Month: December 2020

In this age of Internet and social media, Emily Dickinson tells us to be as quiet as a volcano.

Here’s “The reticent volcano keeps…” (1897) by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886).

For the rest of my playlist, click here. Past poems are:

1. “Ulysses” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
2. “The Pulley” by George Herbert
3. “Harmonie du soir” by Charles Baudelaire
4. “Dirge Without Music” by Edna St. Vincent Millay
5. “Clancy of the Overflow” by A.B. “Banjo” Paterson
6. “Лотова жена” (“Lotova zhena”, “Lot’s wife”) by Anna Akhmatova
7. “The Jumblies” by Edward Lear
8. “The Conqueror Worm” by Edgar Allan Poe
9. “Les Djinns” by Victor Hugo
10. “I Have a Rendezvous with Death” by Alan Seeger
11. “When I Was One-and-Twenty” by A.E. Housman
12. “Узник” (“Uznik”, “The Prisoner” or “The Captive”) by Aleksandr Pushkin
13. “God’s Grandeur” by Gerard Manley Hopkins
14. “The Song of Wandering Aengus” by William Butler Yeats
15. “Je crains pas ça tellment” by Raymond Queneau
16. “The Naming of Cats” by T.S. Eliot

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3mYJ37N
via IFTTT

The New York Post, along with Fox News, is one of the Trump-friendly news outlets that has been questioning the president’s claims of massive election fraud since he started making them. In an editorial yesterday, the paper urged the president to cut it out already. “Mr. President…Stop the Insanity,” the front-page headline says. “You lost the election—here’s how to save your legacy.”

It may be too late for that, and it is hard to see how Trump could abruptly reverse himself and admit that the massive criminal conspiracy he has been describing for nearly two months did not actually happen after all. But it is encouraging to see further evidence that Trump supporters are willing to separate their partisan and policy preferences from their understanding of reality.

“It is time to end this dark charade,” the Post says. Citing Trump’s vain hope that Congress will stop Biden from taking office by rejecting electoral votes from swing states when it officially tallies the results on January 6, the paper charges him with “cheering for an undemocratic coup.”

While “you had every right to investigate the election,” the editorial says, “those efforts have found nothing.” As examples, it notes the recounts in Wisconsin and Michigan, which confirmed Joe Biden’s victories in those states. “These ballots were counted by hand,” the Post notes, “which alone debunks the claims of a Venezuelan vote-manipulating Kraken conspiracy.”

The paper does not mince words. Sidney Powell, the former Trump campaign lawyer who has been promoting a wild conspiracy theory involving deceased Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez, Dominion Voting Systems, George Soros, the Clinton Foundation, and “communist money” from Cuba and China, “is a crazy person,” the Post says. Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s suggestion that Trump could use the military to force new elections in battleground states was “shameful” and “tantamount to treason.” The paper describes Trump himself as “the King Lear of Mar-a-Lago, ranting about the corruption of the world.”

The Post sweetens its appeal by praising Trump and invoking practical politics. Instead of focusing on a doomed effort to overturn electoral votes, the editorial says, Trump should be worrying about the January 5 runoffs in Georgia that will decide which party controls the Senate when Biden takes office.

“You came out of nowhere to win the presidency,” the Post says. “Not an elected official, not a lawyer, not beholden to any particular faction of the swamp. You took on the elites and the media who had long lost touch with average working people. You changed politics, which is something few in American history can say. If Georgia falls, all that is threatened.”

That outcome, the paper warns, will “leave your party out of power,” make it “less likely to listen to what you have to say or to capitalize on your successes,” and threaten “a future return” by Trump. “If you insist on spending your final days in office threatening to burn it all down,” the Post says, “that will be how you are remembered. Not as a revolutionary, but as the anarchist holding the match.”

The editorial is a powerful and sensible admonition, and I agree that Republican control of the Senate is important as a check on Biden’s power. But I do not share the Post‘s hope that the GOP will continue to listen to Trump, let alone that a sudden shift from deranged pettiness to sober magnanimity—which, let’s be honest, is impossible to imagine—would “set the stage for a future return.”

If Sidney Powell is “a crazy person” and Michael Flynn’s advice is “shameful” and treasonous, what should we make of a president who relies on their counsel while ranting like King Lear? Whatever your position on the substantive issues where the Post and Trump agree, is this the sort of person you want to be leading the Republican Party or running the federal government? For Trump, the personal and the political are inseparable. It is long past time for Republicans to consider the implications of that fusion.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2KNMHnR
via IFTTT

The United Kingdom has been attacking its citizens’ food choices for years and now the government is using the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse for a new crackdown.

On Monday, the U.K.’s Department of Health and Social Care announced a pack of new regulations that will be implemented in April 2022 to restrict junk food promotions.

In 2018, London implemented a ban of junk food advertising that was written so broadly that it forbid promotion of all sorts of normal foods (like butter, olive oil, and canned fruit) not because those items were unhealthy but because they had sugar, salt, or fat levels beyond government-approved thresholds.

The U.K. now plans a nationwide ban on television advertisements for what it calls “junk food” before 9 p.m. And that’s not the only new regulation. Also on the list:

• Retailers will not be permitted to offer “buy one, get one free” promotions (or similar offers) for foods the government deems unhealthy.
• Retails will not be permitted to display these unhealthy foods for promotioal purposes near checkout counters, near the front of the store, or on the ends of aisles.
• Retailers will not be permitted to promote unhealthy foods on the entry or landing pages of their websites.
• Free refills of sugary drinks will be banned at restaurants.

“We know families want to be presented with healthier choices,” said Public Health Minister Jo Churchill. “This is why we are restricting promotions and introducing a range of measures to make sure the healthy choice is the easy choice.” They’re going to make it the “easy choice” by deliberately bringing about economic harm to any competing choices!

The government claims that the British people have an obesity problem—more than 63 percent of adults and a third of elementary school children are overweight. Because the United Kingdom has socialized medicine through the National Health Service (NHS), this means the healthcare costs associated with obesity, which are estimated to be 6 billion pounds annually ($8 billion), are everybody’s problem.

The U.K. government can’t seem to acknowledge or accept the idea that people are voluntarily and willingly making bad choices. This Nanny State mentality means that the government must lay the blame on those who sell or advertise unhealthy food.

“Promotions often appear to help shoppers save money,” the agency explained in its press release. “However, data shows that these deals actually increase purchases of promoted products by almost 20%. They encourage people to buy more than they need or intended to buy in the first place.”

But people always need food. If you buy more food than you “need or intended to buy in the first place” you can usually save it for the future. That is what sales, promotions, and other low-pricing deals accomplish. They allow people to stock up and store food. That’s particularly important when governments everywhere are trying to discourage people from gathering in public places due to the pandemic.

Speaking of COVID-19, even though the U.K.’s food nannyism has been building for years, British officials can’t help but try to use the coronavirus as a justification for their actions: “The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the fore the impact that obesity can have on people’s health and health outcomes.”

Christopher Snowdon, a regular critic of the United Kingdom’s regulatory overreach, an obesity data skeptic, and the head of lifestyle economics at the U.K.-based Institute of Economic Affairs, blasted the British government’s condescending new rules on his blog:

All these years I’ve been buying a pack of four bars of soap and a pack of four tins of baked beans because it worked out cheaper on a per-unit basis than buying one. But now I understand that I would have spent less if I’d have just bought one or two. Admittedly, I’d have had to go shopping more often, but that’s a small price to pay for saving money. Thank you, the government, for putting me straight.

Snowdon notes that a ban on buy-one-get-one-free promotions could cost the average family more than 600 pounds (more than $800) a year by the government’s own estimate. That means that British officials are trying to deliberately force up the cost of unhealthy foods because they think this will force people to choose healthier alternatives.

But that’s just not what happens. Instead, shoppers will turn to black markets. Driving up the price of sodas in Philadelphia with a special tax, for example, did not affect how much soda that people drank. Lots of people there just avoided the taxes by buying their soda elsewhere.

What will U.K. health authorities do when their latest tactics fail to make people eat better? A cynic might assume they’re already planning out even more new rules that are doomed to fail.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3aRdSbP
via IFTTT

[1.] Sarah Palin’s libel lawsuit against the New York Times is proceeding, on the theory that a jury could potentially find that the Times people knew their allegations about Palin were false (or at least were likely false). This is the so-called “actual malice” test, which is applied to libel claims brought by public figures such as Palin on matters of public concern (though it doesn’t actually require malice at all). It’s also called the New York Times v. Sullivan test, after the 1964 case that announced the test as to public officials; later cases extended it to other public figures.

[2.] Palin’s lawyers have argued that the “actual malice” test should be overruled or at least sharply limited, and in principle the Supreme Court could agree with them, after the decision at trial and then an appeal to the Second Circuit. In practice, it’s very unlikely that the Court would grant review in this case, and I don’t see much appetite on the Court for overruling New York Times v. Sullivan. (Justice Thomas seems interested in that, but I don’t think four other Justices will join him.) But there certainly has been talk about trying to tee up a case for the Court to consider whether to revisit the matter.

[3.] Today’s decision by Judge Jed Rakoff (S.D.N.Y.) makes it even less likely that Palin v. New York Times would be a vehicle for the Court to overrule its libel precedents.

Earlier this year, New York enacted a long-discussed revision to its “anti-SLAPP statute”—essentially a protection for defendants in libel cases (and some other similar cases). Part of that revision provides that, as a matter of New York state law, libel plaintiffs suing over speech “in connection with an issue of public interest” may only recover damages if they prove “that any communication which gives rise to the action was made with knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard of whether it was false.”

For public-concern cases brought by private figures, this statute imposes the “actual malice” for the first time, at least when it comes to compensatory damages. (Before the new statute was enacted, New York essentially applied a sort of gross negligence standard to private-figure/public-concern/compensatory-damages cases.) But for cases brought by public officials or public figures, this revision just codifies the “actual malice” standard.

In today’s decision, Judge Rakoff held that the anti-SLAPP revision was retroactive, in that it covered cases such as Palin’s, which were pending when the revision was enacted. And if the Second Circuit eventually agrees with him on appeal, then the question whether to overrule New York Times v. Sullivan would become irrelevant to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court almost never second-guesses lower courts’ interpretations of state law, so it would treat the “actual malice” rule as an independent state law statutory requirement. And if that’s so, then the question whether the New York Times v. Sullivan standard should be preserved as a federal requirement would become (for this case) moot.

[4.] Judge Rakoff’s decision may end up being very important for many pending New York libel cases (including ones dealing with a different part of the anti-SLAPP statute, which changes various rules as to public figure cases as well). As a federal district court case, it isn’t binding precedent, either in state or federal court, but it’s likely to be quite influential (and will be even more influential in state court, and binding in federal court, if the Second Circuit affirms on this score). But in the Palin case itself, it has only the indirect effect that I described.

[Thanks to Gage Skidmore / Wikipedia for the photo of Palin that I’m using here as a featured image.]

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/34VsSBN
via IFTTT