Or was it? How many philosophical ‘baby Hitlers’ does it take? That’s a tough one, because how could you know? By 1937, it was a no brainer. By 2002, it was a no brainer. By 2008, less than zero. Now, there is no doubt it has been discussed at the highest levels, here, in Europe, and between. Especially since February this year. Is war a sport with rules as to what is fair and what is not? Then, one man caused the deaths of 75-80 million human...
Read More »Oops!
Or was it? How many philosophical ‘baby Hitlers’ does it take? That’s a tough one, because how could you know? By 1937, it was a no brainer. By 2002, it was a no brainer. By 2008, less than zero. Now, there is no doubt it has been discussed at the highest levels, here, in Europe, and between. Especially since February this year. Is war a sport with rules as to what is fair and what is not? Then, one man caused the deaths of 75-80 million human...
Read More »Keisha Russell Must be Censured for her Plagiarized Senate Testimony
Keisha Russell Must be Censured for her Plagiarized Senate Testimony Every sensible man, every honorable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror. — Voltaire Keisha Russell is a propagandist for the “First Liberty Institute” who they grace with the title of “counsel.” It looks from her resume that the counsel she provides consists of appearing on right-wing cable news and doing speaking engagements. Her bio at First Liberty doesn’t mention...
Read More »Ethanol Is Worse for the Climate Than Gasoline
A Story Treehugger has been spotlighting this famous Andy Singer cartoon since 2007. “Treehugger, Sustainability for All” received a boost from Slate in and around 2006 when I was a “starred-commenter” (don’t ask) at Slate’s “Moneybox (Daniel Gross)” and “Best of the Fray.” Slate management decided to blow the place up and eliminated the comments sections such as BOTF which contained some the best commentaries on the internet at the...
Read More »The Frustration of Government Grants
There has been quite a lot of news over the past few years regarding agriculture specific to governmental assistance, from providing crop subsidies during the Trump Trade War to the Biden Administrations attempt to tamp down inflation via meat processing capacity increases, as well as an attempt to revive a few ideas that had been tabled by previous administrations. The largest focus for the USDA is without a doubt the SNAP food assistance program...
Read More »Now
History is the study of the past. We can not undo the past; but we can make use of knowledge of the past to help us understand what is going on now so as to make the right choices, to take the right actions for issues of the present now; and to better our odds for survival into the future. ——-past—————————————————–|now|———future——- Now is the present time interval (one of definable duration) between the past and the future that moves forward...
Read More »Moral Hazard and Bank Bailouts
My mind goes back to 2008. I was recently tempted to ask why bad loans by banks are a public problem. I was tempted to say that the bank made the loan, so it is their problem. If enough debtors default that the bank fails, so what? Then I remember the very appealing logic of the argument that, while other banks are free to save Lehman if they choose, no public money should be involved. That didn’t work out very well. The tempting pure market let...
Read More »Two Executive Orders, Eastman Sues, Trump’s Properties, and Biden Sanctions Russia(?)
Prof. Heather Cox Richardson (substack.com) “Letters From An American,” January 31. 2022 There are more topics covered in yesterday’s Letter than I can list in the title. It is an interesting mixed bag of experiences we are enduring and what is being reported. I have also included the links below if you wish to do a deeper dive on each topic. It was yesterday, I had read and heard a C&L report featuring George Conway telling CNN trump...
Read More »On the retirement of Justice Breyer: is this any way to run a country?
On the retirement of Justice Breyer: is this any way to run a country? Long long ago I remember reading that Justices William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall, both about 70 years old at the time, decided not to retire during the Presidency of Jimmy Carter, because he was not liberal enough, preferring to wait for the next, more left-wing Democratic President. Heh! Liberals got lucky when, upon Brennan’s retirement in 1990, David Souter was...
Read More »Qualifications?-According to Republicans, You Just Need to Be a Minority
Thanks to Digby at Hullabaloo for posting the qualifications of President Joe Biden’s pick (Ketanji Brown Jackson) to replace justice Stephen Breyer Justice at SCOTUS. I’ll (digby) just lay out the qualifications of the presumed front runner for the job: Ketanji Brown Jackson: Fifty-one year old Ketanji Jackson fulfills a lot of requirements for the establishment set. She has the same Ivy League credentials as the sitting justices, having...
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