COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Black Thugs Matter - 13% of the Population is Doing 55% of the Murders

Obnoxious NFL players protesting the flag and national anthem need to take Protesting 101

Imagine a new, smallish, terrorist attack perpetrated by a Muslim. And imagine if, around the country, people began pouring pigs' blood on sidewalks in front of mosques.

Or imagine if someone who happened to be homosexual murdered a widely-admired actor, and then in San Francisco and New York people began publicly shredding rainbow flags in protest.

In both instances, the political Left and its media enablers justly would be apoplectic at the protesters, and would probably call for the Justice Department to charge them with hate crimes.

Not that the pigs' blood or the burned gay-pride flag actually hurt anybody physically. But the feelings of the Muslims or homosexuals would be so wounded, according to the Left, that the blood-spatterers and flag-shredders should be not just criticized but punished.

The Left would be half-right. Those forms of protest would be both mis-aimed and utterly insulting, and thus justifiably subject to bitter criticism – but notpunishment. Noxious expressions in this country, unless they deliberately incite violence, are protected.

But legal protections do not insulate the protesters from criticism, nor do they make the criticism illegitimate.

Yet let the noxious expressions be aimed at the American flag or national anthem, and suddenly the Left is utterly unconcerned that the expressions enrage most Americans. Instead, the Left is full of sympathy for the protesters and disdain for those who criticize the form of their protest. Suddenly it is the "right" to protest that the Left cares about, but not whether the means or target of the protests is rightful, respectful, or appropriate.

The truth, of course, is that our wise system ensures that the expression is legally protected, and also that the equally protected blowback must come through non-governmental response, via public criticism and perhaps economic pressure. It is illegitimate to accuse the counter-protester critics as somehow trying to "deny" the protesters' "rights" when the critics aim not at their rights but at their substance or form.

NFL players can protest during the national anthem all they want – and we, most Americans, are justified in calling their protests divisive and despicable, just as we would call the pig-blood-spatterers and gay-flag-shredders odious.

The NFL players kneeling are wrong both on substance and especially on their form of protest. They are wrong on substance because this nation, as a nation, has enshrined in law every possible protection against anti-black discrimination, even discriminating in favor of blacks to make up for past injustices (e.g. affirmative action). They are wrong on substance also because the data shows their impressions about police maltreatment of blacks-because-they're-black are mistaken.

As Philippe Lemoine showed at National Review Online, "black men are less likely than white men to have contact with the police in any given year," and as the Washington Post and other databases have shown, blacks (who represent 13 percent of the population) happen to commit nearly half of all murders but amount to just 24 percent of those killed by police. (Let us rush to say this statistic says nothing about any innate black propensity to crime, as it, of course, does not take socioeconomic status or any other such variable into account.)

Yes, every time anyone, black or white, is wrongly killed by police, it's a tragedy – but there is no truth to the idea that black citizens are particularly targeted or particularly at risk by police, much less that the nation institutionally or "American society" as a whole encourages or condones such police mistreatment.
The reality is the opposite -- the substantive underpinnings for the protests are non-existent.

With those points made, let's move (partially) away from the NFL. There's a broader point, about their chosen form of protest, to be made. In college terms, let's call it Protest 101. The first rule of Protest 101 is that the right to protest contains no right to commit acts that are inherently criminal. There is no right to commit violence to make your point, no right to loot or commit property crimes, nor to deny the free-expression rights of others.

The second rule isn't legal, but a matter of manners and, frankly, of common-sense: If your protest is deliberately designed to insult the most deeply-cherished beliefs or symbols of others, you won't win others to your side – and you're also a rude lout. It is hideously rude to sprinkle pigs' blood outside of mosques or to shred a gay-pride flag, and it is hideously rude to protest during a national anthem that is a cherished expression of unity, of admirable patriotism, and of the very freedom that allows your protest in the first place.

The third rule is one of the natural human tendency towards equal-and-opposite reactions. I've written numerous times about the need for respectful dialogue and listening to the other side; yet, it must be understood that anyone who begins the conversation by deliberate insult and provocation has forfeited the right for respect. If you insult the flag and anthem that represent the cause of freedom for which millions have been wounded or killed, then you merit not sympathy but censure. An intentional, pre-planned provocation will cause a visceral reaction – and if the others' response is to verbally shred your own viscera, well, you asked for it.

The final rule of Protest 101 is this: Conduct the protest against the entity that caused the grievance. If a lunch counter won't serve you, by all means, sit at the counter. When buses discriminated against Rosa Parks, she refused to give up her bus seat. But the United States of America as an entity doesn't kill, indeed it condemns a trigger-happy cop's killing of an innocent man. Protest the killing, then, in an appropriate way, but don't denigrate the symbols of a nation of good people who would otherwise empathize with your grievance.

The same freedom that allows you to protest allows your protest to be condemned as the execrable effluvium of pampered, privileged, priapic punks, white and black alike. The condemnation would be correct.


Quin Hillyer (@QuinHillyer) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. He is a former associate editorial page editor for the Washington Examiner.
If you would like to write an op-ed for the Washington Examiner, please read our guidelines on submissions here.

67 comments:

  1. GOOD JOB DUMBASSES

    NEW YORK (AP) — Through three weeks, viewership for national telecasts of NFL games is down 11 percent this season compared to 2016, the Nielsen company said on Tuesday.

    Nielsen said the games averaged 17.63 million viewers for the first three weeks of last season, and have dipped to 15.65 million this year. The Nielsen figures don’t include many of the Sunday afternoon games that are shown to a regional audience, but not a national one.

    The NFL ratings are in focus because of President Donald Trump’s suggestion that viewers are turned off by a protest against police brutality that began with quarterback Colin Kaepernick refusing to stand for the national anthem. The protests spread rapidly this past weekend following the president’s criticism of people involved.

    Next week’s ratings will be even more closely watched, since conservative groups and Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity have called for people angered by the protests to boycott this weekend’s games.

    Meanwhile, Round One of the new ideological battle on cable television news went to Hannity, who has moved to a time slot directly competing with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. Nielsen said Hannity had 3.27 million viewers on Monday, compared to 2.66 million for Maddow. CNN, which showed a special health care debate at the same hour, had 1.45 million viewers.

    ReplyDelete
  2. SPEAKING OF DUMB LYING ASSES

    WASHINGTON (AP) — “Obamacare” lives on.

    Senate Republicans, short of votes, abandoned their latest and possibly final attempt to kill the health care law Tuesday, just ahead of a critical end-of-the-week deadline.

    The repeal-and-replace bill’s authors promised to try again at a later date, while President Donald Trump railed against “certain so-called Republicans” who opposed the GOP effort. But for now, Trump and fellow Republicans who vowed for seven years to abolish President Barack Obama’s law will leave it standing and turn their attention to overhauling the nation’s tax code instead.

    The GOP’s predicament was summed up bluntly by Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a lead author of the legislation: “Through events that are under our control and not under our control, we don’t have the votes.”

    “Am I disappointed? Absolutely,” he said after a GOP lunch attended by Vice President Mike Pence.

    Standing alongside Cassidy, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said: “We haven’t given up on changing the American health care system. We are not going to be able to do that this week, but it still lies ahead of us.”

    “We do think it’s time to turn to our twin priority, reforming the tax code,” McConnell said.

    ReplyDelete
  3. HAND THIS ASSHOLE HIS BAD CONDUCT DISCHARGE:

    Photos of a West Point alumnus holding a pro-Colin Kaepernick “Communism Will Win” sign while in uniform is riling up the military community.

    Images of U.S. infantry Officer Spenser Rapone reached a popular military news site on Tuesday and set off a robust debate on NFL national anthem protests, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback that started it all in 2016, and the shock of seeing an unapologetic communist from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

    “I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure Colin Kaepernick wasn’t protesting in favor of communism. #ThatGuy,” wrote “Doctrine Man,” the moderator of a well-known Facebook page frequented by active military personnel and veterans.

    Readers were shocked to see Mr. Rapone, whose Twitter handle is “Commie Bebop,” raising a clenched fist in support of Mr. Kapernick; another photo featured the officer revealing a Che Guevara shirt under his uniform.

    LawNewz.com by Dan Abrams confirmed Mr. Rapone’s identity Monday evening with the officer himself, but he said was on a field exercise until Friday and would be unable to comment for the time being.

    ReplyDelete
  4. FIRST NFL SPONSOR THAT SHOULD BE BOYCOTTED

    Shares in Nike Inc. NKE, +0.88% fell 3% in premarket action after the sneakers giant late Tuesday posted fiscal first-quarter earnings that beat forecasts, but its revenue was slightly below expectations. The company also warned that weak sales in North America will continue to weigh on results in its second quarter, according to a Dow Jones Newswires report.

    ReplyDelete
  5. WELL PAST TIME FOR THE McCAIN FAMILY TO RECEIVE A TRIANGULAR FOLDED AMERICAN FLAG

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. McCain was your man in 2008
      He has not changed

      Delete
    2. Anyone with any sense and concern for the country would have voted for McCain over Obama.

      It was the only responsible thing to do.

      Delete
    3. .

      Anyone who would wish someone else dead over their political positions has some serious problems.

      .

      Delete
    4. Metaphor, my good man.

      And, a respectable one, at that.

      On the other hand, anyone who would not wish, say, Kim Jong un dead over all his sinning has serious problems. One can easily think of some others in today's world, and the past is rife with possibilities....

      Delete
    5. .

      Metaphor, my good man.

      One can only go by what is visible on the page. The fact that the message is delivered in caps seems to indicate a level of anger or at least intensity that some might think inappropriate.

      Perhaps, anger management is called for. Or maybe, we should organize an intervention.

      .

      Delete
    6. It is simply who he is Quirk.

      Delete
    7. Our resident pedant is now drifting into psychoanalysis. A lot more Americans would be alive had John McCain made his biological departure some time ago. Well check this out Sigmund:

      ...McCain spent his formative years among the Washington elite. His father — himself deep in the throes of a daddy complex — had secured a political post as the Navy's chief liaison to the Senate, a job his son would later hold, and the McCain home on Southeast 1st Street was a high-powered pit stop in the Washington cocktail circuit. Growing up, McCain attended Episcopal High School, an all-white, all-boys boarding school across the Potomac in Virginia, where tuition today tops $40,000 a year. There, McCain behaved with all the petulance his privilege allowed, earning the nicknames "Punk" and "McNasty." Even his friends seemed to dislike him, with one recalling him as "a mean little fucker."

      McCain was not only a lousy student, he had his father's taste for drink and a darkly misogynistic streak. The summer after his sophomore year, cruising with a friend near Arlington, McCain tried to pick up a pair of young women. When they laughed at him, he cursed them so vilely that he was hauled into court on a profanity charge.

      McCain's admittance to Annapolis was preordained by his bloodline. But martial discipline did not seem to have much of an impact on his character. By his own account, McCain was a lazy, incurious student; he squeaked by only by prevailing upon his buddies to help him cram for exams. He continued to get sauced and treat girls badly. Before meeting a girlfriend's parents for the first time, McCain got so shitfaced that he literally crashed through the screen door when he showed up in his white midshipman's uniform...

      ...His grandfather's name and his father's forbearance brought McCain a charmed existence at Annapolis. On his first trip at sea — to Rio de Janeiro aboard the USS Hunt — the captain was a former student of his father. While McCain's classmates learned the ins and outs of the boiler room, McCain got to pilot the ship to South America and back. In Rio, he hobnobbed with admirals and the president of Brazil.

      Back on campus, McCain's short fuse was legend. "We'd hear this thunderous screaming and yelling between him and his roommate — doors slamming — and one of them would go running down the hall," recalls Phil Butler, who lived across the hall from McCain at the academy. "It was a regular occurrence."

      "He was a huge screw-off," recalls Butler. "He was always on probation. The only reason he graduated was because of his father and his grandfather — they couldn't exactly get rid of him."

      McCain's self-described "four-year course of insubordination" ended with him graduating fifth from the bottom — 894th out of a class of 899. It was a record of mediocrity he would continue as a pilot.

      {...}

      Delete
    8. Rest in Peace John (I know it's a little premature - but, I wanted you to hear it from me first).

      Delete
  6. Angela Merkel has come under pressure from her MPs to revert to the conservative “core brand” to win back voters who defected to the far right, increasing the difficulty of forming a coalition with the left-wing Greens.

    She faced demands for tougher action on migrants from her reduced Christian Democratic Union (CDU) MPs after losing 55 seats in Sunday’s election. The Christian Social Union (CSU), her Bavarian allies, renewed a call for an annual asylum seeker limit.

    Some of Mrs Merkel’s MPs blame her generous refugee policies for the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which took 94 seats with more than 12 per cent of the vote, and want to woo back the AfD’s 5.9 million voters.

    The euro lost ground as the chancellor faced many obstacles to a coalition deal with the Greens and the pro-market Free Democratic Party (FDP) that would keep her party happy.

    ReplyDelete
  7. MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Roy S. Moore, a firebrand former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, overcame efforts by top Republicans to rescue his rival, Senator Luther Strange, soundly defeating him on Tuesday in a special primary runoff.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      Typical Trump. This morning he took the time to delete a number of his recent pro-Strange tweets. Talk about trying to reshape history.

      Given Trumps propensity for tweets and their reflection of his real feelings on things, is his deletion of these tweets on political issues legal?

      .

      Delete
    2. They have been printed ...
      ... included in the "Permanent Record" of Mr Trump's presidency.

      Delete
    3. A tactic not unknown among bloggers.

      Delete
    4. Is it legal ?

      Hmmmm....done from the White House.....hmmmm.....

      I don't know, really.

      It doesn't seem to be an 'official record of government business'.

      But if this is true:

      "They have been printed ...
      ... included in the "Permanent Record" of Mr Trump's presidency."


      then no harm seems to have been done.

      I wonder who printed them up and included them in the 'Permanent Record' though.

      Other than thousands of readers out there of course.....

      Melania needs to get control of the Twitter Account.

      Delete
    5. I note even Quirk has cleaned up his record upon infrequent occasions.

      The tactic is used all across our great nation.

      Delete
    6. .

      They have been printed ...
      ... included in the "Permanent Record" of Mr Trump's presidency.


      Isn't there a difference between the 'permanent record' and the 'official record'? In a legal sense.

      .

      Delete
    7. The lawyers will differ in opinion on this matter depending upon the needs of their clients.

      Delete
    8. from Newsweek -

      Did Trump Break The Law By Deleting His Luther Strange Tweets?

      ....Trump has previously deleted tweets containing typos or spelling mistakes, raising questions over whether the president’s tweets should be preserved under the Presidential Records Act 1978 (PRA), which forbids the destruction of presidential communications.

      The bill was introduced in the wake of the Nixon presidency and the Watergate scandal.

      In June, Democrat lawmaker Mike Quigley introduced the “COVFEFE” Act, which would make the president’s social media communications subject to the same restrictions as other forms, and preserved for historical record. The act was named after a typo in a deleted Trump tweet from May, in which the president intended to complain about negative press coverage, but instead typed “covfefe.”....


      https://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2017/09/trump-break-law-deleting-luther-strange-tweets/

      Delete

  8. Q. If Flynn did indeed take this trip and fail to disclose it on his security clearance form, is that significant?

    A. An undisclosed effort to help broker a deal for Russian government entities is a huge revelation in the context of the Russia investigations.
    It could be significant legally as it relates to FARA, False Statements, or Espionage Act investigations. The legal significance for each would turn on the nature of Flynn’s role in the deal and his mental state about the failure to

    ReplyDelete

  9. deductibility of state and local taxes may be capped or eliminated. ....

    If that’s included — and the fight over it will be fierce — it might cover half of the tax cuts’ estimated $1.5 trillion in lost revenue over 10 years.

    But the cuts may wind up a lot bigger and the revenue gap a lot wider.

    And no, ... they won't “pay for themselves”; the U.S. government will have to borrow that money, just as it did after the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts.

    That means the national debt will continue to grow, despite all the promises of Trump and the Republican Party leadership, who have been as adamant about the ballooning debt for the past six or seven years as they were about repealing and replacing Obamacare.

    In June, the Congressional Budget Office projected that the debt would rise by more than $10 trillion over the next 10 years. Since total federal debt now tops $20 trillion, it would likely exceed $30 trillion by the end of fiscal 2027, when the deficit alone would hit $1.4 trillion


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      Tax Reform?

      I am starting to get the feeling that the GOP tax reform effort is going to end up as another clusterfuck similar to their efforts at repealing Obamacare.

      There is much debate over the legitimacy of the dynamic scoring which forms the basis of the Trump tax cut plan. At a minimum, it is hardly a 'conservative' approach.

      Neither side argues over the fact that the proposed plan will initially increase the debt by $ trillions. The GOP says this will only be in the short term. They expect that in the long term the corporate and business cuts will increase growth and the resultant taxes to the point that it will cover the initial revenue loss and generate significantly more revenue in the future.

      A few points...

      1. Even if the GOP is right, the increased deficit will be locked in. Any increased revenue will simply be spent. It is the way of the world in D.C.

      however...

      2. The dynamic scoring assumptions are questionable. They have never been definitively proved since there are so many other factors that affect GPD growth.

      3. Those assumptions are even more questionable given where we are in the business cycle. It is hard to see how the tax cuts will increase employment and taxes when we are near all-time lows in unemployment and the main problem many firms have right now is finding qualified people to fill the jobs that already exist.

      4. Saw Corker on TV this morning. He says the plan will benefit the middle class by resulting in higher income and helping the underemployed get better jobs both of which are questionable assumptions. The first because it goes against history and a pattern of wages lagging corporate income increases. The second, because given the current employment levels, it may end up just a shifting of the existing labor force.

      5. The big kicker in this plan will be the effect of the corporate tax cut and whether it does what the administration says it will do, bring new jobs in from foreign countries. A big influx of new jobs would help the GOP's case. I am a bit skeptical. Either way, this is the factor that will decide whether the tax cut plan is viewed as successful or not.

      6. With the shifting around of benefits and deductions their will millions of winners and losers some that make no sense. For instance, leaked details indicate that the standard deduction will go up by more than 50%.
      If that happens, I won't be paying any taxes at all even though I get a pretty good pension. I'll take it but in reality it shows any tax plan has winners and losers.

      .


      Delete
    2. I'm glad you will be among the winners.

      Which is exactly what I am hoping for myself as well.

      Delete
    3. If the Republicans can't get a tax cut passed they ought to all just go home and sit quietly by the fire and watch the NFL.

      By the way, after intense continuous thought, dreams, meditations and revelations and stealing the idea from someone else, I have come upon the correct solution to the NFL problem.

      Let the players take the knee either before, or after, the Anthem, but fire them if they take the knee during the Anthem.

      "Always support the country, and the government when it deserves it. "

      Mark Twain

      The flag is not a symbol of any political party, but of the entire country these days.

      Dissing the flag is dissing the entire country.

      Protests should be confined to before or after the Anthem.

      Delete
  10. Nation's Political Ad Men in total panic mode - fraudsters' secret exposed -

    WaPo: New Study Rocks Political World … Broadcasters Hardest Hit?
    ED MORRISSEYPosted at 6:41 pm on September 26, 2017

    What if everything we assumed about political campaigns turned out to be wrong? Well, for one thing, it might explain how Donald Trump beat a talented field of Republican primary candidates, and then won an upset against one of the least competent major-party nominees in decades last November. Hillary Clinton had all of the advantages — better fundraising, better media penetration, and the power of identity politics, and still lost anyway.

    That might not have been a fluke. A new study by two California academics concludes that persuasion isn’t effective with voters, especially in the later stages of an election cycle. That has a potentially devastating implication for campaign advertising … and perhaps a sigh of relief for TV and radio audiences who dread election seasons:

    The study’s authors combined a hodgepodge of 40 existing experiments on the persuasive effects of advertising and campaign contacts, and then they added nine extensive new studies of their own. The new studies were conducted during the 2016 election with the labor group Working America, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO.

    Their conclusion? Advertising and campaign contacts have almost no measurable impact, at least in general elections.

    “The best estimate for the persuasive effects of campaign contact and advertising — such as mail, phone calls, and canvassing — on Americans’ candidate choices in general elections is zero,” Kalla and Broockman write. “Our best guess for online and television advertising is also zero, but there is less evidence” in these cases.....

    https://hotair.com/archives/2017/09/26/wapo-new-study-rocks-political-world-broadcasters-hardest-hit/

    Reports were received immediately after this study became know of ad men all across USA going underground into hiding.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If these continuing studies are extended into the commercial domain and similar ineffectiveness is found, bounties may be put on the heads of all those involved in this "industry"....according to reports anger is almost palpable all across the USA.

      Delete
    2. All this is beginning to present a dilemma to this correspondent. I have always promised QUIRK a place of refuge in case of civil war, nuclear attack, famine, contagion, etc.......but this ?

      What to do, what to do then.....?

      Still considering the arguments pro and con here.....

      Delete
  11. It's not blacks killing whites, or whites killing blacks.

    Both groups seem to keep their killing, for the most part, to themselves.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Megyn Kelly's deep dive into irrelevance and meaninglessness seems to be going well -

    Jane Fonda snaps at Megyn Kelly over plastic surgery....DRUDGE

    ReplyDelete
  13. "Mad Dog" has come under live fire in Kabul -

    Rockets, grenades fired at Kabul airport after Mattis arrival...

    Defense Secretary 'target of Taliban attack'....DRUDGE


    An Afghan welcoming....

    ReplyDelete
  14. There is no doubt now about what political course the Kurds of Iraq wish to pursue -

    Over 92% Of Iraq’s Kurds Vote For Independence

    ....More than 92% of voters in Iraqi Kurdistan have opted for independence, according to election monitors, in an overwhelming endorsement of a proposed split from Baghdad.

    The result came after Iraq’s parliament authorised the prime minister, Haidar al-Abadi, to send troops into areas disputed between Arabs and Kurds that were contentiously included in the ballot.

    Euphoria on the streets of Erbil in recent days has been met with sharply increasing tension in the region, which is likely to escalate in the wake of the result....


    https://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2017/09/92-iraqs-kurds-vote-independence/

    ReplyDelete
  15. Obama would have done better to appoint TJ Sotomayor to the US Supreme Court rather than Sonia Sotomayor.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Amazing -

    LIGO and Virgo observatories jointly detect black hole collision
    Discovery launches new era of gravitational wave science


    Aerial view of the Virgo site, including the two perpendicular arms of its interferometer.


    September 27, 2017

    In August, detectors on two continents recorded gravitational wave signals from a pair of black holes colliding. This discovery, announced today, is the first observation of gravitational waves by three different detectors, marking a new era of greater insights and improved localization of cosmic events now available through globally networked gravitational-wave observatories.

    The collision was observed Aug. 14 at 10:30:43 a.m. Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) using the two National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington, and the Virgo detector, funded by CNRS and INFN and located near Pisa, Italy.

    The detection by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) and the Virgo collaboration is the first confirmed gravitational wave signal recorded by the Virgo detector. A paper about the event, a collision designated GW170814, has been accepted for publication in the journal Physical Review Letters.

    "Little more than a year and a half ago, NSF announced that its Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory had made the first-ever detection of gravitational waves, which resulted from the collision of two black holes in a galaxy a billion light-years away," said NSF Director France Córdova. "Today, we are delighted to announce the first discovery made in partnership between the Virgo gravitational-wave observatory and the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the first time a gravitational wave detection was observed by these observatories, located thousands of miles apart. This is an exciting milestone in the growing international scientific effort to unlock the extraordinary mysteries of our universe."

    The detected gravitational waves -- ripples in space and time -- were emitted during the final moments of the merger of two black holes, one with a mass about 31 times that of our sun, the other about 25 times the mass of the sun. The event, located about 1.8 billion light-years away resulted in a spinning black hole with about 53 times the mass of our sun -- that means about three solar masses were converted into gravitational-wave energy during the coalescence.

    "This is just the beginning of observations with the network enabled by Virgo and LIGO working together," says LSC spokesperson David Shoemaker of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). "With the next observing run planned for fall 2018, we can expect such detections weekly or even more often."

    LIGO has transitioned into a second-generation gravitational-wave detector, known as Advanced LIGO, that consists of two identical interferometers. Beginning operations in September 2015, Advanced LIGO has conducted two observing runs. The second observing run, "O2," began Nov. 30, 2016, and ended Aug. 25, 2017.

    The Virgo detector, also now a second-generation detector, joined the O2 run Aug. 1, 2017 at 10:00 a.m. UTC. The real-time detection Aug. 14 was triggered with data from all three LIGO and Virgo instruments....

    https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=243239

    ReplyDelete

  17. Fine Art Auction

    These painted erotic orientalist scenes are very much a depiction of real life, which, if anything, heightens their erotic nature.

    North African Pirates ruthlessly raided the coasts of Western Europe in search of their next victims, ‘white gold’ as it was commonly known, earning them a handsome bounty.


    WHITE GOLD: THE WHITE SLAVE MARKET OF THE BARBARY CORSAIRS

    What comes as a surprise is that many raids by these corsairs took place in Northern Europe, including coastal villages in Devon and Cornwall, England, as well as in Ireland, Scandinavia and as far north as Iceland.

    One particular incident of note in 1631 saw virtually all inhabitants of the Irish village of Baltimore captured and taken into slavery. While the men would often become galley slaves, leading a pitiful and short life, women, unsurprisingly, were sold predominantly for sex.

    https://fineartbourse.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=75

    ReplyDelete
  18. Senators Seek Investigation Into Intermittent Shutdown of Obamacare Website

    http://mauinow.com/2017/09/27/senators-seek-investigation-into-intermittent-shutdown-of-obamacare-website/

    ReplyDelete
  19. Wow ! Look at those gals....look at those bras and panties....I'm tuning out the NFL and tuning in the LFL -

    Lingerie Football League Responds to NFL: ‘We Stand!’

    BY: Brent Scher
    September 27, 2017 4:16 pm

    The all-woman league formerly known as the Lingerie Football League announced this week its belief that America's flag and national anthem are "far too sacred" to protest.

    The league, recently rebranded as the Legends Football League, said in a Tuesday statement that its players would not be taking a knee during the national anthem as many of their male counterparts in the NFL have done.

    "The LFL recognizes everyone's First Amendment right to protest, but our nation's flag and anthem are far too sacred," the league said. "Too many fellow Americans have made the ultimate sacrifice, so that our flag and anthem continue in all its majesty."

    http://freebeacon.com/culture/lingerie-football-league-responds-to-nfl-we-stand/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. FYI: Amtrak hits Truckee around noon.

      Currently stopped there.

      ...missed it coming in.

      https://hdontap.com/index.php/video/stream/downtown-truckee-california

      Delete
    2. All a man needs is the LFL and the Truckee web cam for complete happiness.

      Delete
    3. Can't see the Amtrak but Truckee is enjoying a beautiful day.

      Delete
  20. Idiots don't recognize it's not a First Amendment issue:

    It's a workplace issue.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Purring Squirrel

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHT1nAX46dM

    ReplyDelete
  22. In heartening news, Russia and USA announce they are going to cooperate in creating a joint space station orbiting the moon. This is some interim step towards setting up a permanent lunar base.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Killer's Statue To Come Down ?

    Yes, Let’s Tear Down That Statue! Of… Ray Lewis?
    JAZZ SHAWPosted at 6:01 pm on September 27, 2017

    Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Jefferson Davis… the statues have been coming down like autumn leaves in the northeast lately. And in Baltimore there’s one more on the chopping block, at least if the powers that be pay any attention to an online petition which is drawing quite a bit of traffic.

    Outside of M&T Bank Stadium, the home of the Ravens, there’s another iconic piece of sculpture which is the focus of this story. But the person being honored didn’t fight for the Confederacy. Nor did he fight for the Union for that matter. He played middle linebacker in the NFL and his name is Ray Lewis. (CBS Baltimore)

    More than 16,000 people have signed an online petition to remove the statue of Ray Lewis from outside M&T Bank Stadium after he joined current players in taking a knee during the national anthem before Sunday’s game.

    The change.org petition was started after Ravens players knelt during the national anthem before the team played the Jacksonville Jaguars in London.

    The Maryland Stadium Authority has added extra security to watch the statue.

    It’s not even a particularly large statue and it’s sitting on stadium property, not government land. (As near as I can tell anyway.) It seems as if the only people who could decide to remove it (at least legally) would be the Ravens. But enough of their fans are upset over Lewis joining in on the National Anthem protest controversy that thousands of them want to see it gone. And plenty of folks are definitely upset. The combat veteran who has been singing the National Anthem for the Ravens for several years now just turned in his notice.

    But returning to the subject at hand, one question immediately comes to mind. So this is what it took for you to become frustrated with Ray Lewis having a statue out there? I’m sure there were other people upset about it long before this. People like Jacinth Baker and Richard Lollar for example. Or at least they would have been upset if they weren’t, you know… dead. I realize that Lewis got off on those murder charges with a plea deal but it was one of the shadier transactions in the history of our courts. Yes, the guy was legendary on the gridiron and there’s no taking away his remarkable record on the field, but it seems like there would be some point where the extenuating circumstances drop you out of public statue territory.

    Here’s the good news in all of this. If the Ray Lewis statue does come down it won’t be the result of government malfeasance, leftist agitation or anything else directly related to politics. It will be a business decision made by the franchise based on their own future profitability. That’s capitalism in action and if the removal of that statue is where the free market road leads us, I suppose we can’t complain too much.

    https://hotair.com/archives/2017/09/27/yes-lets-tear-statue-ray-lewis/

    ReplyDelete
  24. For Dr. Q, from Newsweek -

    'THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN THE WORLD’: TRUMP IS VIOLENT, IMMATURE AND INSECURE, PSYCH EXPERTS SAY

    BY DR. LANCE DODES, GAIL SHEEHY, PHILIP ZIMBARDO, ROSEMARY SWORD AND DR. JAMES GILLIGAN ON 9/27/17 AT 8:00 AM

    After the American Psychiatric Association expanded its so-called Goldwater Rule into a gag order on mental health professionals, the forensic psychiatrist Dr. Bandy Lee organized a conference at Yale with the title, "Does Professional Responsibility Include a Duty to Warn?" to discuss the rule and its relevance during the increasingly alarming Trump presidency. While only two dozen attended physically in an atmosphere of fear, the conference tapped a huge groundswell of interest in the forms of hundreds of communications from mental health professionals: just as football players don't give up their right to free speech when they take the field, they agreed that the moral and civic duty to warn about the president's dangerousness should supersede professional rules about neutrality. This led to Dr. Lee editing a new book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Professionals Assess a President. Here are excerpts from four of the essays in the book.

    A Persistent Loss of Reality
    — Dr. Lance Dodes

    Because Donald Trump has been a very public figure for many years, we are in an excellent position to know his behaviors—his speech and actions—which are precisely the basis for making an assessment of his dangerousness, whether we assess him using the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders criteria for antisocial personality disorder, as below, or whether we apply our knowledge of malignant narcissism, both of which include the signs and symptoms of sociopathy. Let us consider these in turn.

    Lack of Empathy for Others; Lack of Remorse; Lying and Cheating........

    http://www.newsweek.com/trump-most-dangerous-man-world-psychologists-671182

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dr. Q's diagnostic tools have been, for a long period of time, proven to be acute.

      Wondering what he might think of the above.

      Published in his favorite Journal, too, Newsweek.

      Delete
    2. .

      I plan to sue these dolts for plagiarism and copyright infringement.

      .

      Delete
    3. Lodes, Sheehy, Zimbardo, Sword and Gilligan.....sure sounds like an office of legal finks to me.

      So it's your own work they have published then.

      Glad to hear you are going to sue, but I advise you get a lawyer and not try to argue your case yourself this time.

      Lodes, Sheehy, Zimbardo, Sword and Gilligan might come at you from five different positions.

      Delete
  25. THE world’s space agencies have detailed their road map to Mars at an international conference in Adelaide. And the 20-year trip includes a garage-stop at the Moon.

    The panel of space agency representatives from the United States, China, Europe, Russia and Canada were in agreement: none of them could do this alone.

    ...

    It’s a framework that, from the comments of other space agency representatives on the panel, has already begun to rally support.

    Secretary-general of China’s National Space Administration (CNSA) Tian Yulong, while detailing his nation’s own plans, was in broad agreement of the need for international co-operation.

    ...

    The idea is for a combination of international robotic and human landings to explore the potential of fabricating fuel from water ice believed to be sitting in places of permanent darkness.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If enlightened self interest doesn't bring the world together, the environmental crisis or the urge to explore space will.

      Edited and enlarged from a quote by Joseph Campbell.

      Delete
  26. Speaking in March, Trump said, "American footprints on distant worlds are not too big a dream" and added all was possible if, "we set free the dreams of our people".

    The announcement comes at a key time for Washington and Moscow, as relations remain strained over links to the US Election, the war in Syria and Russia's annexation of Crimea.

    Experts have previously warned crumbling relationships between Russia and the US – the world's undisputed leading space powers – could impact mankind's expansion into the Milky Way.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Wild Horse Roundup

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/senate-bill-could-trigger-mass-slaughter-of-wild-mustang/

    ReplyDelete
  28. .

    Michelle My Belle

    Former first lady Michelle Obama criticized female voters who cast their ballots for President Trump while speaking at a marketing and professional development conference in Boston on Wednesday, Boston.com reported.

    "Any woman who voted against Hillary Clinton voted against their own voice," Obama said, while maintaining that she and her husband, former president Barack Obama, still hope for Mr. Trump's success.

    "We want him to be successful," she said of Mr. Trump. "He was elected."


    Right.

    The former first lady, who referred to herself as a former "first spouse," engaged in a question-and-answer session with author Roxane Gay, during which she discussed her time in the White House and her husband's presidential legacy.

    "Part of our legacy is leaving with grace, is being humble and diplomatic," she said, according to Boston.com.


    You go, girl. It's true. My biggest complaint with the Obamas was that they were just too damn humble. It was very irritating.

    "The Affordable Care Act isn't Barack's legacy, it's the country's legacy." Obama also said that her role as first lady "was like being shot out of a cannon…with a blindfold and the spotlight on you." While she doesn't miss being in the White House, she is grateful for the "people and the work" she encountered there.

    She also told an anecdote about how her daughters wanted to have a slumber party on their final night in the White House. Obama apparently turned them down: "'The Trumps are coming,'" she told them on the eve of Mr. Trump's inauguration.

    The former first lady also discussed the memoir she's writing, which contemplates, "How did that little girl get to be here?"


    :o)

    You gotta love it.

    And she divulged that Beyoncé's "Love Drought" on her album "Lemonade" is the track she plays "over and over."

    Damn, me too.


    http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/michelle-obama-women-who-didnt-vote-for-clinton-%E2%80%9Cvoted-against-their-own-voice%E2%80%9D/ar-AAsxHUW?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartanntp&ffid=gz

    .

    ReplyDelete
  29. .

    Taxes in Trumpland

    TRUMP asserted without qualification that the proposal — still only roughly outlined — would be good for middle-class Americans and not the wealthy.

    “Our framework includes our explicit commitment that tax reform will protect low-income and middle-income households,” Trump said. “Not the wealthy and well-connected. They can call me all they want; I’m doing the right thing.”

    He then added: “And it’s not good for me, believe me.”


    I would bet dollars to donuts that real estate developers will do great under any new Trump's tax plan.

    http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/analysis-tax-reform-is-%E2%80%98not-good-for-me-believe-me%E2%80%99-trump-said-don%E2%80%99t/ar-AAsxVRh?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartanntp&ffid=gz

    .

    ReplyDelete
  30. US PRESIDENT Donald Trump has released a sweeping plan to cut taxes and simplify the tax code, calling it a “once-in-a-generation opportunity”.

    President Trump, smarting from another failed attempt at dismantling Obamacare, unveiled his reform package alongside Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday (EST).

    ...

    The tax plan now heads to the House and Senate tax writing committees to work out the details.

    The White House wants the plan passed by the end of the year.

    ReplyDelete