Quantum Vibe, 03/18/24
Source: Big Head Press
by Scott Bieser
Cartoon. (03/18/24)
Source: Big Head Press
by Scott Bieser
Cartoon. (03/18/24)
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Giorgio Cafiero
“Amid the USSR’s implosion in the early 1990s, Russian-speaking separatists in Transnistria feared growing Moldovan nationalism and the possibility of Moldova, which had just declared independence, reunifying with Romania. Russian troops and Cossack fighters helped Transnistrian paramilitary groups fight Moldovan forces in the Transnistria War (1990-92), which killed up to 700 people. To this day the conflict remains frozen. Since 1992, officials in Moldova’s capital, Chisinau, and Tiraspol have prevented military clashes. Over the past three decades, the Moldova-Transnistria file has not concerned Washington too much. That is until recently. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 raised concerns about this frozen conflict unfreezing.” (03/18/24)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/russia-transnistria-ukraine/
Source: Law & Liberty
by Elizabeth Amato
“In March 2020, Waylon Bailey posted on Facebook a joke about zombies, and how his local sheriff’s office in Forest Hill, Louisiana had orders to shoot the infected. Appealing to Brad Pitt’s character from World War Z, Bailey added the hashtag #weneedyoubradpitt. A few hours later, the sheriff’s office arrested him and charged him with terrorism under a state law that forbade spreading information with the intent of causing panic. The district court convicted Bailey and ruled that disseminating false information in the early days of the pandemic was like yelling ‘fire in a crowded theater.’ … These five little words, ‘fire in a crowded theater,’ are invoked like a magical talisman to justify, by analogy, the regulation of false speech and lies.” (03/18/24)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/free-speech-beyond-the-marketplace/
Source: TomDispatch
by William Astore
“In an age when American presidents routinely boast of having the world’s finest military, where nearly trillion-dollar war budgets are now a new version of routine, let me bring up one vitally important but seldom mentioned fact: making major cuts to military spending would increase U.S. national security. Why? Because real national security can neither be measured nor safeguarded solely by military power (especially the might of a military that hasn’t won a major war since 1945). Economic vitality matters so much more, as does the availability and affordability of health care, education, housing, and other crucial aspects of life unrelated to weaponry and war. Add to that the importance of a Congress responsive to the needs of the working poor, the hungry and the homeless among us.” (03/18/24)
https://tomdispatch.com/daring-to-look-a-sacred-cow-in-the-teeth
Source: The Daily Beast
by Matt Lewis
“‘[D]ouble-haters’ are voters who don’t like either Donald Trump or Joe Biden. This is an emerging cohort that many of us can identify with (although I try not to venture into ‘hate’ territory). Every year, we are treated to a plethora of news stories about undecided voters. You know the cliche: people who are socially liberal and fiscally conservative. Because these voters (who somehow manage to make it through life without picking a team) are persuadable, they get a ton of ink and disproportionate attention from politicians. If you like receiving voter mail, tell a canvasser you’re not sure which candidate you like — but that you definitely plan on voting. Well, double-haters are undecided voters on steroids — at least, in terms of their size.” (03/18/24)
https://www.thedailybeast.com/who-will-win-the-biden-trump-double-haters
Source: Antiwar.com
by Andy Corbley
“What do these two men, Juan Guaido, and Alexei Navalny, have in common? On the surface, very little. Coming from different continents, Guaido was the leader of Popular Will, a fringe political faction known for street fights, when he won the leadership of the National Assembly at age 35, while Navalny cut his teeth in the political sphere as an investigative journalist and founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation which investigated the personal finances of members of the Russian government. On the surface of corporate media outlets, both men appear as champions of democracy. … But there’s a reason that Guaido was called ‘more popular outside Venezuela than inside,’ and there’s a reason that Navalny’s murderous immigration policy proposals and support for the annexation of Crimea don’t make it into these headlines.” (03/18/24)
Source: Notablog
by Chris Matthew Sciabarra
“As of this date, despite the presence of various third-party candidates in the 2024 election cycle, it is virtually inevitable that either Donald Trump or Joe Biden is going to serve another term in the White House. But there are other political visions that are awaiting an audience. As an advocate of dialectics — the art of context-keeping — I have long stressed that even the loftiest of political goals must begin with the conditions that exist. Or, as I like to paraphrase good ol’ Don Rumsfeld: We plan our way toward a better future based on the conditions that we have, not on the conditions we wished we had.” (03/17/24)
Source: Fox News
by Jeremy Tate
“After making standardized tests optional for admissions during the pandemic, elite universities like Dartmouth, MIT, Yale and, most recently, Brown have recognized their error and reimposed a testing requirement for all applicants. Originally, these schools caved to critics who derided the SAT and ACT as discriminatory, inequitable and even racist. The critics were always wrong to blame demographic differences in test scores on racial animus, but they were right about something: The SAT and ACT do put students at a disadvantage – all students. Debates about testing often focus on how different socioeconomic or racial groups compare within the system, questioning why wealthier students get better SAT scores than poorer or if the ACT favors Whites and Asians over Blacks and Hispanics. This focus on disparities makes us blind to a much more vital question: Do these tests even measure what’s important?” (03/18/24)
Source: exile in happy valley
by Nicky Reid
“On the left we have seen a sonic upsurge in unprecedented outrage over the Democratic Party’s longtime support for Israel’s increasingly genocidal policies towards occupied Palestine. While I have long cracked wise and mean about the complacent hipster brats of the nouveau left, what with their creepy Bernie Sanders fetish and their politically correct distractions, these kids have made me downright proud lately with the pure fury of their empathy for the long-silenced people of the Gaza Strip. … Meanwhile, on the right, a rising tide of conservative populists have similarly drawn the line over America’s bipartisan spending frenzy in Ukraine.” (03/17/24)
https://exileinhappyvalley.blogspot.com/2024/03/free-gaza-and-free-donbas-too.html
Source: EconLog
by Kevin Corcoran
“Certain concepts have bad associations attached to them – and some people think that if a new label is used, the new label will remove the negative associations with the concept. But often, all that happens is the negative association attached to the concept just gets transferred to the new label, leading to a repeat of the process. This is why what was once considered polite and forward-looking terminology at one time might be considered an offensive slur some years down the road.” (03/17/24)
https://www.econlib.org/definitions-and-the-euphemism-treadmill/