Ungardening

Drudge Report links to a Yahoo News posting of an AFP story about "ungardening."

Well-manicured grass lawns have long been associated with the American Dream, but a growing "rewilding" movement now seeks to reclaim yard space for nature.

Heck, the DrsC have had an "ungarden" at our WY place for 20 years. The birds and deer love it, and we like it a lot too. See a photo at the other DrC's blogsite.

When we were getting started we had to water a bit in late summer, not any more. The only thing I try to keep out is thistles, and that is less a full-on battle than a off-and-on low-grade insurgency.

More on Shooters

With mass shooters there is an irresistible urge to tie their behavior to politics. Democrats pounced on the El Paso shooter, who seemed to lean right. Republicans pounced on the Dayton shooter who pretty clearly leaned left. All such pouncers are wrong, or maybe right for the wrong reasons.

Our politics truly are polarized, too many partisans really enjoy their hate. Mix in the sad, confused loners who are essentially suicidal but want their deaths to “mean something” and there will be massacres and politically tinged manifestos.

Unfortunately for those who would try to prevent massacres, there are undoubtedly hundreds, maybe thousands of such loners for every one who goes postal. We’re not talking “needle in haystack” difficulty, this is “needle in a bushel of needles” impossible.

A Quibble

Power Line's John Hinderaker writes something with which I take exception, as I believe he overstates the case against solar energy. He writes:

One of the worst features of both wind and solar energy is that they are terrible for the environment. They use up an enormous amount of land that otherwise would be available for agriculture, development or recreation. They are eyesores. And they kill huge quantities of wildlife.

My quibble is with his sweeping description of the drawbacks of solar. He ignores that there are two very different types of solar.

Solar farms focus massive amounts of sunlight on a boiler to generate steam. They do kill birds that fly through the concentrated sunlight.

Photovoltaic panels do not kill wildlife. They can be an eyesore and take up land, unless they are rooftop as most are. They don't do any killing.

Placing Blame

Power Line's John Hinderaker writes some good stuff about Democrats casting blame on Republicans about the recent mass shootings. Here is the gist of it.

Most or all of the Democratic presidential contenders rushed to blame President Trump for the mass shooting in El Paso. This is deeply contemptible. There were mass murders during the Obama administration too, so was Obama responsible for them? Of course not. But the most egregious Democrat is Bernie Sanders.

Dayton, Ohio murderer Connor Betts was a leftist, a gun control advocate, a fan of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and also of the Squad. So, Bernie, is he your guy? Are you responsible for his murderous rampage? Was it your hate speech that drove him to become a mass murderer? If not ... sit down and shut up.

Our national decision to not warehouse crazy people was enabled by key members of both parties, as COTTonLINE has often noted. We now live with (and die from) the consequences of that failed choice. There is more than enough blame to go around.

Incumbents Get Stronger

RealClearPolitics links to an excellent article in The Hill which looks at the history of presidents seeking, and almost always winning, second terms. In the 87 years since Hoover, only two have lost: George H. W. Bush and Gerald Ford.

Bush lost because the economy wasn't healthy, Ford lost because (a) he was never elected President, and (b) he pardoned Richard Nixon's Watergate coverup. Trump enjoys an excellent economy, and nobody has been able to hang anything truly scandalous on him.

Presidents seeking re-election usually win. Over the last century, only four have lost. Additionally, they usually win by bigger margins — only Obama’s fell. On average, elected presidents who sought re-election increased their popular vote share by 2.1 percent. This last point is important: Incumbents do not just win — they get stronger.

I could definitely handle Trump getting stronger in 2020. Schadenfraude is wicked fun, I’m imagining progressive heads exploding.

More Unintended Consequences

Read what a student told Professor Miller, from an article at the American Thinker website.

I grew up in a rural community. There were no black people. They were not important to me. Then, as a resident advisor, I was told to go to a sensitivity session as part of my training. There I was told that my parents chose to live in such a community because they wanted to get away from black people. I said my ancestors came to the Ohio Valley after the Revolution, and my family has lived in the same community since the late 18th century. In response, I was told I was a racist. I wasn’t before, but I sure to hell am now.

It's ironic how often we accomplish the exact reverse of what we intend. I wouldn't be surprised if what happened to this student occurs with some frequency.

Suicidal Sickos With Grudges

There have been three mass shootings recently: Gilroy, El Paso, and now Dayton. It appears that the shooters all expected to die, though the one in El Paso was taken alive.

The Gilroy shooter shot himself in the mouth, forensics say. The Dayton shooter was shot by police, preliminary reports indicate. Did the El Paso guy just give up? We don’t know, maybe his gun jammed - it happens - and he didn’t have a back-up.

My point is that most mass shooters are suicidal; they expect to suicide-by-cop while doing terrible things they believe they must do. In this they resemble the people Islamic terrorists convince to be suicide bombers.

Is there a way to identify such people and get them into treatment or preventive detention before they become a public menace? Can this be done without a massive curtailing of civil rights and individual freedoms?

Corralling guns won’t solve the problem, such individuals have used speeding vehicles to ram into crowds or homemade firebombs. The problem is sicko, suicidal individuals with grudges. I don’t know the answer.

Illegal Immigrants As Violent Felons

Lucianne.com links to a Breitbart story based on work done for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The issue is the proportion of inmates in Nevada prisons who are illegal immigrants. Breitbart writes:

The Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Arthur Kane obtained federal, state, and local records to reveal that about 1-in-14 inmates across Nevada’s prison population are illegal aliens — totaling to about 1,000 illegal aliens who have been convicted of crimes in the state.

Kane’s analysis finds that nearly half of Nevada’s illegal alien inmate population were convicted of violent crimes against Americans, including:

• 150 illegal aliens convicted of murder, manslaughter, or attempted murder
• 320 illegal aliens convicted of sexual assault, including 240 child sex offenders

People were 'shocked, shocked' when candidate Donald Trump said Latin America was sending us criminals. This is one time when we sort of wish he'd been wrong, sadly he was correct. The article adds these 1000 felons cost Nevada $21 million a year to incarcerate.

Nevada is a small state, with roughly 3 million people. Imagine what the numbers are for a state like California, with 13 times the population. If the 1:3000 ratio holds, CA would have 13,000 illegal alien convicts in the slammer. Actually, I'd bet its twice that.

Bill Maher Echoes Rahm Emanuel

Instapundit links to a Fox News story quoting Bill Maher’s HBO show’s closing monologue about the state of the 2020 election now getting started.

All the Democrats have to do to win is to come off less crazy than Trump -- and, of course, they’re blowing it! Coming across as unserious people who are going to take away all your money so migrants from Honduras can go to college for free and get a major in “America sucks.”

I guess he could have added “...while getting a sex change operation gratis.” His frustration with the 20 Dem. losers is palpable ... and fully justified.

As noted the other day, the Ds are preparing to shoot themselves in the foot. Let’s not distract them or disturb their aim.

France Enfeebled

The French appear to have “used up” their ability to resist attacks on their culture during the horrific trench battles of the Great War which ended in 1918. In what became known as World War II most basically rolled over and surrendered to German domination.

Now it appears they are doing so again. See a Gatestone Institute article by University of Paris scholar Guy Millière which lays out the extent to which French President Macron is surrendering the country to its Muslim immigrants, while suppressing ethnic French unrest. It is depressing, to say the least. Millière writes:

The main concern of Macron and the French government seems not to be the risk of riots, the public's discontent, the disappearance of Christianity, the disastrous economic situation, or Islamization and its consequences. Instead, it is climate change. Although the amount of France's carbon dioxide emissions is infinitesimal (less than 1% of the global total), combatting "human-induced climate change" appears Macron's absolute priority.

On a personal note, in 2015 the other DrC and I were dismayed by how Paris had been trashed, and left to persist in that condition. On a taxi ride between Gare du Nord and Gare de Lyon, what we saw was depressing, much worse than it had been just a few years earlier. It’s a pathetic fate for a once-beautiful and proud city.

Biden Family Shenanigans

I doubt many COTTonLINE readers plan to vote for Joe Biden, but perhaps you know someone who might. I ran across some unflattering information about the Biden family from a source I know to be friendly toward Democrats. You might share it with those misguided souls.

The Politico story entitled "Biden Inc." is subtitled "Over his decades in office, 'Middle-Class Joe's' family fortunes have closely tracked his political career." It mostly documents how his sons have traded on their father's position and clout to make a ton of money, much of it from sleazy foreigners who seek influence with, or business from, our government. Warning, it's a long article, with much detail.

If you see similarities to the nefarious activities of the Clinton Foundation, you'd not be mistaken. In the Biden case, the primary organization was called Paradigm Global Advisors, but the "sell the prominent person's governmental clout" business model was similar throughout.

Bachelor Quarters

Living in an aspen forest, we normally have deer hanging around our backyard in Wyoming. Most years they are does and fawns. We've had a few of those this year, there's a photo of twin fawns on the other DrC's website.

Our screened back porch has a TV, table and chairs where we eat most meals, and easy chairs too. The screening is dark brown plastic sun screen which makes it what hunters call a "blind." We see out perfectly, the deer can't see us. They sometimes get spooked when we talk, other times seem to ignore us.

What is unusual this year is the number of bucks we've had, all with respectable racks of antlers currently in velvet. This morning there were four within 20' of each other, just hanging out and taking it easy. That is about twice as many as we've normally had this summer.

We leave the forest wild, we long since gave up planting landscaping, so they can eat all they want and it's not a problem for us or for them. It's their natural food source and they neither over-graze it nor do it any lasting harm.

Debate Viewership Down Again

Politico reports how many people watched the two nights of the Democrats' Detroit debates. As we noted earlier, it was likely the first night's viewership would be lower than the second because all the candidates there on view were white, whereas the most reliable Democrats are black.

Wednesday night drew 10.7 million TV viewers, Tuesday night only 8.7. Comparing online live streamers, it was 2.8 million Tuesday and 3.1 million Wednesday.

The addition of viewers of color on Wednesday no doubt accounts for some of the increase. The presence of frontrunner Joe Biden on Wednesday accounts for much of the balance.

Total Detroit viewership was down from the pair of debates a month earlier in late June. I suspect it is because these 20 men and women are fundamentally uninspiring individuals.

Meanwhile, President Trump continues to draw overflow crowds to his rallies. It's not magic really, Trump puts on a great show.

Why Argentina Is Broken

The Miami Herald's Latin America specialist, Andres Oppenheimer, writes about the upcoming election in Argentina. What this article explains is the underlying rationale for how the economy of Argentina does such a poor job.

Essentially Oppenheimer compares the Peronism of Argentina with the market capitalism of neighboring Chile. Argentina has too few workers in the private sector or self-employed for their taxes to be able to support the many government workers, retirees, and dependents. Hence, it spends more than it takes in and is effectively bankrupt.

President Macri, who seeks reelection, at least understands this problem, if he hasn't moved as quickly to solve it as many might desire. His chief opponent promises to bring back the hyper inflationary deficit spending of the Kirschner/Fernandez era ... basically latter-day Peronism.

If Macri isn't reelected, Oppenheimer believes it will be proof of magical thinking on the part of Argentinian voters. I agree.

The Dem Debates Summarized

I know I've had preliminary comments on nights 1 and 2 of the late July Democrat debates in Detroit. I've been waiting to find an overall summary which I was willing to recommend to you, and have found just that.

Sean Trende (felicitous name, eh?) analyzes politics for RealClearPolitics and, in my experience, does a good job of it. He summarizes what we learned from Detroit and combines it with what we learned from the first pair of debates in June. Here is a horseback summary for those who won't read his analysis:

Winners
Elizabeth Warren
Steve Bullock
Donald Trump
Andrew Yang

Losers
Kamala Harris
Beto O'Rourke
Amy Klobuchar
Julian Castro

Meh
Joe Biden
Cory Booker
Pete Buttigieg
Bernie Sanders

TBD
Tulsi Gabbard
Marianne Williamson

Everyone else is, in Trende's view, irrelevant.

Twig and Tree

Do you believe as the twig is bent, so grows the tree? If you do, Tulsi Gabbard is one weird puppy. Nice looking, but wow! Grew up in a bent cult. Still hangs with people from back then, not all of them family.

New York Magazine has her history, and it is très strange. How relevant it is to the adult Tulsi? I don't know, probably somewhat. Hat tip to Power Line for the link.

Unintended Consequences

President Trump is taking action to permit Americans to purchase prescription drugs at (lower) Canadian prices in the U.S., or so his HHS Secretary claims. Brace yourself for upcoming unintended consequences, especially if you are Canadian.

Canadian governmental health insurers negotiate lower prices with U.S. based pharmaceutical firms. Don't be surprised if those prices are not lower, going forward. The Pharma firms' best way to forestall Trump's initiative is to raise Canadian prices to equal those in the U.S. Expect them to do exactly this.

It isn't clear that Canadian governmental health providers have much recourse with regard to those Rx drugs whose patent protection has not lapsed. They can simply decide to do without the newest expensive drugs with no generics available, if Canadians are willing to face higher risks to life. Or they can decide to subsidize Rx drug purchases for Canadians only, not for free-riding foreigners.

Everybody, including here in the U.S., can buy off-brand generic drugs cheaply and they do so now. That is no solution.

I'll make a prediction. Trump's effort to get Rx drugs for Americans at the now-lower Canadian prices will result in Canadians paying the higher U.S. prices within a year or two. I bet they'll hate that, and him, not that he particularly cares.

Weird Cardio Science

Instapundit links to a UPI article reporting research on coronary heart disease. The JAMA Cardiology finding in brief:

Anti-inflammatory biologic medications that treat psoriasis may also help to reduce coronary inflammation, and prevent heart attacks in the long run.

What was done:

For the study, the researchers examined 134 people with moderate to severe psoriasis with minimal cardiovascular risk. None of the patients received biologic therapy three months leading up to the study, and all of them underwent CT scans at the beginning and end of the study.

The researchers noticed the biologic therapy substantially reduced coronary inflammation in patients, even those with coronary artery plaque buildup.

Plus:

In February, another NHLBI study reported that psoriasis biologic drugs like Cimzia, Enbrel, Humira, Orencia and Remicade may reduce heart disease in patients by keeping arteries clear.

About which, Instapundit comments:

It's becoming increasingly clear that heart disease is an inflammatory disorder. 

Which suggests entirely new and promising avenues of treatment for this often fatal disease.

Gaffe of the Evening

Frontrunner Joe Biden didn't do poorly through most of Wednesday night in Detroit. Spectator USA's Roger Kimball reports what happened then.

He lost it during his closing statement, alas, when he suggested that Donald Trump might be president for another eight years. That might in fact be a good idea. I do not think it is what he meant to say.

I concur, with the proviso that the slip cannot be definitively said to be "Freudian." Perhaps it would be more charitable to call it "a senior moment."

A Simple Solution

First we had the Hollywood parents crookedly buying their kids' entrance to elite colleges/universities. More recently, we learned of wealthy kids declaring themselves financially independent in order to be "poor" and get scholarship aid. And we had people writing that higher ed is "greedy."

I have a Swiftian 'solution' which will solve some of this dilemma. Elite higher ed institutions, those with many more applicants than vacancies, should set aside perhaps 5-10% of the freshman class slots for an auction.

What I propose is they sell these slots off to the highest bidder, and do it quite openly as a way to fund other good things the institution would do. I'd suggest an opening bid of $500,000.

The hyper-wealthy can openly bid for a slot for their child and fund higher ed at the same time. If the institutions want to use the monies so raised to fund support for bright poor kids, fine. If they want to use it to hire an excellent football coach, equally fine.

But perhaps you say this would devalue degrees earned at that campus. I'd respond, we're already admitting student athletes and affirmative action recruits with merely adequate minds, why not a handful of ho-hum rich kids. They, like the other two categories mentioned, bring a substantial benefit to the campus, one that transcends their mere presence.