Analysis or make-work? Not much here.
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Shellenberger: The Crime Spike in San Franciso
Former liberal commentator — currently centrist — Michael Shellenberger explains the recent lawlessness in the Bay Area.
THIS IS REAL, FOLKS.
GS’s Take on Omicron
Where GS gets its information I’ve no idea. And please note — THIS IS AN INVESTMENT CALL THEY’RE MAKING — NOT MEDICAL ADVICE.
“The level of restrictions in SA at the moment (measured by the government stringency index) is low (relative to Israel or Austria for example, see chart below). This can be helping faster spread that isn’t necessarily driven exclusively by the virus characteristics.”
“Conclusion: while we do not have sufficient information to forecast a global B.1.1.529 wave, a high rate of transmission almost inevitably leads to a variant dominance. Nevertheless, we can have reasonable degree of confidence that this mutation is unlikely to be more malicious and that the existing vaccines will most likely continue to be effective in preventing hospitalizations and deaths. As such, while we would monitor the situation in Gauteng closely over the next month, we do not think that the new variant is sufficient reason to make major portfolio changes.”
WE’LL SEE WHERE IT GOES FROM HERE.
Leaders’ Approval Scorecard
An unforgiving world.
And, damn, don’t we know it.
Cars with Longest Production Runs
For vehicle lovers.
Six Pack
The Breath
When light fades, evening cools
And fear reclaims the heart;
When time itself condenses
And flows like futile tears;
When dread becomes Electra
And scares O'Neill to death;
When suns rise misbegotten --
Mobilize the breath.
Integration matters most
As close connections mount.
Power still empowers best
When drama doesn't count.
We're not in charge,
We never were.
The source sows only doubt.
Teach yourself to breathe.
JAD, 2021
Near GCT
Sharper light at 3PM,
A warming, autumn breeze,
As whiffs of summer's
Fading scent
Compete with fresher air.
I've bought the cheese,
The train is next;
I'm set to head upstate.
What renaissance awaits me,
What world is this I'll miss.
JAD, 2021
Late October
Winded on West
57th,
I watch dirty weather
Roll in.
Where towers, each sheerer,
As if to defy it,
Rise in a dull
Pewter sky.
Shards of glazed metal
Enveloped in cloud
Suggest to me
War's broken spears,
Remnants of heroes
And fitted to scale,
Headstones for slaughters
To come.
JAD, 2021
Halloween Eve
As that certain Saturday
Something,
Those breaths now communally
Communally shared,
Those ranks of the
Doggedly living --
Stoked hope's ever hoped-for
Return . . .
I sensed no enduring
Attachment
Nor thought to revisit
My ghosts
But walked in the night
As I had as a kid,
Through mazes of
Soft disbelief.
JAD, 2021
The Fatalist
The traffic back on
Second growls
As prowlers stalk these streets.
I'm live inside my
Fuming head,
Alert to mutant strains.
The train of moments
Catching up
Competes with tangled whims.
I notice missing
Gestures less --
Dead before their time.
My past by now,
Discerns no past
Beyond this haunted search.
As entropy's new
Acolyte,
I court no anguished loss.
The breeze for some,
Its simple thrill,
Implies some urgent world.
I see no world
Remotely close --
None within my reach.
The chancing glance
Of happenstance
No longer tenders choice.
The fatalist turned
Fugitive,
Conceals his fierce distress.
The ambient
Apocalypse
Is worming in his ear.
The strollers slowing,
Finally stop,
Tethered to their phones.
JAD, 2021
Recalling Thanksgiving
It was grandparents mainly,
An uncle who drank
And, one year, two cousins
My age.
There was shopping and cooking
The evening before,
Excitement approaching
Delight.
Twice a year china
And glassware appeared
As we pulled out the
Table, its leaves.
Dinner was early,
A part of the rite,
Though first came the
Football in town.
The crowds always buoyant --
Certain we'd win --
Seemed part of some
Triumph foretold.
Back at the table,
My father said grace.
We mumbled and lowered
Our heads.
The bird in its platter --
Flesh of our creed --
Embodied what words
Cannot teach.
We ate it directly
And everything else
As though we had
Never seen food.
JAD, 2021
Where To Find Rare Earths
Seventeen of the world’s most strategically important elements.
And they’re ONE OF THE REASONS the US CANNOT DECOUPLE ECONOMICALLY from China.
And to GO TO WAR with China would be like SLITTING OUR OWN THROATS.
China: ‘A Rolling Loan Gathers No Loss’
From Macro Ops substack.
“Chinese banks are sitting on trillions of bad debt. Exactly how much bad debt nobody quite knows. The data coming out of the country is iffy but we at least we know it’s in the trillions… which is a lot.
“These banks have been rolling over bad loans by adding new debt. They’re playing the old game of “a rolling loan gathers no loss”. But we all know that game can only go on for so long.
“China has been forced to go to greater and greater lengths to paper over this problem and keep the dam from breaking.
“Over the last 18 months alone, credit in China has grown by $6.5 trillion while deposits have increased by less than half that. As Bass notes in the interview, “China has to fund enormous moves in credit growth just to keep in roughly the same place. We call it running to stand still.”
“All it’ll take is a catalyst and these banks will go bust and will need to be recapitalized. This means printing a lot more money which will result in a much depreciated yuan.”
SOME SAY THE WORLD RUNS ON LIES. NO, IT RUNS ON DEBT. AND THAT INCLUDES CHINA. IT POSSESSES NO MAGICAL POWERS.
Loury, McWhorter, Kennedy
For anyone looking for a FRANK, HONEST and FACT-BASED discussion on THE STATE OF RACE IN THIS COUNTRY, look no further.
Brown’s Glenn Loury, Columbia’s John McWhorter and Harvard Law’s Randall Kennedy tackle the issue as FEW HAVE TO DATE. Let’s hope that discussions like this one serve as a template for what we might expect in the future.
As for my own view, Glenn Loury is truly THE MAN. As always, he EXHORTS BLACKS TO JOIN AMERICA AND SEE THEMSELVES AS AMERICANS.
Forget BLACK LIVES MATTER as a SLOGAN. What blacks should be telling BIGOTED WHITES IS:
I’M JUST AS AMERICAN AS YOU ARE.
This one SHOULDN’T BE MISSED.
The Cancelled Fight Back
The counterattack has begun.
The University of Austin: How the Cancelled Are Fighting Back
From the piece:
“Universities are in trouble. Where free speech, open inquiry and the pursuit of truth once reigned, a culture of intolerance and conformity has taken over. Academia and campus life, in the US and the UK, have been blighted by cancel culture. Alternative opinions are shut down and controversial speakers are shut out. Now the free-speech fightback has begun in earnest. Last week, plans were announced to establish a new university, the University of Austin, which will be explicitly dedicated to academic freedom and open inquiry.”
TUDOR PLACE: Peter Boghossian — the interviewee-subject of this piece and one of the faculty founders of this new university — forms, for me, one-third of an INTEGRITY TRINITY that also includes Jordan Peterson and Bret Weinstein.
Some quotes from the interview:
- The University of Austin is not about creating people who hold particular conclusions. It is about creating people who can think, who can be intellectually and even emotionally resilient – people who can defend their positions.
TUDOR PLACE: In other words, STUDENTS EQUIPPED TO FIGHT PROPAGANDA.
- It is important to understand that every time you remove debate, you encourage unscientific thinking, because there is no way to falsify ideas. They necessarily lapse into ideologies. That is made worse by people explicitly pushing these ideologies.
TUDOR PLACE: And the dominant ideology on campuses today is “social justice.” In fact, many universities today have become little more than “SOCIAL JUSTICE-FACTORIES.”
TUDOR PLACE: May I be blunt? To the WOKE, you’re either WOKE or a PROTO-FASCIST/TRANS-PHOBE/WHITE SUPREMACIST.
TUDOR PLACE: THIS COUNTRY WAS FOUNDED ON THE BASIS OF FREEDOM OF THOUGHT AND EXPRESSION, NOT ON SO-CALLED SOCIAL JUSTICE IDEOLOGIES SERVING AS COVER FOR A POWER GRAB.
By the way, another new university, Ralston College, in Savannah, Georgia, has also started up. And for the SAME REASONS as the University of Austin. Its founder, Stephen Blackwood, is a colleague of Jordan Peterson’s. Here’s the link:
And here’s the one to the University of Austin:
And I’m sure MORE WILL FOLLOW.
Tudor Place 