The Bottom Quintile

The following was posted at Instapundit by Ed Driscoll, variously attributed to a Bill Brindley or a 'Wanye' Burkett.  "Authorship unknown" is probably accurate.

Maybe the most important thing you learn by attending public school is that we are all at the mercy of the bottom quintile. The rules you follow in life will be based on the behavior of the bottom quintile, the taxes you pay are to support the bottom quintile, the greatest risks to your life and property will come from the bottom quintile, the dearth of comfortable public spaces is because you have to allow the bottom quintile to be there, our zoning laws are developed for fear of the bottom quintile.

The bottom quintile is the lowest 20%. There is much truth in this observation. 

A Fine Wisecrack

David Burge, who blogs as Iowahawk, cracking wise about the British PM stepping down. Sourced from Stephen Green blogging at Instapudit.

I assume the UK is like Chicago, no matter how awful the last guy was they'll manage to find somebody even worse.

Count on it. Ditto NYC, Seattle, LA, Philly, Boston, and Minneapolis ... it's a movement.

Barely Satire

Babylon Bee image courtesy of Instapundit.

Oops

Yesterday was Father’s Day and I forgot to note it. The DrsC’s fathers are long gone, but still remembered with fondness. 

Many are noting this year that fathers continue to be important players in family life; kids without resident dads are at a substantial disadvantage. Fewer people are marrying and having children, and that should concern us.

And so, a salute to Fathers. The patriarchy, for all its faults, got us this far. Will its replacement do as well? That appears unlikely.

Update

One of the annual milestones of our summers here in WY is when the mule deer first bring their spotted fawns into our backyard. Deer have been around since we arrived in late May, but no fawns.

This morning a doe brought her twin fawns into the backyard and the other DrC is excited. She may post pix at her blog, if any meet her high standards. The little ones have springs in their legs and are fun to watch.

We don’t feed the deer or make pets of them, that would do them no favors. On the other hand, we don’t pester them except inadvertently. 

Our ‘backyard is primarily forest understory and they’re welcome to eat whatever grows, it is their wild diet anyway. We coexist, mostly viewing them from the windows or from our large screened porch.

The porch acts as what hunters call “a blind.” We can see out through the mesh, the deer really can’t see in. Whenever the weather is warm enough, we eat lunch and supper out there, protected from the forest’s insect life. 

The porch has a dining table with chairs, a TV, and some cushioned patio chairs. It is the other DrC’s favorite lounge, whereas I tend to sit in my office at my desktop computer.

Perhaps an Accurate Climate Model

If you are interested in climate change and the impact of mankind thereupon, John Hinderaker at Power Line writes about a new model based on the 'recently' discovered Constructal Law of Thermodynamics. 

For those with a better physics background than I, here is the law.

For a flow system to persist in time it must evolve in such a way that it provides easier access to its currents.

And this explanation follows: 

In terms of the Earth’s climate as a whole, what this means is that the climate system is always working to maximize the flow of power from the tropics to the poles and from there out to space.

It is claimed that a model (see diagram) incorporating this law tracks recent temperature trends almost exactly. My gut sense is Gaia has many tricks up her sleeve. 

Ideological Toxic Waste

Instapundit, aka Glenn Reynolds, is a professor of law at U. Tennessee and a prolific columnist. Today his New York Post column unloads on the ideological bias in higher education, and he doesn't hold back.

One industry in America pumps out toxic waste day and night, but suffers no penalty for the damage it causes.

It operates at enormous public and private expense, sucking up hundreds of billions of dollars in government money.

Its toxic bilge poisons much of society, but those who complain about it are often dismissed as ignorant or bigoted.

Its product is largely free of state and federal regulation.

That industry is higher education.

And the toxic waste it emits isn’t chemical but intellectual sludge, in the form of racial bigotry, antisemitism and crude Marxism.

I've been retired for roughly 20 years, and it was less bad when I was still active. I wish I could say he is wrong. Alas, I cannot. 

One Voice or Two?

I've been wondering if "Iran" the country is able to speak with one voice these days. The New York Post has a story that suggests the answer is "not always."

Shortly after the MOU was signed the IRGC messaged the Strait was closed due to violations of the treaty, while the Foreign Ministry said the Strait was open.

The differing messages mirrored internal divisions in Iran over whether it should keep fighting the US or seek a truce — strife American and regional sources have cited as a significant reason why it took roughly two months of negotiations for finalize the MOU.

One presumes the Foreign Ministry has the interests of Iran at heart while the goals of the IRGC are pan-Shia Islamic and ideological/religious, viewing Iran as a current base-of-convenience, not as a homeland. 

Saturday Snark

But Keir will not go on.

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.

Images courtesy of Sarah Hoyt's

Lazy Memes of Summer.

The Summer Solstice

Tomorrow morning at 4:24 a.m. EDT, we will experience the Summer Solstice. Today and tomorrow are the northern hemisphere’s longest days, and consequently shortest nights. Spring ends and summer begins. Six months from now we will experience the winter solstice and our shortest days.

All of this is based on the fact that the earth’s axis of rotation is not perpendicular to the plane described by the earth’s rotation around the sun. Hence we have hot and cold seasons, long and short days. It is for this reason that the seasons in the north and south hemispheres are opposite.

The DrsC happened to be in Fairbanks, AK, on this day some 40+ years ago. At one a.m. I stepped outside the RV and could read a newspaper with ambient light. I didn’t tarry long as the mosquitoes were fierce. Good times.

Since Fairbanks is roughly 200 miles south of the arctic circle, the sun was barely below the horizon. There was enough twilight to read, if not entirely comfortably. In those years the haul road north of Fairbanks wasn’t open to tourists, I gather it now can be driven.  

If you are in St. Petersburg, Russia, at this time of year locals will be celebrating the “white nights” and will be out and about after midnight. Of course, today’s wartime Russia may be less festive than when we last visited, during a peaceful interlude.

More on Fauci

 A couple of days ago I wrote about Tulsi Gabbard’s document dump showing Anthony Fauci was at fault in the Covid scandal. He was funding gain of function research at the Wuhan lab and lied about it under oath.

Now comes news that he and his attorneys were begging President Biden for a pardon for Fauci up until the day Trump was inaugurated to replace Biden. It seems Fauci knew he had broken the law and was desperate for absolution.

So … we know he perjured himself before Congress and it’s likely he was indirectly responsible for thousands or millions of deaths, without intent to do so, meaning manslaughter in most jurisdictions. Fauci badly needed that pardon, and dementia-ridden Biden gave him one … a travesty.

Enjoying the USA

Image courtesy of Stephen Green posting at Instapundit.

News from Peru

A column at Townhall reports that it appears Keiko Fujimori will win the runoff to be Peru's next president. She is conservative, US educated, and part of a wave of conservative leaders taking office in Latin America recently.

Keiko is the daughter of Alberto Fujimori, the former president who did for Peru what Augusto Pinochet did for Chile, clean up a leftist mess and massive corruption. Neither was much constrained by human rights niceties. Much of the mess subsequently returned, Peru has had nine presidents in the last decade.

When we visited Peru, the DrsC liked the country. I wish them well.

Friday Meme Fest

Both are guilty.

Images courtesy of Politico's

The Nation's Cartoonists on the Week in Politics.

Images courtesy of RealClearPolitics'

Cartoons of the Week.

Fauci ... As Bad As You Thought

Hooray for Tulsi Gabbard, outgoing Director of National Intelligence. She just posted the following on X.

Today, on my final day as Director of National Intelligence, I’m releasing never-before-seen communications and documents exposing how Dr. Fauci provided millions in US taxpayer dollars to fund dangerous gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab, worked with politicized elements within the Intelligence Community to suppress the truth about his actions and hide the virus’ lab-leak origins, and lied to Congress while under oath in 2024. It’s time you know the truth.

What we've all suspected turns out to be the truth, Fauci was a self-promoting weasel. Tulsi we will miss, I hope her husband recovers.

'Master Negotiator' vs. nth Generation Rug Merchants

Now that we know the details of the Iran war MOU, almost all the commentary I've read thinks no deal would have been preferable to this deal. I'm willing to let the 60 days play out before declaring it a total disaster. 

It doesn't look like our negotiating accomplished anything beyond what our bombing did. I am disappointed with this outcome so far, with a final assessment to come later.

I fear we'll conclude Donald Trump is a Master Negotiator primarily in his own mind. I'd love to be proven wrong.

The Queen of the Tetons

You know I ramble on about "the high country" and our patch of aspen forest. We don't get a lot of bear action here, because the mountains up behind our place are hunted National Forest, and the bears keep their distance. I'll bet the mule deer appreciate that even more than we do. 

I'm talking about bears because I want to link you to a poem, written by a longtime friend and posted by the other DrC, about the mama grizzly called 399. She was maybe the most famous real bear ever. 399 lived to a ripe old age and raised lots of cubs, including the quadruplets who really put her on the map. 

To quote the boast of another equally famous (if less real) bear - Yogi - 399 truly was "smarter than the average bear." Cubs get killed by male bears, and she'd often keep her brood near enough the highway to scare the males away. How she'd learned that was "safe ground" nobody knows. It did help make her famous, of course.

She was finally killed on a nighttime ramble by a motorist she probably scared the cr*p out of by stepping in front of his vehicle. I foolishly wish we could have made her wear a harness out of reflective tape, but she'd have torn it off instantly. 

Grizzlies are the apex predators throughout most of their range, except for us human recent arrivals. Individual grizzlies can learn to fear humans, but it isn't instinctual with them, and most don't learn.

Anyway, go read Sunni's poem about 399. It was good enough to leave me misty-eyed.

Seeing Is Believing

There have been several reports of Europeans over here for the World Cup expressing delight with what they've experienced. Their itineraries have taken them to places other than huge cities and national parks,  out into what you and I consider the "real America."

Air conditioning, unlimited soft drink refills, Bass Pro Shops, monster truck stops (Buc-ees and similar), free ice and large restaurant portions - what's not to like? But maybe just as important, s. p. a. c. e - wide roads, open fields, big cars and trucks, large homes, room to breathe and feel free. I guess they are also impressed we didn't have to build new stadiums to hold the games, as have most host countries.

The DrsC have visited well over 100 countries, enjoyed many of them, and still feel our spirits lift as we return home - every darned time. Our retirement checks would reach us nearly anywhere we chose on this globe, and yet we call home a couple of acres of Wyoming aspen forest that we share with the mule deer.

I hope some football fans go home and share the word that the real USA is amazing.  Our government won't always please them; as the world's superpower we can't please everybody. But the place, our lives, the space, it is darned wonderful.

When the third world hordes overrunning Europe make life miserable there, we'll start to get some European refugees who won't have to try too hard to fit in.

Something We Should Emulate

Sweden, long considered very liberal on immigration, has become somewhat more prescriptive about behavior expected of immigrants. See this UnHerd column for more on Sweden's new approach.

To most Swedes, however, the new law — which grants the government the power to revoke residence permits from foreigners guilty of petty crime or wrongdoing— makes perfect sense. 

The new legislation corrects ... unfairness by giving the government tools to act against migrants who fall short of serious criminality but who are persistently disorderly.

It hits directly at people who go underground to circumvent immigration rules, wrongfully claim sickness benefits, rack up debts, and otherwise show contempt for what Sweden’s Minister for Migration, Johan Forssell, calls “the effort to do the right thing”.

Way to go, Sweden. Might we not consider a similar law for recent immigrants? 

Pest Control

When I see a particularly pithy, on-target statement of where we are, I like to share it with you. Today's example is the title of an editorial from Issues & Insights.

Trump’s Iran Deal: Americans Wanted Something Done Short Of Ground Troops, And They Got It.

Public opinion never supported a ground invasion of Iran, and Trump heeded that limited mandate. Three and a half months is no quagmire, no forever war.

While much has been made of destroying Iran's navy and conventional air arm, seemingly no one in the region feared either much. The same is true for Iran's standing army. 

The threat Iran poses is ideological subversion of other nation's citizens, plus an asymmetrical warfare threat: covert forces and missile strikes. It is unclear how much those have been degraded. Somewhat, obviously.

Given the unwillingness to absorb the casualties necessary to exterminate the ideology the IRGC represents, we may have to do this all again, some few years downstream. The Israeli term for these recurring needs is "mowing the grass." 

I'd Americanize the label to "weed abatement" or "pest control." The analogy is relatively apt.

This Western Exterminators logo comes to mind.