MATHEMATICAL:

In 1940, the Mississippi singer Bukka White released the song Parchman Farm Blues as a testament of the two years he spent in the Mississippi State Penitentiary, a notorious prison-labour work farm also known as Parchman Farm - and the site of some of the most remarkable music in American history.

While serving a sentence for shooting a man in the leg, the singer recorded a few songs for the white musicologist John Lomax, but it wasn't until he was out that he wrote and recorded Parchman Farm Blues: a warning to stay off the farm, a lament of the long work day and a cry for deliverance. The song still resonates, demonstrating the chilling, natural power of delta blues, the profound isolation experienced by inmates, the harshness of prison labour camps, and the deep, almost visceral need to let song sustain you; to let the voice carry you out into the open, to freedom. [...]

Nowhere is this truer than Parchman Farm, which today has beds for nearly 5,000 inmate workers, many of whom are continuing its remarkable musical legacy. The producer Ian Brennan wanted to give them the opportunity to be heard. "It's mathematical. It's not philosophical. It shouldn't be politicised," Brennan says. "Mississippi has the highest poverty, the second highest rate of incarceration in the US, and African Americans are incarcerated at least five times the rate of white people. That inequity has no place in even a semblance of a democracy. That's my motivation." In February, he travelled to Parchman Farm to record a Sunday gospel service with the blessing of the prison chaplains, which was released last week as Some Mississippi Sunday Morning.

Brennan has been recording for nearly 40 years, with much of his work documenting underrepresented people and places. In 2011, he won a Grammy for his work in the Sahara on Tinariwen's album Tassili, and he was nominated for another for 2015's Zomba Prison Project in Malawi. After three and a half years (a wait exacerbated by the pandemic), Brennan was finally granted access to the Mississippi State Penitentiary with a week's notice - in part, because of pressure applied by lawsuits filed by the rapper Yo Gotti and Team Roc, the philanthropic arm of Jay-Z's Roc Nation label, on behalf of the inmates, citing inhumane living conditions. [...]

The music of Some Mississippi Sunday Morning is as tragic as it is striking; raw and naked in the baldness of singing and its emotional honesty. The singer and pianist who performs on Give Myself Away, So You Can Use Me, who asked to remain anonymous, submits himself to the song, the concession in the lyrics giving his feelings a form. On Solve My Need, a man identified as M Palmer delivers a booming baritone that hits like a foghorn.

Gospel is a foundation of American music, especially in the south, and its melodies and messages have always lent themselves to times of unrest, as a balm for those seeking hope. But you can hear the way Sunday services are particularly restorative for someone incarcerated - not simply because of the promise of redemption, but the solace of not being alone. The closer, Lay My Burden Down, a communal performance that was the last thing recorded during Brennan's visit, brought a group of divided men together as a unified body, and inmates initially separated along various ideological lines began high-fiving, hugging, smiling, and laughing. [...]

Very early on, Brennan provided me a sort of mission statement for his work: "Ethically and morally, we are obligated to listen to those least listened to or even silenced or censored." For him, questions about encroachment have to take a backseat to what must be heard. "It's very important that the music stands on its own," Brennan says. "Anybody that focuses on the politics of it is doing the artists a disservice. Because the focus should be on their voices." Imbued with a deep longing to be defined by more than the worst moment in their lives, those voices ring out and stir the soul

LIBERALISM IS THE DEFENSE OF REPUBLICAN LIBERTY:

[W]alzer has a knack for drawing the reader into his argument as he thinks out loud, doubling back on himself, testing his ideas against experience, and checking his own impulses in a friendly, conversational tone. As he proceeds ever so reasonably, he carries you right along with him, having you nodding in agreement until, at times, you are surprised to discover where he has led you.

These qualities are on display in Walzer's most recent book, The Struggle for a Decent Politics: On "Liberal" as an Adjective, which is part memoir, part theoretical reinterpretation of liberalism, and part capstone to a long career. (On the first page of his preface, Walzer remarks, poignantly, "this may be my last book.") In it, he examines his most important personal, political, and professional commitments--to democracy, socialism, nationalism, communitarianism, feminism, academia, and Judaism--asking in each case what it means for such a commitment to be "liberal."

In doing so, he turns our attention away from thinking about "liberalism" and instead toward the project of his subtitle: thinking about "liberal" as an "adjective," or what he calls "a new way of describing and defending" the political commitments he has endorsed over many decades. Our primary commitments, he suggests--the "nouns" we embrace, like democracy, socialism, or feminism--name the goods or ways of life we pursue, whereas "liberal" describes a specific manner of pursuing them. It requires that we be "open-minded, generous, and tolerant"; neither relativists nor dogmatists; and ever pragmatic, skeptical, and pluralist. The adjective brings certain "liberal qualifications" to all the nouns it modifies: "the constraint of political power; the defense of individual rights; the pluralism of parties, religions, and nations; the openness of civil society; the rights of opposition and disagreement; the accommodation of difference; the welcome of strangers."

Walzer's descriptions of his own liberal commitments make this picture more concrete. To be a democrat is to recognize the right of the people to shape and pursue its own common life; but to be a liberal democrat is also to oppose all forms of majoritarian tyranny over minorities, to "defend a state where power is constrained, where the common life is pluralist and inclusive, . . . and where every man and woman is a political agent, able to join any and all meetings and movements and free to stay home--the equal of all the others." To be a socialist is to be committed to egalitarianism, the reduction of poverty, and a world in which wealth cannot be converted into political power or access to goods like education or health care; but to be a liberal socialist is also to insist on building this world through persuasion rather than force, resisting the claims of an unrepresentative "vanguard" to impose its egalitarian vision forcibly on unenlightened fellow citizens. To be a nationalist is to "put the interests of [one's] own nation first;" but to be a liberal nationalist is to "do that and recognize the right of other people to do the same thing--and . . . then insist that all the 'firsts' accommodate one another." And so on. As he weaves back and forth between the commitments and their liberal qualifications, Walzer combines a robust defense of moral and political ideals with an honest recognition (and not merely grudging acceptance) that they must be pursued in partnership (and heated debate) with fellow citizens who are equally committed to their own different and opposing ideals.

THIRD LEG OF THE STOOL:

Enduring Interest is very pleased to launch our series on speech and censorship with this conversation on Jonathan Rauch's Kindly Inquisitors, first published in 1993 and reissued in 2013 with a new afterword. We discuss Jonathan's conception of "liberal science," or the liberal intellectual system's approach to sorting truth from falsehood. He suggests this is arguably liberalism's greatest achievement yet seems always under attack from a variety of quarters. We discuss the fundamentalist and humanitarian threats to free speech, focusing most of our attention on the latter. Can speech cause harm? If yes, why should one not limit it? We compare and contrast the threats to free speech as Jonathan saw them back in 1993 with the situation today. We conclude with Jonathan's recommendations for books and essays that make the case for free speech.

IT'S WHY THE rIGHT HATES THE FOUNDING:

Transitioning from the second to the third section, Douglass noted there were those who claimed all the horrors and injustices of slavery he "denounced" were "guaranteed and sanctioned by the Constitution of the United States" as "framed by the illustrious Fathers of this Republic." In contrast to the "honest men" Douglass proclaimed the Founders to be in the first section, those who enlisted the Constitution to defend slavery suggested the Founders "were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind." Douglass vehemently disagreed with those who charged such "baseness on the framers of the Constitution of the United States." 

Americans who use this speech to denounce the Founding or the Constitution as explicitly pro-slavery find themselves in stark disagreement with Douglass. Instead, they find themselves, ironically, in agreement with supporters of slavery who made the same argument: that the Constitution was designed to protect slavery.

This odd alliance between ideological opponents is not new. Elements of the abolitionist movement, chief among them William Lloyd Garrison, made similar arguments at the time. Garrison went so far as to burn a copy of the Constitution, denouncing it as "A Covenant with Death and an Agreement with Hell." Since Douglass opposed both the Garrisonian and pro-slavery interpretation of the Founding, one assumes he would equally oppose the anti-Founding views of modern self-loathing Americans. 

While the sheer power of the second section of the speech will always stand out, arguably, the most radical sentences come near the conclusion. "The Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT," Douglass boldly declared. He implored his audience to "Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? or is it in the temple? It is neither." As the "charter of our liberties, which every citizen has a personal interest in understanding thoroughly," Douglass was convinced the Constitution contained "principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery." 

Lucas Morel points out Douglass could use "incendiary" language "as well as any abolitionist of the day," but what makes this speech truly shocking is this was the "first speech where he announced that he had a change of heart and mind in particular about the constitution." Douglass refused to stay in his echo chamber. He read widely, thought critically, and, in the end, changed his mind. After his courageous fight against slavery and passionate defense of the Founding, Douglass' truly liberal approach to learning may be his greatest lesson for us today. 

"Notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented of the state of the nation," concluded Douglass, "I do not despair of this country... I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope." And where did this "hope" come from? He found it in "the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions." Douglass ends the same way he began, with a passionate defense of the Founding. His powerful condemnation of slavery in the second section of the speech came not from a hatred of America, but a deep love for the promise held in the nation's Founding Charters. 

In defending the Founders, the Declaration, and the Constitution, while harshly criticizing the nation for failing to live up to the principles it proclaimed, Douglass revealed himself to be that most unfashionable thing: a patriot.

EVEN IF YOU PRETEND IT IS RATIONAL FOR VLAD TO DESTROY HIS OWN REGIME...:

Mearsheimer and Rosato detect an increasingly strong acceptance among both academics and laymen that 'states' often behave nonrationally. In their view, the growing acceptance of this position is a serious problem both for the modern field of international relations theory, which has generally been premised on the notion that states and their leaders are rational actors, and also for political leaders, who faced with a world of madmen would be unable to make good decisions. As neither the study nor practice of international politics 'can be coherent in a world where nonrationality prevails', the authors intend to demonstrate that 'states are rational most of the time'. They will do so by offering 'a meaningful definition of rationality in international politics where none existed', then comparing it to a series of cases where nonrational state behaviour has been claimed by others. The historical record will then show that most of these cases have been examples of rational behaviour after all.

What is this new, meaningful definition of state rationality? At the individual level, 'Rationality is all about making sense of the world for the purpose of navigating it in the pursuit of desired goals.' That is to say, rational people form theories of the world and make decisions in light of those theories. In the words of the authors, man is 'homo theoreticus'. But not every theory is rational - it must be a credible theory. One gets no points for acting in accordance with the view that the moon is made of cheese. Furthermore, a 'state is rational if the views of its key decision makers are aggregated through a deliberative process and the final policy is based on a credible theory'.

Clearly, a lot hangs on the word 'credible' here. The authors provide us with a three-part test of credibility: the theory must be based on realistic assumptions, must involve logical causation, and must be verified by empirical support in the historical record. Even more helpfully, they then list the theories that are credible in the context of international politics, and condemn the ones that are not.

Which theories make the cut? As it happens, they are the academic theories promoted by the major modern schools of international relations. Defensive, offensive, and hegemonic realism and their major subvariants are on the approved list, as are (ecumenically, it must be said, given the authors' realism) democratic peace theory, economic interdependence theory, liberal institutionalism, and finally a set of theories falling within social constructivism.

How can a state hope to navigate rationally in the face of such generous pluralism? Well, as 'no credible theory applies to all problems', it's anticipated that policymakers will mix and match among credible academic theories, which 'find their way into the minds of aspiring decision makers before those individuals begin to make policy'. Moreover, the authors also helpfully provide a list of noncredible theories, ranging from the universally condemned (racial theories prevalent in scholarship a century ago) to upstart academic theories today that, in the authors' view, fail some element of their three-part test (for example: neoclassical realism, audience costs theory, nuclear coercion theory, and several more).

In other words, Mearsheimer and Rosato's book is an attempt by pre-eminent international relations scholars to seize the mantle of who gets to define rationality in the context of international politics from scholars dealing with rational choice theory and from the political psychologists who had been enjoying that privilege. In the view of the authors, both of these schools are failing to live up to their responsibilities, in the first case by failing to describe a mental process in which rational decisions actually happen, and in the latter case by simply surrendering to the argument that irrational choices are prevalent - that people rely on analogies or heuristics rather than full-blown theories. The historical record simply shows, in the authors' view, that this is not the case - state level decision-making seems to attract a clearer-headed sort of person who avoids these kinds of errors - and even, for the most part, avoids being overcome by his or her passions, as 'instances of emotions driving the train [in international politics] are rare'.

So much for the liberal pundits, the economists, and the psychologists. If the approach described here seems solipsistic, or perhaps a bit circular - the approach of international relations theorists, which depends upon rational decision making by policymakers, is vindicated because in fact policymakers make rational decisions using international relations theories that are definitionally rational, say international relations theorists - well, the historical record will have to be the judge.

IT'S A DEVICE TO MAKE PARENTS THINK TEACHERS ARE DOING THEIR JOBS:

"Homework is seen to benefit time management, self-discipline, [and] organizational skills, but there have been no studies that really have shown that homework actually either develops those skills or reinforces them," says Etta Kralovec, professor emerita at the University of Arizona and author of The End of Homework and Schools That Do Too Much. She's not the only homework researcher who is questioning how and why homework is done. Linda Cameron and Lee Bartel from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education have critiqued homework practices in Canada, noting, in 2010, that homework "may well be the 'tipping point' for the next educational reform movement" because the issue is "now uppermost in many parents' and teachers' minds." Denise Pope, a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, has found that, for many students, homework is the greatest source of stress in their lives. Homework stress can lead to burnout and negative impacts on academic achievement.

Kralovec tells me that there is no benefit to homework for elementary school students at all. A meta-analysis published in 2006 by Harris M. Cooper, distinguished professor emeritus at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, looked at all of the homework research that had been done in the United States between 1987 and 2003 and found that homework had "no association with achievement gain" in students from kindergarten through grade five. And while there is a link between homework and academic success in middle and high school students, Kralovec says that might be more correlation than causation. One example she gives is that students taking advanced placement classes in high school typically do more homework than their peers in other classes: Are they having more academic success because they do more homework, or are they doing more homework because those advanced classes tend to assign more of it?

Kralovec says that not only are the benefits of homework questionable but the practice also has clear detriments. It takes time away from more meaningful things that families can do together, like reading or playing. It can create tension between parent and child by placing them in the role of teacher and student--especially if the child already finds that a nerve-wracking role to play at school. It might also limit the extracurricular activities the child can participate in, especially if they're expected to do homework every night.

Part of the issue is that children, like adults, perform better when they have adequate outlets for stress--like exercise or leisure. In a groundbreaking educational program in Vanves, France, that started in 1950, students showed improved academic achievement when classroom time was shortened and physical education was extended. Follow-up studies, including some done in Canadian cities like Victoria, BC, and Trois-Rivières, Quebec, have produced similar results. Another facet to consider is that academic competency is not the only capability children need to develop: a study by Mollie Galloway, Jerusha Conner, and Denise Pope found that students overloaded with homework were "not meeting their developmental needs or cultivating other critical life skills."

60-40 NATION:

MEDIA IS A BUSINESS...:

I take no joy in saying this, but we in the press are moral cowards.

Last Friday, former President Donald Trump called for the execution of U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, branding him a traitor. This was because Milley told his Chinese counterparts, toward the end of the Trump administration, that the U.S. was not planning to invade China and start World War III. In other words, Milley reiterated official U.S. policy since the end of World War II, which Trump is apparently unaware that we won. But forgive him: He also seems to think Jeb Bush was president.

A few days later, our actual president, Joe Biden, made history by standing on a picket line with striking UAW members in Michigan. 

We in the press didn't tell you much about that, but we wasted airtime, pixels and ink reporting that Trump calls himself "pro-worker" -- though there is no evidence of that to be found anywhere. We also told you that Biden wears tennis shoes. We pretty much ignored Trump's threat against the chairman of the Joint Chiefs -- who Trump himself appointed, by the way. We have also done minimal reporting on the New York judge who imposed the "corporate death penalty" on Trump's business enterprises this week and may end up confiscating Trump's property, after issuing a summary judgment that Trump's companies actively engaged in fraud over many years. 

WE WERE, BRIEWFLY, ABLE TO FOCUS THEIR HATRED ON THE COMMIES...:

[F]usionist conservatism was quickly faced with internal tensions or contradictions and the prospect of disintegration after the defeat of the Soviet menace. The more traditionalist or "paleo" conservatives like Pat Buchanan lambasted the free trade and open border policies promoted by the classical liberals as economically and culturally destructive of America. And paleocons were increasingly critical of the next generation of neocons' apparent desire for American-led liberal hegemony. In this light, the election of Donald Trump represented not only a backlash against the cultural aggression of the Left, but also a resurgence of paleocon ideas, which have found new theoretical life and expression in national conservatism.

A RELIGION OR A RACE?:

Until recently, American rabbis have rarely criticized Israel, mostly because any critique is bound to offend members who view the country reverently. Many American Jews see Israel as core to their spiritual identity and pray for Israel's security at every Shabbat service. They visit frequently and fund various causes in the country through charitable donations.

These commitments have begun to waver since late December, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assembled a governing coalition that was anchored by ultranationalist parties. Its first bid was to take greater control of the judiciary, passing a law in July that limits the Israeli Supreme Court's ability to overturn decisions made by the government.

Thousands of Israelis have flooded the streets in weekly protests exhorting crowds against the government and what they see as a grave challenge to Israel's democracy.

But Brous identified the source of the tumor growing in Israel's government as the 56-year occupation of Palestinian lands, which many of the government's ministers believe were promised to Israel by God. 

"Many of us have spent years trying not to look," Brous said of the occupation, in part because Jews feared any criticism of Israel would fuel rising antisemitism. But Jews, she told her congregation, can be victimizers as well as victims.

ALL IN YOUR HEAD:

The idea that melodies can comfort a troubled soul has ancient origins. Jewish scripture reports that Saul would be visited by an evil spirit that made him depressed, upon which he would call for David to soothe him with his lyre. "David would take the lyre and play it; Saul would find relief and feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him."

The academic literature tends to distinguish "music medicine" from "music therapy". The latter requires the participation of a trained expert and may involve playing an instrument, composing or improvising. Music medicine is far easier to roll out: it involves listening to recorded music and can be done by yourself.

As you might expect, the creative expression of music therapy produces the most consistent benefits, but multiple studies confirm that the mere act of listening can be an effective treatment for symptoms of depression, anxiety, insomnia and physical pain. Two trials have even found that a regular prescription of music can reduce the blood pressure of people with hypertension by 6mmHg. That's enough to lower the risk of a stroke by 13%.

IT'S A RICO CASE:

While the trial will determine the size of the penalty, Justice Engoron's ruling granted one of the biggest punishments Ms. James sought: the cancellation of business certificates that allow some of Mr. Trump's New York properties to operate, a move that could have major repercussions for the Trump family business.

The decision could terminate his control over a flagship commercial property at 40 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan and a family estate in Westchester County. Mr. Trump might also lose control over his other New York properties, including Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan and his golf club in Westchester.

The order will not dissolve Mr. Trump's company, which is a collection of hundreds of entities, but the decision could nonetheless have a sweeping impact on the heart of its New York operations. 

IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD:

When it comes to depression, however, placebos have been acting a bit strange over the past few decades: They've been getting more potent since at least the 1980s. A number of studies have shown this is the case for pill-based placebos, and a few have hinted that it applies to transcranial magnetic stimulation as well. The new study aims to be a comprehensive meta-analysis that's large enough to both test whether the improvement really exists, and to figure out if it's associated with any specific types of study.

The researchers started with a pool of over 2,700 individual studies that used transcranial magnetic stimulation to treat depression. After selecting for high-quality clinical trial data that included randomization and blinding, they were left with only 52 trials and a total of 4,500 participants, about half of which received a placebo treatment.

These placebos always involved hardware, but the hardware could be either inoperative or mis-directed. The non-placebo treatments included a variety of different transcranial magnetic stimulation approaches.

Since you can't really do a placebo control for a placebo, the work simply focused on whether the participants reported improvements in their conditions. And, in fact, the placebos did, pretty consistently, although the actual treatment typically had a larger effect. (Using a measure called the "response magnitude," the placebo was rated at 24 percent, while the actual treatment hit 38 percent.)

To look into whether things were changing over time, the researchers divided the trials up into two batches, one covering the years between 1999 and 2007, and a second covering 2018 to 2022. The effect of both the placebo and the treatment went up over time. The two, however, went up in parallel, so the change didn't affect the trial outcomes.

THE rIGHT'S CIRCULAR FIRING SQUAD:

Kilmeade began by speaking with the former Ukrainian president -- defeated by Zelensky in the country's 2019 election -- about the war in Russia. He then transitioned to the interview with Shokin, who'd referred to Poroshenko as his friend.

He played a clip from the Shokin interview in which the former prosecutor claimed that "Poroshenko fired me at the insistence of the then-vice-president Biden because I was investigating Burisma. ... There were no complaints whatsoever, no problems with how I was performing at my job. But because pressure was repeatedly put on President Poroshenko, that is what ended up in him firing me."

This is patently untrue, as has been established repeatedly. But Kilmeade presented it to Poroshenko as possible, asking if that is, in fact, why Shokin was fired.

"First of all, this is the completely crazy person," Poroshenko began. "This is something wrong with him."

"Second," the nonnative English speaker continued, "there is no one single word of truth. And third, I hate the idea to make any comments and to make any intervention in the American election." He asked that Kilmeade "not use such person like Shokin to undermine the trust between bipartisan support and Ukraine."

"He's not your friend?" Kilmeade asked.

"I don't see him -- maybe four years or something," Poroshenko replied. "At all. And I hate the idea to have him because he play very dirty game, unfortunately."

"Okay, so that is not true," Kilmeade continued. "He didn't get fired because of Joe Biden." Poroshenko confirmed that he did not, saying that Shokin was fired "for his own statement."

IT'S PROGRESS WHEN THEY STOP PRETENDING IT'S ART:

More than 50 years ago, the philosopher Marshall McLuhan famously declared (in an aphorism often misattributed to Andy Warhol): "Art is anything you can get away with." For nearly the whole history of human creativity, of course, that wasn't true. Talent and skill were required to produce works regarded as art, and artistic greatness required striving for truth or excellence or beauty.

But over the past century, as critics, collectors, and academics genuflected ever more reverently before works that amounted to mere stunts, gimmicks, or provocations, "art" really did come to be anything the artist could get away with. A banana duct-taped to an art gallery's wall made headlines in 2019 when it sold for $120,000. But such antics are now legion in arts circles.

At the Manchester Art Gallery in Great Britain, a wadded-up sheet of paper is displayed in a glass case and identified as "Work No. 88″ by the English artist Martin Creed. The museum has recorded a video in which a staff member explains the significance of displaying something so insignificant. "You might come across this," she says, "and feel frustrated and think: Why is that there? Why is that considered to be art? But that response is also valuable; it's also a creative response that can't happen if this work hadn't been made."

By such logic, what wouldn't qualify as display-worthy art? In recent years, museums have exhibited "art" involving pieces of dung, individuals throwing up, an American flag on the floor to be walked on, a plank of wood painted black and propped against a wall, and a messy unmade bed. As far back as 1917, Marcel Duchamp conceived of submitting a porcelain urinal, titled "Fountain," to a New York exhibition staged by the Society of Independent Artists. To their credit, the society's directors refused to display the item, regarding it as rude. A century later, anything goes -- the ruder (or sillier or dumber or shallower), the better. Art is anything you can get away with.

ONLY HALF THE BATTLE:

The demonstrators are all ages. One sees grandparents, parents, and children side by side. Nearly all belong to what can be called secular Israel, keeping in mind that many secular Israelis observe some Jewish rituals in their homes; kippot and other signs of strict religious observance are rare. Few of the protesters have been involved in political activity before. They are not demonstrating for a cause or ideology. They have turned out week after week because they fear that the alliance of an indicted prime minister, brainless and spineless politicians, fundamentalist rabbis, Land of Israel zealots, and Kahanist

xenophobes that is now running the country they live in and love will make it unlivable.

And they have succeeded. When Justice Minister Yariv Levin presented his judicial reform plan to the Knesset on January 4, it contained four main planks: the abolition of the courts' right to strike down legislation or executive action as "unreasonable"; an "override clause" that would empower the Knesset to reverse court decisions by a simple majority vote; a change in the composition of Israel's Judicial Selection Committee that would give the elected government control of the appointment of all judges; and the demotion of the attorney general's office to a merely advisory body whose representatives could be fired at will and whose legal opinions, hitherto binding on the government's ministries, could be freely ignored. These measures would have allowed the Knesset and government to pass any law and issue any edict without effective judicial review or restraint, and ultimately, to pack the courts with subservient judges, as has been done in once-democratic countries such as Poland and Hungary.

It has been argued by proponents of the reforms that they are less drastic than claimed and are needed to correct imbalances created by an activist High Court that has for years exceeded its legitimate mandate. There is something to be said for this. Israel's High Court has indeed allowed itself to rule on issues that do not generally reach other such courts and to judge them by standards that few other courts would apply. Although the High Court has sometimes been drawn into vacuums created by government or Knesset inaction, it is admittedly problematic when, say, a court decides that a democratically elected government has behaved "unreasonably" rather than illegally. Yet is it any less problematic when a democratically elected government regularly flouts democratic norms by such acts as appointing a twice-convicted felon as its minister of the interior or an outspoken racist with a long record of inciting and defending violence to head its ministry in charge of the police? Does not the public need to be protected, whether by the courts or ministerial legal advisers with real powers, from a government like Benjamin Netanyahu's, even if it has elected it?

In the end, the Netanyahu government backed down from its original plan to ram Levin's entire package of reforms through the Knesset by the end of the latter's summer session and put only one of its proposals, revocation of the "reasonableness" criterion, up for a vote--and even that was approved in a watered-down version that applies to the decisions of cabinet ministers alone and not, as originally planned, to those of lesser officials as well. This retreat was due to the demonstrators.

Not just due to them, of course. Viewed narrowly, it was not due to them at all, since what caused the government to backpedal were other things: the threat of striking reservists; warnings by Israel's business elite of a severe economic downturn; a flight of capital from the country; a consequent plunge in the value of the shekel; the beginnings of a relocation abroad of Israel's vaunted high-tech sector; a possible downgrade of its credit rating; the worried reaction of foreign countries, particularly the United States; and public opinion polls showing part of the coalition's Likud electoral base turning against it. Netanyahu and his partners could put on a brave face and declare that all this would pass once it was realized that they meant to stand their ground, but they were scared by it and rightly so.

A RELIGION OR A RACE?:

Politicians fanned the flames of the public divide on Monday evening after religious groups defied an order from the Supreme Court and set up an improvised gender divider for Yom Kippur prayers in a central Tel Aviv square and in public spaces across the country, prompting protests from liberal residents. [...]

While Netanyahu attacked the protesters, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid decried the "messianic" Judaism of the nationalist groups that "decided to bring war" to the Tel Aviv neighborhood.

"The Orthodox ultra-nationalist nucleus that came to the neighborhood decided to bring the war to us as well," Lapid said, referring to religious nationalist groups that move into secular and Arab cities claiming to be promoting Jewish values.

"They make sure to explain to us that there is only one version of Judaism, their version. They demand that in the name of tolerance, even in our neighborhood, they will decide what is allowed and what is not allowed," Lapid said.

Lapid noted that he goes to synagogue on Yom Kippur, and that the day is an example of why Judaism "does not need to be enforced."

"We are the flag bearers of a Judaism that is not messianic, not racist, neither arrogant nor violent," Lapid said.

THE TEXT IS GOD'S BILDUNGSROMAN:

To solve the question of modeling, readers should look to the last verses of the book.

Jonah has set up camp east of the walls of Nineveh after delivering his prophecy. He sets up a booth there, waiting to see what comes of the city. The sun is fierce, and Jonah grows deeply uncomfortable, praying for death. So, God provides a kikayon--a gourd or shade plant--that eases Jonah's discomfort. The next day, though, God also provides a worm that kills the plant, and Jonah again grows desperate in the heat.

And so it is in the end that God delivers the book's ultimate message, which communicates a sense of mercy over punishing justice. "You cared about the plant, which you did not work for and which you did not grow, which appeared overnight and perished overnight. And should not I care about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not yet know their right hand from their left, and many beasts as well!" (Jonah 4:10-11, NJPS). Until the final two verses of the book, God only speaks to Jonah twice, instructing him with almost identical words to go to Nineveh.

Now, God speaks to Jonah to offer a moral for him and us.

Had Jonah not run in the other direction, there would have been no need for the sailors. If the storm had not come, Jonah would have never been heaved overboard and swallowed by the whale. Were he not given the time to sit in the whale's stomach, Jonah would have never had the second chance to go to Nineveh. Each chapter builds toward the final verses, in which God speaks enigmatically.

Yet, reading the story backward, God's intent becomes more evident. God seems to say, I care about the city of Nineveh. I have cultivated it, like a gardener cultivates a plant for shade, helping its people grow it into a significant--albeit imperfect--place. At first, I may have wanted to destroy it, but now seeing how they've changed, I realize I too must change. I care for those people. That is why God sent Jonah to the city, to deliver a message that enables God to be merciful and kind, rather than wrathful and destructive.

It is the final verses we should put first, especially when reading the book to reinforce what we are attempting to do on Yom Kippur. God is the model for teshuvah in the story of Jonah. God has impulses toward destruction, which have been on display since Noah. Jonah is upset because he embodies the expectation that God's justice will come in the form of destruction. But Jonah says it himself, "I know that You are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in kindness, renouncing punishment" (Jonah 4:2, NJPS). The message is that God can transform. God can change to do the caring thing rather than the punishing thing. And we--especially at a time of repentance--should strive to do the same.

PROFESSORS SHOULD BE REQUIRING AI, NOT BANNING IT:

This week, Microsoft and Google introduced generative A.I. tools that make attending meetings, writing emails, scheduling travel, and catching up on projects vastly easier. The products channel the wonder of buzzy A.I. products like ChatGPT, DALL-E, Midjourney, and Bard into clear, applicable uses. And these obvious uses just happen to be in the workplace. [...]

At work, people will have a real incentive to learn how to use these products, figure out their prompts, and master their intricacies, especially given that their next promotion, their raise, or their job itself might depend on it.

THE CULTURE IS IN THE CATACOMBS:

 They filed into the pews one after the other on a sweltering Wednesday night, clutching Bibles and notepads, ready to learn at church what they no longer trusted would be taught at school.

"BLACK HISTORY MATTERS" proclaimed television screens facing the several dozen men and women settling in at Friendship Missionary Baptist Church. An institution in the predominantly Black neighborhood of Liberty City, "The Ship" had borne witness to many of the seminal events of the past century, shepherding its followers during Jim Crow and the heyday of the KKK, through the civil rights movement to the racial justice protests of recent years.

Now, as a new school year started, the Rev. Gaston Smith was standing at the pulpit with a lesson on one of those chapters. After months of controversy over new directives governing classroom instruction in Florida -- changes that critics said sanitized or even distorted the past -- he and other Black pastors across the state agreed their churches had no choice but to respond.

They would teach Black history themselves.

AND ONLY BEAUTY:

Starting with Plato through Plotinus and on to Augustine, the idea emerges that beauty points to something higher, the Good with a capital G. Man is drawn out of himself. Yet the idea that beauty somehow rescues the individual is a form of vulgar Platonism, according to George Harne. Fine art and other such works of beauty are not simply, nor solely, about the individual. Harne, citing Etienne Gilson, believes it is just this absorption with self that is the pathological illness of our time. Art now attempts to fill a void that it never sought before. It has become aggressive, pushing a political agenda and worldview. Harne offers a way to fight back against this encroaching tide. Follow the inexorable tug of beauty! Introduce "two minutes of beauty" into your family life. What might this look like? Memorize poems; take walks in nature; listen to beautiful music; view picture books. Harne emphasizes this as the practical and accessible education that both parents and children need to cultivate an appreciation of beauty.

Particularly enlightening is what an artisanal cheesemaking nun has to offer on the topic of beauty. Sister Noëlla Marcellino is both a contemplative religious as well as an intellect, holding a Ph.D. in microbiology. Cheese, especially during WWII, was deeply connected to charity and love of neighbor. It was a way of sharing one's life and handiwork with others in need. Cheese is a mold that comes to perfection in dark caves. There is a death that is always being observed in microbiology and there is a lesson to be learned here. "Don't be afraid of the tomb!" Sister Noëlla exhorts. Daily changing and dying to self is part of life, whether monastic or familial. Even the act of chanting reveals that though the individual is present, beauty arises when each individual melds together to create a community. This kind of singing, she claims, joins heaven and earth in a very real way.

When beauty is divorced from truth, the consequences are disastrous. James Matthew Wilson describes this divorce as an appreciation of art, but no understanding of being. When a man views his particular expression as the highest good then he is no longer a true artist, but rather, in the words of Aldous Huxley, a "propaganda engineer."

THE rIGHT IS THE lEFT...:

[R]ufo was an "excited" early proponent of Florida's "Stop WOKE Act," which prohibits both public universities and private employers from engaging in certain types of "discriminatory" speech. In an abuse of state power right out of the Marcusian playbook, the Stop WOKE Act imposed a sweeping speech code on faculty in Florida's public universities, prohibiting instruction that "espouses, promotes," or "advances" eight ideas related to "race, color, national origin, or sex" that are often promulgated by critical theorists.

In court defending the law, Florida's lawyers have repeatedly conceded that the Stop WOKE Act would prohibit on-campus arguments in favor of policies like affirmative action while allowing arguments that oppose it. In short, the Stop WOKE Act does exactly what Rufo criticizes the critical theorists for advocating: censoring the opposition.

Marcuse would have found Florida's legal arguments familiar, too. In one of the state's briefs, it argues, "Even if the First Amendment did apply here, Florida's compelling interest in stamping out discrimination based on race and other immutable characteristics amply justifies any burden on speech the Act may impose." That's precisely the argument he and other critical theorists have advanced for decades.

But the First Amendment doesn't tolerate the government gagging free speech on campus. In the 1980s and 90s, for example, the courts repeatedly struck down restrictive campus speech codes that the critical theorists proposed under the guise of anti-discrimination measures. And after a lawsuit by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (where I work), the same fate looks likely for the Stop WOKE Act. The law has already been put on hold by a federal judge, who called it "positively dystopian" and criticized Florida officials for arguing that the state has "unfettered authority to muzzle its professors in the name of 'freedom.'"

By using the same tools as the critical theorists, Rufo is worse than hypocritical: He's self-defeating. The theorists' failed speech codes would gain new life if Florida's defense of the Stop WOKE Act prevails.

REPUBLICAN, NOT TRUMPIST:

In hindsight, that phenomenon may be eclipsed by another one: Republicans deserting their party precisely because of Trump, forming a demographic now familiarly known as "Never Trump Republicans." Whether it was his xenophobic remarks about immigrants, his crude personal behavior, or his general disdain for the norms of American politics, many white, college-educated voters--long a bedrock of the GOP--cast their ballot either for Hillary Clinton or for a third-party candidate to avoid supporting Trump. The shock of his election kept this initially from being a broad focus in popular culture, but in special election after special election in the coming year, culminating in the 2018 midterms, it was clear there was a lasting revulsion from these Republicans toward the Trump-era GOP. This was reinforced in 2020, when these voters appear to have turned even more heavily against Trump, helping Joe Biden run the table in the most competitive swing states.

This tranche of voters is not huge, but they may be decisive--in 2020, 16 percent of self-identified moderate or liberal Republicans voted for Biden, according to an analysis by Pew, twice the share that did so in 2016. This even as Biden won a narrow electoral college victory by a combined margin of just under 43,000 votes in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin. Bryon Allen, a longtime Republican pollster and partner at WPA Intelligence, noted that, before Trump, Republicans in many suburban counties would get narrow majorities. "Now, without a [GOP Georgia Governor Brian] Kemp or a [GOP Virginia Governor Glenn] Youngkin or somebody who has particular appeal and the right issues ... we might get 47 percent or 48 percent" in the same areas.

AMEN, BROTHER:

New stained-glass windows depicting racial justice protests by African Americans have replaced the panes honoring Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson at the Washington National Cathedral. [...]

"These windows were offensive and they were a barrier to the ministry of this cathedral and they were antithetical to our call to be a house of prayer for all people," he said, describing the panes as elevating the Confederacy and ignoring Black Americans.

YOU BET YOUR SWEET BIPPY:

I have observed in supermarkets today a connection between the flour offerings and social class. In posher grocery stores in fancy zip codes, the sorts of places that offer twenty kinds of salt and have large stocks of organics, the flour offerings will be diverse and include plenty of non-wheat alternatives. In the wheat-flour department, by far the favored brand will be King Arthur, from an employee-owned firm in socialist Vermont. All the nice people and serious bakers I know swear by it, and it is fine flour without a doubt. Here I speculate, though not wildly: that using it, or saying you use it, delivers in addition to good bread and tasty cakes that frisson of moral superiority long associated with driving a Volvo that had been thoughtfully assem- bled by happy, unregimented Swedish workers.

Founded in Boston in 1790, King Arthur has adopted a different approach to its milling practices  than its competitors, selecting prime wheat, refusing to bleach, or add bromates, tightly controlling the precise protein content of its flours. This premium approach carries a 25 percent price increase over competitors, but since the 19th century, King Arthur has outsold its competitors four to one, and by 2019 its sales hit $150 million. King Arthur's bread flour is now the number one seller in America, with only General Mills' Gold Medal outselling them in all-purpose flour alone. 

TAKE THE WAR TO MOSCOW:

The Biden administration is nearing a decision to send long-range munitions to Ukraine known as Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) that could give Ukraine an edge in the fight against Russia's invasion, according to U.S. officials. [...]

ATACMS, which can fire about 190 miles, could provide Ukraine the firepower it needs to reach important logistics, stockpiles, command and control centers, and other Russian targets far inside Russian territory.

The news comes at a pivotal moment for Kyiv, as Ukraine's military has opened up a new line of attack against Crimea, the peninsula which Russia illegally annexed in 2014 and has occupied ever since. Crimea has been serving as a key logistics hub for Russia during the war.

IT'S AN EVER MORE UNIPOLAR WORLD:

Students of the art of political rowing-back will have recognised a fine example of the genre earlier this week. Brazil's President Lula declared on Sunday that Vladimir Putin would be welcome at next year's G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, and wouldn't be arrested as a suspected war criminal as Brazil's membership of the International Criminal Court requires. Indeed, if arresting him was compulsory, Brazil might leave the court. After a domestic and international outcry, on Monday Lula subtly altered his position. Putin would indeed be arrested, he insisted, because Lula took Brazil's commitment to the ICC very seriously.

The episode rather neatly demonstrated the balancing act Lula is trying to perform on the world stage. He has been assiduously positioning Brazil as an independent global power, seeking to act as a mediator in Ukraine rather than condemning Russia as demanded by the United States and Europe, promoting the non-Western BRICS club of major economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and flying to Cuba to reiterate Brazil's role as a leader of the G77 grouping of developing countries.

But he has also just signed a joint declaration with the United States proclaiming the G20 group of large economies the principal forum for multilateral diplomacy and declares himself a global champion of democracy, warning of the perils of authoritarian populism promoting racism and civil violence.

WHAT ABOUT DAYS WITHOUT ATMOSPHERE?:

Scientists are exploring methods to harness the low-value energy found abundantly in natural environments to produce electricity. A groundbreaking development has emerged: a power generator that leverages natural atmospheric humidity and produces continuous electrical signals. Remarkably, this is the first humidity generator that employs a nano-sized material known as polyoxometalates. The implications of this discovery suggest a promising new avenue of research in the sustainable exploitation of low-value energy.

A TRAGIC LOSS:

Reader's impending shutdown was announced in March of 2013, and the app went officially offline on July 1st of that year. "While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined," Google SVP Urs Hölzle wrote in a blog post announcing the shutdown.

Google tried its best to bury the announcement: it made it the fifth bullet in a series of otherwise mundane updates and published the blog post on the same day Pope Francis was elected to head the Catholic Church. Internally, says Mihai Parparita, who was one of Reader's last engineers and caretakers, "they were like, 'Okay, the Pope will be the big story of the day. It'll be fine.' But as it turns out, the people who care about Reader don't really care about the Pope." That loyal following Hölzle spoke of was irate over losing their favorite web consumption tool. 

Google's bad reputation for killing and abandoning products started with Reader and has only gotten worse over time. But the real tragedy of Reader was that it had all the signs of being something big, and Google just couldn't see it. Desperate to play catch-up to Facebook and Twitter, the company shut down one of its most prescient projects; you can see in Reader shades of everything from Twitter to the newsletter boom to the rising social web. To executives, Google Reader may have seemed like a humble feed aggregator built on boring technology. But for users, it was a way of organizing the internet, for making sense of the web, for collecting all the things you care about no matter its location or type, and helping you make the most of it.

IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD:

Did you know it's possible for scientists to trick your brain into thinking you have an additional appendage?

A participant might stand in front of a mirror placing their left hand in such a way that the thumb doesn't show. A researcher then strokes the non-thumb side of the left hand at the same time as stroking the side with the thumb. In the space of a few moments, the participant begins to feel as though they have a second thumb on the wrong side of their hand -- even though they can clearly see this is not the case .

"Your brain immediately jumps to the conclusion that it has an extra body part," says Denise Cadete, a neuroscientist at Birkbeck, University of London. "In seconds, you can feel a body part that has a different shape, consistency [and] length."

ALL HE HAD TO DO WAS NOT BE DONALD:

This two-part dance step--mild criticism of Netanyahu and his coalition followed by walk backs and declarations of friendship--has become the Biden administration's go-to move since the December 2022 ascension of Israel's extremist right-wing government, which has expanded Israeli settlements in the West Bank, elevated far-right politicians to influential ministerial posts, and advanced legislation to gut the power of Israel's judiciary. In response to these blatant contraventions of long-standing US policy and public challenges to the bromide of "shared democratic values," the administration has repeatedly voiced its dis­pleasure--all while continuing to stress the importance of the US-Israel alliance, to send weapons to Israel, and to shield the country from pressure at the United Nations. Aaron David Miller, a veteran former diplomat who spent more than two decades advising six secretaries of state from both parties on Israel/Palestine, said Biden is "trying to create some distance" between the administration and Netanyahu's coalition, but is "simply not willing to impose any sort of cost" for their behavior beyond the "passive-aggressive approach" exemplified by Netanyahu's delayed invitation. Yousef Munayyer, a scholar at the Arab Center Washington DC, pointed to the disastrous effects of this strategy: "The Israelis are committed to doing what they're doing to Palestinians in good part because there haven't been any negative con­sequences for it," he said. "They've only been rewarded for this behavior over time--particularly in Washington."

NEITHER PARTY IS PRO-LIFE:

Everyone knows lead is bad for you. We've known this for a very long time: In the first century BCE, the Roman architect Vitruvius warned against using lead in pipes, observing the "pallid color" of plumbers forced to work with it. We know leaded gasoline leads to premature death in the elderly, that high lead exposure can substantially reduce IQ, and that there is likely a relationship between lead exposure in children and high rates of crime later on.

Yet lead is still everywhere -- especially in poorer countries. Pure Earth, the largest nonprofit working on lead contamination internationally, recently conducted a massive survey of products in 25 low- and middle-income countries, from Peru to Nigeria to India to the Philippines, to test for lead levels in household goods. In their sample, they found high levels of lead in 52 percent of metal and 45 percent of ceramic foodware (a category including dishes, utensils, pots and pans), as well as 41 percent of house paints and 13 percent of toys.

This has major consequences. A new paper in Lancet Planetary Health, authored by economist Bjorn Larsen and Ernesto Sánchez-Triana, World Bank's global lead for pollution management, tries to quantify the scale of the lead problem globally.

The authors estimate that some 5.5 million people die prematurely due to lead exposure every year, and that the problem as a whole imposes a social cost of $6 trillion a year. That equals 6.9 percent of total world GDP.

WE CAN'T GET RID OF DRIVERS FAST ENOUGH:

Recent data analyses underscore a promising trend: autonomous vehicles (AVs) are showcasing remarkable safety records, a development that should warrant policymakers' attention and ease public concern.

A University of Texas study found that AVs have fewer crashes compared to conventional vehicles and less severe ones when they do occur. According to the research, AVs were involved in 195 crashes over 4.62 million miles, which is 2.3 times fewer crashes than conventional vehicles per mile driven.

Not only do AVs crash less often, the crashes are far less severe. The vast majority of AV crashes (87.7%) resulted only in property damage. Meanwhile, 30% of crashes involving human drivers result in injuries and 0.7% result in fatalities. 

THE REFORMATION ROLLS ON:

Zarzour highlighted ISNA's commitment to interfaith dialogue and also its program to train Muslim chaplains for the U.S. military. Although he stressed the organization's role in "adding to the mosaic of this beautiful country of ours," he acknowledged that, "while we're not going to agree with everyone on everything, we will look for what we have in common." More than 20 years after 9/11, many non-Muslims might be surprised by what they now share with their Muslim neighbors, colleagues, and fellow citizens.

After two sessions on topics dealing with faith and family, Friday ended with a late-night comedy show, "Muslim Comedians Stand Up against Gun Violence," featuring five performers, including one non-Muslim man and two Muslim women, one of whom did not wear a hijab, or headscarf. The best line of the evening belonged to the emcee, Preacher Moss, an African American born and raised in Washington, D.C. "I want Trump to be in prison long enough to come out a Black Muslim!" he quipped.

Saturday's program began early, at 5:30 a.m., with the first of Sunni Islam's five daily prayers, which I did not attend -- though I would have been welcome, even as a non-Muslim. I had a hard enough time making it to the first general session, at 10 a.m. -- "Education in the Digital Age: Empowering Minds, Shaping Careers." Arriving with about 30 minutes to spare, I zeroed in on that Starbucks.

The line was long, so I had time to observe three teenage girls who, like thousands of other young people, were attending the conference with their families. Part of the small but visible contingent of females not wearing any kind of head covering, these teenagers were just as smartly (if more modestly) dressed as the students I am used to seeing on my university campus. They were also equally fixated on their phones, texting one another, giggling, scanning the hall, and scrolling through their messages. When they finally reached the head of the line, they had no idea what to order. After much back-and-forth with the patient but harried young barista, they each managed to come up with precise, detailed specifications for their individually crafted hot beverages and food choices. Their presence illustrated the striking diversity of the thousands of Muslims attending this convention. They were a distinct minority, given their uncovered heads, but they did not seem to be the focus of any discernible disapproval.

The overwhelming majority of women at the convention covered their heads. Some were elegantly outfitted in long, flowing dresses (abayas) and loosely wrapped headscarves. Others were more severely outfitted in drab, shift-like garb with snug hijabs. A few were in black niqabs, covering the entire visage except for the eyes. A very few were completely shrouded in burkas that obscured even -- indeed, especially -- their eyes.

So, too, were the men dressed in a variety of styles defying any simple stereotype. Suits and ties as well as more-casual sports jackets and slacks were much in evidence, especially among leaders of the many organizations and businesses represented at the convention. But there were also plenty of men in slacks and sport shirts, just as I was. There were even a couple of young men sporting shorts, which are rarely worn by Muslims. On the other hand, there were many males, young and old, in traditional long-sleeved, ankle-length thobes and brimless kufi caps.

The latter garb was popular with the many African-American men in attendance. Yet they too evidenced a variety of attire and orientation toward Islam. After listening and talking to many of them, I was reminded that the conversion of African Americans to orthodox Sunni Islam -- as opposed to the ersatz, racist concoction propagated by Elijah Muhammad under the banner of the Nation of Islam, now barely surviving under Louis Farrakhan -- has on balance been one of the most heartening and successful paths to social advancement and self-respect undertaken by the legatees of slavery and Jim Crow.

BUT HE FIGHTS!:

The most extreme solution is offered by the Catholic integralists who explicitly seek to subvert "temporal power" (i.e., the state/government) to "spiritual power" (i.e., the Catholic Church). Along similar lines, Patrick Deneen proposes "Aristo-populism" to oust corrupt liberal elites. Add to the bunch National Conservatives, new-age Pentecostals, and Reformed Protestants and it seems that all the cool kids are coming up from liberalism. No solution is agreed upon. But all agree that the regime centered on the protection of individual rights must be replaced by some new system with more intrusive powers to direct our lost souls. 

The leaders of this broad coalition are not stupid and, therefore, their arguments should be confronted honestly and given due diligence. But dissuading them from their objectives will require more than pointing out how illiberal, homophobic, or un-democratic they are. Nor will it prove sufficient to point out how unrealistic their aims are in the context of the United States. Movements always begin with foolish hopes. What is needed instead are modern examples of states where similar revolutionary projects have been executed and produced less-than-ideal results. One state fits the bill nicely: the Islamic Republic of Iran. Ayatollah Khomeini's project in Iran was surely more extreme and violent than what most post-liberals would endorse. But given the authoritarian affinities of many post-liberals (consider their muted defenses of Vladimir Putin, East Germany, and the Chinese Communist Party), a comparison to Khomeini's Iran is more than appropriate. Indeed, given the character and aims of Khomeini's Iran, it is necessary.

The example of Khomeinism in Iran is instructive because it illustrates two lessons that classical liberals have long known. First, when a special class of moral guardians is permitted to be above the rule of law, there is no check on their own corruptibility, which all but ensures future abuses of power. And second, using the full powers of the state to enforce religious belief will render both the state and its religion illegitimate in the minds of the people. If post-liberals are serious about reviving moral virtue or shoring up religious faith, they should study the tragic example of Khomeini.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1900-1989) is not a figure most think of when discussing American post-liberal intellectuals. After all, he was a Muslim cleric who defended Islamic civilization against Western civilization, the integrity of which post-liberals generally seek to defend. What is more, American conservatives despised the man while leftist intellectuals like Michel Foucault celebrated him as an authentic warrior fighting against the corroding tyranny of bourgeoise values. But there is plenty that connects Khomeini and his political project with today's post-liberals. 

First are the more superficial similarities. Khomeini adamantly opposed liberalism, secularism, and capitalism.

IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD:

[A] new study finds that people who maintain a broad range of healthy habits, from good sleep to physical activity to strong social connections, are significantly less likely to experience episodes of depression. 

THE iDENTITY PROJECT:

[A]dvocates of safeguarding the court's review power say barring the court from weighing in on Basic Laws would essentially create a majoritarian system. The laws and their amendments have special standing but no special procedure, meaning that they can be passed by a simple majority of lawmakers. Drawing on hypothetical worst-case scenarios, several opponents of hollowing out the court's authority asked the question: What happens if the Knesset pushes through a Basic Law that's blatantly anti-democratic?

Without a written constitution, Israel throughout its history has faced its fair share of tricky legal questions like the ones raised last week. But underpinning the legal disputes are core questions about outcome, and who wields the power in Israeli society. 

In the past, the Supreme Court has challenged or criticized policies pushed by religious political parties in the Knesset. Limiting the court's power, secular Israelis worry, could allow the current ruling coalition to pass laws they view as discriminatory, including enforcing gender segregation in public spaces and giving ultra-Orthodox Israelis greater control over who and how people can worship at Jewish holy sites.

Another major point of contention, military service exemptions for ultra-Orthodox men studying the Torah, has divided Israelis for years. Most Israeli citizens are required to complete a stint in the army, but the ultra-Orthodox are largely excused from service on religious grounds. The ruling coalition has proposed a Basic Law to enshrine that exemption, which in theory would prevent the Supreme Court from striking down a bill to allow ultra-Orthodox men to completely avoid military service. 

It's no wonder, then, that support for limiting the court's power has been largely divided along religious lines, according to a recent study by the Viterbi Family Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research in the Israel Democracy Institute. While 68 percent of secular Israelis had a negative view of the proposed judicial reforms, 66 percent of ultra-Orthodox respondents said they were "very good" or "pretty good." 

THANKS, VLAD!:

The system, unveiled last week at the Wired & Octopus Energy Tech Summit in London, consists of a new heat pump, home control system, room sensors - known as "Cosy Pods," and a bespoke smart tariff. [...]

The system is specifically designed for the UK market and is free for homes that don't need any work to fit the system after the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS).

Homes that do need adjustments - such as new radiators, piping, or a hot water tank - can get the system from around £3,000 after the grant.

The initial 6kW heat pump, designed to suit the average three bedroom house, will be followed by larger models to be unveiled over the next six months.

AS IF?:

She was referring to Trump's response to a question about the impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden, in which he not only indicated it was in retaliation for his own impeachments, but suggested they were only just getting started.

"I think had they not done it to me ... perhaps you wouldn't have it being done to them," Trump told Kelly, then took it a step further: "And this is gonna happen with indictments, too."

Haberman said some Republicans are worried the admission could hurt the party during next year's election.

"That is something people had been hoping to avoid him saying explicitly around this Biden impeachment inquiry, because it does make it seem as if it is less on the level," she said. 

HONEY, YOU'RE SCARING THE KIDS:

Scientists have now had time to examine trigger warnings through controlled experiments, and their findings broadly support critics' points. Last month, a trio of psychologists affiliated with Flinders University and Harvard University published a meta-analysis aggregating all the recent scientific papers on the topic to answer four questions:

"First, do trigger warnings change emotional reactions in response to material? Second, do trigger warnings increase the avoidance of warned-of material? Third, do trigger warnings have any effects on anticipatory emotions before seeing material (e.g., anxiety)? And fourth, do trigger warnings change educational outcomes (i.e., the comprehension of warned-of material)?"

The reviewers turned up 12 studies published since 2018 that attempted to answer those queries. In almost all of them, experimenters exposed subjects to photographs, videos, or written passages. Some participants were given a content warning beforehand, while others were not.

When the studies' results were pooled together, the researchers found that trigger warnings had no effect on subjects' emotional responses to the material, did not make them likelier to avoid it, and had little to no effect on participants' comprehension. They did, however, slightly increase subjects' anxiety prior to being exposed to the material.

NO ONE HATES JUST MEXICANS:

SPEAKING OF GREENBERG:

"I need you out there, but in the end, it's your choice," his coach Mickey Cochrane told him.

The previous day, Greenberg had received an unexpected message of support from the Detroit Free Press. The paper printed a photo of Greenberg on the front page of the sports section, accompanied by a large Hebrew headline with the common Rosh Hashanah greeting along with an English line: "And so to you, Mr. Greenberg, the Tiger fans say, 'L'shana Tova Tikatevu!' which means 'Happy New Year.'"

"In Hebrew letters, front page, it was as if war had been declared. The type was that big," Steve Greenberg, Hank's son, told WBUR in 2017.

American Jewish historian Jonathan Sarna told WBUR it was likely the first and only example of a major US newspaper using a Hebrew headline -- and in 1934, when papers used metal plates for printing.

"I have no idea, to this day, where they got the metal type for this Hebrew," said Aviva Kempner, who directed the 1998 documentary "The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg."

The political context of the day also weighed on Greenberg. Adolf Hitler and the Nazis were rising to power in Germany and antisemitism was rampant in the United States. Detroit in particular was home to two of the 20th century's most infamous antisemites, automobile titan Henry Ford and the radio host Father Charles Coughlin.

In the end, Greenberg played. As the Tigers took the field, Jews in Detroit took their seats for Rosh Hashanah services.

"While the cantor was singing, he would stop for a minute and say, 'How's Hank doing?'" Tigers fan Harold Allen recalled to WBUR. "The whole interest of the city of Detroit was Hank Greenberg." [...]

Nine days later, Greenberg sat out the Tigers' regular season game on Yom Kippur.

A few days after Yom Kippur, the Detroit Free Press printed a poem, titled "Speaking of Greenberg." It read, in part:...

WHEN YOU ARE EMPTY YOU'RE ALWAYS SEEING AN ABYSS:

The mystical experience was central to Nietzsche's life, and with it the fundamental idea of the "eternal recurrence." But how should we understand this notion? Robertson suggests that it is a moral test: "If one can accept with joy the prospect of reliving one's life repeatedly, one has shown one's ability to affirm life." And a large part of Nietzsche's philosophy was indeed about learning to affirm life, about dancing and laughter. As a cosmological theory, Robertson notes, the eternal recurrence is hopelessly outdated. It seems to me that what happened to Nietzsche is best described by Kierkegaard's concept "Øieblikket" (i.e., the moment or, literally, "the glance of the eye"), a rare instant in which the temporal and the eternal meet, disclosing our place in both spheres and dissolving the boundary between them. Often a transformative experience, Øieblikket has left many baffled and in want of apt descriptions.

Simone Weil understood that Nietzsche was an afflicted person, not least physically, which for her was a precondition for genuine affliction. In Awaiting God (1951), she writes that affliction means that love and the transcendent are absent:

What is terrible is that in this darkness when there is nothing to love, if the soul ceases to love, the absence of God becomes definitive. The soul must continue to love in the void--or at least want to love--be it even with an infinitesimal part of itself. Then one day God comes to manifest himself to them and reveals the beauty of the world, like God did in the case of Job. But if the soul ceases to love, it falls into something here below that is nearly equivalent to hell.

Nietzsche compensates the affliction with arrogance. He deserves "pity but not esteem and still less admiration," Weil writes to her brother. [...]

But for Nietzsche, this barefoot reality is barren and empty. "There is no transcendent meaning, no providence, no moral absolutes, no absolutes of any kind," Robertson writes. In contrast, for Weil, the beauty of the world makes us love it. 

THE NATURE OF IDENTITY POLITICS:

THE rIGHT IS THE lEFT:

[A]mari's new devil, as befitting his magazine, is the corporation and unfettered capitalism, and he proposes that the only way to check their power is through the embrace of big government. 

For example, Ahmari rails against what he calls "the class-based inequalities in power and income that are inherent to the workings of unrestrained capitalism." A few pages later, he froths about the "coercive origins" of the Industrial Revolution, which sent peasants from working fields to "prison-style workhouses and factories, their bones and tears forming the working-class sediments that underlay the glories of Victorian capitalism." He yearns for the New Deal era when labor won the countervailing power to keep big business in check, leading to the "productive genius of highly regulated, heavily unionized capitalism in which the government coordinated private economic activity." 

The pundit has frequently been clubbed together with a coterie of so-called post-liberal thinkers, including political theorist Patrick Deneen, conservative writer Rod Dreher, and legal scholar Adrian Vermeule, who are not only at odds with contemporary liberalism but have a beef with Enlightenment mainstays like individual liberty, separation of government and religion and, of course, the free market. They've had kind words for government in the style of Viktor Orban's Hungary, which is to say anti-immigration and anti-abortion, but with an expansive social welfare role for government. Describing himself in Newsweek last month as "ferociously conservative on cultural issues," Ahmari endorses the ideas of his brethren but adds a union-loving twist that frets over the income inequality perverting our social compact. 

Putting aside cultural issues to focus on the economic ones, Ahmari structures Tyranny, Inc. as a catalog of corporate coercion, retelling horror stories likely to be familiar to readers of The Nation, Mother Jones, or Jacobin.

maga DOESN'T WORK:

Anin himself shows no sign of apathy. He moved to Russia as a teenager, studied journalism in Moscow, and in 2006 started working as a sports reporter with the Novaya Gazeta, a paper known for seeing several of its reporters killed under the Putin regime. In 2008, Anin was sent by Novaya Gazeta to cover the brief war between Russia and Georgia, when he joined the outlet's investigative unit.

That position allowed him to work on major stories including tax fraud uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky and corruption surrounding the 2014 Winter Olympics, but also conduct investigations into people at the highest levels of the Putin regime, such as Putin's friend and billionaire cellist Sergey Roldugin and Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin. In a 2016, Anin wrote an article about Sechin's wife owning a yacht worth $100 million (€94 million). Sechin sued the paper for defamation and won.

Anin is aware that many people find it hard to understand the level of graft happening in the Russian elite.

"Russian society simply lives in colossal misery," he told DW's Andreas Brenner in Hamburg. Stories about Putin's castle or his friends' yachts mean little to rural people living "without flushing toilets in 18th century-like conditions."

This disconnect is "nothing to marvel at -- even the war was only a concern for a few people until the mobilization started and they started detaining husbands and brothers, sending them to the front with no training, where they simply got killed," he added.

Ending the Ukraine war would only be the first step in waking up Russian society, according to the reporter. He believes it would take decades of working with the populace to reform the country. And it would happen only after the death of Putin and the "collective Putin" -- the clique gathered around the long-ruling Russian president.

"It's impossible to break this apathy under the Putin regime," says Anin. "All the truth about the war needs to be made public, so that the people would simply become aware what horror was happening during those 30 years, with them witnessing it in silence. And those horrors were committed with the unconditional approval of the people. And maybe after that Russia will have some chance to overcome this apathy and start living in a new way."

We build a new long run cross- country database to study the macroeconomic history of populism. We identify 51 populist presidents and prime ministers from 1900 to 2020 and show that the economic cost of populism is high. After 15 years, GDP per capita is 10% lower compared to a plausible non-populist counterfactual. Economic disintegration, decreasing macroeconomic stability, and the erosion of institutions typically go hand in hand with populist rule.

ANTI-GREEN IS ANTI-LIFE:

DO LESS HARM:

In theory, catching cancers earlier should make them easier to treat, saving lives. But that's not always what the data shows. A study published in late August combed the literature for randomized clinical trials that compared mortality (from any cause, not just cancer) in two groups: people who underwent cancer screening and people who did not. For most common types of cancer screening, they found no significant difference. The exception was sigmoidoscopy, a type of colon cancer screening that involves visualizing only the lower portion of the colon. [...]

There is no question that screening programs have caught cancers that would have killed people had they gone undetected. So why worry about overdiagnosis? Screening can also cause harm. Patients undergoing colonoscopies sometimes end up with a perforated bowel. Biopsies can lead to infection. Treatments like radiation and chemotherapy come with serious risks to people's health, and so does surgery to remove tumors.

So will AI-assisted screening lead to more overdiagnosis? I checked in with Adewole Adamson, a dermatologist and researcher at the Dell School of Medicine at the University of Texas at Austin. "Without reservation I would say 'Yes, it will,'" he says. "People think that the goal is to find more cancer. That's not our goal. Our goal is to find cancers that will ultimately kill people."  

And that's tricky. For the vast majority of cancers, there aren't good ways to separate nonlethal cases from lethal ones. So doctors often treat them all as if they might be deadly.

In a 2019 paper, Adamson explains how these cancer-detecting algorithms learn. The computer is presented with images that are labeled "cancer" or "not cancer." The algorithm then looks for patterns to help it discriminate. "The problem is that there is no single right answer to the question, "What constitutes cancer?" Adamson writes. "Diagnoses of early-stage cancer made using machine-learning algorithms will undoubtedly be more consistent and more replicable than those based on human interpretation. But they won't necessarily be closer to the truth--that is, algorithms may not be any better than humans at determining which tumors are destined to cause symptoms or death."

But there's also a chance AI might help address the problem of overdiagnosis. The Australian researchers I referenced above offer up this example: AI could use the information embedded in medical records to examine the trajectories of different patients' cancers over time. In this scenario, it might be possible to distinguish those who don't benefit from a diagnosis.

WHAT COMES AFTER ZERO?:

The winter heating season is looming and finances remain strained, but UK homes are getting the chance to cut energy bills -- or even pay nothing at all -- by effectively becoming mini power plants.

Households with solar panels, heat pumps and batteries can store power produced when prices are low and then sell to the grid when they're high. Versions of these flexible tariffs have been around for a while, but suppliers are trying to increase subscribers and major provider Octopus Energy Ltd. is taking that further by rolling out a version guaranteeing zero bills.

THE JUDICIARY IN A REPUBLIC HAS TWO VITAL ROLES...:

We have to remember that all of the mess that we are experiencing now is just because Israel doesn't have a constitution. Once we have a constitution, we won't be in this kind of a mess and debate. And it's not by accident that we don't have a constitution, it's because we couldn't reach agreements about all of these basic principles, and most of them are about the relationship between the three branches, so between the executive branch and the judiciary. So it's not by accident that we don't have a constitution and by the way, some of the supporters of this judicial reform are trying to bring some examples from other states, for example from the US. They say: "Listen, in the US, the president has the authority to nominate judges. So if it's good for the US. Why won't it be good for us?"

So first, it doesn't work like that in the US. But second, more importantly, in the US there is a constitution, and once you have a constitution -- and other mechanisms as well. You have two houses of Congress, and you have separation between the federal level and the state level. All of these mechanisms we don't have here in Israel. First and foremost, we don't have a constitution and therefore the only entity that can limit the government is the Supreme Court. And therefore it's so crucial, this debate.

Let's talk a little bit more about the religious sensitivity of having a secular authority interpret law in general. And you wrote an essay which talks about the concept of "Adam Hashuv," I think you called it "A Dignified Person" in English? First of all, explain what this concept is.

Yes. What I tried to do in my research, with one of my colleagues, about this judicial reform from a Jewish law perspective. Our argument was that the debates that we are experiencing today are not new. The Jewish community during the Middle Ages had the same debates. The Jewish community of course was not a modern state, but it was a political entity that was run by some politicians, which was called the "Seven Good People of the Town." And they, of course, the authorities, wanted power. They wanted to do a lot of things. And there were the rabbinical courts, which was a judiciary, and there were a lot of tensions between these two entities. And we can see how the Jewish legal tradition saw so much importance in the idea that there should be independent judiciaries that put some limitations on the politicians.

So, for example, one of the mechanisms that Jewish law established for that purpose was the doctrine of Adam Hashuv, the dignified person, which is, according to our argument, similar to the Attorney General, which is not part of the court. But before, when enacting enactments in the Jewish community, according to Jewish law sources, the politicians, the leader of the community has to get the approval of this "dignified person," which is the rabbi of this place, or the one who is expert in law. His purpose was to look for two things. First, that the communal enactments are aligned with the law, and the second one, that they are aligned not only with the interest of the majority, but with the interest of the whole community. These two things should be checked before enacting an enactment. Actually today, this is what the legal advisors and the attorney generals, this is their main role -- to see that the actions and decisions of the executive branch are aligned with the law in the general interest of the state. And from this perspective, it was so important for Jewish law that, while we are recognizing the authority of the majority to control the community, we will put some checks and balances, and the dignified person is one of them.

Tell us about other checks and balances throughout Jewish history, on leadership.

So, another very important mechanism which is also very relevant for today. Once the Jewish community enacted an enactment. If someone felt that [the enactment] is unpleasant, that he's being damaged or it has violated his right, he has a right to appeal to the rabbinical court, and the rabbinical court has the authority to overrule the criminal enactment. So even though it was legislated by the majority, the rabbinical court had the authority to overrule this kind of enactment. And by the way, of course the idea of override clause or something like that, that the majority can reenact something that was overruled, of course it was not an option. So once the enactment was recognized as illegitimate, it was annulled. And this is something that also is part of the judicial reform -- to what extent the Supreme Court had the authority to overrule regular legislation, special legislation like Basic Laws. This is something that was also part of yesterday's hearing at the Supreme Court.

As a non-religious person, I shudder inside every time you say that it's a rabbinical authority who had the final say. But, it sounds to me like you're doing a one-to-one ratio with the civil authority that we have today. Is that correct?

Yeah, there is some kind of a jump here, because in the arena of the Jewish traditional communities, the judiciary was a rabbis. There was a rabbinical court, and we are not living here today in an halachic state, this is a secular state or at least non-religious state. So of course now one should ask himself: "Who are the modern Israeli parallels to this 'dignified person' of the rabbinical court?" One can argue that we want a halachic state and we want it to be the rabbis. So, we can debate whether it's good or bad. But this is definitely not the current situation.

So having said that, and if we assume that if we are in a secular state, my argument here is that we, as Israelis, as modern Israelis that want some connection with our Jewish roots, need to think who is a modern translation of this "dignified person?" From my suggestion, this is an attorney general. Who is a parallel to the rabbinical court in the Jewish community? My suggestion is the Supreme Court. I think we should establish our check and balance mechanisms in modern Israel with some conversation with this Jewish past. And I think this is a very important infrastructure from which we can derive a lot of insights, a lot of vocabulary, very interesting terminology and ways of thinking in order to enrich our modern legal discourse.

I will say it even from a different perspective. There are those who try to present the current debate between the Israelis and the Jews. The Jews represent traditional authentic Jewish perspective and the Israelis represent modern, secular, liberal, et cetera, et cetera. From my perspective, this is a very dangerous exposition. And my argument is that also from a Jewish perspective, these checks and balances are very important, but we have to think about the modern secular translation of these Jewish ideas and this is the deep meaning of being a Jewish and democratic state. Being a Jewish and democratic state, from my perspective, it's not only a state of the Jews, but also a state that has some interesting open-minded conversation, which is a Jewish tradition, and mainly with its Jewish legal tradition.

TOO MANY FREDOS:

One senior Republican said the House GOP conference may be edging closer to tearing itself apart, drawing a comparison to what ultimately happened with the so-called "Five Families" in the Godfather movies.

"The whole family kills each other," the senior GOP lawmaker said. " I think we're close to that right now. We are in maybe the Godfather II stage."

A GOP aide lambasted hardliners from the Freedom Caucus, saying "they are hellbent on losing the majority" for Republicans.

PLAYCEBO:

PROFILES IN CRAVEN:

Romney said that "[a]lmost without exception" his Republican colleagues "shared my view of the president," but they refused to speak up out of fear that their voters would turn against them. Coppins recounts a weekly caucus lunch at which Republicans gave Trump a standing ovation, listened as he boasted and rambled through remarks, and then burst into laughter as soon as Trump left.  

That loyalty appears to have been behind leaders' refusal to address rumors of violence on January 6, 2021. According to Coppins, on January 2, 2021, Senator Angus King (I-ME) warned Romney that a high-ranking Pentagon official had told King that right-wing extremists online appeared to be planning to attack the government on January 6 to stop what Trump had told them was the stealing of the 2020 presidential election. They talked of guns and arson and bombs, and they talked of targeting the traitors in Congress, among whom they counted Romney for his vote to convict Trump on one count in his first impeachment trial. King was concerned for Romney's safety.

Romney promptly texted then-Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to recount the conversation. "There are calls to burn down your home, Mitch; to smuggle guns into DC, and to storm the Capitol," Romney wrote. "I hope that sufficient security plans are in place, but I am concerned that the instigator--the President--is the one who commands the reinforcements the DC and Capitol police might require." McConnell never answered. 

When even after the events of January 6, fellow senators continued to execute their plan of objecting to the counting of electoral votes for certain states, Romney called them out on the floor of the Senate for "being complicit in an unprecedented attack against our democracy." 

Romney recalled that some senators refused to convict Trump in the second impeachment trial out of concerns for their safety and that of their families. Romney himself had hired a security detail for his family since the attack on the U.S. Capitol, but at $5,000 a day such security was out of reach for most of his colleagues. 

IT'S THE LIVES WE SAVED ALONG THE WAY:

LEGENDS OF THE FALLEN:

A Calvinistic sense of having fallen in some way, morally or otherwise, pervades his darkest works. When he sings with conviction about "The Angel of Death" he doesn't describe the angel at all but focuses on whether your soul will be ready to meet it, which is a much scarier proposition than any spook. His rendition of "The Great Judgment Morning" is similarly shaken, where he sings as if he's remembering having glimpsed it himself. Hank's clearly most interested in the good book's apocalyptic parts, testing the imagery with the tenor of his voice. For a guy whose closest friends and collaborators admitted to never really knowing him, it sure does seem like Hank wore his morbid heart on his fringed sleeve, though he had to be singing about it to really let it show.  

Loneliness is the other great theme in Hank's songs, a very American theme, with our wide-open spaces and cramped urban ones. It's not just being alone that Hank's singing about, either -- it's an existential solitude that comes from a hopeless romantic's fatal dissatisfaction with a world without love. "The Singing Waterfall" is a lovely Yeatsian meditation on being in love with a ghost, and in "Alone and Forsaken" the loss of his loved one turns his bucolic world into a hellscape with a braying hellhound on his tail. In "Long Gone Lonesome Blues" he can only hang out and watch the fish swim by for so long before he's going to "pay the price" and throw himself into an icy river three times (again with the ice!) and he swears that "I'm only coming up twice." You can almost picture when that cowboy hat will begin to slowly float away.  

And of course, there's his forlorn, bereft masterpiece "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" which no less than Willie Nelson thought the greatest country lyric of all time, specifically citing the haiku-like lines "the silence of a falling star/ lights up a purple sky/ and as I'm wondering where you are/ I'm so lonesome I could cry." Again, that barely restrained lament comes through a tightly bitten lip: he's not saying he will cry, mind you, but he's certainly admitting that he could, which means he might, which means he needs to, with a throb of regret that you can hear in your bones. It's downright cosmic: the moon is weeping, so are the robins, the whippoorwills are barely keeping it together, and all creation has turned its face away in despair. When his tempestuous relationship with his first wife Audrey finally ended, which he'd written so many different songs about, he cursed that he wouldn't live a year without her, which was probably a mix of one part anger, one part passive-aggressiveness, and one part self-pity. In any case, it turned out to be true.

MET ONE IDENTITARIAN YOU'VE MET THEM ALL:

The innovation of Orbánism lies in the way it combined American-style self-confidence with a politics of indignation transforming ethnic nationalism into an angst about Civilization; exploiting the narratives of political Christianity in opposition to Christian principles; and renewing the language of populism so that it can be deployed from a position of government. [...]

As he was solidifying Fidesz's rule for the long run, Orbán launched campaigns against a cascading roster of evil forces supposedly arrayed to undermine Hungarian sovereignty. First he targeted multinational corporations, then the International Monetary Fund and the European Union, blaming them for being elites who stymied Hungary's escape from financial crisis. Other targets followed: migrants, George Soros, LGBT activists, liberalism generally.

IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO OVERSTATE DEFLATIONARY PRESSURES:

A lighter weight and an environmentally friendly production method that reduces energy consumption are other potential perks listed. The production process, however, is still being developed. The Harvard report cited a project using a "plasma gun" to produce graphene as one option being explored. 

"Science is the easy part. To develop a technology, you should know what products you are aiming at, and this should be coming from the industry," graphene co-discoverer and Nobel Prize laureate Konstantin Novoselov said on the EP's website, which noted bendable smartphones and extremely light planes as other products that could be made with graphene. 

NASA is even exploring batteries made with a special kind of graphene with holes in it, allowing air to pass through. The material is lightweight and highly conductive, according to its experts. The goal is for the batteries to power electric aircraft. 

WAITING FOR HALE BOPP:

...AND CHEAPER...:

As another summer of record-breaking heat winds down, some cooler news: Cool pavement -- which has a reflective coating meant to mitigate urban heat, as Michaela Haas wrote about for us in 2021 -- is delivering on its promise in Los Angeles. That's according to preliminary results for the neighborhood of Pacoima, site of the city's first community-wide cool pavement effort.

The first eight months of data show that ambient air temperatures in Pacoima two meters above ground were an average of 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit cooler on sunny days, and up to 3.5 degrees cooler during extreme heat, compared to a neighboring area without cool pavement. The pavement itself averaged 10 degrees cooler on sunny days. 

The anecdotal evidence is solid, too: Residents report that their tires are wearing less quickly, their shoes don't stick to the pavement as much -- and parents say they're more comfortable letting their kids play outside.

"CARE" KILLS:

Do marathons kill people who aren't in the race? Does when you're born make you more likely to get the flu? And what's the difference between a good doctor and a bad one? These are some of the questions Anupam Bapu Jena of Harvard University and EconTalk host Russ Roberts take up as they discuss Jena's book, Random Acts of Medicine.

OPEN THE BORDERS:

The case today is even more compelling because of labor shortages related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, net international migration slowed steadily from a peak of 1.2 million in 2016 as a result of measures President Trump took to reduce both legal and illegal immigration. Trump then took further steps to restrict immigration during the onset of the pandemic, including curbing travel to the U.S. and suspending many foreign worker visas and green cards. The administration also invoked the Title 42 public health law to deny asylum on pandemic-related grounds.  

Upon assuming office in January 2021, President Biden overturned many of Trump's immigration policies. As a result, there was a dramatic reversal in the pattern of immigration last year. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that net immigration to the U.S. fully rebounded from its COVID-19 slump, when immigration fell to the lowest levels in decades. The biggest increases were for work visas and humanitarian migrants.   

The timing of the immigration upturn proved fortuitous: It helped to alleviate some of the impact of labor shortages while the overall unemployment rate has been hovering near a 50-year low. Foreign-born workers have a higher labor force participation rate than U.S.-born workers, and they have helped to counter some of the inflationary impact of a tight U.S. labor market.  

With the headline Consumer Price Index inflation rate falling to about 3 percent recently, wages are now growing faster than inflation. Net immigration will have to stay at relatively high levels to have a lasting impact in containing inflation, but this is far from assured. Consequently, the case for permitting more legal immigration now encompasses both economic growth and inflation reduction considerations.

HATING GREENS CAN'T STOP THE TRANSITION:

[T]he fall in costs has been spectacular - 95 per cent. According to a new report from the International Renewable Energy Agency, the LCOE of solar PV fell to a global average of US4.9c/kWh in 2022 - making it 29 per cent cheaper than the lowest cost fossil fuel-fuelled option.

In the case of wind energy, the story is much the same. In 2010, the global weighted-average LCOE of onshore wind was US10.7c/kWh, according to IRENA - or nearly double the cost of the cheapest fossil fuel - and it has since fallen 69 per cent to just US3.3c/kWh, or 52 per cent lower than the cheapest fossil fuel option.

NO ONE HATES JUST MEXICANS:

The cracks in our pluralistic society spread from hateful, bigoted language spewed by religious leaders, politicians, and even the mainstream media across India. How will we ever return to the India I once knew, where a diverse nation grew in harmony despite cultural, ideological, and religious differences? Is a majoritarian Hindu nation possible without destroying profoundly complex and varied roots in prominent ethnicities and religions?

Religious, political, and caste leaders have engaged in hate speech and persecution for narrow political ends, or revenge for perceived victimhood. How are Indian Muslims of today responsible for the acts of invading Mughal rulers of the past? With this sort of mindset, the next step for India would be protracted caste warfare for reparations due to oppression and exploitation of the Dalits and tribals by the upper castes for centuries. This would certainly not help India mature to its full potential economically and culturally.

The undoing of widespread hatred for minorities and Dalits will take decades and require wise, patriotic leaders who value peace and pluralism. These leaders must find the strength to struggle for one united India, a nation of equal rights for all citizens where the rule of law always prevails over mob mentality.

When officers of the law -- sworn to protect and defend all Indians -- instead participate in hate speech and violence themselves, citizens are left powerless. As bulldozers raze homes and places of worship for minorities, without legal sanction, our hope in the rule of law is lost.

Violent anger is quickly becoming the common currency in civil society. This is true in India and around the globe, as we recently witnessed in the French riots.

We have watched the fallout from this unfold in Manipur, and if the status quo continues, it will happen elsewhere in India. There are two distinct Manipurs now -- one Kuki and one Meitei. Any social union between the two will take decades of diligent peace-making efforts. The terrible suffering that comes from this religious and ethnic divide cannot be ignored.

The call to violence by prominent religious and political leaders -- the ones we should be able to look to in times of turmoil -- must be dealt with quickly. This issue is so severe that the Supreme Court now insists that individual states craft laws for dealing with hate speech.

These developments are deeply frustrating as they come in the wake of precisely the time when India is poised to become a major global economic and scientific power. But this will only happen with social cohesion.

NORMALCY IS A CHOICE (profanity alert):

[Burke Harris, author of The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-term Effects of Childhood Adversity,] has identified seven granular, research-based strategies that prevent the human-to-human hand-off of misery: sleep, exercise, time in nature, nutrition, mindfulness, mental health care, and healthy relationships. The tool she uses most? "Walk and talk. Exercise combined with talking with someone."

Ideally, she said, everyone has access to the tools for healing. To good doctors who can help them understand how their adverse childhood experiences and family history affect their risk of harm. To food and housing and job security, education and safety. Ideally, everyone who needs and wants it can get into therapy, not to gather up surface praise, but to dig deep for healthier ways to be in relationship with other people and, critically, ourselves. In therapy, Burke Harris said, "you can work together to create a plan for prevention." A plan to stop handing on misery.

Ideally, we all work to shore up policies and institutions that support collaboration and care, places, whether a family, neighborhood, school, or country, where people pull together and do their damndest not to repeat, repeat the harm. "The real work," she said, "is to change societal outcomes."

Unquestionably, it is a good time to pass along the revelations and research of Burke Harris, and others who are pushing back on cynical acceptance and imagining a different trajectory, while also, perhaps, cracking a grim smile alongside Larkin. There's Stephanie Foo, Judith Herman, Resmaa Menakem, Bessel van der Kolk, and others too numerous to list in full here, and, well, yes, says Burke Harris just before we hang up, there is now also "Ted Lasso."

"How has nobody emailed me about this?" Burke Harris recalled wondering as she'd watched. The show's communities are cooperative and inclusive, with characters who step up against bullies and bigots, who do not tolerate abuse and harm, of anybody, regardless of identity or position. There's a men's group that aims to nurture healthy relationships, she observed, the juxtaposition of one dad who is verbally abusive to his son with another dad who lifts his son up, and all sorts of people who decide to try therapy, including Ted. "It feels so different than what we would have seen even ten years ago," Burke Harris said. "It's beautiful."

THE ONLY EXISTENTIAL THREAT IS INTERNAL:

Despite travel warnings last year about the dangers of war and other obstacles, over 20,000 pilgrims traveled to celebrate Rosh Hashanah in Uman, the burial site of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, a revered Hasidic rabbi who died in 1810. In recent years worshipers have been undeterred by the coronavirus pandemic or the war in the country, and many are gearing up to visit this year as well.

But Netanyahu's statement -- an obvious reference to the Holocaust and possibly centuries of antisemitism and pogroms -- was swiftly met with intense condemnation and repudiation from ultra-Orthodox politicians and other public figures, with some accusing the prime minister of "heresy" and one MK launching a diatribe against "the idolatry of power, vulgarity and assimilation of the secular regime." [...]

[United Torah Judaism MK Yisrael Eichler] went on to claim that the Zionists had in fact turned their backs on the Jews of Europe, thwarted rescue attempts and disdained "the Jews of the ghettos," while adding that some had collaborated as Judenrat. Eichler said that the once-revered military had been revealed in its "incompetence and contemptibleness" in the Yom Kippur War in 1973, and that former top generals who oppose the current government's judicial overhaul had recently shown themselves to be "rebels" who are "inciting a bloody [civil] war" in the country and giving it a bad name abroad "like the worst of our Islamic enemies."

...AND CHEAPER...:

Solar power innovators in Europe, Asia, and North America are launching flotillas of solar panels on open water with shocking results. 

In this case, electricity and water are a great combination, sometimes providing new life for forgotten lagoons that were created for past industrial efforts. Bloomberg reported that an old coal pit can be turned into a "green powerhouse" when covered with floating panel systems, and such a project has the potential to replace fossil-fuel generation entirely in certain communities. 

It's part of the effort to expand sun-catching surfaces while limiting the land acreage needed for solar farms. Floating systems can be placed on reservoirs, lakes, or other man-made water bodies, according to the U.S. Energy Department. When deployed, the panels can also help conserve water by reducing evaporation. 

Bloomberg's report detailed projects in Europe that are using floating systems to help meet solar demand with limited land. 

"Most of these former gravel and sand pits aren't used anymore. They're low-hanging fruit," Matthias Taft, CEO of European renewable energy developer Baywa r.e., told the outlet. 

A MORE PERFECT UNION:

Ever since Thomas Paine published Common Sense, many Americans and many American historians have seen and explained the Revolution as Paine had - as a war of national liberation. They claim that over the course of the colonial era, Anglo-American colonists underwent a transformation - a process of Americanization - at the end of which they were no longer conventional Englishmen. They became something different: Americans, a new national group, with uniquely American ideals, values, and sensibilities. The settlers had changed, and they therefore wanted to change their system of government to reflect their current ideas and sensibilities. Thus, the Revolution of 1776 was merely the formal culmination of the "real" revolution - the gradual change in mentality, values and political culture that had taken place in the hearts and minds of Americans during the colonial era.

Other historians - a minority opinion - argue that this was not a war of national liberation. They hold that Americans were not and did not see themselves as distinct from other Englishmen, and that they did not see themselves as connected to one another by a bond of nationhood before 1776. These historians hold that the American Revolution was a conservative revolution, a revolution designed not to change the status quo and create a new social and political arrangement, but to preserve the status quo. Americans were conventional and backward-looking Englishmen who wanted to resist changes that the British government was introducing to the Empire's system of government, such as new trade restrictions and tax measures, strong enforcement of imperial regulations, undercutting the jurisdiction of local courts, and otherwise expanding the reach of the central government at the expense of local autonomy.

The Albany Congress and Ben Franklin's Plan of Union play an important role in both interpretations of the American Revolution. Both groups of historians claim Franklin and the Albany Plan as evidence that supports their own understanding of the Revolution and its purpose. The Albany Congress convened (in Albany) in the summer of 1754, as the western and northern frontiers were warming up before the official outbreak of the French and Indian War (1755-63). It seated delegates from the middle and northern colonies and from as far south as Maryland to discuss matters of common concern - primarily Indian relations and frontier defense. Ben Franklin, who represented Pennsylvania, proposed his famous Albany Plan (supported by this popular propaganda cartoon: see below) which called for the formation of a supreme governing body over the American colonies. This government would be headed by a "President-General of the United Colonies" and a deliberative representative council composed of delegates from the different colonies. This continental government would deal with matters of common concern, like inter-colonial commerce, Indian relations, common defense, westward expansion and the like. Moreover, this government would have the right to tax the colonies to finance its operations.

Historians who argue that English settlers in America were being transformed into Americans during the colonial era see in the Albany Congress evidence that the colonists were already thinking of, and tinkering with, plans for union 20 years before the Revolution. These historians point to the Albany Congress as proof that these colonists were thinking of what connected them with one another - what common interests, concerns, and values they shared. They see in the Ben Franklin's Plan of Union evidence that American settlers were looking beyond their own colonial borders and seeking support from their fellow Americans, seeing their security and prosperity tied to some sort of continental union between their different colonies. To these historians, the Albany Congress was an important middle stage that arose from colonies that were disparate and atomized, and from colonists who were English in their frame of reference, to the Stamp Act Congress and the Continental Congress, and to settlers who saw themselves as Americans.

What is lost in this temptation to see the Albany Plan of Union as a precursor to the United States - specifically, to the US Constitution - is that the Albany Congress was convened not by any of the colonies, but by the Board of Trade in London. It was a British initiative, rather than an American one. Ben Franklin saw his plan as a way to strengthen colonial ties to Britain, and to integrate the colonies into the fabric of the British Empire. Moreover, not one single colony approved Franklin's Plan of Union. The colonies rejected the Albany Plan because they were not interested in an American government coordinating the policies of the different colonies and having jurisdiction over and within these colonies.

IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO OVERSTATE DEFLATIONARY PRESSURES:

The academic literature on ideation postulates three dimensions of creative performance: the quantity of ideas, the average quality of ideas, and the number of truly exceptional ideas.

First, on the number of ideas per unit of time: Not surprisingly, ChatGPT easily outperforms us humans on that dimension. Generating 200 ideas the old-fashioned way requires days of human work, while ChatGPT can spit out 200 ideas with about an hour of supervision.

Next, to assess the quality of the ideas, we market tested them. Specifically, we took each of the 400 ideas and put them in front of a survey panel of customers in the target market via an online purchase-intent survey. The question we asked was: "How likely would you be to purchase based on this concept if it were available to you?" The possible responses ranged from definitely wouldn't purchase to definitely would purchase.

The responses can be translated into a purchase probability using simple market-research techniques. The average purchase probability of a human-generated idea was 40%, that of vanilla GPT-4 was 47%, and that of GPT-4 seeded with good ideas was 49%. In short, ChatGPT isn't only faster but also on average better at idea generation.

Still, when you're looking for great ideas, averages can be misleading. In innovation, it's the exceptional ideas that matter: Most managers would prefer one idea that is brilliant and nine ideas that are flops over 10 decent ideas, even if the average quality of the latter option might be higher. To capture this perspective, we investigated only the subset of the best ideas in our pool--specifically the top 10%. Of these 40 ideas, five were generated by students and 35 were created by ChatGPT (15 from the vanilla ChatGPT set and 20 from the pretrained ChatGPT set). Once again, ChatGPT came out on top.

We believe that the 35-to-5 victory of the machine in generating exceptional ideas (not to mention the dramatically lower production costs) has substantial implications for how we think about creativity and innovation.

MAYBE IGNORE GUYS WHO MEDICATE WITH BLEACH?:

Among these findings: two of the leading ex-DOD officials, Christopher Mellon and Luis Elizondo, who successfully promoted UFO "disclosure" legislation, face a potential SEC investigation for alleged investor fraud in a UFO-hyping company they helped lead; and none of the military witnesses at the hearing have ever offered verifiable evidence to back their claims.

Equally important, many of the key findings in the ground-breaking 2017 New York Times article on the Pentagon's $22 million secret UFO "research" program that helped launch today's alien mania in Washington have been discredited.

(The three Navy "UFO" videos published by Times starting in 2017 that augmented the UFO frenzy have also been thoroughly debunked by visual expert Mick West, and in large part recently by the Pentagon and a NASA panel for having prosaic explanations, including camera artifacts.)

As documented by several critics, including Greenstreet, that original bombshell Times article notably hid the program's real paranormal agenda from the public. Most of the Pentagon research was actually devoted to chasing down werewolf-type creatures, poltergeists and ghosts on the Skinwalker Ranch in Utah, owned by the Pentagon contractor Robert Bigelow. I spoke in confidence with a congressional aide before the recent hearings who indicated that all this eminently available information was unknown to members of the committee. (Pro tip: add "skeptic" to your google search).

The new hearings were sparked by David Grusch, the former military intelligence officer who came forward in June with startling and increasingly bizarre new claims. He was widely and uncritically publicized after his claims -including stashed alien bodies and their retrieved crafts -- were aired in an obscure pro-UFO publication The Debrief and a third-tier cable news network, NewsNation.

NewsNation, in turn, has been riding UFOs hard since snaring exclusive interviews with Grusch. The ratings boost for NewsNation has been so great it even beat CNN during its special on Grusch, as noted recently by The Washington Post. The broadcast stories on Grusch have been led by Ross Coulthart, a disgraced Australian journalist. Along with hyping other repudiated stories, Coulthart once relied on discredited witnesses to make bogus pedophile accusations against members of the UK parliament, leading to a fruitless $4 million police investigation. So, despite that questionable background, he remains a leading UFO conspiracist.

Still, in the weeks since the hearings, Grusch's credibility has eroded on several fronts -- even as most media outlets and members of Congress have paid little attention to the details undermining his shocking tales. As The Washington Spectator recapped last month, he has asserted that the government has been hiding a secret alien crash retrieval program; the Pope tipped off the United States to a UFO retrieved by Mussolini (a long discredited hoax); alien corpses have been recovered by U.S. officials; and humans have been killed by aliens.

ALL IN YOUR HEAD:

If your brain decides that a fear response is justified in a particular situation, it activates a cascade of neuronal and hormonal pathways to prepare you for immediate action. Some of the fight-or-flight response - like heightened attention and threat detection - takes place in the brain. But the body is where most of the action happens.

Several pathways prepare different body systems for intense physical action. The motor cortex of the brain sends rapid signals to your muscles to prepare them for quick and forceful movements. These include muscles in the chest and stomach that help protect vital organs in those areas. That might contribute to a feeling of tightness in your chest and stomach in stressful conditions.

The sympathetic nervous system is the gas pedal that speeds up the systems involved in fight or flight. Sympathetic neurons are spread throughout the body and are especially dense in places like the heart, lungs and intestines. These neurons trigger the adrenal gland to release hormones like adrenaline that travel through the blood to reach those organs and increase the rate at which they undergo the fear response.

To assure sufficient blood supply to your muscles when they're in high demand, signals from the sympathetic nervous system increase the rate your heart beats and the force with which it contracts. You feel both increased heart rate and contraction force in your chest, which is why you may connect the feeling of intense emotions to your heart.

In your lungs, signals from the sympathetic nervous system dilate airways and often increase your breathing rate and depth. Sometimes this results in a feeling of shortness of breath.

As digestion is the last priority during a fight-or-flight situation, sympathetic activation slows down your gut and reduces blood flow to your stomach to save oxygen and nutrients for more vital organs like the heart and the brain. These changes to your gastrointestinal system can be perceived as the discomfort linked to fear and anxiety.

All bodily sensations, including those visceral feelings from your chest and stomach, are relayed back to the brain through the pathways via the spinal cord. Your already anxious and highly alert brain then processes these signals at both conscious and unconscious levels.

OPEN THE BORDERS:

Members of New Hampshire's Brazilian community celebrated that country's independence Thursday at Nashua City Hall. Mayor Jim Dochness offered a proclamation noting Brazilians' fierceness in breaking free from Portuguese colonialism. He highlighted the country's cuisine, businesses, and the popular Brazilian Fest, which gathers hundreds of people at Greeley Park every summer.

The Brazilian flag has an inscription that reads "Ordem and Progresso, which comes from French philosopher Auguste Compte's motto of positivism, "Love as a principle and order as the basis."

For Bruno Barreto, love is indeed a force that guides him. He is a Christian and a mortgage broker who talks passionately about his purpose of helping people find a home. He has lived in the U.S for 23 years and sees the Brazilian flag raised at City Hall as a stepping stone to building multicultural inclusion.

LET THEM FUND SPORTS; KILL THE ABRAHAM ACCORDS:

With a median age of around 30, Saudi Arabia has a young, highly literate population: a demographic which reflects its 38-year-old crown prince, prime minister, and absolute monarch Mohammad bin Salman (MBS). Often perceived as acting against the wishes of the ossified, corrupt elite, the crown prince is thought to be dragging the country into modernity--at swordpoint, if need be. At the core of his signature Saudi Vision 2030 plan is the aspiration for his country to be a premier power leading from the position of prominence that he feels its wealth ought to accord it.

There's just one problem. Saudi Arabia's human rights record is abysmal. The kingdom still regards beheading by sword as the proper Islamic method of execution. Last year, 81 people were executed in a single day, many belonging to the country's Shia minority and convicted of vague offenses like "monitoring and targeting officials and expatriates." Women are intensely surveilled and restricted, and extraordinary privilege is wielded by a sheltered, out-of-touch few. From an international perspective, one episode in particular stands out--the grisly, squalid, and allegedly MBS-directed 2018 assassination of Washington Post columnist (and member of the Saudi elite) Jamal Khashoggi, from which the kingdom's relations with the West remain seriously damaged.

MBS knows that if Saudi Arabia is to have a hope of leading on the global stage, he desperately needs to change its reputation. So he has launched a world-wide, multi-billion-dollar charm offensive aimed at doing exactly that. His kingdom has courted intimate relationships with many of the world's biggest sport stars, celebrities, companies and financial institutions, who are flown out and feted at its pop-up awards shows, EDM festivals, professional conventions and tradeshows, as well as athletics competitions that are streamed to audiences of many millions around the world. Lacking the dynamic civil society required to spontaneously generate the vibrant collisions of talent, will, and perspective necessary to organically dominate in these spheres, Saudi is instead flexing its staggering petro-wealth.

Imagine that you ask someone in the West what they think of when they think about Saudi Arabia. The resulting word cloud would likely include "rich," "deadly," and "totalitarian." Soft power of the sort MBS is trying to wield, when deployed in the right way, is one of the tools states have to change this. Saudi Arabia's chief objective in pouring billions of dollars into buying the world's best athletes consists in moving "soccer," in large-type font, to the center of that word cloud--along with "racing," "golf," "cycling," and, just maybe, "the future." The hope is that a historically unprecedented array of bread and circuses, paid for dearly, might one day come to completely occlude words like "bonesaw," "dismemberment," or "decapitation."

MBS figures that the kingdom's only hope to lead is to spend--and Saudi Arabia has been on a glitz-krieg.

ONE MASSIVE SUB-TWEET:

Foundations representing nearly every former president from Herbert Hoover to Barack Obama released a joint letter on Thursday calling on Americans to engage in civil political discourse, and to remember that tolerance and respect are key to peaceful coexistence.

The effort, which was organized by the George W. Bush Presidential Center, marks the first time presidential foundations and centers have come together to deliver a statement to the American public. [...]

In the past few years, several lawmakers across the country have openly tried to discredit governmental institutions and systems -- from elections, to the justice system to federal agencies -- sowing distrust among the American public. Among them is Trump, who has spent the better part of the past three years falsely claiming that the 2020 election was fraudulently stolen from him.

In the letter, the presidential institutions urged American lawmakers to actively fight distrust in government.

"Our elected officials must lead by example and govern effectively in ways that deliver for the American people," the letter reads. "This, in turn, will help to restore trust in public service. The rest of us must engage in civil dialogue; respect democratic institutions and rights; uphold safe, secure, and accessible elections; and contribute to local, state, or national improvement."

ALWAYS BET ON THE dEEP sTATE:

Former US President Donald Trump on Wednesday was found liable for defamatory remarks he made against  when he denied her rape accusations in 2019.

US District Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote in the decision that the jury found "Mr. Trump's 2019 statements were made with actual malice." 

Kaplan said that jurors at a separate but found that Trump sexually abused Carroll in a department store in Manhattan in the mid-1990s.

THEY HANG KRAKEN DON'T THEY:

Special counsel Jack Smith is still pursuing his investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election a month after indicting Donald Trump for orchestrating a broad conspiracy to remain in power, a widening of the probe that raises the possibility others could still face legal peril.

Questions asked of two recent witnesses indicate Smith is focusing on how money raised off baseless claims of voter fraud was used to fund attempts to breach voting equipment in several states won by Joe Biden, according to multiple sources familiar with the ongoing investigation.

In both interviews, prosecutors have focused their questions on the role of former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell.

According to invoices obtained by CNN, Powell's non-profit, Defending the Republic, hired forensics firms that ultimately accessed voting equipment in four swing states won by Biden: Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona.

Powell faces criminal charges in Georgia after she was indicted last month by Atlanta-area district attorney Fani Willis, who alleges that Powell helped coordinate and fund a multi-state plot to illegally access voting systems after the 2020 election.

"PERFECTLY ALIGNED":

In the early aughts, indie music seemed full of possibilities. It was undergoing multiple regional renaissances: NYC's post-punk revival, the PNW's rainy sensitivity, Canadian "collectives" that were approaching double-digit member counts. Meanwhile, something else in indie music was brewing that would flout geography entirely.

Tamborello was working on his third album, 2001's Life Is Full of Possibilities, as Dntel, the alias he used to make electronic music. He was a fan of Gibbard's work with Death Cab for Cutie, so he asked a roommate of his, Pedro Benito of the Jealous Sound, to put him in touch with the singer to see if he'd want to collaborate. Gibbard was interested: He flew from his home in Seattle to Los Angeles to record some vocals, got along remarkably well with Tamborello, and hung out with him for a couple of days. And the Gibbard song that would make it onto Life Is Full of Possibilities, "(This Is) the Dream of Evan and Chan," is the first Postal Service tune in everything but name. It's got all the vital signifiers: jittery drum-machine beats; airy synthesizers; wistful, emotive vocals and lyrics. At some point, over the course of those few days in Los Angeles, Gibbard asked Tamborello a nonchalant yet imperative question:

"I turned to Jimmy and said, 'Would you want to do an EP of this? It's kind of fun,'" Gibbard says. "With Jimmy and his very understated way, he was like, 'Yeah, that sounds good. I can do that.'" They were planning on just a couple of songs, but when Kiewel caught wind of the project, he wanted Gibbard and Tamborello to take it a step further.

Kiewel, who was then an A&R rep for Sub Pop, was also a roommate of Tamborello's alongside Benito, so he was both personally and professionally involved. He brought "(This Is) the Dream of Evan and Chan" into a meeting and asked a question that would alter the landscape of indie music: If Gibbard and Tamborello were to make an entire album like this, would Sub Pop have any interest in putting it out? "Going into it, I could not have been more invested," Kiewel says. "We felt confident and excited about it because we're coming out of nowhere with this project."

THE TIGHTENING NOOSE:

In late August, an information technology aide at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort dramatically changed his story about alleged efforts to erase surveillance video and agreed to cooperate with special counsel Jack Smith, who has charged Trump with hoarding classified documents. The aide, Yuscil Taveras, was not charged in the case, but his flip may help him dodge a possible perjury charge prosecutors were floating -- and it is likely to bolster Smith's obstruction-of-justice case against Trump and two other aides.

Then, three GOP activists who were indicted alongside Trump in Georgia for trying to interfere with the certification of President Joe Biden's win in the state asserted that their actions were all taken at Trump's behest.

And last week, Trump's former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows -- also charged in the Georgia case -- signaled that his defense is likely to include blaming the former president as the primary driver of the effort.

It's not uncommon for co-defendants facing serious prison time to point fingers at each other to make themselves look less culpable to an eventual jury. But rarely has it played out in such an extraordinary fashion, where the alleged ringleader is a former president.

During a hearing in Atlanta, a defense attorney for Meadows called attention to Trump's prominent role in what is certain to be a crucial element of prosecutors' case there: the infamous Jan. 2, 2021, phone call in which Trump demanded that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, "find" enough votes to declare Trump the winner.

Meadows arranged that pivotal call. But after prosecutors played audio of the call in the courtroom, an attorney for Meadows emphasized that his client's part in the actual discussion was both more minor and less provocative than Trump's.

"There's a lot of statements by Mr. Trump. Mr. Meadows' speaking roles were quite limited," Meadows' lawyer, Michael Francisco, observed as he cross-examined Raffensperger, who was called to testify by prosecutors.

"He didn't make a request that you change the vote totals -- Mr. Meadows, himself?" Francisco continued.

"Correct," Raffensperger replied.

Although Francisco made the point delicately, one could almost hear the screech of the bus tires. 

YOU CAN STILL SEE THAT PATCH OF DIRT ON HIS KNEE:

CALISTOGA, Calif. -- The walk takes about 20 minutes, clockwise, uphill then down, and it induces a healthy amount of sweat when the temperature cracks 90, as it does on this late September afternoon last year.

"This is what he did every day," Anne Seaver says, accompanied by three black labradors. "He walked the vineyard with his three dogs. So what I do, every day, is I walk the vineyard with my three dogs."

The walk offers exercise, a remarkable view atop Calistoga's Diamond Mountain and communion with the past. When Tom Seaver made this walk each morning, he chatted along the way with his late mother or his older brother, Charles, who'd died from cancer decades ago.

A little more than three years ago, Seaver passed away from Lewy body dementia and complications from COVID-19. Now, for his younger daughter Anne, that same walk is a chance to reconnect with Tom.

"All the little things I took for granted about Dad, now I appreciate so much more," she says. "I can hear his laugh in my head, especially up here.

"I feel almost closer to him now than when he was alive."

As we walk past the rows of grapevines that constitute Seaver Vineyards on a still and cloudless day, the crunch of the ground under our feet the only noise, Anne leans down to pick up a feather.

"Since he's passed," she says, "I've been finding all these feathers." He loved birds, she explains, enough to coo at them when he came across them in the wild, enough to put a quail on the front gate at the vineyard. His favorite poem, the one written by Charles that hangs in the barn at the vineyard, is about watching the geese:

Oh I wish you could have been here on that day

to share the feelings that we felt

to see them fly away.

"The feathers are the symbols," Anne says. "He leaves the feathers."

WE CAN'T GET RID OF DRIVERS FAST ENOUGH:

But we actually do know a fair amount about the safety of driverless taxis. Waymo and Cruise have driven a combined total of 8 million driverless miles, including more than 4 million in San Francisco since the start of 2023.1 And because California law requires self-driving companies to report every significant crash, we know a lot about how they've performed.

For this story, I read through every crash report Waymo and Cruise filed in California this year, as well as reports each company filed about the performance of their driverless vehicles (with no safety drivers) prior to 2023. In total, the two companies reported 102 crashes involving driverless vehicles. That may sound like a lot, but they happened over roughly 6 million miles of driving. That works out to one crash for every 60,000 miles, which is about five years of driving for a typical human motorist.

These were overwhelmingly low-speed collisions that did not pose a serious safety risk. A large majority appeared to be the fault of the other driver. This was particularly true for Waymo, whose biggest driving errors included side-swiping an abandoned shopping cart and clipping a parked car's bumper while pulling over to the curb.

Cruise's record is not impressive as Waymo's, but there's still reason to think its technology is on par with--and perhaps better than--a human driver.

Human beings drive close to 100 million miles between fatal crashes, so it's going to take hundreds of millions of driverless miles for 100 percent certainty on this question. But the evidence for better-than-human performance is starting to pile up, especially for Waymo. And so it's important for policymakers to allow this experiment to continue. Because at scale, safer-than-human driving technology would save a lot of lives.

THANKS, VLAD!:

Since Vladimir Putin launched the invasion in February 2022, emigration out of Russia has exploded, with some estimates putting the exodus at 1 million people. A recent analysis from the policy platform Re: Russia narrowed the number to 817,000-922,000.

That's contributed to a record labor shortage, with 42% of industrial firms unable to find enough workers in July, up from 35% in April. 

The composition of Russia's exodus also points to the best and brightest fleeing the country. While a barrage of Western sanctions incentivized many to leave for economic reasons, others fled to avoid military service, skewing the numbers toward younger Russians.

Workers under the age of 35 now account for less than 30% of the labor force, the lowest on record going back 20 years.

And according to a report from the French Institute of International Relations, 86% of those who have left Russia are under the age of 45, and 80% have a college education. At least 100,000 IT professionals moved out of Russia in 2022, a Kremlin official estimated last year. 

GROWTH IS ALWAYS REVISED UPWARD:

The UK economy appears to have pulled ahead of Germany's in its recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, with updated figures suggesting gross domestic product rose more quickly than thought.

GDP jumped 8.7% in 2021 as the economy bounced back from lockdowns, instead of the 7.6% previously estimated, the Office for National Statistics said Friday.  [...]

Assuming no change to growth rates since then, it implies the economy was 1.5% above pre-pandemic levels in the second quarter of this year, instead of 0.2% below. 

SIMPLE ECONOMICS:

Patterned after the successful Reagan-Bush acid rain program, RGGI uses the same tools of free market competition that control prices and increase efficiency to accelerate energy diversification and modernization of monopoly utilities, which are unfortunately insulated from normal free market forces. [...]

The huge spikes last year in the price of both oil and natural gas due to the war in Ukraine demonstrated just how vulnerable globally traded fossil fuels, even those produced here, are to events halfway around the world.

Although the governor and the General Assembly recently took a long-overdue baby step toward utility accountability, passing a bill that requires Dominion to do away with extra charges known as "riders" from electric bills, far more is needed to protect Virginia ratepayers.

Only RGGI's market pressure can reliably lower costs in the long run, as it encourages diversification with cheaper energy sources that are not influenced by international conflicts or overseas demand. Solar and wind energy makes good economic sense because the fuel is free, unlike natural gas and coal. Electricity from coal and gas typically costs between $45 and $80 per megawatt hour, while new solar electricity with battery storage for nighttime generation costs under $20 per megawatt hour.

It's not just lower, more stable electricity prices that Youngkin is ignoring, it's the massive economic impact. Clean energy is expected to be a $23 trillion market by the end of this decade. Major companies in Virginia, like Mars, Nestle and Unilever, have voiced their support for RGGI because it provides market certainty and lower overhead costs.

ALL IN YOUR HEAD:

A new paper out now from the Norwegians on Long COVID in kids and young adolescents takes a sledgehammer to the media narrative of the condition.

TL:DR - Long covid has no link to prior COVID19, instead, initial symptom severity (of whatever virus you get), loneliness and poor physical activity are linked to the "post covid conditions"

SIN? IT'S A CORE ANGLOSPHERIC INSIGHT:

Like many other Cold War liberals, Himmelfarb had a particular (and mistaken) diagnosis of how liberalism could easily self-destruct. If liberals called for too much emancipation and progress, she thought, they would connive with evil forces to bring them about. They would, in other words, easily fall for the communist promise to achieve good things through immoral means. And if they neglected Christianity's insight into the endurance of original sin, liberals would treat the state as a workable device of liberation and progress, rather than regarding it as a malignant expression of eternal depravity. The consequences, she warned, would be devastating, giving people who are tarnished by original sin the capacity to use state power to kill millions.

Though a Jew concerned about the abuse of minorities, Himmelfarb laid extraordinary emphasis on this point, in turn making Christianity integral to Cold War liberalism. While liberals had spent the prior century often viewing religious forces as an enemy, she called for a new liberalism based on Acton's Christian vision of sin. Acton, who had rejected "integralist" forms of Christian Right-wing politics that longed for a return to medieval theocracy, was principally important for reforming secular liberals who sought to secure freedom against secular totalitarianisms such as Nazi and Soviet tyranny. He recognised, Himmelfarb wrote, "the presence of eternal and absolute" morality, in contrast to liberals who "had no sense of the religious sanctity of those principles" and compromised away freedom.

Indeed, it was liberal Christianity, Himmelfarb wrote, that might turn out to be essential in a Cold War world that knew the threat of religious authoritarianism even as secular revolution could bring even worse oppression. "Clerics are not alone in carrying the banner of religion," she wrote. "They have been joined by a multitude of those who, in Acton's own time, would almost certainly have been in the camp of the opposition." Liberals needed to get over their anticlericalism, was the message, and use religion to save themselves.

It had to be the right kind of Christianity, of course. Acton was an Augustinian, and his vision of sin forbade excessive optimism. Humanity couldn't save itself; man's fallen nature made power a permanent threat. Instead, the Christianity useful for Cold War liberals saw God as the external judge on history, where the notion of secular progress supposedly leading to human emancipation was little more than an alibi for crime. For Acton, Himmelfarb explained, "history did not have a meaning or purpose in itself; it acquired meaning only by comparison with a fixed moral standard outside it, and purpose by fulfilling a moral end imposed upon it".

This Augustinian core of Cold War liberalism is often conveniently forgotten. In an otherwise excellent recent book, for example, Louis Menand paints a portrait of Cold War liberalism as a utopia of innovative modernism, rather than one rooted in the religiosity that suffused the Forties and Fifties.

UNPOPULAR IDEOLOGIES ALWAYS HATE FREE MARKETS:

In this podcast discussion, Continetti talks about the principal themes of The Right, including the proliferation of different varieties of politics that have appeared in right-wing intellectual and activist circles over the past century, the ongoing struggle for influence between the libertarian and traditionalist factions of conservatism, and the tensions between populist outsiders and governing-minded insiders. He analyzes the present political moment and the intellectual attempt to "reverse-engineer" Donald Trump's impulses and instincts into a coherent ideology through institutions like the Claremont Institute and Hillsdale College as well as the National Conservative movement. Continetti also describes the reasoning behind his decision to begin his account with the 1920s, the end of the Cold War's impact on the conservative movement, and the reasons why he thinks the political center-right and its institutions are following the same pattern of decline that the center-left underwent a decade ago.   [...]

Geoff Kabaservice: It seemed to me in reading your book that there was maybe a refinement on that last binary of more establishment conservatives versus populists. And that was that the "establishment" conservatives, if you can call them that -- that's a loaded term -- were interested in governing. That meant putting forward coherent policies. It meant building up national majorities to approve of their programs, and it meant some level of intellectual respectability as well. And those were not concerns of the opposing populist side, who tended to be anti-establishment, anti-authoritarian, maybe even nihilist in their desire for a complete break with the past and a fresh start. Does that sound more or less accurate?

Matthew Continetti: I think another way to characterize it would be to say that the conservative intellectuals were interested in basically playing by the rules of twentieth-century American politics and media, and so they did care about respectability. They did care about being able to go toe-to-toe with the best minds on the Left. They did care about persuasion of the middle that has decided elections in the United States in order to reinforce their governing majorities.

Whereas the outsiders, the populists, they were much more interested always in changing the rules or even substituting a new set of rules for the ones that we have had over the last hundred years. And so that gave them a radical touch that was missing from many of the intellectuals.

HATING GREENS CAN'T SAVE BROWN:

By 2030, technology improvements could slash today's prices by a quarter for wind and by half for solar, according to the authors of a recent report from clean energy think tank RMI. (Canary Media is an independent affiliate of RMI.)

These remarkable and ongoing cost declines have made clean energy so attractive that it now outcompetes fossil fuels for new investment: 62 percent of global energy investment is expected to flow to clean energy technologies this year.

That cash is helping push renewables to new heights. According to estimates from the International Energy Agency, global clean energy capacity is expected to jump a jaw-dropping 107 gigawatts to more than 440 gigawatts this year -- its largest increase ever.

What we're living in ​"is an energy technology revolution," said report co-author Kingsmill Bond, an energy strategist at RMI. It's obvious from the data, yet the point is often lost in ​"a consistent drumbeat of counternarratives" about how difficult it is, and will be, to leave fossil fuels behind, he added.

"U.S. fossil-fuel demand peaked 15 years ago," Bond said. ​"This is happening; people have just missed it."