Adios to 2022

We have reached the last day of 2022, and not a moment too soon. For those of us who follow politics this has been a bad year regardless of the party you call “home.”

Republicans had a disappointing midterm election result, while Democrats lost control of the House and will spend the next two years doing something other than legislating. The Biden administration has not covered themselves with glory, and both Biden and former President Trump have largely been embarrassments. 

Overseas some good things happened, through no “fault” of our diplomats. Russia continued to fail in their attempt to swallow Ukraine and China managed some world class “foot shooting” with the zero Covid policies. Both nations end the year in worse shape than they started it. On the other hand, our southern border continues to suffer from Biden’s malign neglect.

Militant political Islam has had no large victories this year, which is a plus. And Iran has been having anti-hijab riots.  NATO has shown more sticking power and cohesiveness than its history had led one to expect. 

Here and in other developed parts of the world there is some evidence that the “woke” movement is wearing out its welcome, but its attacks on conventional morality continue unabated.

To adapt a metaphor I like, we’ve seen a few robins, but Spring is still out of reach.

Hippies Growing Old

Yesterday the DrsC took a drive down the PCH (aka US 101) to Ventura, to do some shopping and to enjoy the coastal scenery. Growing up nearby, I spent a fair amount of time in Ventura as a young man. 

My while-in-college summer job was there, and it was mostly where we’d go to catch a film or a meal. In recent decades I’ve not much frequented the town, maybe a brief visit 1-2 times a year. 

It has changed of course - grown and the population mix is new. What I noticed yesterday while shopping in the early afternoon was a demographic I haven’t much associated with Ventura. Namely superannuated hippies. 

There were more old counterculture types than I’d ever seen there. Picture a lot of long, stringy gray hair on both genders, and matching beards on the guys. 

One slender old dear wore a floor length black gown with a spread eagle embroidered across the shoulders, showing rather too much flaccid cleavage. Think “Elvira, Mistress of the Dark” in her late 70s, with hair gone gray and no makeup. She and her guy, both all in black, looked like “Goths out to pasture.”

I saw a whole bunch of voters on which Gavin Newsom can certainly count, if they aren’t too high to focus. Parts of CA begin to resemble a foreign country; yesterday in Ventura brought home that reality.

Later … as if to prove my point, check out this piece of CA crazy.

Later still … this from The Babylon Bee, which advice is both snarky and largely accurate.

The Wrong Kind of Visibility

Instapundit republishes a tweet by something called “the Bradford File,” whatever or whoever that may be. The irony it contains is world class.

Pete Buttigieg is so awful at his job people actually 

know who the Sec. of Transportation is.

A common supposition is that Buttigieg is using his current job as a platform from which to once again run for president. How doing a crap job in one position qualifies you for another in the minds of voters remains unclear. 

Rethinking Mitch McConnell

Mostly Kurt Schlichter writes biting put-downs of the GOP’s enemies, and they’re funny the way the late Don Rickles was funny. Today he takes up a serious subject - the mixed bag that is Mitch McConnell.

Schlichter argues that Mitch was formerly, on balance, good for the Republican Party. I agree. He concludes that, for whatever reason, the good Mitch accomplishes no longer outweighs the not-good for which he’s responsible. Again, I agree. 

It is time for Mitch to retire; getting him to do so won’t be easy or pleasant. The column’s conclusion is classic Schlichter:

Mitch is too old, too unpopular, too angry, and increasingly too ineffective to be the senior Republican elected official. It’s time for the Murder Turtle to withdraw into his shell.

Dems Dead in Wyoming

You've seen me write about how very Republican Wyoming is today, how Democrats sometimes don’t run a candidate against the Republican for state office. Don’t take my word for it, see a discussion of the D’s lousy turnout in southwestern Wyoming.

Intriguingly, the “green” policies of the national Democrats aren’t terribly popular among WY union members whose livelihoods depend directly or indirectly on coal and oil extraction. Imagine that, how predictable.

The D party Poobah quoted as expecting WY Republicans to tear each other to shreds is dreaming. He needs to revisit the votes Liz Cheney didn’t get in last August’s Republican primary. 

If you added the few votes for Cheney to those for the state’s Democrats you aren’t close to a majority. In our state the GOPe is a toothless “tabby.”

Exodus Continues

The Wall Street Journal cites interesting statistics about the continuing wave of people moving from high-tax blue states to low-tax red states. Some examples:

California (343,230), New York (299,557) and Illinois (141,656) lost the most residents to other states, but New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Oregon, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Louisiana were also big losers.

Florida drew the most newcomers (318,855), followed by Texas (230,961), North Carolina (99,796), South Carolina (84,030), Tennessee (81,646), Georgia (81,406) and Arizona (70,984).

One new trend is the migration from the Pacific Northwest.

Both Oregon and Washington experienced net outmigration this past year, a reversal of earlier trends. Meanwhile, blue Colorado’s growth slowed appreciably.

In addition to taxation and climate, less business regulation is a factor drawing employers to the red states. To some extent the economic migration is “moving where the jobs are.”

Paradoxically, the movement to red states has made reelection easier for blue state politicians whose majorities become larger as Republican voters leave their states.

The Great Sort continues, with no end currently in sight.

Defenestration

It appears somebody or some group is killing off Russia’s oligarchs. The latest supposedly fell out of a window. The list of those who’ve died is relatively long, and the deaths mostly sound suspicious.

Those are deaths of the people with sufficient resources and clout to potentially challenge Putin, if the public mood should ever seem to make that feasible. A failure to succeed in Ukraine could be the trigger.

If you ask who had means, motive, and opportunity to terminate this entire group, you find the list is quite short. It turns out Russia isn’t a safe place to be visibly wealthy.

Karma

Instapundit links to a Breitbart article reporting data from the Financial Times (behind paywall). Breitbart writes:

The Dow Jones Media Titans index, which tracks the performance of 30 of the world’s biggest media companies, shed 40 percent this year, with its total market value declining from $1.35 trillion to $808 billion, according to a Financial Times report.

If you do the math, Hollywood lost a half trillion dollars in market capitalization. It is enough to give you a warm feeling; rich, ultra-woke media types taking a beating. It couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch.

Boxing Day

In the U.K. and many parts of its former empire, the day after Christmas is known as “Boxing Day.” Unrelated to pugilism, the name derives from boxing up left-overs from the Christmas feast to give to the servants, sharing the largesse.

Today it is primarily a day to pursue the after-Christmas sales as retailers attempt to move their leftover holiday merchandise by cutting prices. If that is your aim, I wish you fabulous bargains. 

In decades past we’ve bought the next year’s Christmas cards on this day - half price or less - as such cards are timeless. Lately, we’ve done custom cards via an Internet provider.

Swiss Sanity

Zero Hedge links to an Associated Press article which reports Swiss authorities have rejected the idea of a third option, in addition to male and female, on government forms.

The Swiss government on Wednesday rejected the idea of introducing a third gender option or no-gender option for official records, a position which differs from that of some neighboring countries. 

“The social preconditions for the introduction of a third gender or for a general waiver of the gender entry in the civil registry currently are not there,” it said.

The Swiss have been going their own way for centuries, clear that they need not follow the crowd. The DrsC spent the better part of a month there seven years ago; we found it a very pleasant, beautiful place that doesn’t much accommodate “outliers.”

The Varied Roots of Christmas

Writing for The Spectator (U.K.), historian Francis Young puts today’s Christmas celebration into the context of history. Hat tip to Ed Driscoll posting at Instapundit for the link. See his conclusion.

So, is Christmas pagan? In the sense that Christmas is a festival that retains, in most cultures, elements of pre-Christian midwinter festivities, the answer can be yes – provided we’re prepared to use the word ‘pagan’ in quite a loose way. (snip) But perhaps the most important point is that Christmas has never been solely a religious festival – even if Christmas is not pagan, Christmas has always contained a strong element of the profane.

Whatever … I have always liked it a lot, especially the music and decorations. Merry Christmas to one and all.

Dave Barry’s 2022 in Review

Each year at this time Dave Barry comes forward with a comedic tongue-in-cheek summary of the year’s main news events and other nine-day wonders. Barry is an equal-opportunity offender of the sensibilities of just about every party, group, and tradition. 

Here is his latest, courtesy of a relatively “local to where I write this” paper, San Luis Obispo’s The Tribune. It was so sourced by Ed Driscoll posting at Instapundit, as it is not behind a paywall.

Why Peru Isn’t ‘Working’

The current political difficulty in Peru is a story COTTonLINE has been following. A U.S. News & World Report analysis, echoed at msn.com, goes a fair way to explaining how things arrived at their current state.

It describes Peruvian politics as “fragmented” and their two-step run-off system of presidential elections as a way of electing the candidate who is “least hated” rather than a person with significant support or ability. The country has had six presidents in the last six years, in part a reflection of the collapse of the “commodities boom” in 2013 and ensuing economic difficulties. 

The latest news from Peru has its Congress moving the next presidential election two years closer to a 2024 date, and AMLO’s Mexico offering asylum to the currently imprisoned former President Castillo and to his family who took refuge in their embassy.

My view: Countries so highly fragmented politically seem to do marginally better with a parliamentary/prime minister system. Fragmented countries which try to directly elect an executive president suffer the problems with which Peru now struggles. 

The often-prolonged negotiations leading to coalition parliamentary governments, while tedious, yield some policy direction in an already-fragmented country such as Israel, Italy or Peru. At minimum they require factions to understand and grudgingly accept the compromises joining the in-power coalition will necessitate. Unlike presidents of fragmented countries, PMs mostly have enough votes in Congress to govern.

Our Merry Christmas Wish

Dear Readers, all day today is known as Christmas Eve, a rather typical terminology inflation. Some families do their main celebration tonight, others wait for tomorrow morning. 

My own family is scattered across the western U.S. and makes no effort to convene. The other DrC‘s kin,  with whom we celebrate, are clustered in central CA from the Bay Area to the Sierra foothills. We actually did our get-together last Saturday. 

I wasn’t involved in the decision-making but I suspect the date was chosen as a scheduling compromise. Whenever, and with whomever you meet to celebrate the Season, have a happy and joyous event and avoid arguing about politics.

The DrsC wish you a Merry Christmas, a loving family, a groaning table laden with treats, and decent weather to ease the travel involved in gathering. Be safe and well.

Why We Support Ukraine

I haven’t written much about whether the U.S. should spend billions helping the Ukrainians defend their country against Russian invasion. I suppose it was because I didn’t think there was much question. Here is my “take” on the situation.

Ukraine was minding its own business, threatening nobody, when Russia invaded with the clear purpose of erasing their nationhood and making Russians (or corpses) of its inhabitants. How this differed from Hitler invading Poland is for someone else to explain, I don’t see it.

By land area Russia is already the world’s largest nation, and they covet more. Ukraine is large as European nations go but a small fraction of Russia’s size and population. 

But the Ukes were defending their homeland, and the Ruskies were fighting on foreign soil for an idea only some of them gave a fig for. Thus the runaway victory Putin expected didn’t happen, the Rus bogged down and the angry Ukes cut them up.

Still, it’s plucky David fighting a massive but not-too-bright Goliath. Since Ukraine, unlike David, has no way to deliver a killing blow, in a long fight with no outside aid Ukraine/David 2.0 gets ground down and loses.

All they ask of us is money and arms, mostly the latter. If we give them arms we turn around and rebuild our stocks and that stimulates our defense contractor economy. We send no Americans to die there wearing our uniforms, any who go are private volunteers who knew the risks. 

Is Ukraine corrupt? It certainly had that prewar reputation and was bribing the Biden family. Is wartime Ukraine corrupt? Probably no more than other countries; defending the nation appears relatively popular even to Ukes who might otherwise be crooks.

There isn’t a whole lot in The Atlantic with which I agree. That said, much of the Anne Applebaum column on what the world would resemble if we’d not supported Ukraine looks plausible.

Sheep Dipped

I recently learned a new term, or more accurately, a new meaning for a term I had long known in a very different context (agriculture). The term is “sheep dipped.” 

Its meaning as a term of art in the intelligence field is taking someone with a formal role in the military or FBI and creating for them a new identity in the private sector where they continue to function sub rosa on the government’s behalf while accruing govenment benefits.

You can find a formal definition of the term here and here. Speculations about recent uses including the placement of FBI agents inside Twitter and other Internet firms exist here and here.

I’m okay with its use in international intelligence operations, much less than okay with its use domestically.

Local Beauty

While the rest of the country is coping with a super bad winter storm, here in SoCal we are enjoying the scenery the other DrC has captured in photos. She took these this a.m. while walking and posted them at her blog. 

We are CA natives now domiciled in two other states. That takes nothing away from my belief that CA is uniquely gifted in terms of beauty, climate, and geographic variety. What it no longer has is governance that makes any rational sense. As Joni Mitchell sang in “Big Yellow Taxi,”

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.

So we’re vacationing here for a midwinter month, but no longer call the state home. Just passin’ thru, doncha know?

More Dangerous Than Combat

Instapundit links to a UPI story reporting med school research chronicled in JAMA Network Open.

Young men living in certain high-violence ZIP codes in Chicago and Philadelphia run a greater risk of firearm death than military personnel who served in recent U.S. wars, according to findings published online Dec. 22 in JAMA Network Open.

Young men in Chicago's most violent ZIP code were more than three times as likely to experience gun-related death compared to soldiers sent to Afghanistan, the researchers found, while those in Philadelphia's most violent area were nearly twice as likely to be shot to death.

Black and Hispanic men represented 96% of those who were fatally shot, and 97% of those injured in a shooting, according to the report.

About these findings, Reynolds had the following comment:

See, this kind of gives away the game, undercutting the usual argument that it’s the availability of guns that’s responsible. Of course, we’ve known this for years, it’s just been too inconvenient to The Narrative to talk about it.

By “The Narrative” Reynolds means the typical wrong-headed Bidenesque rant about guns being the problem. The problem is a violent culture among certain sub-populations in the U.S. which have attained “victim” status and therefore cannot be criticized by the woke.

Putin’s Bad Bet

Austin Bay writes on matters military for Creators’ Syndicate and his essays are often linked to by the guys at Power Line. Today he writes about what he calls “Putin’s Latest Bad Bet: Strategic Bombing.” He reviews the history of strategic bombing, see his conclusion.

Putin bets cold, hungry and bombing-terrorized Ukrainians will surrender, even if the British, Germans, Japanese, Ethiopians, et al. did not.

I think that’s a bad bet.

Bay reaches the same conclusion as George Friedman, which I related here. 

VDH: Universities Committing Suicide

Real Clear Politics has a jeremiad by historian Victor Davis Hanson of the Hoover Institution who tackles the question “Are Universities Doomed?” His conclusion is that they well may be exactly that.

Indoctrination has replaced critical thinking, administrators have replaced faculty, catering to victim groups has replaced meritorious admissions, and in the student body women have replaced men. None of these trends, he argues, is likely to help universities survive.

As individuals who spent their working lives in universities, the DrsC are happy we worked in an earlier era and retired before the current situation got so negative. Neither of us believes we’d be happy in the current academic environment, which has become rancid.

A Note from Reagan Country

As I write this, Dec. 21 just past into history and we are officially in the three months designated as “winter.” Mostly it has felt like winter for nearly three weeks.

Our valley in western WY already looks via WYDOT webcam like somewhere on Alaska’s North Slope. The area we recently visited in NorCal was wintry in its own way, no snow but definitely coat weather. And driving down CA’s great Central Valley the fog was continuous and daytime temps were maxing at about 39℉ of damp cold.

Now we’re in a coastal valley area just northwest of Santa Barbara where we’ll spend the next month. Nights will get chilly, maybe even drop below freezing once or twice, but most afternoons will be pleasant. 

We went out to do laundry and buy groceries this p.m. and I was in short sleeves until the sun sank below the mountains. Then the ocean breeze meant I wanted a light jacket. 

This was the country Ron Reagan loved. The area is scenic and fun, a flock of wild turkeys were nearby as we checked in yesterday, and we saw a herd of nearly 20 deer maybe three miles from where our RV is parked. One year we saw a small bear not far from here. Seeing a bear was super unusual, coyotes are more common.

Air War Feels Good, Does Little More

My current favorite analyst of diplomatic and strategic matters - George Friedman - writes at Geopolitical Futures. His topic today is a summary of why the Russian air attack, largely by drones, on Ukraine infrastructure is unlikely to be decisive.

He breaks no new ground, but his column is a good summary of the successes and mostly failures such bombing has racked up. It turns out that beating up the civilian population from the air tends to stiffen the public will to resist.

The main strength of bombing civilian targets is that it helps the attacker’s people feel better to be inflicting pain and suffering on the enemy, which pain and suffering are quite real. There isn’t a lot of evidence that such attacks contribute to victory. 

Saluting the Solstice

Sometime either tonight or tomorrow night will be the longest night of the year. Tomorrow will see the Winter Solstice when, north of the equator, the sun shows up latest, and leaves earliest. 

It is a day humans have been marking for millennia, the day after which the sun makes its “comeback” and the days grow longer. It begins a process that will continue until June 21, the longest day (and shortest night) of the year and the Summer Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere.

It is probably no coincidence that major religious holidays occur around this date. Religions tend to adopt earlier festivals and make them their own. I expect there will be a celebration at Stonehenge and four days later we celebrate Christmas.

Scott Adams Snark

Dilbert creator and notorious conservative Scott Adams Tweets the following severely sarcastic commentary which I like a lot. Hat tip to Instapundit for posting it.

The Jan6th Committee reminds America that we can never again allow a small band of unarmed protesters to conquer the largest military power in the history of human civilization by sauntering through the Capitol rotunda and taking selfies.

We were so close to losing everything.

Talk about unserious revolutionaries, the Jan. 6 crowd were the lamest bunch I can imagine. 

Fusion Confusion

Those of you who consult Power Line and/or Instapundit know that photovoltaic solar and wind power are weak reeds upon which to build clean energy independence. The evidence for this view is strong. 

The New York Times, Washington Post, and other outlets are noting that fusion power, if it becomes effective, could be the way forward to reducing dependence on carbon-based fuels. It produces no radioactive waste and no carbon dioxide. 

We are still decades from achieving practical fusion power in quantity, if in fact it ever becomes a thing. In the meantime we need to make our carbon-based systems cleaner and more efficient and this we are doing. 

It is premature to try to convert all our autos to electric power. We need to produce the power first.

Diplomacy Reimagined

Writing at Project Syndicate, long-time diplomat Richard Haass offers ten lessons from recent history. I list them for your enjoyment, if that is the word, minus his justification for each, which explanations I invite you to consult. 

There is a lot of mea culpa in these lessons. Hat tip to RealClearPolitics for the link.

First, war between countries, thought by more than a few academics to be obsolete, is anything but.
Second, the idea that economic interdependence constitutes a bulwark against war, because no party would have an interest in disrupting mutually beneficial trade and investment ties, is no longer tenable.
Third, integration, which has animated decades of Western policy toward China, has also failed.
Fourth, economic sanctions, in many instances the instrument of choice for the West and its partners when responding to a government’s violations of human rights or overseas aggression, rarely deliver meaningful changes in behavior.
Fifth, the phrase “international community” needs to be retired. There isn’t one.
Sixth, democracies obviously face their share of challenges, but the problems authoritarian systems face may be even greater.
Seventh, the potential for the internet to empower individuals to challenge governments is far greater in democracies than in closed systems.
Eighth, there is still a West (a term based more on shared values than geography), and alliances remain a critical instrument to promote order.
Ninth, US leadership continues to be essential.
Lastly, we must be modest about what we can know.

In case you haven’t followed diplomacy, Haass has just debunked many views diplomats have sworn by over the last several decades. It isn’t quite like a Pope saying “Who knew? Christ was merely a wise man.” but it is darned close.

Peru Update

 A week ago we wrote about political turmoil in Peru with the arrest of President Castillo and installation of Vice President Boluarte by its Congress. At the time we noted a smooth transition was unlikely. 

Sadly, that prediction has been fulfilled. Reuters reports somewhat widespread unrest with some deaths as a reaction to the Congressional action. 

The report suggests those unhappy with the decision are mostly the indigenous and the copper miners, perhaps overlapping groups. Another way of characterizing it would be as “class warfare,” not a particularly new thing in Peru.

Right Question, Unanswered

President Joe Biden is quoted by Politico as recently rhetorically asking allies: “You think I don’t know how f*cking old I am?" I’m sure he does know his calendar age, we all do.

The real question is whether his deteriorating condition permits him self awareness of how much ability and situational awareness he has lost. The answer is “probably not.” It tends to be the sort of thing we try to deny as we age.

Suffering from no blinders, the rest of us know and are embarrassed for him, and for our country.

We’re On The Move … Again

Postings at COTTonLINE may be thin for a few days as we are doing some travel-to-see-family-at-Christmas. This involves taking the RV out for a visit to Northern California followed by a month in the coastal CA wine country northwest of Santa Barbara. The other DrC has a photo of our rig at her blog.

This is the 50th year the other DrC and I have owned and traveled in RVs. We bought our first, a small class C motorhome, in July, 1972, and took it on a shakedown trip to southern Oregon and Crater Lake NP. We kept the first RV over 10 years,

Since then we’ve owned a series of five 5th wheel trailers pulled by pickup trucks, the last of which we are in now. In our RVs we’ve traveled all over North America: 49 U.S. states, 9 Canadian provinces, plus one territory (the Yukon). 

Besides travel, we’ve also lived in the trailers while we had new homes built. RVing gets harder as we get older and one of these years we’ll stop, but that will be a sad day for us. The wonders we’ve seen and the memories we’ve made are beyond description.

Wartime Humor

My high school graduating class (late 1950s) has a web master who circulates various fun stuff to the 60 or so (out of 100) of us who still live. This brief, salty story showed up today.

A Russian soldier ran up to a nun. Out of breath he asked, “Please, may I hide under your skirt, I'll explain later.”
The nun agreed. A moment later, two military police ran up and asked: “Sister, have you seen a soldier?”
The nun replied, “He went that way.”
After the military police ran off, the soldier crawled out from under her skirt and said, “I can' thank you enough, Sister, You see, I don't want to go to Ukraine.”
The nun said, “I understand completely.”
The soldier added, “I hope I'm not rude, but you have a great pair of legs!”
The nun replied, “If you had looked a little higher, you would've seen a great pair of balls too. I don't want to go to Ukraine, either."

Many of us felt this way about going to ‘Nam. I can name at least one child, born to a classmate, whose timing, if not actual existence, was due to draft-avoidance.

Saturday Snark

All images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures, and its Comments section.

(Saturday Snark will be on hiatus for the next month or so.)

Climates Change

The Guardian (U.K.) reports a study done by scholars in Denmark and the U.K. which found the following very interesting science.

Two-million-year-old DNA from northern Greenland has revealed that the region was once home to mastodons, lemmings and geese, offering unprecedented insights into how climate change can shape ecosystems.

The breakthrough in ancient DNA analysis pushes back the DNA record by 1m years to a time when the Arctic region was 11-19C warmer than the present day. The analysis reveals that the northern peninsula of Greenland, now a polar desert, once featured boreal forests of poplar and birch trees teeming with wildlife.

Climates change, and they've been doing it without human assistance for a million years or more. No SUVs, no coal-fired generation plants, probably no humans at all, just the solar system and good, old Gaia doing what they do because that's the way nature functions.

Much more recently the glacier ice was probably a mile thick near our place in Wyoming, now long gone of course. Climates change, involving natural forces immeasurably greater than anything humans can muster or influence. 

What distinguishes our species is our adaptability to wildly divergent conditions; compare the relatively low tech environmental adaptations of the Inuit and the bedouin Arab. What we humans need to do is use our prodigious ingenuity to figure out ways to cope with what comes, be it heat or cold, flood or drought. 

It is what we do.

The Prisoner Swap Pander

The Biden White House had an imprisoned Russian arms dealer to swap for an American prisoner held in Russia. The choices apparently were drug-using WNBA player Brittney Griner, who is Black, LGBTQ+, and on record as not caring much for our country, or former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan accused of espionage which charge our government says is false.

I imagine the Bidenistas asking themselves which group is a more reliable support of the Democratic Party: (a) the Marines or (b) African-Americans and the sexually unconventional? Their answer appears clear. 

The twofer Ms. Griner got the nod, the Marine continues to languish in prison. I call that a straight-out political pander, and one with which I'll wager most Americans do not agree. 

Our ruling elite are pond scum who despise us. The least we can do is return the favor; perhaps we can think of ways to make their lives miserable.

Afterthought: The Russians also got a twofer. They got their arms dealer and they made President Biden even more unpopular with Americans, especially so with American service personnel.

Thinking About a Ukraine Exit

There has been some interest in peace talks between Russia and Ukraine with the U.S. as an interested partner of Ukraine since we are bankrolling their war. George Friedman of Geopolitical Futures writes about peace talks generally, and what's involved in these particular circumstances. His conclusion will give you a flavor of his views.

It is this mutual fear of failure that drives each to a negotiated settlement, however contemptible and belligerent that process will be. The opening gut check is followed by an emerging reality of how much you can play and how much your enemy can play, two variables that are considered every day by leaders and soldiers alike. Unthinkable concessions then become thinkable. The hazier this is, the more each side will be frightened that they will suddenly break.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy wants an independent Ukraine, Vladimir Putin wants to be president of Russia, and the U.S. wants to end the war without American casualties. None is as confident as he appears.

I'd add that the U.S. also doesn't want to throw billions at the problem indefinitely. If I had to guess, I'd predict that if a truce is achieved, Russia will get to keep Crimea and have to give up the rest. Whether Russia's hawks will allow Putin to survive such a deal, in office or out, is unclear.

----------

Someday I may write an essay on the problems faced by nations which were once dominant forces in the world but are that no longer. I might call it the "weren't you formerly someone important?" issue. 

Major players in such a discussion would be Russia, Islam, France, and Britain, each formerly dominant. When enough time passes, as it seems to have with Italy (Rome), Spain, and Portugal, the angst appears to become attenuated.

We Did Not Consent

Steven Hayward at Power Line reminds us of the wisdom of political scientist John Marini who understood in 2016 why Trump appealed to so many everyday Americans. It's long, but there is a lot of wisdom packed therein.

It is possible that the Trump phenomenon cannot be understood merely by trying to make sense of Trump himself. Rather, it is the seriousness of the need for Trump that must be understood in order to make sense of his candidacy. Those most likely to be receptive of Trump are those who believe America is in the midst of a great crisis in terms of its economy, its chaotic civil society, its political corruption, and its inability to defend any kind of tradition—or a way of life derived from any kind of tradition—because of the transformation of its culture by the intellectual elites.

This sweeping cultural transformation occurred almost completely outside the political process of mobilizing public opinion and political majorities. The American people themselves did not participate or consent to the wholesale undermining of their way of life, which government and the bureaucracy helped to facilitate by undermining those institutions of civil society that were dependent upon a public defense of the old morality. This great crisis has created the need for a Trump, or someone like Trump, and only those who recognize it as a crisis can be receptive to his candidacy.

Marini describes the felt need for a "Culture Warrior in Chief." Hayward believes today's "someone like Trump" is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. I believe it is possible DeSantis is that guy.

Instability in Peru

A bit over a year ago Peru elected an indigenous rural schoolteacher - Pedro Castillo - as its new president. He has been a disaster in office. 

Most recently he tried to dissolve congress and call for new elections. This dramatic step the constitution did not empower him to take. 

The attempt unified the congress against him and he has been arrested. They elected the Vice President Dina Boluarte as the nation's new President and the first woman to hold that office. 

People who wish Peru well, in which number I count myself, will hope she can develop an inclusive government that can function and develop popular support. The odds of that happening are frankly not very good.

Remembering

On this day in 1941, on an early Sunday morning and without warning, naval aviators from the Empire of Japan bombed, torpedoed, and strafed the island of Oahu in Hawaii, focusing on our Navy base at Pearl Harbor and the Army Air Base at Hickam Field. Thousands were killed, several major ships sunk at their moorings, and more were damaged. 

President Franklin D. Roosevelt memorably called it “a day that will live in infamy” as he declared the U.S. to be at war with Japan. Soon thereafter Germany, an ally of Japan, also declared itself to be at war with the U.S. and we found ourselves involved in a war that had been ongoing for two years.

Most who were alive then are alive no longer, and the few who remain were mostly children then, as I was. I don’t remember the war starting, but do have memories of events prior to its end, including rationing, blackout curtains, and the death of FDR.

For most now living the attacks on September 11 are their only memories of our nation under attack. The past recedes, and eventually is forgotten, so be it.

Consent of the Governed

The people of two totalitarian nations have been engaging in protests recently: in Iran the issue concerns the oppressive religious police and in China it concerns the oppressive Covid quarantines. In both cases there is at least some evidence here and here that the governments are backing down. 

This is further proof, if any is needed, that even repressive governments exist with the tacit consent of the governed and at some level recognize that fact. It is a lesson one hopes Russia’s Putin is healthy enough to understand as he pursues an increasingly unpopular-at-home war in Ukraine.

It is a strength of elected governments that the consent of the governed is explicitly sought and periodically calibrated, however imperfectly, via elections. Thus, in places with elected governments it is normal for people to lose power without losing their lives in the bargain, something not often possible in totalitarian regimes. 

Georgia Postmortem

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air does a take down of the GOP loss last night in Georgia. I think he has it pretty close to right. 

The Cliff Notes version of what Morrissey writes is that celebrity candidates don’t fare especially well, and that Trump’s focus on the unfairness of his loss in 2020 is turning off voters. He adds that candidates, like Walker, who’ve supported Trump’s “I wuz robbed” claim were hurt by doing so.

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I think maybe Georgia's Republican Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan had it right. The Warnock vs. Walker choices were not sterling.

Describing the runoff election, he said, "I had two candidates that I just couldn’t find anything that made sense for me to put my vote behind, and so I walked out of that ballot box showing up to vote but not voting for either one of them."

Childlike

Women mostly do their best to appear as young adults, regardless of their actual age. Meaning, girls try to appear older and older women try with varying success to appear younger. So be it, the behavior is widespread.

Which makes the presentation-of-self of White House press spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre seem, at best, unusual. She seems to present as a precocious child, talkative, intelligent, but pre-adolescent and naive. 

She reminds me of Hermione Granger in the first couple of Harry Potter films. Am I the only person who has this perception? Isn’t this an unusual role model for a woman in the public eye?

Georgia on My Mind

Today the runoff election for senator concludes in Georgia, early voting has been happening. Neither Warnock nor Walker got over 50% in November as there was a third party candidate on that ballot who got a few votes. 

A month ago Democrat Warnock got a few more votes than Walker. GA experienced considerable unusual ticket splitting last month, Republican Gov. Kemp won reelection handily. He has been out campaigning for Walker. 

Democrats are assured of control in the Senate no matter who wins, but given the independence of Sens. Sinema and Manchin, today’s outcome still has practical consequences. Perhaps we will know the outcome tonight, something we once took for granted but no longer seem able to do.

Trump and the Constitution

Former President Donald Trump isn’t known for precise statements, his style includes considerable hyperbole and bloviation. That’s who he is, how he rolls. 

Now there is much consternation and excessive concern about his comments vis-a-vis the Constitution. Here is what he actually posted on his Truth Social platform, as reported by Power Line. 

So, with the revelation of MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION in working closely with Big Tech Companies, the DNC, & the Democrat Party, do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our great "Founders" did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!

Most of those expressing horror at his words take it to mean Trump wants to throw out the Constitution. His words can be read that way. 

His words can also be read as the “Massive Fraud” let its perpetrators effectively terminate “ all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.” And that his final sentence says what they have done clearly does not comport with the Founders’ intentions.

I will admit I read his words as his inartful defense of the Constitution, not a demand to ignore that document. Which doesn’t mean I agree with his demand for a new election or his own installation. 

The election was hinkey, possibly rigged, but them’s the breaks. He should have anticipated an all-out effort to throw the election and prepared for it, but he didn’t. We go on, even if he can’t.

Karma

The Supreme Court will soon hear a case - 303 Creative v. Elenis - which forces them to directly confront an issue they sidestepped in an earlier case of a wedding cake baker who refused to bake cakes for same sex weddings. 

Writing at Law & Liberty blog, Notre Dame law prof Sherif Girgis makes an interesting point relative to the case.

If it’s hurtful to imply that same-sex unions aren’t marital, it’s hurtful to imply that traditional Christian—and Muslim, Jewish, and Hindu—convictions on marriage are bigoted. So free societies tolerate the expression of painful ideas. The First Amendment guards your right to speak or stay silent on their basis.

I find that equivalency persuasive in a clearly pluralistic society, which ours is to a degree greater than most. Hat tip to Power Line for the link.

The Summer of '42, Revisited

The other DrC and I rewatched The Summer of '42 last night. It is an amazingly good low-budget film that came out in 1971, the year we married. It shows up occasionally on cable channels that play old films, I recommend it.

Guys, if that film doesn't make you squirm a little, I'll be surprised. It is adolescent "coming of age" from the porn-not-widely-available era distilled down to the gut-wrenching basics. 

Jennifer O'Neill was a great beauty, and a decent actress, the adolescent boys do a credible job too,. The only true adult with a speaking part - the Nantucket druggist - manages to wring every drop of angst out of his cameo role. The lush title theme music by Michel Legrand won an Oscar.

It turns out the script and novel based on the script were semi-autobiographical. Decades later author Herman Raucher was actually contacted by the gal the script names "Dorothy" who was concerned she had taken advantage of the 15 year old Hermie. Ironically, he'd always thought he'd taken advantage of her.

Go figure. Men and women have been misunderstanding each others' feelings (and motives) essentially forever.

Sunday Snark

Image courtesy of RealClearPolitics' Cartoons of the Week.

Saturday Snark

All images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures, or of its Comments section.

It Works Both Ways

Girls kissing frogs who then turn into princes are legendary. Someone should have told Meghan Markle that there are times when kissing a prince can turn him into a frog. 

This less-celebrated process can sometimes take years, as it did with Prince Andrew. Other times it takes only months, as happened with Prince Harry.

Ribbitt.

Rogue Waves

ABC News reports via msn.com that a rogue wave damaged the Viking Polaris expedition ship in the Drake Passage south of Ushuaia, Argentina, breaking windows, killing one passenger and injuring four more in non-life-threatening ways. The ship was returning from a voyage to the Antarctic peninsula.

The Drake Passage - 500 miles of open sea between Cape Horn and Antarctica - is some of the roughest water on the planet. The DrsC made that trip some years ago and we had an injury happen to a fellow passenger as well. 

In rough water, she fell and broke her elbow. The ship’s doctor sedated her and strapped it up, and we diverted to a Chilean Air Force base on King George Island where she and her husband were flown out to a hospital in Punta Arenas. We learned later the air ambulance flight cost them $15,000, covered by required travel insurance.

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Speaking of rogue waves, the Grand Princess was hit by a rogue wave sailing northward off the west coast of Italy en route to Civitavecchia, the port of Rome. This happened in the latter part of November, 2008, at around 1 a.m. 

The wave broke windows up on the Lido deck, nearly 100 ft. above the waterline. We were ashore waiting to board her in Civitavecchia and we boarded several hours later than scheduled as they were doing some quick repairs. 

We talked to people who were continuing from one cruise to the next and they reported the rogue wave was quite an experience. The wave basically left the ship dead in the water for nearly an hour until the crew could get the power up and running again, with the result that the Grand arrived late to Civitavecchia.

Friday Snark

All images courtesy of POLITICO's The Nation's Cartoonists on the Week in Politics.

Embarrassing

The Democrats have painted themselves into a corner and don’t see a realistic way out. Dementia Joe and Shallow Kamala present a dilemma. Joe is cycling in and out of touch with reality, see excruciating video of him with visiting French President Macron. 

The process is sad enough when only people who care about you see it and are embarrassed for you, and maybe for themselves. It’s the brain fog symptoms of old age done on a national stage with TV cameras rolling. 

If Joe had a Veep anybody thought was an improvement, it would be Amendment 25 in a heartbeat.  But Harris has demonstrated that she isn’t up to the job and, more to the point, probably couldn’t win the 2024 election if she inherited the office. So Democrats carry on with the Weekend at Bernie’s charade while we all cringe and hope nothing demanding actual presidential leadership occurs.

Biden says he intends to run in 2024. Gov. Gavin Newsom of CA says he won’t challenge Biden for the 2024 nomination, which means he recognizes political reality. Both decisions can always be revisited if, for whatever reason, Biden doesn’t seek a second term. 

The Question Is Obvious, the Answer Is Not

Townhall’s Kurt Schlichter states the obvious question to pose concerning whether to be serious about a Gov. Ron DeSantis GOP presidential nomination in 2024.

Can he show that the people he loses by not being Trump are going to be outnumbered by the people he gains by not being Trump?

That is very much what our decision boils down to, isn’t it? Did the white collar suburbs go for Biden because they buy the whole woke/CRT crock-of-crap, or did they just vote against Trump? 

I’d like to believe the answer is “against Trump” but I have to admit I am unsure.  Is Florida an outlier or does it point the way to a national win?