of virtue I regard as taken from four forms of love.
This would seem to be four rules.
that temperance is love giving itself entirely to that which is loved; fortitude is love readily bearing all things for the sake of the loved object; justice is love serving only the loved object, and therefore ruling rightly; prudence is love distinguishing with sagacity between what hinders it and what helps it.
None of these seem to match what DeanP calls the “golden rule”. So they would seem to be, at best “some alternate golden rule”. I’m not recognizing what you posted as anything colloquially known as “the golden rule”. Certainly, it seems to talk about God.
Mark
I’m not sure what you mean by ‘respectful’ there. Do you mean ‘people are aware that disagreements exist’, or do you mean ‘people are tolerant of disagreements that exist?
Somewhere in between. The arguments generally don’t report to calling other people ‘something-phobe’. And those arguing generally at least recognize (or pretend to recognize) that they need to advance actual arguments for their positions instead of just decreeing all sorts of things self-evident.
I’m not saying always. But the Transgender arguments really do often fall into the category of people insisting something is self evident— like it’s an axiom.
Mike,
Why do you think objective morality can’t be based on observable phenomena and be empirical? To be clear, I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m saying I’m not following you.
mark bofill: “Why do you think objective morality can’t be based on observable phenomena and be empirical?”
I did not actually say that it can’t be done; I said that I can not see a way to do it. And so far as I know, nobody has succeeded in doing it, although many very smart people have tried.
One might empirical establish what is generally thought to be moral; but I don’t think that is the same as establishing an objective morality.
I agree with Mike. As we’ve seen very recently, it can be argued that the perception of one person varies from another. This is undoubtedly true to greater or lessor extents. We don’t know that what one person sees as blue is exactly what another person sees as blue, and this isn’t even considering the effects of mutations which objectively change perception. It is only a small step from there to argue that morality is also a matter of perception. Without an external anchor, an “objective” morality is malleable.
Lucia,
Thanks, I understand what you mean now. Maybe people run aground when their assumptions are different. for instance, if one assumes that people are born blank slates and that genetics and biology plays no significant role in the development of identity and behavior, that might lead one to support transgender shenanigans (prejudicial term I know). Maybe. Maybe it’s hard for people to identify their unarticulated assumptions. [Maybe this would lead them to believe what they think is true is obviously or axiomatically true.]
Figuring out how tolerant to be is another hard question. I mean ideally how tolerant should I be? I think what you do in your bedroom with other consenting parties is entirely your business. I think what you do to people who don’t consent might constitute things I shouldn’t be tolerant of. There’s a line there someplace that’s hard to draw.
I have this whole schpiel on how freedom is (what freedom in practice actually means) the freedom to be ignorant, wrong, evil, etc. and yet it is absolutely vital and ‘good’ that people be free. It’s interesting to me how seemingly contradictory ideas nest here. I’m not going anywhere with this, just an idea that occurred to me in response to what you were saying, about being respectful or tolerant of disagreements about morality.
Thanks Mike.
Mike, Dave,
Differences in perception, fine. But that only takes you so far. Pain is fairly universal, I think it’s a good external anchor starting point. The fragility and finite nature of life and mortality might be other good anchors.
We have objective physical nature, which gives us common objective physical needs, that’s another good potential starting point.
I sort of assume or take it on faith that what is ‘right’ is somewhat analogous to ‘what will minimize my suffering and the collective suffering of my society’, and of course one can argue that’s unjustified. You have to start someplace though, with some assumptions, it seems to me, to get anywhere.
The problem waiting in the wings for those who reject God and go empirical is, how do we avoid the rocks that sink the ships of the secular humanist progressIves. This is the follow up question I’m keenly interested in. I mean, I can say a lot of negative things about progressives, but one thing I have to hand them is that they certainly tried to figure all this out absent religious ideas!
Don’t misunderstand me. I do not make these arguments as evidence for the existence of God, or as evidence that we should ACT as if we believed in God, or anything of the sort.
Right and wrong is easier to sort out when that is tied to an objective. Many of the innate judgments shared across cultures and sometimes species has the objective of individual and group survival. Hunting is OK, but not your own species.
It’s just as easy to say God works through the mechanism of genetic programming.
Mark Bofill: “how do we avoid the rocks that sink the ships of the secular humanist progressIves.”
I am doubtful that we can, absent religion. One reason that I say that is the breathtaking speed with which progressive morality can shift. What is OK today is forbidden tomorrow. Without an anchor, morality just becomes a tool of power. There is then nothing except greater force to constrain a Hitler, Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot. All of whom were atheists.
John Adams: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
George Washington: “Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
Mike,
That’s likely to be an unpopular position to take around here specifically, and in this day and age in general. In a sense it is therefore also a courageous observation to make.
You might be right.
There’s other pitfalls to avoid down the religious path of course. What keeps us from becoming fundamentalists or fanatics for example.
In a way, that led me up to this as well. There’s a lot of ‘God’ mixed into most natural rights theory I read from the early days of this country. It’s hard to know how ‘separable ‘ the two things are.
Activist secular progressives kid themselves if they think they haven’t just replaced one form of religion for another. Just because they don’t have a Pope doesn’t mean the same underpinnings aren’t there.
I would also suggest one mainstay of any religion is an almost absolute certainty your flavor is superior to another.
Since mankind has been pondering the question of right and wrong and virtue and morals for a very long time, it seems to me to make sense to look into what religions and scholars have said overtime. Both Jewish and Christian religions have thousands of years of experience dealing with right and wrong, as do others, Hindu and Buddhism for example. It doesn’t makes sense to me to start up from scratch all over again. I am not talking about God here, just deciding right from wrong in human interaction. Just because they believe in God doesn’t mean they are wrong in determining how people should treat each other.
Times change. Just because they don’t believe in God doesn’t mean they are wrong in determining how people should treat each other.
Like almost all groups that obtain significant power even (especially?) religious groups went on wars of conquest and got a bit authoritative.
Certainly religions that have stood the test of time should be examined for what makes them tick.
In a way, that led me up to this as well. There’s a lot of ‘God’ mixed into most natural rights theory I read from the early days of this country. It’s hard to know how ‘separable ‘ the two things are.
A number of religions’ views on morality in my mind are based on human actions and interactions as are some secular philosophies with both recognizing natural rights. Religions are prone to base those rights and morality on God given.
Russell makes the point at Russell Klier
April 29, 2025 at 12:47 pm that God or no God it can make sense on how people should treat one another.
MikeM
I am skeptical of the idea that there can be an objective morality, at least not without basing it on God.
I think you can come up with an objective morality without God. You just need to create primary rules. I think Asimov’s “Three laws or robotics” created a form of morality for robots.
I think you might be confusing “objective” for “both objective and unique”.
Even if you stipulate it comes from God, you still end up with something that has to start with known rules. The only difference is you say the rules come from God.
Russell
. It doesn’t makes sense to me to start up from scratch all over again. I am not talking about God here, just deciding right from wrong in human interaction.
I’m not sure what you mean by “start from scratch”. But if you mean no one should ignore what others before have written or reasoned out, I don’t think anyone suggests they should. Tons of philosophy treatises get written morality. The ones starting from “no God” don’t read or reference past works any less than the ones starting from “God”. If anything, the “no God” ones read more since some of the ones starting from God will focus on “their” God and history only.
MikeM
One reason that I say that is the breathtaking speed with which progressive morality can shift.
Christians went from not allowing money lenders to charge interest to allowing the to do so with breath taking speed. It happened during the reformation. Even with God people can change morality with breathtaking speed.
“My moral authority is based on channeling right and wrong from an omnipotent being that can’t be proven or disproven” is not compelling to me. But as Russell says that doesn’t mean their conclusions for how to run a society are flawed, just the justification, but it’s not like they don’t have reams and reams of stuff written down on the subject. I don’t get very worked up about it.
I just took my Dad to church again today, their objectives and methods have been fine tuned for centuries and are commendable in most aspects. When you are sitting around with 40 very senior citizens at the church lunch it’s hard to criticize their goals.
lucia: “I think you can come up with an objective morality without God. You just need to create primary rules.”
You can certainly come up with rules for morality. I don’t see how you can claim they are “objective”. Maybe we are using different definitions of “objective”. How do you define it?
lucia wrote: “Even if you stipulate it comes from God, you still end up with something that has to start with known rules. The only difference is you say the rules come from God.”
That is a big difference: Rules created by man can easily be changed by man. Rules that come from God, even if only supposedly, can not be so easily changed.
lucia wrote: “Christians went from not allowing money lenders to charge interest to allowing the to do so with breath taking speed”.
I really don’t know what you are talking about. I don’t think that not charging interest was ever a fundamental principle of Christianity.
MikeM
Rules that come from God, even if only supposedly, can not be so easily changed.
And yet, if we put on our empiricist hat and look at the evidence, as far as I can tell, moral rules are changed just as easily by those who believe in God as those who do not. Some people do it by converting. Sometimes religions “reform”. Whether the change is good or bad, some protestant churches have embraced gay priests, gay marriage. Their change in view on this has been no slower than that of the non-religious public.
Some other religions and religious haven’t changed their views– but I don’t see the changes in “rules” that have happened in my lifetime as any slower among the “god” followers than the “no god” followers.
1) Rapid religious change can occur via schisms.
2) Objective morality and universal morality aren’t exactly the same thing, although I have been using the two interchangeably. My bad and my apologies; you’d think someone who is as picky as I am about my terms would get this right!
[Part of the reason I do this is because I’m not 100% clear on the distinction, actually!]
Mark Bofill: “There’s a lot of ‘God’ mixed into most natural rights theory I read from the early days of this country. It’s hard to know how ‘separable ‘ the two things are.”
One could argue that natural rights have their origin in human nature. That is, they are a statement of what is needed for humans to thrive and be happy. A different species of sentient being might have different needs and therefore different natural rights.
And where does human nature come from? God. Even if God is only a convenient shorthand for eons of evolution.
In the context we are speaking (Ua in this link), objective morality and universal morality go hand in hand; if one is true the other is as well.
Mark
Objective morality and universal morality aren’t exactly the same thing,
Honestly, I think confusing the two was an issue way back when I was a senior in “Sister X’s” class.
Objective is more like “If we follow these rules, everyone will get the same answer to the same “problem” provided we have the same evidence.”
Universal: Everyone gets the same answer.
Clearly, those who base it on “God” don’t all get the same answer! If they did, we wouldn’t have had so many religious wars during history!
I think one problem is the question is more like “Is there one true set of correct morals underlying everything?”
And the right answer is…. ehrmmm…. LOL!
mark bofill wrote: “Rapid religious change can occur via schisms.”
Really? The Reformation certainly produced rapid change in the religious forms. But commonalities in Lutheran and Catholic teachings about morality are much greater than any differences.
The East-West schism produced no change at all. Orthodoxy and Catholicism had already evolved somewhat differently over a period of many centuries and continued to evolve somewhat differently over the ensuing millennium. Even so, the moral teachings are not hugely different.
MIkeM
And where does human nature come from? God.
No. It evolved as a process of natural selection.
Now, if you insist on finding God in everything, you are going to get to God. But God doesn’t have to exist for natural selection to exist.
Mike,
A different species of sentient being might have different needs and therefore different natural rights.
I could not agree more strongly. If we were not highly social animals; if we were spiders or octopi, we would have fundamentally different natural rights.
Kenneth, thanks. Good point.
Mike,
Ok. I’ll think about the schism thing. Do I understand your larger point correctly, that religion is a fundamentally conservative mechanism for preventing change to general philosophic ideas for an adherent society? That’s what I’m taking away from what you’re saying anyway, so I hope so.
Rules that come from God cannot be easily questioned, and I think that might be exactly the point sometimes.
So I don’t forget and in advance, since this has already been a highly profitable discussion for me, thank you! To everyone who contributed. I’ve already got several useful ideas out of this that I didn’t have before.
Something happened in our family along the lines that Tom described above.
One of my sons, an ex alter boy, became stridently anti- Catholic and has been that way for many years. We were all gathered in my wife’s hospital room when a priest came in to administer the Anointing of the Sick (not to be confused with the Last Rights). My son participated fully in the service, just like old times. I don’t know if it stuck with him, but for that half hour, he was a devout Catholic again.
I found the following article interesting. I went researching for this figuring there would be commonality in moral teachings among religions.
15 Great Principles Shared by All Religions
The Golden Rule / Law of Reciprocity – The cornerstone of religious understanding. “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.” – Christianity
Honor Thy Father and Mother – Knowing them is the key to knowing ourselves. The day will come when we shall wish we had known them better.
Speak the Truth – “Sincerity is the way of heaven, and to think how to be sincere is the way of a man.” – Confucius
It’s More Blessed to Give than to Receive – Generosity, charity and kindness will open an individual to an unbounded reservoir of riches.
Heaven is Within – “Even as the scent dwells within the flower, so God within thine own heart forever abides.” – Sikhism
Love Thy Neighbor / Conquer With Love / All You Need is Love – Acts of faith, prayer and deep meditation provide us with the strength that allows love for our fellow man to become an abiding part of our lives. Love is a unifying force.
Blessed Are the Peacemakers – When people live in the awareness that there is a close kinship between all individuals and nations, peace is the natural result.
You Reap What You Sow – This is the great mystery of human life. Aware or unaware, all are ruled by this inevitable law of nature.
Man Does Not Live by Bread Alone – The blessings of life are deeper than what can be appreciated by the senses.
Do No Harm – If someone tries to hurt another, it means that she is perceiving that person as something separate and foreign from herself.
Forgiveness – The most beautiful thing a man can do is to forgive wrong. – Judaism
Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Judged – This principle is an expression of the underlying truth that mankind is one great family, and that we all spring from a common source.
Be Slow to Anger – Anger clouds the mind in the very moments that clarity and objectivity are needed most. “He who holds back rising anger like a rolling chariot, him I call a real driver; others only hold the reins.” – Buddha
There is But One God / God is Love – Nature, Being, The Absolute. Whatever name man chooses, there is but one God. All people and all things are of one essence.
Follow the Spirit of the Scriptures, Not the Words – “Study the words, no doubt, but look behind them to the thought they indicate; And having found it, throw the words away, as chaff when you have sifted out the grain.” – Hinduism https://integralchurch.wordpress.com/2012/07/10/15-great-principles-shared-by-all-religions/
mark bofill wrote: “Do I understand your larger point correctly, that religion is a fundamentally conservative mechanism for preventing change to general philosophic ideas for an adherent society?”
I think so, but I am not confident that I understand the question. And my mind tends to blur when I encounter phrases like “general philosophic ideas for an adherent society”.
There needs to be a significant degree of stability in a moral code for it to be useful; or at least for it to be useful as something other than a tool of power.
The Rule of Law matters because people need to be able to depend on the meaning of laws. Laws must change over time, but they should change in a stately and carefully considered manner. Fundamental legal principles should change very slowly, if at all. If laws can change drastically and abruptly, then the Rule of Law has no meaning. Instability in morals destabilizes the law and stability in morals helps to stabilize the law. Religion serves to stabilize morals.
Of course, when a religion decides to try to keep up with changing public opinion, it no longer serves as a stabilizing force.
Mike,
Fair enough.
Mark Bofill
angech
“I think the problem may be that you have already predefined morality to mean subjective morality. It’s perfectly fine in you don’t think objective morality exists. But that’s not the same as saying subjective morality is objective morality.”
–
Ugh.
I think you have nailed it on the head.
I would agree with your diagnosis that I think no objective morality exists.
–
What that then means is that any person who talks about objective morality is purely giving their own subjective opinion, their own subjective morality.
Hence I can assert correctly that subjective and objective morality are the same..
–
There is no objective morality in the world we live in.
I can provide thousands of examples.
If anyone here can provide one single objective morality that we can all see and all agree on then I am wrong.
(Feynman) .
–
Did we ask to be born and have to be faced with unanswerable questions about the meaning of life. ?
Where is the morality in that?
–
Never mind, someone will tell me.
Thanks angech. Sorry for my end of the misunderstanding.
Mind you I still have a strong inbuilt moral code, Christian based though I am an atheist.
Hate myself on the times I break it.
Wanting the world to behave in a moral way although it doesn’t and has no imperative to do so.
Ukraine for instance.
–
Mark just saw your reply. Thanks.
You have stimulated a lot of people with your questions in a good way and what I see is a lot of good and thoughtful people and replies.
President Trump: “I’d like to be Pope. That would be my number one choice.”
Edit, under comments some suggested he take the name Pope Crassus!
Democrats have stopped talking about the Maryland man .
News feed:
“Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announces he has a trade deal done and he’s waiting for the country’s prime minister and parliament to give their approval.
This news has sent the US stock market soaring”
Mike M.
“Laws must change over time, but they should change in a stately and carefully considered manner.”
I really liked this. Thanks for composing this so elegantly.
MikeM, john a ferguson
“Laws must change over time, but they should change in a stately and carefully considered manner.”
Which, if applied to flurries of Executive Orders explains much of the problem with ruling by Executive Order. If applied to current politicians, the above should be recognized as saying much of Trump’s behavior in his first 100 days is wrong. (Though he’s hardly the only one to do it use EOs). But he is creating a lot of change, extremely rapidly and I don’t think anyone can claim it is “carefully considered”.
He intends extremely rapid change. And I’m pretty sure his view is if mistakes are made it’s worth it to completely vitiate past programs, rules and regulations and to do it quickly.
All this is to say: if one really thinks law should change in a stately ordered way, one should be criticizing Trump’s actions in his first 100 days.
If one looks at the underlying motivations for politicians making laws there are most often not carefully considered and are
pushed through on crises and emergency bases.
Lucia, I agree with what you say about executive orders and Trumps 100 days with tariffs being an obvious and prime example.
Obviously non believers in an infinitely and all knowing God are going to judge that religious moral codes evolved from man.
My problem with supposing an all knowing God and a moral code therefrom requires man having a free will that influences and determines his actions; otherwise a moral code means nothing.
With a free will from the beginning would imply that it is man who will develop his code of morality. If God gives man free will he is saying in effect you are on your own.
lucia wrote: “if one really thinks law should change in a stately ordered way, one should be criticizing Trump’s actions in his first 100 days.”
I think that is partly true. DOGE is not changing any laws. Trump’s orders on border security and immigration are almost entirely a matter of enforcing the law and undoing Biden’s lawlessness. But that is a fair criticism of Trump’s tariff policies.
That is not the same as saying that Trump’s tariff policies are indefensible.
It is arguable the voters asked for rapid change and are getting what they asked for. Good and hard.
Immigration needed fast change … to … enforcing the carefully considered laws.
I think the tariff issue had to be addressed in one fell swoop. Doing it peacemeal would be death by 1000 cuts.
I am not certain it’s going to work though. It’s taking too long to get agreements.
Russell,
I think that you are correct about the need to rip off the bandage re tariffs. I see that as the pragmatic justification for what Trump is doing. And technically he is within the law, using powers Congress has given to the the Executive. I expect that the “proportional” tariffs will never go into effect for those countries that lower their trade barriers.
Trump might want to continue the 10% across-the-board tariffs. I would think that he would need Congress to make that permanent.
It has been less than a month since Trump announced the tariffs. 90 days is not a lot of time to negotiate new trade agreements. I never expected any before May, with most taking at least until June. That said, the administration is saying that one deal has been agreed to and is awaiting approval by the other country’s parliament
Mike, you are probably right about the timing. I made the mistake of listening to Trump’s rhetoric that he had all these deals done.
The deals I heard Trump claim had been, or were being, done were on a company, not country basis. Basically, manufacturing opening in the US.
Two days later and Spain still won’t say what caused the blackout.
Spain’s grid denies dependence on solar power to blame for blackout https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/sanchez-pressed-explain-spains-blackout-grid-says-solar-not-blame-2025-04-30/
“One problem on Monday was that there was not enough backstop stable power, such as gas and nuclear, to handle the sudden fall of power generation, an industry source said.
“The problem wasn’t so much the massive entry of renewables, rather the lack of synchronous generation,” the source said.”
Huh? Doublespeak. That is exactly the issue with a lot of renewable power.
It is arguable the voters asked for rapid change and are getting what they asked for. Good and hard.
Tom, it was good to see the moderation of “arguable” in there, since I think that I see too much of “the voters voted for” whatever is high on my personal agenda.
Doublespeak indeed! “There wasn’t enough backup” = “dropout was larger than expected”!
MikeM
DOGE is not changing any laws.
DOGE has nothing to do with an executive order like Trumps EO titled ” PROTECTING THE MEANING AND VALUE OF AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP ”
or ” Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats” or “Securing Our Borders and Declaring a National Emergency at the Southern Border of the United States”
He is putting out lots of EO’s which have the effect of making “rules” that for all practical purposes are laws. Maybe they are justifiable, but they are clearly also new and different. Lots are being pushed out and fast.
Tom
It is arguable the voters asked for rapid change and are getting what they asked for. Good and hard.
I’m not claiming that voters did not ask for rapid change. But MikeM has suggested a “should” principle that we need slow change. Specifically, he wrote
“Laws must change over time, but they should change in a stately and carefully considered manner.”
And yet, if I am not mistaken, MikeM wants quite a few of these Trump changes and he’s fine with them happening fast. So perhaps he thinks the principle that change in law needs to be done in a stately or carefully considered manner isn’t as important as other principles.
Lucia,
I think Mike was generalizing.
lucia wrote: “DOGE has nothing to do with an executive order”.
DOGE was created by executive order and I think that some of what they are doing is in furtherance of other EO’s, such as eliminating DEI. I never said it has anything to do with immigration or tariffs. Those are the three main areas of Trump’s rapid change.
No, what I said isn’t right. It’s not that I thought Mike was generalizing. It’s that I assumed he was speaking of an idealized hypothetical case, like : assuming society is already in order, change should come slowly. Something like that.
We were talking about the stabilizing effect of religion on society and ideas, so. It seemed like we were trying to get at illustrative ideas, not literal injunctions. Maybe I was unjustified in doing so, and completely misunderstood, but that’s how I took it anyways.
Shrug.
lucia wrote: “He is putting out lots of EO’s which have the effect of making “rules” that for all practical purposes are laws.”
To repeat, MOST of Trump’s EO’s are about enforcing laws.
Some are changes in policy within the law. Like tariffs. In the end, I expect that the big change will be how other countries treat our imports rather than a change in US policy. Even so, as I said before, there is a legitimate basis for lucia’s criticism.
Some of Trump’s EO’s are changes in interpretations of laws. The main example would be birthright citizenship for those here illegally and/or temporarily, At best, that will take effect at some future date after its journey through the courts. It might not survive that journey and Congress will have plenty of time to override it if they choose to.
But even so, I see no conflict with the principle I stated, although I probably could have stated it better. Any change in law is abrupt in that one day it is not in effect and the next day it is in effect. What matters is rapid large changes or sudden changes in basic laws.
Trump’s citizenship EO is something that has been discussed for a while. The only change is that it blocks something that has not been received and that people have no right to expect. I see no conflict with the principle that I stated.
mark bofill,
You understood me correctly. Perhaps better than I understood myself.
Addition: There was a lot of rapid change after Dec. 7, 1941. No reasonable person would argue that should not have been so.
Alright. If Mike is arguing that point, maybe I did misunderstand.
Shrug.
LOL. Cross post, I’m so sorry.
Mike M,
” MOST of Trump’s EO’s are about enforcing laws.”
Sure. Trump is trying to reverse a huge amount of lawlessness from the Biden administration. Which is not to say Trump (and his administration) will not make mistakes WT foreign nationals. The greater point is that the Trump administration is actually following the law as written, something far removed from the past 20+ years of pseudo-‘border control’, where actually following the law was laughed from the room. and iiegal aliens were waved in.
Trump is all powerful as he claims. He turned around the voters view of the Liberal and Conversative parties and got a win for the Liberals -against all odds.
You are going to hear a lot of double talk by the governments of the world on their march to zero carbon and some of it not even well disguised for the attentive reader but sufficiently so for most joiurnalist like those writing for the WSJ news section.
Kenneth,
You’re talking about Canada?
MikeM
To repeat, MOST of Trump’s EO’s are about enforcing laws.
I don’t think that’s true.
“You understood me correctly. Perhaps better than I understood myself.”
That could be a more humble Trump’s reply to our Mike M.
Yes, Mark his miracles have no bounds. It was Canada.
WRT foreign nationals
I don’t see any reason to believe that Trump had any big effect on the Canadian election. Two things seem to have happened. One is that the Libs replaced an extremely unpopular leader with a guy who has an impressive resume and almost no political history. The other is that the 3 minor parties, all of which are on the left, saw their support collapse, presumably with their voters going to the Libs. I don’t know of any reason to believe either had anything to do with Trump. But it might well be that I am missing something.
Kenneth Fritsch
APRIL 30, 2025 AT 7:50 AM
“Obviously non believers in an infinitely and all knowing God are going to judge that religious moral codes evolved from man.
My problem with supposing an all knowing God and a moral code therefrom requires man having a free will that influences and determines his actions; otherwise a moral code means nothing.
With a free will from the beginning would imply that it is man who will develop his code of morality. If God gives man free will he is saying in effect you are on your own.”
–
If god, who is infinitely moral,
Makes a world, which he ordains to be immoral,
Is he not both breaking his own moral code and being immoral in doing so?
If so, if god can act immorally, why should mere morals be worried about an objective point of view?
–
All religions seem to have extreme punishments which go above and beyond morality, burning in hell for eternity or mercifully killing unbelievers being two minor immoral examples.
Moral codes from religion offer lots of contradictions.
Don’t make me get down on my knees to pray for you, angech. I’m too stiff for that sort of thing these days.
“Moral codes from religion offer lots of contradictions.”
Which is to say that moral codes derived by man can have contradictions. Free will in man allows that, but it can also come up with some good stuff.
“I don’t see any reason to believe that Trump had any big effect on the Canadian election.”
Mike, I somehow did not expect you to.
Kenneth Fritsch wrote: “I somehow did not expect you to.”
Thanks. I take that as a compliment since I try to avoid committing logical fallacies, like post hoc ergo propter hoc.
I’m hopefully not above good stuff or welcoming any prayers on my behalf.
There are a lot of moral imperatives that we all recognise and respect and hope that other people, in general, feel the same way.
I try very hard to do the right things in life.
The play Wicked though showed up a flaw, no good deed goes unpunished.
I wonder how many of us have repeatedly experienced that feeling.
Consequently I usually say no to most people’s requests and then acquiesce after giving due consideration.
Helps
Based on conversations with Canadians in Florida, I suspect Trump did influence the Canadian election……. they loath him even more than U S progressives loath him. His tariff antics and joking about the 51st state didn’t help the Canadian conservatives.
With the signing of a minerals deal with Ukraine, Russia may be more motivated to actually proceed with a cease-fire. We will see, but the consensus view, at least in the USA, does seem to me to have shifted away from “as long as it takes, as much as it takes” toward “already far too much killing and destruction.”.
People in the Western part of Ukraine will have to accept the sorry reality that the Russians are going nowhere in the foreseeable future. I don’t know how much resistance there will be to that, so an immediate ceasefire and the start of formal negotiations may not yet be politically possible for Zelensky.
The outline for a plausible settlement has been , I think, clear for a long time. That doesn’t mean the Russians and Ukrainians are yet willing to reach a settlement. A ‘frozen conflict’ outcome seems to me far more likely.
Regarding fast vs. slow changes in law/government (yea, they’re not the same, but bear with me)
I remember when going through ROTC, a CMSgt came in for a class. He said that the single most important thing to know as a young officer when assigned a new position is to understand whether you are there to keep things going as they are or to fix things.
If you are there to keep things going, then make no sudden moves. Watch what the NCOs are doing, and ride along. Learn how a high-functioning organization works. If you are there to fix things, then fix things. As soon as possible.
Trump was sent to DC to fix things. As fast as possible. As we are seeing, the swamp is so intertwined into everything that happens (see USAID), the only way to address it is to just slash away. Yes, you may cut something that shouldn’t be cut, but like a pruned tree they will come back.
Trump learned in his first administration that the swamp will swallow you up with inertia. It will bog you down with procedure and never let you actually make meaningful changes. Getting a second chance, he refuses to make that mistake twice…
The governing coalition in Canada looks to be, if anything, further to the left than the previous government. The next prime minister seems something of a loose cannon, which will be as unhelpful for Canadians as Trump’s bombasts are unhelpful for the US.
DeanP,
IMHO, Trump could work to ‘drain the swamp’ without all the bombast and ill-considered public statements, and accomplish much more than he is able to accomplish.
Steve,
I do not disagree – listen to his visit to Rogan vs his campaign speeches. The differences are dramatic. His main point at campaign rallies/town halls/whatever he is calling them these days is to insult and mock those standing in his way.
But if he is to be successful, he has to do things with a blatant disregard for anyone that stands in his way.
SteveF wrote: “The governing coalition in Canada”.
A governing coalition in Canada? I will believe that when I see it.
SteveF: “I suspect Trump did influence the Canadian election……. they loath him”.
So how did that influence the Canadian election? It is not like he endorsed a particular party or candidate. In particular, how did that cause support for the NDP, BQ, and Greens (all on the left) to collapse?
SteveF: “His tariff antics and joking about the 51st state didn’t help the Canadian conservatives.”
I doubt it either helped or hurt much. The Conservatives got the highest share of the popular vote in the history of their party. The old Progressive Conservative Party managed to do better in 3 of the 18 elections they contested.
Refreshing look from FP on the outage in Spain.
A quote:
“Simply put, the power grid is like a giant game of tug-of-war. On one side, there’s demand, and on the other, there’s supply. Keeping the lights on involves making sure the rope between supply and demand remains taut. This tautness is called inertia.”
And…
“Thanks to overreliance on wind and solar, restarting the Spanish grid is going to take far longer than it normally would, because it lacks a robust fleet of dispatchable plants to aid in restoring power.” https://www.thefp.com/p/why-europes-lights-went-out?taid=68137ae00a593f00019914a3&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=organic-social&utm_source=twitter
There was a piece in the editorial section of the WSJ today by two Spainards making the point that has been made at Climate Etc many times; that being that the rotational momentum of fossil fuel and nuclear and other convential energy sources provides a buffer for sharp changes of demand on the grid, that renewables do not.
I have not seen that difference reported by any mainstream journalists. It becomes the difference between a political and engineered design.
My guess is that all of the even-more-left left voters suddenly realized as Trump started issuing his executive orders, killing sacred cows, and complaining about Canadian protection of their industries, that they were going to get Trump-like policies in Canada if they voted for their desired party, so instead they voted “strategically” to make sure the conservatives could not get control. Same thing as happened in France and in Germany. I could be wrong about this, but if I am, then there are a lot of other people who have reached similar conclusions.
MikeM
So how did that influence the Canadian election? It is not like he endorsed a particular party or candidate.
If you think endorsing a party or candidate is a pre-requisite for “influencing”, you are using “influencing” in a rather idiosyncratic way. I suspect Trump’s behavior including policies and bombast toward Canada affected voters views in a way that caused many to pick one party rather than the other. That is all that is necessary to influence an election.
It’s almost impossible to believe that Canadian voters do not react to Trumps behavior or language. I mean… Trump actually intends to influence Canadian decisions. So if Canadians are not reacting to him, Trump’s bombast and proposals are rather pointless.
I think Trump’s behavior toward Canada is probably counter productive. I suspect you think otherwise. You probably disagree. But unless you think it’s achieving nothing then clearly he is “influencing” their politics!
I agree with Lucia on this one. If there was some point or value to Trump’s statements about Canada becoming the 51’rst state, I don’t see what that point or value was. I think it’s plausible that Trump impacted the situation in a way I’d consider negative with no apparent upside to show for it.
I can live with this, particularly when I remember what the alternatives to Trump were this go round. But Trump didn’t win this point.
For closing the border, decimating support for DEI in the Federal government while at the same time slashing over 150 billion in waste, resum[ing] slashing regulation and even making the effort to turn around American manufacturing decline, I think I can cut Trump a little bit of slack on this point. How he impacted Canadian politics is pretty low on my priority list.
SteveF,
Thanks for that link. It supports my case.
“That collapse just happened to take place immediately after Trump took office on Jan 20”.
No, it did not.
“which seems like more than a coincidence.”
Yep, it was a coincidence that Trudeau’s resignation came a couple weeks before Trump’s inauguration.
Your link shows that Liberal support declined steadily until it hit a minimum on Jan. 6, 2025, after which it started to rise steadily while NDP support started to drop. So what happened on Jan. 6? Trudeau announced his resignation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Trudeau#Resignation
It seems that the Conservatives actually took a lot of votes from the NDP. I suspect that the relatively constant NDP support prior to Jan. 6 was a matter of the NDP losing voters to the Conservatives while gaining voters from the Liberals. Then after Trudeau resigned, the latter went home to the Liberals.
mark bofill wrote: “If there was some point or value to Trump’s statements about Canada becoming the 51’rst state, I don’t see what that point or value was.”
I agree with that. But that does not mean it had any impact on the Canadian election. So far as I know, all the Canadian candidates took pretty much the same position with regard to Trump.
Do any of you attribute the AfD gains in Germany to Trump? I think not.
Did you attribute the recent bad showing of Greenland’s dominant party to Trump? I think not.
Does the way you vote depend on what Putin or Xi or any other foreign leader says? I think not.
MikeM
Does the way you vote depend on what Putin or Xi or any other foreign leader says? I think not.
Well, you think wrong.
I do consider other foreign leaders when deciding my vote for President. I consider foreign affairs, so their leaders matter. I suspect I am not alone.
Mike M,
Look at the chart from October 2021 on….. there was no significant change in the support for NDP. What there was was a drop in support for the liberals starting in late 2022 and especially starting mid 2023, with a concurrent rise in support for the conservatives… former liberal supporters were migrating toward the conservatives, NOT the smaller (more-left) parties losing or gaining support. It was only after it became clear the conservatives would romp that the more-left parties all started switching their support to the liberals…. all those parties, not just the NDP, lost about half their support in the weeks leading up to the election….. as I said strategic voting to keep conservatives from power. I doubt Trudeau had much to do with the more left parties throwing their support to the liberals.
And finally, the conservatives peaked in their support on exactly January 20 (45%) but fell to ~38% during Trump’s first 6 weeks in office, before recovering a little…. during which time Trump was in (yet another) long, stupid pissing contest with the Canadians. Had those folks not switched from the conservatives to the liberals, the conservatives would still have won the election, even with all the strategic voting by the further-left parties. But alas…. Trump.
The Canadians I talk with never liked Trump at all, but right now the hatred is visceral… and that is mostly due to Trump’s stupid bombast. A leopard does not change his spots. So yes, Trump screwed it up for the conservatives in Canada, and will continue to cause problems. The Dems will almost certainly control the House after the mid-terms, and Trump’s efforts at reform will effectively end, along with all-impeachment-all-the-time. for two years. I just hope Trump doesn’t screw things up so badly that Vance loses in 2028.
Lucia,
“.I suspect I am not alone.”
You are not at all alone…. lots of Canadians pay attention to US politics and policies. So do Germans, and the bureaucrats that run the EU.
Steyn has quite a bit to say about it. I’m not sure what to make of it, honestly. Here’s a bit:
…What’s that? It’s all Trump’s fault? Yeah, well, Trump happens. To countries and their politicians all over the world. Even Nigel Farage, who as recently as January was still promoting himself as the Orange Man’s best pal (not true and never has been), has fallen silent on the subject. But Trump happens most to weak, passive figures who are mere creatures of events. If you look at how easily Pussievre got bounced into “distancing” himself from Christine Anderson, it should be no surprise to find he lacked the nimble wit to adapt to changed circumstances in both Washington and Ottawa….
I haven’t formed an opinion on this yet. I don’t even know how to spell ‘Pierre Poilievre’ without checking, I know next to nothing about the guy in fact.
It appears to be a much better deal for Ukraine than expected. That will strengthen Ukraine economically which should make them better able to defend themselves. Ukraine seems to be expecting more US military support, but that does not seem to be in the deal. And it is tough on Russia, but that seems to be mostly just words.
mark bofill,
Stein makes an interesting point, although he seems far more interested in being clever than clear. Trump does create a challenging environment for foreign politicians, especially “conservatives”, and how well or badly they manage that could shift some votes.
No way is that the main factor in the dramatic shift in the Libs fortunes. But it might well have made a difference of a percentage point or two and that might have been enough to keep Poilievre (let me check the spelling, OK I think I’ve got it now) from becoming Prime Minister.
Mike,
The crazy bit in my view was the notion that Trudeau lost power because of a decision made by Tony Blair that he should go. I’m not saying this is necessarily false, because I know nothing about it, but at first read it certainly strikes me as implausible. [Or at least, questionable and meriting closer investigation, let me put it that way]
I’m mildly curious. I’m not quite sure I’m curious enough to follow up on finding out about this. Maybe. Certainly not right this minute anyway.
My thoughts on the Canada situation is a variation of the Admiral Yamamoto quote:
“I fear all Trump has done is to awaken a sleeping dwarf and fill him with a terrible resolve”
I think most of the perceived Canadian hostility to Trump is more a reflection of their very liberal eastern press.
The ability for Canadian provinces to break off from the federal government is enshrined in their federal constitution. Quebec has flirted with this concept for decades. Alberta may just be the ones to take this path.
A day after Canada’s Liberals won a fourth consecutive mandate, Alberta’s government has introduced a bill that would make it easier to start a referendum – including one on separating from Canada.
Reposted
I think most of the perceived Canadian hostility to Trump is more a reflection of their very liberal eastern press.
The ability for Canadian provinces to break off from the federal government is enshrined in their federal constitution. Quebec has flirted with this concept for decades. Alberta may just be the ones to take this path.
A day after Canada’s Liberals won a fourth consecutive mandate, Alberta’s government has introduced a bill that would make it easier to start a referendum – including one on separating from Canada.
I discounted the stuff about the Carney-Blair meeting. It is perfectly plausible that they had dinner; Carney used to run the Bank of England. But does Stein actually know what transpired? I doubt it.
Ed Forbes: “The ability for Canadian provinces to break off from the federal government is enshrined in their federal constitution.”
That is not true. A province could not separate without the agreement of the federal government.
I didn’t doubt that Carney and Blair had dinner.
Thinking about executive orders in veiw of stately, thoughtful and time enduring acts of government, one has to consider that those orders can be changed with every change in administration and without much thought outside politics.
On the other hand most laws are, often and unfortunately in my veiw, enduring as in when failing to perform as promised and doubling down on providing more resources. As to stately and thoughtful in legislating not so much and certainly not in the Civics 101 version.
I would say the immigration laws don’t really reflect immigration policy at this point. The ability for the executive to open the floodgates for “emergencies” needs to be stopped. I’m not against controlled immigration, just against whiplash flows that seem to be more ideological than thought out policy.
I doubt this will ultimately stand up in court but it sure will put a huge panic into the faculty lounge. There is enough of a precedent that this won’t be reversed trivially. I’m guessing they will get an injunction pretty quick but there will be a lot of uncertainty over the next few years.
As usual Trump is making the right enemies, and they and their elite defenders will no doubt squeal shrilly with entitlement.
Tom Scharf wrote: ” There is enough of a precedent that this won’t be reversed trivially.”
What precedent is that? The only precedent I am aware of is Bob Jones University. They lost their tax exempt status because of prohibiting interracial dating. It seems to me that Harvard’s racial discrimination policies are much worse.
Harvard no doubt will no doubt get an injunction. And in this case that is probably appropriate.
I agree with Kenneth Fritsch that “stately and thoughtful” legislating is in short supply.
Kenneth,
It’s possible some EO’s can be stately and thoughtful. The difficulty we have is that Congress created a lot of agencies and gave them power to “regulate” something — that is write rules. The language granting power was often fairly elastic, or at least it has been interpreted so. That transferred what should be legislative decisions to the executive branch. The executive branch then changes “rules” quickly. Those rule changes can have force of law. This is recipe for changes is what amounts to law not being stately or thoughtful. They also can change fairly swiftly.
I think there is also a tendency for agency rules to perpetually ratchet to more regulation, not less.
SCOTUS creating or recognizing or verbalizing the “major question” doctrine and applying it to sweeping extension of powers by agencies is a good step. Also: deciding that agencies must apply a plausible meaning to legislative language rather than “whatever we can stretch this to mean” meaning is useful. Executive interpretations of laws shouldn’t be able to take nearly 180 degree reversals every 4 years. Either a law says that the executive “can do” something or they “cannot do” something. But language that is claimed to say it “can and must do A” in 2000 should not supposedly be interpreted as “can’t and must not do A” in 2004.
Tom…
Yeah. Trump is probably doing the revocation of tax exempt status in a stupid way. I suspect his justice department will try to claim that his target is not Harvard qua Harvard, but any school found to have implemented racially biased rules and who refuses to set them aside. Harvard was found to have implemented biased rules– and a case can be made they intend to continue. But Trump’s braying does make it look like he’s got an axe to grind against Harvard qua Harvard.
I guess we’ll see though. I mean… Harvard was found to have implemented racially biased rules. And I think they do want to be free to continue to do so. Unlike Bob Jones they aren’t quite as up front about intentions. So…. we’ll see.
I can’t say I feel sorry for Harvard. I might feel sorry for some young people — particularly some graduate students or post-docs– who will get caught in cross hairs. (Established faculty will find landing places if things go awry.)
Lucia, I agree with your statements on EOs and agency discretion.
lucia,
“Harvard was found to have implemented biased rules– and a case can be made they intend to continue. ”
They absolutely have continued to admit based on race. Since the Supreme Court decision, Harvard’s first entering freshman class was higher in African-American students than any year in the past 20+, higher in Asian-American students, and lower in white student admissions. Harvard is OBVIOUSLY committed to admitting based on race not merit, and hiring/promoting based on race not merit. They are thumbing their nose at the Supreme Court and the law, and will continue to until all taxpayer funds are withdrawn.
Sounds like another reason to hope that nuclear power will increase as a percentage of our electrical power supply.
Compare Pielke’s dissertation to that of the mainstream media where the media essentially says, “we dunno know now”. Pielke’s read is much the same (but condensed) as I have seen at Climate Etc.
No wonder the usual suspects haven’t figured out the cause of the Spain blackout, it’s a political liability. It’s a strange liability to have and the wrong response to the situation.
The cause needs to be identified correctly and the long term fixes need to be installed to prevent it from happening again. Instead what seems to be happening is an across the board cover up by people heavily emotionally invested in renewable power.
This inertia problem gets exponentially worse as the proportion of wind / solar increases. A lot of arm waving is going on, incoherent “nothing to see here” response.
Yes, there are some problems with wind / solar and they may be hard to fix, but don’t pretend they aren’t problems.
SoD from 10 years ago on grid reliability and demand management. The entire series is very well done. Links at end of article.
Renewables V – Grid Stability As Wind Power Penetration Increases https://scienceofdoom.com/2015/08/22/renewables-v-grid-stability-as-wind-power-penetration-increases/
“A key question is what level of wind power the network can support before “curtailment”. Garrigle, Deane & Leahy (2013) discussed some scenarios in Ireland given that the current system non-synchronous penetration (SNSP) is set by the grid operator at 60%
…
However, the grid requires curtailment of any “non-synchronous” source above 60%.”
NOTE: Spain was over 60% renewable at the time of blackout. This risk was very well known and they * chose * to ignore it. Now they are pretending it isn’t a real problem to the public. I assume because the solution is expensive and might reduce support for renewables(?).
https://scienceofdoom.com/2015/12/
“The highlighted portion in the last statement is the key – to cope with peak demand, lots of investment has to be added that will only ever be rarely used.”
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/spain-suffered-multiple-power-incidents-build-up-full-blackout-2025-05-02/
“The Spanish power grid had been on a knife edge for several days due to power system imbalances, said Carlos Cagigal, an energy expert who advises private firms on renewable and industrial projects.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and power grid operator REE’s chief Beatriz Corredor have both said record levels of renewable energy were not to blame for Monday’s blackout.
But REE and Europe’s power grid lobby ENTSO-E had both previously warned that the rapid rise of power generation from renewables could destabilise the grid.
…
“Shutting down the nuclear plants may put electricity supply at risk,” REE’s former chair Jordi Sevilla told Spanish news website Voxpopuli in January. Spain plans to shut down all seven nuclear reactors by 2035.
The planned closure of two nuclear reactors at southwestern Spain’s Almaraz plant, starting in 2027, will increase the risks of blackouts, European power lobby ENTSO-E said in April.
*** REE responded to ENTSO-E by saying there was no risk of a blackout *** and it could guarantee stable energy supply.
Less than a week later, Almaraz temporarily shut down the two units citing abundant wind energy supply as making operations uneconomic. One unit was still offline on Monday.”
Oops. Spain is shutting down 2 nuclear plants in 2027 and all 7 by 2035. What a clusterf*** they created with their incompetent response.
Renewables face a credibility crisis. They’ve spent decades telling everyone how fantastic they are and how everyone else is not only wrong, but deliberate lying about the issues. They cannot now admit the result is a blackout of epic proportions, the threat of which isn’t going to disappear without further vast expenditure of gold on power backup to sit there being inefficiently utilized.
DaveJr
the threat of which isn’t going to disappear
Threat? I guess for now it’s a threat. I predict 4 additional occurrences this year. People are going to learn it’s more than a threat– it’s a reality.
The evidence suggest an badly designed infrastructure problem and I doubt it’s only happening under truly “extreme” weather events. This wasn’t caused by a ginormous unexpected hurricane, earthquake yaya. It’s mid spring. They are having normal spring weather.
If I lived in Spain, I’d be out buying whatever the sell that is the equivalent of a Honda generator (or some such) and have several days of gasoline on hand. I’d want to to keep my fridge and electrical components for the furnace on during the winter. I’d probably avoid running the A/C. But I run A/C less than most the neighbors anyway. (I just prefer warmer temperatures than many people.)
I might not need that generator today. But I’d want to acquire and get it operational within a month. I’ll need cold milk and cold beer when the power outage hits.
Right, and if we had a functioning media they would be all over this and demanding accountability for grid stability. Previous advocacy is blinding them.
I’m not really wed to this one way or the other. As it becomes economically viable we should use clean energy all things equal. Grid instability and funding / maintaining two independent power systems are big boy problems.
On the plus side it is good for (other) early adopters to highlight these issues.
Tom
Yes. It’s convenient for us to witness problems first pop up elsewhere. Heck, I’m in Illinois. I won’t cry if grid instability problems hit California first while I sit around the house happy my fridge is running.
That said: I don’t feel totally immune. Maybe I should talk to Jim about getting a generator?
Down here in FL they will attach a remote disable system to your AC and pool motors for a discount on your power bill. After one 8 hour power cut in mid August a long time ago I opted out. They have allegedly improved the grid since then.
Because of the large increase in population FL’s infrastructure has been expanding quickly. It has been fairly robust but FL isn’t all-in on renewables. Due to the hurricanes the grid is tested for large scale local outages regularly.
The critical need for rotating inertia in power distribution has long been recognized by the technical types who know what they are talking about….. politicians? Not so much. But actually adding that inertia is expensive, and reduces the net efficiency of solar and wind.
Of course, it would be easy enough to require solar and wind energy producers, by regulation, to add a suitable amount of rotating inertia as part of any solar or wind system that is installed, but that would add substantially to capital investment (and add some ongoing maintenance cost). I won’t hold my breath waiting for that to happen.
Maybe the need for rotating inertia will become more apparent to the public if there are more episodes of widespread blackouts.
In other news: Vineyard wind off Cape Cod has resumed production of electricity…. from one of its planned 62 windmills… after the entire project was put on hold for 6 months to “investigate” the cause for a catastrophic failure of a 110 meter long turbine blade in July 2024. So the project has cost $billions, is very late, and is producing almost no power. And electricity in Massachusetts is already $0.32 per KWH; no doubt it will soon to go higher.
It seems like the Spanish authorities say they have not yet identified the exact sequence of events leading to the blackout. So the defenders of unreliable power generation are hiding behind that to say that we don’t know if that was the cause of the blackout.
Keep in mind you can usually just get in your car and drive out of the area of no power. You might lose some food but that is about it.
I bought 3 kWH of electrical battery backup (Ecoflow portable power station). It will run my big fridge for about 24 hours plus some minor appliances. I can recharge this battery from my car’s alternator.
You can buy a small Honda type generator for about half the price. However you must keep some gas around (no gas available without power and/or long lines), rotate it out about once/year, and occasionally run your generator to keep it maintained. Plenty of people in FL discovered their generators wouldn’t start after sitting in their garage for years. I’m not disciplined enough for that (ha ha) so I bought a battery.
FL’s problem is different than IL. FL will have region wide power outages that can last a week. In IL you need to worry about power loss during winter and making sure you can get heat.
Tom Scharf,
I remember reading that Florida’s system is very quick to disconnect whole areas to protect the rest of the grid in case of a problem.
Of course, Florida still has lots of rotating inertia in its system.
Tom Scharf,
With a good gas stabilizer added, you can keep gasoline for at least two years (I have pushed it to 3 years without any obvious problems). A lot depends on the temperate at which the gasoline is stored; if you avoid high temperatures it degrades much more slowly. You do have to run a generator (at least the bigger ones) a few times per year to make sure it is functional when really needed. I have found the tiny ones (eg 2 Kw peak, 1.5 Kw continuous, about 35 pounds) can sit for more than a year and always start instantly.
For me, having power to run my house makes a generator worthwhile. Maybe because we have had 5 major outages in the last 21 years, ranging from 2 days to 10 days (5+ days last October).
the exact sequence of events
Well, I don’t pretend to know “the exact sequence of events”!
The over all sequence of events is “Create a system that can’t deal with forseeable ‘unusual’ weather events.” “Things fail during a forseeable ‘unusual’ weather event.”
A “forseeable” but unusual event is something like “top 2% of cloud cover in March.” These sorts of unusual events happen frequently. You don’t knowwhich one will happen, but they will happen.
The media doesn’t understand that the difference between 99% reliability and 99.9% reliability is probably a 2X cost factor. I’m not sure of the exact numbers but it is highly nonlinear.
Off topic…. Some minutia on picking the Pope:
The Sistine Chapel was first used as the venue for the conclave in 1492, several years before Michelangelo Buonarroti scaled a high scaffold and transformed its ceiling with his paintbrush.
Though the conclave has been held at various venues over the centuries, the Sistine Chapel has been its permanent seat since 1878
The Sistine Chapel is the Vatican Museum’s star attraction and received some 6.8 million visitors last year.
Some ‘modern’ facilities were installed in the Sistine Chapel for the conclave, including porta-potties,
135 members of the College of Cardinals, being younger than 80, are eligible to vote. They will cast secret ballots, of which the new Pope must earn a two-thirds majority.
If the cardinals have not reached a majority, the cards and the tally sheets are placed in a stove and burned with an additive to produce black smoke, showing the outside world that a pope has not yet been chosen.
When a two-thirds majority of the cardinals have agreed on a candidate, he is asked if he accepts the papacy and by which name he wishes to be known. The ballots are burned as before, but with an additive to produce white smoke.
[Black smoke mixture potassium perchlorate, anthracene and sulfur. The white smoke potassium chlorate, lactose and chloroform resin]
I had a crisis of faith over this smoke issue. I was in grade school when the conclave was picking what turned out to be Pope John XXIII. Me and my buddies all believed that the color of the smoke when they burned the ballots was a miraculous event.
When we found out it was a trick with chemicals we were not happy.
Tom Scharf,
Yep. The other thing people don’t understand is we do optimize based on what happens if we don’t meet capacity in “rareish” events.
It’s ok to size a furnace in a cabin to fall short of keeping the cabin at 72F on one day in January year after year after year.. This is 1 out of 365 days — 0.3%. If the temperature drops to 50F with the furnace running non-stop you can just put on your coat, hat and so on. Is the furnace undersized? Sure. I’d say so. But ok.
But it’s not ok to size an entire countries electrical system and shut down hospitals, refrigerators, all electric lights and computers in the whole country once a year!
It’s ok to save by undersizing sometimes, but not others.
Lucia,
Yes, sometimes a little undersized makes sense. We replaced a central AC about 5 years ago (the original was 20 YO). The installers urged us to ‘upgrade’ from 48,000 BTU to 60,000 BTU. When I asked why, they said 48,000 BTU probably can’t keep up with the load if the temperature reaches 100F. Since we had never seen 100F in 20 years, I told them to stay with 48,000.
Oh well the Trump effect has led to another left-wing landslide victory this time in Australia. All Labor had to do to shoot down any idea from the Conservative (Liberal-National parties) coalition was link it to Trump. A big trouble here is that we have elections every 3 years so Trump will still be there next election.
On A/C sizing, unless systems have changed in the 20 years since I last thought about it, you don’t want to oversize cooling capacity. The reason is that the system will short-cycle, on and off and on for short intervals, and the on cycles won’t be long enough to reduce the humidity
The law of diminishing returns also applies to air and water pollution treatment. I have worked on both portable water treatment plants and coal fired generating plant exhaust stacks. If a pollutant is reduced from 10 PPM to 1 PPM for a cost of X to reduce the same pollutant to 0.1 PPM the cost may be 100X.
The biggest loser, Prince Harry:
“Prince Harry loses legal challenge over security”
“The Duke of Sussex has lost a legal challenge over the levels of security he and his family are entitled to while in the UK.
Prince Harry had been seeking to overturn a decision that had downgraded his security after he stopped being a working royal and moved to the US with the Duchess of Sussex.
On Friday, a senior judge ruled that Prince Harry’s “sense of grievance” over how the decision to alter his security was reached did not amount to a basis for a successful appeal.” https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2kvw2pvw8eo
Then the whiney twerp did a TV interview and again took potshots at the King while crying for ‘reconciliation’:
“Prince Harry says father, King Charles, no longer speaks to him but hopes to reconcile” https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/02/uk/duke-of-sussex-protection-appeal-intl
I have experienced the exponential effect of a job well done and a near perfect job done. My wife could find imperfections that others would never see or hear. When she would critique my work around the house, I would explain that to do it in more than adequate fashion would take me a day, but to do it in her near perfect fashion would take a week.
Now that she is not here to judge I probably work more deligently to finish jobs closer to near perfect and thus it is good to know the difference between adequate and near perfect and also the practicality.
At one time I used the expression perfect to describe to myself an exceptionally completed job. Now I always correct to near perfect knowing perfect is unattainable.
John Ferguson,
Yes, I know…. just didn’t want to get too far into the details. The ideal is a variable speed system set to change both compressor and inside fan speeds, targeting a specific cool air discharge temperature (assuming about 100% RH for the cool air) to hit a desirable relative humidity when the cool air reaches room temperature (in my case, 74F). Unfortunately, those variable speed systems are much more expensive, so I am willing to live with a smaller system that keeps the house reasonably comfortable, albeit with some variation due to cyclical operation.
Long and disheartening post from ISW this morning, main theme:
“ISW continues to assess that Russian President Vladimir Putin remains committed to his long-term military objectives of seizing all of Ukraine and undermining NATO.
Russian officials are also continuing to condition Russian society to support a long-term war effort in Ukraine and against NATO.” https://x.com/thestudyofwar/status/1918516113295745309?s=61&t=7w4bCW3a8ve2DqoeniQatQ
Russell Klier
May 4, 2025 at 7:59 am
Wars are teribble but when (and too often) the political leaders conducting the war lose touch with reality wars become even more terrible for the innocent citizens.
Both Russia and the US could not maintain a military victory in Afghanistan and I do not see Russia maintaining it in Ukraine -even without outside aid to Ukraine.
Russell,
Reading stuff Harry says makes me suspect he is somewhat disconnected from reality. His upbringing may have partly contributed to this. But I think it’s still a bit extreme.
I mean:
* Does he think he has the same paparazzi problem his mother did?
* Even if he did have Diana’s level of paparazzi problems, protection in the UK would not have prevented them following her in Paris.
* He knows darn well he is not being swarmed by paparazzi in the US.
* If he feels he and his family would be particularly unsafe in the UK, he is free to just not visit. I’m sure that if “the family” really, really wants Harry and his clan to come they will arrange security on a case by case basis. If they don’t arrange it, Harry can decline the invitation.
* I notice while he says he knows the family has a gripe about the book and the television interviews, he hasn’t publicly apologized or admitted there was anything wrong in his doing that.
I’m not surprised the judge did not grant him automatic protection any time he steps on UK soil! He can ask for it on a case by case basis and the powers that be can decide each time. That should be enough.
Kenneth, your post:
“Both Russia and the US could not maintain a military victory in Afghanistan and I do not see Russia maintaining it in Ukraine -even without outside aid to Ukraine.”
Yes, the Ukrainians will form an armed resistance. And Russia being a brutal overlord will use atrocities and terror to fight them. It would be a horrible situation.
Before that happens, it will take 100 years of bloody war for Russia to conquer Ukraine at the pace of the Russian advance over the last two years.
Lucia, your post:
“I’m sure that if “the family” really, really wants Harry and his clan to come they will arrange security on a case by case basis.”
Yes I have read that from several sources. If he visits at the invitation of the Royal Family he will be afforded full government security.
And you wrote:
“I notice while he says he knows the family has a gripe about the book and the television interviews, he hasn’t publicly apologized or admitted there was anything wrong in his doing that.”
Not only that but both he and Meghan have said that they are owed an apology from the Family as part of reconciliation. He is the epitome of the ungrateful, entitled, spoiled brat.
SteveF,
I , too, would have gone with the smaller system.
A bit demoralizing. Protectionism is not the answer.
Harry and Meghan continue their blockbuster world privacy tour.
Kenneth Fritsch wrote: “I do not see Russia maintaining it [a military victory] in Ukraine -even without outside aid to Ukraine.”
Well, the Soviets maintained their military victory for 70 years. It only ended when the USSR collapsed.
Ukraine does not have a tradition of women wanting many sons since some of them will die in war. Ukraine does not have remote, difficult to access areas where guerillas can hide. There does not appear to be much of an insurgency behind Russian lines.
Tom Scharf: “$15,000 electric vehicles can be made in China at a profit. ”
They don’t sell cars in China for dollars. The article says nothing about exchange rates. If you use the PPP exchange rate, that is a $30K car. I do not know if that is actually the correct comparison.
From your link:
Maeda said the U.S. has a “costly supply chain,” meaning Toyota’s U.S. showrooms won’t be selling a $15,000 electric SUV soon. The closest equivalent, a slightly longer model called the bZ4X, starts at around $40,000 in the U.S.
$40K vs maybe $30K. That might well be accounted for by size, US regulatory requirements, and Chinese subsidies.
John and Lucia,
Hah, I just realized that for much of his life, Harry actually was ‘Entitled’! Including being entitled to government security, from Grok:
“Senior royals receive taxpayer-funded protection from the Metropolitan Police’s Royalty and Specialist Protection unit. Costs are not fully disclosed but estimated at £100–£150 million annually for the core working royals. The Home Office and Treasury determine eligibility based on public duties and threat levels.”
I asked Grok:
“What are the senior British Royals entitlements?”
Grok’s full response: https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_15f7d7ac-e35b-4f3e-ac1b-4481c24387f9
Harry formally relinquished his Royal entitlements in favor of Hollywood entitlements. He just isn’t ready to let go of his old entitlements.
Russell
Harry formally relinquished his Royal entitlements in favor of Hollywood entitlements.
The problem is he didn’t realize Hollywood ‘entitlements’ aren’t just handed out automatically to former members of the royal family. And Hollywood types do have to spend their own money on physical security.
Russell, Are not the two of them the ??s of Sussex?
Mike, your post:
“ There does not appear to be much of an insurgency behind Russian lines.”
Au contraire!
The resistance doesn’t get a lot of attention but I see regular acts of insurgency in my X feed. Mariupol has been a real hotbed, for example from February 28:
“Ukrainian resistance blows up Russian security service officer in occupied MariupolL
They target key officers, command and control sites, transportation hubs, ammo dumps, etc.
It’s an eye opening article:
“https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/02/28/ukrainian-resistance-blows-up-russian-security-service-officer-in-occupied-mariupol/”
John,
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are officially titled the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
They negotiated their ‘exit’ with Queen Elizabeth at the Sandringham Summit:
“The “Sandringham Agreement” refers to the outcome of a meeting, dubbed the “Sandringham Summit”, held at Sandringham House in January 2020 between Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Charles, Prince William, and Prince Harry to discuss the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s decision to step back from their senior royal roles. The agreement stipulated that the couple would no longer be full-time working royals, would not use their “HRH” titles, and would seek financial independence, while still remaining valued members of the royal family.”
They were allowed to keep their titles, but little else.
John,
The Sussex-es have titles. Whatever that means. But they are no longer “working royals”. Working royals do a mix of not boring stuff and boring stuff. I mean, I wouldn’t want to have things like visits the new asphalt factory and congratulating them on opening up be part of my regular “duties”. But I wouldn’t mind the lovely living quarters, food prepared by others yada, yada….
Russell
They were allowed to keep their titles, but little else.
Harry inherited a lot of money from Diana — ~$13 million. That’s more than enough for any remotely normal person to live well their whole life.
Of course, given the way Harry grew up, I’m sure he could find it difficult to live off the income generated by $13 million. Lucky for him, he also got $10 milion when he turned 40. That was from his grandmother.
Thanks. It is good to know that there is an active resistance in occupied Ukraine. But it not at all clear that it is sufficiently disruptive to be a major problem in governance.
Of course, the occupied areas have a relatively high concentration of Russian sympathizers. And Russia has kidnapped a lot of the loyal Ukrainians. So the rest of Ukraine would be more difficult to control
Russel,
undertake public duties (e.g., charity work, ceremonial events).
Ceremonial events. Shudder. I’m glad I don’t have to do that. Though it does beat digging ditches of working in a coal mine.
But yes, there are perqs.
I don’t consider it a perq to be forced to hang out with the dullest people in the land. It does show that H&M are not the most thoughtful pweople.
Mike,
I agree with all of that.
lucia,
“Ceremonial events. Shudder”
People who really know me tell me I should have been a hermit.
“WSJ: $15,000 electric vehicles can be made in China at a profit. China’s supply chain is dramatically better than the US.”
Better supply chain, or better exploitation chain? It’s funny how none of these articles mention any of the costs in pollution, environmental damage, and employee exploitation that makes it possible. We cannot compete because we will not accept their poor standards of living. The irony is, we reward and praise their exploitative results, as if it’ssomething we should aspire to. Out of sight, out of mind.
Tom Scharf,
“A bit demoralizing. Protectionism is not the answer.”
More than a bit demoralizing. If true, profitable US production is very far from possible if faced with Chinese competition.
Which is not at all surprising. I have long purchased a part from a company in Sweden, cost $325. An equivalent part from China: $88. There is no way for western (high wage) companies to compete. Big problem.
Tom Scharf,
Big problem. The simplistic solution of tariffs is not the answer. The only real answer if you face cheap labor is replacing very expensive labor with automated production…. which itself introduces a host of new problems.
So what makes Chinese labor so “cheap”? There are no doubt multiple factors: government subsidies, unrealistic exchange rates, low expectations from the workers. Low productivity might make labor cheap per hour but not cheap per unit. The other three all seem to me to be good justification for tariffs. All three are temporary advantages. But if they hollow out our economy before they diminish, we will be in a very bad way.
Much better to take those advantages away before they destroy us. Protectionism may well be the answer.
Mike M,
I suspect the Chinese labor is cheap mainly because of supply and demand….. lots of people who had always been very poor until the Chinese adopted capitalism after Mao died. I don’t think there are differences in productivity that explain the lower wages. There are big differences in cost of living that are probably more important in determining prevailing wage rates. Even among educated workers (programmers and engineers I have worked with) wages are dramatically lower than in the USA, and much lower than any difference in productivity could explain. There seems little connection between prevailing wages and productivity; some countries seem to have wages that are disproportionately high relative to skill level, and others disproportionately low.
I wonder if the local news on the Iberian peninsula is getting a different story than the national/international news? Thomas Fuller would be able to shed light on that…
I do hope he is well…
SteveF,
No doubt that is a big factor, although exchange rates are surely also a big factor.
But I am pretty sure that low wages in China are not an inherent property of being Chinese. It will not last forever. But it might well last long enough to devastate our economy. We should not let that happen.
Trump entertains me every day….
“ REBUILD, AND OPEN ALCATRAZ! For too long, America has been plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat Criminal Offenders, the dregs of society, who will never contribute anything other than Misery and Suffering.”
Current betting ranges on the leading contenders to be the next pope:
Pietro Parolin (Italy): +150 to +330 (implied probability ~23-40%)
Vatican Secretary of State, seen as a centrist and experienced diplomat. His odds have been stable, often leading due to his high-ranking role and moderate views.
Luis Antonio Tagle (Philippines): +150 to +440 (implied probability ~18-40%)
A progressive cardinal aligned with Francis’s inclusive vision, Tagle is a strong contender for potentially becoming the first Asian pope. His odds have fluctuated but remain close to Parolin’s.
Russell,
I visited my Mom Saturday and Sunday while my sister had a dog show. I entertained her with the bets on popes. One of the bets were on what name the new pope would take. So I decided to click through all former pope names to find contenders I liked. I don’t think these have high odds, whoever they pick, I’m rooting they chose one of the following pope names:
(a) Sixtus VI
(b) Lando II
(c) Pelagius III
Lucia,
I wonder, did anyone recently pick a new name? (So he would be like Lucia I)
Lucia,
I see there was a Pope Linus, so I’m gonna go with Snoopy I.
I just had a purchase from a Chinese supplier declined for a part which I’d bought from him in the past.
The removal by our domestic hero of the de minimus exclusion from the application of tariffs and duties for imports valued less than $800 and the increase in paperwork makes the sale of something I don’t need dozens of impractical for the seller.
I wonder if Trump, or Elon for that matter, has any idea of the size of increased beaurocracy will be required to apply and collect these “taxes” from all the stuff coming into the US valued less than $800.
I, too, hope Thomas Fuller is doing ok.
John,
Oh… I suspect they know how much beaurocracy there will be. They plan this stuff to go through s_l_o_w_l_y.
I did read an article in the WSJ that did make me go a little “hmmmm”. It was about Shein and TEMU. Evidently one of the ways they had taken advantage of the “deminimus” tariffs was to open a warehouse in CANADA, pay whatever tarrifs Canada charges on the wholesale item, then ship individual orders under de minimus.
My thought was… “Hmmm..” I mean: it’s one thing for de minimus to apply to actual gifts. Or for it to apply to manufacturers who really do very small amounts of business with US customers– so little they are shipping straight from their factory in China.
But for business to be setting up entire warehouses in an adjacent country to then ship tons and tons of prodsucts under “de minimus”. I mean, individual orders were small. Sure. But business-wise, this was “de maximus” for Temu and Shein.
I don’t really mind that situation being changed.
How to do it sanely so things that really are “deminimums” business don’t get thwocked?
Anyway, I think they
john a ferguson wrote: “the size of increased beaurocracy will be required to apply and collect these “taxes” from all the stuff coming into the US valued less than $800.”
lucia wrote: “How to do it sanely so things that really are “deminimums” business don’t get thwocked?”
I don’t see the issue. If you buy something from Amazon, they will take on sales taxes appropriate to your location. I don’t see why tariffs should be much different.
President Trump just announced that the United States will stop the bombings of the Houthis in Yemen, effective IMMEDIATELY, after they called and conceded defeat.
“The Houthis have announced to us at least that they don’t want to fight anymore. They just don’t want to fight. And we will honor that. And we will we will stop the bombings. And they have capitulated.”
Trump announced the Houthis development while at a love-in with the new Canadian prime minister in the oval office.
Major changes coming to the rank heavy US military.
“Hegseth announced the memo in a video on X, vowing, “We’re going to shift resources from bloated headquarters elements to our warfighters.” ..”
“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday ordered a minimum 20% reduction of four-star generals and admirals across the military, he said in a memo addressed to senior Pentagon leadership.
He also ordered at least 20% of general officers in the National Guard and 10% of all flag and general officers to be cut.”
“…..”We won World War II with seven four-star generals. Today we have 44,” Hegseth said at a town hall at the Pentagon in February. “Do all of those directly contribute to warfighting success? Maybe they do — I don’t know — but it’s worth reviewing to make sure they do.”….”
Major changes coming to the rank heavy US military.
“Hegseth announced the memo in a video on X, vowing, “We’re going to shift resources from bloated headquarters elements to our warfighters.” ..”
“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday ordered a minimum 20% reduction of four-star generals and admirals across the military, he said in a memo addressed to senior Pentagon leadership.
He also ordered at least 20% of general officers in the National Guard and 10% of all flag and general officers to be cut.”
“…..”We won World War II with seven four-star generals. Today we have 44,” Hegseth said at a town hall at the Pentagon in February. “Do all of those directly contribute to warfighting success? Maybe they do — I don’t know — but it’s worth reviewing to make sure they do.”….”
Mike M.
If you buy things directly from China, or Europe, or Canada for that matter, the object will cross the border and now, no matter what the value will be dutied and taxed. I probably buy a couple of dozen things a year from overseas vendors and except for a machine tool, never got involved in duty or tariffs. The duty on the machine tool was paid by the shipper and added to my invoice when the thing showed up.
IN tjhe last two days, I’ve had two of my vendors tell me that until this goes away, they aren’t doing small international deals with people in the states.
I think the US took shippers like DHL’s word that an incoming package was de minimus, backed up by each carrying a label so stating. with a stated value, then below $800. Above $800 then and above $nothing now, more paperwork is required and must be reviewed etc. etc.
Temu’s interest in establshing a warehoese in Canada was to enjoy Canada’s reduced import duties – which may have approached nothing if the material was going to be turned around and shipped out of country – bonded warehouse maybe?
Tem sells mostly one thing at a time to a customer and almost always the value is in the tens of dollars, hence de minimus.
And no, I dohn’t think Trump has any real idea of how all this works, why would he?
john a ferguson: “If you buy things directly from China, or Europe, or Canada for that matter, the object will cross the border and now, no matter what the value will be dutied and taxed.”
Sounds to me that is how it should be. Treating everybody the same would seem to be fairer, prevent tariff avoidance schemes, and involve less bureaucracy and paperwork. What’s not to like?
John
Temu’s interest in establshing a warehoese in Canada was to enjoy Canada’s reduced import duties – which may have approached nothing if the material was going to be turned around and shipped out of country – bonded warehouse maybe?
Tem sells mostly one thing at a time to a customer and almost always the value is in the tens of dollars, hence de minimus.
Yes. But Temu’s business overall was not de minimus. In contrast, Walmart sold things to customers one at a time, but imported in huge batches.
There was a time where people weren’t going to buy tube socks one pair at a time from a Chinese vendor. So there is an issue.
Plan A: Ship millions of low value (a few tens of dollars) items from China to the US one at a time, by air.
Plan B: Ship container loads of the same items from China to the the US by freighter. Then sell them one at a time from a US distribution point.
How does Plan A make economic sense compared to Plan B? I think that the only way it does is by avoiding tariffs.
So eliminating de minimis will likely result in a shift from Plan A to Plan B. Assuming, that is, that the shipments don’t stop altogether. Since there are over a billion de minimis shipments a year that still require some customs paperwork, the result should be a huge reduction in workload for our cutoms officials,
Maybe Thomas Fuller suffered some consequences of very bad public policy (a country-wide blackout) and has ‘seen the light’ on the need for sensible energy policies.
Maybe not.
At least Spain has a mild enough climate that a power outage it is not as bad as it might have been in other places. Texas leared their lesson . Spain? Maybe not.
This is the story I’d read. The company described was a Salt Lake city based shoe company that makes shoes in China and Vietnam. Then they shipped them to a warehouse in Canada. Then they shipped individual orders to the US from the Canada warehouse. This escaped any US tariffs. The Canadian ones were presumably either zero or small.
I’m not a big fan of large tariffs. And the changes are chaotic. But the old system was screwy too.
Orthopedic-shoe seller Kuru Orthopedic-shoe seller Kuru Footwear has been resetting its supply chain to get ahead of the de minimis changes.
The Salt Lake City company makes most of its sneakers, boots and sandals in China with some manufacturing in Vietnam.
Like many other e-commerce merchants selling to U.S. consumers, Kuru imports large shipments of merchandise to a warehouse in Canada, where it then packages individual orders for delivery to U.S. consumers. The tactic of staging goods across the border allows the company to ship orders of $800 or less to the U.S. duty-free using the de minimis provision.
[…]
“The margin is so negative at that point there is absolutely no point in considering fulfillment from Canada” for goods made in China, Barnes said.
To minimize that tax burden, Kuru has been moving its China-made inventory in bulk to a warehouse in the U.S. The company instead pays tariffs on those goods that are calculated off the wholesale price of the goods rather than the retail value.
Mike M.
Your analysis is sound for large sellers like TEMU but maybe not for the companies who sell worldwide but have no single large market in any country. If you’re going to sell annually 200 of something small and inexpensive into the US, it doesn’t make sense to send a container full only to sit on them as they sell one by one over the year.
Look at AliExpress. More than 10,000 things are sold through this service most of which would not make sense to bring to the US in bulk. They sell worldwide and althogh we are a big market, we are not likel bigger than the rest of their market combined.
If I’ve characterized the <$800 import stream correctly, one and two things at a time, maybe there aren't so many of them in a day to swamp Customs. But I think there are, and so did the people who created de minimus.
Does this make sense to you?
Lucia,
I don’t see how Temu’s business differs from Walmart’s in any other way than Temu doing only online mail-order and Walmart doing both brick stores which Temu doesn’t do AND on-line mail order (order taking in their case a lot for things they don’t warehouse themselves – a bit like Amazon).
John
Your analysis is sound for large sellers like TEMU but maybe not for the companies who sell worldwide but have no single large market in any country.
I agree. The question then is: how to create a set of tariffs that does what makes sense? (This presupposes we are going to have tarriffs.)
Look at AliExpress. More than 10,000 things are sold through this service most of which would not make sense to bring to the US in bulk.
Actually, a lot of that stuff is brought into the US and placed in warehouses. Sometimes it’s sold on Amazon. Or it’s sold in places like Walmart.
I never pulled the trigger and bought on AliExpress. But I looked at all sorts of junk as possible costumes for dance showcases. The consequence is I get daily emails advertising really tacky looking outfits!!
john
I don’t see how Temu’s business differs from Walmart’s in any other way than Temu doing only online mail-order
Precisely. So why should Temu stuff avoid tariffs and Walmart pay them? That strikes me as unbalanced.
john a ferguson wrote: “Look at AliExpress. More than 10,000 things are sold through this service most of which would not make sense to bring to the US in bulk.”
At what point does it make sense to ship in bulk? They are probably selling on average well over 10K units of each item.
Perhaps more to the point: Suppose the new rules destroy their business. Why should I care?
john ferguson: “maybe there aren’t so many of them in a day to swamp Customs. ”
Four million a day is a huge job. Getting rid of de minimis would be a big reduction in workload for Customs.
When de minimis was created, it was probably more like 400 a day.
De minimis makes sense for someone returning from a trip with some small purchases. Otherwise, I don’t see much point to it. We do not exempt small purchases from sales tax.
The WSJ article discusses how use of de minimis provisions rose since the tiem the changed the exclusion from $200 to $800.
It looks like companies just organized to take advantage of it. That’s natural. But the intention wasn’t for commercial companies to avoid tariffs. It was to allow tourists to not have a hassel when returning home from trips.
Shein, Temu, the shoe company, yada, yada aren’t tourists. They are companies specifically advetising lots of stuff to Americans and importing lots of stuff into the US– but doing so order by order.
Use of the de minimis provision has skyrocketed in recent years with a surge of goods from bargain sites Shein and Temu, both of which already have been raising prices ahead of the exemption’s end. About 1.36 billion shipments using the de minimis provision entered the U.S. in fiscal year 2024, up from 637 million four years earlier, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
MikeM,
Yes. DeMinimis makes sense when a person actually travels to country X, buy something and brings it back. It also makes sense if your grandmother, uncle, whatever lives in country X and sends you a nice personal gift once or twice a year.
It doesn’t make sense when a company (Shein, Temu, Koro, AliExpress) sells tons of stuff to tons of customers and would have had to pay tarriff if they’d been Walmart or Amazon and stocked a warehouse or store. (And no, it wouldn’t make sense if it was Amazon itself drop shipping from China.)
When the business model is to sell a lot of stuff to the American market, it shouldn’t be that shipping in bulk pays a tariff while shipping individually does not. That’s just crazy.
Mike M.
I sense we’re all on the same page on this, but not quite. It may be because my broswer identifies my interests to the likes of Aliexpress, that I only see the oddball stuff I want, but I can assure you that there may not be even a worldwide market for 10k of most of them.
Further, AliExpress is a marketing device, they provide the sellers an online “store” which shows the offering, accepts the purchase, takes a percentage and forwards the rest to the seller which in many cases is a small facotry in Shenzen China. Similar to Ebay, or Etsy. These are the businesses and customers who suffer from the loss of de minimus.
Since Walmart sells at physical stores, there’s notany way to avoid the tariffs in the same way Temu is able.
I don’t know for a certainty that Sony is actually doing this, but others are. You can buy an A7 Camera online from dozens of online stores including Walmart. Sony has two ware houses, one in Memphis and one in Covington. Neither Walmart nor any of the other simililar “sellers” ever had posession of the camera wither physical or financial. Depending on shipping choice of “seller” camera is moved to you either by FedEx or UPS.
Obviously while de Minimus was in effect the warehouse could have been in Canada, although clearly this would have only affected the cheaper cameras.
This is a little like flooring for expensive things like cars where the factory in effect owns the car and if you can sell it in 45 days or fewer, you never need to pay for it until it is sold and the customer pays for it.
We never buy anything on our trips abroad, but can only imagine if we did of having to go back to listing the stuff for customs on our return and having to go through a session with the customs guys.
And Mike M. I still think loss of de minimus is going to greatly increase customs workload.
john a ferguson wrote: “I sense we’re all on the same page on this”.
Wow. I am baffled by that statement.
You see this as a big problem, I see no problem at all, except maybe for returning tourists.
You think that eliminating de minimus will overwhelm Customs. I think it will make their job much easier.
You seem to care about “the businesses and customers who suffer from the loss of de minimus”. I do not care at all about that.
John
These are the businesses and customers who suffer from the loss of de minimus.
Of flipped around: these are businesses and customers who win if (relative to other businesses or customers) if we keep de minimus. Meanwhile, someone who bundles up, ships in batches and sells in a store here losses, as do their customers.
When arguing for keeping deminimums, the question is: Why should the former be given a tax advantage over the latter?
I really don’t think the goal for de minimus– which is an exclusion or loophole— was to provide a tax advantage for online straight from the another country relative to shipping in bulk to the US and selling from US store fronts. This is being used that way and it is literally an unintended loophole.
It would be one thing if drop shipping from China (or anywhere) was simply more efficient. But that’s not why it’s happening. It’s happening because of a tax loop hole!
I concede Lucia, I think you are right regarding the injustice of some people paying duty and other not. It is unjust.
Mike M. I don’t see how forcing customs to “process” many more packages will make their jobs easier, although if the system is automated like the Post Office, maybe the income from duties etc. will pay for the processing and maybe even be profitable for the government.
And yes, Mike M., I do care about the little guys I buy stuff from.
For example:
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2r3iatp][img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54503593505_cae9f6fc24_c.jpg[/img][/url][url=https://flic.kr/p/2r3iatp]IMG_2325[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/189243388@N06/]john ferguson[/url], on Flickr
This label was affixed to a mailer which contained a walkman part sold to me from outifit in England. Unobtainable from anyone in US. Don’t ask about the folly of restoring a walkman.
This is a package which just arrived from England – no duty that day.
It’s a part for a Walkman which is unobtainable in US. Don’t ask about the folly of an attempt to revive a Toshiba Walkman.
John Ferguson,
When you buy mail order from China, you are not helping the little guys. Just the opposite in my opinion.
The 1.4 billion de minimis packages a year still require some processing. When those packages are no longer being shipped, they will require zero processing. Zero is less than some.
Eliminating de minimis will not result in tariffs being paid on 1.4 billion packages a year. It will result in tariffs being paid on a fraction (likely a very tiny fraction) of that. If you eliminate the cause (the de minimis loophole) you eliminate the effect (1.4 billion packages a year).
If anyone is interested…
The conclave procession is about to begin. Live on many Youtube channels and some broadcast channels. I am watching’Vatican Media Live’ on Youtube. It’s a very ornate pageant.
Edit. The Swiss Guards arein full regalia, including pikes
Mike M.
With one exceptioin, NONE, of the things I bought directly from little guys in China was available domestically.
For example, if your CD Player has died, as had mine, the only place a new laser assembly was available was China. I’ve probably bought hundreds of various things from China in the last 25 years and virtually none of them was available domestically.
I’ve been to China as has, I think, SteveF. To some degree I know some of the Engineers who have supported some of the things I’ve bought over the years. Ocasionally I ask if it is not an impolite question to share their family histories. Generally it’s granparents were peasants, parents worked for post office or similar, and I’m first one to go to Engine School in Shanghai.
I love this and love them. They work in the economic environment they find themselves in and we work in ours. It’s true that both environments are manipulated by the govenrment ostensibly in the respective favor of each country..
We looked at setting up a business in Cambodia at one point but didn’t because of the risk of it being nationalized if it was successful. I don’t know if this was realistic.
The growth of all nations to first-world status, in my opinion, seems worhtwhile for all of us. We’ll be able to sell a whole lot more of what we invent to them if they all have 24/7 electricity.
John,
Yes. That came in under de minimus. Is that supposed to make a self evident point? Because if it does, I don’t know what it is. It that post supposed to make us think we should allow de minimus exemptions to things made in China? Or things made in China but shipped from England? Or print new lables with a check for whether it’s made in a country that doesn’t have a de minimus exclusion? Those all look rhetorical and are. But my point is: I don’t know what point you are trying to make.
To add to questions: Is your point that some things that aren’t available from a supplier in the US? Sure. Is your point that this tells us something about de minimums? If that’s your point… what does it tell us?
I mean, if they’d have slapped a 200% tariff on that, it would have cost $21 with the tariff. You also probably paid postage. I can see that wold make the part more expensive. I’m not seeing why that would be horrifying. It would have to be one of the more expensive Walkman models to be worth paying $21 plus postage. If it’s this $22 Walkman from Amazon I’m sure you’d just toss the Walkman and buy new rather than pay $21 plus postage. (Or you’d decide having this Walkman is not worth it.)
But I don’t see any self evident point about whether the de minimus exemption is good, bad or indifferent, nor in what way.
Yes: applying a tariff to things will make them more expensive to a consumer. Yes, some things are difficult to find. Some things will be hard to find with or without the de minimus tariff. Some hard to find things are worth buying to save money over all. That’s true with or without tariffs.
Don’t ask about the folly of an attempt to revive a Toshiba Walkman.
I won’t. But I am going to ask whether your argument is that no one should pay a tariff on this item.
Lucia, I came around to your view that there should be no de minimus. My point on the part form Egnland was that it got here before de minmus from England was dropped, apparentl last week.
All walkmen are not the same. Some are now selling post-rebuild for $700 – not mine, mind you.
For example, in April 2023, CBP’s Trade Enforcement Team at the Port Everglades seaport in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, discovered a disassembled helicopter that arrived in 21 crates inside a 40-foot sea container from Venezuela. The helicopter was shipped as de minimis and manifested with the vague misclassified description, ‘personal effects.’ “The importer was trying to smuggle in a helicopter,”
Mike M.
Great story about the helicopter.
Theodore White who worked for Time Magazine in Hong Kong in the fifties was reassigned to US. The magainze agreed to pay his moving expenses subject to a review of a listing by item.
“Miscellaneous Personal Junk” was approved.
Miscellaneous Personal Junk was a 60 foot boat and Time did pay for the cost of it’s ride on a freighter to Boston.
chemial enginer antics. DDT is still manufactured in India. A number of years back a colleague heard about a way to order it. On a lark, he tried. It arrived in a box from Mexico City marked ‘Zapatos’ (shoes).
The Square outside the Sistine Chapel is full of people, and TV cameras, watching the smoke stack. First vote is expected soon.
It’s approaching 7PM in Rome. A number of Youtube and broadcast tv stations are live on the air.
In a free market economy the customer reigns supreme and decides what is favored in purchases free of government interference. The entrepreneurs, producers and services take their orders from the customers and again free of government interference.
Tariffs are very much the antithesis of this description of the free market. Governments historically have a very poor record in choosing winners and losers whether that be businesses, customers or workers. In the end it usually happens that everyone loses.
The argument that the other guys avoid the free market is countered by two wrongs do not make it right. If other nations prefer to subsidize the US consumer and the US consumer chooses to take up the offer and spend less on that item it means more resources for spending on other items or saving/ investing. It is also true that the market signals, as it has even in a less free market economy, that the US comparative advantages lie in other areas.
Kenneth,
The argument that the other guys avoid the free market is countered by two wrongs do not make it right.
Respectfully, I disagree with this. If a foreign thug is discouraged by the damaging behavior of my domestic thug and desists from ‘the wrong’, two wrongs have indeed made a right.
Game theory supports this; the optimal prisoner’s dilemma strategy is tit for tat, which involves retaliation for bad behavior. The optimal strategy is not to simply ignore the bad behavior.
Mark, would that theory support limiting free speech if the government thought it gave advantage to another nation.
It is the citizens that suffer whether by tariffs or lack of free speech. Revenge on the other government by punishing your citizens, how does that work.
Kenneth,
Revenge on the other government by punishing your citizens, how does that work.
There’s plenty of evidence that this does work. https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/here-every-country-working-trade-deals-us
These countries have come to renegotiate trade deals specifically to avoid continuing under Trump’s tariffs. Retaliation for bad behavior is an essential element for dealing with bad actors in the world, not just in economics of course. This is one of my largest general disagreements (apparently) with the libertarian viewpoint.
[Edit:
And China is coming to the table now: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8rgrejkvmjo
]
If all countries were always run by nice guys, Kenneth’s theory might work. Approximate percentage of countries run by nice guys: Zero.
Is editing not working?
Hmm. I guess it is working.
Mark,
expressing an interest and coming to negotiate are not the same.
John,
expressing an interest and coming to negotiate are not the same.
Yet both are evidence for my claim, which is that foreign governments experience a US increase in tariffs as a negative consequence and one to be avoided.
Further supporting pieces of evidence include these: Columbia acceded to avoid tariffs:
The spat erupted on Sunday when President Gustavo Petro barred two military planes carrying Colombians deported from the US from landing.
The Trump administration responded by threatening to slap punitive tariffs on Colombian exports to the US.
President Petro at first said Colombia would retaliate by imposing tariffs on US goods, but the White House later announced that Colombia had agreed to accept migrants – including those arriving on US military aircraft – “without limitation or delay”.
Brussels’ zero-for-zero tariff offer not enough, U.S. president says, but indicates he’s open to a deal if the bloc commits to closing the trade deficit in goods.
I think it’s silly, honestly, to try to argue that foreign governments are indifferent to US tariffs. They are obviously not indifferent and want to avoid tariffs. Tariffs can be viewed as a lose-lose option for everyone, I figured even those who don’t believe tariffs have any direct positive value in any scenario could agree that they are bad for everyone. But something that is detrimental for everyone can still have political utility. See also, military action and use of destructive force.
Avoiding military and trade wars should be the goal, because both create great harm and destruction. Actions that encourage war in either case are wrong.
The uncertainities created by the current tariff battle have already created harm.
Basing the tariffs on the trade deficit is ignorant and will not work. Most people do not understand the factors behind trade deficits. In and of itself it has no affect on the economic wellbeing of a nation.
Kenneth Fritsch: “Avoiding military and trade wars should be the goal”.
Indeed. It would be ideal if everybody could get along and cooperate. We don’t seem to be able to manage that. Maybe we need more unicorns.
A willingness to fight when necessary, and the demonstration of the resolve and capacity to fight is often (or at least occasionally) the pathway to avoiding unnecessary fights. I can’t imagine I’m saying anything anybody here hasn’t heard before. Speak softly and carry a big stick.
War isn’t the worst thing, fighting and death aren’t the worst things. For some of us at least it is better to fight and risk death and ruin instead of living quietly and meekly as slaves, avoiding war at all costs. I frankly don’t care who thinks this is wrong.
[Edit: This goes somewhat far afield from tariffs, but we seem to be also discussing conflict, retaliation, and when it is appropriate to make sure an adversary who makes you lose also loses.]
War isn’t the worst thing, fighting and death aren’t the worst things. For some of us at least it is better to fight and risk death and ruin instead of living quietly and meekly as slaves, avoiding war at all costs. I frankly don’t care who thinks this is wrong.
Mark, I do not follow that avoiding military and trade wars equates to living meekly as slaves. Those wars are instruments of government which has the sole legal power of coercion. A military draft by government to fight wars comes very close to slavery. Governments use these wars – military or trade ones – to exert more controls over individuals and controls that are not readily relinquished when the crisis ends. Governments use propaganda to avoid truth telling during these crises.
You might say that those advocating for settling differences by these wars or threats of wars are living loudly as potential slaves.
Everyone has a natural right of self defense and that is not forfeited by advocating for the avoidance of wars.
Mark, I agree that your view toward what you might do threatened with some variation of slavery is reasonable.
I see the UK has negotiated a tariff agreement, I think they are the first.
It will be nteresting to see how complex it is, and to what degree it’s derivative of an earlier agreement.
We hang out with a (long) retired State Department Official who told us that agreements such as this usually take months to work out generally because they are not 10% across the board but contain exclusions and preferences sought by either side and which must ultimately somehow balance. In other words, some tariffed products may be hit with 25-75% and others nothing. Of course this was when they had to be blessed by congress where a state like Iowa might want to have significant tariff on Canadian wheat. (example).
The business with tariffs on foreign films will be difficult. many US films have significant portions of the work farmed out to Canada and overseas to places like Czechia, Thailand, UK. Applying tariffs to film-making in the real world will be a nightmare.
As to de minimus, I can now see that Lucia was right and I was wrong in thinking that de minimus should be available to small BtoB overseas purchases but not to Walmart shoppers. She’s right, it isn’t just.
Doubtless rules will have to be concocted to deal with what are in effect Chinese warehouses in someplace where our tariffs on imports from them are low.
All of this aside, I think the broadside tariff idea is nuts. Why should tariffs be applied to imports unavailable nor likely ever to become available locally? And that is just a very minor objection, the larger one being effect on the economies of the concerned, such as the suddenly very cheap bacon we’re going to enjoy as Iowa chokes on the pork-bellies that they’d expected to sell to China and which now will not be accepted.
The pigs in question are already on their trotters and will have to go somewhere. Of course they could always eat the soybeans previously destined for China but are now seeking another market.
Smithfield belongs (or maybe belonged until recently) to the Chinese.
Kenneth,
When an adversary wants to enslave you, there are generally two options available to you. What do you think those two options are?
[By ‘wants to’, I mean, has the means and will and all things being equal will do so as soon as convenient for them.]
Kenneth,
Nobody is advocating for wars. Nobody is saying that war is a good thing. But the willingness to fight is essential. And sometimes fighting becomes necessary.
It is true that government power increases during war and that tends to be a ratchet. But so far as I know, no democratic government (and few, if any governments) has ever started a war for that purpose and I don’t think war is used for that purpose. What happens is that government power has tended to increase during peacetime as well as during war. Increases in government power tend to be a ratchet. That process naturally accelerates during war since some increased government power is necessary in wartime.
If it is not clear, I agree completely with Mark.
Many of the “free trade” agreements we have signed in the past ran to thousands of pages. A trade deal containing thousands of pages of regulations is obviously not a free trade deal in any meaningful sense. Maybe the new Trump deals will abandon the pretense of free trade and actually move us toward freer trade.
Have I ever mentioned that I am a cockeyed optimist? 🙂
Current Pope betting after the third round on Kalshi [similar odds on Polymarket]..…
My dark horse candidate, Cardinal Pizzaballa is a distant third.
Tagle is gaining.
Pietro Parolin Italy 27%
Luis Antonio Tagle Philippines 25%
Pierbattista Pizzaballa Italy 10%
Also I saw this:
“The tradition of betting on papal elections is an old one, with records suggesting wagering on papal elections as far back as 1503, says The New York Times. “ https://kalshi.com/markets/kxnextpope/next-pope
The causes of trade imbalances and the US trade deficit:
1. The citizens of the US save much less of their incomes than do those of other nations. The main reason is that US citizens for the most part take the example of government deficit spending and Keyensian economics that emphasizes consumption over savings to heart.
2. That consumption is fulfilled by consuming both domestic and foreign goods. Thus the US citizens consume a great quantity of imported foreign goods.
3. Savings and investments are key to improving productivity and thus standards of living. Those investments can and do come from domestic and foreign sources. The money paid to foreign sources for US imports circulates back to the US in the form of purchases of public debt and private debt and investment.
4. Since the US government spends near entirely on consumption foreign purchase of its debt does not advance productivity, but it does free up domestic purchase of that debt for investments that can increase productivity.
5. In nations where their citizens save more of their income this means they consume less and thus what their nation produces in excess of domestic demand needs to find foreign purchasers – like the US. This can lead to trade surpluses for those nations and trade deficits for the US. The savings tendencies of the individuals in the trade surplus nations becomes a source for investments in the US.
6. The circular nature of savings, consumption, trade surpluses, and trade deficits for domestic and foreign entities has no significant effect on the wellbeing of domestic economies.
7. Economic wellbeing is not well measured by GDP which includes government spending that goes for consumption. A better measure is standard of living and productivity which comes from savings and investments. The US advantage in this realm comes from it having relatively free market and innovating conditions that attracts both domestic and foreign investments.
8. Tariffs and trade wars will disrupt these conditions and have a negative effect on the US advantage.
Pardon my error above, there have been four votes taken, not three, and two ballot burnings. Probably two more votes today and one more ballot burning.
Kenneth, also:
Everyone has a natural right of self defense and that is not forfeited by advocating for the avoidance of wars.
I don’t think this is true in practice. Effective self defense at minimum requires investment and commitment that is undermined by those who advocate for the avoidance of wars. I mean, would you call yourself an advocate for defense spending?
Another point about self defense- it is a losing strategy to wait for your adversary to take the initiative and shape the situation and only act when the situation has become a dire one where you are on the defensive. Once you concede that fighting is sometimes necessary, the next thing people who [are] facing reality realize is that ‘self defense’ ought to be proactive and not reactive, if one truly wishes to avoid unnecessary fighting.
Finally, I think it is inappropriate to equate these people (slaves), or these people: (slaves) with these people (US soldiers). U.S. soldiers aren’t slaves, to make that claim minimizes and obscures the evil that human slavery actually is AND at the same time fails to credit those who willingly and proudly chose to serve to defend the country.
They do not appear to be connected. Savings increased some from 1959 to 1975 while our trade balance was going from positive to negative.
Then savings pretty steadily declined, hitting a minimum in 2005-2008. The trade deficit hit a local maximum in 1987 and a local minimum in 1991, in creased until 1997, then exploded. A very different pattern from savings.
From 2008 to 2013 the trade deficit decreased while savings increased; 5 years that fits with Kenneth’s theory. But then savings stayed relatively constant while the trade while the trade deficit again increased.
Even if there were a good correlation, that would not confirm Kenneth’s theory. I would think that any cause and effect is in the opposite direction from what Kenneth claims.
p.s. – I belatedly realized that I ought to be looking at trade deficit as a percentage of GDP. Too lazy to bother now.
White smoke! 12:11 PM EST
Habamus Papum in the official Latin
The new Pope is originally from Chicago.
Cardinal Robert Prevost Will take the name Leo XIV.
Young at 69 years old
Studied science at Villanova University
Spent most of his priesthood in Peru
“La pace sia con tutti voi” may peace be with you all – the very first words of the first American pope, Leone XIV
Russell, He earned a BS in mathematics at Villanova.
Harold, yes thank you I was just about to correct my error.
Edit: Math grad who wants peace, he sould fit right in with this board.
New Pope is a nerd…
“The Prior General of the Order of Saint Augustine from 2001 to 2013 was Robert Francis Prevost. He was elected to the position in 2001 and served for two terms. “
“The Prior General is elected by the General Chapter, which is a gathering of representatives from the order’s various regions. The Prior General is aided by a General Council, which includes a Vicar General and other assistants, all of whom are also elected by the General Chapter. The Prior General is responsible for guiding the order and ensuring that its directives are carried out. “
He picked Leo. If he was going for an astrological name, why not “Pisces, fisher of men?” Darn.
Lucia,
I heard one theory that he may be wanting to continue the work of Pope Leo XIII. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Leo_XIII:
To wit:
He is well known for his intellectualism and his attempts to define the position of the Catholic Church with regard to modern thinking. In his famous 1891 encyclical Rerum novarum, Pope Leo outlined the rights of workersto a fair wage, safe working conditions, and the formation of trade unions, while affirming the rights to property and free enterprise, opposing both socialism and laissez-fairecapitalism.
Lucia,
“Fisher of Men” You remember your Catechism I see.
Did you talk to your mom?
Russell,
I haven’t spoke to Mom yet. Of course I remember “fisher of men”. 🙂
Mike M.
May 8, 2025 at 8:32 am
A better comparison would be savings and consumption rates of the US versus other nations. Rates would be based on disposable income.
mark bofill
May 8, 2025 at 8:15 am
A military draft while not chattel slavery is a form of slavery whereby the individual was coerced to serve. Your context for using slave was appropriate given your feelings expressed later?
I do not understand your concept of self defense. In the civilian world one can legally react after the fact of regression or eminent threat of regression, but not be agressive proactively. One can prepare oneself for self defense through the right of private property, like owning a weapon. One can choose to avoid the need for aggressive self defense by employing security devices.
If one were to go around daring others to start a fight and announcing how prepared they were, someone might feel a need to be proactively aggressive.
Kenneth Fritsch
May 8, 2025 at 3:52 pm
For the purpose of analyzing balance of payments, the better measures to use would be total national consumption and savings.
Thank you Kenneth.
Kenneth,
Is jury duty a form of slavery? How about taxes? Is there a difference between taking my labor without compensation and taking the fruits of my labor?
Those ought to be rhetorical questions. But given Kenneth’s claim, I don’t know what his answers will be.
Here are some back of the envelope recent annual data on the total national consumption to total savings ratios (C/S) and balance of payments (BP) for 5 nations:
US BP= -819 billion dollars C/S=17 to 1
China BP=+253 billion dollars C/S= 0.9 to 1
Japan BP= +200 billion dollars C/S= 2.3 to 1
Germany BP= +270 billion dollars. C/S = 2.5 to 1
South Korea. BP=+99 billion dollars. C/S= 1.5 to 1
Mike M.
May 8, 2025 at 6:27 pm
Those all involved coercion. It is a matter of degree. A tax rate or wealth tax that confiscated nearly all your income or wealth would put one closer to a slave state. I believe Mark’s reference to fighting to remain free of being a slave might have had those more extreme confiscations in mind.
I do not consider the US involvement in the Korean, Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars as avoiding our becoming slaves and in fact wars tend to push us closer to being slaves of the state.
I suspect import duties on small items will be set up to be essentially automatic, with few added demands on US Customs. There is no reason some of a collected duty could not pay for the added cost for collection. UPS and FedEx already do this for larger items. The main impact of duties will be a significantly higher net cost for imported products.
In many cases that will make no difference WRT purchases, in other cases it will. Yesterday I received a formal quote for some peristaltic pumps, purchased in lots of 20 units, from China; even adding 100% duty, their price is still much lower than the domestic or European alternatives. I have seen multiple similar cases, where a domestic supplier (or more often a distributor for a domestic supplier…. the domestic suppliers simply refuse to deal with smaller customers) sets a price 3 to 5 times what a purchase from China would cost. Trump’s tariffs will raise some revenue and increase costs, but motivate domestic production of widgets? I think not very much. And as John Ferguson correctly points out, in many cases there simply are no domestic suppliers…. and there have never been any. New domestic suppliers for most products are not going to pop up any time soon because of tariffs.
Kenbeth,
Yes, US savings rates are abysmal. That is mostly cultural; if US residents started saving like Germans do, then the balance of trade would change dramatically. But changing culture is not easy, as our long experience with motivating people to adopt behaviors that lead to better life outcomes so clearly shows.
Domestic suppliers, probably not, but there are many other countries out there who could benefit from producing widgets. India, for example, seems to be heavily underutilized in this respect and I’m not sure why.
I’m sure SteveF sees these all the time. This is a DHL invoice which went to an outfit I buy from. Note that in addition to the tariffs etc. there was a $700 charge for duty processing.
I suppose in support of not having a de minumus exclusion, I can’t save the cost of the tariff by buying any of the things Ada handles directly from China. The downside is this will double the cost of many of the micro-controllers I buy for gizmo-projects.
Can someone in England import from China and repackage and ship here in a bonded warehouse which is a physical way to pretend the object du jour never set foot in England? Probably.
My guess is that by the end of the summer, this “tax” will be gone or much diminished.
John,
The downside is this will double the cost of many of the micro-controllers I buy for gizmo-projects.
I’ve noticed this too. I’m downgrading to 8 and 16 bit PICs where possible. This is what I used to use before the lowest end SBC’s like Raspberry Pi Zero became so cheap.
Jonathan Turley, on X:
“ …I shall not offer a “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.” The new pope is reportedly a Cubs fan. If there is any need for proof of divinity, that should be enough.”
By definition
GDP = C + I + G + NX
where
C = consumption
I = investment
G = government spending
NX = net exports = exports – imports
By definition
S = GDP – C – G
where S = gross savings
Therefore
NX = S – I
and low savings “causes” trade deficits.
But that is a tautology that tells us nothing about cause and effect. We might as well say:
Trade deficits are caused by high investment.
or
Low savings are caused by high government spending.
or
Low savings are caused by trade deficits.
or
Trade deficits are caused by high government spending.
etc
Those equations do not actually explain anything.
john ferguson wrote: “My guess is that by the end of the summer, this “tax” will be gone or much diminished.”
I am pretty sure that is the intent. The “reciprocal” tariffs are not meant to be permanent, they are meant to force reductions in barriers to US exports. China is a special case, so although those tariffs might go down, there is no way they are going down to 10%.
To complete my analysis of our major trading partners here are the back of the envelop balance of payments (BP) and consumption to savings ratios (C/P) for Mexico and Canada:
Mexico BP= -43.7 billion dollars C/S = 3.7 to 1
Canada BP= -17.8 billion dollars C/S = 13.0 to 1
But changing culture is not easy, as our long experience with motivating people to adopt behaviors that lead to better life outcomes so clearly shows.
Steve that was my point that raising tariffs was not going to change the US savings tendencies and thus affect the balance of payments. The US economic wellbeing depends on it being a best choice for investment and relatively more free of government intervention.
I know the Democrats do not understand this and I have my doubts about the populist Republicans’ understandings.
Here are the back of the envelope private consumption to private savings ratios for the US and its main trading nations:
US = 3.3 to 1; China =0.09 to 1; Japan = 0.42 to 1 ; Germany=0.29 to 1; South Korea =1.3 to 1; Canada= 2.6 to 1; Mexico=3.7 to 1
Jonathan Turley, on X:
“ …I shall not offer a “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.” The new pope is reportedly a Cubs fan. If there is any need for proof of divinity, that should be enough.”
Turley is wrong – according to his brothers, the Pope is a White Sox fan…
Mark,
I was frustrated with the diappearance of a couple of my favorite micro-controllers due to the chips having gone out of production during the Covid crisis. I’d thought this was some scheme to get me to buy faster devices, but for my purposes I didn’t need them and in some cases the PCB grew larger and no longer fit the places I wanted to put them, and also didn’t fit the PCB’s I’d made for them.
I suppose you can still buy Z-80s, but then I’ve forgotten how to do assembler which at the time seemed to be required for the things I was fumbling with.
I built a minimal Z-80 single board computer once in my youth. It was awful.
I mean, you’re not running a LLM on one, and you can run LLMs on Raspberry PI and Orange PI. Still, if your needs are simple interface and simple logic, PIC’s can be just right.
Hi Mark,
I’d been using Teensy’s and they too suffered from the disappearacne of the chips powering (if that’s the right word) the Teensy3 which was just fine for me. I can make PCB’s on my CNC router.
Do the schematics in Eagle, use its wonderful auto-router, fix the traces I think can be handled more elegantly (no rf issues in what I do) generate the g-code withan Eagle add-on called PCBGCODE,
cut the boards – just 2 sides for what I do. rinse them, tin them and solder everything together. see if it works.
Autodesk is killing Eagle next year so I’ll have to learn something else. Gaakkkk.
There was one rf trace I did to connect a U-Blox gps to an antenna. Done in almost complete ignorance (trace was very short and then there was the lenght of the lead to the patch antenna) but it worked.
Teensy, how cool. I hadn’t run across those before.
So you carve out your own boards, nice. It usually doesn’t come to that in my projects (read as, “amateur!”)!
Kenneth Fritsch: “private consumption to private savings ratios”.
What are those numbers supposed to mean? Surely you are not saying that people in China save 10 yuan for every yuan they spend.
Hi Mark,
I bought the router to cut ribs for r/c airplanes, and then once I had it discovered that it could also do pcb-boards, cut both the traces and drill the holes. the magic part was figuring out how to do 2 sided baords, sometims needed because traces couldn’t be done on a single layer without a lot of jumpers. I put two indexing holes in the corners of the boards which tend to be smaller than 2.5 inches square and then can zero the cutter to one of them, but there is still possibility of aligment problem but that just required holding a straight edge against the hole into which the spindle drill has been inserted, putting a drill bit in the other hole and fussing with it until it is aligned. Sounds hard but it’s easy.
Machine was $1600 +/- direclty from Shanghai and turned out much better than I expected. I thought I’d have to “accurize” it but didn’t.
“Accurize” was what we used to do with government M1911’s so you could hit something smaller than a barn door with them..
I don’t have any 1911’s, although I’ve always been impressed with those I’ve fired. I read the low end ones can have jamming problems. I’m partial to striker action myself though.
My M1911 experience goes back to 1958/9 when the government gave a whole bunch of unsued ones to the NRA which in turn was allowed to sell them one at a time to members. I think they got $25 for them.
Other than adding a bushing to the bushing (part at end of barrel) and lapping the slides, I can’t remember what else was done, but there wasn’t all that much improvement.
You know, I have to take back what I said about the Z-80. I’ve been googling it and I’ve come to realize I made that problem a lot harder than it needed to be back when I worked on it. It’s not that bad. It might even be fun to try to get one up and running today, who knows, though what use I’d have for a Z-80 at the moment I’m sure I couldn’t say.
[Edit: The internet wasn’t as good back in those days, that’s what it was. I can climb on the shoulders of giants without thought these days. Heh!]
I started out with an Osborne 1 which ran on a Z-80 and came with the most intelligent owner’s manual I’ve ever seen. It had two sections, one was how to run the apps it came with and the other was how everything actually worked down to a discussion of the USART they’d selected and their decision to have a GPBus jack on the front. I think my brother still has it along with 2 of the blue ones which met a quick death when IBM’s PC showed up.
I had no idea what I was doing, but gradually learned assembler, how to usa a Microsoft app called BASCOM which would sometimes actually compile an MBASIC program. I vaguely remember that whatever you did had to be no larger than 48K and that something like 16K more was reserved for CP/M to get to the available 64K. Doing this is where I learned that if you wanted to actually do something that worked without necessarily comprehending the whole problem you needed to try a lot of things, remember what you’d already tried, (loop advoidance) and NEVER give up.
I understand that the guys that worked for Alfred Sloan had a sign on the wall that said something like this.
I learned assembly language on my Z-80 as a kid. It was the only way to get the performance necessary for games! Gotta love Z-80 compound instructions (LDIR, etc). I still have fond memories of TRS-80’s. Jeez, I’m getting old, that was a loooong time ago.
If Chinese sellers paid 145 percent tariffs, prices would have doubled. They didn’t. Price-tracking sites like camelcamelcamel.com and keepa.com show that Chinese-made goods, such as textiles, gadgets, and pet products, still sell for $10–$20. They’re relatively unchanged.
And despite tariffs, China’s outbound container volume dropped only 35 percent in 2025, not the 80 percent collapse many expected. That’s because e-commerce exporters kept shipping and kept cheating.
Something I had not realized is that tariffs on bulk shipments seem to be based on wholesale value. For some items that can be less than half the retail price, blunting the impact of tariffs even if there is not cheating.
Something I had not realized is that tariffs on bulk shipments seem to be based on wholesale value. For some items that can be less than half the retail price, blunting the impact of tariffs even if there is not cheating.
Yes. The tariffs are assessed based on the price the between the seller and the buyer who imports them. So when Walmart buys at wholesale, Walmart is the buyer. If I buy them direct from a chinese manufacturer, its whatever price I pay. If they are giving me a wholesale price, that’s the price for the purpose of tariffs. If they give me a retail price, that’s the price.
The reason the “make in China”, then “warehouse in Canada” then “ship small orders to retail” work around is going “poof” is partly that without “de minimus”, the US retail customers pay the company in Canada the retail price and now the US tariffs are assessed at retail value of the item when it crosses into the US.
The de minimus exemption made the tariff when imported to the US go away, “poof”! Having lots of companies create warehouses in Canada to take advantage of this was not the intention of the exemption. But that’s what the law allowed, so they did it.
If the same company imports and warehouses in the US, the tariff will be assessed at the wholesale value at which it is imported. This is not cheating. This is the way the tariff is intended to work.
Mark ( TRS-80’s. Jeez, I’m getting old, that was a loooong time ago.)
I still have my M1L1 TRS 80. I still cringe at the $100 I paid at the time to upgrade it from 4k of RAM to 16k. Never did upgrade it to the available 180k floppy drive from the tape drive as it was $300 for the basic parts and the interface had to be breadboard from scratch.
It had a problem with overheating. Had to keep a can of cold gas handy or the system would crash from overheating.
I bought the system as Radio Shack was clearly going to beat out the upstart based out of a garage. I think the upstart was call Apple or some such.
OMFG.
I just spend 5 days doing medical device testing in San Francisco and I stayed near Union Square. It is stunning how disgusting San Francisco has become and how little the government does about it. I literally walked right by people openly doing fentanyl by my hotel’s entrance (Hampton Inn). Walked around many people just passed out on the sidewalk mid-day, feces, all matter of mental illness, garbage everywhere.
Every business establishment had private security standing outside … and almost zero police presence for the entire time. Zero.
50% to 75% of businesses’ s shuttered. Walgreens and Target had all kinds of stuff walled off so you had to ask for assistance.
I thought this might have been overdone in some news stories but it is the truth. The locals just accept it. What an embarrassment. I think I saw one child on the street the entire time. They actually have something called the Harm Reduction Council which hands out drug paraphernalia and advocates for letting this continue. It is INSANE when you see it.
AFAICT they don’t disperse this open air drug and crime market because the surrounding areas complain when they do.
OTOH the Waymo driverless cab rides were totally cool.
lucia wrote: “If the same company imports and warehouses in the US, the tariff will be assessed at the wholesale value at which it is imported. This is not cheating.”
I agree. The cheating is when they claim that the wholesale price is a fraction of what it really is or if they claim the shipment is something other than what it is.
Ed,
Yeah, I remember the memory upgrade. 16K! Never going to use all that! LOL. I don’t remember mine overheating though, but maybe I just don’t recollect properly anymore.
Mike M.
May 9, 2025 at 12:08 pm
Mike, I asked Google AI for the total dollars in 2023 saved and consumed by individuals and businesses. When I checked back in detail I found the values I was obtaining from AI were not from consistence sources. Also my China number was off by a decimal point. Below I have used personal savings percent (PS) and household consumption per GDP (HC) with the original balance of payments (BP) to show the association between PS/HP and BP.
BPs are all in billions of US dollars and PS and HP are in percent.
Nation BP PS HC
US. -819. 4.5 67.9
China +253 44.4 39.1
Germany +270 11.3 49.9
Japan. +200 9.1 55.6
South Korea +99 33.4 48.9
Canada -18 6.1 55.2
Mexico -44. 18.6 70.3
Balance of trade relative to GDP is far more important the straight balance of trade. Which makes the German balance of trade a lot more impressive.
Kenneth Fritsch: “BPs are all in billions of US dollars and PS and HP are in percent.”
Which means that you can not compare BP with the other two.
It looks like Germany and Japan have much higher ratios of trade surplus to GDP than China, with much lower savings rates. It looks like South Korea is in between.
As I explained above, a correlation between savings and trade surplus would not really prove anything, but the lack of correlation disproves Kenneth’s theory.
The Trump effect….
“European leaders to meet in Ukraine for ‘coalition of the willing’ talks – and issue call to Russia”
“Sir Keir Starmer is joining the leaders of France, Germany and Poland in Kyiv – the first time they will travel to Ukraine at the same time.”
The ‘Big Four” have been acting like responsible NATO partners lately.
Building up their militaries, upping supplies to Ukraine, talking tough to Russia.
I wonder if they are prepared to lead. Are they going to supply manpower (Rear guard duties)? https://news.sky.com/story/european-leaders-to-meet-in-ukraine-for-coalition-of-the-willing-talks-and-issue-call-to-russia-13364603
(I have seen reports from OSINT but cannot confirm this myself)
All 6 B-2 stealth bombers have left Diego Garcia and are heading back to the states. The B-2s were used in the attacks on the Houthis in Yemen.
The Pope has made his first decree…
It’s called soccer now.
Peace starts next week.
Trump has shamed Europe into standing up against Putin, which they could have tried at any time, with USA backing.
WRT micro-computer processors: I just finished a coding project for a “product upgrade” in a small instrument which digitally replaces an old (22 years!) analog control circuit and user interface (was dials and switches, now a small LCD). The processor is a “Propeller”, which is actually 8 independent processors, all running at 80 MHz (newer versions up to 200 MHz). They share memory and I/O pins. The processors are truly independent, although they can pass information to each other via shared memory. With multiple processors running different pieces of program code in parallel, there is no need for interrupts. It took a while for me to fully appreciate that complete independence and take advantage of it. It is an interesting coding environment.
angech,
Next week? I have my doubts.
Will the Europeans actually talk with Putin without insisting Russia withdraw from Ukraine as a condition for talks? That would be progress, but they need to first form committee of selected country representatives to make recommendations to the EC about appropriate conditions for talks… with a target deadline of June 1…. ……. 2026. I see zero indication the Europeans are serious about ending the killing.
angech,
I think it more likely the Europeans will seize $600 billion in frozen Russian assets, ensuring a ‘frozen conflict’ when the fighting stops, and a new cold war lasting for decades.
Steve,
The DO-178C guys would love that, no interrupts. Maybe we ought to look at using those things where I work.
Here is a link to a reasonably decent detailed analysis of balance of payments.
The Trump effect…
Marco Rubio:
Over the past 48 hours, @VP Vance and I have engaged with senior Indian and Pakistani officials, including Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Shehbaz Sharif, External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir, and National Security Advisors Ajit Doval and Asim Malik.
I am pleased to announce the Governments of India and Pakistan have agreed to an immediate ceasefire and to start talks on a broad set of issues at a neutral site.
We commend Prime Ministers Modi and Sharif on their wisdom, prudence, and statesmanship in choosing the path of peace.
Mike M.
May 9, 2025 at 8:56 pm
Mike, I am not claiming a direct correlation but rather pointing out that nations with lower savings and higher consumption rates tend to have negative balance of payments.
I also point to having a negative balance of payments with a related higher foreign investment that is used to increase productivity is economically a positive development.
If the US had a negative balance of payments and was using the foreign purchase of our debt to further consumption over investment used to improve productivity that would economically be a very negative development.
The US advantage in these matters is that it is, relative to most of the rest of the world, a better place to invest. That condition is not a given and tariffs can have a negative effect.
If the US were to change its savings and consumption habits and invest it’s savings domestically in improving productivity, the US could have a thriving economy and a positive balance of payments. The key to a thriving economy, whether it has a negative or positive balance of payments, is having an environment favorable to business, markets and trade. Economically that means reducing government interference.
Mike, I am not attempting to change your mind or anyone else’s who reads here, but merely attempting to post what I know about these matters.
“With multiple processors running different pieces of program code in parallel, there is no need for interrupts.”
Depending on the timescales of what is being controlled this is no different than a multitasking RTOS. The problem with these systems is that synchronizing them can be tricky and it has to be done very carefully or you end up with hard to find intermittent bugs and even worse, deadlocks. Many times the API libraries for hardware access are not thread safe.
I have found that multitasking RTOS’s look attractive on paper but almost every real world application requires synchronizing the threads. Mutexes, semaphores, waits, etc.
The other alternative is a single task (superloop) with state machines to track independent processes. Here you have to make sure the code is non-blocking and that has its own set of minuses. Done properly this generally has the highest overall performance.
There is no free lunch. My preference has been superloops for long term reliability.
Tom,
Sure, it’s all the same stuff in the end. The trick isn’t just making it work properly, but being able to demonstrate / persuade reviewers that it’s right. IMO your favored approach is the easiest / best way to do that. It can still be done with multithreaded models and interrupts, but one has to be darn careful not to cross the imaginary lines so that in end the system can be deemed deterministic and acceptable. We’re doing more DO-178C these days. What a pain.
Russell,
I’ve been wondering how far the Pakistan Indian thing was going to go. I sure hope they both find a way to step back. A fight between those two likely wouldn’t end well for anybody.
Medical devices also have a lot more software / firmware focus than they used to. It’s for a good reason. The overall (wise) trend is to dump hardware complexity into software where possible to allow for future faster bug fixes and flexibility.
The problem is most software people don’t understand bare metal hardware. I have seen a lot of bad firmware with quite predictable failures. Of course all my early code was also riddled with the same problems.
Well, you know, the reason you are randomly dropping button pushes is you have indefinite blocking code all over the place here … huh? Is it really that important if we miss the emergency stop button 1% of the time?
Doing it properly means complex code in a lot of cases. Complex code increase the chances of bugs and is harder to maintain. And don’t even get me started on proper instrumentation to know what is happening down there …
Nowadays I mostly write code with the intent of being able to understand it ten years from now.
Kenneth Fritsch wrote (May 8, 2025 at 7:11 am): “That consumption is fulfilled by consuming both domestic and foreign goods. Thus the US citizens consume a great quantity of imported foreign goods.”
Kenneth Fritsch wrote (May 10, 2025 at 9:11 am): “If the US were to change its savings and consumption habits … the US could have a thriving economy and a positive balance of payments.”
That sure sounds to me like you are saying that our savings and consumption habits are the cause of our trade deficit. I think that is silly. Over the last half century, innumerable American factories have shut down. Many of the companies running those factories have gone out of business. Millions of workers who lost their jobs in those factories have been unable to find equivalent work. That was certainly NOT caused by American consumers wanting more goods than American factories could produce.
———
Kenneth Fritsch: “nations with lower savings and higher consumption rates tend to have negative balance of payments.”
Of course there is some correlation. Given the definitions of GDP and Gross Savings that almost has to be so. But that tells us absolutely nothing about cause and effect.
Mark,
My guess is they really didn’t want to fight and welcomed the peace initiative by Rubio and Vance.
When people lose good paying jobs, they are able to save less and likely will be forced to draw on the savings they already have. That reduces the overall level of savings. Trade deficits cause low savings rates.
Way too simplistic, but it makes more sense than what Kenneth claims.
Right. Wars can end quickly when both sides don’t want the fight.
Trade surpluses and deficits may be relatively easy to measure but I don’t think they are very meaningful. They are at most a symptom of something else that may be meaningful.
Tom Scharf,
“being able to understand it 10 years from now”
I guess it would help if I could understand the comments I loaded it up with ten years ago.
In a capitalist or even a semi-capitalist economy it is a healthy sign when some businesses, that are no longer profitable and not serving a consumer need, go out of business. We certainly no longer need a buggy whip factory thanks to progress and to the fact that the economy can adjust to changes. Manufacturing no longer needs as many employees due to higher productivity and that lower productivity jobs are better handled in other nations. The United States has become a more service oriented economy and thus destructive creation, which is the creation of new industries and products, and the simultaneous destruction of old ones, happens.
Though the unemployment rate overall does not see a major shift due to these changes some displaced workers may have problems with relocating, retraining or both in order to become employed. These problems can often be traced back to government policies and interferences that impede the economy as a whole and thus limit employment opportunities in general and in particularly for those affected by the changes noted above.
Doing this is where I learned that if you wanted to actually do something that worked without necessarily comprehending the whole problem you needed to try a lot of things, remember what you’d already tried, (loop advoidance) and NEVER give up.
John, I agree with this advice. I use coding as a tool to some other end and am not motivated to learn eloquent coding but rather only sufficiently well to reach my primary end. I have found that I can eventually get the job done by, like you said, never giving up.
From Vatican News…
Pope Leo XIV explains his choice of name:
“… I chose to take the name Leo XIV. There are different reasons for this, but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution. In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour.”
Jamie Dimon: “I’d change the name from red tape to blue tape—it’s the Democrats who want more regulations.”
Steve F
I think it more likely the Europeans will seize $600 billion in frozen Russian assets, ensuring a ‘frozen conflict’ when the fighting stops, and a new cold war lasting for decades.”
You have been right in the past.
–
They well may try if they sense Russian weakness or blood.
–
Very foolish or mean or both if they try.
–
Everyone has to give up a lot if pride for success, especially Zelensky.
–
KF
“John, I agree with this advice. I use coding as a tool to some other end and am not motivated to learn eloquent coding but rather only sufficiently well to reach my primary end. I have found that I can eventually get the job done by, like you said, never giving up.”
–
You guys have that quality I lack.
Forced to change my old e mail server.
Chickens coming home to roost for a slacker.
–
Best let Lucia know I will soon, hopefully , have a new email address and start burning the midnight oil transferring essentials
and notifying contacts.
So job one for Pope Leo XIV is putting Christian values on the development of artificial intelligence. His words yesterday:
“In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour.”
I have been pondering two questions:
One, is this a good idea? I think so, if done properly. Lots of knowledgeable people have been saying how dangerous the development of AI could be. Having some moral and ethical guidelines might help keep it from going off the rails.
Two, Can a people encyclical be a much influence in the development of AI? It probably will influence Catholic doctrine and teaching maybe for the next hundred years. Certainly the encyclical Rerum Novarum encyclical by Pope Leo the 13th that covered the Industrial Revolution influenced Catholic doctrine and teaching for that long. He issued it in the late 1800s and I remember quite a bit of instruction in it during the 1960s and 70s. From Wikipedia:
“Rerum novarum is considered a foundational text of modern Catholic social teaching.” A caveat, a Papal encyclical is not covered by the law Papal infallibility, so it is open to challenge.
The final thing I need to ponder is what the heck moral and ethical guidelines can be used on the development of AI.
If anyone is interested in the Cliff Notes version of Rerum Novarum you can find it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rerum_novarum
john ferguson,
“I guess it would help if I could understand the comments I loaded it up with ten years ago.”
Understanding code a decade later can be hard if you made good comments; but extremely hard without them. Someone else’s code? You better hope they wrote a lot more comments than code….. and it might help to pray if you are a believer. 😉
My younger brother, who spent his whole career supporting commercial sales/distribution/inventory on ‘mainframes’, once told me that the worst system crashes he ever saw happened when a programmer thought they understood what some other programmer had written a decade before, but didn’t really understand it. When a thousand cash registers stop working at the same moment it is costly.
Last night, warming up to order some capacitors, I entered “mouser” in Chrome. The display changed to a number of electronic parts vendors with DigiKey in the lead and Mouser about four entries down the list.
If Mouser has what I want, they get the business. I use Digikey when Mouser doesn’t have it. insidious.
While we’re at it, is anyone here tracking the development of AI to see if bootstrapping is part of the process? In other words are current AI systems being used to develop the next generation of systems or are they still designed from the outside — namely by humans?
Evolution of AI systems?
john ferguson,
Never used Chrome, but don’t you select your search engine in Chrome?
That kind of biased listing is why I stopped using Google years ago. I don’t notice that sort of thing with DuckDuckGo. Not as quick as Google, but much more reliable and unbiased.
Hi SteveF,
Yes it’s google. I recognize what google does and generally don’t have any problem, but the faster response seems to come at the cost of having to work one’s way past its first choices.
One of the frustrating things over here is the discovery of cracks in two coliumns in an 18 (?) story condo building in Clearwater. They evacutated everyone and are doing some sort of structural work. There are no visible reinforcement cages in either of the two columns shown in the posts about the problem. The cracks are vertical, appear to be inches wide and would reveal the stirrups (horizontal steel hoops which tie the vertical steel rebars together) yet no stirrups are visible. No stirrups means no reinforcement cages and without that these things are not structural.
I suspect these columns are cosmetic not structural because as they appear to have been built they wouldn’t have supported much.
What is more likely is that the building above them has settled through some problem in the foundations and these decorative “columns” were crushed under loads they weren’t designed for.
I expected to read some analysis along these lines by now 5 days after the discovery, but alas. The views of an engineer were reported in one article but it seemed clear to me that he hadn’t seen the thing.
I don’t know if the ten day rule applies to this sort of thing, but Dad was convinced that a realistic discussion in the media was unlikely to be accurate or even useful in fewer than ten days assuming it ever was.
I use Digikey first, and mostly only. Typically I won’t use parts in a design that aren’t in stock at Digikey, exceptions for vital stuff. Mouser would be my second source but it is rare for Mouser to have stock and Digikey not.
This is for design, production buys are typically done by a contract manufacturer who may use places like Avnet.
Digikey parameter searches are ideal for a power user, the search interface is quick, quick access to datasheets. The shipping charges are … ummmm … not great. It really looks like engineers designed the interface for engineers.
“Having some moral and ethical guidelines might help keep it from going off the rails.”
There are many different moral guidelines. I have no idea why there is a push for one moral guideline to rule them all. Just push out Christian AI, conservative AI, liberal AI, etc. These AI’s can still try to expose people to other principles.
Yes, I expect there to be a media panic on condos for quite a while. Nobody is going to want to sign up for “these columns are fine!”. The structural engineers will probably be super defensive and the rabble rousers will be quoted.
Tom Scharf,
I also mostly use digikey, unless what I am buying is (relatively) expensive and I then do some price comparisons.
I agree too that the parameter search is good at digikey, but not terrible at mouser. I really like the in-stock screening of parts, since I often needed the part last week.
john ferguson,
Yes, the columns would have likely failed during construction if they really were not reinforced, not an eternity later after surviving added loads from hurricanes.
There was a catastrophic failure of a high-rise in Brazil about 20 years ago, killing many, but it was because the contractor had used low-strength concrete (lower portland cement) to save money…. some people ended up in prison IIRC.
I bet you could buy in that high rise for a lower price than last month. 😉
Hi SteveF. It turns out there is vertical steel in one of the columns likely an 8 or bigger (1″ diameter) but no stirrups which would likely have prevented the failure. They are required, which means this thing was non-conforming and if the rest of the columns are like this the building will very likely be condemned.
It makes me wonder how many others are like this.
Roommate in College was Latvian, his father was an architect in Milwaukee. Sometime in 1937 or so, a Stadium was built in Riga which collapsed on first use and killed a lot of people. The architect, engineer, and construction manager were condemned to death and only survived because of the arrival of the Russians at the beginning of the war, 1939, I think.
I worked at a firm that had a salt water dock fail because the sea water penetrated the concrete and corroded the steel rebar inside. I’m not a structural engineer but was included in the negotiations because I was the go between with the liability insurance company.
So the Pope is late to the party; at least thirteen organizations already have or are developing ethical rules for artificial intelligence.
Examples:
UNESCO
Framework: UNESCO’s Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence (2021), adopted by 193 member states, emphasizes human rights, transparency, fairness, and human oversight. It includes policy action areas like data governance, environmental sustainability, and gender equality.
Initiatives: The Global AI Ethics and Governance Observatory provides resources for ethical AI adoption, and the Business Council for Ethics of AI (co-chaired by Microsoft and Telefonica) promotes ethical practices in Latin America.
Partnership on AI
Framework: A nonprofit founded by Amazon, Google, Facebook, IBM, Microsoft, and later joined by Apple, it promotes best practices for ethical AI, focusing on fairness, transparency, and public understanding.
Initiatives: Conducts research, shares insights, and collaborates with academia to advance responsible AI.
IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
Framework: The Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems outlines eight principles, including human rights, transparency, and accountability. The Ethically Aligned Design initiative provides actionable guidelines.
Initiatives: IEEE’s standards, like the Model Process for Addressing Ethical Concerns During System Design, help integrate ethics into AI development.
GROK’s complete list: https://x.com/i/grok/share/HZKxtWwUJELXaoc771tAQOY7D
When the 7 mile bridge in the keys was designed, it was thought that coating the reinforceing steel with epoxy would stop corrosion. It turned out that this was wrong. The bars and tendons corroded anyway.
Same thing with reinforcement in condo balconies, same mistaken assumption.
Rinker who used to provide most of the concrete in South Florida came up with a concrete design which really did stop the moisture penetetration. This must have been in the late nineties when I was working in Miami.
i have no idea what they’ve had to do to keep that bridge useable. I’m sure it isn’t the only one.
John,
Do you have knowledge about how Roman concrete, (without steel!) is still standing today?
Russell, there is no steel or iron reinforcement in Roman concrete which means spalling due to corrosion. Corrosion of reinforcement is a major contributor to failure of concrete elements in construction.
I’m agnostic on Roman concrete mix.
Trump:
“Therefore, I am pleased to announce that Tomorrow morning, in the White House, at 9:00 A.M., I will be signing one of the most consequential Executive Orders in our Country’s history. Prescription Drug and Pharmaceutical prices will be REDUCED, almost immediately, by 30% to 80%. “ https://x.com/trumpdailyposts/status/1921697332820578362?s=61&t=7w4bCW3a8ve2DqoeniQatQ
Russell
Prescription Drug and Pharmaceutical prices will be REDUCED, almost immediately, by 30% to 80%.
I’m not holding my breath.
Lucia,
Brutal…. they even are the butt of jokes on uber-Liberal SNL, from the NY Post:
Harry and Meghan were brutally roasted on “Saturday Night Live” by Colin Jost during his “Weekend Update” sketch with Michael Che.
“President [Donald] Trump also announced a new trade deal with the UK that will reopen British markets for American companies,” he said on the NBC show.
“All that Britain demands in return is that we keep these two,” the comedian, 42, added as a photo of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex appeared on the screen.
Video: https://pagesix.com/2025/05/11/celebrity-news/prince-harry-meghan-markle-brutally-roasted-on-snl-as-colin-jost-says-uk-wants-the-us-to-keep-the-royals/
The treefrogs are happy and singing again, finally!
We got a little over 1/2 inch of rain, not much, but we’ll take it. My part of Florida has been undergoing a prolonged drought. It is officially categorized as ‘severe to extreme’. The rainy season should be starting in about 30 days. I hope this tides us over. https://www.drought.gov/states/florida/county/Sarasota
A side note on treefrogs:
We have lived on this property for nearly half a century (honest!). During that time the tiny native green treefrogs have been entirely displaced by invasive Cuban treefrogs. The illegal alian treefrogs are big, ugly and loud. They eat the cute little native green treefrogs.
Further reading from the University of Florida: https://ufwildlife.ifas.ufl.edu/frogs/greentreefrog.shtml https://ufwildlife.ifas.ufl.edu/cuban_treefrog_infl.shtml
A side note on wildfires:
It is notable that we have had 1,000 wildfires during the drought this year but few got out of control and caused destruction to structures, a testament to Florida’s forest management efforts. It should be further noted that the recent hurricanes have generated a lot of fuel in the forests from downed trees.
“Florida’s peak wildfire impacts usually occur from April through June. However, since January more than 1,000 wildfires in the Sunshine State have burned 51,000 acres. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, parts of Central Florida and Florida’s Heartland are experiencing severe drought.“ https://www.foxweather.com/extreme-weather/florida-fire-danger-drought-april-2025
It is a quick-lime /hydrated lime based mortar, which can also contain some gypsum, mixed with a large amount of volcanic ash; the volcanic ash being key to its long utility. It apparently lasts a very long time (even submerged in seawater) because the infiltration of water due to any imperfections/cracks causes reactions that generate compounds that ‘self-heal’ cracks. It is also said the concrete retains a fair amount of tensile strength in addition to compressive strength.
Big reductions in drug prices? Only if Trump has pressured the Europeans, Chinese, Indians, Japanese, and Australians to actually pay a fair price for the drugs they purchased…… which have historically been indirectly paid for by people in the USA. Just cutting prices in the USA would only mean funding for pharma research will be drastically reduced.
Trade deals with the Chinese and “17 other major trading partners” are close? We will see. I hope so, and that the deals all include reasonably uniform pricing for drugs.
SteveF,
Roman concrete is undoubtedly a better mix than what has most typically been used in the US up until recently. We would have been better off using it without a doubt although we have used Pozzalan, a mix similar to the Roman for many years with similar qualities, but obviously only in unusual circumstances..
An aspect to all this that puzzles me is the lack of interest in projected lifetime of the buildings we designed. Except for some public works projects which were required to be designed for 100 year lives, we completely ignored the question which might account for no-one waterproofing of foundations of buildings on the beach in Florida.
I did some post-tension reinforced biuldings in Chicago suburbs in the early ’80s a bit west of Hinsdale. They are still there, but no thought whatever was given to how long they should last. The condo we moved out of here in St Pete has corroding cable anchors at thde ends of many of the 3700 post-tension cables supporting the upper 20 floors. The cost to inspect and replace each cable that turns out to need it will be $5k +/- The corrosion is due to the anchor ends being “sealed” with what turned out to be porous grout which admitted wind born salty rainwater over the 50 years it’s been standing there.
My projects covered the cable ends behind glass curtain walls and then there isn’t all that much salty rainwater in Hinsdale unless something’s changed.
So the problem is that better construction materials and techniques were avaliable 50 years ago, but for the most part no-one worried about it and if we had I doubt that clients would have paid for it.
Trump says we will pay the same price for drugs as paid by the country that pays the least. Maybe he can do that for Medicare, but it is not clear to me what gives him that power. I don’t see how he can limit private market prices without an act of Congress.
I have long thought that drug prices in the US should be tied to what they are sold for elsewhere. That would force pharma companies to hold out for higher prices when negotiating with central buyers in other countries. Then other countries would be helping to cover R&D costs.
But it seems to me that there needs to be a phase in period to give pharma a chance to negotiate elsewhere under the new rules. And I think that there should be an exception for less developed countries. I have no problem with people in Africa paying less than we do.
I guess we will get to see the text of the Executive Order a little later this morning.
Yes, the lack of interest in construction projects (all kinds) has always been a puzzle.
My house on Cape Cod is now over 100 years old, in large part because it was constructed using ‘old growth’ pine, which is remarkably hard and rot resistant (for pine!). The growth rings in boards I have cut (for renovations) are so close to each other that it is sometimes almost impossible to count them….. there were trees used in the original construction that were 100+ years old when the house was built…… and now still in service 100+ years after cutting.
Maybe the issue is what Keynes observed: in the long run, we are all dead. Worrying about a future 50 years after your own demise is not high on the list of priorities for many people.
I’ll reserve judgment until Roman cement has a 1000 semi’s traveling over it ever day for decades.
There is a YouTube channel called Practical Engineering I watch that goes into a lot of these issues. It’s pretty good.
Stocks have now recovered from the “trade war”. We shall see what happens next. It matters where we end up, not the journey. I don’t think protectionism is a feature but it has its place in certain circumstances.
ps: Just had an order from China canceled by vendor with a note that had he shipped it would have borne the full effect of Trump’s current vigorish. He said he’d send me a note when things were more reasonable and I could re-order.
My contractor a while back showed me what the difference was drilling a screw into 30 year old wood and new wood. Quite the difference.
I cannot believe how big a screw you can put into a piece of wood with a modern small battery impact drill without a pilot hole.
The Russians have been using attack drones with up to 10 km of fiber optic cable. Cannot be jammed.
Yes, you can nail it, but you often bend one over and have to try again. Nothing like the SPF lumber you buy today, which seems a little like a cross between balsa and Douglass fir.
tom scharf,
Yes, but you risk cracking the wood with no pilot holes….. especially if the wood has much density. I had to secure 2×6 headers to a 4×8 beam with lag bolts last year (for a new porch floor). The impact driver would have done it without pilots, but I wouldn’t. 😉
Tom,
Ukraine too is using fiber optic cable drones. I don’t know when Russia started using them but Ukraine has been developing them for about a year.
“Capt Yuriy Fedorenko, the commander of a specialist drone unit, the Achilles regiment, says fibre optic drones were an experimental response to battlefield jamming and rapidly took off late last year” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/23/they-cannot-be-jammed-fibre-optic-drones-pose-new-threat-in-ukraine
The speed of new drone warfare developments seems to be slowing down. For a time new features were an everyday occurrence. Now, both sides are well into production mode.
SteveF, Years ago we had to add some struts to wood floor framing in our 1911 house in La Grange, Il outside of Chicago. You could dent the wood with nails bu not much more than that. It took holes the minor diameter of the screws to make it work.
I thought the wood must be Oak, but neighbor said it was pine and that it gets really hard eventually.
The Trojan horse from Qatar.
I once worked on a project which purified copier machines for use in embassies. Completely disassembled, exposed to all sorts of tests and reassembled. The idea was that a copier that either remembered or whose work could be remotely accessed shouldn’t be in an embassy.
My guess is that this would need to be done to the Qatar 747 and would likely take almost as much time as building one from scratch.
Maybe someone on Fox News will realize this and save the day.
john frrguson,
Part of the apparent hardening could be loss of moisture. Unless fully kiln dried, it can take multiple years for structural lumber to fully dry. But I suspect the biggest difference is the density of the trees the lumber came from. Trees harvested a hundred+ years ago were mostly from natural stands with very old trees, not planted stands of strains selected for fast growth. Harvesting conifers for lumber at less than 30 YO is said to now be common.
I have a live oak behind my house that is than 30 years old and more than 18″ diameter!
SteveF,
I buy the theory that houses in 1911 were built from old-stand lumber and maybe even sometimes from Oak.
We understood that Florida live oak as construction lumber gets really hard over the years.
As it turns out fiber optic cable weighs a lot more than radio waves so the new fiber optic drones are still a specialist use. They can also get snagged. Unsurprisingly Russia looks like it was targeting electronic warfare / jamming vehicles with their version.
It depends on who is building the plane. Boeing was originally scheduled to deliver the new Air Force One in 2022 and it was pushed back to 2029, then reconfigured for delivery in 2026. I doubt they will make it. They are apparently now taking losses on this project as well as Starliner.
My guess is this is all about Trump needling Boeing, which deserves it. The Qatar plane should be considered unsecure. Trump pretty much thinks out loud so I’m not sure it matters much.
Could be that Trump doesn’t care about security because the folks most likely to listen are friends of his. /snarc
More probably he’s never heard of the Trojan horse, nor has he any grasp of how subtley a large plane could be bugged, or even that it could be bugged.
On the gold plated jumbo jet gift….
Besides loving boy’s toys, Trump does this stuff to distract the Left Wing Media and Democrats, and they fall for it every time. Instead of spending all there time disrupting his Saudi visit, they are going after the Jet.
He also gave citizenship to a bunch of white farmer refugees… that really bugs them. They are off chasing squirrels.
Reuters “US slashes ‘de minimis’ tariff on small China parcels to 54%” That’s quite a slash from 0 to 54%. Oh wait, it was a whole lot more briefly.
This applies to things with wholesale values below $800. I don’t know what they base it on when it’s in effect a retail sale.
Pricing of the things I buy will still be acceptable with this 54% kick.
I think it’s a brilliant strategy. He knows they are going to spend almost all their airtime attacking him so he yanks their chains by giving them hot -button nonsense issues to pursue. Like a gift of a jumbo jet.
Remember the Trump 2028 hats? They spent two weeks on that.
I think it’s a brilliant strategy. He knows they are going to spend almost all their airtime attacking him so he yanks their chains by giving them hot -button nonsense issues to pursue.
Remember the Trump 2028 hats? They spent two weeks on that.
The media hasn’t figured out that Trump is a used car salesman at heart. Incomprehensible maximalist demands and then a negotiation. Somehow 30% tariffs on China is now “good news”.
Harvard had another $540M in grants revoked, another investigation opened for their (openly and proudly racist) hiring practices, and the Department of Education is vowing no future grants. Harvard will likely win a lot / most of these cases but there will be reputational damage accruing and they will end up worse off for the fight. Future Harvard administrations will no doubt tread lightly when activist faculty have the great idea to process everything through an identity lens.
Harvard’s best plan would be to split their school between the hard sciences / medical and whatever you call the rest of that madness. Separate administrations. Unlikely. The hard working faculty have got to resent the crazies taking the ship down.
Tom Scharf,
The majority of the Harvard faculty are in the crazy (fluff subjects) departments, so I doubt much is going to change, no matter how much it costs funding in medicine and the hard sciences. It is also true that Harvard has been very careful in their hiring for the last couple of decades to allow only the most dedicated leftists in, and a lot of the faculty in law, medicine, and the hard sciences are now just as wedded to DEI, racially based admissions, and ‘oppressor/oppressed theory’ of politics as the faculty in the many fluff departments.
IMHO, the place needs to be defunded to the maximum extent possible; they are doing enormous net harm to the country.
I can’t quite figure this out. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/david-hogg-slams-fast-track-effort-oust-him-dnc-vice-chair
“One vice-chair position may be filled by a male and one may be a candidate of any gender, according to the DNC
…
“This is not about David Hogg, despite what he’s saying. It is gender balance…. It’s in the rules that the officers need to be balanced between men and women.
…
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Free said the Credentials Committee lived up to the DNC’s reputation as “the party of free and fair elections” on Monday, and proved that “protecting democracy is more important than saving face.”
“This was never about Malcolm Kenyatta or David Hogg,” Free said. “For me, this was about ensuring that the Democratic Party lives up to our ideals as the only political party to believe in and stand up for election integrity and a free and fair democracy.””
Orwellian 4-D chess.
While their joint statement, opens new tab in Geneva didn’t mention the de minimis duties, the White House order released later said the levies will be reduced to 54% from 120% for items valued at up to $800 sent from China via postal services, with a flat fee of $100 to remain, starting from May 14.
Catching up on all the comments … you all chat faster than I read!
My alma mater had made a point of combining computer science and engineering so software-oriented people HAD to at least get familiar with hardware and vice-versa. This had the virtue of forcing you to realize your software had to run on actual hardware or that some poor bugger had to write code to run on whatever you built.
As far as the balance of payments versus savings rate and consumption rates go, the correlation makes sense to me. It’s not direct causation but a great deal of our trade deficit comes from Americans buying things they don’t really need which is a huge change in culture from our previous “thrifty Yankee” culture. We generally don’t repair anything anymore because it’s cheaper to just replace it.
I don’t credit Trump with thinking this out deeply but believe he gets to the same place instinctually. I have evolved to a point where I care less about his reasoning (or lack thereof) than if I think the policy itself is achieving the right effect.
One thing I have always questioned about the effects attributed to Smoot-Hawley was the fact that America in the 1920s and 1930s was an export-driven economy. A tariff was was bound to hurt exports and therefore the economy. America in the 21st century has been largely driven by imports; tariffs would tend to change the cost equation when people are deciding on domestic versus imported products and slide some of the decisions over toward the domestic product. The person wanting to buy a new Porsche is still probably going to go with the Porsche, just paying more or going for a lesser model, but the person deciding between a car made in Mexico or Canada and one made in South Carolina may end up shifting to the domestically-produced car. That keeps more of the money flowing domestically.
I’m not at all happy about the plethora of Executive Orders to accomplish Trump’s policy goals but realistically he probably had to go that route in order to get things done in the next 12-15 months while he can. I blame Clinton for starting the EO abuse — anyone remember Paul Begala chortling about “stroke of a pen, law of the land”? Trump saw what Clinton, Obama, and Biden had done and took it to a new level to try to get to a status quo ante.
I have been watching this Saudi trip all day and it seems to be a homerun for Trump. Even CNN isn’t finding fault.
“I’m not at all happy about the plethora of Executive Orders to accomplish Trump’s policy goals but realistically he probably had to go that route in order to get things done in the next 12-15 months while he can.”
Sure, but many (at least the early ones) of Trump EO’s simply reversed Biden’s EOs. Trump is… (he is Trump after all)…. pouring gasoline on the EO bonfire with his own EO’s that are just as likely unlawful as were many of Biden’s. EO’s are a poor way to govern, and I think it would be more productive if Trump spent more energy working with Congress to actually pass laws that can’t be so easily reversed by the next president if he/she is a Dem.
SteveF: “it would be more productive if Trump spent more energy working with Congress to actually pass laws that can’t be so easily reversed “.
Well, sure. But that is not an option. Unless they get rid of the filibuster, but then they can be easily reversed.
WI judge indicted on obstructing immigration agents. Man was that ever a dumb move by her. There couldn’t be a clearer case of judicial activism, this plays right into Trump’s hands.
Another favorite place to arrest people is at their parole officer meetings.
Right according to Trump’s plan, ALL the Left Wing news outlets have stories criticizing him over the Qatar jumbo jet. They fall for it every time. He’s being Presidential making history in the Middle East and the Liberal media are frantically chasing a wild goose.
Eg:
“The Free Plane Trump Wants to Accept Might Just Be a Trojan Horse”
“GOP heavyweights join bipartisan bashing of Trump Qatar jet deal”
Eisenhower named the Constellation that was the first Air Force 1 “Columbine II”
Trump could call his 747 “Wild Goose”
Before Air Force One, FDR’s plane was “The Sacred Cow”.
Wild Goose works on several levels for Trump.
Seems Trump trolls the MSM pretty much 24/7, and always gets the desired “well, I never!!!” reaction of outrage.
Tom Scharf,
I suspect the WI judge will enter a plea deal with suspended sentence, a couple years parole, and resignation of her judgeship. It would be better for the country, and for the rule of law, if she spent a few months in Federal prison, but that seems to me unlikely in a plea bargain. Of course, she may be just crazy enough to risk a jury trial, which would almost certainly lead to a year or two in prison. We can cross our fingers and hope she is that crazy.
In Wisconsin, convicted felons can never be judges…… a plea deal gives her a chance to work as a judge in the future. A conviction excludes that possibility. She should look for a plea deal…. but I hope she doesn’t.
The Wisconsin judge should be disbarred. She did not just commit a felony while serving as a judge, she used her position to commit the felony. One can lose all sorts of professional licenses for doing that: https://dsps.wi.gov/Pages/Professions/LicensureOffenses.aspx
That specific page does not cover attorneys, but surely the standard there ought to be at least as high. Attorneys are officers of the court; felons should not be tolerated. Can a felon be a cop? I think not.
The embrace of Syria is humorous. I’m sure this is all about opposing Iran and helping Saudi relations but the Middle East dynamics are ever changing. It is always a convoluted mess over there.
Newsom tells CA cities to clear homeless encampments and today says he is scaling back free health care for illegal immigrants. He’s definitely running for president in 2028.
“EO’s are a poor way to govern, and I think it would be more productive if Trump spent more energy working with Congress to actually pass laws that can’t be so easily reversed by the next president if he/she is a Dem.”
Long term, I would agree but the problem is that Trump and the GOP need to show improvement before the 2028 election cycle or their base will abandon them for doing nothing. I suspect Trump’s plan (if he ever had one) was to use the EOs to get change going and have Congress institutionalize the changes made by those EOs.
Assuming the changes from his EOs are effective (and they largely have been so far), voters in 2028 will solidify his support in Congress either by increasing the slim Republican majority or by forcing at least some Democrats to acknowledge reality and support what works (like Newsom is starting to do in California).
I still don’t like the plethora of EOs but I don’t like realpolitik either and I can acknowledge both are necessary for quick and effective government.
Derek, your post:
“I think it would be more productive if Trump spent more energy working with Congress to actually pass laws that can’t be so easily reversed by the next president if he/she is a Dem.”
I think that is a total waste of of time.
Congress has been a dysfunctional organization for over a generation. If either party can block legislation in the Senate, they will, it doesn’t matter whether it’s Democrat or Republican in the minority.
The American system of government has failed in that regard.
Governor DeSantis is pushing for a constitutional amendment for term limits in Congress, that might work.
A Republican supermajority in the Senate at midterms would also work for me.
DerekH,
Your analysis re executives orders is basically sound, except that Trump does not have until 2028 to get results. He needs at least some results by the midterms.
Tom Scharf: “The embrace of Syria is humorous.”
Embrace? Have I missed something? The only thing I heard about is the obvious step of dropping sanctions. Is there something beyond that?
How is it humorous? I don’t get that at all.
The leaders in Syria are Islamic militants, they just happen to be less worse than ISIS and al-Assad because he aligned with Russia.
A couple interesting points from today’s ISW report:
“NEW: The Russian military is reportedly generating enough forces to replace losses and is reinforcing the size of the Russian force grouping in Ukraine despite experiencing an increased casualty rate per square kilometer gained.”
Translation, The Russian advances are costing more Russian blood.
And:
“The Russian military command appears to be establishing a tactical doctrine and force structure for the use of motorcycle and civilian vehicle units in frontal assaults, underscoring the Russian military’s efforts to offset Ukraine’s drone advantages and achieve maneuver in modern ground warfare.”
Translation, The Russian advances are costing fewer tanks and APCs.
Tom Scharf: “The leaders in Syria are Islamic militants”.
Do we know that? Real question.
Obviously they are Islamic. And they are militant in that they just waged a successful war against the Assad government. But that does not make them extremists.
I know that they had support from extremist groups. But one can not be too picky about allies in war.
It seems to me that the big question in Syria is who will prevail in the new government: the islamists or relative moderates. If we can influence it toward the latter, we ought to try.
p.s. – The spell checker thinks there is no such word as “islamist”. I have a theory as to why.
Russell,
drones and satellite recon have totally changed modern warfare. When a $1500 drone can reliably take out a $4m Bradley IFV, something had to change.
Costs: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57103
Russian assault tactics are currently using drones, artillery, and air dropped glide bombs to soften up enemy defenses, which are also becoming increasingly dispersed. As such you now see small numbers of dispersed Russian “Dragoons”, infantry mounted on motorcycles and small 4 wheel utility vehicles, attacking small numbers of Ukrainian defenders. Both defense and attack are now typically seen in squad sizes or less.
The US military is ridiculing the Russian use of motorcycles in the assault while at the same time increasing the use of motorcycles in their own forces.
Dispersement of forces and having the ability to quickly move across open ground reduces casualties, not increase casualties. One must also take ISW reports with caution as they only publish the official Ukrainian government positions which many times bear little or no resemblance to reality.
AFAICT there are no good guys in Syria except perhaps the Kurds. The good news is the civil war has rendered Syria not much of a threat to anyone outside their borders.
“The current leader of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, is a former rebel leader who was once aligned with al-Qaeda and later with the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States. He is now serving as the interim president of Syria.”
I have no problem with trying to have peaceful relations with just about anyone and keeping them away from Iran / Russia is a good idea for the region. I would expect this to ultimately be unsuccessful due to lack of trust on both sides but we shall see.
How Russia took record losses in Ukraine in 2024 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yg4z6v600o
“Last year was the deadliest for Russian forces since the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine: at least 45,287 people were killed.
This is almost three times more than in the first year of the invasion and significantly exceeds the losses of 2023, when the longest and deadliest battle of the war was taking place in Bakhmut.”
Mike M, that’s basically what I said. I was quoting a response to my other long-winded catchup post. I accept Trump’s plethora of EOs precisely because he and the GOP need to show results in the next 12-15 months. Philosophically, I still don’t like it but practically, it’s what he had to do.
The new Pope started posting on X today:
“The Holy See is willing to help enemies meet, so they may look each other in the eye and so people may be given back the dignity they deserve: the dignity of peace. With heart in hand, I say to the leaders of nations: let us meet; let us dialogue; let us negotiate!” https://x.com/pontifex/status/1922656143312076879?s=61&t=7w4bCW3a8ve2DqoeniQatQ
Mike M.
Regarding the real question. It’s a good question.
I think one has to carefully consider the political and perhaps military or conflict evironments and if they are complex and dangerous, one cannot be too fussy about the choice a competent person might make.
Withal, maybe the choice isn’t attractive but the alternatives were much worse — if you’re not a Kurd, of course
Looks like a newish bunker buster. Targeted the current Hamas leader. No word on whether he survived.
Mike M,
“The Wisconsin judge should be disbarred. ”
Sure, but the people who make that determination are not likely going to disbar her, no matter how much that is warranted…. she is an obvious felon who should be sitting in prison for a couple of years, but that doesn’t count for much among partisan lawyers.
Of course, if she fights the charges, is convicted and goes to Federal prison, then she could well be disbarred…. even for the loony-left legal profession there is a point at which they become embarrassed by their own partisanship, at least for now. I still think shew will go with a plea bargain.
SteveF,
But plea bargains sometimes include conditions such as surrendering her law license. I’d be satisfied with a plea bargain that results in a suspended sentence contingent on community service and surrender of license to practice law. I don’t see much point to a prison sentence other than as either vengeance or an inducement to plea bargain.
Motion to dismiss :
“government cannot prosecute Judge Dugan because she is entitled to judicial immunity “
That motion will not be granted. She is obviously a criminal who believes she is above the law.
Russia and Ukraine continue to require
“conditions” be satisfied before talks start. Doesn’t look like much will happen for a while more.
Hamas leaders will ultimate cede power or be killed…. which also means ceding power. Which it is probably matters less in the long term than the short term. They can flee and immediately end the fighting in Gaza , or most can be killed over the next couple of years. Fleeing would avoid having to meet all those virgins in Heaven. It would also be better for the Gazans, but it is not clear they are willing to give up. Bunker busters may help them decide.
Whether the judge gets judicial immunity does not depend on whether what she did was criminal. It depends on whether her actions fell within her judicial duties.
She can argue that not letting ICE officers into her courtroom fell within the bounds of maintaining order in the courtroom. Then even if it was illegal, she might get away with it.
Then she helped the illegal escape by allowing him into a non-public area of the courthouse. I don’t see how she can claim that fell within her judicial duties. But courts have let police officers get away with some really outrageous behavior, so maybe she will get away with it.
That bunker buster “crater” is impressive, mainly because it seems to be a straight deep penetration. The narrowness of the hole suggests collateral damage would have been very light.
I’d be watching the WI bureaucracy to see if any of them “accidentally” violates procedures in such a way as to nullify her prosecution. We seem to have adopted the worst aspects of the former Soviet nomenklatura over the last 30 years and homo bureaucratis has gone from annoying to insufferably self-entitled and (in their POV) omnipotent.
I am also not a fan of EOs – goes against the very fabric of a democratic republic.
But that said, refraining from EOs assumes that we have a functioning congress – one that proposed bills can come in front of, be discussed and debated in a reasonable manner, and then acted upon. We don’t.
We don’t even have a congress that can even do the second-most important job – create a budget (Article 1, Section 7 of the constitution – the first 6 sections deal with congressional membership/elections and compensation) .
Are EOs better than doing nothing? It seems answering that is solely in the eye of the beholder – current Ds say no. Four years ago those same Ds said yes (and vice-versa for the Republicans).
BREAKING: Trump Makes Huge Announcement That India Will Now Slash Tariffs to Zero for US Goods
President Donald Trump announced a historic win for American workers, revealing that India has agreed to eliminate all tariffs on US goods, a deal he secured through his unmatched negotiating prowess.
I look at the judge’s “assistance” to the object of the Fed’s visit as anomolous and probably done with little if any consideration as to whether she was acting within the bounds of her purview.
I’m a bit surpised that some of us find her act so scandalous. Possibly not very smart, but how often one might ask has a local judge “thwarted” a federal operation. I’m sure she never dreamed she’d be arrested,
On the other hand, a prosecuter was able to convince a gran jury that she should be indicted. But of course we all agree that a ham sandwhich can be indicted esepcially if Donald Trump is the ham sandwhich. But of course when it’s Donald Trump, it couldn’t possibly be warranted.
It would be wonderful if more people sprung the $300 annually that the Economist now costs and then were able to read up on a greater range of ways to look at a lot of this.
john ferguson,
I don’t think a judge can plead ignorance of the law.
Her actions were quite deliberate. She started by throwing up legal barriers to ICE doing its job. She had every right to do that, but it shows she was thinking about what she was doing. Then she rearranged her court schedule without telling anybody, not even the prosecutor and witnesses waiting for the illegal guy’s case to be called. After what appears to have been at least a couple hours, she showed the illegal how to exit the building by going through an area he had no right to be in.
She broke the law. She knew she was breaking the law. She did so with deliberation. You wrote “I’m sure she never dreamed she’d be arrested”. No doubt that is true. But arrogance is not a defense.
A judge breaking the law while presiding over a courtroom. Yep, that is scandalous.
John Ferguson,
I would bet that either:
1) She enters a plea agreement, admitting illegal actions,
or
2) is convicted by a jury of multiple federal immigration crimes and goes to prison.
Unlike Trump’s many absurd convictions (like $400 million in civil fraud penalties for a ‘civil fraud’ with no identified victim), this one is, IMO, pretty clear criminality. The judge knowingly and willfully broke Federal immigration laws, for no reason beyond that she disagrees with those Federal immigration laws. We will see, but if I were her, I would take a plea.
BTW, I subscribed to the Economist for many years, starting in the 1970’s. I subscribed until it turned into yet another woke-loony-left mouthpiece, devoid of thoughtful (or even rational) analysis. Nothing I have read from the Economist in the past 15 years has been worth the time to read it.
John Ferguson,
IOW, the formerly conservative “Economist” of the 1970’s to late 1980’s fundamentally changed in the policies they support and the policies they oppose.. I did not change.
I blame it on the universities going loony-left, indoctrinating their students to be loony-left; students who moved on to places like the Economist. But the cause matters not, only the rationality of their positions matters…. which is, IMHO, completely absent.
“Putin suggested holding direct negotiations in Turkey on May 15.
President Zelenskyy with his team arrived in Turkey.
Putin is absent. Instead, he sent a non-representative delegation with no decision-making mandate.
Does Putin want to achieve peace and stop the war? The answer is obvious – no.”
Anton Gerashchenko https://x.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1922971894610808915
uncertainty for workers and their communities, as jobs vanished by the millions. This, lectured the economists, was “creative destruction” and a necessary process in the march of progress. Workers could adapt and move into new, more productive jobs … And yet, with the shoe now lodged firmly on the other foot, we are hearing less about the wonders of disruption and dynamism. Livelihoods destroyed by sudden shifts in the economics of trade with China apparently build less character in business owners, for whom just rebuilding from scratch in some new line of work is apparently much harder than for the typical machinist with a family to feed.
The author does comment that it the transition to a new regime should be more gradual. He is right about that, in the abstract. But Trump does not have that luxury. If the process drags out, it will fail.
SteveF,
Is it possible you haven’t read a recent Economist? Say one from the last several weeks?
SteveF,
A fraud conviction does not require an admitted or acknowledged victim, although I suspect that few fraud charges are brought without a complaint.
The Chinese J -10c fighter has proven to be superior to the french jets flown by India. Reports are india lost French made Dassault Rafale and Mirage 2000 fighter jets in the fracas.
This is the first acid test of the Chinese fighter.
Looks like more business will be coming to the US aircraft industry as countries will be upgrading from junk sold by Europe. https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/chinese-fighter-bests-rafale-in-india-pakistan-dogfight/
The articles and op-eds I’ve read from “The Economist” over the last 15 years or so wouldn’t get me to pay $0.30 for their product much less $300. If anything, I want a refund of the time wasted reading their drivel.
The first rule any business should have in reacting to anything put out by Trump is … DON’T. With Trump, you always need to wait and see what really happens. He says a lot of things, some of it for effect.
It is too early to say the Chinese fighters are superior to the French-made ones. They may have had superior missiles or had first mover advantage. There are too many variables at play to make a definitive statement about the platforms unless you have a LOT more information than has been made public.
john ferguson,
“Is it possible you haven’t read a recent Economist? Say one from the last several weeks?”
Obviously I have not.
After learning over multiple years that this source of information is worse than useless (AKA pure garbage, more often wrong than right) what motivation would I have to waste money on them? I remind you: I paid for their magazine for 20+ years. When they went crazy, they left me, I didn’t leave them.
IIRC, the first indication of them going crazy was their wholehearted embrace of the climate ‘catastrophe’ lunacy. As I have said many times before: yes, increasing GHG concentrations (especially CO2, along with others) will cause some warming of Earth…… most likely about 1.8 to 2 C per doubling of CO2, or its equivalent in other infrared absorbing gases, after a century or so to approach equilibrium. No, that warming is neither catastrophic nor warrants the absurdly expensive ‘solutions’ that are on offer. Especially since those ‘solutions’ will do enormous economic harm… especially to the poorest people on Earth. IMHO, the Economist sold its soul 20 years ago, and like MSNBCCNABCCBS, are no longer a credible source of information.
SteveF,
It’s true that the Economist prints nonsense in some areas. But not in total, in my opinion.
Their analysis of the outage in Spain and Potugal was excellent although I did question the statment apparently made by someone in the Spanish system that protection from extremely infrequent faults might not make sense due to extreme cost of the necessary equipment.
I also read the Atlantic. I would like to think I can tell when they’ve left the track.
Not being taken seriously even assuming a legitimate complaint about Trump is a price countless organizations willingly chose to pay in their zeal to oppose him over the last decade. That we should give them another go is an unreasonable and unjustified ask IMO.
Ok, Ok,
what do you guys think is reliable reading?
john a ferguson wrote: “A fraud conviction does not require an admitted or acknowledged victim”.
It seems that is true of the bizarre NY law used against Trump. But in general fraud requires a victim, or at least an intended victim.
From Legal Dictionary:
certain elements must be in place for fraud to fall under the category of a criminal offense.
Intentional deception by false pretense with the intent to convince the victim to part with money or property.
The belief in the deception by the victim, who actually parts with the money or property under the false pretenses.
The perpetrator keeping, or intending to keep, the money or property in question.
The prosecutor must prove the following to get a conviction:
There was a purposeful deception, such as a false statement or misrepresentation of an important fact
There was intent to deprive the victim of something, usually money
The victim suffered or could have suffered an actual loss due to the fraudulent activity
Since the banks did their own appraisals of Trump’s properties, they did not rely on the valuations Trump provided. So they should not have suffered a loss as a result. And they did not suffer a loss.
Mark,
not being taken seriouslt by some, don’t you think?
There’s a huge credibility debt that I don’t see why anyone should be willing to overlook. Account is closed and turned over to collections.
John, yes. Still being taken seriously by Democrats apparently.
No source is (in my opinion) completely reliable which is why I spread my reading across multiple sources but some sources have been so bad (especially in the past decade) that they are almost totally unreliable so I don’t waste time with them.
I had this discussion a couple months ago with my nephew who was getting spun up by some story on “60 Minutes”.
With “The Economist”, I will sometimes give them a few paragraphs to see if it’s worth continuing to read but my BS meter is tuned to high sensitivity and I certainly won’t make a point of seeking out articles from them. Many other sources won’t even get those few paragraphs of my reading time.
John Ferguson,
If someone asked me (under oath) “what was your income” related to a loan application, or “what is the value of your property”, those are for me at least factual questions, although terribly clouded by things like estimated earnings, market uncertainty, year-to-year variation, and uncertainty in (completely honest) company inventory records.
Were I to default on a bank loan, these are least fair questions. What is NOT a fair question is if I am responsible for a bank’s evaluation of my credit worthiness. The bank has its own due diligence obligations to its shareholders., which I assume were fulfilled in Trumps application for a (very large) loan from Deutsche Bank. To prosecute Trump for fraud on a loan 1) entered into freely by a large, sophisticated bank, fully aware of Trump’s history, and asset values, and 2) which was paid back in full and on time, is quite honestly absurd on its face.
Anyone who thinks other wise is motivated by politics not by reason .
john ferguson,
What is reliable reading? In my honest experience, very little is reliable. Most of what I read is garbage, at least if considered as a factual analysis. That goes for what is presented on both the right and the left…. pretty much all false and/or distorted, all the time.
But the falsities on the left cause more harm, if only because they are screamed at the public through a much bigger megaphone.
The first time I was aware of this sorry fact was when CBS (that evil company behind people like Dan Rather) broadcast an “investigative program” which they titled “The Plastic Peril” (1974? 1975?). In the program they claimed the potential for future cancer fatalities was “in the multiple thousands” including secondary effects in families and children, but that “the risk could not be determined because the companies were hiding the most important information”.
Everything they reported was either false or a willful distortion.
The subject of the broadcast was workers who had contracted an unusual kind of liver cancer called ‘angiosarcoma’, which was uniformly fatal once diagnosed. The risk for this cancer was found (by the companies employing those workers, via health monitoring) directly related to high levels of exposure to the polymerization monomer vinyl chloride. I was a young research chemist (working myself most every day with vinyl chloride monomer!) and I was assigned to help evaluate 1) what the true work exposures to the monomer were, and 2) what the likely risks were for additional angiosarcoma cases.
So after some months of effort, we knew pretty clearly what the risks were:
1) Many (most?) of those diagnosed with angiosarcoma were reported by their coworkers to have practiced long term abuse of the monomer… purposely inhaling the compound at high concentrations to “get high” at work, and
2) the remainder of cases (literally half a dozen) were all from a specific job: internal reactor cleaners… the reactors were 10 to 20 cubic meters volume and had to be periodically entered for cleaning (removal of accumulated polymer). That work caused exceptionally high long term exposures to the monomer.
( I note there that the monomer had been used for many years in operating rooms as a general anesthetic.)
Anyway, we were pretty sure of the potential risk, and it was literally a few dozen workers in a handful of production plants. What we were not sure about was the exact dose/risk ratio, but whatever it was, we knew it could not be very high, or there would have been many more cases than had been identified.
So when CBS broadcast “The Plastic Peril” about angiosarcoma and exposure to vinyl chloride, essentially everything they reported was either wrong or a willful distortion of the facts. Anyone who believed that report was completely misinformed and misled….. and THAT WAS THE WHOLE POINT of the broadcast. Not to inform, but to lie. Not to explain, but to distort. Not to help, but to harm. And most of all, to promote a narrative about the evil nature of chemical companies… and companies in general,
Every time I have had first hand knowledge and experience about a subject in “the news” I have found exactly the same thing: always wrong, always distorted, and always with an agenda that has nothing to do with the facts.
The “economist” and its ilk are so far removed from factual analysis that they are little more than a joke.
Steve,
Most of what I read is garbage, at least if considered as a factual analysis. That goes for what is presented on both the right and the left…. pretty much all false and/or distorted, all the time.
I agree with you. Most of what I read is flat out wrong. My impression is something between 80% and 90%. It’s as if people mostly only bother to speak (or write) to try to put one over on you. It’s sad.
Mark,
Yes, it is a sorry state of affairs.
I have zero tolerance for politically motivated distortion of reality, but that is the diet we get, no matter what source we turn to. Nobody, and I mean nobody, is actually honest in their reporting of facts.. “Just the facts” is now so foreign to news reporting that it is difficult to imagine a time when honestly reporting “the facts” actually mattered. I suppose it may have when I was very young, but I am not even sure of that. For as long as I have been aware, reporting has been consistently ‘slanted” to support the policy views of the reporter.
IMHO, news reporting is a shameful edifice of politically motivated dishonesty.
It is true, as President Madison wrote, that “Without losing sight … of the co-ordinate relations of the three department to each other, it may always be expected that the judicial bench, when happily filled, will … most engage the respect and reliance of the public as the surest expositor of the Constitution” because of “the qualities implied in its members; … the gravity and deliberation of their proceedings; and by the advantage their plurality gives them over the unity of the Executive department, and their fewness over the multitudinous composition of the Legislative department.”
But President Madison’s explanation as to why the Judicial department “attracts most the public confidence” applies rather uniquely to the Supreme Court and not to each and every one of the 667 individual permanent federal district court judges who have not taken senior status.
and
Judicial review, ultimately by the Supreme Court, is a vital part of our American system of checks and balances, but the Framers of the Constitution quite deliberately chose not to give the Article III federal courts the power to issue advisory opinions rather than the power to slowly and deliberately decide “cases” or “controversies” of “a judiciary nature.” The idea that any one of 667 federal district judges should act as a king on some particular issue is itself a threat to our system of checks and balances because it concentrates too much power, in too few judges, acting far too quickly. And it bears noting that federal district judges are often in practice selected by their home state senators and do not have the same stamp of national approval as has the Supreme Court.
SteveF,
If the law says you cannot falsify information on a financial document which may be used by another (any other) party to make a financial judgement, then that’s the law. It doesn’t at all matter if DeutscheBank knew or should have now better.
You seem to be saying that if a law seems unnecessary, inappropriate, or too broadly focused then no-one should be prosecuted under it.
Your argument is with the law itself, if I read you correctly.
WWII film narrated by Ronald Regan…
The story of the first B-29 Superfortress raid on Japan.
It was the first land based attack on the home islands.
They took off from the new airstrip on Saipan and hit an aircraft factory on the outskirts of Tokyo.
I found it worth watching. https://youtu.be/BzQmTjDPL5c?si=O4gQFeEynyakXjd2
john a ferguson wrote: “If the law says you cannot falsify information on a financial document which may be used by another”.
Is there a law that says that? There are certainly some cases where it is true that falsifying such data is a crime, but I don’t know if it is always true, or that there is any such general law. And I am pretty sure that Trump was not charged with violating such a law. Oh, and he was not charged with a crime in that case.
Property valuations are always a matter of opinion. I don’t know how one can prove that someone’s opinion is fraudulent.
New German leader is a war hawk when it comes to Russia….
Today:
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz @_FriedrichMerz:
“…Russia has broken all the rules that we have established for our coexistence in Europe since the end of the Second World War, and above all, since overcoming the division of Europe
Ladies and gentlemen, this war and its outcome will not only decide the fate of Ukraine. The outcome of this war will determine whether law and order will continue to prevail in Europe and the world in the future or whether tyranny, military force, and the right of the strongest will prevail.”
And yesterday:
“”The German army must become the strongest in Europe. This will be a priority for the government,” said Chancellor Friedrich Merz.”
Perhaps they will try to catch up to the Poles and write a zillion dollar check to the US arms merchants.
Cancel that check to the US arms merchants. To dominate the modern European battlefield the Germans will need a million cheap drones.
Ka-Ching! The cash registers at Lockheed Martin and Boeing will be singing soon. The media, both new and old, are touting the prowess of the Chinese J-10c fighter jets after Pakistan shot down an unknown number of India’s French Rafael and Mirage fighters.
The marketing videos are writing themselves.
The French fighters are known to be not on par with US fourth and fifth generation fighters so this will enhance their substandard reputation. I know it’s not a fair test, but that won’t matter in the marketplace.
Some examples of European press stories, From France:
Chinese weapons pass combat test in India-Pakistan clash – with flying colors
Big victory for China in terms of perception
Not just cheap, but good
speculating that buyers will probably soon be flocking to Chinese arms manufacturers. https://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20250514-chinese-weapons-pass-combat-test-in-india-pakistan-clash-–-with-flying-colours
From England:
Pakistan’s use of J-10C jets and missiles exposes potency of Chinese weaponry
Shooting down of India’s planes by Beijing’s customer Pakistan would mark the first time the fighters and their PL-15 missiles have been used in combat https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/14/pakistans-use-of-j-10c-jets-and-missiles-exposes-potency-of-chinese-arms
Mike M.
The law proscribing falsifying information in a financial document which others may rely on is a specific law which Trump and his CFO were indicted under. It is a law of the State of New York.
I don’t have the exact words, but the description above captures the substance of it.
Now that we live in the age of AI, it should be easy to seek the specific law based on this description.
Why not see if you get the same thing?
MikeM: “Property valuations are always a matter of opinion. I don’t know how one can prove that someone’s opinion is fraudulent.”
Indeed, which is precisely why the bank makes its own determination. A judge ruling on what the proper estimated value of a property should be? If a judge of the SC is unable to say what a woman is because she is not a biologist, what does that say about the ability of a judge to rule on a property valuation without being an appraiser?
Of course, NYC has an epidemic of fraudulent real estate valuations and determining the square footage of a building is rather more precise than determining its estimated value. Strangely, they don’t seem very interested in addressing these kinds of elephants.
The case was a clear example of selective prosecution with little more than “because I said so” presented as evidence.
Mike,
While you are at it, why don’t you do all of the odd numbered problems at the end of chapter 22.
John, if you’re making some point, IMO it behooves you to support that point with links to legal codes, not your interlocutors.
john a ferguson,
You appear to be confused, so your comments are not making sense.SteveF (May 15, 2025 at 11:57 am) referred to the inane civil case brought by AG James: “Unlike Trump’s many absurd convictions (like $400 million in civil fraud penalties for a ‘civil fraud’ with no identified victim)”. You seem to be conflating that with the perverse criminal charges brought by DA Bragg.
Yeah, it is hard to keep so much nonsense straight.
mark: Good advice.
John Ferguson,
The heart of the claim that Trump defrauded the banks was in the presumed valuation of a couple of very unique properties, the most famous being Mar-a-Largo. Trump had converted it from “residential” to a “private club” many years ago so that he could rent rooms to defray upkeep costs. The “valuation” as a private club is mainly based on annual income, not the value the property would bring on the market. Based only on size and location, its market value would be well north of $400 Million, while it’s value as a “private club” is more like $15 million. Of course should the bank ever have to foreclose on a loan, it would seize the property and immediately convert it to “residential property”, which is in Florida considered the “best/highest use” for the land, especially considering that all the properties around it are also residential. The judge in the case, who had blatant personal conflicts of interest, believed the least favorable value analysis, not the most favorable, nor even somewhere between them, and stated Trump’s declaration of value was clearly fraudulent, when it fact there were very reasonable arguments that the bank had reached its own valuation of hundreds of millions of dollars.
If you think this case was brought against Trump for anything except political reasons, then please let me offer you the George Washington Bridge; it’s for sale.
SteveF wrote: “Based only on size and location, its market value would be well north of $400 Million, while it’s value as a “private club” is more like $15 million.”
The real issue is a permanent conservation easement that prevents the property from be subdivided or substantially altered. So it is worth much less than the billions that the land would be worth if not for that easement. The flip side is that the property is assessed for taxes as if its only value is the income it produces. The recent assessment is $37 million. Of course, if Trump were to sell the property, it would bring far more than that.
Since there is nothing else like Mar-a-Lago, the market value is pretty much guesswork. At least a few hundred million, maybe as much as $1.5 billion.
At 12:10 PM (Florida time) Air Force One was flying over Romania. That is assuming that there isn’t a substitute plane sending out the signals of Air Force One. I couldn’t find any trace of the plane until it suddenly appeared over Romania so I assume it was flying dark over Middle East.
screenshot: https://x.com/rklier21/status/1923410524336705888?s=46&t=ZvqHpxBnQGny72gLoGhKXw
The Atlantic is probably the most pro-establishment media organization of them all and have been fervently anti-Trump. It’s the typical liberal setup where all the “conservative” writers are also anti-Trump, otherwise they couldn’t get invited to dinner parties in DC and NYC. This is a well written graduate level mouthpiece for coastal elites. It’s good to know what they are thinking but I am very rarely surprised at anything they say.
You have to read multiple outlets to get any balance. If the subject touches on culture wars then it’s going to be difficult to sort out,
The incentives are bad. Hot partisan takes generate the most revenue. Established writers just regurgitate the same boring BS. When the subject is important enough they just cover for their favored narratives, see Biden’s dementia and the DNC’s overt dumping of democratic norm’s they allegedly worship.
There is a USAF C-17 heavy lift cargo plane following about an hour and a half behind Air Force One and flying on the same route out of the Middle East. I’d like to imagine that this is carrying The Beast and all of the other gear, the Secret Service needed for the trip.
Screenshot: https://x.com/rklier21/status/1923413959496909293?s=46&t=ZvqHpxBnQGny72gLoGhKXw
The French jets are 40 year old designs. A lot of this has more to do with not flying into an enemy’s competent air defense grid and who has better missiles than aircraft design. AFAICT we have no idea what really happened and usually never will.
The Chinese stole a lot of their technology using large scale industrial espionage.
It’s going to be very interesting to see if the SC restricts national injunctions. They should do it but it will open up another set of problems as people exploit that set of rules.
They didn’t talk much about birthright citizenship.
Tom Scharf,
“It’s going to be very interesting to see if the SC restricts national injunctions.”
I am betting that Chief Justice Mealy-mouth will again, as usual, punt on the most important cases he hears. He will want a decision that is a non-decision: mildly scolding nation-wide injunctions for district courts, but doing absolutely nothing to stop them from continuing to issue those orders, and continue they will. It will be probably along the lines of “I hate what the district courts are doing, and I know it is bad for the country, and if it were anybody but Trump I would stop them, but, but…. but I hate Trump and his policies even more than all those nationwide injunctions.” History will be unkind to CJ Mealy-mouth.
Another low-life on the court, Kagan, has reversed herself completely: she complained that nationwide injunctions were bad when they were against Biden’s policies, but are perfectly OK against Trump. So dishonest, so unprincipled. She is even more a politician in black robes than Roberts.
My guess is they overturn the nationwide injunctions 6-3, but punt on the birthright issue.
Tom Scharf,
How would restricting nationwide injunctions “open up another set of problems”? Nationwide injunctions were extremely rare until Trump I, declined under Biden, and have exploded under Trump II. Restricting them just restores what used to be the norm. It is not like nationwide injunctions by district courts solved any problem other than Orange Man Bad.
Guys,
Other than the Volagh (sp?) conspiracy, I’ve not seen any recomendations on how I might balance my reading. I was serious. What Tom Scahrf writes about the Atlantic seems spot-on to me.
Anu suggestions?
MikeM, Tom,
Like Mike, I don’t think banning nationawide injuctions will cause too many problems. “The worse” I’ve heard is that whether or not someone is “granted citizenship” will depend on the circuit. But in some sense, so what? That situation will be temporary. And if Trumps EO is ever over ruled or Congress acts all infants affected will have their citizenship recognized (in the case of overruled) or granted (in the case of Congress).
I mean, generally speaking what horrible thing happens to an infant if their citizenship exists but is not recognized by the Feds. They don’t get a passport, right? Most these kids don’t need a passport. Most parents don’t get one for their infant.
Now a kid who can’t get Medicaid or food aid of some sort and would otherwise qualify would have a real injury. (In Illinois, noncitizens can get food aid.)
I’m sure that kid’s parents can find a pro-bono lawyer to file the suit. The case will move through the courts fast. There aren’t that many circuits. If the case against Trumps EO is solid (and I think it is) there will be injunctions in every circuit fast. The case against Trump is not solid, what is soooooo horrible about some kids unfairly gaining benefits when it turns out legally they could have been deprived of them? I’m not seeing one. I don’t think the fact that other kids lucked out and got the benefits as a harm to the ones who got it!
I’m really not seeing this as a uniquely horrible, horrible problem. Will some people be harmed relative to what they should have gotten? Sure. But that doesn’t make the problem uniquely bad.
I agre withthe idea that a single federal judge should be able to constrain the entire country. We probably need a system to deal with this, at the risk of creating a star chamber.
Maybe access to quick review at a national apelate level.
It’s a tought question. Anything that wuld suppress judge shopping would be worth looking at.
john ferguson,
RealClearPolitics posts articles from a wide range of sources.
Mike M.
Thanks for reminding me about RealClear.
John,
regarding your request for recommendations regarding reading material. I am hesitant to give recommendations, but I can tell you what I have done. I have stopped reading printed material entirely.
I also no longer have paid subscriptions to any legacy news organization or journals.
I have developed newsfeeds in electronic media. I use these people to guide me in the direction of individual news stories that interest me. I then search those items and develop a complete story around that particular news item.
I tried to balance my newsfeed with liberal conservative, and independent writers. I no longer try to filter my reading just as long as I know the perspective of the author I can tolerate their bias.
You can start by following people on X. I would suggest you start by following people that you find interesting.
Maybe @bariweiss, or @guypbenson or @john stossel would be safe places to start.
Mike, John,
Thumbs up on RCP. You can add them to your newsfeed, @RCPolitics
The example hypotheticals in SC arguments were a lot of regional split decisions (i.e. red vs blue) causing a lot of chaos. Kids in Louisiana aren’t citizens while kids in California are. Sometimes these actions are not reversible such as deportations or firing people on vaccine mandates. The point being that there is a fundamental tension in doing it either way. Which actions should be barred nationally versus which should not is a gray area. I personally believe the system could work either way if it was done responsibly. Currently regional federal judges are exerting too much authority on culture issues too often IMO and change is required.
WSJ is my daily read.
Fox News, NYT, ESPN, TFP, The Atlantic, National Review, NPR, Reason, Wash Post, CNN, NBC News, Ars Technica, Tampa Bay Times for local. X for breaking news. Podcasts are bursty listening with Ben Shapiro, Joe Rogan, Honestly, Bulwark, and some random others. Sometimes UK coverage is better.
Most of these I only occasionally click through to the articles. Occasionally I go to Politco and some other inside baseball politics sites.
The thing that is interesting (and useful) is the placement of side-by-side articles that offer diametrically opposed POVs…. it is almost like the authors live on different planets and see completely different “facts”.
The single ‘tell’ which informs me the author is not worth reading: gratuitous insults that ALWAYS presume their views of an issue are 100% correct. I conclude that many people will only see evidence which supports/confirms their existing political views. It is really quite amazing. Even with a huge range of opinion on offer, it is rare for me to finish an article concluding the author was not 100% dedicated, before the evidence was presented, to justifying specific policy outcomes.
Starting your argument using your conclusions as the entire basis of your argument means you have no argument at all.
I don’t see how split decisions between circuits causes any chaos. Such cases, at least if important, will end up at SCOTUS.
With nationwide injunctions, we won’t really know what the law is until SCOTUS rules.
Without nationwide injunctions, we won’t really know what the law is until SCOTUS rules.
The only real difference is that the former case invites district judges to play dictator. So the second case is much to be preferred.
One author I find almost always worth a read: Johnathan Turley; thoughtful and honest are the best adjectives.
SteveF: “The single ‘tell’ which informs me the author is not worth reading: gratuitous insults that ALWAYS presume their views of an issue are 100% correct.”
Indeed. All too often, when I click on something from a lefty source, that is what I find. Then I stop reading. It has gotten so that I often altogether ignore pieces from lefty sources because I figure I know what I will find. So my reading ends up being not very balanced.
Fortunately, it is not so hard to find varied takes from the center and right.
p.s. – Yep. Turley is one of the best.
Mike M,
I would go further: limiting district orders to the specific ‘cases and controversies’ immediately before them pretty much forces the SC to settle issues clearly and promptly when different district courts issue conflicting orders. The current situation rewards forum shopping on contentious issues…. once a nationwide order has been decreed, those forum shoppers are done; they don’t have to find judges in other districts who agree with the first judge…. which would often be impossible, of course.
The SC should put a stop to it. But I doubt Roberts will let that happen.
John, I like the Free Press, thefp.com
john a ferguson
“Guys, Other than the Volagh (sp?) conspiracy, I’ve not seen any recommendations on how I might balance my reading.”
–
The news.com.au [Murdoch] gives some news with an anti Trump but right wing view but 80% is click bait and ads.
The ABC Australia news gives perfect left wing pro-Palestine viewpoints.
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For balance and more world relevant information I read some American feeds. Very limited.
From right to left
Gateway Pundit, Breitbart Fox news, Real Clear Politics , The Hill, , CNN and MSNBC. Then the Guardian US edition.
You could try reading them in the opposite direction.
–
And Then There’s Physics and an Open Mind
Watts up with that, Climate etc. Roy Spencer
balance each other out.
–
Then you can come to the Blackboard and help balance views here.
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Recommend the last option first*
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In Victoria, Australia 50 years ago we even had a Newspaper with a pink section in it called The Truth.
A bit like any car salesman called Honest …..
Comey has prior knowledge
A 2017 TMZ article described then President Donald Trump as having “86’d Black History Month.”[21] In 2018, a restaurant owner asked then White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave, and later described the request as “I’d 86’d Sanders.”[22]
In October of 2020, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer appeared from her home on the television show Meet The Press, displaying a small curio in the background featuring the numbers “86 45”.[23] Many on the right and in the administration of the 45th president, Donald Trump, claimed it was a reference to assassination, though there is no evidence the incident was investigated by the Justice Department.[24]
Maxwell Smart was agent 86, agent Comey obviously was not smart
angech,
I start reading articles from many of those same outlets. Finishing them all is a different story.
For example, when an article announces early on that “tariffs cause inflation”, there is little point in continued reading, since the author either 1) does not know what inflation is, or 2) is utterly dishonest. Either way, the author has zero credibility after that statement. If that kind of dumb statement were made in a conversation (rather than in a published article), then you would at least have the option to push back…. so continuing the conversation makes sense…. you might actually help someone learn something. But a published article? Continued reading is a waste of your time.
Same with all the articles where the author takes on faith their conclusions are OBVIOUSLY 100% correct; intellectually unassailable even. This happens mainly on the left (eg “all disparities in groups outcomes are due to racial/gender/whatever prejudices”) but sometimes on the right (God says…… fill in the author’s conclusion). Neither is worth a minute of my time, since the author has nothing to say that is any more thoughtful than my 3 YO grandson announcing “blue is the best color”.
95% of what is in the US version of the Guardian falls in this category of pure waste of time.
Thanks for these recommendations. I completely agree about Turley being worth reading. I guess I’m suprised at the rejection of print.
I like the Economist because like newspapers once provided, it contains a broad range of subjects many of which I didn’t know anything about and which I would never have encountered otherwise.
I doubt that more than 10% of the material in a typical issue would actualy be objectionable to any of you. I would like to think I can recognize the POV’s that some of you detest and indeed they do surface from time to time, but not anywhere near the way they do at MSNBC where it if itsn’t global warming it’s racial angst. MSNBC has even descended to climate justice.
I generally agree with SteveF that almost any article involving a subject well understood by me will be off in a few or many ways. Having written that, there is a reporter who works here for the Tampa Bay Times who did an entirely accurate piece on the exposure of old biuldings to the recent legislation requiring them to be inspected and repaired where needed and better reserves in condominiums required. She had some of the sturctural problems described succinctly and correctly including those in the condominium we moved out of in 2022 because I understood the preliminary engineering report and cojuuld see where we’d be going. She was dead on on that one, including discussion of engineering issues which the Board at the time refused to acknowledge.
But more often there is the ten day rule (my Dad’s) which was that it took ten days for a story got come to be mostly correct. If interest had been lost by then, the subject was likely never to be accurately portrayed,
I think the Economist does a lot better job most of the time. Pick up a copy and see if you don’t agree.
HaroldW,
I’ll take a few peeks at the Free Press.
Harold,
I follow @bariweiss, the founder of The Free Press. She posts a short introduction and a link to all TFP stories.
SteveF wrote: “since the author either 1) does not know what inflation is …”.
In everyday usage, inflation refers to increasing prices, as measured by an index such as CPI. I don’t think it reasonable to be dismissive of someone who says that a disruption in oil supply will cause inflation.
Tariffs will cause an increase in prices. It won’t be much, it won’t be broadly across the economy, and it won’t be ongoing. But it is not unreasonable to refer to that as “inflation”. What is unreasonable is to greatly exaggerate the amount of “inflation” that might result.
John, I follow @JohnathonTurley on X and he posts an introduction and link to each of his articles.
I think every print publication has their articles online, so you don’t miss anything by not killing trees. I switched BECAUSE I didn’t like carrying out a heavy recycling basket.
I have 173 sources in my news feed.
john ferguson wrote: “almost any article involving a subject well understood by me will be off in a few or many ways.”
So why would you trust the other articles?
Oops. Potential rhetorical question, so I better answer it: Gell-mann Amnesia.
Mike M.
Reading an article doesn’t mean believing it, at least for me. When I was a kid ie. 10 or so, Dad used to go through the Chicago Daily News with me. We’d read an article then he would ask, “Is the information internally consistent?, is the conclusion, if there is one, the only possible one? Is the content actually known to the writer or is he speculating – guessing? etc. It was a Feinmann test.
As to tariffs “possibly” being inflationary it’s interesting that if they are imposed by a country which imports stuff we export, a domestic effect here coud be deflationary. I use the example of the pigs which China may not buy after all. Suddenly we’ll be flooded with bacon and surely the cost to us will go down – deflationary.
Another deflationary effect of tariffs we impose could be a drop in purchases affected possibly from waiting for drop in price, tariff, or both. The Chinese vendor who canceled my order is quitting selling to US because he has other markets and feels that the total price of his products will kill sales – not worth the effort to even advertise here. I don’t think the effect of that approach can be seen as inflation or deflation.
At the same time, if tariffs on the imported components of an automobile cause the price to rise and there isn’t a corresponding drop in sales then wouldn’t you think the effect would be inflationary?
From tomorrow’s Maria Bartalomo show on Fox Business:
“FBI Director Kash Patel is SHUTTING DOWN the FBI HQ in DC. Patel said 33% of his workers were in DC and that’s not where crime is. He will be building locations all over the country to fight crime. The Hoover Building will be condemned.”
He spills the beans at the 50 second mark in the video below: https://x.com/sundayfutures/status/1923352405795623150?s=61&t=7w4bCW3a8ve2DqoeniQatQ
Re: The Hoover Building.
In 1966, it was under design in Chicago architectural firm, C.F. Murphy. I worked there that summer and was able to watch the process. Very large basswood models of various components of the project were arranged (arrayed?)on a table the size of four ping-pong tables (guessing from memory). The lead designer, Stanislas Gladych spent most of the summer pushing these components around as some other group on another floor was trying to create something that met the FBI’s requirements. I had the impression that the sculptural effect of the arrangement of building components was all that mattered to Gladydch.
I realize the from an occupant’s standpoint the place was considered a disaster. I’ve never been inside, but I did like the exterior design and am saddened that so many people hate it.
FWIW, the term “brutalist” was not used at the time, by anyone actually doing architecture. And again FWIW, the term has nothing to do with “brutal” but more exposed structure… unconcealed, visible structure, in this case concrete.
ISW is repeating their dire assessment that Ukraine needs to inflict greater pain [military] and the rest of the world needs to inflict greater pain [economic] before Russia will be ready to talk peace.
“ISW has consistently assessed that Russian President Vladimir Putin will not compromise in peace negotiations unless Ukraine and the West inflict significant battlefield and economic losses on Russia and force Putin to rethink his theory of victory”
Full post: https://x.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1923596424752628199
Most justice buildings seem intentionally designed to be imposing and dominating. Courthouses, etc.
I think it is a good idea to move the FBI out of DC. Many departments could also be distributed. The federal government is over centralized now and the culture of the government reflects that.
This may also be a Trojan horse to get people to quit their jobs.
Mike M,
Inflation is always caused by either an increase in money supply or a decrease in the entire supply of what that money can buy. Do sales or value added taxes cause inflation? No. Does an import duty cause inflation? No.
Do these increase the cost of retail purchases of specific items? Of course they do, but that only means government (Federal, State or local) spends more money, and you spend less. Do income taxes (all kinds) cause inflation? No, it means government spends more of your income and you spend less. Inflation is unrelated to taxes and tariffs.
Tom Scharf,
“This may also be a Trojan horse to get people to quit their jobs.”
Mike M,
I do not mean to suggest taxes do not cause misery nor that they are not very bad for economic growth, nor that taxes do not distort overall demand in the market (after all, what is the retail market for F22 fighter jets?). I mean only that inflation has nothing to do with taxes and everything to do with expansion of money supply.
If anyone is interested,
“The inauguration Mass for Pope Leo XIV is scheduled for tomorrow, Sunday, May 18, 2025, at 10:00 AM Rome time (Central European Time, CET) in St. Peter’s Square, Vatican City. This translates to 4:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) in the United States”
It will be televised live on the EWTN, YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/live/jE6G8dBC6Hc?si=82w8wJ6KZEFXWte2
The EWTN stream goes live at 3AM.
list of live streams from Grok:
Vatican News: The official Vatican News website (www.vaticannews.va) or their YouTube channel is likely to stream the Mass live. Check their schedules page for confirmation.
LiveNOW from FOX: They will stream live coverage starting at 4:00 AM ET, with a full replay at 9:00 AM ET. Access it on their website (www.livenowfox.com), FOX Local, Amazon Freevee, fuboTV, The Roku Channel, Samsung TV Plus, Tubi, or YouTube.
MSNBC: Special coverage with Chris Jansing begins at 3:45 AM ET on MSNBC’s TV channel or their YouTube channel (link shared on X).
Rappler: For viewers in Manila, stream the Mass at 4:00 PM local time via Rappler’s website (www.rappler.com).
Sky News: Coverage with commentary starts at 9:00 AM BST (4:00 AM ET) on Sky News’ TV channel or website (news.sky.com).
CNN News 18: Check their website for a stream of the Installation Mass (link shared on X).
YouTube: Search for “Pope Leo XIV Inauguration Mass live” on YouTube, as channels like Vatican News or others may host streams. A specific YouTube stream is mentioned for live coverage from St. Peter’s Square. https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_c99b12f4-3d7e-47f7-b33e-bb53c3191432
I anticipate another grand spectacle.
Tom Scharf,
Traditionally, government buildings, especially courthouses, were designed to be majestic. There is nothing majestic about the FBI building; it is merely intimidating.
John Ferguson is correct that the architectural term “brutalism”. But the false etymology fits the FBI building quite well.
Mike M.
I saw the FBI building as a continuation of a”style” originated by Corbusier. I’m pretty sure that most architects would have seen it in the same light at the time.
more on this when I’ve thought about it more.
If anyone is watching the Papal inauguration and mass, EWTH YouTube channel is translating live into English (which spoils some of the music). The Vatican News YouTube channel is broadcasting it neat, (some Latin, some Italian, some Greek).
I am switching back and forth.
JD Vance and his wife are in attendance and about 200,000 others.
I can’t explain this:
A number of SCOTUS justices were appointed by conservative presidents and became moderate or liberal once they began serving. The following fit the bill:
Earl Warren, Harry Blackmon, David Souter, John Paul Stevens, Burger, O’Connor, Kennedy and Roberts
Only one,Byron White, went the other way.
I can’t explain it.
Russell,
Maybe the judges “going liberal” has to do with issues being labeled conservative or liberal. There is no particular reasons why some of the hodge-podge of positions on issues in either basket is obviously “conservative” vs. “liberal” at any particular time.
Quote from Pope Leo’s homily last night:
“War-weary Ukraine awaits a long and just peace,” said Pope Leo XIV during his inauguration ceremony, calling for peace talks in Ukraine.“
l think he wants the Church to be involved. This is the second time he talked about it this week. The other time he was more direct about getting involved.
Russell
l think he wants the Church to be involved.
Putin is not Roman Catholic.
Lucia, your post:
“Putin is not Roman Catholic.”
Yes that’s right. Vladimir Putin identifies as a Russian Orthodox Christian, the dominant religion in Russia. The Roman Catholic Church is barely on speaking terms with them. Even worse, the new Pope has been seen recently palling it up with Zelenskyy.
The SC has smacked down Trump on his use of the alien enemies act to send Tren de Aragua members to a foreign prison. The interesting thing is that they ruled narrowly (Trump failed to follow the procedures required by the law), but enjoined any further use of the law until lower courts can rule on whether the the law is even applicable against Tren de Aragua. I am reasonably confident lower courts will say the alien enemies act is not applicable.
The court essentially invited Trump to deport the same group under immigration laws.
So Trump will now deport criminal gang members present illegally in the USA under immigration laws. Which is what I think he should have done all along. Overreach is what Trump does best.
I would hope there is no objection from the people with high sensitivity to imagined rights, but it would be interesting to see more description of the folks being returned to whence they have come or at least being exported.
It appears that more than a few have been previously deported likely after receiving due-process. I suppose there’s no way to avoid another episode of due process for someone who’s already had one session and is in violation of its result.
These guys are like an annuity for immigration judges.
Russell,
Lucia makes a good point that “conservative” vs “liberal” is often not at all obvious. And it used to be that both parties had people ranging from very conservative to very liberal.
Earl Warren was very much part of the progressive wing of the Republican Party. Those progressives were liberal, but no crazy. I doubt that Eisenhower could have anticipated how far Warren would take judicial activism.
A number of Republican appointments had to be compromises to get the nominee through a Democrat Senate. That started in earnest when the Dems shot down Bork and Reagan ended up appointing Kennedy instead.
john ferguson,
I think that for those previously ordered deported, due process should consist of nothing more than confirming that the deportee-to-be is actually the right person.
My Dad’s father, among other things was a John Bircher of which there was a “cell” in his parish in Minneapolis. I can clearly remember that he favored Taft in the 1952 election and thought Eisenhower too much like Roosevelt whom despite having voted for him in 1932, he despised.
Stan was a vigorous anti-communist and other than “socialist wealth re-distribuition schemes” and possibly below-the-radar racism as well as soft anti-semitism, he did not have the range of issues that both sides seem to have today. I can’t remember that he cared about cultural issues all that much. Maybe we didn’t know what they were then.
He did have friends who were on the other side of the things he cared most about, but they were friends and they all seemed to be able to ignore each other’s POV.
That doesn’t seem to happen much today.
Another factor with Republican justices turning Left is that the real divide these days is between Populists, like Trump, and the Establishment. I think that it is in the nature of judges (especially conservative ones) that they tend to protect the Establishment, even when they disagree with it.
That seems to be a big factor with Roberts and, to a lesser degree, Barrett and Kavanaugh.
“These guys are like an annuity for immigration judges.”
Ha ha
I don’t think their was a long list of political litmus tests back then like there is now for the SC.
Looks like this week’s Hamas leader was killed in the recent bombing according to Israel. I wouldn’t volunteer for that office.
That leaves over 80% of about 50 Hamas leadership dead and fulfills a major war aim. Over half of their army has been eliminated. Gaza is in ruins. There’s not much left to do militarily.
I doubt peace and friendship will break out anytime soon but deterrence has likely been established. I imagine some lunatics will still fire rockets into Israel but they have a decade plus of rebuilding ahead and a disgraced and untrusted leadership.
The Palestinians face a fork in the road. Choose wisely.
Tom Scharf,
Exactly right. There have always been highly controversial Supreme Court decisions. But that used to be something that happened now and then until the Warren Court made a habit of it.
Didn’t Eisenhower publicly lament his appointment of Earl Warren?
Well, it’s crickets in the left wing media about the FBI closing down is Washington headquarters and dispersing its troops throughout the land. So far all I’ve seen is Fox News with a report on it. Perhaps the rest of the media has blacked it out because it originated from Fox News or perhaps they’re just suffering from Trump fatigue.
Maybe the left wing thinks closing dc fbi office is a good idea, but is reluctant to admit it.
Several of you posted about The Free Press.
This series started today:
“Introducing a New Sunday Series: Ancient Wisdom”
It’s a story about growing old. It’s a man’s perspective, so maybe not a story for everyone.
My favorite line:
“Being old, it turns out, is just not something I’m very good at “
link: https://www.thefp.com/p/introducing-ancient-wisdom?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=organic-social
John,
“ Maybe the left wing thinks closing dc fbi office is a good idea, but is reluctant to admit it.”
Well they abused the post under Obama and Biden. Now that Trump is in position to turn the tables, maybe so.
Russell,
There are other possibilites, not the least of which is the Dems may have expanded the old “While the cat’s away, the mice will play” to “we’ll have a whee once the cat is gone.”
Another element may be that the Dems know that FBI is predominantly Republican and has been at least since late ’30s.
This cannot be proven but will likely be confirmed by anyone who has worked there.
John, Your post:
“Another element may be that the Dems know that FBI is predominantly Republican and has been at least since late ’30s.”
I don’t think you believe that statement.
The Washington FBI have been playing dirty against Trump at least since they participated in the ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ hoax. Since then it’s been a litany of FBI schemes to 86 Trump and his crew. Hunter’s laptop, Colonel Flynn, January 6, and the Washington pipebomb to name just a few.
You have forgotten Peter Strzok and McCabe.
Tom, on fiber optic drone performance:
This video, from Special Kherson Cat [@bayraktar_1love] purports to show a fiber optic FPV drone flying an intricate pattern under a building and taking out a Russian T-72B3 tank: https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1924400361634226250
I have found Special Kherson Cat to be a reliable OSINT source in the past.
I believe the statement about predominance of Repubs in FBI because friend who worked there for 30 years believes it.
You might consider the wild possibility that there are other ways to look at the subjects you list.
john ferguson,
“You might consider the wild possibility that there are other ways to look at the subjects you list.”
Sensible advice for everyone.
SteveF
As I’m sure you’ve witnessed, I’m often wrong. Usually from not having looked into enough, or if not that basing a view on my experience which mahy turn out to have little to do with the actual subject.
But then if one’s never wrong, they must not be trying very hard.
I think John Ferguson is right that the FBI is mostly Republican. But the FBI brass have been overwhelmingly Establishment, with a mix of Democrats and Never Trump Republicans. On many issues, there is no way to tell the two apart.
Fortunately, Patel seems to be cleaning house at the Hoover Building.
It might be time to defund the CDC.
You may have heard that drug OD deaths dropped 27% in 2024 compared to 2023. That claim comes from the CDC. If you think about it, that is much too good to be true. I am certain that it is an artifact and that CDC knows it.
Here is the only data I have been able to find at the CDC web site: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm
Scroll down to Figure 1a.
Note the nice linear decrease starting in Jan. 2024. Now look at the Notes. The graph is of “Reported provisional counts for 12-month ending periods are the number of deaths received and processed for the 12-month period ending in the month indicated.”
A linear decrease in such data implies a step function change in the monthly data. That has to be an artifact.
If that is not obvious, let me explain. The data point for Dec. 2023 includes all deaths in 2023. The data point for Jan. 2024 includes all deaths for Feb. 2023 through Jan 2024. Therefore the change from the prior month is the difference in monthly deaths between Jan. 2024 and Jan. 2023. The change between the Jan. and Feb. data points is the difference in monthly deaths between Feb. 2024 and Feb. 2023. Etc.
The linear decrease means that the year-over-year change was the same for each month in 2024. In other words, a step function change in monthly deaths between Dec 2023 and Jan 2024. I see no reason to plot the data in that manner other than to hide the step function.
The only plausible interpretation I can see is that the reporting and/or classification procedures changed on Jan. 1, 2024 and the CDC wants to hide that fact.
The best secondary explanation I can come up with it is that in Dec. 2023, 27% of drug users received sobriety as a Christmas present from Santa Claus.
On the issue of deportations, I find myself pro-deportation, but anti-deportation directly to jail. I understand that we could try, convict and jail illegal aliens caught in the United States, but can also optionally just deport them (usually to their country of origin). But I am having trouble finding any support in the constitution for deporting an illegal alien to a foreign jail without a trial first. Could we try and convict an illegal alien and then decide to hold them in a foreign jail (kind of like Guantanamo)? Yes – I think we can hold prisoners in cheaper prisons – even foreign prisons – as long as we don’t violate any rights. But to catch them, and put them into jail directly, with no trial or even charges and scheduling a trial – seems unconstitutional. Are these deportees in jail for life in El Salvador?
If they have committed a crime in the USA, they can be tried in the USA – or if they have committed a crime in their country of origin, they could be deported into the custody of the country of origin for trial there – but directly to jail with no trial? Doesn’t seem right (to me).
Just some random thoughts that I am struggling with currently. Perhaps there are some nuances I am not grokking.
Mike M.:
On the CDC graph – couldn’t more availability of Narcan explain the linear year over year decline?
Mike M.
Yes Never-Trump Republicans but also Trump Republicans. And yes it matters where they are in the heirarchy.
It could also be that like other organizations which I’m familiar with , there are wild hares and sometimes nests of them. It does make one wonder that when an investigation is launched with a dubious predicate, where were the cool heads?
RickA,
The decline is NOT linear. It is a step function. OD deaths were roughly constant through 2023. They were also roughly constant through 2024. The 27% drop took place all at once. It only looks linear because of the deceptive way the data are plotted.
Law enforcement in general is Republican biased historically for sure, including the FBI.
My main concern is that the DC region has become so Democrat biased (see voting registration in those areas) that the federal agencies naturally become biased in that direction. There is also the simple incentive that government employees tends to like more government.
I would not be surprised if even the DC FBI workforce is 50% or more Republican. The recent problem has been that the decision makers have decided to enter political prosecutions which has diminished trust in these agencies.
Inside in the DC area everybody, and I mean everybody, seems to get contaminated by palace intrigue and zero sum battles for politically supremacy. Agencies that don’t need to be there should get dispersed IMO.
I think technically the US just deports illegal immigrants and the receiving country decides to imprison them.
Trump is going max pressure with detaining some immigrants before their due process. This is legal and is routinely done with US citizens that are a public safety threat (held without bail). Whether pro-Hamas protesters are a threat to public safety or US foreign policy is debatable. In this case what is important is who gets to decide and in many/most cases it is the executive branch with little judicial oversight.
These high profile cases are a bit embarrassing IMO (who is afraid of these people?) but I will stipulate the overall effect has been dramatic. Border crosses have gone down dramatically. It’s a psychological effect. Whether this is a Trump master plan, luck, or gut instinct, it is working at the moment.
Tom Scharf wrote: “I think technically the US just deports illegal immigrants and the receiving country decides to imprison them. ”
But we are paying El Salvador to imprison them. Our government is not allowed to pay a third party to do that which it is not permitted to do.
The real question is whether The US can, without a trial, imprison a non-citizen because he is a member of a terrorist group. Previous Presidents, like Obama, have claimed the right to kill such people without a trial. If I am not mistaken, courts have allowed that as long as the terrorist is not a citizen. So I think that Trump may be on solid ground in merely imprisoning such.
For the record, I am not happy with Presidents having such power. But if they do, then I am OK with Trump using it for getting rid of Tren de Aragua, MS-13, and such.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24-297/351193/20250304160341072_Mahmoud%20Merits%20Opening%20Brief%20FINAL%20REVISED.pdf
This is from the plaintiff’s brief.
There is a movement for school vouchers because of all this activism. Most people would be satisfied if their public school basically used the lowest common denominator for cultural influence. That’s the way I remember it, total nothing burger, with the exception of evolution.
The people who run for school boards and politics in general tend to be activists. Sometimes i think our government would be much better off if positions were randomly assigned to citizens.
This is from the defendant (school board)
“Read alouds” means kids cannot avoid the book. Elementary school childen are generally expected to pay attention when a teacher reads aloud. If the kid is assigned to read it aloud, that’s a lot of interaction foe the kid.
As or “option” for reading groups : that’s assigned reading.
But if the book itself advocates students should change how the feel about it, then this advocacy is happening in the classroom.
The parents are asking for opt-outs only when the book is read or discussed. They aren’t asking for the book to not be on a shelf or for other kids not to get to read it.
If it’s read and discussed, that’s quite a bit of interaction.
The reason they are not allowing optouts is too many people want them! (That’s pretty hilareous actually.)
I also think Roberts has, in the past, pointed out that free freedom of religion is in the constitution. Freedom from social stigma or isolation is not. I mean… that might be sad. But it seems to me that board doesn’t really care if some people are stigmatized socially. They just don’t like a particular group ( i.e. trans) to be stigmatized socially.
But in the case of the Roman Catholics, not allowing the opt out does coerce those parents to act contrary to their religious views. According to their religious views Catholics are supposed to shield their kids from certain topics presented unnecessarily and too early an age.
Allowing their kids to be exposed to certain believes would be an affirmative act that violates RC religious beliefs. That would mean parents who do this are affirmatively acting in violation of those RC believes. (There are how many RC justices?) I get Sotomoyor may allow this bit of belief to escape her, but it’s pretty long standing. (Yeah… fallen away RC here. But I like to read RC trivia.)
I don’t think a parent can ask for an opt-out because they don’t like the general morality of what the duly elected school board has approved, they need to either run for the school board or elect better representatives.
The religious exception is something they can legally ask for. I imagine plenty of secular parents aren’t too happy about this either. Once the opt-out is allowed I suppose anybody can do it.
However raising a gigantic stink about it is also usually enough. Who wants that headache for trans story time? Montgomery county defending this all the way to the SC wasn’t too wise IMO. I can see some board members facing some tough reelection races.
“gave rise to three related concerns: high student absenteeism”
This ended up being a red herring. Somebody actually looked into this claim and high absenteeism was due to the usual stuff and had nothing to do with this issue. They county immediately folded when challenged by Kavanaugh or Alito on this.
CNN: “Some US allies are highly alarmed by the president’s plan to let Russia keep most of the land it has seized from Ukraine”
OK. What’s their plan? I also wish that wouldn’t happen but a wish is not an army that will push Russia out of Ukraine.
Tom Scharf wrote: “I don’t think a parent can ask for an opt-out because they don’t like the general morality of what the duly elected school board has approved, they need to either run for the school board or elect better representatives.”
That sounds like the solution is to win a culture war. Or maybe a civil war.
Kenneth has a MUCH better solution: Allow parents to choose where their kids go to school.
Mike M,
Or move somewhere else, where crazy lefties don’t sit on the local school board.
I suspect it is inevitable that school boards (and all local elected positions) are more likely to be occupied by people who to want to impose a certain value system on public policies. Some places those values don’t generate much pushback because they are reasonably inoffensive and reasonably evenhanded. This is a case where the board is not being at all evenhanded and imposing values quite offensive to many people. The SC will smack down the school board. That won’t end the conflict, any more than the SC can stop Harvard from discriminating based on race.
On a different subject: The fellow who runs my wife’s non-profit sewing school in Haiti contacted my wife today by email and said criminal gangs now control 3/4 of the capitol of Port au Prince. and people are fleeing the gang controlled areas to the remaining non-gang area….. which is shrinking daily. Shipping goods/materials to the school is currently just about impossible.
It sounds like total social collapse in Haiti may not be far away.
Tom Scharf,
I think once opt out is allowed for religious reasons, pretty much anyone will have access to it. Technically it might not be required, but otherwise the school personnel are going to have to say the parent’s claim about their religious belief is not in good faith. How are they going to go about figuring out which parents are making good faith assertions about their religious beliefs? That really would be unworkable. “You don’t even go to church!” isn’t considered much in the way of evidence.
Also, it’s going to be impossible for the school to achieve their goal of increasing “acceptance” of trans kids if numerous students are stepping out of the class. If 1/4 of the kids in class are opting out, the other kids are going to ask why. It becomes difficult for the teacher to not talk about the fact that many people disagree with some of the ideas in the book. After all, that’s why the other kids aren’t in the class!!!
(BTW: This a link to tons of amicus briefs, briefs and so on.
https://www.scotusblog.com/cases/case-files/mahmoud-v-taylor/ )
Lucia’s post:
“Allowing their kids to be exposed to certain believes would be an affirmative act that violates RC religious beliefs. That would mean parents who do this are affirmatively acting in violation of those RC believes. “
In my entire twelve years of Roman Catholic education I managed to not learn that rule.
Then I put two sons through eight years of Catholic education and four of public schools and never once checked their math books for blasphemy.
I’ll be goin’ straight to hell.
The judge who issued the protection order for the “Maryland Bro” did not make an error by not referring to El Salvador for protection in the protective order. When he referred to Guatemala, he ment Guatemala.
On rereading the order, I found :
Family moved from El Salvador to Guatemala
Family received death threats in Guatemala
No changed circumstances in Guatemala
Order bars subject from being deported to Guatemala
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815.1.1_2.pdf
Russell
And yet it is one. Teachers do not introduce young children to heresies. You wait to discuss heresies until they are older and even then, generally only those delving deeply bother to do it.
Few learn it’s actually a rule to not introduce and discuss heretical idea as a method of better understanding the non-heretical ones. But it is.
Can I find this rule now? Nope. But it is one.
I mean seriously: did you have any classes on “The history of heresies” in Catholic grade school? Arian through Zorastrian? I bet not. Those heresies are very interesting and clarify what the heck the Apostle’s creed even means. But no one has that class until possibly college level.
The teachers didn’t announce and explain why you don’t have classes about the heresies in k-12. But they don’t have them.
Lucia, Your post:
“I mean seriously: did you have any classes on “The history of heresies” in Catholic grade school? “
No, not in Catholic grade school. But I attend a special college preparatory Catholic High school, taught by the Christian Brothers of St. John Baptist de La Salle:
Pittsburgh Central Catholic:
“To inspire boys to become Men of Faith, Men of Scholarship, Men of Service.”
https://www.centralcatholichs.com/pages/mission-history
Religion was a core class required all four years [as was two years of Latin!].
We studied many religions and heresies. Once I did a term paper on Judaism that required research in a Jewish library. [The Rabbis were delighted to help!]
The Catholic Church has been writing laws for 2,000 years, most of which have been lost in time.
I had a 5th grade teacher who read books to the class, all focused on the horrors and evil nature of slavery and racism. In no way was this part of any formal curriculum…. he was trying to convince the students of a specific moral point of view, no matter what they heard at home; in the early 60’s racism wasn’t that uncommon. The book reading never took place when an administrator sat in to evaluate the teacher.
Lucia’s post talking about Catholic education into the heresies reminded me of our studies of the Protestant Reformation.
There is a great parallel to today.
One reason the two great heresies of the Reformation spread so quickly was the invention of the printing press:
https://credomag.com/2020/11/how-the-invention-of-the-printing-press-helped-advance-the-reformation/
It is similar to how today’s revolution in social media changed political campaigns in the US.
Russell,
Judaism is not a heresy.
Latin is also not heresy.
Also not a heresy.
Did you write any papers on Zorastrian Heresy? Or the Nestorian Heresy? Or the beliefs of the Abigensians (i.e. Cathars?)
The public viewing of Pope Francis is taking place at St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. It is being broadcast live on:
Vatican Media Live
https://www.youtube.com/live/J6MqpK91bEA?si=K6SXgZgc8CNzHCFF
Some of the Gregorian Chants [Catholic Latin Hymns] are beautiful.
Funeral services will be broadcast livestarting at 10 AM [Rome Time] tomorrow.
Lucia;
“Did you write any papers on Zorastrian Heresy? Or the Nestorian Heresy? Or the beliefs of the Abigensians (i.e. Cathars?)”
No, and I don’t recall those but it was 50 years ago.
I do recall quite a lot [probably a semester] on the heresies of the Protestant Reformation. There was no hesitancy on the part of the Brothers to discuss this and delve into current Protestant religions.
Your basis:
“Few learn it’s actually a rule to not introduce and discuss heretical idea as a method of better understanding the non-heretical ones. But it is.”
is pure bunk.
Russell,
But you recall writing one about Judaism.
The protestant reformation can’t be dealt with by ignoring. All the changes in government and the killings during fairly modern history can’t be ignored, so the fact that it had to do with religious beliefs can’t be ignored. So by high school addressing discussing the reformation is “necessary”.
Avoiding unnecessary discussions of things that violate the religion when students are too young is “the rule”. It’s not unlike the general rule of “age appropriate” in secular schools– it’s just that it applies to things that are specifically religious in nature.
Nope. You did not study the Albigensian heresy. Nor the Zoroastrian heresy. You are simply unaware that it’s “not done”.
Lucia,
I can find no Canon Law against the study of Heresy as a way of understanding. Show me the text if you have it.
So, I ask Grok.
Grok on Canon Law and Studying Heresy
“ The Church encourages scholarly study of heresy to understand historical, theological, and pastoral implications. This is evident in the works of theologians like St. Augustine or St. Thomas Aquinas, who analyzed heresies (e.g., Arianism, Gnosticism) to defend orthodox doctrine.”
“Cautions: Engaging with heretical texts directly (e.g., Gnostic gospels) requires discernment to avoid undermining faith. Canon Law indirectly supports this through canons on censorship of books (Canons 822–832), which urge caution with materials that could harm faith or morals.”
Full Canon Law analysis:
https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_9afb1a72-a48d-47e5-8119-e83b3594baa5
Russell,
I wrote this is only when you are older.
Note what I actually wrote
Also
Kids in k-5th grade are not doing “scholarly study”.
Also, when you do introduce heresies, you must teach that the are wrong ideas.
https://www.ncregister.com/blog/have-faith-the-catholic-church-can-never-teach-heresy#:~:text=Have%20Faith!%20The%20Catholic%20Church%20Can%20Never%20Teach%20Heresy%7C%20National%20Catholic%20Register.
“Have Faith! The Catholic Church Can Never Teach Heresy”
This is google AI
AI Overview
Learn more
In Roman Catholic theology, teaching children about heresies, or beliefs that contradict established doctrine, can be a valid part of religious education. This approach allows students to critically examine their faith, understand the history of the Church, and strengthen their own understanding of the Catholic faith by seeing how heresies have been refuted. However, it’s crucial to present heresies in a way that emphasizes their refutation by the Church’s teachings and avoids causing confusion or undermining the student’s faith.
Why Teach Heresies?
Critical Thinking:
Examining heresies encourages critical thinking about faith and helps students understand how the Church’s teachings are defended against alternative interpretations.
Understanding Church History:
Studying heresies provides insights into the historical development of Catholic doctrine and how the Church has responded to challenges.
Strengthening Faith:
By understanding how heresies are refuted, students can strengthen their own faith and commitment to the Church’s teachings.
Discernment:
Learning about heresies helps students develop the ability to discern true teachings from false ones, a skill essential for navigating the world.
How to Teach Heresies Effectively:
Emphasize Refutation:
Always present heresies in the context of their refutation by the Church’s official teachings.
Provide Context:
Explain the historical context in which the heresy arose and the reasons why the Church condemned it.
Focus on Truth:
Clearly and repeatedly emphasize the truth of the Catholic faith and the reasons why it is the true and enduring teaching.
Use Critical Thinking Tools:
Encourage students to ask questions, analyze arguments, and engage in thoughtful discussion about the different perspectives.
Note: Students are absolutely not to get the “wrong answer”.
Russell
You know who doesn’t have “discernment”? Kindergardeners.
From yur cannons
Lucia,
I don’t have time to study that now. I’ll look at it later. Do you have any references to Canon Law that I didn’t find?
Ed Forbes,
The judge granted Garcia’s motion for withholding of removal. Do you know if that motion specified El Salvador or Guatemala?
If the latter, then the administration could make the whole thing disappear with a wave of a motion. They have not. Of course, it could be that Trump is following Napoleon’s advice to never interrupt the enemy when he is making a mistake.
Russell,
I showed you that the references you found tell the faithful that their children’s education should not include texts whose moral teachings are not approved by eclesiastical authorities.
The books in question include teachings that would fall in the category of “moral”. Not only are these books not approved by any ecclesiastical authority, they clearly contain “moral” teaching that are repugnant to Catholics and easily recognized by parents as such.
I don’t know what more you want from Cannon law. It seems to be the ones you found show precisely what I claimed.
Russell,
I guess if the parents wanted more fire power they could follow the dictates of §3 and submit the books and the guidelines to teachers to their “local ordinary” and see what they have to say. I’m pretty sure we know what the “local ordinary” would say.
When I called them “your cannons” they were the numbers mentioned in your Grok link==822-833
The quotes were from 827.
https://www.vatican.va/archive/cod-iuris-canonici/eng/documents/cic_lib3-cann822-833_en.html
You can find them all here:
https://www.vatican.va/archive/cod-iuris-canonici/cic_index_en.html
Here are other duities for lay people
https://www.vatican.va/archive/cod-iuris-canonici/eng/documents/cic_lib2-cann208-329_en.html#PUBLIC_ASSOCIATIONS_OF_THE_CHRISTIAN_FAITHFUL
You will also find a special requirement that parents attend to the christian education of their children
Parents don’t get a pass on letting the kids be led into immoral teachings just because the public school thinks something is right.
Christians must announce and defend their doctrine
To the extent that teaching that believing you were born in the “wrong body” or “wrong sex” violates Catholic teachings, based on the above, parents are obligated to prevent their children from being taught the opposite.
https://www.vatican.va/archive/cod-iuris-canonici/eng/documents/cic_lib3-cann793-821_en.html
To the extent that teaching its moral to believe God gave you the wrong body violates Catholic teaching, permitting your kids to be taught that when they are too young is not “nurtur[ing] in such a way that they are able to develop their physical, moral, and intellectual talents harmoniously, …”
Can. 796
Parents can’t just let the teachers do… whatever…
If the school is providing teachings contrary to a Catholic education, the parents must spend time telling the kids the school is wrong.
The parents kinda sort of have to object to immoral teachings, and perhaps sue the school board. . .
All in all: parents can’t just passively allow schools to subject their kids to immoral teachings. Although if they have no other choice, they can tell their kids the teachers are wrong (and must do so), they are required to strive to engage with the teachers or school and get things changed.
Bingo.
There were thoughts early in our nations history when serving in elected government positions was consider more of a duty/burden than a privilege. It was get my duty over so I can get back to my business, trade or profession.
As for local elections for school boards, my experiences are in line with Tom’s comment. I would add that those voting regularly in those elections tend to have political agendas.
I listened to comments from those running for school board positions in a forum sponsored by the League of Woman Voters. The incumbents had bs comments in efforts to hide their agendas. The two young ladies for whom I voted were not incumbents and commented about problems that the other candidates ignored. Unfortunately incumbents win most elections in my locale simply by being incumbents.
William F. Buckley: “I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.”
Kenneth Fritsch wrote: “those voting regularly in those elections tend to have political agendas … incumbents had bs comments in efforts to hide their agendas … incumbents win most elections in my locale simply by being incumbents”.
I suspect that most incumbents win by serving the agendas of the activists who often exert so much influence in local elections. Incumbent hide their agendas because revealing them would motivate people to vote and drown out the activists.
Lucia, I appreciate your dive into Canon Law and Russell as adversario.
I wonder how many parents today have the interest in their children’s education as Canon Law prescibes – and even good Catholics. They might think they have little control and thus send their kids to school and hope for the best. They would or should have at least retained influence over what their children see and hear about morals and principles of a good life and put them in a position to be able to chose what ideas from school to accept or deny.
Kenneth,
I first became interested in this issue of teachers teaching things when I took “20th century problems” as a religion class in high school. This was last semester senior year. The nun has “plans”, which were not working out because largely owing to me, two of the other students were not making the “right conclusions”.
Mid-semester, she dropped the topics she planned and we just switched to rote doctrine stuff. Literally memorizing the holy days of obligation. She told us she couldn’t continue to class if we…. uhmm…. well basically came to the wrong conclusions. ( I had, fwiw, pretty much suggested she was trying to insist on pre-ordained conclusions. She eventually admitted it when she decreed she couldn’t stick to the plan of these topics any more.)
I know one of the things was whether we could know there was objective right and wrong and how. (It’s ‘supposed’ to come from God. Cultural norms is the wrong answer. I didn’t think that was the answer either. But from god? No. I didn’t think that.)
Mike M.
I cannot find the reference but shortly after Buckley made the comment about the first 2,000 names in the Boston Phone Book, someone analyzed the list and found (IIRC and may not) that the first 2’000 names were largely Irish Catholic. I doubt that the Harvard faculty has ever been largely Irish Catholic.
https://grok.com/chat/b897943d-b65b-4e54-b356-f6b1de053213
Roman Catholic view on children Studying Heresy
[…]
I’ll skip older children because Mahmoud is about younger children. (K-5th grade) Russell objected to my discussion which was about younger children, not adults or even teens.
Even if many Roman Catholics are not aware of it (and some– possibly especially those who went to Roman Catholic schools k-12), the RC church discourages even exposing children to heretical ideas when they are too young. The reason those who went to Catholic school are less likely to be aware of this is that the school simply does not bring up heresies in elementary school. So there are no “controversies” about what teachers are teaching when the kids get home from schools. Those who went to RC schools and did not develop any particular interest in any heresy– did not fall away blah, blah blah are often pretty unaware of the position on teaching this stuff because it was a non-issue to their life.
But it is, in fact, the case that if a RC parent has a young kid in public school and the school starts advocating or teaching heresies, the RC parent has a big problem and the parent is supposed to take action.
Roman Catholic parents letting their young kid sit in class and intentionally taught or exposed to heresies technically does violate cannon law. So saying this would violate their faith isn’t attributing to them some sort of odd controversial views.
I would guess that even if many Catholics are blithely unaware of this Roberts, Coney-Barret, Alito and Thomas are very aware of it. Sotomoyor should be. Gorsuch is protestant but was sent to Catholic schools. He may also know this.
I suspect we’ll read a lot of language on what “expose” means. It’s probably not going to be just having a book on the shelf, nor someone blurting something unplanned out. But structured lessons using books that take points of view that violate someone’s religion is different from some passing statement.
And there is nothing to balance– the teacher or school district don’t have some “right” to teach others that gender is not binary!
I’m looking at cited cases and examining similarities and differences with the parents complaintg in Mahmoud. I’ll put in comments as I read them.
Mozert, found here.
https://jackbalkin.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/mozert1.pdf
and here
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/647/1194/2359788/
Parents did not want their kids to read stories about mental telepathy or magic because that violated their religion.
Similar: to Mahmoud. Kids just read.
Difference to Mahmoud: Teachers almost certainly were not claiming mental telepathy was real. No one claims they were encouraging students to believe in ESP. The purpose in introducing the books is not specifically to broaden the children’s minds to the idea that ESP is a real thing. There is/was no significant political movement advocating that ESP or magic is real. It is almost certainly the case that all the teachers consider the idea that characters have psychic powers is fiction.
In contrast, in Mahmoud, the school board does want to expose the students to the idea that being transgender, gay or lesbian is ok. They are not introducing this value as mere “fiction”. The books are describing a position that at least some people are advocating is correct. The teacher training materials include tips on how to push back on people who express values that are disageeable to the idea that gender is binary. “The School Board’s policy of forced participation
in the Pride Storybooks is not neutral toward religious
exercise and expressly encourages teachers to tell
students that their religious and scientific
perspectives are “hurtful.””
Possible difference. There are 14 kids in Mozert; I can only find the age range of one. That was a 6th grader. The kids in Mahmoud include kindergarteners. As kids age, they develop the ability to express disagreements.
United States District Court, E.D. Tennessee, Northeastern Division. ruling: the kids got to opt out of the reading program.
Sixth circuit: They don’t get to opt out of reading. The case didn’t go any further.
Wikipedia:
In Mahmoud, the parents highlight teacher prep material that trains teachers to push back on the idea that being gay, or transgender is, in some way, wrong.
____
If (likely when) SCOTUS rules against the school board in Mahmoud, and don’t think they will have any trouble pointing out the differences in the level of “compulsion”. The school board in Mahmoud almost certainly is trying to instill values with respect to the particular religious views under discussion. The one in Mozert…. no.
The appendix to Mahmoud is interesting btw
http://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24-297/325842/20240912175623063_Mahmoud Cert Appendix FINAL.pdf
Got up at 3:30 AM to watch the Pope’s funeral. One moving part was the ‘Our Father’ prayer that was sung in Latin. That look me a long way back.
Video: https://youtube.com/shorts/9E_vPuGnIl0?si=Hz7dWL5e-3Y-3Tcv
Finishing my morning reading my news feed and listening to the Gregorian Chant play list on Apple Music.
Link: https://music.apple.com/us/album/gregorian-chant/1061635380
Something that has puzzled me in debates about tariffs is the dogmatism of the free traders. Here is an informative discussion of the sources of that dogmatism:
https://commonplace.org/2025/04/24/why-are-free-traders-so-emotional-about-trade/
But first, he briefly points out how unreasonable that dogmatism is:
Economic pacifism.
Photo of the day, Trump and Zelenskyy having a private chat at Saint Peter’s.
https://x.com/rklier21/status/1916366047684214998?s=61&t=7w4bCW3a8ve2DqoeniQatQ
Mark,
This may be of interest (it’s little dated…. February)
New Pentagon Report: F-35 Test Progress Slow, Readiness Below Par
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/new-pentagon-report-f-35-test-progress-readiness/
The most striking moment at the funeral for me was the Byzantine Archbishops chanting the ‘Christos anesti’ in Greek while their Patriarch swings incense around the Pope’s casket.
Video: https://x.com/jkenney/status/1916325366697730093?s=61&t=7w4bCW3a8ve2DqoeniQatQ
Notice the elaborate bejeweled headgear on some of them. They are often referred to as Greek Catholics. They are in full communion with the Roman Catholics. Their priests can marry.
Once each year, my entire high school would attend mass at The Greek Catholic cathedral In Pittsburgh.
Wait, I said that wrong; married men can be ordained as Greek Catholic priests, though priests cannot marry after ordination.
Russel,
Incense waving is cool.
Lucia,
Almost makes up for all the BS
Can’t access the site from my mobile. Complains about an invalid SSL certificate, error 526. Tried multiple browsers. Tried just http, but even with secure connections turned off, it switches to https.
Lucia’s incense post reminded me of a joke from my alter boy days….
The priest instructs the alter boy;
When I sing during the service ‘and the angels lit the candles’ you come out and light the candles.
So, during the service, the priest sings:
“And the angels lit the candles”
And nothing happened, so the priest again sings:
“ And the angels lit the candles”
And after a few moments, the altar boy from back in the sacristy sings:
“And the cat pissed on the matches”
Another moving moment at the funeral was the beautiful incantation of The Litany of the Saints:
Video: https://x.com/catholicsat/status/1916069202475069696?s=61&t=7w4bCW3a8ve2DqoeniQatQ
DaveJR
I’m trying to get something sorted out with the SSL certificate. It’s been an issue, and things are touchy since I requested one at Dreamhost. There seems to be a Dreamhost/Cloudflare issue.
I have a ticket in. Dreamhost replied. We’ll be trying to get this sorted out.
Lucia, a few days I had the exact same error message on my windows desktop. I just cut and paste the URL from my iPad and I haven’t had any trouble since.
Huzzah! Thanks for sorting this out Lucia.
That certification error message kept me out of this site on my comnputer, my table and phone and just this PM am I getting back in.
It seems my phone didn’t have the certificate problem but my computers did. odd. I use Chrome, but also tried Firefox and both hung on the certificate.
“Tariffs are merely instruments of economic statecraft, like taxes of other kinds, tax deductions and exemptions, direct grants, regulations, price controls, capital controls, financial sanctions, public ownership, and other tools of government, all of which are appropriate in some cases and not in others. The only rational answer to the question of whether free trade or protection is the best policy is: it depends.”
Today I’ll be a socialist and tomorrow a capitalist and maybe next week a fascist: it depends. Situational dogmatism.
My daughter-in-law’s mother married a former Catholic priest who wrote a book that ended with the reuniting of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. Reading it I learned a few things I did not know just as was the case with the Canon Law discussion here.
I haven’t seen the site in about 2 days due to the SSL error. I think I only tried on my PC, not on the phone.
I too was frozen out for lack of a ‘valid certificate’. Both phone and desktop.
Interesting observation: one adamant non-believer on this thread appears to know 10x more about Catholicism than most practicing Catholics. Seems ironic, and a little funny.
Hamas is now offering to release all prisoners in exchange for 5 years of cease-fire, AKA liberty to re-arm, dig tunnels and plan more attacks on Israel. Oddly enough, Israel shows no interest. They will not stop until Hamas is gone. Another year? Hard to say.
I Ukraine, there seems little prospect for a cease-fire in the near term, and even less prospect for anything except a cease-fire combined with a ‘frozen conflict’ long term. Unfortunately, the killing will continue for a while.
I did manage to write more code in the last couple of days that I otherwise would have. 😉
I was out for a few days due to a SSL error.
Thanks for supporting the site Lucia.
My Dad finally moved to Florida so I have been to church a couple times lately. It’s about the same as I remember. The priest was pretty good down here, makes a big difference.
Elite Universities Form Private Collective to Resist Trump Administration
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/elite-universities-form-private-collective-to-resist-trump-administration-95a14ff3?st=B7fMFY&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
They need to be very careful here, if it comes off as elite universities resisting the will of the public (funding) then it may further erode support for higher education. I think they live in a bubble and are bound to screw this up big time.
The certificate problem was on and off. It may or may not be fully vanquished. If it recurrs, it’s not you. It should be fixed soon though.
Au contrair SteveF.
Some sort of Ukraine truce in next 2 weeks.
Hamas ? No idea.
Big issue is Iran and if a strike will occur when Ukraine out of the way.
Only guessing
angech,
We will see.
WRT Iran? Difficult to say for sure, but I am guessing Trump means it when he says no nuclear weapons for Iran. The mullahs need to be very careful about where they sleep….. unless they really do want to meet all those virgins.
Peace in Ukraine seems a long way off. Lavrov in an interview laid out Russians demands. They are the same as months ago. Trump is getting nowhere:
“In an interview with Brazil’s O Globo, Russia’s foreign minister laid out a list of demands:
Kyiv must abandon its NATO ambitions and remain neutral.
The “neo-Nazi regime” must stop eradicating everything Russian in Ukraine — language, media, culture, traditions, and canonical Orthodoxy.
Crimea, Sevastopol, and the so-called DNR, LNR, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions must be officially recognized as Russian.
Ukraine must undergo demilitarization and denazification.
All sanctions against Russia must be lifted, legal claims and arrest warrants canceled, and frozen assets returned.
Moscow must receive “reliable security guarantees” against threats allegedly created by NATO’s hostile activities.”
https://x.com/nexta_tv/status/1916797842414280734?s=61&t=7w4bCW3a8ve2DqoeniQatQ
Fox News, yesterday:
Senator John Kennedy on Putin: “He broke every promise made to Trump. He wants to keep the territory he’s seized and stop Ukraine from joining NATO. He thinks we fear him. Putin has deceived Trump at every turn. The situation won’t improve until we make it clear that we’re ready to turn him and his country into fish food. I’m not talking nuclear weapons—I’d start with oil.”
It was worth trying to end the Ukraine war. It aint happening.
Now what? Back to Plan A I guess, keep grinding Russia down and make them pay for every inch until Ukraine themselves concede. Still likely to not end well for them, they have been fighting heroically all things said.
The EU is no doubt still making plans to plan on doing something.
Another disastrous weekend for Snow White in worldwide theaters. Current estimate for total money loss is over $200 million. Get woke, go broke strikes again.
Monday morning headlines:
“With humiliating box office numbers and historic audience backlash, Disney’s live-action Snow White becomes one of the biggest failures in Hollywood history”
“Snow White Box Office Run Is Almost Over, Cementing All-Time Flop For Disney”
Tom, Your comment:
“Back to Plan A I guess, keep grinding Russia down and make them pay for every inch until Ukraine themselves concede.”
And
“The EU is no doubt still making plans to plan on doing something.”
I am still of the mind that Europe is happy with the status quo; Ukraine is spending US money and spilling their own blood and destroying Russia’s war machine.
I don’t know that much can be made of Russia not changing its public bargaining position. They might very well not move on that until there is a deal.
When Trump was promising that he could get a quick peace deal in Ukraine, Russell (I think) wondered what leverage Trump figured he had with Russia. That was a good point. So far, it looks like if Trump has such leverage, Putin does not seem to know about it.
Russell wrote: “I am still of the mind that Europe is happy with the status quo; Ukraine is spending US money and spilling their own blood and destroying Russia’s war machine.”
That might well be true. Totally unprincipled on the part of Europe, but true. But if Ukraine really is destroying the Russian military, then Putin ought to be willing to bargain.
Maybe Trump thinks his real leverage is with Europe. Try to broker a deal. If he succeeds, great. If not, tell the Europeans that Ukraine is now their problem.
Sigh.
I wonder what Sen. Kennedy has in mind when he says “I’d start with oil”. Seize or sink some tankers carrying Russian oil? It would not take many to put an end to most Russian oil exports.
Can OPEC make up for the loss of Russian oil? Would they? Even if they can, they probably won’t until oil prices go through the roof.
Maybe cutting off Russian oil exports is Trump’s leverage. If so, then he obviously won’t want to play that card unless he absolutely has to. So maybe Putin is betting that Trump won’t do it, and Trump is trying to convince Putin that he is not bluffing.
We live in interesting times. Dang it.
Interestingly, not known for aligning to conservative stances, Randi Weingarten would not read these books to 4-6 year olds.
Mike, your post:
“I don’t know that much can be made of Russia not changing its public bargaining position. They might very well not move on that until there is a deal.”
Yes, I didn’t think of that. Laryov’s barking may be a negotiation ploy.
Lucia,
This is a question I hesitate to ask for a few different reasons, not least of which is that in a sense it is rude to ask a question that is difficult to answer in fewer words than a dissertation would require.
You said above in a response to Kenneth,
Where do you think objective right and wrong comes from? If this is too onerous to answer (and it would be too onerous for me to answer if you asked me), would you consider answering with a brief sketch of the direction in which you believe the answer lies? I do not have an good answer to this question that I consider satisfactory and would like to find one.
[Edit: Or rather, I am not satisfied with the answers I can produce to this question, maybe that’s a better way to put it.]
My understanding of the Russian position on Ukraine has not changed as Russia has been very consistent on their requirements to end the war.
Russia is taking the long view for its interests. A ceasefire in place that allows for emplacing NATO troops into Ukraine is completely unacceptable to Russia. Russia takes the same position on this issue as would the US with Mexico if Mexico allowed the Chinese to station Chinese army divisions on the US / Mexico border. Not going to happen.
The Russian are winning the war of attrition against Ukraine with the goal of destroying Ukraine military manpower. Once Ukraine manpower falls below sustainable levels, the Ukraine army will collapse. Very much what happened to Germany in WWI.
There is an extended power outage ongoing that affects all of Spain and Portugal, and part of France. The official explanation is the cause was ‘Rare Atmospheric Phenomenon’. I can find no sun spots reports or outages anywhere else on the planet. I am wondering what this could be?
Russell,
Shellenberger says it’s overreliance on renewables and insufficient ‘inertia’ in the grid in Spain that has caused this.
Obviously I don’t actually know, but it wouldn’t surp[r]ise me the teeniest bit if it turns out that he is correct.
Sorry.
I could’ve supplied a link I guess:
https://www.public.news/p/over-reliance-on-renewables-behind
Mark,
Well I guess they are calling cloudy skies and calm winds a rare atmospheric phenomenon
I don’t know how you lose almost all power to a modern country and 8 hours later you officially don’t know what caused it.
We all braced for India to invade Pakistan and Pakistan to nuke them in response? It could happen, apparently.
[I miss the days when mutually assured destruction seemed to work as a deterrent.]
The longer it takes, the more likely it is that Russell is correct. Which isn’t to say there won’t be some truthy hypotheses, masquerading as facts, presented in the meantime.
It would seem they are spending an inordinate amount of time getting their story straight, That usually signals incompetence one way or the other.
CNN: “There is no conclusive information on what caused the power outage that has affected Spain, Portugal and parts of France, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Monday.
He said officials were trying to determine the cause and had not yet ruled out any theories, but he urged the public to avoid speculation.”
Yes, don’t speculate people! Ha ha.
I consider the 10 Kw (continuous) generator and the 50 gals of gasoline I keep on hand, and I do not get too worked up about short term energy interruptions. That said, I am happy I do not live in Spain…… where energy outages seem part of the official energy plan for the country.
“Shellenberger says it’s overreliance on renewables and insufficient ‘inertia’ in the grid in Spain that has caused this.”
He is likely right about this. There is no “inertial kinetic” energy that backs up solar and wind against sudden load changes, but is a normal part of all conventional energy systems. Easy enough (although expensive!) to add said inertia…. giant rotating motor/generators that sit on the line, ready to add or absorb sudden energy changes, or instant-response battery systems which resist sudden load changes. Not likely to happen in eco-sensitive Europe.
Europe:
1) No free speech.
2) High taxes
3) Absurd energy policies
4) Squelching of all political opposition.
Unfortunately, Europe seems doomed to a gradual decline in wealth and concurrent increase in poverty and misery.
Mark
I’m not sure there is objective right and wrong. But I don’t think God exists, so if it does exist, it doesn’t come from God.
I just know the “correct” answers in my religion class were that there was objective right and wrong and that it came from God. We were supposed to all agree to this pretty quickly and then move on. I think we were supposed to decide what things were right or wrong.
There was an attempt to have some illusion of reasoning– but it was important to get the right answers.
To some extent, I don’t think whether right and wrong is “objective” is all that important. I think what’s more important is if we agree on what is right and wrong– even if someone sees the reasons as “subjective”.
Thanks Lucia.
The AfD almost won the German election. The other parties formed a coalition and are forming a Ministry of Truth to punish disinformation. Sound familiar? I do wonder who they will target.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/germanys-new-coalition-plans-a-crackdown-on-free-speech-censorship-debate-parties-1e3607ee?st=exZjRH&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
“The coalition pact includes Orwellian language: “The deliberate dissemination of false factual claims is not protected by freedom of speech.” A new “nongovernmental” media oversight body will target “information manipulation” and “hate.”
This initiative has already earned a nickname in Germany: the “lying ban.” Even within the CDU, the proposal sparked ridicule. Friedrich Merz, the party leader and incoming chancellor, promised fiscal discipline during the campaign, then swiftly unveiled the largest debt package in German history. One German columnist asked: “When will Merz turn himself in to the authorities?””
“Where do you think objective right and wrong comes from?”
Beating a dog with a whip is objectively wrong. Why? Because the dog suffers for no reason. A dog has no capacity for rationally evaluating its behavior, nor understanding why its behavior should change.
Beating a person with a whip is objectify wrong, unless the suffering that person experiences is justified by that person’s past behavior. Unlike the suffering of a beaten dog, the person has objective capacity to rationally evaluate his/her past behavior. Did that behavior add to or detract from overall human happiness? Added overall happiness or added overall suffering? If I were an elected democrat, I would be nervous.
Steve,
I have heard people make a persuasive argument that, while it might be difficult to nail down what ‘good’ is, it’s relatively easy to identify an ‘evil’ vector and avoid it. Promoting needless suffering is a good example; if promoting needless suffering isn’t evil, then I think most people would agree that the term ‘evil’ doesn’t have much meaning.
It’s a good starting point anyway. [Not a bad starting point, perhaps would be the way to say that!]
I actually do think this is important, and I don’t think the subjective social convention idea is ‘good enough’. What do I mean by ‘good enough’? Well, is whether or not it’d be ‘good’ for us to be free or slaves of some person or State merely a social convention? If enough people agreed we should be slaves, would that have the same moral significance as people wanting to be free? My answer to all of these questions is an emphatic ‘no, indeed’.
It’s quite the rectal pain however to derive objective morality, or even morality that might be objective in principle.
I don’t necessarily think it is important to discuss here. I was only asking Lucia because the subject came up peripherally.
Do the political convictions people exhibit here flow from some other spring than moral conviction?
Practicality, perhaps. I mean, why be a conservative instead of a liberal if morality is subjective or just a social construct? One answer might be ‘well, conservative policies work better’, by some metric.
But maybe this is of interest primarily just to me, in which case I’ll shush up about it.
If I were an elected democrat, I would be nervous.
Telling people exactly what to do usually, and quite reasonably, pisses them off. There is no up-side to this. Democrats are the party of “you must do this”, no matter how absurd “this” might be.
Given a fair election, without distortions and deceptions, democrats usually lose. That is why they lost the 7 swing sates in 2024. It is also why J D Vance will likely be sworn in January 2028.
Sorry, sworn in January, 2029
Tom Scharf,
” I do wonder who they will target.”
They will target anyone who is a) visible, and b) not promoting ideals of the left.
The left never relents and never compromises on substance.
Evil people doing evil things.
Glimmer of hope or false dawn. Putin offers partial cease fire.
Fingers xed.
Enough dead on both sides.
Mark Bofill
Where do you think objective right and wrong comes from?”
–
A cat plays with (tortures) a mouse, then eats it.
I eat some lamb chops.
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Evil or not?
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Subjective, objective, perspective.
When you ask Lucia that question you have already moved far past an unsolvable three body problem.
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Objective right can only come from a determination by a group of synchronous minded individuals and only lasts for as long as that group maintains that mindset.
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If we fix a large number of parameters, that is, agree that they are the basis of “righteousness “, we can establish an agreed set of objective values that everyone should accept.
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What I am trying to say is that if different groups of people have different objective rights and wrongs but do not enforce them on other people outside of their group and respect the right of other groups to have their own rights and wrongs then that is OK?
I don’t know. Let’s see how it plays out in the playground of our minds:
Let’s say you and I have different ideas about right and wrong (obviously we are talking subjective and not objective here, despite your use of the word ‘objective’, since we can’t both objectively be right if we disagree, but this aside.) I think I should be able to torture and kill small children, say as an offering to my god Moloch. You disagree. Is it OK for you not to enforce your ideas on me and the children I kill and respect my ‘right’ to have my own rights and wrongs?
Suppose I am part of a cult of Moloch worshippers if that makes a difference; if I need a group to justify my claim to right and wrong. I don’t see that that makes much difference, personally.
You can assert that, but it has not been demonstrated. Objectively, 2+2 = 4, and it doesn’t matter at all what ‘synchronous minded individuals’ determine about it or how long that group maintains that mindset. In fact, we can refresh our memory and look at what the word ‘objective’ means:
So, basically the opposite of what you were suggesting.
Finally, regarding your ‘cat’ query, I think we should stipulate that we are discussing human morality and leave other species out of it to simplify.
I’m sorry, that was not the definition of objective best cited. Rather, we should go with Merriam Webster 2a in this context:
(emphasis added)
I think that a lot of our ideas of objective right and wrong are part of our nature. Our inborn ideas get amplified by rules of behavior learned early in childhood. Religion clarifies and reinforces those ideas.
Since much of that seems innate, we think it must come from somewhere, just as we do with complexity and order in the natural world. So we attribute such things to God. It really does not matter if God exists.
If God exists, the above is the only way we perceive His existence. He does not directly appear to us or hand out written lists of rules.
If God does not exist, we still perceive His existence. And postulating the existence of God is still a good way to think about rules and order in Creation. Especially so with things like Good and Evil, which do not lend themselves to scientific analysis.
angech
Putin is playing people. Putin is playing Trump.
I submit that at least six of these qualify for identification of objective right and wrong:
I am the Lord your God: You shall not have strange Gods before me.
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Day.
Honor your father and mother.
You shall not kill.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.
You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods.
Russell
Sure. That’s statement is objectively wrong. There is no God. The only reason to not have other strange gods before Thor or Odin is the other gos are also fictional.
Objectively, “Huh?” What’s the name of the lord your God? If there is no lord or God, then he/she/it doesn’t have a name. Obviously, I can’t take it in vain because it doesn’t exist! On the other hand, I rarely take Odin’s name in vain. So I’m in the clear!
Also, Huh? There is no lord. There is no day.
Look, I know you are sincere about this. But you need to see these are not in the list of “objective” rules.
What if the tell me to take the Lord’s name in vain? I couldn’t do that without violating the above. And what does “honor” mean? It’s not “obey”, right? Is it enough to find them a good nursing home? Which they or the government pay for? Sorry for the rhetoricals, but I don’t know that this rule even means.
We now have the four things that are concrete and meaningful. I mostly agree with this. But the… war. Is killing allowed? Most cultures think it is. What about the death penalty for murderers? What about self defense? Lots of people who are all about the 10 commandments think some of these killings are ok. I personally don’t think I need to avoid killing so much I would let someone kill me or some other innocent person.
I think everyone has done the ubiquitous either/or, “Is it ok to steal to save someone’s life?”. This is as ubiquitous as the “Trolley Problem”.
I don’t know the definition of “covet” as used here. I agree stealing from them is bad. But I’m not sure just wishing I had similarly nice things is wrong. I don’t think it would be wrong for my dance teacher to year to possess my brother in laws’s Ferrari!
Russel,
I don’t entirely want to be flip. But questions about right and wrong are just not that easy. And those that presuppose God are always inherently dicey. I think God doesn’t exist. And simplistic “rules” like the 10 commandments just don’t work. What the are is starting points to discuss right and wrong. They just are useful and hard and fast rules.
Mark
“the definition of objective best cited. Is Merriam Webster 2a in this context: of, relating to, or being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers : having reality independent of the mind”
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Thanks.
It seems a rather precise, concrete definition.
To me though there is a subtle difference between being objective and being an objective when we use the term in the sense of an objective or subjective point of view.
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Since we are talking about a point of view the MW definition above falls a bit flat because despite it being perhaps a phenomenon it certainly is not independent of the mind or something that is actually perceptible by all individuals.
–
I guess that is why I said restricting or defining a large number of parameters and having a like minded group is the only way to ensure true objectivity and that only for that group and in that group of observers.
–
“Let’s say you and I have different ideas about right and wrong (obviously we are talking subjective and not objective here, despite your use of the word ‘objective’, since we can’t both objectively be right if we disagree, but this aside.)”
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An objective truth can only be true and objective if agreed on by all members of a like minded group independent of and isolated from any other group with a different mindset.
“I think I should be able to X say as an offering to my god Moloch. You disagree.
Is it OK for you not to enforce your ideas on me and respect my ‘right’ to have my own rights and wrongs?”
–
Objectively the answer in my group is and should be yes.
One proviso would be if my group had an objective belief that I/we must enforce our ideas on you if we believed you were wrong then unfortunately my group would have an objective right to do so.
–
Re the comment on needing to belong to a group importance.
The idea raised about objective right and wrong presupposes that right and wrong exist in a group setting of human beings.
Absent said group with the ability to have a concept of right or wrong no such animal exists.
In any such group an objective truth is defined as one all members of the group agree is both true and objective,
To an outsider or observer such objective truths are no longer necessarily true or objective.
Lucia, my comment said:
“I submit that at least six of these qualify for identification of objective right and wrong”
You agreed (sort of) with six of them. So we have no argument.
Thanks Mike. That’s interesting! I appreciate your giving me something to think about.
angech,
I don’t know why you insist on misusing the word ‘objective’ like that. It strikes me as Orwellian to try to pretend that the word ‘objective’ means subjective.
I’m not cooperating with that.
I think the problem may be that you have already predefined morality to mean subjective morality. It’s perfectly fine in you don’t think objective morality exists. But that’s not the same as saying subjective morality is objective morality.
It is objectively true that people hold subjective viewpoints. This doesn’t mean those subjective viewpoints are objective viewpoints, they are not.
Objective morality means morality that is not a subjective viewpoint. That doesn’t depend on what a group believes. I’m not making this up, this is what people mean when they say ‘objective morality’
Russell,
I was thinking of a posting similar to yours – remove the first 3 (maybe 4, but maybe not – keeping the sabbath is about taking a day off, which is good for the body and soul).
The rest are how to deal with each other. Add the golden rule (treat others as you want them to treat you), and you have the basis for social morality. I see these as objective truths. Are they “from God”? or are they just a really good ideas that the ancient society codified and attributed to “god”? I’ll leave that for each of us to decide individually.
Mark Bofill,
I just try to not hurt people without good cause….. which seems good enough in most circumstances.
There is indeed objective reality: all points on a circle are equidistant from its center; the first derivative of x^2 is 2x; electrons can be displaced from their associated nucleus by electromagnetic radiation, all masses attract each other, etc.
I think there is clear immorality in refusing to accept objective reality to advance a philosophy. That way lies immense potential for harm. Unfortunately, rejection of objective reality is often a foundational basis for many who claim to have identified “objective morality” through their philosophical, religious, or political views .
DeanP,
The Ten Commandments worked as a foundation for the Israeli nation, and they have been around for 4,000 years. Seems like a good place for an individual to start.
Thanks Steve.
I certainly agree that accepting objective reality has to be an ingredient to moral behavior. At its root, the question of morality is something like ‘what should I do or not do?’ or something similar. Without accepting objective reality few to no aims will be achieved, or at last far fewer and less efficiently than otherwise, so it seems to me to stand to reason that: for those who believe it is moral to do anything at all, it must follow that one must accept objective reality, since little to nothing can be done elsewise.
I think there is more to it that you think. It’s not just not hurting people. Why do we have unalienable rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness (or property)? Why is slavery wrong, specifically, so we can recognize the wrong in other forms, like totalitarian systems. Why not vote for Sanders or AOC? Do all of these have moral valence or are they merely optimization or empirical decisions? Are practical or empirical decisions fundamentally different from moral decisions anyway?
I asked a bunch of questions. I don’t think I’m breaking the rhetorical question rule, because what my asking these questions was intended to illustrate was just that there’s a lot of ground under the umbrella of ‘moral’ or in answer to the question ‘what should we do or not do’.
I am not arguing for a religious viewpoint at the moment. I am however suggesting that it’s a bad idea to coast on inertia, borrowing ideas about right and wrong from past generations who derived these ideas from a religious viewpoint. I think it behooves atheists to realize some other basis for objective morality or to reject it. But ultimately I am asking about this because I don’t personally have good answers to these questions and I hope that somebody gives me something I can use.
Russell,
Huh? I don’t know how you get six. I don’t even know what “covet” is supposed to mean! I certainly don’t agree you shouldn’t do it.
At most, I agree with four— and those are still open questions. Someone has to tell me precisely what they mean by “though shalt not kill”. Because if self defense is not allowed, I don’t agree with that.
I’ll take four as a win.
Mark, Angech,
I agree with Mark. Angech is trying to redefine “objective morality” to be “subjective morality”. The fact that you can find a group with members who all agree on a moral issue doesn’t make it “objective morality”. Gangs often have members who agree on certain moral issues. That can be that they will send hit men out to kill their rivals. Meanwhile, people outside the gang think that behavior is immoral.
Looking at what successfully functioning groups and societies have thought moral and immoral might be a way to help figure out what is “objectively” moral. But the fact that the group holds a view doesn’t make it “objectively” true. It can seem so to members of the group, especially if the group is large enough and members have no exposure to any other thinking. But that’s still not “objective” in the way ” ii + ii = iiii” (i.e. 2+2=4, shown with toothpicks.) If everyone in a group insisted “iii + ii = iiii” (3+2 = 5) that would still be incorrect.
Moral truths are more difficult. We don’t need to spend a lot of time asking things like “How do we know what is objectively true” in math.
Russel,
I’m not sure what you consider to be a win! Objectively four is not at least 6! Perhaps you are an “arithmetic relatvivist”?
Thanks Lucia.
It’s hard for me to figure out the line sometimes between me being pedantic and me making important distinctions. I think the conversation would quickly break down though if we used terms to mean the opposite of what other commonly understand them to mean.
Shrug
DeanP
Well… it depends what “basis” means. The Golden Rule itself needs quite a bit of elaboration on “what does it mean”. You may not be related to people whose reasoning often goes like party B:
A: “You opened my mail without my permission!!!”
B: “Of course. I wouldn’t mind if you opened my mail without my permission! ”
And B honestly thinks there is nothing “wrong” with what they did and A should put up with it. They think they are following the “Golden Rule”. The Golden Rule still needs a lot more detail. The Golden Rule is a good start and better than some other possible rules like “This King has a divine right to do whatever he wants. You, peaon, should put up with it.”
(Relatives who argue back like that in my family were Mom and a brother. We need not get into what A argues back or does. Nor need we debate whether ‘B’s claim is actually true. I think they believe it true in the moment they say it. I would be surprised if anyone has never come across someone like “B”. )
Mark,
When arguing about “subjective morality” vs “objective morality”, the definitions of objective and subjective are important.
Arguing about the issue is itself somewhat pedantic. But if you are going engage in discussing a pendantic subject, you must be pedantic about some definitions.
I only introduced this topic to explain how difficult it was for my senior year religion teacher to handle it in religion class. She was, I think, a novitiate (novice?); it was her first year teaching. She wanted very much to touch on a “deep meaningful” topics instead of the “Q: deep question” , A:” Student spouts memorized answer– or paraphrases it.” But then cannon law does say you shouldn’t go into this if can lead the students into “heresy” or “false ideas”. And the problem with “deep questions” is you can’t really discuss them and if you deem one answer “clearly right”– and also if you want to march through a syllabus “fast”.
Is there objective morality is a very deep question that people have pondered a long, long time. You can’t really address it without being open to the possibility that some people will answer “yes”, some “no” and some, “I don’t think we really know.”
If, when teaching, you feel the answer must be “yes” and the answer to “how do we know”, is “we take guidance from the teachings of the Catholic Church” and moreover, you want to get to that answer in the first few weeks so you can move on to “What about ‘X’?” And then have students turn to reading what the Catholic Church has to say about the morality of ‘X’?
Sometimes what the Catholic Church has to say is interesting. You do often have to put up with a lot of language I would call “church-ease” especially in prefaces. But it can be interesting. A class on “what does the Catholic Church have to say about things” could be pretty interesting.
Lucia,
Yes. I was raised Catholic but I never investigated Church canon law and the proscription against teaching heresy. It stands to reason that this would be so, when you think about it. I was glad you mentioned it. I certainly see how rules interfering with or forbidding an unbiased investigation might be counterproductive at arriving at an understanding of the truth, or even an understanding of the relevant issues and questions surrounding an issue. It’s not a useful approach, unless the goal is conformity and indoctrination, something like that anyway; something other than discovery. Maybe the goal is to perpetuate dogma? I don’t know exactly.
Thanks!
I know the subject is a heavy lift, but I still think it has practical implications on a daily basis. If you have a child who is confused about their gender for instance, abstract pedantic philosophical questions might suddenly take on a horrific concrete vital importance. (I’m not sure this is precisely a moral question though. It might be.)
This may be helpful:
“Of the Morals of the Catholic Church”
Written by St. Augustine of Hippo in A.D. 388
I am not suggesting this is the authority, it’s been 60 years since I was forced to study it. I didn’t like it at the time. Augustine was an oft quoted philosopher by the religious eggheads that thought me.
Cliff notes version (free):
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1401.htm
Full document ($0.99):
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/of-the-morals-of-the-catholic-church-saint-augustine/1110608973
Russell,
It is certainly true that reading writings of St. Augustine are important if you want to learn what the Roman Catholic church teachings are. The nun teaching my senior course didn’t use it. Perhaps she would have if our conversations had gotten to the “right answers” earlier.
She’s also framed this as “modern problems” of some such thing. If she written the description as “Applying the teaching of St. Augustine to modern problems”, I probably would still have picked that class. Technically religious classes were electives– but you had to take some certain number and I needed one more to graduate.
For some reason she chose to describe something different. Maybe she thought describing it as a class about reading St. Augustine would fail to attract students. dunno.
Mark,
I think at a minimum, what to do about a child who has gender dysphoria is a values– and so moral– question. Also, what obligations others have toward that child and what obligations that child has towards others with regard to the kids dysphoria and a moral question.
And they are moral questions even when the person with dysphoria is an adult. It’s just the specific answers might differ owing to the maturity of the person with the issue.
Moral issues arise if we are discussing “What to do about a person who is psychotic?”, “What to do about a person who has a painful debilitating illness, two months to live and expresses a desire to commit suicide?”
One thing I notice is that with respect to the questions in the paragraph just previous, people are generally somewhat respectful of the fact that disagreements exist.
For example Chapter 15 is on point, and it doesn’t spout Catholic doctrine, just Agustine’s personal ideas on virtue:
As to virtue leading us to a happy life, I hold virtue to be nothing else than perfect love of God. For the fourfold division of virtue I regard as taken from four forms of love. For these four virtues (would that all felt their influence in their minds as they have their names in their mouths!), I should have no hesitation in defining them: that temperance is love giving itself entirely to that which is loved; fortitude is love readily bearing all things for the sake of the loved object; justice is love serving only the loved object, and therefore ruling rightly; prudence is love distinguishing with sagacity between what hinders it and what helps it. The object of this love is not anything, but only God, the chief good, the highest wisdom, the perfect harmony. So we may express the definition thus: that temperance is love keeping itself entire and incorrupt for God; fortitude is love bearing everything readily for the sake of God; justice is love serving God only, and therefore ruling well all else, as subject to man; prudence is love making a right distinction between what helps it towards God and what might hinder it.
https://www.logoslibrary.org/augustine/morals/15.html
Lucia,
Hmm. I’m not sure what you mean by ‘respectful’ there. Do you mean ‘people are aware that disagreements exist’, or do you mean ‘people are tolerant of disagreements that exist? [or do you mean something else entirely?] I’m also not sure where you’re going with that.
Paragraphs 26,27,and 28 speak to what is known colloquially today as the ‘Golden Rule’.
An excerpt:
“And every one knows how many and how weighty are the words to be found everywhere in these books on the love of our neighbor. But as a man may sin against another in two ways, either by injuring him or by not helping him when it is in his power, and as it is for these things which no loving man would do that men are called wicked, all that is required is, I think, proved by these words, “The love of our neighbor works no ill.” And if we cannot attain to good unless we first desist from working evil, our love of our neighbor is a sort of cradle of our love to God, so that, as it is said, “the love of our neighbor works no ill,” we may rise from this to these other words, “We know that all things issue in good to them that love God.”
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1401.htm
Russell,
The problem I have with a lot of that is the meaning of ‘serving God’ or ‘for the sake of God’ is largely opaque to those who don’t already believe in God. I will freely admit I don’t understand what Aquinas is trying to say when he says such things.
The meaning might actually be unclear to those who already do believe in God as well. It’s very easy to dismiss ‘serving God’ as ‘obedience to the Church’ or obedience to Church leaders or Church dogma / teachings.
I am skeptical of the idea that there can be an objective morality, at least not without basing it on God.
I searched on “objective definition” and found the following as the first two definitions. The other definitions do not seem relevant.
1. Existing independent of or external to the mind; actual or real.
2. Based on observable phenomena; empirical.
Using the first definition, I can see where there could be an objective morality, but only if one assumes the existence of God.
I don’t see how there can be an objective morality according to the second definition.
Russel
Dean thinks this is the golden rule
That’s the definition I usually hear people use.
On to yours…
This is what I call “church-ese”. Or perhaps, Catholic Church-ese”.
This would seem to be four rules.
None of these seem to match what DeanP calls the “golden rule”. So they would seem to be, at best “some alternate golden rule”. I’m not recognizing what you posted as anything colloquially known as “the golden rule”. Certainly, it seems to talk about God.
Mark
Somewhere in between. The arguments generally don’t report to calling other people ‘something-phobe’. And those arguing generally at least recognize (or pretend to recognize) that they need to advance actual arguments for their positions instead of just decreeing all sorts of things self-evident.
I’m not saying always. But the Transgender arguments really do often fall into the category of people insisting something is self evident— like it’s an axiom.
Mike,
Why do you think objective morality can’t be based on observable phenomena and be empirical? To be clear, I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m saying I’m not following you.
mark bofill: “Why do you think objective morality can’t be based on observable phenomena and be empirical?”
I did not actually say that it can’t be done; I said that I can not see a way to do it. And so far as I know, nobody has succeeded in doing it, although many very smart people have tried.
One might empirical establish what is generally thought to be moral; but I don’t think that is the same as establishing an objective morality.
I agree with Mike. As we’ve seen very recently, it can be argued that the perception of one person varies from another. This is undoubtedly true to greater or lessor extents. We don’t know that what one person sees as blue is exactly what another person sees as blue, and this isn’t even considering the effects of mutations which objectively change perception. It is only a small step from there to argue that morality is also a matter of perception. Without an external anchor, an “objective” morality is malleable.
Lucia,
Thanks, I understand what you mean now. Maybe people run aground when their assumptions are different. for instance, if one assumes that people are born blank slates and that genetics and biology plays no significant role in the development of identity and behavior, that might lead one to support transgender shenanigans (prejudicial term I know). Maybe. Maybe it’s hard for people to identify their unarticulated assumptions. [Maybe this would lead them to believe what they think is true is obviously or axiomatically true.]
Figuring out how tolerant to be is another hard question. I mean ideally how tolerant should I be? I think what you do in your bedroom with other consenting parties is entirely your business. I think what you do to people who don’t consent might constitute things I shouldn’t be tolerant of. There’s a line there someplace that’s hard to draw.
I have this whole schpiel on how freedom is (what freedom in practice actually means) the freedom to be ignorant, wrong, evil, etc. and yet it is absolutely vital and ‘good’ that people be free. It’s interesting to me how seemingly contradictory ideas nest here. I’m not going anywhere with this, just an idea that occurred to me in response to what you were saying, about being respectful or tolerant of disagreements about morality.
Thanks Mike.
Mike, Dave,
Differences in perception, fine. But that only takes you so far. Pain is fairly universal, I think it’s a good external anchor starting point. The fragility and finite nature of life and mortality might be other good anchors.
We have objective physical nature, which gives us common objective physical needs, that’s another good potential starting point.
I sort of assume or take it on faith that what is ‘right’ is somewhat analogous to ‘what will minimize my suffering and the collective suffering of my society’, and of course one can argue that’s unjustified. You have to start someplace though, with some assumptions, it seems to me, to get anywhere.
The problem waiting in the wings for those who reject God and go empirical is, how do we avoid the rocks that sink the ships of the secular humanist progressIves. This is the follow up question I’m keenly interested in. I mean, I can say a lot of negative things about progressives, but one thing I have to hand them is that they certainly tried to figure all this out absent religious ideas!
Don’t misunderstand me. I do not make these arguments as evidence for the existence of God, or as evidence that we should ACT as if we believed in God, or anything of the sort.
Right and wrong is easier to sort out when that is tied to an objective. Many of the innate judgments shared across cultures and sometimes species has the objective of individual and group survival. Hunting is OK, but not your own species.
It’s just as easy to say God works through the mechanism of genetic programming.
Mark Bofill: “how do we avoid the rocks that sink the ships of the secular humanist progressIves.”
I am doubtful that we can, absent religion. One reason that I say that is the breathtaking speed with which progressive morality can shift. What is OK today is forbidden tomorrow. Without an anchor, morality just becomes a tool of power. There is then nothing except greater force to constrain a Hitler, Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot. All of whom were atheists.
John Adams: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
George Washington: “Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
Mike,
That’s likely to be an unpopular position to take around here specifically, and in this day and age in general. In a sense it is therefore also a courageous observation to make.
You might be right.
There’s other pitfalls to avoid down the religious path of course. What keeps us from becoming fundamentalists or fanatics for example.
In a way, that led me up to this as well. There’s a lot of ‘God’ mixed into most natural rights theory I read from the early days of this country. It’s hard to know how ‘separable ‘ the two things are.
Activist secular progressives kid themselves if they think they haven’t just replaced one form of religion for another. Just because they don’t have a Pope doesn’t mean the same underpinnings aren’t there.
I would also suggest one mainstay of any religion is an almost absolute certainty your flavor is superior to another.
Since mankind has been pondering the question of right and wrong and virtue and morals for a very long time, it seems to me to make sense to look into what religions and scholars have said overtime. Both Jewish and Christian religions have thousands of years of experience dealing with right and wrong, as do others, Hindu and Buddhism for example. It doesn’t makes sense to me to start up from scratch all over again. I am not talking about God here, just deciding right from wrong in human interaction. Just because they believe in God doesn’t mean they are wrong in determining how people should treat each other.
Times change. Just because they don’t believe in God doesn’t mean they are wrong in determining how people should treat each other.
Like almost all groups that obtain significant power even (especially?) religious groups went on wars of conquest and got a bit authoritative.
Certainly religions that have stood the test of time should be examined for what makes them tick.
A number of religions’ views on morality in my mind are based on human actions and interactions as are some secular philosophies with both recognizing natural rights. Religions are prone to base those rights and morality on God given.
Russell makes the point at Russell Klier
April 29, 2025 at 12:47 pm that God or no God it can make sense on how people should treat one another.
MikeM
I think you can come up with an objective morality without God. You just need to create primary rules. I think Asimov’s “Three laws or robotics” created a form of morality for robots.
I think you might be confusing “objective” for “both objective and unique”.
Even if you stipulate it comes from God, you still end up with something that has to start with known rules. The only difference is you say the rules come from God.
Russell
I’m not sure what you mean by “start from scratch”. But if you mean no one should ignore what others before have written or reasoned out, I don’t think anyone suggests they should. Tons of philosophy treatises get written morality. The ones starting from “no God” don’t read or reference past works any less than the ones starting from “God”. If anything, the “no God” ones read more since some of the ones starting from God will focus on “their” God and history only.
MikeM
Christians went from not allowing money lenders to charge interest to allowing the to do so with breath taking speed. It happened during the reformation. Even with God people can change morality with breathtaking speed.
“My moral authority is based on channeling right and wrong from an omnipotent being that can’t be proven or disproven” is not compelling to me. But as Russell says that doesn’t mean their conclusions for how to run a society are flawed, just the justification, but it’s not like they don’t have reams and reams of stuff written down on the subject. I don’t get very worked up about it.
I just took my Dad to church again today, their objectives and methods have been fine tuned for centuries and are commendable in most aspects. When you are sitting around with 40 very senior citizens at the church lunch it’s hard to criticize their goals.
lucia: “I think you can come up with an objective morality without God. You just need to create primary rules.”
You can certainly come up with rules for morality. I don’t see how you can claim they are “objective”. Maybe we are using different definitions of “objective”. How do you define it?
lucia wrote: “Even if you stipulate it comes from God, you still end up with something that has to start with known rules. The only difference is you say the rules come from God.”
That is a big difference: Rules created by man can easily be changed by man. Rules that come from God, even if only supposedly, can not be so easily changed.
lucia wrote: “Christians went from not allowing money lenders to charge interest to allowing the to do so with breath taking speed”.
I really don’t know what you are talking about. I don’t think that not charging interest was ever a fundamental principle of Christianity.
MikeM
And yet, if we put on our empiricist hat and look at the evidence, as far as I can tell, moral rules are changed just as easily by those who believe in God as those who do not. Some people do it by converting. Sometimes religions “reform”. Whether the change is good or bad, some protestant churches have embraced gay priests, gay marriage. Their change in view on this has been no slower than that of the non-religious public.
Some other religions and religious haven’t changed their views– but I don’t see the changes in “rules” that have happened in my lifetime as any slower among the “god” followers than the “no god” followers.
1) Rapid religious change can occur via schisms.
2) Objective morality and universal morality aren’t exactly the same thing, although I have been using the two interchangeably. My bad and my apologies; you’d think someone who is as picky as I am about my terms would get this right!
[Part of the reason I do this is because I’m not 100% clear on the distinction, actually!]
Mark Bofill: “There’s a lot of ‘God’ mixed into most natural rights theory I read from the early days of this country. It’s hard to know how ‘separable ‘ the two things are.”
One could argue that natural rights have their origin in human nature. That is, they are a statement of what is needed for humans to thrive and be happy. A different species of sentient being might have different needs and therefore different natural rights.
And where does human nature come from? God. Even if God is only a convenient shorthand for eons of evolution.
In the context we are speaking (Ua in this link), objective morality and universal morality go hand in hand; if one is true the other is as well.
Mark
Honestly, I think confusing the two was an issue way back when I was a senior in “Sister X’s” class.
Objective is more like “If we follow these rules, everyone will get the same answer to the same “problem” provided we have the same evidence.”
Universal: Everyone gets the same answer.
Clearly, those who base it on “God” don’t all get the same answer! If they did, we wouldn’t have had so many religious wars during history!
I think one problem is the question is more like “Is there one true set of correct morals underlying everything?”
And the right answer is…. ehrmmm…. LOL!
mark bofill wrote: “Rapid religious change can occur via schisms.”
Really? The Reformation certainly produced rapid change in the religious forms. But commonalities in Lutheran and Catholic teachings about morality are much greater than any differences.
The East-West schism produced no change at all. Orthodoxy and Catholicism had already evolved somewhat differently over a period of many centuries and continued to evolve somewhat differently over the ensuing millennium. Even so, the moral teachings are not hugely different.
MIkeM
No. It evolved as a process of natural selection.
Now, if you insist on finding God in everything, you are going to get to God. But God doesn’t have to exist for natural selection to exist.
Mike,
I could not agree more strongly. If we were not highly social animals; if we were spiders or octopi, we would have fundamentally different natural rights.
Kenneth, thanks. Good point.
Mike,
Ok. I’ll think about the schism thing. Do I understand your larger point correctly, that religion is a fundamentally conservative mechanism for preventing change to general philosophic ideas for an adherent society? That’s what I’m taking away from what you’re saying anyway, so I hope so.
Rules that come from God cannot be easily questioned, and I think that might be exactly the point sometimes.
So I don’t forget and in advance, since this has already been a highly profitable discussion for me, thank you! To everyone who contributed. I’ve already got several useful ideas out of this that I didn’t have before.
Something happened in our family along the lines that Tom described above.
One of my sons, an ex alter boy, became stridently anti- Catholic and has been that way for many years. We were all gathered in my wife’s hospital room when a priest came in to administer the Anointing of the Sick (not to be confused with the Last Rights). My son participated fully in the service, just like old times. I don’t know if it stuck with him, but for that half hour, he was a devout Catholic again.
I found the following article interesting. I went researching for this figuring there would be commonality in moral teachings among religions.
15 Great Principles Shared by All Religions
The Golden Rule / Law of Reciprocity – The cornerstone of religious understanding. “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.” – Christianity
Honor Thy Father and Mother – Knowing them is the key to knowing ourselves. The day will come when we shall wish we had known them better.
Speak the Truth – “Sincerity is the way of heaven, and to think how to be sincere is the way of a man.” – Confucius
It’s More Blessed to Give than to Receive – Generosity, charity and kindness will open an individual to an unbounded reservoir of riches.
Heaven is Within – “Even as the scent dwells within the flower, so God within thine own heart forever abides.” – Sikhism
Love Thy Neighbor / Conquer With Love / All You Need is Love – Acts of faith, prayer and deep meditation provide us with the strength that allows love for our fellow man to become an abiding part of our lives. Love is a unifying force.
Blessed Are the Peacemakers – When people live in the awareness that there is a close kinship between all individuals and nations, peace is the natural result.
You Reap What You Sow – This is the great mystery of human life. Aware or unaware, all are ruled by this inevitable law of nature.
Man Does Not Live by Bread Alone – The blessings of life are deeper than what can be appreciated by the senses.
Do No Harm – If someone tries to hurt another, it means that she is perceiving that person as something separate and foreign from herself.
Forgiveness – The most beautiful thing a man can do is to forgive wrong. – Judaism
Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Judged – This principle is an expression of the underlying truth that mankind is one great family, and that we all spring from a common source.
Be Slow to Anger – Anger clouds the mind in the very moments that clarity and objectivity are needed most. “He who holds back rising anger like a rolling chariot, him I call a real driver; others only hold the reins.” – Buddha
There is But One God / God is Love – Nature, Being, The Absolute. Whatever name man chooses, there is but one God. All people and all things are of one essence.
Follow the Spirit of the Scriptures, Not the Words – “Study the words, no doubt, but look behind them to the thought they indicate; And having found it, throw the words away, as chaff when you have sifted out the grain.” – Hinduism
https://integralchurch.wordpress.com/2012/07/10/15-great-principles-shared-by-all-religions/
mark bofill wrote: “Do I understand your larger point correctly, that religion is a fundamentally conservative mechanism for preventing change to general philosophic ideas for an adherent society?”
I think so, but I am not confident that I understand the question. And my mind tends to blur when I encounter phrases like “general philosophic ideas for an adherent society”.
There needs to be a significant degree of stability in a moral code for it to be useful; or at least for it to be useful as something other than a tool of power.
The Rule of Law matters because people need to be able to depend on the meaning of laws. Laws must change over time, but they should change in a stately and carefully considered manner. Fundamental legal principles should change very slowly, if at all. If laws can change drastically and abruptly, then the Rule of Law has no meaning. Instability in morals destabilizes the law and stability in morals helps to stabilize the law. Religion serves to stabilize morals.
Of course, when a religion decides to try to keep up with changing public opinion, it no longer serves as a stabilizing force.
Mike,
Fair enough.
Mark Bofill
angech
“I think the problem may be that you have already predefined morality to mean subjective morality. It’s perfectly fine in you don’t think objective morality exists. But that’s not the same as saying subjective morality is objective morality.”
–
Ugh.
I think you have nailed it on the head.
I would agree with your diagnosis that I think no objective morality exists.
–
What that then means is that any person who talks about objective morality is purely giving their own subjective opinion, their own subjective morality.
Hence I can assert correctly that subjective and objective morality are the same..
–
There is no objective morality in the world we live in.
I can provide thousands of examples.
If anyone here can provide one single objective morality that we can all see and all agree on then I am wrong.
(Feynman) .
–
Did we ask to be born and have to be faced with unanswerable questions about the meaning of life. ?
Where is the morality in that?
–
Never mind, someone will tell me.
Thanks angech. Sorry for my end of the misunderstanding.
Mind you I still have a strong inbuilt moral code, Christian based though I am an atheist.
Hate myself on the times I break it.
Wanting the world to behave in a moral way although it doesn’t and has no imperative to do so.
Ukraine for instance.
–
Mark just saw your reply. Thanks.
You have stimulated a lot of people with your questions in a good way and what I see is a lot of good and thoughtful people and replies.
President Trump: “I’d like to be Pope. That would be my number one choice.”
Edit, under comments some suggested he take the name Pope Crassus!
Democrats have stopped talking about the Maryland man .
News feed:
“Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announces he has a trade deal done and he’s waiting for the country’s prime minister and parliament to give their approval.
This news has sent the US stock market soaring”
Dow up 300 at the open.
https://www.cnn.com/markets
Mike M.
“Laws must change over time, but they should change in a stately and carefully considered manner.”
I really liked this. Thanks for composing this so elegantly.
MikeM, john a ferguson
Which, if applied to flurries of Executive Orders explains much of the problem with ruling by Executive Order. If applied to current politicians, the above should be recognized as saying much of Trump’s behavior in his first 100 days is wrong. (Though he’s hardly the only one to do it use EOs). But he is creating a lot of change, extremely rapidly and I don’t think anyone can claim it is “carefully considered”.
He intends extremely rapid change. And I’m pretty sure his view is if mistakes are made it’s worth it to completely vitiate past programs, rules and regulations and to do it quickly.
All this is to say: if one really thinks law should change in a stately ordered way, one should be criticizing Trump’s actions in his first 100 days.
If one looks at the underlying motivations for politicians making laws there are most often not carefully considered and are
pushed through on crises and emergency bases.
Lucia, I agree with what you say about executive orders and Trumps 100 days with tariffs being an obvious and prime example.
Obviously non believers in an infinitely and all knowing God are going to judge that religious moral codes evolved from man.
My problem with supposing an all knowing God and a moral code therefrom requires man having a free will that influences and determines his actions; otherwise a moral code means nothing.
With a free will from the beginning would imply that it is man who will develop his code of morality. If God gives man free will he is saying in effect you are on your own.
lucia wrote: “if one really thinks law should change in a stately ordered way, one should be criticizing Trump’s actions in his first 100 days.”
I think that is partly true. DOGE is not changing any laws. Trump’s orders on border security and immigration are almost entirely a matter of enforcing the law and undoing Biden’s lawlessness. But that is a fair criticism of Trump’s tariff policies.
That is not the same as saying that Trump’s tariff policies are indefensible.
It is arguable the voters asked for rapid change and are getting what they asked for. Good and hard.
Immigration needed fast change … to … enforcing the carefully considered laws.
I think the tariff issue had to be addressed in one fell swoop. Doing it peacemeal would be death by 1000 cuts.
I am not certain it’s going to work though. It’s taking too long to get agreements.
Russell,
I think that you are correct about the need to rip off the bandage re tariffs. I see that as the pragmatic justification for what Trump is doing. And technically he is within the law, using powers Congress has given to the the Executive. I expect that the “proportional” tariffs will never go into effect for those countries that lower their trade barriers.
Trump might want to continue the 10% across-the-board tariffs. I would think that he would need Congress to make that permanent.
It has been less than a month since Trump announced the tariffs. 90 days is not a lot of time to negotiate new trade agreements. I never expected any before May, with most taking at least until June. That said, the administration is saying that one deal has been agreed to and is awaiting approval by the other country’s parliament
Mike, you are probably right about the timing. I made the mistake of listening to Trump’s rhetoric that he had all these deals done.
The deals I heard Trump claim had been, or were being, done were on a company, not country basis. Basically, manufacturing opening in the US.
Two days later and Spain still won’t say what caused the blackout.
Power returns to Spain and Portugal. The outage’s cause remains a mystery.
https://apnews.com/article/spain-portugal-power-outage-electicity-533832bb4ceae92eaa68c23dc0b5db18
Yet they somehow know what didn’t cause it …
Spain’s grid denies dependence on solar power to blame for blackout
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/sanchez-pressed-explain-spains-blackout-grid-says-solar-not-blame-2025-04-30/
“One problem on Monday was that there was not enough backstop stable power, such as gas and nuclear, to handle the sudden fall of power generation, an industry source said.
“The problem wasn’t so much the massive entry of renewables, rather the lack of synchronous generation,” the source said.”
Huh? Doublespeak. That is exactly the issue with a lot of renewable power.
Tom, it was good to see the moderation of “arguable” in there, since I think that I see too much of “the voters voted for” whatever is high on my personal agenda.
Doublespeak indeed! “There wasn’t enough backup” = “dropout was larger than expected”!
MikeM
DOGE has nothing to do with an executive order like Trumps EO titled ” PROTECTING THE MEANING AND VALUE OF AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP ”
or ” Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats” or “Securing Our Borders and Declaring a National Emergency at the Southern Border of the United States”
He is putting out lots of EO’s which have the effect of making “rules” that for all practical purposes are laws. Maybe they are justifiable, but they are clearly also new and different. Lots are being pushed out and fast.
Tom
I’m not claiming that voters did not ask for rapid change. But MikeM has suggested a “should” principle that we need slow change. Specifically, he wrote
And yet, if I am not mistaken, MikeM wants quite a few of these Trump changes and he’s fine with them happening fast. So perhaps he thinks the principle that change in law needs to be done in a stately or carefully considered manner isn’t as important as other principles.
Lucia,
I think Mike was generalizing.
lucia wrote: “DOGE has nothing to do with an executive order”.
DOGE was created by executive order and I think that some of what they are doing is in furtherance of other EO’s, such as eliminating DEI. I never said it has anything to do with immigration or tariffs. Those are the three main areas of Trump’s rapid change.
No, what I said isn’t right. It’s not that I thought Mike was generalizing. It’s that I assumed he was speaking of an idealized hypothetical case, like : assuming society is already in order, change should come slowly. Something like that.
We were talking about the stabilizing effect of religion on society and ideas, so. It seemed like we were trying to get at illustrative ideas, not literal injunctions. Maybe I was unjustified in doing so, and completely misunderstood, but that’s how I took it anyways.
Shrug.
lucia wrote: “He is putting out lots of EO’s which have the effect of making “rules” that for all practical purposes are laws.”
To repeat, MOST of Trump’s EO’s are about enforcing laws.
Some are changes in policy within the law. Like tariffs. In the end, I expect that the big change will be how other countries treat our imports rather than a change in US policy. Even so, as I said before, there is a legitimate basis for lucia’s criticism.
Some of Trump’s EO’s are changes in interpretations of laws. The main example would be birthright citizenship for those here illegally and/or temporarily, At best, that will take effect at some future date after its journey through the courts. It might not survive that journey and Congress will have plenty of time to override it if they choose to.
But even so, I see no conflict with the principle I stated, although I probably could have stated it better. Any change in law is abrupt in that one day it is not in effect and the next day it is in effect. What matters is rapid large changes or sudden changes in basic laws.
Trump’s citizenship EO is something that has been discussed for a while. The only change is that it blocks something that has not been received and that people have no right to expect. I see no conflict with the principle that I stated.
mark bofill,
You understood me correctly. Perhaps better than I understood myself.
Addition: There was a lot of rapid change after Dec. 7, 1941. No reasonable person would argue that should not have been so.
Alright. If Mike is arguing that point, maybe I did misunderstand.
Shrug.
LOL. Cross post, I’m so sorry.
Mike M,
” MOST of Trump’s EO’s are about enforcing laws.”
Sure. Trump is trying to reverse a huge amount of lawlessness from the Biden administration. Which is not to say Trump (and his administration) will not make mistakes WT foreign nationals. The greater point is that the Trump administration is actually following the law as written, something far removed from the past 20+ years of pseudo-‘border control’, where actually following the law was laughed from the room. and iiegal aliens were waved in.
Trump is all powerful as he claims. He turned around the voters view of the Liberal and Conversative parties and got a win for the Liberals -against all odds.
You are going to hear a lot of double talk by the governments of the world on their march to zero carbon and some of it not even well disguised for the attentive reader but sufficiently so for most joiurnalist like those writing for the WSJ news section.
Kenneth,
You’re talking about Canada?
MikeM
I don’t think that’s true.
“You understood me correctly. Perhaps better than I understood myself.”
That could be a more humble Trump’s reply to our Mike M.
Yes, Mark his miracles have no bounds. It was Canada.
WRT foreign nationals
I don’t see any reason to believe that Trump had any big effect on the Canadian election. Two things seem to have happened. One is that the Libs replaced an extremely unpopular leader with a guy who has an impressive resume and almost no political history. The other is that the 3 minor parties, all of which are on the left, saw their support collapse, presumably with their voters going to the Libs. I don’t know of any reason to believe either had anything to do with Trump. But it might well be that I am missing something.
Kenneth Fritsch
APRIL 30, 2025 AT 7:50 AM
“Obviously non believers in an infinitely and all knowing God are going to judge that religious moral codes evolved from man.
My problem with supposing an all knowing God and a moral code therefrom requires man having a free will that influences and determines his actions; otherwise a moral code means nothing.
With a free will from the beginning would imply that it is man who will develop his code of morality. If God gives man free will he is saying in effect you are on your own.”
–
If god, who is infinitely moral,
Makes a world, which he ordains to be immoral,
Is he not both breaking his own moral code and being immoral in doing so?
If so, if god can act immorally, why should mere morals be worried about an objective point of view?
–
All religions seem to have extreme punishments which go above and beyond morality, burning in hell for eternity or mercifully killing unbelievers being two minor immoral examples.
Moral codes from religion offer lots of contradictions.
Don’t make me get down on my knees to pray for you, angech. I’m too stiff for that sort of thing these days.
“Moral codes from religion offer lots of contradictions.”
Which is to say that moral codes derived by man can have contradictions. Free will in man allows that, but it can also come up with some good stuff.
“I don’t see any reason to believe that Trump had any big effect on the Canadian election.”
Mike, I somehow did not expect you to.
Kenneth Fritsch wrote: “I somehow did not expect you to.”
Thanks. I take that as a compliment since I try to avoid committing logical fallacies, like post hoc ergo propter hoc.
I’m hopefully not above good stuff or welcoming any prayers on my behalf.
There are a lot of moral imperatives that we all recognise and respect and hope that other people, in general, feel the same way.
I try very hard to do the right things in life.
The play Wicked though showed up a flaw, no good deed goes unpunished.
I wonder how many of us have repeatedly experienced that feeling.
Consequently I usually say no to most people’s requests and then acquiesce after giving due consideration.
Helps
Based on conversations with Canadians in Florida, I suspect Trump did influence the Canadian election……. they loath him even more than U S progressives loath him. His tariff antics and joking about the 51st state didn’t help the Canadian conservatives.
With the signing of a minerals deal with Ukraine, Russia may be more motivated to actually proceed with a cease-fire. We will see, but the consensus view, at least in the USA, does seem to me to have shifted away from “as long as it takes, as much as it takes” toward “already far too much killing and destruction.”.
People in the Western part of Ukraine will have to accept the sorry reality that the Russians are going nowhere in the foreseeable future. I don’t know how much resistance there will be to that, so an immediate ceasefire and the start of formal negotiations may not yet be politically possible for Zelensky.
The outline for a plausible settlement has been , I think, clear for a long time. That doesn’t mean the Russians and Ukrainians are yet willing to reach a settlement. A ‘frozen conflict’ outcome seems to me far more likely.
Regarding fast vs. slow changes in law/government (yea, they’re not the same, but bear with me)
I remember when going through ROTC, a CMSgt came in for a class. He said that the single most important thing to know as a young officer when assigned a new position is to understand whether you are there to keep things going as they are or to fix things.
If you are there to keep things going, then make no sudden moves. Watch what the NCOs are doing, and ride along. Learn how a high-functioning organization works. If you are there to fix things, then fix things. As soon as possible.
Trump was sent to DC to fix things. As fast as possible. As we are seeing, the swamp is so intertwined into everything that happens (see USAID), the only way to address it is to just slash away. Yes, you may cut something that shouldn’t be cut, but like a pruned tree they will come back.
Trump learned in his first administration that the swamp will swallow you up with inertia. It will bog you down with procedure and never let you actually make meaningful changes. Getting a second chance, he refuses to make that mistake twice…
The governing coalition in Canada looks to be, if anything, further to the left than the previous government. The next prime minister seems something of a loose cannon, which will be as unhelpful for Canadians as Trump’s bombasts are unhelpful for the US.
DeanP,
IMHO, Trump could work to ‘drain the swamp’ without all the bombast and ill-considered public statements, and accomplish much more than he is able to accomplish.
Steve,
I do not disagree – listen to his visit to Rogan vs his campaign speeches. The differences are dramatic. His main point at campaign rallies/town halls/whatever he is calling them these days is to insult and mock those standing in his way.
But if he is to be successful, he has to do things with a blatant disregard for anyone that stands in his way.
SteveF wrote: “The governing coalition in Canada”.
A governing coalition in Canada? I will believe that when I see it.
SteveF: “I suspect Trump did influence the Canadian election……. they loath him”.
So how did that influence the Canadian election? It is not like he endorsed a particular party or candidate. In particular, how did that cause support for the NDP, BQ, and Greens (all on the left) to collapse?
SteveF: “His tariff antics and joking about the 51st state didn’t help the Canadian conservatives.”
I doubt it either helped or hurt much. The Conservatives got the highest share of the popular vote in the history of their party. The old Progressive Conservative Party managed to do better in 3 of the 18 elections they contested.
Refreshing look from FP on the outage in Spain.
A quote:
“Simply put, the power grid is like a giant game of tug-of-war. On one side, there’s demand, and on the other, there’s supply. Keeping the lights on involves making sure the rope between supply and demand remains taut. This tautness is called inertia.”
And…
“Thanks to overreliance on wind and solar, restarting the Spanish grid is going to take far longer than it normally would, because it lacks a robust fleet of dispatchable plants to aid in restoring power.”
https://www.thefp.com/p/why-europes-lights-went-out?taid=68137ae00a593f00019914a3&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=organic-social&utm_source=twitter
There was a piece in the editorial section of the WSJ today by two Spainards making the point that has been made at Climate Etc many times; that being that the rotational momentum of fossil fuel and nuclear and other convential energy sources provides a buffer for sharp changes of demand on the grid, that renewables do not.
I have not seen that difference reported by any mainstream journalists. It becomes the difference between a political and engineered design.
MikeM,
That collapse just happened to take place immediately after Trump took office on Jan 20….. (https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/poll-tracker/canada/) which seems like more than a coincidence.
My guess is that all of the even-more-left left voters suddenly realized as Trump started issuing his executive orders, killing sacred cows, and complaining about Canadian protection of their industries, that they were going to get Trump-like policies in Canada if they voted for their desired party, so instead they voted “strategically” to make sure the conservatives could not get control. Same thing as happened in France and in Germany. I could be wrong about this, but if I am, then there are a lot of other people who have reached similar conclusions.
MikeM
If you think endorsing a party or candidate is a pre-requisite for “influencing”, you are using “influencing” in a rather idiosyncratic way. I suspect Trump’s behavior including policies and bombast toward Canada affected voters views in a way that caused many to pick one party rather than the other. That is all that is necessary to influence an election.
It’s almost impossible to believe that Canadian voters do not react to Trumps behavior or language. I mean… Trump actually intends to influence Canadian decisions. So if Canadians are not reacting to him, Trump’s bombast and proposals are rather pointless.
I think Trump’s behavior toward Canada is probably counter productive. I suspect you think otherwise. You probably disagree. But unless you think it’s achieving nothing then clearly he is “influencing” their politics!
I agree with Lucia on this one. If there was some point or value to Trump’s statements about Canada becoming the 51’rst state, I don’t see what that point or value was. I think it’s plausible that Trump impacted the situation in a way I’d consider negative with no apparent upside to show for it.
I can live with this, particularly when I remember what the alternatives to Trump were this go round. But Trump didn’t win this point.
For closing the border, decimating support for DEI in the Federal government while at the same time slashing over 150 billion in waste, resum[ing] slashing regulation and even making the effort to turn around American manufacturing decline, I think I can cut Trump a little bit of slack on this point. How he impacted Canadian politics is pretty low on my priority list.
SteveF,
Thanks for that link. It supports my case.
“That collapse just happened to take place immediately after Trump took office on Jan 20”.
No, it did not.
“which seems like more than a coincidence.”
Yep, it was a coincidence that Trudeau’s resignation came a couple weeks before Trump’s inauguration.
Your link shows that Liberal support declined steadily until it hit a minimum on Jan. 6, 2025, after which it started to rise steadily while NDP support started to drop. So what happened on Jan. 6? Trudeau announced his resignation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Trudeau#Resignation
It seems that the Conservatives actually took a lot of votes from the NDP. I suspect that the relatively constant NDP support prior to Jan. 6 was a matter of the NDP losing voters to the Conservatives while gaining voters from the Liberals. Then after Trudeau resigned, the latter went home to the Liberals.
mark bofill wrote: “If there was some point or value to Trump’s statements about Canada becoming the 51’rst state, I don’t see what that point or value was.”
I agree with that. But that does not mean it had any impact on the Canadian election. So far as I know, all the Canadian candidates took pretty much the same position with regard to Trump.
Do any of you attribute the AfD gains in Germany to Trump? I think not.
Did you attribute the recent bad showing of Greenland’s dominant party to Trump? I think not.
Does the way you vote depend on what Putin or Xi or any other foreign leader says? I think not.
MikeM
Well, you think wrong.
I do consider other foreign leaders when deciding my vote for President. I consider foreign affairs, so their leaders matter. I suspect I am not alone.
Real female astronauts now live from the ISS. All female space walk. NASA is pranking Bezos.
https://www.youtube.com/live/AXuDzIYp6p4?si=TnkE93sDo2CdO-cs
Some of this live NASA spacewalk video is spectacular [1:24 PM EST]
https://www.youtube.com/live/xP9LyPsqI_g?si=P6CsF6Z2Nh8vlhjw
Mike M,
Look at the chart from October 2021 on….. there was no significant change in the support for NDP. What there was was a drop in support for the liberals starting in late 2022 and especially starting mid 2023, with a concurrent rise in support for the conservatives… former liberal supporters were migrating toward the conservatives, NOT the smaller (more-left) parties losing or gaining support. It was only after it became clear the conservatives would romp that the more-left parties all started switching their support to the liberals…. all those parties, not just the NDP, lost about half their support in the weeks leading up to the election….. as I said strategic voting to keep conservatives from power. I doubt Trudeau had much to do with the more left parties throwing their support to the liberals.
And finally, the conservatives peaked in their support on exactly January 20 (45%) but fell to ~38% during Trump’s first 6 weeks in office, before recovering a little…. during which time Trump was in (yet another) long, stupid pissing contest with the Canadians. Had those folks not switched from the conservatives to the liberals, the conservatives would still have won the election, even with all the strategic voting by the further-left parties. But alas…. Trump.
The Canadians I talk with never liked Trump at all, but right now the hatred is visceral… and that is mostly due to Trump’s stupid bombast. A leopard does not change his spots. So yes, Trump screwed it up for the conservatives in Canada, and will continue to cause problems. The Dems will almost certainly control the House after the mid-terms, and Trump’s efforts at reform will effectively end, along with all-impeachment-all-the-time. for two years. I just hope Trump doesn’t screw things up so badly that Vance loses in 2028.
Lucia,
“.I suspect I am not alone.”
You are not at all alone…. lots of Canadians pay attention to US politics and policies. So do Germans, and the bureaucrats that run the EU.
Steyn has quite a bit to say about it. I’m not sure what to make of it, honestly. Here’s a bit:
Link here:
https://www.steynonline.com/15249/losers-gotta-lose
I haven’t formed an opinion on this yet. I don’t even know how to spell ‘Pierre Poilievre’ without checking, I know next to nothing about the guy in fact.
It looks like the Ukraine mineral deal is all but final:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yg456mzn8o
It appears to be a much better deal for Ukraine than expected. That will strengthen Ukraine economically which should make them better able to defend themselves. Ukraine seems to be expecting more US military support, but that does not seem to be in the deal. And it is tough on Russia, but that seems to be mostly just words.
mark bofill,
Stein makes an interesting point, although he seems far more interested in being clever than clear. Trump does create a challenging environment for foreign politicians, especially “conservatives”, and how well or badly they manage that could shift some votes.
No way is that the main factor in the dramatic shift in the Libs fortunes. But it might well have made a difference of a percentage point or two and that might have been enough to keep Poilievre (let me check the spelling, OK I think I’ve got it now) from becoming Prime Minister.
Mike,
The crazy bit in my view was the notion that Trudeau lost power because of a decision made by Tony Blair that he should go. I’m not saying this is necessarily false, because I know nothing about it, but at first read it certainly strikes me as implausible. [Or at least, questionable and meriting closer investigation, let me put it that way]
I’m mildly curious. I’m not quite sure I’m curious enough to follow up on finding out about this. Maybe. Certainly not right this minute anyway.
My thoughts on the Canada situation is a variation of the Admiral Yamamoto quote:
“I fear all Trump has done is to awaken a sleeping dwarf and fill him with a terrible resolve”
I think most of the perceived Canadian hostility to Trump is more a reflection of their very liberal eastern press.
The ability for Canadian provinces to break off from the federal government is enshrined in their federal constitution. Quebec has flirted with this concept for decades. Alberta may just be the ones to take this path.
A day after Canada’s Liberals won a fourth consecutive mandate, Alberta’s government has introduced a bill that would make it easier to start a referendum – including one on separating from Canada.
https://edmonton.citynews.ca/2025/04/29/alberta-bill-referendum-separation-canada/
Reposted
I think most of the perceived Canadian hostility to Trump is more a reflection of their very liberal eastern press.
The ability for Canadian provinces to break off from the federal government is enshrined in their federal constitution. Quebec has flirted with this concept for decades. Alberta may just be the ones to take this path.
A day after Canada’s Liberals won a fourth consecutive mandate, Alberta’s government has introduced a bill that would make it easier to start a referendum – including one on separating from Canada.
https://edmonton.citynews.ca/2025/04/29/alberta-bill-referendum-separation-canada/
mark bofill,
I discounted the stuff about the Carney-Blair meeting. It is perfectly plausible that they had dinner; Carney used to run the Bank of England. But does Stein actually know what transpired? I doubt it.
Ed Forbes: “The ability for Canadian provinces to break off from the federal government is enshrined in their federal constitution.”
That is not true. A province could not separate without the agreement of the federal government.
I didn’t doubt that Carney and Blair had dinner.
Thinking about executive orders in veiw of stately, thoughtful and time enduring acts of government, one has to consider that those orders can be changed with every change in administration and without much thought outside politics.
On the other hand most laws are, often and unfortunately in my veiw, enduring as in when failing to perform as promised and doubling down on providing more resources. As to stately and thoughtful in legislating not so much and certainly not in the Civics 101 version.
I would say the immigration laws don’t really reflect immigration policy at this point. The ability for the executive to open the floodgates for “emergencies” needs to be stopped. I’m not against controlled immigration, just against whiplash flows that seem to be more ideological than thought out policy.
Trump Says He Is Revoking Harvard’s Tax-Exempt Status
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/trump-harvard-tax-exempt-status-3b114fb7?st=NkaP2x&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
I doubt this will ultimately stand up in court but it sure will put a huge panic into the faculty lounge. There is enough of a precedent that this won’t be reversed trivially. I’m guessing they will get an injunction pretty quick but there will be a lot of uncertainty over the next few years.
As usual Trump is making the right enemies, and they and their elite defenders will no doubt squeal shrilly with entitlement.
Tom Scharf wrote: ” There is enough of a precedent that this won’t be reversed trivially.”
What precedent is that? The only precedent I am aware of is Bob Jones University. They lost their tax exempt status because of prohibiting interracial dating. It seems to me that Harvard’s racial discrimination policies are much worse.
Harvard no doubt will no doubt get an injunction. And in this case that is probably appropriate.
I agree with Kenneth Fritsch that “stately and thoughtful” legislating is in short supply.
Kenneth,
It’s possible some EO’s can be stately and thoughtful. The difficulty we have is that Congress created a lot of agencies and gave them power to “regulate” something — that is write rules. The language granting power was often fairly elastic, or at least it has been interpreted so. That transferred what should be legislative decisions to the executive branch. The executive branch then changes “rules” quickly. Those rule changes can have force of law. This is recipe for changes is what amounts to law not being stately or thoughtful. They also can change fairly swiftly.
I think there is also a tendency for agency rules to perpetually ratchet to more regulation, not less.
SCOTUS creating or recognizing or verbalizing the “major question” doctrine and applying it to sweeping extension of powers by agencies is a good step. Also: deciding that agencies must apply a plausible meaning to legislative language rather than “whatever we can stretch this to mean” meaning is useful. Executive interpretations of laws shouldn’t be able to take nearly 180 degree reversals every 4 years. Either a law says that the executive “can do” something or they “cannot do” something. But language that is claimed to say it “can and must do A” in 2000 should not supposedly be interpreted as “can’t and must not do A” in 2004.
Tom…
Yeah. Trump is probably doing the revocation of tax exempt status in a stupid way. I suspect his justice department will try to claim that his target is not Harvard qua Harvard, but any school found to have implemented racially biased rules and who refuses to set them aside. Harvard was found to have implemented biased rules– and a case can be made they intend to continue. But Trump’s braying does make it look like he’s got an axe to grind against Harvard qua Harvard.
I guess we’ll see though. I mean… Harvard was found to have implemented racially biased rules. And I think they do want to be free to continue to do so. Unlike Bob Jones they aren’t quite as up front about intentions. So…. we’ll see.
I can’t say I feel sorry for Harvard. I might feel sorry for some young people — particularly some graduate students or post-docs– who will get caught in cross hairs. (Established faculty will find landing places if things go awry.)
Lucia, I agree with your statements on EOs and agency discretion.
lucia,
“Harvard was found to have implemented biased rules– and a case can be made they intend to continue. ”
They absolutely have continued to admit based on race. Since the Supreme Court decision, Harvard’s first entering freshman class was higher in African-American students than any year in the past 20+, higher in Asian-American students, and lower in white student admissions. Harvard is OBVIOUSLY committed to admitting based on race not merit, and hiring/promoting based on race not merit. They are thumbing their nose at the Supreme Court and the law, and will continue to until all taxpayer funds are withdrawn.
Roger Pielke Jr. talks about the Iberian power failure and electrical system inertia. https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the-iberian-blackout
Sounds like another reason to hope that nuclear power will increase as a percentage of our electrical power supply.
Compare Pielke’s dissertation to that of the mainstream media where the media essentially says, “we dunno know now”. Pielke’s read is much the same (but condensed) as I have seen at Climate Etc.
No wonder the usual suspects haven’t figured out the cause of the Spain blackout, it’s a political liability. It’s a strange liability to have and the wrong response to the situation.
The cause needs to be identified correctly and the long term fixes need to be installed to prevent it from happening again. Instead what seems to be happening is an across the board cover up by people heavily emotionally invested in renewable power.
This inertia problem gets exponentially worse as the proportion of wind / solar increases. A lot of arm waving is going on, incoherent “nothing to see here” response.
Yes, there are some problems with wind / solar and they may be hard to fix, but don’t pretend they aren’t problems.
SoD from 10 years ago on grid reliability and demand management. The entire series is very well done. Links at end of article.
Renewables V – Grid Stability As Wind Power Penetration Increases
https://scienceofdoom.com/2015/08/22/renewables-v-grid-stability-as-wind-power-penetration-increases/
“A key question is what level of wind power the network can support before “curtailment”. Garrigle, Deane & Leahy (2013) discussed some scenarios in Ireland given that the current system non-synchronous penetration (SNSP) is set by the grid operator at 60%
…
However, the grid requires curtailment of any “non-synchronous” source above 60%.”
NOTE: Spain was over 60% renewable at the time of blackout. This risk was very well known and they * chose * to ignore it. Now they are pretending it isn’t a real problem to the public. I assume because the solution is expensive and might reduce support for renewables(?).
https://scienceofdoom.com/2015/12/
“The highlighted portion in the last statement is the key – to cope with peak demand, lots of investment has to be added that will only ever be rarely used.”
Typical of the media bury your head genre:
https://corporate.dw.com/en/fact-check-was-the-iberian-blackout-caused-by-too-much-solar-power/a-72415376
“Claim: “Renewables, in this case solar, have just caused the first major #power outage in Spain, specifically due to an oversupply of solar,”
DW fact check: Unproven
The cause of the power outage has not been conclusively clarified.”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/may/02/blackouts-energy-outage-risks-europe-worldwide-spain-portugal-france
“A key concern to emerge after Spain’s blackout is the role that renewable energy may have played in the system collapse. Without a clear explanation for the outage it is too soon to comment, experts have said.”
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/spain-suffered-multiple-power-incidents-build-up-full-blackout-2025-05-02/
“The Spanish power grid had been on a knife edge for several days due to power system imbalances, said Carlos Cagigal, an energy expert who advises private firms on renewable and industrial projects.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and power grid operator REE’s chief Beatriz Corredor have both said record levels of renewable energy were not to blame for Monday’s blackout.
But REE and Europe’s power grid lobby ENTSO-E had both previously warned that the rapid rise of power generation from renewables could destabilise the grid.
…
“Shutting down the nuclear plants may put electricity supply at risk,” REE’s former chair Jordi Sevilla told Spanish news website Voxpopuli in January. Spain plans to shut down all seven nuclear reactors by 2035.
The planned closure of two nuclear reactors at southwestern Spain’s Almaraz plant, starting in 2027, will increase the risks of blackouts, European power lobby ENTSO-E said in April.
*** REE responded to ENTSO-E by saying there was no risk of a blackout *** and it could guarantee stable energy supply.
Less than a week later, Almaraz temporarily shut down the two units citing abundant wind energy supply as making operations uneconomic. One unit was still offline on Monday.”
Oops. Spain is shutting down 2 nuclear plants in 2027 and all 7 by 2035. What a clusterf*** they created with their incompetent response.
Renewables face a credibility crisis. They’ve spent decades telling everyone how fantastic they are and how everyone else is not only wrong, but deliberate lying about the issues. They cannot now admit the result is a blackout of epic proportions, the threat of which isn’t going to disappear without further vast expenditure of gold on power backup to sit there being inefficiently utilized.
DaveJr
Threat? I guess for now it’s a threat. I predict 4 additional occurrences this year. People are going to learn it’s more than a threat– it’s a reality.
The evidence suggest an badly designed infrastructure problem and I doubt it’s only happening under truly “extreme” weather events. This wasn’t caused by a ginormous unexpected hurricane, earthquake yaya. It’s mid spring. They are having normal spring weather.
If I lived in Spain, I’d be out buying whatever the sell that is the equivalent of a Honda generator (or some such) and have several days of gasoline on hand. I’d want to to keep my fridge and electrical components for the furnace on during the winter. I’d probably avoid running the A/C. But I run A/C less than most the neighbors anyway. (I just prefer warmer temperatures than many people.)
I might not need that generator today. But I’d want to acquire and get it operational within a month. I’ll need cold milk and cold beer when the power outage hits.
Right, and if we had a functioning media they would be all over this and demanding accountability for grid stability. Previous advocacy is blinding them.
I’m not really wed to this one way or the other. As it becomes economically viable we should use clean energy all things equal. Grid instability and funding / maintaining two independent power systems are big boy problems.
On the plus side it is good for (other) early adopters to highlight these issues.
Tom
Yes. It’s convenient for us to witness problems first pop up elsewhere. Heck, I’m in Illinois. I won’t cry if grid instability problems hit California first while I sit around the house happy my fridge is running.
That said: I don’t feel totally immune. Maybe I should talk to Jim about getting a generator?
Down here in FL they will attach a remote disable system to your AC and pool motors for a discount on your power bill. After one 8 hour power cut in mid August a long time ago I opted out. They have allegedly improved the grid since then.
Because of the large increase in population FL’s infrastructure has been expanding quickly. It has been fairly robust but FL isn’t all-in on renewables. Due to the hurricanes the grid is tested for large scale local outages regularly.
For anybody who wants details about what to do to stabilize a grid being powered by solar and wind:
https://p3.aprimocdn.net/siemensenergy/ae3c4b5b-0daa-4762-a0fd-b1570070098d/Whitepaper_Supporting-Grid-Stability_final_DIGITAL-pdf_Original%20file.pdf
The critical need for rotating inertia in power distribution has long been recognized by the technical types who know what they are talking about….. politicians? Not so much. But actually adding that inertia is expensive, and reduces the net efficiency of solar and wind.
Of course, it would be easy enough to require solar and wind energy producers, by regulation, to add a suitable amount of rotating inertia as part of any solar or wind system that is installed, but that would add substantially to capital investment (and add some ongoing maintenance cost). I won’t hold my breath waiting for that to happen.
Maybe the need for rotating inertia will become more apparent to the public if there are more episodes of widespread blackouts.
In other news: Vineyard wind off Cape Cod has resumed production of electricity…. from one of its planned 62 windmills… after the entire project was put on hold for 6 months to “investigate” the cause for a catastrophic failure of a 110 meter long turbine blade in July 2024. So the project has cost $billions, is very late, and is producing almost no power. And electricity in Massachusetts is already $0.32 per KWH; no doubt it will soon to go higher.
It seems like the Spanish authorities say they have not yet identified the exact sequence of events leading to the blackout. So the defenders of unreliable power generation are hiding behind that to say that we don’t know if that was the cause of the blackout.
Keep in mind you can usually just get in your car and drive out of the area of no power. You might lose some food but that is about it.
I bought 3 kWH of electrical battery backup (Ecoflow portable power station). It will run my big fridge for about 24 hours plus some minor appliances. I can recharge this battery from my car’s alternator.
You can buy a small Honda type generator for about half the price. However you must keep some gas around (no gas available without power and/or long lines), rotate it out about once/year, and occasionally run your generator to keep it maintained. Plenty of people in FL discovered their generators wouldn’t start after sitting in their garage for years. I’m not disciplined enough for that (ha ha) so I bought a battery.
FL’s problem is different than IL. FL will have region wide power outages that can last a week. In IL you need to worry about power loss during winter and making sure you can get heat.
Tom Scharf,
I remember reading that Florida’s system is very quick to disconnect whole areas to protect the rest of the grid in case of a problem.
Of course, Florida still has lots of rotating inertia in its system.
Tom Scharf,
With a good gas stabilizer added, you can keep gasoline for at least two years (I have pushed it to 3 years without any obvious problems). A lot depends on the temperate at which the gasoline is stored; if you avoid high temperatures it degrades much more slowly. You do have to run a generator (at least the bigger ones) a few times per year to make sure it is functional when really needed. I have found the tiny ones (eg 2 Kw peak, 1.5 Kw continuous, about 35 pounds) can sit for more than a year and always start instantly.
For me, having power to run my house makes a generator worthwhile. Maybe because we have had 5 major outages in the last 21 years, ranging from 2 days to 10 days (5+ days last October).
Well, I don’t pretend to know “the exact sequence of events”!
The over all sequence of events is “Create a system that can’t deal with forseeable ‘unusual’ weather events.” “Things fail during a forseeable ‘unusual’ weather event.”
A “forseeable” but unusual event is something like “top 2% of cloud cover in March.” These sorts of unusual events happen frequently. You don’t knowwhich one will happen, but they will happen.
The media doesn’t understand that the difference between 99% reliability and 99.9% reliability is probably a 2X cost factor. I’m not sure of the exact numbers but it is highly nonlinear.
Off topic…. Some minutia on picking the Pope:
The Sistine Chapel was first used as the venue for the conclave in 1492, several years before Michelangelo Buonarroti scaled a high scaffold and transformed its ceiling with his paintbrush.
Though the conclave has been held at various venues over the centuries, the Sistine Chapel has been its permanent seat since 1878
The Sistine Chapel is the Vatican Museum’s star attraction and received some 6.8 million visitors last year.
Some ‘modern’ facilities were installed in the Sistine Chapel for the conclave, including porta-potties,
135 members of the College of Cardinals, being younger than 80, are eligible to vote. They will cast secret ballots, of which the new Pope must earn a two-thirds majority.
If the cardinals have not reached a majority, the cards and the tally sheets are placed in a stove and burned with an additive to produce black smoke, showing the outside world that a pope has not yet been chosen.
When a two-thirds majority of the cardinals have agreed on a candidate, he is asked if he accepts the papacy and by which name he wishes to be known. The ballots are burned as before, but with an additive to produce white smoke.
[Black smoke mixture potassium perchlorate, anthracene and sulfur. The white smoke potassium chlorate, lactose and chloroform resin]
I had a crisis of faith over this smoke issue. I was in grade school when the conclave was picking what turned out to be Pope John XXIII. Me and my buddies all believed that the color of the smoke when they burned the ballots was a miraculous event.
When we found out it was a trick with chemicals we were not happy.
Tom Scharf,
Yep. The other thing people don’t understand is we do optimize based on what happens if we don’t meet capacity in “rareish” events.
It’s ok to size a furnace in a cabin to fall short of keeping the cabin at 72F on one day in January year after year after year.. This is 1 out of 365 days — 0.3%. If the temperature drops to 50F with the furnace running non-stop you can just put on your coat, hat and so on. Is the furnace undersized? Sure. I’d say so. But ok.
But it’s not ok to size an entire countries electrical system and shut down hospitals, refrigerators, all electric lights and computers in the whole country once a year!
It’s ok to save by undersizing sometimes, but not others.
Lucia,
Yes, sometimes a little undersized makes sense. We replaced a central AC about 5 years ago (the original was 20 YO). The installers urged us to ‘upgrade’ from 48,000 BTU to 60,000 BTU. When I asked why, they said 48,000 BTU probably can’t keep up with the load if the temperature reaches 100F. Since we had never seen 100F in 20 years, I told them to stay with 48,000.
Oh well the Trump effect has led to another left-wing landslide victory this time in Australia. All Labor had to do to shoot down any idea from the Conservative (Liberal-National parties) coalition was link it to Trump. A big trouble here is that we have elections every 3 years so Trump will still be there next election.
On A/C sizing, unless systems have changed in the 20 years since I last thought about it, you don’t want to oversize cooling capacity. The reason is that the system will short-cycle, on and off and on for short intervals, and the on cycles won’t be long enough to reduce the humidity
The law of diminishing returns also applies to air and water pollution treatment. I have worked on both portable water treatment plants and coal fired generating plant exhaust stacks. If a pollutant is reduced from 10 PPM to 1 PPM for a cost of X to reduce the same pollutant to 0.1 PPM the cost may be 100X.
The biggest loser, Prince Harry:
“Prince Harry loses legal challenge over security”
“The Duke of Sussex has lost a legal challenge over the levels of security he and his family are entitled to while in the UK.
Prince Harry had been seeking to overturn a decision that had downgraded his security after he stopped being a working royal and moved to the US with the Duchess of Sussex.
On Friday, a senior judge ruled that Prince Harry’s “sense of grievance” over how the decision to alter his security was reached did not amount to a basis for a successful appeal.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2kvw2pvw8eo
Then the whiney twerp did a TV interview and again took potshots at the King while crying for ‘reconciliation’:
“Prince Harry says father, King Charles, no longer speaks to him but hopes to reconcile”
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/02/uk/duke-of-sussex-protection-appeal-intl
I have experienced the exponential effect of a job well done and a near perfect job done. My wife could find imperfections that others would never see or hear. When she would critique my work around the house, I would explain that to do it in more than adequate fashion would take me a day, but to do it in her near perfect fashion would take a week.
Now that she is not here to judge I probably work more deligently to finish jobs closer to near perfect and thus it is good to know the difference between adequate and near perfect and also the practicality.
At one time I used the expression perfect to describe to myself an exceptionally completed job. Now I always correct to near perfect knowing perfect is unattainable.
John Ferguson,
Yes, I know…. just didn’t want to get too far into the details. The ideal is a variable speed system set to change both compressor and inside fan speeds, targeting a specific cool air discharge temperature (assuming about 100% RH for the cool air) to hit a desirable relative humidity when the cool air reaches room temperature (in my case, 74F). Unfortunately, those variable speed systems are much more expensive, so I am willing to live with a smaller system that keeps the house reasonably comfortable, albeit with some variation due to cyclical operation.
Long and disheartening post from ISW this morning, main theme:
“ISW continues to assess that Russian President Vladimir Putin remains committed to his long-term military objectives of seizing all of Ukraine and undermining NATO.
Russian officials are also continuing to condition Russian society to support a long-term war effort in Ukraine and against NATO.”
https://x.com/thestudyofwar/status/1918516113295745309?s=61&t=7w4bCW3a8ve2DqoeniQatQ
Russell Klier
May 4, 2025 at 7:59 am
Wars are teribble but when (and too often) the political leaders conducting the war lose touch with reality wars become even more terrible for the innocent citizens.
Both Russia and the US could not maintain a military victory in Afghanistan and I do not see Russia maintaining it in Ukraine -even without outside aid to Ukraine.
Russell,
Reading stuff Harry says makes me suspect he is somewhat disconnected from reality. His upbringing may have partly contributed to this. But I think it’s still a bit extreme.
I mean:
* Does he think he has the same paparazzi problem his mother did?
* Even if he did have Diana’s level of paparazzi problems, protection in the UK would not have prevented them following her in Paris.
* He knows darn well he is not being swarmed by paparazzi in the US.
* If he feels he and his family would be particularly unsafe in the UK, he is free to just not visit. I’m sure that if “the family” really, really wants Harry and his clan to come they will arrange security on a case by case basis. If they don’t arrange it, Harry can decline the invitation.
* I notice while he says he knows the family has a gripe about the book and the television interviews, he hasn’t publicly apologized or admitted there was anything wrong in his doing that.
I’m not surprised the judge did not grant him automatic protection any time he steps on UK soil! He can ask for it on a case by case basis and the powers that be can decide each time. That should be enough.
Kenneth, your post:
“Both Russia and the US could not maintain a military victory in Afghanistan and I do not see Russia maintaining it in Ukraine -even without outside aid to Ukraine.”
Yes, the Ukrainians will form an armed resistance. And Russia being a brutal overlord will use atrocities and terror to fight them. It would be a horrible situation.
Before that happens, it will take 100 years of bloody war for Russia to conquer Ukraine at the pace of the Russian advance over the last two years.
Lucia, your post:
“I’m sure that if “the family” really, really wants Harry and his clan to come they will arrange security on a case by case basis.”
Yes I have read that from several sources. If he visits at the invitation of the Royal Family he will be afforded full government security.
And you wrote:
“I notice while he says he knows the family has a gripe about the book and the television interviews, he hasn’t publicly apologized or admitted there was anything wrong in his doing that.”
Not only that but both he and Meghan have said that they are owed an apology from the Family as part of reconciliation. He is the epitome of the ungrateful, entitled, spoiled brat.
SteveF,
I , too, would have gone with the smaller system.
Russell,
Harry and Meghan are indeed “entitled”
WSJ: $15,000 electric vehicles can be made in China at a profit. China’s supply chain is dramatically better than the US.
https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/what-a-15-000-electric-suv-says-about-u-s-china-car-rivalry-43cd564e?st=CkSnjA&reflink=article_copyURL_share
A bit demoralizing. Protectionism is not the answer.
Harry and Meghan continue their blockbuster world privacy tour.
Kenneth Fritsch wrote: “I do not see Russia maintaining it [a military victory] in Ukraine -even without outside aid to Ukraine.”
Well, the Soviets maintained their military victory for 70 years. It only ended when the USSR collapsed.
Ukraine does not have a tradition of women wanting many sons since some of them will die in war. Ukraine does not have remote, difficult to access areas where guerillas can hide. There does not appear to be much of an insurgency behind Russian lines.
Tom Scharf: “$15,000 electric vehicles can be made in China at a profit. ”
They don’t sell cars in China for dollars. The article says nothing about exchange rates. If you use the PPP exchange rate, that is a $30K car. I do not know if that is actually the correct comparison.
From your link:
$40K vs maybe $30K. That might well be accounted for by size, US regulatory requirements, and Chinese subsidies.
John and Lucia,
Hah, I just realized that for much of his life, Harry actually was ‘Entitled’! Including being entitled to government security, from Grok:
“Senior royals receive taxpayer-funded protection from the Metropolitan Police’s Royalty and Specialist Protection unit. Costs are not fully disclosed but estimated at £100–£150 million annually for the core working royals. The Home Office and Treasury determine eligibility based on public duties and threat levels.”
I asked Grok:
“What are the senior British Royals entitlements?”
Grok’s full response:
https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_15f7d7ac-e35b-4f3e-ac1b-4481c24387f9
Harry formally relinquished his Royal entitlements in favor of Hollywood entitlements. He just isn’t ready to let go of his old entitlements.
Russell
The problem is he didn’t realize Hollywood ‘entitlements’ aren’t just handed out automatically to former members of the royal family. And Hollywood types do have to spend their own money on physical security.
Russell, Are not the two of them the ??s of Sussex?
Mike, your post:
“ There does not appear to be much of an insurgency behind Russian lines.”
Au contraire!
The resistance doesn’t get a lot of attention but I see regular acts of insurgency in my X feed. Mariupol has been a real hotbed, for example from February 28:
“Ukrainian resistance blows up Russian security service officer in occupied MariupolL
They target key officers, command and control sites, transportation hubs, ammo dumps, etc.
It’s an eye opening article:
“https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/02/28/ukrainian-resistance-blows-up-russian-security-service-officer-in-occupied-mariupol/”
John,
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are officially titled the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
They negotiated their ‘exit’ with Queen Elizabeth at the Sandringham Summit:
“The “Sandringham Agreement” refers to the outcome of a meeting, dubbed the “Sandringham Summit”, held at Sandringham House in January 2020 between Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Charles, Prince William, and Prince Harry to discuss the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s decision to step back from their senior royal roles. The agreement stipulated that the couple would no longer be full-time working royals, would not use their “HRH” titles, and would seek financial independence, while still remaining valued members of the royal family.”
They were allowed to keep their titles, but little else.
John,
The Sussex-es have titles. Whatever that means. But they are no longer “working royals”. Working royals do a mix of not boring stuff and boring stuff. I mean, I wouldn’t want to have things like visits the new asphalt factory and congratulating them on opening up be part of my regular “duties”. But I wouldn’t mind the lovely living quarters, food prepared by others yada, yada….
Russell
Harry inherited a lot of money from Diana — ~$13 million. That’s more than enough for any remotely normal person to live well their whole life.
Of course, given the way Harry grew up, I’m sure he could find it difficult to live off the income generated by $13 million. Lucky for him, he also got $10 milion when he turned 40. That was from his grandmother.
Lucia,
There are a lot of senior royal entitlements I wouldn’t mind having:
https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_15f7d7ac-e35b-4f3e-ac1b-4481c24387f9
86 million pound expense account, for example.
Russell,
Thanks. It is good to know that there is an active resistance in occupied Ukraine. But it not at all clear that it is sufficiently disruptive to be a major problem in governance.
Of course, the occupied areas have a relatively high concentration of Russian sympathizers. And Russia has kidnapped a lot of the loyal Ukrainians. So the rest of Ukraine would be more difficult to control
Russel,
Ceremonial events. Shudder. I’m glad I don’t have to do that. Though it does beat digging ditches of working in a coal mine.
But yes, there are perqs.
I don’t consider it a perq to be forced to hang out with the dullest people in the land. It does show that H&M are not the most thoughtful pweople.
Mike,
I agree with all of that.
lucia,
“Ceremonial events. Shudder”
People who really know me tell me I should have been a hermit.
“WSJ: $15,000 electric vehicles can be made in China at a profit. China’s supply chain is dramatically better than the US.”
Better supply chain, or better exploitation chain? It’s funny how none of these articles mention any of the costs in pollution, environmental damage, and employee exploitation that makes it possible. We cannot compete because we will not accept their poor standards of living. The irony is, we reward and praise their exploitative results, as if it’ssomething we should aspire to. Out of sight, out of mind.
Tom Scharf,
“A bit demoralizing. Protectionism is not the answer.”
More than a bit demoralizing. If true, profitable US production is very far from possible if faced with Chinese competition.
Which is not at all surprising. I have long purchased a part from a company in Sweden, cost $325. An equivalent part from China: $88. There is no way for western (high wage) companies to compete. Big problem.
Tom Scharf,
Big problem. The simplistic solution of tariffs is not the answer. The only real answer if you face cheap labor is replacing very expensive labor with automated production…. which itself introduces a host of new problems.
So what makes Chinese labor so “cheap”? There are no doubt multiple factors: government subsidies, unrealistic exchange rates, low expectations from the workers. Low productivity might make labor cheap per hour but not cheap per unit. The other three all seem to me to be good justification for tariffs. All three are temporary advantages. But if they hollow out our economy before they diminish, we will be in a very bad way.
Much better to take those advantages away before they destroy us. Protectionism may well be the answer.
Mike M,
I suspect the Chinese labor is cheap mainly because of supply and demand….. lots of people who had always been very poor until the Chinese adopted capitalism after Mao died. I don’t think there are differences in productivity that explain the lower wages. There are big differences in cost of living that are probably more important in determining prevailing wage rates. Even among educated workers (programmers and engineers I have worked with) wages are dramatically lower than in the USA, and much lower than any difference in productivity could explain. There seems little connection between prevailing wages and productivity; some countries seem to have wages that are disproportionately high relative to skill level, and others disproportionately low.
I wonder if the local news on the Iberian peninsula is getting a different story than the national/international news? Thomas Fuller would be able to shed light on that…
I do hope he is well…
SteveF,
No doubt that is a big factor, although exchange rates are surely also a big factor.
But I am pretty sure that low wages in China are not an inherent property of being Chinese. It will not last forever. But it might well last long enough to devastate our economy. We should not let that happen.
Trump entertains me every day….
“ REBUILD, AND OPEN ALCATRAZ! For too long, America has been plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat Criminal Offenders, the dregs of society, who will never contribute anything other than Misery and Suffering.”
Current betting ranges on the leading contenders to be the next pope:
Pietro Parolin (Italy): +150 to +330 (implied probability ~23-40%)
Vatican Secretary of State, seen as a centrist and experienced diplomat. His odds have been stable, often leading due to his high-ranking role and moderate views.
Luis Antonio Tagle (Philippines): +150 to +440 (implied probability ~18-40%)
A progressive cardinal aligned with Francis’s inclusive vision, Tagle is a strong contender for potentially becoming the first Asian pope. His odds have fluctuated but remain close to Parolin’s.
Russell,
I visited my Mom Saturday and Sunday while my sister had a dog show. I entertained her with the bets on popes. One of the bets were on what name the new pope would take. So I decided to click through all former pope names to find contenders I liked. I don’t think these have high odds, whoever they pick, I’m rooting they chose one of the following pope names:
(a) Sixtus VI
(b) Lando II
(c) Pelagius III
Lucia,
I wonder, did anyone recently pick a new name? (So he would be like Lucia I)
Lucia,
I see there was a Pope Linus, so I’m gonna go with Snoopy I.
Lucia,
Tina Brown had the same reaction to Harry as you:
“I mean, he never said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry I caused my family all of this pain”.
…and a lot more:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14678937/Vanity-Fair-Tina-Brown-condemns-Prince-Harry-reconciliation.html
I just had a purchase from a Chinese supplier declined for a part which I’d bought from him in the past.
The removal by our domestic hero of the de minimus exclusion from the application of tariffs and duties for imports valued less than $800 and the increase in paperwork makes the sale of something I don’t need dozens of impractical for the seller.
I wonder if Trump, or Elon for that matter, has any idea of the size of increased beaurocracy will be required to apply and collect these “taxes” from all the stuff coming into the US valued less than $800.
I, too, hope Thomas Fuller is doing ok.
John,
Oh… I suspect they know how much beaurocracy there will be. They plan this stuff to go through s_l_o_w_l_y.
I did read an article in the WSJ that did make me go a little “hmmmm”. It was about Shein and TEMU. Evidently one of the ways they had taken advantage of the “deminimus” tariffs was to open a warehouse in CANADA, pay whatever tarrifs Canada charges on the wholesale item, then ship individual orders under de minimus.
My thought was… “Hmmm..” I mean: it’s one thing for de minimus to apply to actual gifts. Or for it to apply to manufacturers who really do very small amounts of business with US customers– so little they are shipping straight from their factory in China.
But for business to be setting up entire warehouses in an adjacent country to then ship tons and tons of prodsucts under “de minimus”. I mean, individual orders were small. Sure. But business-wise, this was “de maximus” for Temu and Shein.
I don’t really mind that situation being changed.
How to do it sanely so things that really are “deminimums” business don’t get thwocked?
Anyway, I think they
john a ferguson wrote: “the size of increased beaurocracy will be required to apply and collect these “taxes” from all the stuff coming into the US valued less than $800.”
lucia wrote: “How to do it sanely so things that really are “deminimums” business don’t get thwocked?”
I don’t see the issue. If you buy something from Amazon, they will take on sales taxes appropriate to your location. I don’t see why tariffs should be much different.
President Trump just announced that the United States will stop the bombings of the Houthis in Yemen, effective IMMEDIATELY, after they called and conceded defeat.
“The Houthis have announced to us at least that they don’t want to fight anymore. They just don’t want to fight. And we will honor that. And we will we will stop the bombings. And they have capitulated.”
Trump announced the Houthis development while at a love-in with the new Canadian prime minister in the oval office.
Major changes coming to the rank heavy US military.
“Hegseth announced the memo in a video on X, vowing, “We’re going to shift resources from bloated headquarters elements to our warfighters.” ..”
“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday ordered a minimum 20% reduction of four-star generals and admirals across the military, he said in a memo addressed to senior Pentagon leadership.
He also ordered at least 20% of general officers in the National Guard and 10% of all flag and general officers to be cut.”
“…..”We won World War II with seven four-star generals. Today we have 44,” Hegseth said at a town hall at the Pentagon in February. “Do all of those directly contribute to warfighting success? Maybe they do — I don’t know — but it’s worth reviewing to make sure they do.”….”
https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/hegseth-20-reduction-four-star-generals-admirals/
..
Major changes coming to the rank heavy US military.
“Hegseth announced the memo in a video on X, vowing, “We’re going to shift resources from bloated headquarters elements to our warfighters.” ..”
“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday ordered a minimum 20% reduction of four-star generals and admirals across the military, he said in a memo addressed to senior Pentagon leadership.
He also ordered at least 20% of general officers in the National Guard and 10% of all flag and general officers to be cut.”
“…..”We won World War II with seven four-star generals. Today we have 44,” Hegseth said at a town hall at the Pentagon in February. “Do all of those directly contribute to warfighting success? Maybe they do — I don’t know — but it’s worth reviewing to make sure they do.”….”
https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/hegseth-20-reduction-four-star-generals-admirals/
Mike M.
If you buy things directly from China, or Europe, or Canada for that matter, the object will cross the border and now, no matter what the value will be dutied and taxed. I probably buy a couple of dozen things a year from overseas vendors and except for a machine tool, never got involved in duty or tariffs. The duty on the machine tool was paid by the shipper and added to my invoice when the thing showed up.
IN tjhe last two days, I’ve had two of my vendors tell me that until this goes away, they aren’t doing small international deals with people in the states.
I think the US took shippers like DHL’s word that an incoming package was de minimus, backed up by each carrying a label so stating. with a stated value, then below $800. Above $800 then and above $nothing now, more paperwork is required and must be reviewed etc. etc.
Temu’s interest in establshing a warehoese in Canada was to enjoy Canada’s reduced import duties – which may have approached nothing if the material was going to be turned around and shipped out of country – bonded warehouse maybe?
Tem sells mostly one thing at a time to a customer and almost always the value is in the tens of dollars, hence de minimus.
And no, I dohn’t think Trump has any real idea of how all this works, why would he?
john a ferguson: “If you buy things directly from China, or Europe, or Canada for that matter, the object will cross the border and now, no matter what the value will be dutied and taxed.”
Sounds to me that is how it should be. Treating everybody the same would seem to be fairer, prevent tariff avoidance schemes, and involve less bureaucracy and paperwork. What’s not to like?
John
Yes. But Temu’s business overall was not de minimus. In contrast, Walmart sold things to customers one at a time, but imported in huge batches.
There was a time where people weren’t going to buy tube socks one pair at a time from a Chinese vendor. So there is an issue.
Plan A: Ship millions of low value (a few tens of dollars) items from China to the US one at a time, by air.
Plan B: Ship container loads of the same items from China to the the US by freighter. Then sell them one at a time from a US distribution point.
How does Plan A make economic sense compared to Plan B? I think that the only way it does is by avoiding tariffs.
So eliminating de minimis will likely result in a shift from Plan A to Plan B. Assuming, that is, that the shipments don’t stop altogether. Since there are over a billion de minimis shipments a year that still require some customs paperwork, the result should be a huge reduction in workload for our cutoms officials,
Maybe Thomas Fuller suffered some consequences of very bad public policy (a country-wide blackout) and has ‘seen the light’ on the need for sensible energy policies.
Maybe not.
At least Spain has a mild enough climate that a power outage it is not as bad as it might have been in other places. Texas leared their lesson . Spain? Maybe not.
This is the story I’d read. The company described was a Salt Lake city based shoe company that makes shoes in China and Vietnam. Then they shipped them to a warehouse in Canada. Then they shipped individual orders to the US from the Canada warehouse. This escaped any US tariffs. The Canadian ones were presumably either zero or small.
I’m not a big fan of large tariffs. And the changes are chaotic. But the old system was screwy too.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/e-commerce-sellers-brace-for-end-of-de-minimis-e1a616bf?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1
[…]
Mike M.
Your analysis is sound for large sellers like TEMU but maybe not for the companies who sell worldwide but have no single large market in any country. If you’re going to sell annually 200 of something small and inexpensive into the US, it doesn’t make sense to send a container full only to sit on them as they sell one by one over the year.
Look at AliExpress. More than 10,000 things are sold through this service most of which would not make sense to bring to the US in bulk. They sell worldwide and althogh we are a big market, we are not likel bigger than the rest of their market combined.
If I’ve characterized the <$800 import stream correctly, one and two things at a time, maybe there aren't so many of them in a day to swamp Customs. But I think there are, and so did the people who created de minimus.
Does this make sense to you?
Lucia,
I don’t see how Temu’s business differs from Walmart’s in any other way than Temu doing only online mail-order and Walmart doing both brick stores which Temu doesn’t do AND on-line mail order (order taking in their case a lot for things they don’t warehouse themselves – a bit like Amazon).
John
I agree. The question then is: how to create a set of tariffs that does what makes sense? (This presupposes we are going to have tarriffs.)
Actually, a lot of that stuff is brought into the US and placed in warehouses. Sometimes it’s sold on Amazon. Or it’s sold in places like Walmart.
I never pulled the trigger and bought on AliExpress. But I looked at all sorts of junk as possible costumes for dance showcases. The consequence is I get daily emails advertising really tacky looking outfits!!
john
Precisely. So why should Temu stuff avoid tariffs and Walmart pay them? That strikes me as unbalanced.
john a ferguson wrote: “Look at AliExpress. More than 10,000 things are sold through this service most of which would not make sense to bring to the US in bulk.”
At what point does it make sense to ship in bulk? They are probably selling on average well over 10K units of each item.
Perhaps more to the point: Suppose the new rules destroy their business. Why should I care?
john ferguson: “maybe there aren’t so many of them in a day to swamp Customs. ”
Four million a day is a huge job. Getting rid of de minimis would be a big reduction in workload for Customs.
When de minimis was created, it was probably more like 400 a day.
De minimis makes sense for someone returning from a trip with some small purchases. Otherwise, I don’t see much point to it. We do not exempt small purchases from sales tax.
The WSJ article discusses how use of de minimis provisions rose since the tiem the changed the exclusion from $200 to $800.
It looks like companies just organized to take advantage of it. That’s natural. But the intention wasn’t for commercial companies to avoid tariffs. It was to allow tourists to not have a hassel when returning home from trips.
Shein, Temu, the shoe company, yada, yada aren’t tourists. They are companies specifically advetising lots of stuff to Americans and importing lots of stuff into the US– but doing so order by order.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/e-commerce-sellers-brace-for-end-of-de-minimis-e1a616bf?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1
MikeM,
Yes. DeMinimis makes sense when a person actually travels to country X, buy something and brings it back. It also makes sense if your grandmother, uncle, whatever lives in country X and sends you a nice personal gift once or twice a year.
It doesn’t make sense when a company (Shein, Temu, Koro, AliExpress) sells tons of stuff to tons of customers and would have had to pay tarriff if they’d been Walmart or Amazon and stocked a warehouse or store. (And no, it wouldn’t make sense if it was Amazon itself drop shipping from China.)
When the business model is to sell a lot of stuff to the American market, it shouldn’t be that shipping in bulk pays a tariff while shipping individually does not. That’s just crazy.
Mike M.
I sense we’re all on the same page on this, but not quite. It may be because my broswer identifies my interests to the likes of Aliexpress, that I only see the oddball stuff I want, but I can assure you that there may not be even a worldwide market for 10k of most of them.
Further, AliExpress is a marketing device, they provide the sellers an online “store” which shows the offering, accepts the purchase, takes a percentage and forwards the rest to the seller which in many cases is a small facotry in Shenzen China. Similar to Ebay, or Etsy. These are the businesses and customers who suffer from the loss of de minimus.
Since Walmart sells at physical stores, there’s notany way to avoid the tariffs in the same way Temu is able.
I don’t know for a certainty that Sony is actually doing this, but others are. You can buy an A7 Camera online from dozens of online stores including Walmart. Sony has two ware houses, one in Memphis and one in Covington. Neither Walmart nor any of the other simililar “sellers” ever had posession of the camera wither physical or financial. Depending on shipping choice of “seller” camera is moved to you either by FedEx or UPS.
Obviously while de Minimus was in effect the warehouse could have been in Canada, although clearly this would have only affected the cheaper cameras.
This is a little like flooring for expensive things like cars where the factory in effect owns the car and if you can sell it in 45 days or fewer, you never need to pay for it until it is sold and the customer pays for it.
We never buy anything on our trips abroad, but can only imagine if we did of having to go back to listing the stuff for customs on our return and having to go through a session with the customs guys.
And Mike M. I still think loss of de minimus is going to greatly increase customs workload.
Lucia, more fun with names…
Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa actually is a contender.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/05/middleeast/cardinal-pizzaballa-jerusalem-pope-contender-intl-cmd
john a ferguson wrote: “I sense we’re all on the same page on this”.
Wow. I am baffled by that statement.
You see this as a big problem, I see no problem at all, except maybe for returning tourists.
You think that eliminating de minimus will overwhelm Customs. I think it will make their job much easier.
You seem to care about “the businesses and customers who suffer from the loss of de minimus”. I do not care at all about that.
John
Of flipped around: these are businesses and customers who win if (relative to other businesses or customers) if we keep de minimus. Meanwhile, someone who bundles up, ships in batches and sells in a store here losses, as do their customers.
When arguing for keeping deminimums, the question is: Why should the former be given a tax advantage over the latter?
I really don’t think the goal for de minimus– which is an exclusion or loophole— was to provide a tax advantage for online straight from the another country relative to shipping in bulk to the US and selling from US store fronts. This is being used that way and it is literally an unintended loophole.
It would be one thing if drop shipping from China (or anywhere) was simply more efficient. But that’s not why it’s happening. It’s happening because of a tax loop hole!
I concede Lucia, I think you are right regarding the injustice of some people paying duty and other not. It is unjust.
Mike M. I don’t see how forcing customs to “process” many more packages will make their jobs easier, although if the system is automated like the Post Office, maybe the income from duties etc. will pay for the processing and maybe even be profitable for the government.
And yes, Mike M., I do care about the little guys I buy stuff from.
For example:
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2r3iatp][img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54503593505_cae9f6fc24_c.jpg[/img][/url][url=https://flic.kr/p/2r3iatp]IMG_2325[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/189243388@N06/]john ferguson[/url], on Flickr
This label was affixed to a mailer which contained a walkman part sold to me from outifit in England. Unobtainable from anyone in US. Don’t ask about the folly of restoring a walkman.
This is a package which just arrived from England – no duty that day.
https://flic.kr/p/2r3iatp
It’s a part for a Walkman which is unobtainable in US. Don’t ask about the folly of an attempt to revive a Toshiba Walkman.
John Ferguson,
When you buy mail order from China, you are not helping the little guys. Just the opposite in my opinion.
The 1.4 billion de minimis packages a year still require some processing. When those packages are no longer being shipped, they will require zero processing. Zero is less than some.
Eliminating de minimis will not result in tariffs being paid on 1.4 billion packages a year. It will result in tariffs being paid on a fraction (likely a very tiny fraction) of that. If you eliminate the cause (the de minimis loophole) you eliminate the effect (1.4 billion packages a year).
If anyone is interested…
The conclave procession is about to begin. Live on many Youtube channels and some broadcast channels. I am watching’Vatican Media Live’ on Youtube. It’s a very ornate pageant.
Edit. The Swiss Guards arein full regalia, including pikes
Mike M.
With one exceptioin, NONE, of the things I bought directly from little guys in China was available domestically.
For example, if your CD Player has died, as had mine, the only place a new laser assembly was available was China. I’ve probably bought hundreds of various things from China in the last 25 years and virtually none of them was available domestically.
I’ve been to China as has, I think, SteveF. To some degree I know some of the Engineers who have supported some of the things I’ve bought over the years. Ocasionally I ask if it is not an impolite question to share their family histories. Generally it’s granparents were peasants, parents worked for post office or similar, and I’m first one to go to Engine School in Shanghai.
I love this and love them. They work in the economic environment they find themselves in and we work in ours. It’s true that both environments are manipulated by the govenrment ostensibly in the respective favor of each country..
We looked at setting up a business in Cambodia at one point but didn’t because of the risk of it being nationalized if it was successful. I don’t know if this was realistic.
The growth of all nations to first-world status, in my opinion, seems worhtwhile for all of us. We’ll be able to sell a whole lot more of what we invent to them if they all have 24/7 electricity.
John,
Yes. That came in under de minimus. Is that supposed to make a self evident point? Because if it does, I don’t know what it is. It that post supposed to make us think we should allow de minimus exemptions to things made in China? Or things made in China but shipped from England? Or print new lables with a check for whether it’s made in a country that doesn’t have a de minimus exclusion? Those all look rhetorical and are. But my point is: I don’t know what point you are trying to make.
To add to questions: Is your point that some things that aren’t available from a supplier in the US? Sure. Is your point that this tells us something about de minimums? If that’s your point… what does it tell us?
I mean, if they’d have slapped a 200% tariff on that, it would have cost $21 with the tariff. You also probably paid postage. I can see that wold make the part more expensive. I’m not seeing why that would be horrifying. It would have to be one of the more expensive Walkman models to be worth paying $21 plus postage. If it’s this $22 Walkman from Amazon I’m sure you’d just toss the Walkman and buy new rather than pay $21 plus postage. (Or you’d decide having this Walkman is not worth it.)
But I don’t see any self evident point about whether the de minimus exemption is good, bad or indifferent, nor in what way.
Yes: applying a tariff to things will make them more expensive to a consumer. Yes, some things are difficult to find. Some things will be hard to find with or without the de minimus tariff. Some hard to find things are worth buying to save money over all. That’s true with or without tariffs.
I won’t. But I am going to ask whether your argument is that no one should pay a tariff on this item.
Lucia, I came around to your view that there should be no de minimus. My point on the part form Egnland was that it got here before de minmus from England was dropped, apparentl last week.
All walkmen are not the same. Some are now selling post-rebuild for $700 – not mine, mind you.
Here is a CBP article “Last Modified: Oct 28, 2024” on the problems with de minimis shipments:
https://www.cbp.gov/frontline/buyer-beware-bad-actors-exploit-de-minimis-shipments
My favorite bit:
Mike M.
Great story about the helicopter.
Theodore White who worked for Time Magazine in Hong Kong in the fifties was reassigned to US. The magainze agreed to pay his moving expenses subject to a review of a listing by item.
“Miscellaneous Personal Junk” was approved.
Miscellaneous Personal Junk was a 60 foot boat and Time did pay for the cost of it’s ride on a freighter to Boston.
chemial enginer antics. DDT is still manufactured in India. A number of years back a colleague heard about a way to order it. On a lark, he tried. It arrived in a box from Mexico City marked ‘Zapatos’ (shoes).
The Square outside the Sistine Chapel is full of people, and TV cameras, watching the smoke stack. First vote is expected soon.
It’s approaching 7PM in Rome. A number of Youtube and broadcast tv stations are live on the air.
In a free market economy the customer reigns supreme and decides what is favored in purchases free of government interference. The entrepreneurs, producers and services take their orders from the customers and again free of government interference.
Tariffs are very much the antithesis of this description of the free market. Governments historically have a very poor record in choosing winners and losers whether that be businesses, customers or workers. In the end it usually happens that everyone loses.
The argument that the other guys avoid the free market is countered by two wrongs do not make it right. If other nations prefer to subsidize the US consumer and the US consumer chooses to take up the offer and spend less on that item it means more resources for spending on other items or saving/ investing. It is also true that the market signals, as it has even in a less free market economy, that the US comparative advantages lie in other areas.
Kenneth,
Respectfully, I disagree with this. If a foreign thug is discouraged by the damaging behavior of my domestic thug and desists from ‘the wrong’, two wrongs have indeed made a right.
Game theory supports this; the optimal prisoner’s dilemma strategy is tit for tat, which involves retaliation for bad behavior. The optimal strategy is not to simply ignore the bad behavior.
Mark, would that theory support limiting free speech if the government thought it gave advantage to another nation.
It is the citizens that suffer whether by tariffs or lack of free speech. Revenge on the other government by punishing your citizens, how does that work.
Kenneth,
There’s plenty of evidence that this does work.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/here-every-country-working-trade-deals-us
These countries have come to renegotiate trade deals specifically to avoid continuing under Trump’s tariffs. Retaliation for bad behavior is an essential element for dealing with bad actors in the world, not just in economics of course. This is one of my largest general disagreements (apparently) with the libertarian viewpoint.
[Edit:
And China is coming to the table now:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8rgrejkvmjo
]
If all countries were always run by nice guys, Kenneth’s theory might work. Approximate percentage of countries run by nice guys: Zero.
Is editing not working?
Hmm. I guess it is working.
Mark,
expressing an interest and coming to negotiate are not the same.
John,
Yet both are evidence for my claim, which is that foreign governments experience a US increase in tariffs as a negative consequence and one to be avoided.
Further supporting pieces of evidence include these:
Columbia acceded to avoid tariffs:
and the EU yielded to avoid tariffs:
I think it’s silly, honestly, to try to argue that foreign governments are indifferent to US tariffs. They are obviously not indifferent and want to avoid tariffs. Tariffs can be viewed as a lose-lose option for everyone, I figured even those who don’t believe tariffs have any direct positive value in any scenario could agree that they are bad for everyone. But something that is detrimental for everyone can still have political utility. See also, military action and use of destructive force.
Avoiding military and trade wars should be the goal, because both create great harm and destruction. Actions that encourage war in either case are wrong.
The uncertainities created by the current tariff battle have already created harm.
Basing the tariffs on the trade deficit is ignorant and will not work. Most people do not understand the factors behind trade deficits. In and of itself it has no affect on the economic wellbeing of a nation.
Kenneth Fritsch: “Avoiding military and trade wars should be the goal”.
Indeed. It would be ideal if everybody could get along and cooperate. We don’t seem to be able to manage that. Maybe we need more unicorns.
A willingness to fight when necessary, and the demonstration of the resolve and capacity to fight is often (or at least occasionally) the pathway to avoiding unnecessary fights. I can’t imagine I’m saying anything anybody here hasn’t heard before. Speak softly and carry a big stick.
War isn’t the worst thing, fighting and death aren’t the worst things. For some of us at least it is better to fight and risk death and ruin instead of living quietly and meekly as slaves, avoiding war at all costs. I frankly don’t care who thinks this is wrong.
[Edit: This goes somewhat far afield from tariffs, but we seem to be also discussing conflict, retaliation, and when it is appropriate to make sure an adversary who makes you lose also loses.]
Mark, I do not follow that avoiding military and trade wars equates to living meekly as slaves. Those wars are instruments of government which has the sole legal power of coercion. A military draft by government to fight wars comes very close to slavery. Governments use these wars – military or trade ones – to exert more controls over individuals and controls that are not readily relinquished when the crisis ends. Governments use propaganda to avoid truth telling during these crises.
You might say that those advocating for settling differences by these wars or threats of wars are living loudly as potential slaves.
Everyone has a natural right of self defense and that is not forfeited by advocating for the avoidance of wars.
Mark, I agree that your view toward what you might do threatened with some variation of slavery is reasonable.
I see the UK has negotiated a tariff agreement, I think they are the first.
It will be nteresting to see how complex it is, and to what degree it’s derivative of an earlier agreement.
We hang out with a (long) retired State Department Official who told us that agreements such as this usually take months to work out generally because they are not 10% across the board but contain exclusions and preferences sought by either side and which must ultimately somehow balance. In other words, some tariffed products may be hit with 25-75% and others nothing. Of course this was when they had to be blessed by congress where a state like Iowa might want to have significant tariff on Canadian wheat. (example).
The business with tariffs on foreign films will be difficult. many US films have significant portions of the work farmed out to Canada and overseas to places like Czechia, Thailand, UK. Applying tariffs to film-making in the real world will be a nightmare.
As to de minimus, I can now see that Lucia was right and I was wrong in thinking that de minimus should be available to small BtoB overseas purchases but not to Walmart shoppers. She’s right, it isn’t just.
Doubtless rules will have to be concocted to deal with what are in effect Chinese warehouses in someplace where our tariffs on imports from them are low.
All of this aside, I think the broadside tariff idea is nuts. Why should tariffs be applied to imports unavailable nor likely ever to become available locally? And that is just a very minor objection, the larger one being effect on the economies of the concerned, such as the suddenly very cheap bacon we’re going to enjoy as Iowa chokes on the pork-bellies that they’d expected to sell to China and which now will not be accepted.
The pigs in question are already on their trotters and will have to go somewhere. Of course they could always eat the soybeans previously destined for China but are now seeking another market.
Smithfield belongs (or maybe belonged until recently) to the Chinese.
Kenneth,
When an adversary wants to enslave you, there are generally two options available to you. What do you think those two options are?
[By ‘wants to’, I mean, has the means and will and all things being equal will do so as soon as convenient for them.]
Kenneth,
Nobody is advocating for wars. Nobody is saying that war is a good thing. But the willingness to fight is essential. And sometimes fighting becomes necessary.
It is true that government power increases during war and that tends to be a ratchet. But so far as I know, no democratic government (and few, if any governments) has ever started a war for that purpose and I don’t think war is used for that purpose. What happens is that government power has tended to increase during peacetime as well as during war. Increases in government power tend to be a ratchet. That process naturally accelerates during war since some increased government power is necessary in wartime.
If it is not clear, I agree completely with Mark.
Many of the “free trade” agreements we have signed in the past ran to thousands of pages. A trade deal containing thousands of pages of regulations is obviously not a free trade deal in any meaningful sense. Maybe the new Trump deals will abandon the pretense of free trade and actually move us toward freer trade.
Have I ever mentioned that I am a cockeyed optimist? 🙂
Current Pope betting after the third round on Kalshi [similar odds on Polymarket]..…
My dark horse candidate, Cardinal Pizzaballa is a distant third.
Tagle is gaining.
Pietro Parolin Italy 27%
Luis Antonio Tagle Philippines 25%
Pierbattista Pizzaballa Italy 10%
Also I saw this:
“The tradition of betting on papal elections is an old one, with records suggesting wagering on papal elections as far back as 1503, says The New York Times. “
https://kalshi.com/markets/kxnextpope/next-pope
The causes of trade imbalances and the US trade deficit:
1. The citizens of the US save much less of their incomes than do those of other nations. The main reason is that US citizens for the most part take the example of government deficit spending and Keyensian economics that emphasizes consumption over savings to heart.
2. That consumption is fulfilled by consuming both domestic and foreign goods. Thus the US citizens consume a great quantity of imported foreign goods.
3. Savings and investments are key to improving productivity and thus standards of living. Those investments can and do come from domestic and foreign sources. The money paid to foreign sources for US imports circulates back to the US in the form of purchases of public debt and private debt and investment.
4. Since the US government spends near entirely on consumption foreign purchase of its debt does not advance productivity, but it does free up domestic purchase of that debt for investments that can increase productivity.
5. In nations where their citizens save more of their income this means they consume less and thus what their nation produces in excess of domestic demand needs to find foreign purchasers – like the US. This can lead to trade surpluses for those nations and trade deficits for the US. The savings tendencies of the individuals in the trade surplus nations becomes a source for investments in the US.
6. The circular nature of savings, consumption, trade surpluses, and trade deficits for domestic and foreign entities has no significant effect on the wellbeing of domestic economies.
7. Economic wellbeing is not well measured by GDP which includes government spending that goes for consumption. A better measure is standard of living and productivity which comes from savings and investments. The US advantage in this realm comes from it having relatively free market and innovating conditions that attracts both domestic and foreign investments.
8. Tariffs and trade wars will disrupt these conditions and have a negative effect on the US advantage.
Pardon my error above, there have been four votes taken, not three, and two ballot burnings. Probably two more votes today and one more ballot burning.
Kenneth, also:
I don’t think this is true in practice. Effective self defense at minimum requires investment and commitment that is undermined by those who advocate for the avoidance of wars. I mean, would you call yourself an advocate for defense spending?
Another point about self defense- it is a losing strategy to wait for your adversary to take the initiative and shape the situation and only act when the situation has become a dire one where you are on the defensive. Once you concede that fighting is sometimes necessary, the next thing people who [are] facing reality realize is that ‘self defense’ ought to be proactive and not reactive, if one truly wishes to avoid unnecessary fighting.
Finally, I think it is inappropriate to equate these people (slaves), or these people: (slaves) with these people (US soldiers). U.S. soldiers aren’t slaves, to make that claim minimizes and obscures the evil that human slavery actually is AND at the same time fails to credit those who willingly and proudly chose to serve to defend the country.
Well this is refreshing:
“More than 80 masked anti-Israel agitators were arrested after storming Butler Library on Wednesday as students studied for finals”
They locked them in the library and made them show ID and remove their masks to get out. Good show!
https://www.foxnews.com/us/columbias-acting-president-slams-storming-campus-library-anti-israel-agitators-utterly-unacceptable
Kenneth tells a tidy story about savings rate and trade deficits. I doubt he can back it up with data. Here is data that contradicts his theory.
US savings rate since 1959:
https://alfred.stlouisfed.org/series?seid=PSAVERT
US trade deficit since 1970:
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/USA/united-states/trade-balance-deficit
They do not appear to be connected. Savings increased some from 1959 to 1975 while our trade balance was going from positive to negative.
Then savings pretty steadily declined, hitting a minimum in 2005-2008. The trade deficit hit a local maximum in 1987 and a local minimum in 1991, in creased until 1997, then exploded. A very different pattern from savings.
From 2008 to 2013 the trade deficit decreased while savings increased; 5 years that fits with Kenneth’s theory. But then savings stayed relatively constant while the trade while the trade deficit again increased.
Even if there were a good correlation, that would not confirm Kenneth’s theory. I would think that any cause and effect is in the opposite direction from what Kenneth claims.
p.s. – I belatedly realized that I ought to be looking at trade deficit as a percentage of GDP. Too lazy to bother now.
White smoke! 12:11 PM EST
Habamus Papum in the official Latin
The new Pope is originally from Chicago.
Cardinal Robert Prevost Will take the name Leo XIV.
Young at 69 years old
Studied science at Villanova University
Spent most of his priesthood in Peru
“La pace sia con tutti voi” may peace be with you all – the very first words of the first American pope, Leone XIV
Russell, He earned a BS in mathematics at Villanova.
Harold, yes thank you I was just about to correct my error.
Edit: Math grad who wants peace, he sould fit right in with this board.
New Pope is a nerd…
“The Prior General of the Order of Saint Augustine from 2001 to 2013 was Robert Francis Prevost. He was elected to the position in 2001 and served for two terms. “
“The Prior General is elected by the General Chapter, which is a gathering of representatives from the order’s various regions. The Prior General is aided by a General Council, which includes a Vicar General and other assistants, all of whom are also elected by the General Chapter. The Prior General is responsible for guiding the order and ensuring that its directives are carried out. “
He picked Leo. If he was going for an astrological name, why not “Pisces, fisher of men?” Darn.
Lucia,
I heard one theory that he may be wanting to continue the work of Pope Leo XIII.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Leo_XIII:
To wit:
He is well known for his intellectualism and his attempts to define the position of the Catholic Church with regard to modern thinking. In his famous 1891 encyclical Rerum novarum, Pope Leo outlined the rights of workersto a fair wage, safe working conditions, and the formation of trade unions, while affirming the rights to property and free enterprise, opposing both socialism and laissez-fairecapitalism.
Lucia,
“Fisher of Men” You remember your Catechism I see.
Did you talk to your mom?
Russell,
I haven’t spoke to Mom yet. Of course I remember “fisher of men”. 🙂
Mike M.
May 8, 2025 at 8:32 am
A better comparison would be savings and consumption rates of the US versus other nations. Rates would be based on disposable income.
mark bofill
May 8, 2025 at 8:15 am
A military draft while not chattel slavery is a form of slavery whereby the individual was coerced to serve. Your context for using slave was appropriate given your feelings expressed later?
I do not understand your concept of self defense. In the civilian world one can legally react after the fact of regression or eminent threat of regression, but not be agressive proactively. One can prepare oneself for self defense through the right of private property, like owning a weapon. One can choose to avoid the need for aggressive self defense by employing security devices.
If one were to go around daring others to start a fight and announcing how prepared they were, someone might feel a need to be proactively aggressive.
Kenneth Fritsch
May 8, 2025 at 3:52 pm
For the purpose of analyzing balance of payments, the better measures to use would be total national consumption and savings.
Thank you Kenneth.
Kenneth,
Is jury duty a form of slavery? How about taxes? Is there a difference between taking my labor without compensation and taking the fruits of my labor?
Those ought to be rhetorical questions. But given Kenneth’s claim, I don’t know what his answers will be.
Here are some back of the envelope recent annual data on the total national consumption to total savings ratios (C/S) and balance of payments (BP) for 5 nations:
US BP= -819 billion dollars C/S=17 to 1
China BP=+253 billion dollars C/S= 0.9 to 1
Japan BP= +200 billion dollars C/S= 2.3 to 1
Germany BP= +270 billion dollars. C/S = 2.5 to 1
South Korea. BP=+99 billion dollars. C/S= 1.5 to 1
Mike M.
May 8, 2025 at 6:27 pm
Those all involved coercion. It is a matter of degree. A tax rate or wealth tax that confiscated nearly all your income or wealth would put one closer to a slave state. I believe Mark’s reference to fighting to remain free of being a slave might have had those more extreme confiscations in mind.
I do not consider the US involvement in the Korean, Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars as avoiding our becoming slaves and in fact wars tend to push us closer to being slaves of the state.
I suspect import duties on small items will be set up to be essentially automatic, with few added demands on US Customs. There is no reason some of a collected duty could not pay for the added cost for collection. UPS and FedEx already do this for larger items. The main impact of duties will be a significantly higher net cost for imported products.
In many cases that will make no difference WRT purchases, in other cases it will. Yesterday I received a formal quote for some peristaltic pumps, purchased in lots of 20 units, from China; even adding 100% duty, their price is still much lower than the domestic or European alternatives. I have seen multiple similar cases, where a domestic supplier (or more often a distributor for a domestic supplier…. the domestic suppliers simply refuse to deal with smaller customers) sets a price 3 to 5 times what a purchase from China would cost. Trump’s tariffs will raise some revenue and increase costs, but motivate domestic production of widgets? I think not very much. And as John Ferguson correctly points out, in many cases there simply are no domestic suppliers…. and there have never been any. New domestic suppliers for most products are not going to pop up any time soon because of tariffs.
Kenbeth,
Yes, US savings rates are abysmal. That is mostly cultural; if US residents started saving like Germans do, then the balance of trade would change dramatically. But changing culture is not easy, as our long experience with motivating people to adopt behaviors that lead to better life outcomes so clearly shows.
Domestic suppliers, probably not, but there are many other countries out there who could benefit from producing widgets. India, for example, seems to be heavily underutilized in this respect and I’m not sure why.
Here:
https://www.theverge.com/news/663945/a-36126-46-tariff-bill
I’m sure SteveF sees these all the time. This is a DHL invoice which went to an outfit I buy from. Note that in addition to the tariffs etc. there was a $700 charge for duty processing.
I suppose in support of not having a de minumus exclusion, I can’t save the cost of the tariff by buying any of the things Ada handles directly from China. The downside is this will double the cost of many of the micro-controllers I buy for gizmo-projects.
Can someone in England import from China and repackage and ship here in a bonded warehouse which is a physical way to pretend the object du jour never set foot in England? Probably.
My guess is that by the end of the summer, this “tax” will be gone or much diminished.
John,
I’ve noticed this too. I’m downgrading to 8 and 16 bit PICs where possible. This is what I used to use before the lowest end SBC’s like Raspberry Pi Zero became so cheap.
Jonathan Turley, on X:
“ …I shall not offer a “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.” The new pope is reportedly a Cubs fan. If there is any need for proof of divinity, that should be enough.”
This sheds some light on Kenneth’s argument:
https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/third-quarter-2018/understanding-roots-trade-deficit
Scroll down to “Simple Accounting Helps Explain the Trade Deficit”.
By definition
GDP = C + I + G + NX
where
C = consumption
I = investment
G = government spending
NX = net exports = exports – imports
By definition
S = GDP – C – G
where S = gross savings
Therefore
NX = S – I
and low savings “causes” trade deficits.
But that is a tautology that tells us nothing about cause and effect. We might as well say:
Trade deficits are caused by high investment.
or
Low savings are caused by high government spending.
or
Low savings are caused by trade deficits.
or
Trade deficits are caused by high government spending.
etc
Those equations do not actually explain anything.
john ferguson wrote: “My guess is that by the end of the summer, this “tax” will be gone or much diminished.”
I am pretty sure that is the intent. The “reciprocal” tariffs are not meant to be permanent, they are meant to force reductions in barriers to US exports. China is a special case, so although those tariffs might go down, there is no way they are going down to 10%.
To complete my analysis of our major trading partners here are the back of the envelop balance of payments (BP) and consumption to savings ratios (C/P) for Mexico and Canada:
Mexico BP= -43.7 billion dollars C/S = 3.7 to 1
Canada BP= -17.8 billion dollars C/S = 13.0 to 1
Steve that was my point that raising tariffs was not going to change the US savings tendencies and thus affect the balance of payments. The US economic wellbeing depends on it being a best choice for investment and relatively more free of government intervention.
I know the Democrats do not understand this and I have my doubts about the populist Republicans’ understandings.
Here are the back of the envelope private consumption to private savings ratios for the US and its main trading nations:
US = 3.3 to 1; China =0.09 to 1; Japan = 0.42 to 1 ; Germany=0.29 to 1; South Korea =1.3 to 1; Canada= 2.6 to 1; Mexico=3.7 to 1
Jonathan Turley, on X:
“ …I shall not offer a “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.” The new pope is reportedly a Cubs fan. If there is any need for proof of divinity, that should be enough.”
Turley is wrong – according to his brothers, the Pope is a White Sox fan…
Mark,
I was frustrated with the diappearance of a couple of my favorite micro-controllers due to the chips having gone out of production during the Covid crisis. I’d thought this was some scheme to get me to buy faster devices, but for my purposes I didn’t need them and in some cases the PCB grew larger and no longer fit the places I wanted to put them, and also didn’t fit the PCB’s I’d made for them.
I suppose you can still buy Z-80s, but then I’ve forgotten how to do assembler which at the time seemed to be required for the things I was fumbling with.
John,
OMG, don’t use Z-80’s what a pain! Use Microchip PIC’s. They are single chip / computer solutions, can be programmed in C, require (in many cases) no external clock or memory or supporting circuitry. They are a veritable gift from God when you need a small microcontroller that isn’t crazy fast / doesn’t need vast storage or an OS with a minimum of fuss.
Here:
https://www.microchip.com/en-us/products/microcontrollers-and-microprocessors/8-bit-mcus/pic-mcus/pic16f17576
And
https://www.amazon.com/GOTOTOP-Programmer-Debugger-Universal-Controller/dp/B09QX7ZQ96
The IDE is a free download
https://www.microchip.com/en-us/tools-resources/develop/mplab-x-ide
.
You can pop that chip onto a solderless breadboard. With a very small amount of fuss you can wire 5 adjacent slots on the board as an interface to the necessary programming pins. Boom, you’re up and running! You can program that thing and all you need is power and ground to operate (of course, you’ll want to wire some I/O to do anything noticeable, but still).
I built a minimal Z-80 single board computer once in my youth. It was awful.
I mean, you’re not running a LLM on one, and you can run LLMs on Raspberry PI and Orange PI. Still, if your needs are simple interface and simple logic, PIC’s can be just right.
Hi Mark,
I’d been using Teensy’s and they too suffered from the disappearacne of the chips powering (if that’s the right word) the Teensy3 which was just fine for me. I can make PCB’s on my CNC router.
Do the schematics in Eagle, use its wonderful auto-router, fix the traces I think can be handled more elegantly (no rf issues in what I do) generate the g-code withan Eagle add-on called PCBGCODE,
cut the boards – just 2 sides for what I do. rinse them, tin them and solder everything together. see if it works.
Autodesk is killing Eagle next year so I’ll have to learn something else. Gaakkkk.
There was one rf trace I did to connect a U-Blox gps to an antenna. Done in almost complete ignorance (trace was very short and then there was the lenght of the lead to the patch antenna) but it worked.
Teensy, how cool. I hadn’t run across those before.
So you carve out your own boards, nice. It usually doesn’t come to that in my projects (read as, “amateur!”)!
Kenneth Fritsch: “private consumption to private savings ratios”.
What are those numbers supposed to mean? Surely you are not saying that people in China save 10 yuan for every yuan they spend.
Hi Mark,
I bought the router to cut ribs for r/c airplanes, and then once I had it discovered that it could also do pcb-boards, cut both the traces and drill the holes. the magic part was figuring out how to do 2 sided baords, sometims needed because traces couldn’t be done on a single layer without a lot of jumpers. I put two indexing holes in the corners of the boards which tend to be smaller than 2.5 inches square and then can zero the cutter to one of them, but there is still possibility of aligment problem but that just required holding a straight edge against the hole into which the spindle drill has been inserted, putting a drill bit in the other hole and fussing with it until it is aligned. Sounds hard but it’s easy.
Machine was $1600 +/- direclty from Shanghai and turned out much better than I expected. I thought I’d have to “accurize” it but didn’t.
“Accurize” was what we used to do with government M1911’s so you could hit something smaller than a barn door with them..
I don’t have any 1911’s, although I’ve always been impressed with those I’ve fired. I read the low end ones can have jamming problems. I’m partial to striker action myself though.
My M1911 experience goes back to 1958/9 when the government gave a whole bunch of unsued ones to the NRA which in turn was allowed to sell them one at a time to members. I think they got $25 for them.
Other than adding a bushing to the bushing (part at end of barrel) and lapping the slides, I can’t remember what else was done, but there wasn’t all that much improvement.
You know, I have to take back what I said about the Z-80. I’ve been googling it and I’ve come to realize I made that problem a lot harder than it needed to be back when I worked on it. It’s not that bad. It might even be fun to try to get one up and running today, who knows, though what use I’d have for a Z-80 at the moment I’m sure I couldn’t say.
[Edit: The internet wasn’t as good back in those days, that’s what it was. I can climb on the shoulders of giants without thought these days. Heh!]
I started out with an Osborne 1 which ran on a Z-80 and came with the most intelligent owner’s manual I’ve ever seen. It had two sections, one was how to run the apps it came with and the other was how everything actually worked down to a discussion of the USART they’d selected and their decision to have a GPBus jack on the front. I think my brother still has it along with 2 of the blue ones which met a quick death when IBM’s PC showed up.
I had no idea what I was doing, but gradually learned assembler, how to usa a Microsoft app called BASCOM which would sometimes actually compile an MBASIC program. I vaguely remember that whatever you did had to be no larger than 48K and that something like 16K more was reserved for CP/M to get to the available 64K. Doing this is where I learned that if you wanted to actually do something that worked without necessarily comprehending the whole problem you needed to try a lot of things, remember what you’d already tried, (loop advoidance) and NEVER give up.
I understand that the guys that worked for Alfred Sloan had a sign on the wall that said something like this.
I learned assembly language on my Z-80 as a kid. It was the only way to get the performance necessary for games! Gotta love Z-80 compound instructions (LDIR, etc). I still have fond memories of TRS-80’s. Jeez, I’m getting old, that was a loooong time ago.
Here is a piece on how China cheats regarding tariffs. Not very clear, but provides some more info:
https://thefederalist.com/2025/05/09/inside-chinas-massive-tariff-dodging-scheme-that-kills-its-competition/
Something I had not realized is that tariffs on bulk shipments seem to be based on wholesale value. For some items that can be less than half the retail price, blunting the impact of tariffs even if there is not cheating.
Yes. The tariffs are assessed based on the price the between the seller and the buyer who imports them. So when Walmart buys at wholesale, Walmart is the buyer. If I buy them direct from a chinese manufacturer, its whatever price I pay. If they are giving me a wholesale price, that’s the price for the purpose of tariffs. If they give me a retail price, that’s the price.
The reason the “make in China”, then “warehouse in Canada” then “ship small orders to retail” work around is going “poof” is partly that without “de minimus”, the US retail customers pay the company in Canada the retail price and now the US tariffs are assessed at retail value of the item when it crosses into the US.
The de minimus exemption made the tariff when imported to the US go away, “poof”! Having lots of companies create warehouses in Canada to take advantage of this was not the intention of the exemption. But that’s what the law allowed, so they did it.
If the same company imports and warehouses in the US, the tariff will be assessed at the wholesale value at which it is imported. This is not cheating. This is the way the tariff is intended to work.
Mark ( TRS-80’s. Jeez, I’m getting old, that was a loooong time ago.)
I still have my M1L1 TRS 80. I still cringe at the $100 I paid at the time to upgrade it from 4k of RAM to 16k. Never did upgrade it to the available 180k floppy drive from the tape drive as it was $300 for the basic parts and the interface had to be breadboard from scratch.
It had a problem with overheating. Had to keep a can of cold gas handy or the system would crash from overheating.
I bought the system as Radio Shack was clearly going to beat out the upstart based out of a garage. I think the upstart was call Apple or some such.
OMFG.
I just spend 5 days doing medical device testing in San Francisco and I stayed near Union Square. It is stunning how disgusting San Francisco has become and how little the government does about it. I literally walked right by people openly doing fentanyl by my hotel’s entrance (Hampton Inn). Walked around many people just passed out on the sidewalk mid-day, feces, all matter of mental illness, garbage everywhere.
Every business establishment had private security standing outside … and almost zero police presence for the entire time. Zero.
50% to 75% of businesses’ s shuttered. Walgreens and Target had all kinds of stuff walled off so you had to ask for assistance.
I thought this might have been overdone in some news stories but it is the truth. The locals just accept it. What an embarrassment. I think I saw one child on the street the entire time. They actually have something called the Harm Reduction Council which hands out drug paraphernalia and advocates for letting this continue. It is INSANE when you see it.
AFAICT they don’t disperse this open air drug and crime market because the surrounding areas complain when they do.
OTOH the Waymo driverless cab rides were totally cool.
lucia wrote: “If the same company imports and warehouses in the US, the tariff will be assessed at the wholesale value at which it is imported. This is not cheating.”
I agree. The cheating is when they claim that the wholesale price is a fraction of what it really is or if they claim the shipment is something other than what it is.
Ed,
Yeah, I remember the memory upgrade. 16K! Never going to use all that! LOL. I don’t remember mine overheating though, but maybe I just don’t recollect properly anymore.
Mike M.
May 9, 2025 at 12:08 pm
Mike, I asked Google AI for the total dollars in 2023 saved and consumed by individuals and businesses. When I checked back in detail I found the values I was obtaining from AI were not from consistence sources. Also my China number was off by a decimal point. Below I have used personal savings percent (PS) and household consumption per GDP (HC) with the original balance of payments (BP) to show the association between PS/HP and BP.
BPs are all in billions of US dollars and PS and HP are in percent.
Nation BP PS HC
US. -819. 4.5 67.9
China +253 44.4 39.1
Germany +270 11.3 49.9
Japan. +200 9.1 55.6
South Korea +99 33.4 48.9
Canada -18 6.1 55.2
Mexico -44. 18.6 70.3
Balance of trade relative to GDP is far more important the straight balance of trade. Which makes the German balance of trade a lot more impressive.
Kenneth Fritsch: “BPs are all in billions of US dollars and PS and HP are in percent.”
Which means that you can not compare BP with the other two.
It looks like Germany and Japan have much higher ratios of trade surplus to GDP than China, with much lower savings rates. It looks like South Korea is in between.
As I explained above, a correlation between savings and trade surplus would not really prove anything, but the lack of correlation disproves Kenneth’s theory.
The Trump effect….
“European leaders to meet in Ukraine for ‘coalition of the willing’ talks – and issue call to Russia”
“Sir Keir Starmer is joining the leaders of France, Germany and Poland in Kyiv – the first time they will travel to Ukraine at the same time.”
The ‘Big Four” have been acting like responsible NATO partners lately.
Building up their militaries, upping supplies to Ukraine, talking tough to Russia.
I wonder if they are prepared to lead. Are they going to supply manpower (Rear guard duties)?
https://news.sky.com/story/european-leaders-to-meet-in-ukraine-for-coalition-of-the-willing-talks-and-issue-call-to-russia-13364603
(I have seen reports from OSINT but cannot confirm this myself)
All 6 B-2 stealth bombers have left Diego Garcia and are heading back to the states. The B-2s were used in the attacks on the Houthis in Yemen.
The Pope has made his first decree…
It’s called soccer now.
Peace starts next week.
Trump has shamed Europe into standing up against Putin, which they could have tried at any time, with USA backing.
WRT micro-computer processors: I just finished a coding project for a “product upgrade” in a small instrument which digitally replaces an old (22 years!) analog control circuit and user interface (was dials and switches, now a small LCD). The processor is a “Propeller”, which is actually 8 independent processors, all running at 80 MHz (newer versions up to 200 MHz). They share memory and I/O pins. The processors are truly independent, although they can pass information to each other via shared memory. With multiple processors running different pieces of program code in parallel, there is no need for interrupts. It took a while for me to fully appreciate that complete independence and take advantage of it. It is an interesting coding environment.
angech,
Next week? I have my doubts.
Will the Europeans actually talk with Putin without insisting Russia withdraw from Ukraine as a condition for talks? That would be progress, but they need to first form committee of selected country representatives to make recommendations to the EC about appropriate conditions for talks… with a target deadline of June 1…. ……. 2026. I see zero indication the Europeans are serious about ending the killing.
angech,
I think it more likely the Europeans will seize $600 billion in frozen Russian assets, ensuring a ‘frozen conflict’ when the fighting stops, and a new cold war lasting for decades.
Steve,
The DO-178C guys would love that, no interrupts. Maybe we ought to look at using those things where I work.
Here is a link to a reasonably decent detailed analysis of balance of payments.
https://www.cato.org/publications/trade-balance-winning-trade
The Trump effect…
Marco Rubio:
Over the past 48 hours, @VP Vance and I have engaged with senior Indian and Pakistani officials, including Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Shehbaz Sharif, External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir, and National Security Advisors Ajit Doval and Asim Malik.
I am pleased to announce the Governments of India and Pakistan have agreed to an immediate ceasefire and to start talks on a broad set of issues at a neutral site.
We commend Prime Ministers Modi and Sharif on their wisdom, prudence, and statesmanship in choosing the path of peace.
Mike M.
May 9, 2025 at 8:56 pm
Mike, I am not claiming a direct correlation but rather pointing out that nations with lower savings and higher consumption rates tend to have negative balance of payments.
I also point to having a negative balance of payments with a related higher foreign investment that is used to increase productivity is economically a positive development.
If the US had a negative balance of payments and was using the foreign purchase of our debt to further consumption over investment used to improve productivity that would economically be a very negative development.
The US advantage in these matters is that it is, relative to most of the rest of the world, a better place to invest. That condition is not a given and tariffs can have a negative effect.
If the US were to change its savings and consumption habits and invest it’s savings domestically in improving productivity, the US could have a thriving economy and a positive balance of payments. The key to a thriving economy, whether it has a negative or positive balance of payments, is having an environment favorable to business, markets and trade. Economically that means reducing government interference.
Mike, I am not attempting to change your mind or anyone else’s who reads here, but merely attempting to post what I know about these matters.
“With multiple processors running different pieces of program code in parallel, there is no need for interrupts.”
Depending on the timescales of what is being controlled this is no different than a multitasking RTOS. The problem with these systems is that synchronizing them can be tricky and it has to be done very carefully or you end up with hard to find intermittent bugs and even worse, deadlocks. Many times the API libraries for hardware access are not thread safe.
I have found that multitasking RTOS’s look attractive on paper but almost every real world application requires synchronizing the threads. Mutexes, semaphores, waits, etc.
The other alternative is a single task (superloop) with state machines to track independent processes. Here you have to make sure the code is non-blocking and that has its own set of minuses. Done properly this generally has the highest overall performance.
There is no free lunch. My preference has been superloops for long term reliability.
Tom,
Sure, it’s all the same stuff in the end. The trick isn’t just making it work properly, but being able to demonstrate / persuade reviewers that it’s right. IMO your favored approach is the easiest / best way to do that. It can still be done with multithreaded models and interrupts, but one has to be darn careful not to cross the imaginary lines so that in end the system can be deemed deterministic and acceptable. We’re doing more DO-178C these days. What a pain.
Russell,
I’ve been wondering how far the Pakistan Indian thing was going to go. I sure hope they both find a way to step back. A fight between those two likely wouldn’t end well for anybody.
Medical devices also have a lot more software / firmware focus than they used to. It’s for a good reason. The overall (wise) trend is to dump hardware complexity into software where possible to allow for future faster bug fixes and flexibility.
The problem is most software people don’t understand bare metal hardware. I have seen a lot of bad firmware with quite predictable failures. Of course all my early code was also riddled with the same problems.
Well, you know, the reason you are randomly dropping button pushes is you have indefinite blocking code all over the place here … huh? Is it really that important if we miss the emergency stop button 1% of the time?
Doing it properly means complex code in a lot of cases. Complex code increase the chances of bugs and is harder to maintain. And don’t even get me started on proper instrumentation to know what is happening down there …
Nowadays I mostly write code with the intent of being able to understand it ten years from now.
Kenneth Fritsch wrote (May 8, 2025 at 7:11 am): “That consumption is fulfilled by consuming both domestic and foreign goods. Thus the US citizens consume a great quantity of imported foreign goods.”
Kenneth Fritsch wrote (May 10, 2025 at 9:11 am): “If the US were to change its savings and consumption habits … the US could have a thriving economy and a positive balance of payments.”
That sure sounds to me like you are saying that our savings and consumption habits are the cause of our trade deficit. I think that is silly. Over the last half century, innumerable American factories have shut down. Many of the companies running those factories have gone out of business. Millions of workers who lost their jobs in those factories have been unable to find equivalent work. That was certainly NOT caused by American consumers wanting more goods than American factories could produce.
———
Kenneth Fritsch: “nations with lower savings and higher consumption rates tend to have negative balance of payments.”
Of course there is some correlation. Given the definitions of GDP and Gross Savings that almost has to be so. But that tells us absolutely nothing about cause and effect.
Mark,
My guess is they really didn’t want to fight and welcomed the peace initiative by Rubio and Vance.
When people lose good paying jobs, they are able to save less and likely will be forced to draw on the savings they already have. That reduces the overall level of savings. Trade deficits cause low savings rates.
Way too simplistic, but it makes more sense than what Kenneth claims.
Right. Wars can end quickly when both sides don’t want the fight.
Trade surpluses and deficits may be relatively easy to measure but I don’t think they are very meaningful. They are at most a symptom of something else that may be meaningful.
Tom Scharf,
“being able to understand it 10 years from now”
I guess it would help if I could understand the comments I loaded it up with ten years ago.
In a capitalist or even a semi-capitalist economy it is a healthy sign when some businesses, that are no longer profitable and not serving a consumer need, go out of business. We certainly no longer need a buggy whip factory thanks to progress and to the fact that the economy can adjust to changes. Manufacturing no longer needs as many employees due to higher productivity and that lower productivity jobs are better handled in other nations. The United States has become a more service oriented economy and thus destructive creation, which is the creation of new industries and products, and the simultaneous destruction of old ones, happens.
Though the unemployment rate overall does not see a major shift due to these changes some displaced workers may have problems with relocating, retraining or both in order to become employed. These problems can often be traced back to government policies and interferences that impede the economy as a whole and thus limit employment opportunities in general and in particularly for those affected by the changes noted above.
John, I agree with this advice. I use coding as a tool to some other end and am not motivated to learn eloquent coding but rather only sufficiently well to reach my primary end. I have found that I can eventually get the job done by, like you said, never giving up.
From Vatican News…
Pope Leo XIV explains his choice of name:
“… I chose to take the name Leo XIV. There are different reasons for this, but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution. In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour.”
Jamie Dimon: “I’d change the name from red tape to blue tape—it’s the Democrats who want more regulations.”
Steve F
I think it more likely the Europeans will seize $600 billion in frozen Russian assets, ensuring a ‘frozen conflict’ when the fighting stops, and a new cold war lasting for decades.”
You have been right in the past.
–
They well may try if they sense Russian weakness or blood.
–
Very foolish or mean or both if they try.
–
Everyone has to give up a lot if pride for success, especially Zelensky.
–
KF
“John, I agree with this advice. I use coding as a tool to some other end and am not motivated to learn eloquent coding but rather only sufficiently well to reach my primary end. I have found that I can eventually get the job done by, like you said, never giving up.”
–
You guys have that quality I lack.
Forced to change my old e mail server.
Chickens coming home to roost for a slacker.
–
Best let Lucia know I will soon, hopefully , have a new email address and start burning the midnight oil transferring essentials
and notifying contacts.
So job one for Pope Leo XIV is putting Christian values on the development of artificial intelligence. His words yesterday:
“In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour.”
I have been pondering two questions:
One, is this a good idea? I think so, if done properly. Lots of knowledgeable people have been saying how dangerous the development of AI could be. Having some moral and ethical guidelines might help keep it from going off the rails.
Two, Can a people encyclical be a much influence in the development of AI? It probably will influence Catholic doctrine and teaching maybe for the next hundred years. Certainly the encyclical Rerum Novarum encyclical by Pope Leo the 13th that covered the Industrial Revolution influenced Catholic doctrine and teaching for that long. He issued it in the late 1800s and I remember quite a bit of instruction in it during the 1960s and 70s. From Wikipedia:
“Rerum novarum is considered a foundational text of modern Catholic social teaching.” A caveat, a Papal encyclical is not covered by the law Papal infallibility, so it is open to challenge.
The final thing I need to ponder is what the heck moral and ethical guidelines can be used on the development of AI.
If anyone is interested in the Cliff Notes version of Rerum Novarum you can find it here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rerum_novarum
john ferguson,
“I guess it would help if I could understand the comments I loaded it up with ten years ago.”
Understanding code a decade later can be hard if you made good comments; but extremely hard without them. Someone else’s code? You better hope they wrote a lot more comments than code….. and it might help to pray if you are a believer. 😉
My younger brother, who spent his whole career supporting commercial sales/distribution/inventory on ‘mainframes’, once told me that the worst system crashes he ever saw happened when a programmer thought they understood what some other programmer had written a decade before, but didn’t really understand it. When a thousand cash registers stop working at the same moment it is costly.
Last night, warming up to order some capacitors, I entered “mouser” in Chrome. The display changed to a number of electronic parts vendors with DigiKey in the lead and Mouser about four entries down the list.
If Mouser has what I want, they get the business. I use Digikey when Mouser doesn’t have it. insidious.
While we’re at it, is anyone here tracking the development of AI to see if bootstrapping is part of the process? In other words are current AI systems being used to develop the next generation of systems or are they still designed from the outside — namely by humans?
Evolution of AI systems?
john ferguson,
Never used Chrome, but don’t you select your search engine in Chrome?
That kind of biased listing is why I stopped using Google years ago. I don’t notice that sort of thing with DuckDuckGo. Not as quick as Google, but much more reliable and unbiased.
Hi SteveF,
Yes it’s google. I recognize what google does and generally don’t have any problem, but the faster response seems to come at the cost of having to work one’s way past its first choices.
One of the frustrating things over here is the discovery of cracks in two coliumns in an 18 (?) story condo building in Clearwater. They evacutated everyone and are doing some sort of structural work. There are no visible reinforcement cages in either of the two columns shown in the posts about the problem. The cracks are vertical, appear to be inches wide and would reveal the stirrups (horizontal steel hoops which tie the vertical steel rebars together) yet no stirrups are visible. No stirrups means no reinforcement cages and without that these things are not structural.
I suspect these columns are cosmetic not structural because as they appear to have been built they wouldn’t have supported much.
What is more likely is that the building above them has settled through some problem in the foundations and these decorative “columns” were crushed under loads they weren’t designed for.
I expected to read some analysis along these lines by now 5 days after the discovery, but alas. The views of an engineer were reported in one article but it seemed clear to me that he hadn’t seen the thing.
I don’t know if the ten day rule applies to this sort of thing, but Dad was convinced that a realistic discussion in the media was unlikely to be accurate or even useful in fewer than ten days assuming it ever was.
John,
I don’t know if Grok is more savvy on the condo cracks than Google but here is its analysis:
https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_15abce9f-2774-4e5e-9bba-db42221f7e83
I use Digikey first, and mostly only. Typically I won’t use parts in a design that aren’t in stock at Digikey, exceptions for vital stuff. Mouser would be my second source but it is rare for Mouser to have stock and Digikey not.
This is for design, production buys are typically done by a contract manufacturer who may use places like Avnet.
Digikey parameter searches are ideal for a power user, the search interface is quick, quick access to datasheets. The shipping charges are … ummmm … not great. It really looks like engineers designed the interface for engineers.
“Having some moral and ethical guidelines might help keep it from going off the rails.”
There are many different moral guidelines. I have no idea why there is a push for one moral guideline to rule them all. Just push out Christian AI, conservative AI, liberal AI, etc. These AI’s can still try to expose people to other principles.
Yes, I expect there to be a media panic on condos for quite a while. Nobody is going to want to sign up for “these columns are fine!”. The structural engineers will probably be super defensive and the rabble rousers will be quoted.
Tom Scharf,
I also mostly use digikey, unless what I am buying is (relatively) expensive and I then do some price comparisons.
I agree too that the parameter search is good at digikey, but not terrible at mouser. I really like the in-stock screening of parts, since I often needed the part last week.
john ferguson,
Yes, the columns would have likely failed during construction if they really were not reinforced, not an eternity later after surviving added loads from hurricanes.
There was a catastrophic failure of a high-rise in Brazil about 20 years ago, killing many, but it was because the contractor had used low-strength concrete (lower portland cement) to save money…. some people ended up in prison IIRC.
I bet you could buy in that high rise for a lower price than last month. 😉
Hi SteveF. It turns out there is vertical steel in one of the columns likely an 8 or bigger (1″ diameter) but no stirrups which would likely have prevented the failure. They are required, which means this thing was non-conforming and if the rest of the columns are like this the building will very likely be condemned.
It makes me wonder how many others are like this.
Roommate in College was Latvian, his father was an architect in Milwaukee. Sometime in 1937 or so, a Stadium was built in Riga which collapsed on first use and killed a lot of people. The architect, engineer, and construction manager were condemned to death and only survived because of the arrival of the Russians at the beginning of the war, 1939, I think.
I worked at a firm that had a salt water dock fail because the sea water penetrated the concrete and corroded the steel rebar inside. I’m not a structural engineer but was included in the negotiations because I was the go between with the liability insurance company.
So the Pope is late to the party; at least thirteen organizations already have or are developing ethical rules for artificial intelligence.
Examples:
UNESCO
Framework: UNESCO’s Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence (2021), adopted by 193 member states, emphasizes human rights, transparency, fairness, and human oversight. It includes policy action areas like data governance, environmental sustainability, and gender equality.
Initiatives: The Global AI Ethics and Governance Observatory provides resources for ethical AI adoption, and the Business Council for Ethics of AI (co-chaired by Microsoft and Telefonica) promotes ethical practices in Latin America.
Partnership on AI
Framework: A nonprofit founded by Amazon, Google, Facebook, IBM, Microsoft, and later joined by Apple, it promotes best practices for ethical AI, focusing on fairness, transparency, and public understanding.
Initiatives: Conducts research, shares insights, and collaborates with academia to advance responsible AI.
IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
Framework: The Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems outlines eight principles, including human rights, transparency, and accountability. The Ethically Aligned Design initiative provides actionable guidelines.
Initiatives: IEEE’s standards, like the Model Process for Addressing Ethical Concerns During System Design, help integrate ethics into AI development.
GROK’s complete list:
https://x.com/i/grok/share/HZKxtWwUJELXaoc771tAQOY7D
When the 7 mile bridge in the keys was designed, it was thought that coating the reinforceing steel with epoxy would stop corrosion. It turned out that this was wrong. The bars and tendons corroded anyway.
Same thing with reinforcement in condo balconies, same mistaken assumption.
Rinker who used to provide most of the concrete in South Florida came up with a concrete design which really did stop the moisture penetetration. This must have been in the late nineties when I was working in Miami.
i have no idea what they’ve had to do to keep that bridge useable. I’m sure it isn’t the only one.
John,
Do you have knowledge about how Roman concrete, (without steel!) is still standing today?
John Ferguson,
Life is sadly too short…. even, it appears, for reinforced concrete: https://www.corrosionpedia.com/corrosion-resistance-in-reinforced-concrete-structures/2/6966
Russell, there is no steel or iron reinforcement in Roman concrete which means spalling due to corrosion. Corrosion of reinforcement is a major contributor to failure of concrete elements in construction.
I’m agnostic on Roman concrete mix.
Trump:
“Therefore, I am pleased to announce that Tomorrow morning, in the White House, at 9:00 A.M., I will be signing one of the most consequential Executive Orders in our Country’s history. Prescription Drug and Pharmaceutical prices will be REDUCED, almost immediately, by 30% to 80%. “
https://x.com/trumpdailyposts/status/1921697332820578362?s=61&t=7w4bCW3a8ve2DqoeniQatQ
Russell
I’m not holding my breath.
Lucia,
Brutal…. they even are the butt of jokes on uber-Liberal SNL, from the NY Post:
Harry and Meghan were brutally roasted on “Saturday Night Live” by Colin Jost during his “Weekend Update” sketch with Michael Che.
“President [Donald] Trump also announced a new trade deal with the UK that will reopen British markets for American companies,” he said on the NBC show.
“All that Britain demands in return is that we keep these two,” the comedian, 42, added as a photo of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex appeared on the screen.
Video:
https://pagesix.com/2025/05/11/celebrity-news/prince-harry-meghan-markle-brutally-roasted-on-snl-as-colin-jost-says-uk-wants-the-us-to-keep-the-royals/
The treefrogs are happy and singing again, finally!
We got a little over 1/2 inch of rain, not much, but we’ll take it. My part of Florida has been undergoing a prolonged drought. It is officially categorized as ‘severe to extreme’. The rainy season should be starting in about 30 days. I hope this tides us over.
https://www.drought.gov/states/florida/county/Sarasota
A side note on treefrogs:
We have lived on this property for nearly half a century (honest!). During that time the tiny native green treefrogs have been entirely displaced by invasive Cuban treefrogs. The illegal alian treefrogs are big, ugly and loud. They eat the cute little native green treefrogs.
Further reading from the University of Florida:
https://ufwildlife.ifas.ufl.edu/frogs/greentreefrog.shtml
https://ufwildlife.ifas.ufl.edu/cuban_treefrog_infl.shtml
A side note on wildfires:
It is notable that we have had 1,000 wildfires during the drought this year but few got out of control and caused destruction to structures, a testament to Florida’s forest management efforts. It should be further noted that the recent hurricanes have generated a lot of fuel in the forests from downed trees.
“Florida’s peak wildfire impacts usually occur from April through June. However, since January more than 1,000 wildfires in the Sunshine State have burned 51,000 acres. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, parts of Central Florida and Florida’s Heartland are experiencing severe drought.“
https://www.foxweather.com/extreme-weather/florida-fire-danger-drought-april-2025
john ferguson,
roman concrete: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_concrete
It is a quick-lime /hydrated lime based mortar, which can also contain some gypsum, mixed with a large amount of volcanic ash; the volcanic ash being key to its long utility. It apparently lasts a very long time (even submerged in seawater) because the infiltration of water due to any imperfections/cracks causes reactions that generate compounds that ‘self-heal’ cracks. It is also said the concrete retains a fair amount of tensile strength in addition to compressive strength.
Big reductions in drug prices? Only if Trump has pressured the Europeans, Chinese, Indians, Japanese, and Australians to actually pay a fair price for the drugs they purchased…… which have historically been indirectly paid for by people in the USA. Just cutting prices in the USA would only mean funding for pharma research will be drastically reduced.
Trade deals with the Chinese and “17 other major trading partners” are close? We will see. I hope so, and that the deals all include reasonably uniform pricing for drugs.
SteveF,
Roman concrete is undoubtedly a better mix than what has most typically been used in the US up until recently. We would have been better off using it without a doubt although we have used Pozzalan, a mix similar to the Roman for many years with similar qualities, but obviously only in unusual circumstances..
An aspect to all this that puzzles me is the lack of interest in projected lifetime of the buildings we designed. Except for some public works projects which were required to be designed for 100 year lives, we completely ignored the question which might account for no-one waterproofing of foundations of buildings on the beach in Florida.
I did some post-tension reinforced biuldings in Chicago suburbs in the early ’80s a bit west of Hinsdale. They are still there, but no thought whatever was given to how long they should last. The condo we moved out of here in St Pete has corroding cable anchors at thde ends of many of the 3700 post-tension cables supporting the upper 20 floors. The cost to inspect and replace each cable that turns out to need it will be $5k +/- The corrosion is due to the anchor ends being “sealed” with what turned out to be porous grout which admitted wind born salty rainwater over the 50 years it’s been standing there.
My projects covered the cable ends behind glass curtain walls and then there isn’t all that much salty rainwater in Hinsdale unless something’s changed.
So the problem is that better construction materials and techniques were avaliable 50 years ago, but for the most part no-one worried about it and if we had I doubt that clients would have paid for it.
Trump says we will pay the same price for drugs as paid by the country that pays the least. Maybe he can do that for Medicare, but it is not clear to me what gives him that power. I don’t see how he can limit private market prices without an act of Congress.
I have long thought that drug prices in the US should be tied to what they are sold for elsewhere. That would force pharma companies to hold out for higher prices when negotiating with central buyers in other countries. Then other countries would be helping to cover R&D costs.
But it seems to me that there needs to be a phase in period to give pharma a chance to negotiate elsewhere under the new rules. And I think that there should be an exception for less developed countries. I have no problem with people in Africa paying less than we do.
I guess we will get to see the text of the Executive Order a little later this morning.
Fascinating, Roman concrete has a self-healing capability….. a chemical phenomenon caused by ‘hot mixing (not slaking) quicklime into the batch.
At least that is MIT’s theory.
https://news.mit.edu/2023/roman-concrete-durability-lime-casts-0106
john ferguson,
Yes, the lack of interest in construction projects (all kinds) has always been a puzzle.
My house on Cape Cod is now over 100 years old, in large part because it was constructed using ‘old growth’ pine, which is remarkably hard and rot resistant (for pine!). The growth rings in boards I have cut (for renovations) are so close to each other that it is sometimes almost impossible to count them….. there were trees used in the original construction that were 100+ years old when the house was built…… and now still in service 100+ years after cutting.
Maybe the issue is what Keynes observed: in the long run, we are all dead. Worrying about a future 50 years after your own demise is not high on the list of priorities for many people.
I’ll reserve judgment until Roman cement has a 1000 semi’s traveling over it ever day for decades.
There is a YouTube channel called Practical Engineering I watch that goes into a lot of these issues. It’s pretty good.
Example: Why Does Road Construction Take So Long?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIK6I6Q58Ec
Stocks have now recovered from the “trade war”. We shall see what happens next. It matters where we end up, not the journey. I don’t think protectionism is a feature but it has its place in certain circumstances.
I like that Practical Engineering site also
Air Force One is over the Western Atlantic ocean along with a similar plane nearby. Earlier, I saw refueling tankers heading out to sea so I imagine there are escort aircraft flying nearby also.Screenshot at 12:30 PM Florida time:
https://x.com/rklier21/status/1921969226509627828?s=46&t=ZvqHpxBnQGny72gLoGhKXw
SteveF,
Have you tried driving a nail into it?
ps: Just had an order from China canceled by vendor with a note that had he shipped it would have borne the full effect of Trump’s current vigorish. He said he’d send me a note when things were more reasonable and I could re-order.
My contractor a while back showed me what the difference was drilling a screw into 30 year old wood and new wood. Quite the difference.
I cannot believe how big a screw you can put into a piece of wood with a modern small battery impact drill without a pilot hole.
The Russians have been using attack drones with up to 10 km of fiber optic cable. Cannot be jammed.
Lucia,
Incense swinging… on steroids [It’s dangerous]
https://youtu.be/rsrqkYQvpr4?si=e5VaxAPE7eeOu8HR
john ferguson,
Yes, you can nail it, but you often bend one over and have to try again. Nothing like the SPF lumber you buy today, which seems a little like a cross between balsa and Douglass fir.
tom scharf,
Yes, but you risk cracking the wood with no pilot holes….. especially if the wood has much density. I had to secure 2×6 headers to a 4×8 beam with lag bolts last year (for a new porch floor). The impact driver would have done it without pilots, but I wouldn’t. 😉
Tom,
Ukraine too is using fiber optic cable drones. I don’t know when Russia started using them but Ukraine has been developing them for about a year.
“Capt Yuriy Fedorenko, the commander of a specialist drone unit, the Achilles regiment, says fibre optic drones were an experimental response to battlefield jamming and rapidly took off late last year”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/23/they-cannot-be-jammed-fibre-optic-drones-pose-new-threat-in-ukraine
The speed of new drone warfare developments seems to be slowing down. For a time new features were an everyday occurrence. Now, both sides are well into production mode.
SteveF, Years ago we had to add some struts to wood floor framing in our 1911 house in La Grange, Il outside of Chicago. You could dent the wood with nails bu not much more than that. It took holes the minor diameter of the screws to make it work.
I thought the wood must be Oak, but neighbor said it was pine and that it gets really hard eventually.
The Trojan horse from Qatar.
I once worked on a project which purified copier machines for use in embassies. Completely disassembled, exposed to all sorts of tests and reassembled. The idea was that a copier that either remembered or whose work could be remotely accessed shouldn’t be in an embassy.
My guess is that this would need to be done to the Qatar 747 and would likely take almost as much time as building one from scratch.
Maybe someone on Fox News will realize this and save the day.
john frrguson,
Part of the apparent hardening could be loss of moisture. Unless fully kiln dried, it can take multiple years for structural lumber to fully dry. But I suspect the biggest difference is the density of the trees the lumber came from. Trees harvested a hundred+ years ago were mostly from natural stands with very old trees, not planted stands of strains selected for fast growth. Harvesting conifers for lumber at less than 30 YO is said to now be common.
I have a live oak behind my house that is than 30 years old and more than 18″ diameter!
SteveF,
I buy the theory that houses in 1911 were built from old-stand lumber and maybe even sometimes from Oak.
We understood that Florida live oak as construction lumber gets really hard over the years.
As it turns out fiber optic cable weighs a lot more than radio waves so the new fiber optic drones are still a specialist use. They can also get snagged. Unsurprisingly Russia looks like it was targeting electronic warfare / jamming vehicles with their version.
It depends on who is building the plane. Boeing was originally scheduled to deliver the new Air Force One in 2022 and it was pushed back to 2029, then reconfigured for delivery in 2026. I doubt they will make it. They are apparently now taking losses on this project as well as Starliner.
My guess is this is all about Trump needling Boeing, which deserves it. The Qatar plane should be considered unsecure. Trump pretty much thinks out loud so I’m not sure it matters much.
Could be that Trump doesn’t care about security because the folks most likely to listen are friends of his. /snarc
More probably he’s never heard of the Trojan horse, nor has he any grasp of how subtley a large plane could be bugged, or even that it could be bugged.
On the gold plated jumbo jet gift….
Besides loving boy’s toys, Trump does this stuff to distract the Left Wing Media and Democrats, and they fall for it every time. Instead of spending all there time disrupting his Saudi visit, they are going after the Jet.
He also gave citizenship to a bunch of white farmer refugees… that really bugs them. They are off chasing squirrels.
Reuters “US slashes ‘de minimis’ tariff on small China parcels to 54%” That’s quite a slash from 0 to 54%. Oh wait, it was a whole lot more briefly.
This applies to things with wholesale values below $800. I don’t know what they base it on when it’s in effect a retail sale.
Pricing of the things I buy will still be acceptable with this 54% kick.
I think it’s a brilliant strategy. He knows they are going to spend almost all their airtime attacking him so he yanks their chains by giving them hot -button nonsense issues to pursue. Like a gift of a jumbo jet.
Remember the Trump 2028 hats? They spent two weeks on that.
I think it’s a brilliant strategy. He knows they are going to spend almost all their airtime attacking him so he yanks their chains by giving them hot -button nonsense issues to pursue.
Remember the Trump 2028 hats? They spent two weeks on that.
The media hasn’t figured out that Trump is a used car salesman at heart. Incomprehensible maximalist demands and then a negotiation. Somehow 30% tariffs on China is now “good news”.
Harvard had another $540M in grants revoked, another investigation opened for their (openly and proudly racist) hiring practices, and the Department of Education is vowing no future grants. Harvard will likely win a lot / most of these cases but there will be reputational damage accruing and they will end up worse off for the fight. Future Harvard administrations will no doubt tread lightly when activist faculty have the great idea to process everything through an identity lens.
Harvard’s best plan would be to split their school between the hard sciences / medical and whatever you call the rest of that madness. Separate administrations. Unlikely. The hard working faculty have got to resent the crazies taking the ship down.
Tom Scharf,
The majority of the Harvard faculty are in the crazy (fluff subjects) departments, so I doubt much is going to change, no matter how much it costs funding in medicine and the hard sciences. It is also true that Harvard has been very careful in their hiring for the last couple of decades to allow only the most dedicated leftists in, and a lot of the faculty in law, medicine, and the hard sciences are now just as wedded to DEI, racially based admissions, and ‘oppressor/oppressed theory’ of politics as the faculty in the many fluff departments.
IMHO, the place needs to be defunded to the maximum extent possible; they are doing enormous net harm to the country.
I can’t quite figure this out.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/david-hogg-slams-fast-track-effort-oust-him-dnc-vice-chair
“One vice-chair position may be filled by a male and one may be a candidate of any gender, according to the DNC
…
“This is not about David Hogg, despite what he’s saying. It is gender balance…. It’s in the rules that the officers need to be balanced between men and women.
…
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Free said the Credentials Committee lived up to the DNC’s reputation as “the party of free and fair elections” on Monday, and proved that “protecting democracy is more important than saving face.”
“This was never about Malcolm Kenyatta or David Hogg,” Free said. “For me, this was about ensuring that the Democratic Party lives up to our ideals as the only political party to believe in and stand up for election integrity and a free and fair democracy.””
Orwellian 4-D chess.
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/us-cut-de-minimis-tariff-china-shipments-54-120-2025-05-13/
The flat fee is a big deal for $20 ‘stuff’ from alibaba!! 🙂
Lucia,
I must have misunderstood. I thought it would be 54% or the $100 flat fee which would be preferable to 54% once the value was more than $185.
Tom Scharf,
“Orwellian 4-D chess.”
More like the Jacobins before they started killing each other. These are crazy people.
Inside the infamous Qatar 747:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14703215/Inside-Trumps-controversial-400m-palace-sky-jumbo-jet-gifted-Qatar.html
Catching up on all the comments … you all chat faster than I read!
My alma mater had made a point of combining computer science and engineering so software-oriented people HAD to at least get familiar with hardware and vice-versa. This had the virtue of forcing you to realize your software had to run on actual hardware or that some poor bugger had to write code to run on whatever you built.
As far as the balance of payments versus savings rate and consumption rates go, the correlation makes sense to me. It’s not direct causation but a great deal of our trade deficit comes from Americans buying things they don’t really need which is a huge change in culture from our previous “thrifty Yankee” culture. We generally don’t repair anything anymore because it’s cheaper to just replace it.
I don’t credit Trump with thinking this out deeply but believe he gets to the same place instinctually. I have evolved to a point where I care less about his reasoning (or lack thereof) than if I think the policy itself is achieving the right effect.
One thing I have always questioned about the effects attributed to Smoot-Hawley was the fact that America in the 1920s and 1930s was an export-driven economy. A tariff was was bound to hurt exports and therefore the economy. America in the 21st century has been largely driven by imports; tariffs would tend to change the cost equation when people are deciding on domestic versus imported products and slide some of the decisions over toward the domestic product. The person wanting to buy a new Porsche is still probably going to go with the Porsche, just paying more or going for a lesser model, but the person deciding between a car made in Mexico or Canada and one made in South Carolina may end up shifting to the domestically-produced car. That keeps more of the money flowing domestically.
I’m not at all happy about the plethora of Executive Orders to accomplish Trump’s policy goals but realistically he probably had to go that route in order to get things done in the next 12-15 months while he can. I blame Clinton for starting the EO abuse — anyone remember Paul Begala chortling about “stroke of a pen, law of the land”? Trump saw what Clinton, Obama, and Biden had done and took it to a new level to try to get to a status quo ante.
I have been watching this Saudi trip all day and it seems to be a homerun for Trump. Even CNN isn’t finding fault.
“I’m not at all happy about the plethora of Executive Orders to accomplish Trump’s policy goals but realistically he probably had to go that route in order to get things done in the next 12-15 months while he can.”
Sure, but many (at least the early ones) of Trump EO’s simply reversed Biden’s EOs. Trump is… (he is Trump after all)…. pouring gasoline on the EO bonfire with his own EO’s that are just as likely unlawful as were many of Biden’s. EO’s are a poor way to govern, and I think it would be more productive if Trump spent more energy working with Congress to actually pass laws that can’t be so easily reversed by the next president if he/she is a Dem.
SteveF: “it would be more productive if Trump spent more energy working with Congress to actually pass laws that can’t be so easily reversed “.
Well, sure. But that is not an option. Unless they get rid of the filibuster, but then they can be easily reversed.
WI judge indicted on obstructing immigration agents. Man was that ever a dumb move by her. There couldn’t be a clearer case of judicial activism, this plays right into Trump’s hands.
Another favorite place to arrest people is at their parole officer meetings.
Right according to Trump’s plan, ALL the Left Wing news outlets have stories criticizing him over the Qatar jumbo jet. They fall for it every time. He’s being Presidential making history in the Middle East and the Liberal media are frantically chasing a wild goose.
Eg:
“The Free Plane Trump Wants to Accept Might Just Be a Trojan Horse”
“GOP heavyweights join bipartisan bashing of Trump Qatar jet deal”
Eisenhower named the Constellation that was the first Air Force 1 “Columbine II”
Trump could call his 747 “Wild Goose”
Before Air Force One, FDR’s plane was “The Sacred Cow”.
Wild Goose works on several levels for Trump.
Seems Trump trolls the MSM pretty much 24/7, and always gets the desired “well, I never!!!” reaction of outrage.
Tom Scharf,
I suspect the WI judge will enter a plea deal with suspended sentence, a couple years parole, and resignation of her judgeship. It would be better for the country, and for the rule of law, if she spent a few months in Federal prison, but that seems to me unlikely in a plea bargain. Of course, she may be just crazy enough to risk a jury trial, which would almost certainly lead to a year or two in prison. We can cross our fingers and hope she is that crazy.
In Wisconsin, convicted felons can never be judges…… a plea deal gives her a chance to work as a judge in the future. A conviction excludes that possibility. She should look for a plea deal…. but I hope she doesn’t.
The Wisconsin judge should be disbarred. She did not just commit a felony while serving as a judge, she used her position to commit the felony. One can lose all sorts of professional licenses for doing that:
https://dsps.wi.gov/Pages/Professions/LicensureOffenses.aspx
That specific page does not cover attorneys, but surely the standard there ought to be at least as high. Attorneys are officers of the court; felons should not be tolerated. Can a felon be a cop? I think not.
The embrace of Syria is humorous. I’m sure this is all about opposing Iran and helping Saudi relations but the Middle East dynamics are ever changing. It is always a convoluted mess over there.
Newsom tells CA cities to clear homeless encampments and today says he is scaling back free health care for illegal immigrants. He’s definitely running for president in 2028.
“EO’s are a poor way to govern, and I think it would be more productive if Trump spent more energy working with Congress to actually pass laws that can’t be so easily reversed by the next president if he/she is a Dem.”
Long term, I would agree but the problem is that Trump and the GOP need to show improvement before the 2028 election cycle or their base will abandon them for doing nothing. I suspect Trump’s plan (if he ever had one) was to use the EOs to get change going and have Congress institutionalize the changes made by those EOs.
Assuming the changes from his EOs are effective (and they largely have been so far), voters in 2028 will solidify his support in Congress either by increasing the slim Republican majority or by forcing at least some Democrats to acknowledge reality and support what works (like Newsom is starting to do in California).
I still don’t like the plethora of EOs but I don’t like realpolitik either and I can acknowledge both are necessary for quick and effective government.
Derek, your post:
“I think it would be more productive if Trump spent more energy working with Congress to actually pass laws that can’t be so easily reversed by the next president if he/she is a Dem.”
I think that is a total waste of of time.
Congress has been a dysfunctional organization for over a generation. If either party can block legislation in the Senate, they will, it doesn’t matter whether it’s Democrat or Republican in the minority.
The American system of government has failed in that regard.
Governor DeSantis is pushing for a constitutional amendment for term limits in Congress, that might work.
A Republican supermajority in the Senate at midterms would also work for me.
DerekH,
Your analysis re executives orders is basically sound, except that Trump does not have until 2028 to get results. He needs at least some results by the midterms.
Tom Scharf: “The embrace of Syria is humorous.”
Embrace? Have I missed something? The only thing I heard about is the obvious step of dropping sanctions. Is there something beyond that?
How is it humorous? I don’t get that at all.
The leaders in Syria are Islamic militants, they just happen to be less worse than ISIS and al-Assad because he aligned with Russia.
A couple interesting points from today’s ISW report:
“NEW: The Russian military is reportedly generating enough forces to replace losses and is reinforcing the size of the Russian force grouping in Ukraine despite experiencing an increased casualty rate per square kilometer gained.”
Translation, The Russian advances are costing more Russian blood.
And:
“The Russian military command appears to be establishing a tactical doctrine and force structure for the use of motorcycle and civilian vehicle units in frontal assaults, underscoring the Russian military’s efforts to offset Ukraine’s drone advantages and achieve maneuver in modern ground warfare.”
Translation, The Russian advances are costing fewer tanks and APCs.
Tom Scharf: “The leaders in Syria are Islamic militants”.
Do we know that? Real question.
Obviously they are Islamic. And they are militant in that they just waged a successful war against the Assad government. But that does not make them extremists.
I know that they had support from extremist groups. But one can not be too picky about allies in war.
It seems to me that the big question in Syria is who will prevail in the new government: the islamists or relative moderates. If we can influence it toward the latter, we ought to try.
p.s. – The spell checker thinks there is no such word as “islamist”. I have a theory as to why.
Russell,
drones and satellite recon have totally changed modern warfare. When a $1500 drone can reliably take out a $4m Bradley IFV, something had to change.
Costs:
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57103
Russian assault tactics are currently using drones, artillery, and air dropped glide bombs to soften up enemy defenses, which are also becoming increasingly dispersed. As such you now see small numbers of dispersed Russian “Dragoons”, infantry mounted on motorcycles and small 4 wheel utility vehicles, attacking small numbers of Ukrainian defenders. Both defense and attack are now typically seen in squad sizes or less.
The US military is ridiculing the Russian use of motorcycles in the assault while at the same time increasing the use of motorcycles in their own forces.
Dispersement of forces and having the ability to quickly move across open ground reduces casualties, not increase casualties. One must also take ISW reports with caution as they only publish the official Ukrainian government positions which many times bear little or no resemblance to reality.
AFAICT there are no good guys in Syria except perhaps the Kurds. The good news is the civil war has rendered Syria not much of a threat to anyone outside their borders.
“The current leader of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, is a former rebel leader who was once aligned with al-Qaeda and later with the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States. He is now serving as the interim president of Syria.”
I have no problem with trying to have peaceful relations with just about anyone and keeping them away from Iran / Russia is a good idea for the region. I would expect this to ultimately be unsuccessful due to lack of trust on both sides but we shall see.
How Russia took record losses in Ukraine in 2024
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yg4z6v600o
“Last year was the deadliest for Russian forces since the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine: at least 45,287 people were killed.
This is almost three times more than in the first year of the invasion and significantly exceeds the losses of 2023, when the longest and deadliest battle of the war was taking place in Bakhmut.”
Mike M, that’s basically what I said. I was quoting a response to my other long-winded catchup post. I accept Trump’s plethora of EOs precisely because he and the GOP need to show results in the next 12-15 months. Philosophically, I still don’t like it but practically, it’s what he had to do.
The new Pope started posting on X today:
“The Holy See is willing to help enemies meet, so they may look each other in the eye and so people may be given back the dignity they deserve: the dignity of peace. With heart in hand, I say to the leaders of nations: let us meet; let us dialogue; let us negotiate!”
https://x.com/pontifex/status/1922656143312076879?s=61&t=7w4bCW3a8ve2DqoeniQatQ
Mike M.
Regarding the real question. It’s a good question.
I think one has to carefully consider the political and perhaps military or conflict evironments and if they are complex and dangerous, one cannot be too fussy about the choice a competent person might make.
Withal, maybe the choice isn’t attractive but the alternatives were much worse — if you’re not a Kurd, of course
That is no ordinary bomb crater.
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2025/05/14/multimedia/14int-gaza-hospitals-lfgq/14int-gaza-hospitals-lfgq-superJumbo.jpg
Looks like a newish bunker buster. Targeted the current Hamas leader. No word on whether he survived.
Mike M,
“The Wisconsin judge should be disbarred. ”
Sure, but the people who make that determination are not likely going to disbar her, no matter how much that is warranted…. she is an obvious felon who should be sitting in prison for a couple of years, but that doesn’t count for much among partisan lawyers.
Of course, if she fights the charges, is convicted and goes to Federal prison, then she could well be disbarred…. even for the loony-left legal profession there is a point at which they become embarrassed by their own partisanship, at least for now. I still think shew will go with a plea bargain.
SteveF,
But plea bargains sometimes include conditions such as surrendering her law license. I’d be satisfied with a plea bargain that results in a suspended sentence contingent on community service and surrender of license to practice law. I don’t see much point to a prison sentence other than as either vengeance or an inducement to plea bargain.
Motion to dismiss :
“government cannot prosecute Judge Dugan because she is entitled to judicial immunity “
https://embed.documentcloud.org/documents/25941817-dugan-motion-to-dimiss-may-14-2025/?embed=1?embed=true&responsive=false&sidebar=false
Motion to Dismiss:
“government cannot prosecute Judge Dugan because she is entitled to judicial immunity “
https://embed.documentcloud.org/documents/25941817-dugan-motion-to-dimiss-may-14-2025/?embed=1?embed=true&responsive=false&sidebar=false
Yes, they called her “no ordinary criminal”. That probably won’t help her cause. She knows her career is on the line so she may fight it hard.
Another view of the bunker buster bomb crater
https://x.com/WachtelDan/status/1922357703629791297
That motion will not be granted. She is obviously a criminal who believes she is above the law.
Russia and Ukraine continue to require
“conditions” be satisfied before talks start. Doesn’t look like much will happen for a while more.
Hamas leaders will ultimate cede power or be killed…. which also means ceding power. Which it is probably matters less in the long term than the short term. They can flee and immediately end the fighting in Gaza , or most can be killed over the next couple of years. Fleeing would avoid having to meet all those virgins in Heaven. It would also be better for the Gazans, but it is not clear they are willing to give up. Bunker busters may help them decide.
Whether the judge gets judicial immunity does not depend on whether what she did was criminal. It depends on whether her actions fell within her judicial duties.
She can argue that not letting ICE officers into her courtroom fell within the bounds of maintaining order in the courtroom. Then even if it was illegal, she might get away with it.
Then she helped the illegal escape by allowing him into a non-public area of the courthouse. I don’t see how she can claim that fell within her judicial duties. But courts have let police officers get away with some really outrageous behavior, so maybe she will get away with it.
That bunker buster “crater” is impressive, mainly because it seems to be a straight deep penetration. The narrowness of the hole suggests collateral damage would have been very light.
I’d be watching the WI bureaucracy to see if any of them “accidentally” violates procedures in such a way as to nullify her prosecution. We seem to have adopted the worst aspects of the former Soviet nomenklatura over the last 30 years and homo bureaucratis has gone from annoying to insufferably self-entitled and (in their POV) omnipotent.
One sign of light at the end of the tunnel is that Trump got bipartisan support for his move to curtail prosecution of regulatory violations that the subject had no reason to believe was a criminal act: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/may/14/trumps-rollback-criminalizing-regulatory-infractions-gets-bipartisan/
I am also not a fan of EOs – goes against the very fabric of a democratic republic.
But that said, refraining from EOs assumes that we have a functioning congress – one that proposed bills can come in front of, be discussed and debated in a reasonable manner, and then acted upon. We don’t.
We don’t even have a congress that can even do the second-most important job – create a budget (Article 1, Section 7 of the constitution – the first 6 sections deal with congressional membership/elections and compensation) .
Are EOs better than doing nothing? It seems answering that is solely in the eye of the beholder – current Ds say no. Four years ago those same Ds said yes (and vice-versa for the Republicans).
BREAKING: Trump Makes Huge Announcement That India Will Now Slash Tariffs to Zero for US Goods
President Donald Trump announced a historic win for American workers, revealing that India has agreed to eliminate all tariffs on US goods, a deal he secured through his unmatched negotiating prowess.
I look at the judge’s “assistance” to the object of the Fed’s visit as anomolous and probably done with little if any consideration as to whether she was acting within the bounds of her purview.
I’m a bit surpised that some of us find her act so scandalous. Possibly not very smart, but how often one might ask has a local judge “thwarted” a federal operation. I’m sure she never dreamed she’d be arrested,
On the other hand, a prosecuter was able to convince a gran jury that she should be indicted. But of course we all agree that a ham sandwhich can be indicted esepcially if Donald Trump is the ham sandwhich. But of course when it’s Donald Trump, it couldn’t possibly be warranted.
It would be wonderful if more people sprung the $300 annually that the Economist now costs and then were able to read up on a greater range of ways to look at a lot of this.
john ferguson,
I don’t think a judge can plead ignorance of the law.
Her actions were quite deliberate. She started by throwing up legal barriers to ICE doing its job. She had every right to do that, but it shows she was thinking about what she was doing. Then she rearranged her court schedule without telling anybody, not even the prosecutor and witnesses waiting for the illegal guy’s case to be called. After what appears to have been at least a couple hours, she showed the illegal how to exit the building by going through an area he had no right to be in.
She broke the law. She knew she was breaking the law. She did so with deliberation. You wrote “I’m sure she never dreamed she’d be arrested”. No doubt that is true. But arrogance is not a defense.
A judge breaking the law while presiding over a courtroom. Yep, that is scandalous.
John Ferguson,
I would bet that either:
1) She enters a plea agreement, admitting illegal actions,
or
2) is convicted by a jury of multiple federal immigration crimes and goes to prison.
Unlike Trump’s many absurd convictions (like $400 million in civil fraud penalties for a ‘civil fraud’ with no identified victim), this one is, IMO, pretty clear criminality. The judge knowingly and willfully broke Federal immigration laws, for no reason beyond that she disagrees with those Federal immigration laws. We will see, but if I were her, I would take a plea.
BTW, I subscribed to the Economist for many years, starting in the 1970’s. I subscribed until it turned into yet another woke-loony-left mouthpiece, devoid of thoughtful (or even rational) analysis. Nothing I have read from the Economist in the past 15 years has been worth the time to read it.
John Ferguson,
IOW, the formerly conservative “Economist” of the 1970’s to late 1980’s fundamentally changed in the policies they support and the policies they oppose.. I did not change.
I blame it on the universities going loony-left, indoctrinating their students to be loony-left; students who moved on to places like the Economist. But the cause matters not, only the rationality of their positions matters…. which is, IMHO, completely absent.
“Putin suggested holding direct negotiations in Turkey on May 15.
President Zelenskyy with his team arrived in Turkey.
Putin is absent. Instead, he sent a non-representative delegation with no decision-making mandate.
Does Putin want to achieve peace and stop the war? The answer is obvious – no.”
Anton Gerashchenko
https://x.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1922971894610808915
One thing that bothers me about Trump’s tariffs is the sudden disruption to US businesses, especially small businesses. Here is an interesting reply to that:
https://commonplace.org/2025/05/14/trade-with-communists-should-be-uncertain/
The author does comment that it the transition to a new regime should be more gradual. He is right about that, in the abstract. But Trump does not have that luxury. If the process drags out, it will fail.
SteveF,
Is it possible you haven’t read a recent Economist? Say one from the last several weeks?
SteveF,
A fraud conviction does not require an admitted or acknowledged victim, although I suspect that few fraud charges are brought without a complaint.
The Chinese J -10c fighter has proven to be superior to the french jets flown by India. Reports are india lost French made Dassault Rafale and Mirage 2000 fighter jets in the fracas.
This is the first acid test of the Chinese fighter.
Looks like more business will be coming to the US aircraft industry as countries will be upgrading from junk sold by Europe.
https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/chinese-fighter-bests-rafale-in-india-pakistan-dogfight/
The articles and op-eds I’ve read from “The Economist” over the last 15 years or so wouldn’t get me to pay $0.30 for their product much less $300. If anything, I want a refund of the time wasted reading their drivel.
The first rule any business should have in reacting to anything put out by Trump is … DON’T. With Trump, you always need to wait and see what really happens. He says a lot of things, some of it for effect.
It is too early to say the Chinese fighters are superior to the French-made ones. They may have had superior missiles or had first mover advantage. There are too many variables at play to make a definitive statement about the platforms unless you have a LOT more information than has been made public.
john ferguson,
“Is it possible you haven’t read a recent Economist? Say one from the last several weeks?”
Obviously I have not.
After learning over multiple years that this source of information is worse than useless (AKA pure garbage, more often wrong than right) what motivation would I have to waste money on them? I remind you: I paid for their magazine for 20+ years. When they went crazy, they left me, I didn’t leave them.
IIRC, the first indication of them going crazy was their wholehearted embrace of the climate ‘catastrophe’ lunacy. As I have said many times before: yes, increasing GHG concentrations (especially CO2, along with others) will cause some warming of Earth…… most likely about 1.8 to 2 C per doubling of CO2, or its equivalent in other infrared absorbing gases, after a century or so to approach equilibrium. No, that warming is neither catastrophic nor warrants the absurdly expensive ‘solutions’ that are on offer. Especially since those ‘solutions’ will do enormous economic harm… especially to the poorest people on Earth. IMHO, the Economist sold its soul 20 years ago, and like MSNBCCNABCCBS, are no longer a credible source of information.
SteveF,
It’s true that the Economist prints nonsense in some areas. But not in total, in my opinion.
Their analysis of the outage in Spain and Potugal was excellent although I did question the statment apparently made by someone in the Spanish system that protection from extremely infrequent faults might not make sense due to extreme cost of the necessary equipment.
I also read the Atlantic. I would like to think I can tell when they’ve left the track.
Not being taken seriously even assuming a legitimate complaint about Trump is a price countless organizations willingly chose to pay in their zeal to oppose him over the last decade. That we should give them another go is an unreasonable and unjustified ask IMO.
Ok, Ok,
what do you guys think is reliable reading?
john a ferguson wrote: “A fraud conviction does not require an admitted or acknowledged victim”.
It seems that is true of the bizarre NY law used against Trump. But in general fraud requires a victim, or at least an intended victim.
From Legal Dictionary:
https://legaldictionary.net/fraud/
From FindLaw:
https://www.findlaw.com/criminal/criminal-charges/fraud.html
Since the banks did their own appraisals of Trump’s properties, they did not rely on the valuations Trump provided. So they should not have suffered a loss as a result. And they did not suffer a loss.
Mark,
not being taken seriouslt by some, don’t you think?
There’s a huge credibility debt that I don’t see why anyone should be willing to overlook. Account is closed and turned over to collections.
John, yes. Still being taken seriously by Democrats apparently.
No source is (in my opinion) completely reliable which is why I spread my reading across multiple sources but some sources have been so bad (especially in the past decade) that they are almost totally unreliable so I don’t waste time with them.
I had this discussion a couple months ago with my nephew who was getting spun up by some story on “60 Minutes”.
With “The Economist”, I will sometimes give them a few paragraphs to see if it’s worth continuing to read but my BS meter is tuned to high sensitivity and I certainly won’t make a point of seeking out articles from them. Many other sources won’t even get those few paragraphs of my reading time.
John Ferguson,
If someone asked me (under oath) “what was your income” related to a loan application, or “what is the value of your property”, those are for me at least factual questions, although terribly clouded by things like estimated earnings, market uncertainty, year-to-year variation, and uncertainty in (completely honest) company inventory records.
Were I to default on a bank loan, these are least fair questions. What is NOT a fair question is if I am responsible for a bank’s evaluation of my credit worthiness. The bank has its own due diligence obligations to its shareholders., which I assume were fulfilled in Trumps application for a (very large) loan from Deutsche Bank. To prosecute Trump for fraud on a loan 1) entered into freely by a large, sophisticated bank, fully aware of Trump’s history, and asset values, and 2) which was paid back in full and on time, is quite honestly absurd on its face.
Anyone who thinks other wise is motivated by politics not by reason .
john ferguson,
What is reliable reading? In my honest experience, very little is reliable. Most of what I read is garbage, at least if considered as a factual analysis. That goes for what is presented on both the right and the left…. pretty much all false and/or distorted, all the time.
But the falsities on the left cause more harm, if only because they are screamed at the public through a much bigger megaphone.
The first time I was aware of this sorry fact was when CBS (that evil company behind people like Dan Rather) broadcast an “investigative program” which they titled “The Plastic Peril” (1974? 1975?). In the program they claimed the potential for future cancer fatalities was “in the multiple thousands” including secondary effects in families and children, but that “the risk could not be determined because the companies were hiding the most important information”.
Everything they reported was either false or a willful distortion.
The subject of the broadcast was workers who had contracted an unusual kind of liver cancer called ‘angiosarcoma’, which was uniformly fatal once diagnosed. The risk for this cancer was found (by the companies employing those workers, via health monitoring) directly related to high levels of exposure to the polymerization monomer vinyl chloride. I was a young research chemist (working myself most every day with vinyl chloride monomer!) and I was assigned to help evaluate 1) what the true work exposures to the monomer were, and 2) what the likely risks were for additional angiosarcoma cases.
So after some months of effort, we knew pretty clearly what the risks were:
1) Many (most?) of those diagnosed with angiosarcoma were reported by their coworkers to have practiced long term abuse of the monomer… purposely inhaling the compound at high concentrations to “get high” at work, and
2) the remainder of cases (literally half a dozen) were all from a specific job: internal reactor cleaners… the reactors were 10 to 20 cubic meters volume and had to be periodically entered for cleaning (removal of accumulated polymer). That work caused exceptionally high long term exposures to the monomer.
( I note there that the monomer had been used for many years in operating rooms as a general anesthetic.)
Anyway, we were pretty sure of the potential risk, and it was literally a few dozen workers in a handful of production plants. What we were not sure about was the exact dose/risk ratio, but whatever it was, we knew it could not be very high, or there would have been many more cases than had been identified.
So when CBS broadcast “The Plastic Peril” about angiosarcoma and exposure to vinyl chloride, essentially everything they reported was either wrong or a willful distortion of the facts. Anyone who believed that report was completely misinformed and misled….. and THAT WAS THE WHOLE POINT of the broadcast. Not to inform, but to lie. Not to explain, but to distort. Not to help, but to harm. And most of all, to promote a narrative about the evil nature of chemical companies… and companies in general,
Every time I have had first hand knowledge and experience about a subject in “the news” I have found exactly the same thing: always wrong, always distorted, and always with an agenda that has nothing to do with the facts.
The “economist” and its ilk are so far removed from factual analysis that they are little more than a joke.
Steve,
I agree with you. Most of what I read is flat out wrong. My impression is something between 80% and 90%. It’s as if people mostly only bother to speak (or write) to try to put one over on you. It’s sad.
Mark,
Yes, it is a sorry state of affairs.
I have zero tolerance for politically motivated distortion of reality, but that is the diet we get, no matter what source we turn to. Nobody, and I mean nobody, is actually honest in their reporting of facts.. “Just the facts” is now so foreign to news reporting that it is difficult to imagine a time when honestly reporting “the facts” actually mattered. I suppose it may have when I was very young, but I am not even sure of that. For as long as I have been aware, reporting has been consistently ‘slanted” to support the policy views of the reporter.
IMHO, news reporting is a shameful edifice of politically motivated dishonesty.
Steven Calabresi at Volokh has a really good commentary on the need to reign in nationwide injunctions by district courts:
https://reason.com/volokh/2025/05/15/some-reasons-to-be-skeptical-of-nationwide-injunctions/
and
SteveF,
If the law says you cannot falsify information on a financial document which may be used by another (any other) party to make a financial judgement, then that’s the law. It doesn’t at all matter if DeutscheBank knew or should have now better.
You seem to be saying that if a law seems unnecessary, inappropriate, or too broadly focused then no-one should be prosecuted under it.
Your argument is with the law itself, if I read you correctly.
WWII film narrated by Ronald Regan…
The story of the first B-29 Superfortress raid on Japan.
It was the first land based attack on the home islands.
They took off from the new airstrip on Saipan and hit an aircraft factory on the outskirts of Tokyo.
I found it worth watching.
https://youtu.be/BzQmTjDPL5c?si=O4gQFeEynyakXjd2
john a ferguson wrote: “If the law says you cannot falsify information on a financial document which may be used by another”.
Is there a law that says that? There are certainly some cases where it is true that falsifying such data is a crime, but I don’t know if it is always true, or that there is any such general law. And I am pretty sure that Trump was not charged with violating such a law. Oh, and he was not charged with a crime in that case.
Property valuations are always a matter of opinion. I don’t know how one can prove that someone’s opinion is fraudulent.
New German leader is a war hawk when it comes to Russia….
Today:
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz @_FriedrichMerz:
“…Russia has broken all the rules that we have established for our coexistence in Europe since the end of the Second World War, and above all, since overcoming the division of Europe
Ladies and gentlemen, this war and its outcome will not only decide the fate of Ukraine. The outcome of this war will determine whether law and order will continue to prevail in Europe and the world in the future or whether tyranny, military force, and the right of the strongest will prevail.”
And yesterday:
“”The German army must become the strongest in Europe. This will be a priority for the government,” said Chancellor Friedrich Merz.”
Perhaps they will try to catch up to the Poles and write a zillion dollar check to the US arms merchants.
Cancel that check to the US arms merchants. To dominate the modern European battlefield the Germans will need a million cheap drones.
Ka-Ching! The cash registers at Lockheed Martin and Boeing will be singing soon. The media, both new and old, are touting the prowess of the Chinese J-10c fighter jets after Pakistan shot down an unknown number of India’s French Rafael and Mirage fighters.
The marketing videos are writing themselves.
The French fighters are known to be not on par with US fourth and fifth generation fighters so this will enhance their substandard reputation. I know it’s not a fair test, but that won’t matter in the marketplace.
Some examples of European press stories, From France:
Chinese weapons pass combat test in India-Pakistan clash – with flying colors
Big victory for China in terms of perception
Not just cheap, but good
speculating that buyers will probably soon be flocking to Chinese arms manufacturers.
https://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20250514-chinese-weapons-pass-combat-test-in-india-pakistan-clash-–-with-flying-colours
From England:
Pakistan’s use of J-10C jets and missiles exposes potency of Chinese weaponry
Shooting down of India’s planes by Beijing’s customer Pakistan would mark the first time the fighters and their PL-15 missiles have been used in combat
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/14/pakistans-use-of-j-10c-jets-and-missiles-exposes-potency-of-chinese-arms
Mike M.
The law proscribing falsifying information in a financial document which others may rely on is a specific law which Trump and his CFO were indicted under. It is a law of the State of New York.
I don’t have the exact words, but the description above captures the substance of it.
Now that we live in the age of AI, it should be easy to seek the specific law based on this description.
Why not see if you get the same thing?
MikeM: “Property valuations are always a matter of opinion. I don’t know how one can prove that someone’s opinion is fraudulent.”
Indeed, which is precisely why the bank makes its own determination. A judge ruling on what the proper estimated value of a property should be? If a judge of the SC is unable to say what a woman is because she is not a biologist, what does that say about the ability of a judge to rule on a property valuation without being an appraiser?
Of course, NYC has an epidemic of fraudulent real estate valuations and determining the square footage of a building is rather more precise than determining its estimated value. Strangely, they don’t seem very interested in addressing these kinds of elephants.
The case was a clear example of selective prosecution with little more than “because I said so” presented as evidence.
Mike,
While you are at it, why don’t you do all of the odd numbered problems at the end of chapter 22.
John, if you’re making some point, IMO it behooves you to support that point with links to legal codes, not your interlocutors.
john a ferguson,
You appear to be confused, so your comments are not making sense.SteveF (May 15, 2025 at 11:57 am) referred to the inane civil case brought by AG James: “Unlike Trump’s many absurd convictions (like $400 million in civil fraud penalties for a ‘civil fraud’ with no identified victim)”. You seem to be conflating that with the perverse criminal charges brought by DA Bragg.
Yeah, it is hard to keep so much nonsense straight.
mark: Good advice.
John Ferguson,
The heart of the claim that Trump defrauded the banks was in the presumed valuation of a couple of very unique properties, the most famous being Mar-a-Largo. Trump had converted it from “residential” to a “private club” many years ago so that he could rent rooms to defray upkeep costs. The “valuation” as a private club is mainly based on annual income, not the value the property would bring on the market. Based only on size and location, its market value would be well north of $400 Million, while it’s value as a “private club” is more like $15 million. Of course should the bank ever have to foreclose on a loan, it would seize the property and immediately convert it to “residential property”, which is in Florida considered the “best/highest use” for the land, especially considering that all the properties around it are also residential. The judge in the case, who had blatant personal conflicts of interest, believed the least favorable value analysis, not the most favorable, nor even somewhere between them, and stated Trump’s declaration of value was clearly fraudulent, when it fact there were very reasonable arguments that the bank had reached its own valuation of hundreds of millions of dollars.
If you think this case was brought against Trump for anything except political reasons, then please let me offer you the George Washington Bridge; it’s for sale.
SteveF wrote: “Based only on size and location, its market value would be well north of $400 Million, while it’s value as a “private club” is more like $15 million.”
I wondered how that could be possible. It turns out to be a lot more complicated. Here is an informative article on the subject:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/how-much-is-mar-a-lago-actually-worth-it-s-a-billion-dollar-question/ar-BB1nKLNV
The real issue is a permanent conservation easement that prevents the property from be subdivided or substantially altered. So it is worth much less than the billions that the land would be worth if not for that easement. The flip side is that the property is assessed for taxes as if its only value is the income it produces. The recent assessment is $37 million. Of course, if Trump were to sell the property, it would bring far more than that.
Since there is nothing else like Mar-a-Lago, the market value is pretty much guesswork. At least a few hundred million, maybe as much as $1.5 billion.
At 12:10 PM (Florida time) Air Force One was flying over Romania. That is assuming that there isn’t a substitute plane sending out the signals of Air Force One. I couldn’t find any trace of the plane until it suddenly appeared over Romania so I assume it was flying dark over Middle East.
screenshot:
https://x.com/rklier21/status/1923410524336705888?s=46&t=ZvqHpxBnQGny72gLoGhKXw
The Atlantic is probably the most pro-establishment media organization of them all and have been fervently anti-Trump. It’s the typical liberal setup where all the “conservative” writers are also anti-Trump, otherwise they couldn’t get invited to dinner parties in DC and NYC. This is a well written graduate level mouthpiece for coastal elites. It’s good to know what they are thinking but I am very rarely surprised at anything they say.
You have to read multiple outlets to get any balance. If the subject touches on culture wars then it’s going to be difficult to sort out,
The incentives are bad. Hot partisan takes generate the most revenue. Established writers just regurgitate the same boring BS. When the subject is important enough they just cover for their favored narratives, see Biden’s dementia and the DNC’s overt dumping of democratic norm’s they allegedly worship.
There is a USAF C-17 heavy lift cargo plane following about an hour and a half behind Air Force One and flying on the same route out of the Middle East. I’d like to imagine that this is carrying The Beast and all of the other gear, the Secret Service needed for the trip.
Screenshot:
https://x.com/rklier21/status/1923413959496909293?s=46&t=ZvqHpxBnQGny72gLoGhKXw
The French jets are 40 year old designs. A lot of this has more to do with not flying into an enemy’s competent air defense grid and who has better missiles than aircraft design. AFAICT we have no idea what really happened and usually never will.
The Chinese stole a lot of their technology using large scale industrial espionage.
It’s going to be very interesting to see if the SC restricts national injunctions. They should do it but it will open up another set of problems as people exploit that set of rules.
They didn’t talk much about birthright citizenship.
Tom Scharf,
“It’s going to be very interesting to see if the SC restricts national injunctions.”
I am betting that Chief Justice Mealy-mouth will again, as usual, punt on the most important cases he hears. He will want a decision that is a non-decision: mildly scolding nation-wide injunctions for district courts, but doing absolutely nothing to stop them from continuing to issue those orders, and continue they will. It will be probably along the lines of “I hate what the district courts are doing, and I know it is bad for the country, and if it were anybody but Trump I would stop them, but, but…. but I hate Trump and his policies even more than all those nationwide injunctions.” History will be unkind to CJ Mealy-mouth.
Another low-life on the court, Kagan, has reversed herself completely: she complained that nationwide injunctions were bad when they were against Biden’s policies, but are perfectly OK against Trump. So dishonest, so unprincipled. She is even more a politician in black robes than Roberts.
My guess is they overturn the nationwide injunctions 6-3, but punt on the birthright issue.
Tom Scharf,
How would restricting nationwide injunctions “open up another set of problems”? Nationwide injunctions were extremely rare until Trump I, declined under Biden, and have exploded under Trump II. Restricting them just restores what used to be the norm. It is not like nationwide injunctions by district courts solved any problem other than Orange Man Bad.
Guys,
Other than the Volagh (sp?) conspiracy, I’ve not seen any recomendations on how I might balance my reading. I was serious. What Tom Scahrf writes about the Atlantic seems spot-on to me.
Anu suggestions?
MikeM, Tom,
Like Mike, I don’t think banning nationawide injuctions will cause too many problems. “The worse” I’ve heard is that whether or not someone is “granted citizenship” will depend on the circuit. But in some sense, so what? That situation will be temporary. And if Trumps EO is ever over ruled or Congress acts all infants affected will have their citizenship recognized (in the case of overruled) or granted (in the case of Congress).
I mean, generally speaking what horrible thing happens to an infant if their citizenship exists but is not recognized by the Feds. They don’t get a passport, right? Most these kids don’t need a passport. Most parents don’t get one for their infant.
Now a kid who can’t get Medicaid or food aid of some sort and would otherwise qualify would have a real injury. (In Illinois, noncitizens can get food aid.)
I’m sure that kid’s parents can find a pro-bono lawyer to file the suit. The case will move through the courts fast. There aren’t that many circuits. If the case against Trumps EO is solid (and I think it is) there will be injunctions in every circuit fast. The case against Trump is not solid, what is soooooo horrible about some kids unfairly gaining benefits when it turns out legally they could have been deprived of them? I’m not seeing one. I don’t think the fact that other kids lucked out and got the benefits as a harm to the ones who got it!
I’m really not seeing this as a uniquely horrible, horrible problem. Will some people be harmed relative to what they should have gotten? Sure. But that doesn’t make the problem uniquely bad.
I agre withthe idea that a single federal judge should be able to constrain the entire country. We probably need a system to deal with this, at the risk of creating a star chamber.
Maybe access to quick review at a national apelate level.
It’s a tought question. Anything that wuld suppress judge shopping would be worth looking at.
john ferguson,
RealClearPolitics posts articles from a wide range of sources.
Mike M.
Thanks for reminding me about RealClear.
John,
regarding your request for recommendations regarding reading material. I am hesitant to give recommendations, but I can tell you what I have done. I have stopped reading printed material entirely.
I also no longer have paid subscriptions to any legacy news organization or journals.
I have developed newsfeeds in electronic media. I use these people to guide me in the direction of individual news stories that interest me. I then search those items and develop a complete story around that particular news item.
I tried to balance my newsfeed with liberal conservative, and independent writers. I no longer try to filter my reading just as long as I know the perspective of the author I can tolerate their bias.
You can start by following people on X. I would suggest you start by following people that you find interesting.
Maybe @bariweiss, or @guypbenson or @john stossel would be safe places to start.
Mike, John,
Thumbs up on RCP. You can add them to your newsfeed, @RCPolitics
Mike, John,
Megyn Kelly interviewed three guys from RCP about Jake Tapper’s new book on the Biden coverup, including Tom Bevan…
https://x.com/rcpolitics/status/1923384340693590433?s=61&t=7w4bCW3a8ve2DqoeniQatQ
The example hypotheticals in SC arguments were a lot of regional split decisions (i.e. red vs blue) causing a lot of chaos. Kids in Louisiana aren’t citizens while kids in California are. Sometimes these actions are not reversible such as deportations or firing people on vaccine mandates. The point being that there is a fundamental tension in doing it either way. Which actions should be barred nationally versus which should not is a gray area. I personally believe the system could work either way if it was done responsibly. Currently regional federal judges are exerting too much authority on culture issues too often IMO and change is required.
WSJ is my daily read.
Fox News, NYT, ESPN, TFP, The Atlantic, National Review, NPR, Reason, Wash Post, CNN, NBC News, Ars Technica, Tampa Bay Times for local. X for breaking news. Podcasts are bursty listening with Ben Shapiro, Joe Rogan, Honestly, Bulwark, and some random others. Sometimes UK coverage is better.
Most of these I only occasionally click through to the articles. Occasionally I go to Politco and some other inside baseball politics sites.
The thing that is interesting (and useful) is the placement of side-by-side articles that offer diametrically opposed POVs…. it is almost like the authors live on different planets and see completely different “facts”.
The single ‘tell’ which informs me the author is not worth reading: gratuitous insults that ALWAYS presume their views of an issue are 100% correct. I conclude that many people will only see evidence which supports/confirms their existing political views. It is really quite amazing. Even with a huge range of opinion on offer, it is rare for me to finish an article concluding the author was not 100% dedicated, before the evidence was presented, to justifying specific policy outcomes.
Starting your argument using your conclusions as the entire basis of your argument means you have no argument at all.
I don’t see how split decisions between circuits causes any chaos. Such cases, at least if important, will end up at SCOTUS.
With nationwide injunctions, we won’t really know what the law is until SCOTUS rules.
Without nationwide injunctions, we won’t really know what the law is until SCOTUS rules.
The only real difference is that the former case invites district judges to play dictator. So the second case is much to be preferred.
One author I find almost always worth a read: Johnathan Turley; thoughtful and honest are the best adjectives.
SteveF: “The single ‘tell’ which informs me the author is not worth reading: gratuitous insults that ALWAYS presume their views of an issue are 100% correct.”
Indeed. All too often, when I click on something from a lefty source, that is what I find. Then I stop reading. It has gotten so that I often altogether ignore pieces from lefty sources because I figure I know what I will find. So my reading ends up being not very balanced.
Fortunately, it is not so hard to find varied takes from the center and right.
p.s. – Yep. Turley is one of the best.
Mike M,
I would go further: limiting district orders to the specific ‘cases and controversies’ immediately before them pretty much forces the SC to settle issues clearly and promptly when different district courts issue conflicting orders. The current situation rewards forum shopping on contentious issues…. once a nationwide order has been decreed, those forum shoppers are done; they don’t have to find judges in other districts who agree with the first judge…. which would often be impossible, of course.
The SC should put a stop to it. But I doubt Roberts will let that happen.
John, I like the Free Press, thefp.com
john a ferguson
“Guys, Other than the Volagh (sp?) conspiracy, I’ve not seen any recommendations on how I might balance my reading.”
–
The news.com.au [Murdoch] gives some news with an anti Trump but right wing view but 80% is click bait and ads.
The ABC Australia news gives perfect left wing pro-Palestine viewpoints.
–
For balance and more world relevant information I read some American feeds. Very limited.
From right to left
Gateway Pundit, Breitbart Fox news, Real Clear Politics , The Hill, , CNN and MSNBC. Then the Guardian US edition.
You could try reading them in the opposite direction.
–
And Then There’s Physics and an Open Mind
Watts up with that, Climate etc. Roy Spencer
balance each other out.
–
Then you can come to the Blackboard and help balance views here.
–
Recommend the last option first*
–
In Victoria, Australia 50 years ago we even had a Newspaper with a pink section in it called The Truth.
A bit like any car salesman called Honest …..
Comey has prior knowledge
A 2017 TMZ article described then President Donald Trump as having “86’d Black History Month.”[21] In 2018, a restaurant owner asked then White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave, and later described the request as “I’d 86’d Sanders.”[22]
In October of 2020, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer appeared from her home on the television show Meet The Press, displaying a small curio in the background featuring the numbers “86 45”.[23] Many on the right and in the administration of the 45th president, Donald Trump, claimed it was a reference to assassination, though there is no evidence the incident was investigated by the Justice Department.[24]
Maxwell Smart was agent 86, agent Comey obviously was not smart
angech,
I start reading articles from many of those same outlets. Finishing them all is a different story.
For example, when an article announces early on that “tariffs cause inflation”, there is little point in continued reading, since the author either 1) does not know what inflation is, or 2) is utterly dishonest. Either way, the author has zero credibility after that statement. If that kind of dumb statement were made in a conversation (rather than in a published article), then you would at least have the option to push back…. so continuing the conversation makes sense…. you might actually help someone learn something. But a published article? Continued reading is a waste of your time.
Same with all the articles where the author takes on faith their conclusions are OBVIOUSLY 100% correct; intellectually unassailable even. This happens mainly on the left (eg “all disparities in groups outcomes are due to racial/gender/whatever prejudices”) but sometimes on the right (God says…… fill in the author’s conclusion). Neither is worth a minute of my time, since the author has nothing to say that is any more thoughtful than my 3 YO grandson announcing “blue is the best color”.
95% of what is in the US version of the Guardian falls in this category of pure waste of time.
Thanks for these recommendations. I completely agree about Turley being worth reading. I guess I’m suprised at the rejection of print.
I like the Economist because like newspapers once provided, it contains a broad range of subjects many of which I didn’t know anything about and which I would never have encountered otherwise.
I doubt that more than 10% of the material in a typical issue would actualy be objectionable to any of you. I would like to think I can recognize the POV’s that some of you detest and indeed they do surface from time to time, but not anywhere near the way they do at MSNBC where it if itsn’t global warming it’s racial angst. MSNBC has even descended to climate justice.
I generally agree with SteveF that almost any article involving a subject well understood by me will be off in a few or many ways. Having written that, there is a reporter who works here for the Tampa Bay Times who did an entirely accurate piece on the exposure of old biuldings to the recent legislation requiring them to be inspected and repaired where needed and better reserves in condominiums required. She had some of the sturctural problems described succinctly and correctly including those in the condominium we moved out of in 2022 because I understood the preliminary engineering report and cojuuld see where we’d be going. She was dead on on that one, including discussion of engineering issues which the Board at the time refused to acknowledge.
But more often there is the ten day rule (my Dad’s) which was that it took ten days for a story got come to be mostly correct. If interest had been lost by then, the subject was likely never to be accurately portrayed,
I think the Economist does a lot better job most of the time. Pick up a copy and see if you don’t agree.
HaroldW,
I’ll take a few peeks at the Free Press.
Harold,
I follow @bariweiss, the founder of The Free Press. She posts a short introduction and a link to all TFP stories.
SteveF wrote: “since the author either 1) does not know what inflation is …”.
In everyday usage, inflation refers to increasing prices, as measured by an index such as CPI. I don’t think it reasonable to be dismissive of someone who says that a disruption in oil supply will cause inflation.
Tariffs will cause an increase in prices. It won’t be much, it won’t be broadly across the economy, and it won’t be ongoing. But it is not unreasonable to refer to that as “inflation”. What is unreasonable is to greatly exaggerate the amount of “inflation” that might result.
John, I follow @JohnathonTurley on X and he posts an introduction and link to each of his articles.
I think every print publication has their articles online, so you don’t miss anything by not killing trees. I switched BECAUSE I didn’t like carrying out a heavy recycling basket.
I have 173 sources in my news feed.
john ferguson wrote: “almost any article involving a subject well understood by me will be off in a few or many ways.”
So why would you trust the other articles?
Oops. Potential rhetorical question, so I better answer it: Gell-mann Amnesia.
Mike M.
Reading an article doesn’t mean believing it, at least for me. When I was a kid ie. 10 or so, Dad used to go through the Chicago Daily News with me. We’d read an article then he would ask, “Is the information internally consistent?, is the conclusion, if there is one, the only possible one? Is the content actually known to the writer or is he speculating – guessing? etc. It was a Feinmann test.
As to tariffs “possibly” being inflationary it’s interesting that if they are imposed by a country which imports stuff we export, a domestic effect here coud be deflationary. I use the example of the pigs which China may not buy after all. Suddenly we’ll be flooded with bacon and surely the cost to us will go down – deflationary.
Another deflationary effect of tariffs we impose could be a drop in purchases affected possibly from waiting for drop in price, tariff, or both. The Chinese vendor who canceled my order is quitting selling to US because he has other markets and feels that the total price of his products will kill sales – not worth the effort to even advertise here. I don’t think the effect of that approach can be seen as inflation or deflation.
At the same time, if tariffs on the imported components of an automobile cause the price to rise and there isn’t a corresponding drop in sales then wouldn’t you think the effect would be inflationary?
From tomorrow’s Maria Bartalomo show on Fox Business:
“FBI Director Kash Patel is SHUTTING DOWN the FBI HQ in DC. Patel said 33% of his workers were in DC and that’s not where crime is. He will be building locations all over the country to fight crime. The Hoover Building will be condemned.”
He spills the beans at the 50 second mark in the video below:
https://x.com/sundayfutures/status/1923352405795623150?s=61&t=7w4bCW3a8ve2DqoeniQatQ
Re: The Hoover Building.
In 1966, it was under design in Chicago architectural firm, C.F. Murphy. I worked there that summer and was able to watch the process. Very large basswood models of various components of the project were arranged (arrayed?)on a table the size of four ping-pong tables (guessing from memory). The lead designer, Stanislas Gladych spent most of the summer pushing these components around as some other group on another floor was trying to create something that met the FBI’s requirements. I had the impression that the sculptural effect of the arrangement of building components was all that mattered to Gladydch.
I realize the from an occupant’s standpoint the place was considered a disaster. I’ve never been inside, but I did like the exterior design and am saddened that so many people hate it.
FWIW, the term “brutalist” was not used at the time, by anyone actually doing architecture. And again FWIW, the term has nothing to do with “brutal” but more exposed structure… unconcealed, visible structure, in this case concrete.
ISW is repeating their dire assessment that Ukraine needs to inflict greater pain [military] and the rest of the world needs to inflict greater pain [economic] before Russia will be ready to talk peace.
“ISW has consistently assessed that Russian President Vladimir Putin will not compromise in peace negotiations unless Ukraine and the West inflict significant battlefield and economic losses on Russia and force Putin to rethink his theory of victory”
Full post:
https://x.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1923596424752628199
Most justice buildings seem intentionally designed to be imposing and dominating. Courthouses, etc.
I think it is a good idea to move the FBI out of DC. Many departments could also be distributed. The federal government is over centralized now and the culture of the government reflects that.
This may also be a Trojan horse to get people to quit their jobs.
Mike M,
Inflation is always caused by either an increase in money supply or a decrease in the entire supply of what that money can buy. Do sales or value added taxes cause inflation? No. Does an import duty cause inflation? No.
Do these increase the cost of retail purchases of specific items? Of course they do, but that only means government (Federal, State or local) spends more money, and you spend less. Do income taxes (all kinds) cause inflation? No, it means government spends more of your income and you spend less. Inflation is unrelated to taxes and tariffs.
Tom Scharf,
“This may also be a Trojan horse to get people to quit their jobs.”
Which is itself an obvious good for the country.
Governor DeSantis:
“In Florida, I have a cheat code since I can look to California, Illinois, New York and then do the opposite of what they’re doing and it usually works out pretty good,”
video:
https://x.com/americapapabear/status/1923474798723858763?s=61&t=7w4bCW3a8ve2DqoeniQatQ
Article:
https://www.thecentersquare.com/florida/article_4a24aeca-178a-419c-af94-6267728455f0.html
Mike M,
I do not mean to suggest taxes do not cause misery nor that they are not very bad for economic growth, nor that taxes do not distort overall demand in the market (after all, what is the retail market for F22 fighter jets?). I mean only that inflation has nothing to do with taxes and everything to do with expansion of money supply.
If anyone is interested,
“The inauguration Mass for Pope Leo XIV is scheduled for tomorrow, Sunday, May 18, 2025, at 10:00 AM Rome time (Central European Time, CET) in St. Peter’s Square, Vatican City. This translates to 4:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) in the United States”
It will be televised live on the EWTN, YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/live/jE6G8dBC6Hc?si=82w8wJ6KZEFXWte2
The EWTN stream goes live at 3AM.
list of live streams from Grok:
Vatican News: The official Vatican News website (www.vaticannews.va) or their YouTube channel is likely to stream the Mass live. Check their schedules page for confirmation.
LiveNOW from FOX: They will stream live coverage starting at 4:00 AM ET, with a full replay at 9:00 AM ET. Access it on their website (www.livenowfox.com), FOX Local, Amazon Freevee, fuboTV, The Roku Channel, Samsung TV Plus, Tubi, or YouTube.
MSNBC: Special coverage with Chris Jansing begins at 3:45 AM ET on MSNBC’s TV channel or their YouTube channel (link shared on X).
Rappler: For viewers in Manila, stream the Mass at 4:00 PM local time via Rappler’s website (www.rappler.com).
Sky News: Coverage with commentary starts at 9:00 AM BST (4:00 AM ET) on Sky News’ TV channel or website (news.sky.com).
CNN News 18: Check their website for a stream of the Installation Mass (link shared on X).
YouTube: Search for “Pope Leo XIV Inauguration Mass live” on YouTube, as channels like Vatican News or others may host streams. A specific YouTube stream is mentioned for live coverage from St. Peter’s Square.
https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_c99b12f4-3d7e-47f7-b33e-bb53c3191432
I anticipate another grand spectacle.
Tom Scharf,
Traditionally, government buildings, especially courthouses, were designed to be majestic. There is nothing majestic about the FBI building; it is merely intimidating.
John Ferguson is correct that the architectural term “brutalism”. But the false etymology fits the FBI building quite well.
Mike M.
I saw the FBI building as a continuation of a”style” originated by Corbusier. I’m pretty sure that most architects would have seen it in the same light at the time.
more on this when I’ve thought about it more.
If anyone is watching the Papal inauguration and mass, EWTH YouTube channel is translating live into English (which spoils some of the music). The Vatican News YouTube channel is broadcasting it neat, (some Latin, some Italian, some Greek).
I am switching back and forth.
JD Vance and his wife are in attendance and about 200,000 others.
I can’t explain this:
A number of SCOTUS justices were appointed by conservative presidents and became moderate or liberal once they began serving. The following fit the bill:
Earl Warren, Harry Blackmon, David Souter, John Paul Stevens, Burger, O’Connor, Kennedy and Roberts
Only one,Byron White, went the other way.
I can’t explain it.
Russell,
Maybe the judges “going liberal” has to do with issues being labeled conservative or liberal. There is no particular reasons why some of the hodge-podge of positions on issues in either basket is obviously “conservative” vs. “liberal” at any particular time.
Quote from Pope Leo’s homily last night:
“War-weary Ukraine awaits a long and just peace,” said Pope Leo XIV during his inauguration ceremony, calling for peace talks in Ukraine.“
l think he wants the Church to be involved. This is the second time he talked about it this week. The other time he was more direct about getting involved.
Russell
Putin is not Roman Catholic.
Lucia, your post:
“Putin is not Roman Catholic.”
Yes that’s right. Vladimir Putin identifies as a Russian Orthodox Christian, the dominant religion in Russia. The Roman Catholic Church is barely on speaking terms with them. Even worse, the new Pope has been seen recently palling it up with Zelenskyy.
The SC has smacked down Trump on his use of the alien enemies act to send Tren de Aragua members to a foreign prison. The interesting thing is that they ruled narrowly (Trump failed to follow the procedures required by the law), but enjoined any further use of the law until lower courts can rule on whether the the law is even applicable against Tren de Aragua. I am reasonably confident lower courts will say the alien enemies act is not applicable.
The court essentially invited Trump to deport the same group under immigration laws.
So Trump will now deport criminal gang members present illegally in the USA under immigration laws. Which is what I think he should have done all along. Overreach is what Trump does best.
I would hope there is no objection from the people with high sensitivity to imagined rights, but it would be interesting to see more description of the folks being returned to whence they have come or at least being exported.
It appears that more than a few have been previously deported likely after receiving due-process. I suppose there’s no way to avoid another episode of due process for someone who’s already had one session and is in violation of its result.
These guys are like an annuity for immigration judges.
Russell,
Lucia makes a good point that “conservative” vs “liberal” is often not at all obvious. And it used to be that both parties had people ranging from very conservative to very liberal.
Earl Warren was very much part of the progressive wing of the Republican Party. Those progressives were liberal, but no crazy. I doubt that Eisenhower could have anticipated how far Warren would take judicial activism.
A number of Republican appointments had to be compromises to get the nominee through a Democrat Senate. That started in earnest when the Dems shot down Bork and Reagan ended up appointing Kennedy instead.
john ferguson,
I think that for those previously ordered deported, due process should consist of nothing more than confirming that the deportee-to-be is actually the right person.
My Dad’s father, among other things was a John Bircher of which there was a “cell” in his parish in Minneapolis. I can clearly remember that he favored Taft in the 1952 election and thought Eisenhower too much like Roosevelt whom despite having voted for him in 1932, he despised.
Stan was a vigorous anti-communist and other than “socialist wealth re-distribuition schemes” and possibly below-the-radar racism as well as soft anti-semitism, he did not have the range of issues that both sides seem to have today. I can’t remember that he cared about cultural issues all that much. Maybe we didn’t know what they were then.
He did have friends who were on the other side of the things he cared most about, but they were friends and they all seemed to be able to ignore each other’s POV.
That doesn’t seem to happen much today.
Another factor with Republican justices turning Left is that the real divide these days is between Populists, like Trump, and the Establishment. I think that it is in the nature of judges (especially conservative ones) that they tend to protect the Establishment, even when they disagree with it.
That seems to be a big factor with Roberts and, to a lesser degree, Barrett and Kavanaugh.
“These guys are like an annuity for immigration judges.”
Ha ha
I don’t think their was a long list of political litmus tests back then like there is now for the SC.
Looks like this week’s Hamas leader was killed in the recent bombing according to Israel. I wouldn’t volunteer for that office.
That leaves over 80% of about 50 Hamas leadership dead and fulfills a major war aim. Over half of their army has been eliminated. Gaza is in ruins. There’s not much left to do militarily.
I doubt peace and friendship will break out anytime soon but deterrence has likely been established. I imagine some lunatics will still fire rockets into Israel but they have a decade plus of rebuilding ahead and a disgraced and untrusted leadership.
The Palestinians face a fork in the road. Choose wisely.
Tom Scharf,
Exactly right. There have always been highly controversial Supreme Court decisions. But that used to be something that happened now and then until the Warren Court made a habit of it.
Didn’t Eisenhower publicly lament his appointment of Earl Warren?
Well, it’s crickets in the left wing media about the FBI closing down is Washington headquarters and dispersing its troops throughout the land. So far all I’ve seen is Fox News with a report on it. Perhaps the rest of the media has blacked it out because it originated from Fox News or perhaps they’re just suffering from Trump fatigue.
Maybe the left wing thinks closing dc fbi office is a good idea, but is reluctant to admit it.
Several of you posted about The Free Press.
This series started today:
“Introducing a New Sunday Series: Ancient Wisdom”
It’s a story about growing old. It’s a man’s perspective, so maybe not a story for everyone.
My favorite line:
“Being old, it turns out, is just not something I’m very good at “
link:
https://www.thefp.com/p/introducing-ancient-wisdom?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=organic-social
John,
“ Maybe the left wing thinks closing dc fbi office is a good idea, but is reluctant to admit it.”
Well they abused the post under Obama and Biden. Now that Trump is in position to turn the tables, maybe so.
Russell,
There are other possibilites, not the least of which is the Dems may have expanded the old “While the cat’s away, the mice will play” to “we’ll have a whee once the cat is gone.”
Another element may be that the Dems know that FBI is predominantly Republican and has been at least since late ’30s.
This cannot be proven but will likely be confirmed by anyone who has worked there.
John, Your post:
“Another element may be that the Dems know that FBI is predominantly Republican and has been at least since late ’30s.”
I don’t think you believe that statement.
The Washington FBI have been playing dirty against Trump at least since they participated in the ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ hoax. Since then it’s been a litany of FBI schemes to 86 Trump and his crew. Hunter’s laptop, Colonel Flynn, January 6, and the Washington pipebomb to name just a few.
You have forgotten Peter Strzok and McCabe.
Tom, on fiber optic drone performance:
This video, from Special Kherson Cat [@bayraktar_1love] purports to show a fiber optic FPV drone flying an intricate pattern under a building and taking out a Russian T-72B3 tank:
https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1924400361634226250
I have found Special Kherson Cat to be a reliable OSINT source in the past.
I believe the statement about predominance of Repubs in FBI because friend who worked there for 30 years believes it.
You might consider the wild possibility that there are other ways to look at the subjects you list.
john ferguson,
“You might consider the wild possibility that there are other ways to look at the subjects you list.”
Sensible advice for everyone.
SteveF
As I’m sure you’ve witnessed, I’m often wrong. Usually from not having looked into enough, or if not that basing a view on my experience which mahy turn out to have little to do with the actual subject.
But then if one’s never wrong, they must not be trying very hard.
I think John Ferguson is right that the FBI is mostly Republican. But the FBI brass have been overwhelmingly Establishment, with a mix of Democrats and Never Trump Republicans. On many issues, there is no way to tell the two apart.
Fortunately, Patel seems to be cleaning house at the Hoover Building.
It might be time to defund the CDC.
You may have heard that drug OD deaths dropped 27% in 2024 compared to 2023. That claim comes from the CDC. If you think about it, that is much too good to be true. I am certain that it is an artifact and that CDC knows it.
Here is the only data I have been able to find at the CDC web site:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm
Scroll down to Figure 1a.
Note the nice linear decrease starting in Jan. 2024. Now look at the Notes. The graph is of “Reported provisional counts for 12-month ending periods are the number of deaths received and processed for the 12-month period ending in the month indicated.”
A linear decrease in such data implies a step function change in the monthly data. That has to be an artifact.
If that is not obvious, let me explain. The data point for Dec. 2023 includes all deaths in 2023. The data point for Jan. 2024 includes all deaths for Feb. 2023 through Jan 2024. Therefore the change from the prior month is the difference in monthly deaths between Jan. 2024 and Jan. 2023. The change between the Jan. and Feb. data points is the difference in monthly deaths between Feb. 2024 and Feb. 2023. Etc.
The linear decrease means that the year-over-year change was the same for each month in 2024. In other words, a step function change in monthly deaths between Dec 2023 and Jan 2024. I see no reason to plot the data in that manner other than to hide the step function.
The only plausible interpretation I can see is that the reporting and/or classification procedures changed on Jan. 1, 2024 and the CDC wants to hide that fact.
The best secondary explanation I can come up with it is that in Dec. 2023, 27% of drug users received sobriety as a Christmas present from Santa Claus.
On the issue of deportations, I find myself pro-deportation, but anti-deportation directly to jail. I understand that we could try, convict and jail illegal aliens caught in the United States, but can also optionally just deport them (usually to their country of origin). But I am having trouble finding any support in the constitution for deporting an illegal alien to a foreign jail without a trial first. Could we try and convict an illegal alien and then decide to hold them in a foreign jail (kind of like Guantanamo)? Yes – I think we can hold prisoners in cheaper prisons – even foreign prisons – as long as we don’t violate any rights. But to catch them, and put them into jail directly, with no trial or even charges and scheduling a trial – seems unconstitutional. Are these deportees in jail for life in El Salvador?
If they have committed a crime in the USA, they can be tried in the USA – or if they have committed a crime in their country of origin, they could be deported into the custody of the country of origin for trial there – but directly to jail with no trial? Doesn’t seem right (to me).
Just some random thoughts that I am struggling with currently. Perhaps there are some nuances I am not grokking.
Mike M.:
On the CDC graph – couldn’t more availability of Narcan explain the linear year over year decline?
Mike M.
Yes Never-Trump Republicans but also Trump Republicans. And yes it matters where they are in the heirarchy.
It could also be that like other organizations which I’m familiar with , there are wild hares and sometimes nests of them. It does make one wonder that when an investigation is launched with a dubious predicate, where were the cool heads?
RickA,
The decline is NOT linear. It is a step function. OD deaths were roughly constant through 2023. They were also roughly constant through 2024. The 27% drop took place all at once. It only looks linear because of the deceptive way the data are plotted.
Law enforcement in general is Republican biased historically for sure, including the FBI.
My main concern is that the DC region has become so Democrat biased (see voting registration in those areas) that the federal agencies naturally become biased in that direction. There is also the simple incentive that government employees tends to like more government.
I would not be surprised if even the DC FBI workforce is 50% or more Republican. The recent problem has been that the decision makers have decided to enter political prosecutions which has diminished trust in these agencies.
Inside in the DC area everybody, and I mean everybody, seems to get contaminated by palace intrigue and zero sum battles for politically supremacy. Agencies that don’t need to be there should get dispersed IMO.
I think technically the US just deports illegal immigrants and the receiving country decides to imprison them.
Trump is going max pressure with detaining some immigrants before their due process. This is legal and is routinely done with US citizens that are a public safety threat (held without bail). Whether pro-Hamas protesters are a threat to public safety or US foreign policy is debatable. In this case what is important is who gets to decide and in many/most cases it is the executive branch with little judicial oversight.
These high profile cases are a bit embarrassing IMO (who is afraid of these people?) but I will stipulate the overall effect has been dramatic. Border crosses have gone down dramatically. It’s a psychological effect. Whether this is a Trump master plan, luck, or gut instinct, it is working at the moment.
Tom Scharf wrote: “I think technically the US just deports illegal immigrants and the receiving country decides to imprison them. ”
But we are paying El Salvador to imprison them. Our government is not allowed to pay a third party to do that which it is not permitted to do.
The real question is whether The US can, without a trial, imprison a non-citizen because he is a member of a terrorist group. Previous Presidents, like Obama, have claimed the right to kill such people without a trial. If I am not mistaken, courts have allowed that as long as the terrorist is not a citizen. So I think that Trump may be on solid ground in merely imprisoning such.
For the record, I am not happy with Presidents having such power. But if they do, then I am OK with Trump using it for getting rid of Tren de Aragua, MS-13, and such.