Next step: Pop him one and drag the body outside.

Read it.

Three years ago, a small group of academics at a German university launched an unprecedented collaboration with the military – using novels to try to pinpoint the world’s next conflicts. Are they on to something?

If it works, then they are; if it doesn’t, then they aren’t.

Read it.

Portland housing advocate Leon Porter estimates that there are 1.5 million bedrooms in Oregon alone that no one is sleeping in, either because the home is vacant or because it’s simply a guest room in an occupied house.

If just 1% of those rooms were rented out, every homeless person in the state could have a roof over their head — and homeowners might get some much-needed financial relief as well.

One of the funniest parts of the movie REAL GENIUS was when Mitch called home and told his parents that he wanted to quit college and come home, and they informed him that they had rented out His Room. The funny part was that nobody does that any more, especially middle class parents like Mitch’s.

Read it.

Paper is cheap. Paper is universal. Paper doesn’t run out of battery. Paper doesn’t vanish into the shadow realm when I close the window. Paper can do anything I can do with a pencil. Paper lets me turn back pages in the notebook and scan over for things that have yet to be done. Honestly I wish I had started using paper for this sooner.

Sometimes the old ways are best.

Read it.

Nicole Mansfield Wright’s Defending Privilege asks an extremely timely question: how is it that narratives of victimhood at the hands of arbitrary and excessive power are deployed so frequently in defense of those in power already? To answer this question, Wright turns to the eighteenth-century British novel, a genre long understood to be entwined with liberal modernity, the emergence of human-rights discourse, and the elevation of the “ordinary person” to a level of cultural prominence that anticipated the increasing figuration of “the people” as the legitimate seat of political power.

Read  it.

As in most academic fields, the top academic finance departments and journals guide the direction of scholarly research. Preferences, tastes, and sensibilities of the faculty at the top finance departments and the editorial boards at top finance journals can have a considerable effect on the acceptable research questions in those journals. It is well known that a person’s political ideology shapes his outlook on scientific issues.1 Yet little is known about the political ideologies of finance professors at these elite institutions and journals. This analysis of the political party affiliations of faculty at the top twenty finance departments and of the editorial boards at the top three finance journals shows that both institutions lean considerably to the left. Results also suggest that finance departments will become even less politically diverse in the future.

Read it.

The Register is that uniquely British institution, a tech tabloid.

In addition to being technically savvy, they also do some of the most entertaining writing you’ll find anywhere. If Scott Adams were a tech journalist, he’d write for The Register.

Read it.

Notice that nobody is attempting to manufacture fake-plant-food out of meat. That ought to tell you something.

Read it.

Wisconsin’s Senate this week passed a piece of legislation that supporters say would make the state a “Second Amendment sanctuary” and exempt the state from federal firearms laws, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

I doubt seriously whether this is anything more than virtue-signaling. That the Federal government has the right (it has always had the power) to stomp on any state law it cares to was settled in 1865. But, like a political lawn sign, it is evidence of popular sentiment … which is something, I guess.

Read it.

Biologists at the Universities of Bath and Vienna have discovered 71 new ‘imprinted’ genes in the mouse genome, a finding that takes them a step closer to unraveling some of the mysteries of epigenetics – an area of science that describes how genes are switched on (and off) in different cells at different stages in development and adulthood.

Read it.

California’s energy policies are a mess. Ostensibly committed to cutting CO2 emissions, the state shuttered its main nuclear power plant. California has invested massively in wind and solar energy, but since these technologies produce electricity only a minority of the time, California keeps the lights on by importing electricity from other states–electricity that was generated using the reliable sources that California ostensibly eschews.

Then we have electric vehicles. Currently, fewer than two percent of the vehicles on the road in the U.S. are electric. That percentage may be a little higher in California, but it is still miniscule. Nevertheless, California has enacted legislation that seeks to ban gasoline-powered vehicles beginning in 2035. Where the infrastructure will come from to support such a transition in the automobile fleet in the next 14 years is anyone’s guess.

Matt Ridley.

One of the subtexts of the debate over the origin of the pandemic concerns the role of the scientific journals. The magazines that publish scientific papers have become increasingly dependent on the fees that Chinese scientists pay to publish in them, plus advertisements from Chinese firms and subscriptions from Chinese institutions. In recent years observers have noticed that the news coverage of China in these magazines has begun to look a little less objective than it once did.

Springer-Nature, the Anglo-German publisher of the world’s leading scientific journal Nature, announced in 2017 that in some of its publications it was censoring articles that used words like “Taiwan”, “Tibet” and “cultural revolution”, when printing in China. In April 2020 Nature ran an editorial apologising for its “error” in “associating the virus with Wuhan” in its news coverage.

“Follow the money.”

Read it.

He’ll lose, of course, but he’ll make a good noise about all the right stuff.

Read it.

“Any organization not explicitly and constitutionally right-wing will sooner or later become left-wing.”

In a recent graphic of the top 100 organizations for donations to political candidates by employees, the only two that were distinctly more pro-Trump than pro-Democrat were the Marines and the NYPD. And while 97% of Harvard donors donated to Biden, only about 70% of the Marines and NYPD donated to Trump.

Still, I suspect that scared the heck out of Democrats: they’ve got 98% of the institutions more or less on their side, but NOT the two you’d most want to have in your foxhole.

Read it.

One of the most curious things about America is how many of our most celebrated billionaires sound like socialists. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett love talking about how more and more of their wealth should be taxed. Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post, enabling it to wage relentless war on the Republicans.

That’s why it seemed a little funny for the socialists at National Public Radio to report some public hatred of Bezos as news. The headline was “Tens Of Thousands Sign Petition To Stop Jeff Bezos From Returning To Earth.”

Read it.

Hint: It’s not for your benefit.

My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.  For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
— James 2: 1-4 (ESV)

Sound at all familiar?

ZMan considers alternatives.

Alternative history is one of those things that should be more popular in Hollywood, as it opens the door for creativity. “What if the South won the Civil War” would let the filmmaker run wild with all sorts of claims about the past, for example. For the same reason, it should be more popular with people in general. It makes for a good start to a campfire story. “Imagine if our enemies from the past had won and we were forced to live in a world of their creation…” is a good scary story.

For whatever reason, alternative history is not very popular. Revisionist history, on the other hand is popular. In fact, revisionism, outside of one subject, is the norm in the history departments of the West. The only thing historians do is question the official narrative of various historical events. The new narrative usually tries to explain the past according to the new morality. Fitting the past into the great story justifying the moral claims of the people in charge is the point of history.

Why bother considering an ‘alternative history’ when you can just change the Narrative to make the Official History reflect your preferred alternative? 1619 Project, anyone? Tulsa ‘Massacre’, anyone?

Read it.

Outsourcing reaches its limits.

I wonder how many poor schmucks behind the counter are going to be shot because of this?

Read it.

A pandemic is as good as a war in shaking up people’s expectations of what is and is not possible.

Read it.

At present, disorder is progressives’ most vexing governance challenge. This is illustrated just as plainly by the Jazmine Headley incident Barron describes as the street crisis in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. The Jazmine Headley incident centered around a “victimless crime.” Those are some of the hardest crimes to fight. When public safety authorities concern themselves with “victimless” crimes, that seems to violate John Stuart Mill’s “harm principle”: why should behavior that directly harms no one be a punishable offense?

Read it.

Let’s start with a more basic question. What is automation? Machines have replicated and augmented human work processes for centuries, and that is often the colloquial use of “automation” in our current moment. But “automation” was not used to describe this process until 1947, when Delmar Harder, vice president of manufacturing at Ford Motor Company, created its Automation Department. The department’s engineers redesigned automobile production so that materials were automatically conveyed from one process to another, obviating the need for laborers to load and unload machines. Further, the process was itself increasingly machine-controlled, through a system of timers, switches, and relays—what technology historian David Hounsell calls the “electromechanical brain.”

Most of the technologies involved in automation had been developed and implemented in other industries years before their incorporation into Ford’s production process. What made automation new was its centrality to Ford’s manufacturing strategy, coming at a time of historic unrest among autoworkers, and in particular, on the heels of a costly twenty-four-day strike at Ford’s massive River Rouge plant in May of 1949. Not only would the new technologies dramatically reduce an unruly labor force, but they allowed Ford to decentralize its production away from the roiling unrest of Detroit as the company opened new automated factories, with new less militant employees, in Cleveland and Buffalo. Workers immediately perceived the threat, and automation was, from its inception, a deeply politicized issue. The history of automation reveals it as a political tool to subvert worker power, not simply an economic one to increase productivity.

…

Investigating grocery store self-checkout, researchers found that Luddite customers hated and avoided the technology. In response, management cut staff to make lines so unbearable that customers gave up and used the machines instead. Even then, cashiers were still required to assist and monitor transactions; rather than reduce workload, the technologies were “intensifying the work of customer service and creating new challenges.”

…

“There is NO MORAL ISSUE with stealing from a store that forces you to use self checkout, period. THEY ARE CHARGING YOU TO WORK AT THEIR STORE.”

Read it.

Last time we took a look at the social place of people involved in war. We found that, far from there being a universal combatant, distinctions between soldiers and warriors are both significant for the present and important for understanding the past. Moreover, beyond that simple dichotomy, the idea of a universal war experience in turn conceals the basic fact that many people who were neither warriors nor soldiers, not properly combatants of any kind, experienced war in unique ways, be they victims of warfare, homefront supporters, or economically invested in the enterprise. Already we have seen that there’s far more than just one sort of person with a war experience.

Read it.

If, of course, that’s what you want to do.

Read it.

The EU is an American creation, as much as a European one. In the middle of the 20th century, there were more European federalists in Washington than in Brussels. Senators bashed out resolutions declaring: “Congress favours the creation of a United States of Europe.” The Marshall Plan, a torrent of post-war funding for the crippled continent, came on the condition that European countries meld themselves together. George Kennan, an American diplomat, summed up American policy: “We hoped to force the Europeans to think like Europeans, and not like nationalists.” Forget Jean Monnet. When it comes to naming founding fathers for the EU, the list should start with President Harry Truman.

One could as accurately say that it is the creation of the old Soviet Union, which isn’t round to blame any more.

Read it.

The Rapid Response Team of the Portland Police Bureau has endured over 150 nights of rioting. Not protests, riots. Riots that have not only destroyed the city’s reputation but have physically destroyed different neighborhoods in the city. Almost every member of the team has sustained injuries. Channel 2 News released a 14-point memo sent to the PPB Chief:

At the top of the list, Clark said nearly every team member had been injured during the protests last year.

“The injuries received ranged from multiple members with broken bones, torn ligaments and cartilage, traumatic brain injuries, hearing damage, damaged eye sight, lacerations, and burns,” he wrote.

He said members felt that bureau directives were being interpreted retroactively, leading to members being disciplined for policy changes that had not been in place when the officer acted during a protest.

Who has the George Soros prosecutor in Multnomah County started to prosecute? He’s searching for police officers to prosecute. He’s contacting attorneys whose rioting clients are suing the city. Some PPB officers allege he’s investigating police officers in hidden backdoor investigations. He does appear to be involving outside attorneys in the investigation of PPB officers.

Read it.

The wealthy have been fleeing the city all pandemic long, to lower-tax, lower-cost-of-living and lower-crime alternatives. That means big trouble ahead for those left behind, as the top 2 percent of earners supply 51 percent of New York’s income tax take.

Add in middle-class flight, and all the young upstaters leaving for lack of job opportunities, and you see why New York is one of just seven states to lose a House seat after the 2020 Census.

UPDATE: Young NYC homeless people to get $1,250 each month in city-backed study

Ben Thompson’s newsletter Stratechery is a must-read for followers of the tech sector.

Here he does a deep dive into the proposed tech legislation currently before Congress.

ZMan’s weekly podcast. Highly recommended.

Happy Juneteenth everyone! Officially, this long tradition dating back to Monday is celebrated on Saturday, but the ruling regime has declared the preceding Friday as a day off for our hardworking civil servants. The rest of us, of course, will have to continue slaving away at the salt mines, but the people who really make this country work will get the day off to celebrate the people who built the country. Even as we toil, we should take a moment to think about both groups.

In a way, the ridiculousness of this new holiday fits perfectly with the absurdity of modern liberal democracy. The show this week is mostly about how the system is nothing like it is claimed. Instead of bringing the citizens into the decision making process, it systematically excludes the majority. This new holiday is a great example of how it works. Exactly no one wanted it. Few even heard of it. The people have many higher concerns, but they are ignored in favor of this novelty.

Read it.

Three people have been found dead and two remain missing after a group of tubers floating along the Dan River in North Carolina went over a dam, local authorities said on Thursday.

Think of it as evolution in action.

Read it.

Amazon has just introduced its “Just Walk Out” technology into a full-size 25,000 square foot Amazon Fresh grocery store. The system uses overhead cameras, pressure sensitive-shelves, and biometric data to determine what customers put in their carts. The new store will be open on June 17 in Bellevue, Washington.

“Bringing Just Walk Out technology to a full-size grocery space with the Amazon Fresh store in Bellevue showcases the technology’s continued ability to scale and adapt to new environments and selection. I’m thrilled it’ll help even more customers enjoy an easier and faster way to shop and can’t wait to get their feedback on this latest Just Walk Out offering,” Amazon’s vice president of Physical Retail and Technology, Dilip Kumar, said, according to The Verge.

ZMan lays it out.

The renewed interest in the origins of the Covid virus is a good reminder of several threads running through the modern political discourse. The most obvious being the reactionary nature of the establishment Left. Trump pinned the blame on China, so the establishment Left made it their mission to defend China. This fit in well with their corporate paymasters, who are happy to wash the feet of the Chinese government in exchange for access to Chinese consumers.

Of course, that leads into another subplot to the modern age. The willingness to submit everything to the marketplace, real and imagined. This is a root cause of the current crisis in America. Just because it is good for the economy in the short term to do business with China does not mean it is good to do business with China, but in the hyper-marketized world of today, no one questions it. Like everything else, right and wrong is left to the market to decide.

…

China is like a kid in a toy shop these days, as everything in the West is for sale at discount prices. Everything must go and no offer will be refused. Need a member of Congress who sits on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence? Short on cash? No problem! How about someone to run cover for letting a deadly virus loose on the world? You are in luck, as they are in stock and priced to sell! Everything must go!

 

Read it.

The people at Gr?v Technologies think farmers can produce wheatgrass for their herds with less land and water using the method.

Read it.

Noise as a solution makes sense, in theory: No thief wants attention, so make something that’ll draw lots of it. Problem is, we (police included) have become desensitized. We know how easy it is to accidentally trigger the those horrific whines and screeches —a heavy truck rumbling by, a motorcycle that’s had the baffles removed (another issue on its own), or just someone accidentally brushing against the side of the car while walking by. Even if the alarm is triggered during an honest-to-God break-in, what exactly are good Samaritans supposed to do? If anyone has ever rushed into the street at the sound of every car alarm, ready to go full vigilante on some ne’er-do-well shattering a window, I want to meet that person. In the city, a guy conspicuously stealing a bicycle doesn’t even get a second glance—how is a someone quickly smashing a window and running off supposed to rate?

 

ZMan does an overview.

For close to half a century, the United States was on a war footing. Rather than demobilize after the defeat of Japan and Germany, America retooled the entire nation to fight communism in general and the Soviets in particular. For two generations it was the superstructure of society. The economy, the culture and politics operated within the struggle against Russia. It is the American empire’s Peloponnesian War, except this time the democracies beat the Spartans.

One reason why this event was so quickly forgotten is that it appears to have been a necessary restraint on the worst elements in American democracy. Like a dog that got off the leash, there has been no turning back for those elements, suddenly freed from the restraints of the Cold War. The crusades against the Muslims were an attempt to put the crazies back on the rope, but it failed. Those crazies are now threatening to take over the whole country.

…

If you look around at the various tribes of lunatics in the pantheon of modern leftism, the quest for structure is clear. The Antifa goofballs are motivated by alienation and atomization. They are urban consumers with no purpose other than to consume. The females howling about male privilege are unmarried and childless, thus lacking the structure in which a woman can blossom. The Left is nothing but stray dogs looking for home, longing for the leash.

Freeberg nails it.

For the past several years I have occasionally read “psychological profiles” and the like, struggling to triage a borderline mental illness that is Trump support. It’s actually Trump hatred that is more mystifying and more baffling. I’m sure history will ultimately record it that way. It is the #NeverTrump types who more closely resemble the witch hunters in Salem. And those witch hunters are the ones on the wrong side of history, whose wounded consciences and mental enfeeblements continue to fascinate us. Isn’t that obvious? If we could time travel back to 1692 and put one faction, or the other, in straight-jackets and padded cells, it would be the hunters, not the witches or their defenders. We relate to the hunters, but we think the worse of ourselves when we do, and that’s what makes The Crucible a dark story. It makes us wonder what’s wrong with us. That correlates to the Trump-phobes, not the Trump-philes.

Read it.

From taxpayer-funded abortion to suing the Little Sisters of the Poor, the dogma lives loudly in our very Catholic president. So, Tuesday morning, he’s popping into the Vatican to meet with Pope Francis. Never wanting to miss a photo-op, Team Biden asked that the president attend mass with the Pontifex Maximus. Maybe Joe could make intercessory prayers to St. Margaret Sanger and Pachamama.

“A dead enemy is the next best thing to a friend.”

— M.A.R. Barker, Prince of Skulls

ZMan waxes philosophical.

One of the underappreciated aspects of liberal democracy is that it always pits morality versus objective facts, always creating a false choice. Every public debate is between one camp that demand we do “the right thing” and another camp that insist on doing “the correct thing”. The right thing is defined as the moral thing while the correct thing is the factually accurate or effective thing. The choice is failure while on the moral high ground or succeed and be seen and inhumane or indifferent.

We see this in the perennial proglodyte push for ‘soak the rich’. The premise (never stated, always just assumed) is that income/wealth inequality is somehow immoral, so we are morally obliged to rob productive people of their property, however gotten, in order to ensure a Right Moral Order. (If that means that you can distribute the swag among your Underclass followers and thereby ensure your own power, well, that’s an added bonus – who deserves it more than the Paragons of Virtue?)