And while I’m on a political tear, I’m feeling warm fuzzies for Cory Booker today.
And while I’m on a political tear, I’m feeling warm fuzzies for Cory Booker today.
A conservative who hates, hates, hates partisan judicial elections, I’m nevertheless gratified that the liberal overcame Musk’s millions behind a Trumpist in Wisconsin yesterday.
“Fascist” slightly misses the mark. M. Gessen hits a bulls-eye:
Unmarked Vans. Secret Lists. Public Denunciations. Our Police State Has Arrived.
Religion (whatever it is) is so insidious that it infiltrated and took over the Freedom from Religion Foundation.
Steve Robinson has a very interesting place in American Orthodoxy. He tells the truth and tells it slant, as in Stealing Paradise.
And he does it on his own, when inspiration strikes and his schedule permits — which is less often than I wish it were.
There’s currently no country in Europe where more than half of the population has a positive attitude toward the US, according to a YouGov poll published March 4. Opinion soured the most in Denmark, where leaders and residents were riled by Trump’s plans to take control of Greenland. (Sources: bloomberg.com, yougov.co.uk)
A long-time Signal user, I’ve been appalled at the shade being cast on the app rather than the users.
But Wired thinks it’s onto something about Venmo, which I don’t use, and my eyes glaze over.
I guess I should be more forgiving of those that don’t understand some app that I take for granted.
I may have spoken too hastily about Signal’s invulnerability to hacking..
One can argue that this is still user error rather than a flaw in Signal, but it’s a closer call.
Goldilocks Protestantism by @eastbrad has given me something to chew on. Now I’ve got to decide whether sharing it with my wife, a member (and, of necessity, now a leader) of a true Protestant church with a very “vacant pulpit,” would just discourage her even more.
I have traveled to the Holy Land twice, both in the last ten years. Doing so wasn’t on any “bucket list,” but I’d sure love to go spend hours and hours in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. I can’t get enough of it, and going there as part of a tour always means moving on too soon.
Occam’s razor, the venerable philosophical principle that the truest explanation is likely to be the simplest, has been thrown away. We’re living in the age of Occam’s chain saw, when the preferred answer is the one that makes the loudest noise and generates the most debris.
Finished C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces. 📚 I didn’t get it last time I tried, 40-50 years ago, and didn’t finish.
I think it’s the kind of book that needs a little wisdom in the reader, and I guess I’ve gained a bit of that in my advanced years.
Signalgate is not about Signal:
Indeed, using Signal on internet-connected commercial devices doesn’t just leave communications open to anyone who can somehow exploit a hackable vulnerability in Signal, but anyone who can hack the iOS, Android, Windows, or Mac devices that might be running the Signal mobile or desktop apps.
Aziz Huq, America Is Watching the Rise of a Dual State. Alongside the “normative state” that allows the economy to lurch along, Trump is building a “prerogative state” that allows him his retributions and grandstanding.
There’s a lot to think about in A Confessing Church for America’s Weimar Moment, but I couldn’t escape the dread that there really is no “American Church” to issue a Barmen Declaration to Weimar America. Some “Christian” sectarians are prominent among Weimar’s fans.
Still: much to think about.
Jack Goldsmith of Harvard Law School takes a closer look at District Court “universal injunctions” than one normally sees.
Part of the reason Trump keeps losing in court is that he replaced career attorneys at DOJ with toadies and then started writing checks that even good lawyers couldn’t cash.
I don’t know if he coined it, but Damon Linker today uses the wonderfully-apt “ransom notes” to describe the intended effect of many of the ochre emperor’s Executive Orders.
Trump Voters Love Him More Than Before. Four Conservative Columnists Pinpoint Why..
Though all four columnists are anti-Trumpers, it still gives me a glimmer of insight into what most of the time strikes me as invincible perversity. Four of my top five highlights are David Brooks.
My friend Roger Wiens relocated here from Los Alamos a few year ago. He has what you definitely could call a “niche job.”
Our main local TV station’s billionaire owner has cut most of its top talent and even delivers our weather forecast from Atlanta sometimes. Our former top weather forecaster chose to remain in the community and set up a weather Substack. It’s almost too much to read; much more thorough than any TV.
Reading this latest from Fr. Stephen Freeman (about Lewis’ The Great Divorce, a book that drew me away from Protestantism), I’m reminded of one of his arresting phrases from the longer ago: Christ did not come to make bad men good, but to make dead men live.
I don’t want to be smug, but after watching George Mason vs. VCU, I’m pretty confident that neither of them will beat the worst Big Ten team in the NCAA Tournament.
I clipped it a few days ago but only found the time today to read David Brooks, It Isn’t Just Trump. America’s Whole Reputation Is Shot. (Shared article)
The title is just about perfect. European reactions especially welcome.