Read it.

An interesting article made more confusing by the use of the term ‘mediating institutions’ without bothering to define it; the reader os forced to construct an ad-hoc definition as he goes along, as if it were a foreign word or a term of art (which it may be, and thus perfectly intelligible, to the writer).

Give it a shot; if it proves too much work, hang it up. But I found it interesting.

John C. Wright conducts a very educational discussion with one of the commentors on his site.

John is a Christian, Roman Catholic flavor; I have no evidence regarding his interlocutor.

Regardless, I think that this is a good example of how a discussion of this nature ought to proceed.

I would ask that you bear in mind two questions:

1. Has John correctly identified flaws in his interlocutor’s argument?
2. Are there, in turn, flaws in the responses that John presents?

‘Twitter is where I go to hate the opinions of strangers, and Facebook is where I go to hate the opinions of my friends.’

— Bethany Mandel

Read it.

But you have to remember that Trump has accomplished ABSOLUTELY NOTHING during his term in office.

Just bear that in mind.

Absolutely nothing.

Read it.

Modern leftists are, essentially, collectivists. I suppose it’s not surprising that collectivists would yearn for the last time that collectivism made any sense, which was when humans were tribal hunter-gatherers who were completely dependent on their chief and each other to survive. Sounds awful to me, but a collectivist might see such an existence as sort of romantic. Especially if they’re as deluded as Rouseau, who remarked on how healthy and fit all the Indians were, not realizing that anyone over 25 who was not in perfect health was unlikely to survive the next winter. So any primitive Native American that Rouseau was likely to encounter was likely to be extremely healthy. All the others were already dead. But those remaining were very healthy, presumably because they were so in touch with nature, right? It must be all the organic vegetables.

This would explain the apparent regressivist and reactionary viewpoint of most proglodytes. Planes and autos bad, trains and bicycles and walking good. Chemical fertilizers  bad, ‘organic’ good. Eating animals bad, eating vegetables good. Fast food bad, ‘paleo diet’ good. Machine-made bad, hand-made bad. If they could cancel the 20th century (and likely the 19th after steam power was discovered), they’d be all for it.

Read it.

Betcha it never happens.

Betcha they waste millions failing to make it happen.

Betcha more California taxpayers flee to places like Texas.

If life could be improved by just passing a law, California would be paradise.

Read it. And watch the video, obviously.

They’re making a big deal out of this because they have absolutely nothing else.

Read it.

Actually, the intellectual poverty of the Old Socialits was pretty impressive, too.

Read it.

The Great Sort-Out continues.

The Identity Politics people make it a cornerstone of their ideology that voters, especially women and minorities (hardest hit), need candidates with which they can ‘identify’ and use as ‘role models’. So what will it say about the Democrat Party when all of its candidates are non-white? Or female? Where will they go for the white voters that they need to win?

Read it.

Proglodyte notions of due process are much like those in Nazi People’s Courts.

Which is not surprising, when you think about it.

Read it.

Teachers are, in essence, information workers. Like most information workers, they need to be entrepreneurial in order to get ahead. I’d rather have a kid taught by one of these go-getters than by some drone whose second job is as a Union organizer.

A Jayne Hat is a sure-fire puzzler for the uninitiated.

Read it.

When was the last time a Republican called for a boycott of a business because they gave money to Democrats?

I can’t think of one.

And don’t let them tell you any different.

Read it.

… a psychology handbook produced by the Australian Psychological Society recommends people suffering debilitating distress and helplessness about impending climate doom can recover their ability to function in society by becoming climate activists.

Read it.

One of the problem with having a hipster millennial culture at work is that eventually hipster millennial politics intrudes into business decisions. And then (I suspect) you die.

Read it.

Reihan Salam is one of National Review’s stable of Washington Generals, and this story illustrates their favorite modus operandi.

1. Proglodytes  come up with some stupid new way for government to give money to its dependent class.
2. Soi-disant ‘conservative’ writers latch onto it as an excuse to construct a ‘coherent alternative’, which is always a variant on ‘We can run this better than you’ instead of ‘No, we don’t need that at all’.
3. Said ‘constructive alternative’ is ignored by the Ruling Class, and Yet Another Government Entitlement is born, people being left with the impression that a Serious Discussion has been had, and ‘conservatives’ pat themselves on the back for having given it the Old College Try.

Nobody has the courage to say ‘It’s a fantasy. Wake up and pay for your own goddamned medical care.’

Read it.

In short, support for racial preferences is falling among Asian Americans, and this decline has been driven largely by plummeting support among Chinese Americans,,,,

Read it.

A reminder that the U.N. is a hotbed of Political Correctness, not free speech.

Read it.

Gotta love Australians.

Read it.

The current craze for surgically mutilating troubled high school girls (Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria) can be looked at another way: as a really slick exercise in negative eugenics.  Being nuts is fairly heritable: I have no doubt that many of these girls’ mothers were cutting themselves ( while listening to grunge)  back in the 90s. If you remove their ovaries, these girls aren’t going to have descendants: end of story.

Think of it as evolution in action.

You might think it would be difficult to induce parents to have their daughters spayed, but apparently you can convince bien-pensant liberals of absolutely anything, as long as it’s false.  Gotta keep up with the Jim Joneses.  They even pay for it!

It would be immoral for us to do it to them, but we’re not responsible if they do it to themselves.

Read it.

It’s now widely acknowledged that the Inuit subsistence diet is quite balanced. As biochemist and Arctic nutrition expert Harold Draper told Discover magazine, there are no essential foods, only essential nutrients. Vitamin A and D, so easily available from milk, vegetables, and sunlight, can also be obtained from oils within sea mammals (particularly livers) and fish. And fresh meats and fish, prepared raw, contain trace amounts of vitamin C, a fact that Stefansson was the first Westerner to realize. It only takes a little to prevent scurvy.

Something to bear in mind the next time you’re exploring the Arctic, which I’m sure almost all of you intend to do at some point.

Read it.

I’m sure that’s a great comfort.

Think of it as evolution in action.

Read it.

Let’s hear it for SCIENCE.

Feel the Bern….

Read it.

I’m skeptical of anything that comes with ‘officials advise’ attached.

Scott Adams has a theory: If Trump gets pushed out of office, then Hillary will go to jail.

UPDATE: Scott Adams: If Donald Trump Goes Down, Hillary Clinton Goes to Prison

Read it.

Just in case you were wondering. I know I was.

Read it.

As well they might.

The technical term for vegetarians is ‘prey’.

Read it.

Manitoba Hydro is a government established agency that controlled all energy production in the Province. Every Canadian Province has similar centralized energy controlling agencies. The one in the climate news currently is Ontario Hydro (now called Hydro One) that saw Maurice Strong become Chairman in 1992. He applied his ideas of a green agenda based on the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and almost bankrupted the Province.

Read it.

Actually, the headline could more accurately be phrased as ‘John McCain and [insert name of Republican President here]: No Love Lost’.

McCain and his fellow semi-Republicans Murkowsky, Snow, Collins, and Graham, would have been in the Good Old Days conservative Democrats; they only reason they’re in the Republican party is that they have no political future in the party of Bernie Sanders, Maxine Waters, and Chuck Schumer, whereas the ‘maverick’ schtick gives them a slim path of opportunity. But let’s not pretend that there is any actual principle involved.

The Other McCain chimes in here: Every Liberal’s Favorite Republican, and the Problem With ‘Bipartisan Reform’

Read it.

A Real Lawyer looks at the campaign-finance aspect of the Mueller investigation.

I have an idea for a legally protected class called Registered Antisocial, with an insignia of some sort like an armband or a lapel pin or a T-shirt.

For those who join the class, if anyone speaks to them (except for police or fireman or such like) without having been spoken to first, the class member is entitled to punch them in the face without legal liability.

Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Check it out.

Two German students originally wrote the Historic Tale Construction Kit, with Flash. Sadly, their work isn’t available anymore, only remembered. This new application is a tribute, but also an attempt to revive the old medieval meme, with code and availability that won’t get lost.

Read it.

The dream of a centrally-planned community keeps rising from the dead, no matter how many times it fails.

Read it.

She makes a good case.

Read it.

The Senate was designed to represent the interests of the States as States, semi-sovereign political entities, from the Federal government. The Civil War decided, by force of arms, that the States had no rights against the Federal government, so the 17th Amendment was really only the last nail in the coffin. It was, of course, touted as a way of ‘correcting’ the ‘undemocratic’ provisions of the original Constitution. Any changes to the election of Senators or to the makeup of the Senate will, of course, be founded on the notion that States having equal representation in the Senate no matter their size or population is a violation of the ‘one man one vote’ rule now in force since the passage of the 14th Amendment.

John Hinderaker at Powerline (a Real Lawyer as most DemLegHump Media chatterers are not) lays it out.

As Paul said, the Manafort charges had nothing to do with Donald Trump, nothing to do with the 2016 election, and nothing to do with Russian participation in the 2016 election. So Bob Mueller could only have brought the case in order to put pressure on Manafort to come up with some “dirt” on Mueller’s target, President Trump. As far as we know, Manafort has no dirt to give.

Meanwhile, and almost simultaneously, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen pled guilty to a series of offenses. Mostly, the counts relate to tax evasion. The only politically significant counts, as I understand it, relate to Cohen’s role in paying off Stephanie Clifford (“Stormy Daniels”) to keep quiet about her sexual encounter with Trump.

It is not illegal to pay someone to remain silent. The theory here is that the money paid to Clifford was an illegal campaign contribution. Since Cohen says he made the payment to Clifford at Trump’s direction, Mueller is trying to ensnare Trump in that “crime.” To my knowledge, there is no legal authority on whether paying a woman to keep her mouth shut constitutes a campaign contribution. It strikes me as a foolish interpretation of the law, and forcing Cohen to plead guilty to the “crime” of paying off Ms. Clifford doesn’t transform it into a crime.

That’s the bottom line. Of course, in these degenerate modern times, thin air can be whipped up into a ‘crime’ depending on how the political winds blow. We’ll have to see.

The Other McCain, like me, loves the smell of conspiracy in the morning.

No, that’s her real name. I know it sounds like a made-up name, but it’s her real name.

Ace of Spades picks a side.

But anyway, as to this supposedly-I-support-his-policies-but-I-hate-his-character posture: it is strange indeed that they spend so little time or effort or emotion talking up these conservative policies they allegedly support. I guess you’ll just have to take their perfunctory word about that.