The MalaCast

"I really don't think these guys know what they're talking about.”  -Richard Feynman on the “Nuclear Winter”

"Stanislav Petrov, the man who saved the world from nuclear disaster, on this day in 1983, 39 years ago today, saw the word "LAUNCH" flash across the Soviet Union's attack early warning system. His screen stated with high reliability that a total of five American intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) had been launched and were headed toward the Soviet Union. Petrov had to make a decision: should he report an incoming American strike, or should he hold off, confident that what they were seeing was a false alarm?

If he reported it, Soviet nuclear doctrine called for a full nuclear retaliation. There would be no time to double-check the warning system or seek negotiations with the U.S. This occurred during the Reagan administration, which had taken a firmer stance against the Soviets compared to previous administrations. The Reagan administration was deploying Pershing I nuclear-armed missiles to West Germany and Great Britain, capable of striking the Soviet Union. Given these circumstances, Petrov had reasons to believe that Reagan's brinkmanship had escalated to an actual nuclear exchange."  -@historyinmemes

It’s simple to seek substitutes for competence—such easy substitutes:  love, charm, kindness, charity.  But there is no substitute for competence.”  -Ayn Rand

“Fame is fleeting; popularity an accident; riches take wings.  Only one thing endures:  character.”  -Horace Greeley

A Syrian refugee in France has stabbed several babies.  I read men nearby ran away.  I think I know why.

“At bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time.”  -Friedrich Nietzsche

“You can lead a man to Congress, but you can’t make him think.”  -Milton Berle

"Many cities have used federal COVID-relief money to hire more police officers, and there is some evidence—albeit preliminary—that adding police officers helps to reduce homicide..."  -The Atlantic

"We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men."  -George Orwell

“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”  -Eric Hoffer

“The drive to reopen schools is rooted in racism, sexism, and misogyny”  -Chicago teacher's union

"If you were sitting here in Manhattan back in 2007, or in San Francisco, and you told me the average rent would double in the next sixteen years, I would say that’s completely impossible. People would just move..."  -Peter Thiel

“In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals that the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.”  -Jerry Pournelle

All happy people are grateful. Ungrateful people cannot be happy.  -Dennis Prager

You know who should feel gratitude for the US?  Everyone.  But who in particular?  South Koreans.  I'll explain.

“The wise and the good never form the majority of any large society and it seldom happens that their measures are uniformly adopted.... [All that wise and good men can do is] to persevere in doing their duty to their country and leave the consequences to him who made men only; neither elated by success, however great, nor discouraged by disappointments however frequent or mortifying.”

― John Jay

National Review:  "Sackett v. EPA: SCOTUS Clarifies Roles of Congress, EPA"

Washington Post:  "Supreme Court EPA ruling limits enforcement of the Clean Water Act"

Rolling Stone:  "Supreme Court Slashes EPA’s Ability to Regulate Water Pollution"

“We must go home to be happy, and our home is not in this world. Here we have nothing to do but our duty.”

― John Jay

"No sinner is ever saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon."  -Mark Twain

What you get in an American Catholic Mass in 2023 is about as authentic as the Chinese food at a strip mall in Idaho.

Sey Hersh wrote a long piece in the Columbia Journalism Review early this year and it's worth skimming.  Basically, journalists have made their profession despised by deceiving the American people in their fervor to get Trump.  They took particular advantage of people who have the psychological precursors of Democrat positions. 

As of 2022 the vast majority of Democrats believe 2016 was stolen by Russians.  Thanks New York Times!

“I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.”  -Thomas Jefferson

I watched CNN's town hall from awhile back and was impressed with the President.  But the "journalist"?  Hah.

Ronald Reagan is "trying to replace the Bill of Rights with fascist precepts lifted verbatim from 'Mein Kampf.'" -- Rep. William Clay Sr., D-Mo., 1983.

The New York Post has said some remarkable things in a recent column.  Of the "Russian information campaign" letter to let Hunter/Joe off the hook prior to 2020:  "The letter was a disinformation operation by the CIA to help Joe Biden win the 2020 election."  Of those who signed on:  "Every one of those 51 intelligence officials knew the laptop was real and was not Russian disinformation."

George W. Bush "let people die on rooftops in New Orleans because they were poor and because they were black." -- Senate candidate Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., 2006.

It was, I often mused, one of Somalia’s strangest paradoxes.  When no one comes to help, they cry that the world is indifferent to their suffering.  And when people do come, what do the Somalis do?  -Keith Richburg

I pointedy disagreed with someone about the causes of disparate crime rates in the USA.  And so Twitter has suspended me.  Did I "directly attack" people on the basis of race?  Ethnicity?  National origin?  Serious disease?

What I hear is mostly backward-looking, not inward-looking. It seems to me that if the race is ever going to progress, we might start by admitting that the enemy is within."  -Keith Richburg Out of America