It looks like Negroni and his wife, our reptilian overlord Mr. Lizard and I will be meeting at Mr. Dunderbak’s in Tampa on Friday. I think Negroni and I will be arriving before 4:00. Come if you can.
WaPo on taxcuts
I love the WaPo’s idea that you somehow have to “pay” for tax-cuts. And by love, I mean hate. Motherfuckers, if we don’t have to figure out how to “pay” for free shit for people, we definitely don’t need to figure out how to “pay” for lowering taxes on taxpayers.
I like how the Afghan rebels waited until Mattis was safely gone before firing rockets at the airport. Probably afraid that he’d roundhouse kick the rockets right back to them.
FFS, so much wrong with this. I mean besides the tragic murder of two teens. Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation in the Bronx? A 3″ switchblade? The school’s fault for not having metal detectors? Why am I adding so many question marks?
Dammit, I live alone. I have to do it myself. Welp, I guess I’m going to talk the Glibertariat through a process again. Let’s see, do we have any bread…
Nope.
I guess that’s where we have to start.
Garlic Cheddar Beer Bread
We need some ingredients. What are they?
3 Cups Flour
2 Teaspoons Salt
3 1/2 Teaspoons Baking Powder
2-6 Teaspoons minced Garlic
12 oz Beer
8 oz Sharp Cheddar
1 Tablespoon Butter
Before we forget, lets make sure the oven is empty, then set it to 350 degrees. That’s Fahrenheit for anyone from a country that measures based on water rather than humans. If you don’t want to do the math that’s 1.77 times the boiling point of water.
Let’s just toss the flour, salt, baking powder and garlic in the mixing bowl. There’s no special magic this early on in the process. We need to grate the cheese before adding it, or it won’t integrate too well. After that, it should look something like this:
We’re still doing that cooking-show thing, right?
Simple enough, now we mix those together. I have a stand mixer with a dough hook, but that really is overkill. We’re not going to knead the dough, the only reason I like the dough hook for this process is that it’s easier to clean in the end, and it still gets the job done. Now we have – mixed powdery substances in a bowl with some cheesy bits.
Time to add the beer.
Now Glibs have been known to have massive debates on the topic of beer, so I’m not going to bother telling you what you should pick. If you don’t have a preference, grab a basic American Lager, the cooking and the other ingredients will cover the flavor.
With the beer added, we mix until we get a fully integrated dough. It will be a wet dough and will cling to pretty much anything. We need a loaf pan either greased with butter, coated with oil, or spritzed with cooking spray, anything suitable as a release agent that you’re willing to ingest. Get the dough in said loaf pan and relatively evenly distributed. I find hands to be the best implment for doing this, but don’t want to interrupt the cooking to wash the dough remnants off again. So I keep a box of disposable gloves in the kitchen for just this sort of thing.
See:
Ten cents well spent.
We still have that tablespoon of butter. Melt it and get it across the top of the dough, either drizzle it, or brush it, or some combination of the two. Usually I melt it in the microwave because it’s fast and I’m lazy. Here, if you have extra cheese from the first grating, you can sprinkle it on the top. This produces an excellent effect when baked. Alas, I did not have sufficient cheese.
Drop the loaf pan into the oven at about the middle of the space and set a timer for forty-five minutes. While we wait, we have to resist wandering off for a little bit. A proper sandwich deserves accompaniment. Lets put together some classic tomato soup.
Simple Tomato Soup
I haven’t got any of the canned stuff, so we’re making this from scratch too. We’ll need ingredients. Where are my handy bullet points?
1/2 Stick Butter
1 Onion
28 Oz Crushed Tomatos
Oregano
Basil
Bay leaf
12 Oz (1.5 cups) Stock
There they are.
We need to get rid of the onion skin and chop it into small pieces. Mostly because it would look silly to drop a whole onion in the pot. Cans of crushed tomato come in twenty-eight ounce sizes, so this is one such can. If you want to go through the trouble of processing your own, go right ahead. I’m in a bit of a hurry. Same thing with the stock. I used pre-made chicken stock because I had it.
All right, time to get cooking. Find our trusty dutch oven and make sure it’s been washed since the fish stew incident. Put it on medium heat and melt the half stick of butter. Once that is more or less liquid, add the other ingredients. If you need to know what it might look like, here’s an example:
That pan looks familiar
Stir it up and bring to a simmer. Let it continue to simmer until the bread timer has gone off. That should be give or take forty minutes after it went on. It would be advisable to give it a stir every so often to make sure nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pan. If it does, take the edge off the heat some and give it the occasional stir. Do not cover the pan. We want it to boil off some of the excess liquid. After it’s been cooking for a while, it will start to look a bit like real soup:
Soupy
Find the bay leaf and toss it. You don’t want to eat that now that it’s done its part. Now, the soup is perfectly edible as-is, but if you want to have consistancy closer to the canned variety, find a blender. Me? I just moved the pan to another burner and put a lid on it. My bread was done.
The Sandwiches (Finally)
Well, the bread fresh from the oven was too hot to slice. And since I didn’t have the extra cheese, looked a little pale. See:
Just loafing around.
But, once it cooled down, we could get on to the business at hand from an hour ago – making sandwiches. If you hadn’t guessed already from the tomato soup, I’m making grilled ham and cheese. Okay, the grilled cheese was probably obvious, the ham part is pretty common, too.
The best way to distribute butter for grilling sandwiches is about as contentious as the appropriate type of beer to cook with. You do what makes you happy. I’m going to butter the bread so that the second side is guaranteed a dose of butter equal to the first. Then we start our construction. On the unbuttered side, we lay out a slice of American cheese (It’s traditional, any melting cheese will work). Then some cubes of ham. I stopped here to take a picture because the next step would be another layer of cheese, then the second slice of bread.
Okay, so the bread was still a bit warm when I sliced it.
Find a skillet or frying pan, or griddle, or whatever relatively flat bottomed, low-walled (or no-walled) cooking surface you want to use. Put it on medium heat and wait until you can feel the radiant heat a few inches above the pan. Gently lay the assembled sandwiches in.
Here’s the hard part – we wait.
We need the heat to brown the lower surface and conduct up into the cheese to turn it molten. This will inevitably take longer than I expect, leading to me standing there in irritation as thermodynamics thumbs its nose at me again. But once we do have it, we flip it over and…
Browned on one side.
Yes it is Browned! I know it doesn’t look it in the picture, that’s because it’s a low-contrast to the color of the bread. Take my word for it, it’s browned, and the cheese melted. We also have to wait for the same thing to happen to the other side. This is usually even more frustrating than the first wait, after all it’s been more than an hour since I yelled for an empty kitchen to make me a sandwich, and it’s still not quite done. But, once it is browned, we cut it on a bias (conservative in my case), array it on a plate and ladle out a bowl of our herb-laden tomato soup.
Well half of the headlines on every sports website are about political posturing bullshit. And that’s even with a freaking HUGE FBI investigation leading to the arrest of four assistant college basketball coaches following a three-year fraud investigation. Louisville and Rick Pitino appear to be at the center (or close enough to it). So we’ve likely seen him coach his last game. I guess he can dedicate more time to banging assistant coaches wives and ignoring his other assistants planning stripper and whore parties for recruits. No offense to Louisville fans here, but you guys have great facilities and great boosters. Yet you also have two sleazy motherfuckers as the face of your two highest-profile sports. I don’t get it.
In baseball, the Rockies won as did the Brewers. Their wild card lead sits at 1.5 games with 4 and 5 games remaining respectively. The Cubs failed to lock up the division as they fell to the Cardinals. The Yankees won. Team Canada beat the Red Sox. The Angels won, but its too-little, too-late for them. The D-backs stayed hot. The Dodgers are getting warmer. And the Astros continued to sizzle as they chase 100 wins on the season. And the Twinks beat the Indians to all but lock down the last AL Wild Card spot.
In soccer, Sevilla won and Liverpool tied, again, to move into the top two spots in Group E. Man Shitty and Napoli are proving to be the class of their group. Real Madrid pasted Dortmund and Spurs beat Aepol to take control of Group H. And Porto and Beskitas won their Group G matches. More games today across Europe and I’m sure several of you Glibs will be tuning in.
I’m not gonna lament the whistle-happy NHL refs every morning. Especially today since I didn’t even see highlights last night as I was watching the A-Team fuck shit up and save the life of a former North Vietnamese prison cook who helped save their lives. Maybe tomorrow. But today’s sports update is done and now its time for…the links!
After Roy Moore trounced Luther Strange in the Alabama GOP primary yesterday, expect the wave of GOP retirements to begin. The former judge and fan of Trump’s populist rhetoric was the canary in the coal mine for establishment types. And the writing is one the wall. Trump, who surprisingly campaigned for Strange, will probably support every single outsider challenging incumbents now and we are looking at another 1994 or 2010 dead in the eye on the right side of the aisle. Team Blue are celebrating the loss of a candidate supported by the president. But his support was more an overture to the GOP establishment. You can expect that to stop now, after the Strange loss and the establishment screwing him over on Obamacare repeal promises they’d made for the last 7+ years. You think I’m crazy? Then tell me why Bob Corker just announced his retirement in Tennessee last night.
San Diego is a really cool place with a lot of hot chicks. But don’t hook up with the ones that are yellow. The city and county are blaming each other. As if government has ever been the cause of or solution to diseases (with apologies to conspiracy theorists who believe they invented AIDS for myriad reasons).
Remember that crazy Florida (Muslim) Man who killed a pair of his roommates because they ridiculed his new faith? Probably not, since it was treated as local news. Well his surviving roommate, who just so happens to be a National Guardsman and neo-Nazi at the same time, is expected to plead guilty today to storing bomb-making material in the apartment. Cops came across it as they were cleaning up the mess how former roommate made. So very, very Florida Extremist Man of both of you.
Harris County, TX has an ambitions plan. I, for one, don’t see how this could possibly be abused and think its good financial stewardship of my taxpayer money and is in no way rewarding people who refused to plan appropriately for a natural disaster while living in a flood plain.
It’s funny what happens when I start on one of these little essays- sometimes it goes just as planned, but often while researching a topic, I get sidetracked and write about something entirely different than what I intended. This is one of those times. We’re in the midst of the Jew holiday rush, with Rosh Hashana (New Year), Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), and Sukkos (something about plants and booths, don’t ask) in a Centipede-like series, with the first two sort of lumped together as the High Holidays and Sukkos being an afterthought. So I figured, let’s do a history of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, and discuss their decidedly non-Biblical nature, and contrast it with Sukkos (the white people of Jewish holidays), which is culturally rather minor but is actually Biblical.
And there I made my fatal mistake: I googled local High Holiday services at the nearest shuls and that sent me down an unexpected path.
The first shul that came up was Beth Emet (House of Truth) in Evanston. They bill themselves as “The Free Synagogue.” This is a (((Jew))) trick, there’s nothing free about it.
Wow, a synagogue with no fees? We tease, but the word “free” in our names holds a strong significance that shapes the foundation of our congregation. It means that we unequivocally support the freedom to express a full range of ideas from our bima (pulpit) and within our community. More than half a century ago, our founding members chose a name that symbolized a commitment to truth and open expression.
Attending High Holiday services will set you back $500 per head, no reserved seating. Of course, members will get a hefty discount, assuming you’ve coughed up the $1200 per person that they charge as the introductory rate for membership (the website appears to be silent on what the yearly fee is after the first year).
I note the the Catholic church down the street here doesn’t charge to join. Silly goyim, you’re leaving money on the shulchan!
But the “full range of ideas” they espouse seems to be directly lifted from the Democratic National Committee and, judging from their website and their rabbi’s blog, spans the full gamut from left to extreme left. Here’s a sample of a sermon by their rabbi (female, of course, a few millennia of traditions cannot substitute for woke-ness, and CS Lewis’s gate is all oppressive and shit):
Racism in the United States may no longer be de jure, but with statistics such as these can we claim with confidence that it has been eradicated? This summer the Supreme Court’s undermining of the Voting Rights’ Act and George Zimmerman’s acquittal in the death of Trayvon Martin exposed the still raw wound of racial tension in our country. After the verdict, President Obama, in his most candid remarks about race, spoke about the racism that he has faced in his life. He talked about purses being clutched and car doors locked as he walked by. He acknowledged that racial profiling by the police has undermined their trust in the black community, making them less effective in reducing violence. And he spoke about the importance of people of different races engaging in dialogue with one another in order to gain greater understanding and empathy of what it’s like to walk in a black person’s shoes.
As President Obama challenged us, we need a real conversation on race in our country that allows us to develop relationships and understand one another better before we cast aspersions and affix blame.
They also affiliate with other similarly-minded organizations. From their site:
Bend the Arc
Bend the Arc is building the power and passion of the progressive Jewish movement in America by bringing together Jews from across the country to advocate and organize for a more just and equal society. It is the only national Jewish organization that is focused solely on promoting these values here in the U. S. Two community meeting shave been held in the Chicago area. Work groups have been established along three distinct strategies:
• Supporting endangered populations– Muslims, immigrants, LGBTQ communities
• Encouraging Democrats and approachable Republicans to resist the Trump agenda
• Working for a shift in power by mobilizing for the 2018 and 2020 elections.
I’m sure they’re big on separation of church and state, right? Yes, clearly they take a strong stand against religion being involved in partisan politics. It makes (((me))) proud. They also link to something entitled “Jewish Tradition Speaks to Need for This Proposed Law”
In the 114th Congress, I-VAWA was re-introduced by Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA). The bill, which received bipartisan support, mandated that an Office of Global Women’s Issues be instituted by the Secretary of State and led by an Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues. The bill would have inaugurated a Senior Coordinator for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The goal was to push the U.S. government to swiftly propose and enact creative solutions for violence prevention and that those plans be revised annually for five years.
Whew, for a moment I thought they were going to say that Judaism mandates taxpayer-funded sinecures and luxury travel for some well-connected bureaucrats and academics.
I suspect that their inclusivity and diversity would not include me.
Ah well, let me try the next hit on Google, which is Beth Am (The People’s House) in Buffalo Grove. And to their credit, they don’t claim to be “free.” And indeed they’re not, with yearly memberships running $3000-4000, which makes the People’s House some pricey real estate. Want to go to services for the High Holidays? $500 per head for Rosh Hashana, another $750 each for Yom Kippur. I don’t know what Easter Sunrise services cost at our local Catholic church, but I suspect that it’s a whole lot less- likely free. I may have my foreskin sewed back on.
And once again, the congregation is led by a female rabbi who is as woke as it gets. Here’s a delightful excerpt from one of her sermons:
This sermon will not be a rebuke of conservative political ideology or sentiment. Let’s be clear, there has been a virtually unanimous voice from the Conservative establishment decrying the overt or covert support of racist fringe movements and this is a sermon purposed on the necessity for us to Wake Up and Rise Up during a period in our history where white supremacists have a direct line to the Whitehouse (sic).
Whew, for a moment I thought she might get partisan. Here’s her morning-after-the-election sermon:
The feelings of anger and despair I have will in time morph into action and revolutionary love. We are strong and courageous and in this together and right and there are too many people who need us. We need us. It is not easy, but I don’t think we have any choice but to F.E.A.R: Face Everything And Rise. This is the only answer now and always…one breath at a time.
I searched in vain for her denunciations of Keith Ellison or Al Sharpton, as well as the rabbi’s exposure of the fake hate crimes she cites. I suppose I need more Jew in me to understand that there’s Nazis at the door, and that we’re only inches from being sent to American concentration camps.
Today I speak words of protest, joining hundreds of my Reform rabbinic colleagues across the nation in fulfillment of our sacred obligation. We will not be silent. We will, without hesitation, decry the moral abdication of the President who fuels hatred and division in our beloved country. This is not a political statement.
Of course it isn’t. And of course, the good rabbi sermonized about The Women’s March:
My 12 year old says she doesn’t feel well and is not going to march. Her sister says the same thing and their brother says they must go. He yells at them, “All our rights are at stake!”
…We get to the rally. We get pins that say, “Girl Power” and “Love Trumps Hate” and other slogans that I won’t write here…. (OMWC: The photo on her post shows that her son was wearing a button with the very spiritual slogan “FUCK THE PATRIARCHY!”) The kids are excited to be a part of this historic event, proud to be speaking up and out! Periodically, my son spontaneously yells into the crowd “I’m mad as hell and we aren’t going to take it anymore!!” He gets applause and high-fives. He smiles and keeps on walking. My daughters chant about immigration rights and each feels free enough to shout her own slogans about rights and freedom and we walk together with hundreds of thousands of people.
You know who ELSE had hundreds of thousands of marchers shouting slogans… By the way, I note that the good rabbi is silent about the exclusion of Jews from Chicago’s Gay Pride parade, but I suppose that’s consistent with her silence about leftist BDS. It’s all about Team. I’m guessing that you wear a pink pussy hat instead of a yarmulke during services.
I can’t leave this topic without linking this classic.
OK, to wrap this up, now the serious part. These really were the first two things to come up when I was looking for a shul for the High Holidays. It’s distressing to me that a 4000 year old tradition has been perverted and co-opted as a partisan political movement, that as a religious obligation, (((we))) are expected to cheer the yielding of power, autonomy, and agency to government. It distresses me that not only have synagogues become overtly political, they are also exclusionary- there is no room for classical liberalism, conservatism, or libertarianism, not to mention people of limited financial means. There seems to be no dissenting voices allowed. Nor is there any hint that perhaps religion ought to keep itself focused on Yahweh and not on Nancy Pelosi. If one of the goals of organized Judaism is to bring the non-observant and secular back into the fold, the synagogues around here are certainly doing the opposite for those of (((us))) who believe in liberty and would like to have some part of our lives separate from partisan politics.
It is Tuesday. I’ve been chugging along at work. It will soon be beer-thirty.
Last Chance: Tampa Bay area Glibs — if you have any desire in a meetup this weekend, say so now. Otherwise, I’ll just hang out with Negroni and talk shit about Charlie Strong and (now separately) Texas football.
Somehow India has a plan to supply power to 300M people for $2.5B, but Puerto Rico needs an unknown amount of money to return power to 1% of that number. I’m guessing more than $25M.
Its nice to see a patent troll friendly court get slapped around by a higher authority. (T/W boing-boing)
More chestnuts than a man can eat in this piece on the Ozone Treaty.
Continuing to elaborate upon my previous themes on Maritime Regulation/Deregulation. (here, here and here).
<The paper these articles were drafted from was original written Spring 2016 – it has not been updated for any modifications or new developments taking place since then.>
The practice of cabotage – defined by Merriam Webster as “trade or transport in coastal waters or airspace or between two points within a country” has been a key legal aspect of trade for centuries around the world. In the strictly maritime realm, this practice is often referenced using the term “short sea shipping” to refer to coastwise traffic and inland waterways, while “cabotage” is being utilized more frequently in reference to the associated regulatory policies.
Although there has historically been a potential for international conflict arising from government-imposed restrictions, the last century is notable for both the imposition and review of unwise or shortsighted economic policies that are arguably responsible for net economic losses in a country’s domestic population in spite of documented evidence.
The United States and the Jones Act (quick recap on themes referenced in previous articles)
“I used to be a maritime shipper like you…”
Recognized worldwide simply by name, the Jones Act – formally The Merchant Marine Act of 1920 – has become synonymous some of the most with severe restrictions on trade emanating from a government-mandated cabotage policy. From a strictly legal background, Yost (2013) (excellent paper – HIGHLY recommended for anyone looking for more legal discussion) begins with a detailed review of the Jones Act – and examines the degree that legal decisions have deviated from the original stated intent of the legislation (big surprise?) in the aim of maintaining apparently protectionist stances that have generally been harmful to the overall economy. As a matter of perspective, the author is careful to note that the Jones Act by itself is not a formal tariff (technically-speaking – “the best kind of ‘speaking’”), but functions in a similar fashion as a barrier to entry, limiting competition and protecting the existing participants. (Yost, 62) The higher capital costs lead to higher costs for the customers across the board. While noting that Jones Act compliant shippers are not receiving formal federal subsidies in the way that Amtrak does (specific to the Jones Act alone, not considering additional federal retainer payments), Yost recognizes that the barriers to entry are so steep that the handful of companies providing shipping services to Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico are essentially operating as government-sponsored monopolies protected from competition. (Yost, 66) In an interesting comparison, the author demonstrates that the current protectionist aspects and legal restrictions are not dissimilar from that of the PRC or Japan and serve no positive purpose towards stimulating domestic economic growth, and in turn advocates transitioning towards a middle-ground policy between Australia’s licensed shipping cabotage policies and the trucking cabotage policies of the EU (Yost, 76).
Approaching the issues raised by the Jones Act with respect to their economic consequences, Lewis (2013) (referenced in previous articles – highly recommended again) relates a number of studies on various aspects of the Jones Act and related legislation. Through his own calculations, he determines that the net domestic gain through repeal would be between $578 million and $685 million annually. While there would be a significant loss of domestic mariner jobs initially, many of those would be replaced by a steep intake of port services jobs around the country. A clear distinction is recognized between the inland waterways shipping industry – in which a healthy domestic competition has developed, and the vastly more capital-intensive coastal and overseas routes, including Hawaii, Alaska and Puerto Rico in which a very small number of companies have developed near-monopolies due to the restrictions imposed by the Jones Act and associated legislation (Lewis, 83). Lewis is also quick to note that while the trucking and railroad industries both faced heavy regulations earlier in the 20th century, the loosened restrictions in the last several decades vastly increased market participation while simultaneously driving down costs to shippers and consumers and there is no reason to doubt a similar outcome from addressing the maritime regulatory environment (Lewis, 92).
Finally, Lewis, like Yost, points to the EU’s maritime deregulations regarding coastal commerce as an example to be considered in adjusting long-term policies – keeping in mind the government’s push to incentivize and increase short sea shipping as a counterpoint to increased road and rail traffic (Lewis, 101).
Perakis and Denisis (2008) provide a compelling summary of the benefits of short sea shipping as an alternative to road and rail transportation in the United States. The primary concern of the authors here is to present it as both economically and environmentally efficient – with a focus on the intermodal aspects of such transportation – shifting the containers arriving from overseas from the central coastal ports to more local shipping facilities. There are two types of short sea shipping considered – one involving direct loading of containers (TEU (20 Foot Equivalent Units) or FEU (40 Foot Equivalent Units)) onto barges or similar vessels to be transported for further distribution, and the other involving direct roll-on/roll-off movement of 53ft semi-trailers (Perakis, 593). In both cases, the end state is intended to significantly decrease traffic congestion both in the vicinities of the ports, but also on the feeder interstates associated with the ports. Further assumed benefits include decreased air and noise pollution, decreased expenses associated with infrastructure repair in addition to fuel cost savings in moving tonnage further by shipping than trucking or trains (Perakis, 605).
On the whole, this analysis appears to be largely predicated from the public policy perspective. The majority of the arguments appear to be focused on decreasing activities that affect public spending outlays negatively or that represent potential public backlash for local or state governments. The actual economic functions as they apply to individual companies potentially more concerned with costs or scheduling are largely relegated to shorter discussions at the end of the paper. Indeed, there is no mention of the Jones Act – much less any other current legislative barriers – aside from its inclusion in a listing of potential obstacles hindering short sea shipping (Perakis, 608). To their credit, the authors do recognize in their conclusion that “SSS needs customized solutions for every emerging transportation market in congested trade corridors. A ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach is unlikely to be effective.” (Perakis, 612).
Some links don’t work based on library links – base article information provided in case anyone else wants to look them up later:
The California Angels did a little bit to help out the idle Twins last night by falling to the Chicago White Sox. The Twins have all but locked down the second AL Wild Card slot and should face the (hated) Yankees on the road some time next week to see who will play the Indians, barring them losing their 2-game AL overall lead to the Astros, who humiliated the Rangers last night. The Red Sox are on cruise control for the last week as they really can’t catch the Astros unless some crazy shit happens. They’ll probably just work on getting their pitching rotation down for the ALDS.
Over on the senior circuit, the Dodgers have played like a bag of shit for some time now but still managed to top to 100-win mark for the first time in over 40 years. They’ve got home field by the throat and will face the winner of the D-backs vs ?????. I can’t tell if anybody wants that second NL Wild Card spot, as the Rockies fell again last night while the Brewers were off. The Cards also fell to the Cubs to push those lovable losers to the brink of a division championship. The Nats won their division some time ago and will have home-field in their NLDS series with the Chicago squad.
I hope that sets you up for the last six days of the regular season.
Elsewhere, lots of preseason hockey was played. Lots of slashing penalties were called. And lots of empty seats were in arenas where all of this happened. And Arsenhole won a dreaded Monday EPL fixture. Oh, and its Presidents Cup week. So GO USA! Beat The Rest Of The World (minus Europe)!
Let’s try to take it up a notch and go to the wayback machine for a blast from the past in…the links!
Hey, man, its Oakland. What do you expect to happen? Its pretty damn irresponsible for a police department to not have a storage policy for all firearms left in a car. So I guess under the totality of the circs and the policy being unclear, this officer will not be held accountable for his negligence.
A short background and observations on the current Afghanistan situation, as it involves Pakistan & India.
History
The nations of Afghanistan and Pakistan are not friends. The Afghans have been fuming about getting split up by the British (see this article for some background on the “Durand Line”)
Before
After
Pakistan’s intel service, the ISI (a real “Deep State” if there is one to be used as an example) pretty much used/uses the Taliban, and the horrible Haqqani organization as a tool to keep Afghanistan either in turmoil, or a client state. Either way, in no position to revisit the map. Needless to say, the Afghans have been a wee bit miffed about this. The latest growling from Kabul is an example of this.
So what does India have to do with this?
But with foreign military support lessening, Afghanistan is not in a position to do much more than grumble. But they do have one sure way to get the Pakistani goat, so to speak. Seek support from India. “Gosh, Pakistan…I know you guys are mortal enemies, but there really isn’t any threat in us having closer ties with India!” Or, as their Ambassador to India delicately put it:
“Kabul would never allow anyone to use its soil against others. We are an independent country and we hope Pakistan would see Afghanistan as such.”
India (along with Iran) was a refuge for many during the Northern Alliance vs Taliban throwdown. It still was the medical tourism destination for those with the means to get there when I was in country, 2004-2005.
India benefits from this Afghan flirtation in a couple of ways. First, they get to tweak Pakistan a bit, and send a bit of a message – “Hey, you know that Kashmir thing you guys are always banging on about? How would you like a problem like that on your ‘Pashtunistan’ border?” Second, they have a potential market and trading partner. Any libertarian worth their monocle chain would be glad of reason #2, if not so much #1. As a side note, one of the developments that would help this Afghan-Indian trade involves a little work in Iran. Better than shipping the IRGC pallets of cash and propping up their nuclear weapons program.
What to watch?
I am keen to see the reactions of India and Pakistan to the inevitable wrap up of direct US military involvement in Afghanistan. As for Pakistan, I fear the ISI will say “see, we are winning – Taliban harder!” As for India, I hope they continue to step up trade and support of Afghanistan.
I would welcome your observations, relevant links and thoughts in the comments.
Its Monday again. I have been indifferently productive, which is like a major victory for me. I guess there was some sort of kerfluffle this weekend? Turns out the only 2 channels I don’t get are CBS and Fox. Sounds like I should be grateful. Especially since I called the Texans loss at the beginning of the 4th quarter. I hate Bill O’Brian and think he might be the least talented coach in the NFL. Please to fire his ass. But at least he didn’t bench a QB this game. Ass.
Carlos Danger gets 21 months in prison. “I was a very sick man for a very long time”, he said, pleading guilty. Listen, jerkoff, self-indulgence isn’t a disease. I hope you get that in prison, and may all of your sexual encounters be voluntary.
Just another day in LA, right? At least the baby was unharmed and too young to be really traumatized by what she saw.
Like two fourteen year olds, “I’m gonna kick your ass, take your shot!” “I don’t hit no man first!”
Not sure if this makes vegetative states more or less horrifying. But hey, if I end up like that, put me in a boat, strap my hands to the wheel, wipe all your prints, and make sure the plug blows a
Riven: And on an entirely different note, exactly a year ago I married the perfect man. We’ll be leaving for our honeymoon in Las Vegas on Wednesday, and I can’t wait to watch him compete at USPSA later this week. Happyanniversary,Mr.Riven.<3
Something every libertarian knows is that many people see liberty differently than themselves, and most want to expand the liberty they feel is lacking, not liberty as a general value. Case in point, in my fair country, guns are hard to acquire by civilians, but most to don’t see this as an infringement of liberty.
I wrote a post before about freedom de facto and de jure. There is also the distinction between actual and perceived. I do not smoke marijuana, so I do not see marijuana prohibition as an infringement of liberty. I drink beer and would be outraged at beer prohibition. Most people believe themselves to be free enough, as long as the world seems to be generally how they like it. They feel more liberty with compulsory government healthcare, for example, than without, and care little that others feel their liberty infringed by this. They are, of course, outraged about every little thing they happen to care about and does not go their way.
I was thinking of the perception of freedom by children, which is quite different than adults. A child, as long as he is not an orphan toiling away polishing monocles, sees life–and freedom–as doing as much of what he likes as possible. Often playing. They live in a perfect socialist world–their family–and cares of money or economics are usually distant, relative to adults. This as long as there is a minimum standard of living–and this does not have to be too high, having a roof over their head and food in their belly often is enough. Those from reasonably responsible families, lower middle class upwards, have a special type of freedom, freedom from care. Of course, a child’s real liberty is quite restricted. But the reason this is–their immature mind–is the reason they don’t care about the adult stuff–entering contracts, for example. They, of course, can have a temper tantrum when the freedom they care about–let’s say drawing on a wall–is infringed.
Some left-wingers are much like children in their view–they want the victuals taken care of and want to do what they will with their time. They want to play free from care. Sadly this does not work for adults, wish as they might. But this is not the point of this post, although I can’t pass an opportunity to mock the left.
I was thinking of my very own childhood as an example of a moment of feeling pretty damn free, compared to now, when I perceive all sorts of infringements upon my liberty. Romania still has a sizable rural population as EU countries go, with many country dweller practicing more or less subsistence agriculture–non-remunerated family laborers, as they are called in government statistics.
There was a rather fast attempt at urbanization during communism, to build the glorious industry of the multilaterally developed socialist society. Many urbanites had elderly parents in the country, and it was the custom for city kids to spend holidays with rural grandparents. I was no exception. This was mostly due to lack of availability of other things to do with children when schools closed, but also because it was thought to be good for kids to spend time in the country. I agree with this, I can say they were some of the happiest times of my childhood and were actually good for my development. Those were the days my friend, we thought they’d never… Moving on.
I had no major trauma as a child. I was healthy and so was my family. While not rich, we never really had to worry about our next meal. My parents worked hard and managed to provide as well as possible in those days. The collapse of communism was chaotic for most Romanians, but as a child, I was insulated from most of the worst stuff. It never touched me; I didn’t even realize a lot of it, beyond the sudden availability of a bounty of goods to buy–although not that much money to buy all of them–unlike the last stark years of the old regime.
My grandma lived off the beaten track–as Romania goes–a village along a small river in a valley surrounded by wooded hills. The comforts were not great, but they needn’t be. No running water and the toilet was a latrine unconnected to the house, which got pretty interesting come winter when the blizzard was blowing between the wooden boards. The TV was a black and white vacuum tube number and it needed a minute or so to warm up before starting. But did we complain? I think not. Kids these days!
Back then we were as free range as it got and had the kind of freedom that only a kids have. We had some chores–all village kids did–but not as many as the local boys, we being holidaying city slickers and the like. So much so that the chores were almost fun. Feeding livestock, drawing water from the well (tastier than anything we got in the city), helping in the garden. Those sorts of things took a few of hours. Maybe an hour of school work was needed–we had “holiday homework”.
After that, the long summer day was ours. Nothing we had to do–except be close to home after dark. Not a damn care in the world. We were a gang of some 7 or 8 boys with little adult supervision. There were, as you can imagine, no play dates in rural Romania. As an adult, I now appreciate the value of unstructured play. We had control of our time, and always found the way to stave off boredom.
At no certain time of the day, we would drift to the unpaved road outside the yard, and find whoever drifted there at the same time. In summer, we would have a daily swim in the river–we had our deep holes in the otherwise shallow stream, no adults, no lifeguards, nothing. We would – like all Romanian kids – play football or just wander the hills and forest. All we had to do is scream “Granma we’re going”. We would jump off a high dike in the water, climb trees, and scale ravines and all the good things reckless boys do. Scrapes and bruises were common, but no one got really hurt – some luck involved, I guess, probably lots of kids got hurt in Romania. But bad cases were rare – none in my memory among my group. We were mostly shirtless, often barefoot; with a tan no beach holiday can ever give. We had bows with reed arrows, slingshots, pocket knives, and access to axes, hammers and more.
Average lane in rural Romania, give or take
In a way, country life spoiled me–all summer and some of the autumn I ate just-picked fruit, straight from the tree, and vegetables from the garden. I do not like fully ripe fruit, just about halfway so to be somewhat more sour than sweet, so I could choose just the ones I liked. Milk came from cows those days, not from cartons, and the chickens ran around the yard eating bugs and grass, and the meat and eggs tasted nothing like 90% of store chicken.
It is hard to find good food in most city stores and markets–although things are improving. I am not going to start praising organic for the sake of organic, but most fruit and vegetables in the city markets are not picked at the right time and spend some time in crates. The stuff in supermarkets, at least in Romania, is inedible to me. I don’t know if it was in my favour to get the taste for the good stuff or, like life-long city dwellers, to think the food you find is good, because you don’t know better. I am a city person now and like it that way, so I won’t go back to live in the country anytime soon. The trade-offs are not worth it. But I can have the odd pastoral fantasy. And I can be amused of urban friends who couldn’t tell a sheep from a goat up close well in their twenties.
In the end, rural childhood was a taste of freedom missing from some city raised kids, and one I won’t likely find again. Maybe it is one of the many reasons urban folk favour government on the bigger side. Or maybe not. As country grandparents start disappearing, new generations of kids will not have access to this. They couldn’t, really. Or maybe they will from a VR headset or the next Minecraft. They will have many things I did not, and anyway you can’t go all Luddite about things, and I do not. But one can occasionally be nostalgic of things past.
Finally, Lewis, like Yost, points to the EU’s maritime deregulations regarding coastal commerce as an example to be considered in adjusting long-term policies – keeping in mind the government’s push to incentivize and increase short sea shipping as a counterpoint to increased road and rail traffic (Lewis, 101).
