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.