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from Boston Herald
Nearly six decades ago, Martin Luther King Jr. fought for a better world, imploring us to judge others by “the content of their character.” He offered a vision of an America that united people across racial, political and economic lines — a vision that we can all believe in. The proponents of Critical Race Theory offer no such vision. They only propose a world of endless grievances and revenge, petty cons and abusing power to ruin lives. Where Dr. King saw a world of equals, CRT envisions only victims and vengeance. Where Dr. King called upon Americans to see the content of each others’ character, CRT calls for acts of theater and cancel culture. Where Dr. King offered equality before the law, CRT proposes only “equity,” the subjective decisions of petty tyrants over who gets what, when and how. CRT doesn’t solve problems; it shreds the social fabric of a nation by perpetuating an “us” versus “them” mentality.
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from City Journal
A quarterly magazine of urban affairs, published by the Manhattan Institute
Since we are constantly told that the CDC and other public-health entities are basing their recommendations on science, it’s crucial to know what, specifically, has been found in various medical studies. Significant choices about how our republic should function cannot be made on the basis of science alone—they require judgment and the weighing of countless considerations—but they must be informed by knowledge of it. In truth, the CDC’s, U.K.’s, and WHO’s earlier guidance was much more consistent with the best medical research on masks’ effectiveness in preventing the spread of viruses. That research suggests that Americans’ many months of mask-wearing has likely provided little to no health benefit and might even have been counterproductive in preventing the spread of the novel coronavirus.
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from The Inlander
Media/News Company in Spokane, WA
Media/News Company in Spokane, WA
They are out there. They walk among us, and their numbers have accelerated over the past decade and especially since the beginning of COVID-19. You might even be one. Joy suckers. If you have a locked-in opinion on everything and feel an obligation to share it, you are probably a joy sucker. Here is a quick guide to see if you are a joy sucker.
On July 1, Melody Deatherage arrived home after work to find a notice of rent increase on her door. She'd been expecting a bump in rent, but this was far beyond what she'd imagined: an increase of over $500 a month, effective Sept. 1. And if Deatherage, 65, refused to sign a lease under those terms, then Hilby Station Apartments would increase her rent again to $2,350 — double what she's currently paying. ... It's a crisis likely leading to increased homelessness, and experts say it's driven by a lack of housing supply and the unintended consequences of the eviction moratorium. ... But right now, tenants and tenant advocates feel powerless to prevent it. "The increases I'm seeing are perfectly legal," says Terri Anderson, Spokane director for the Tenants Union of Washington State. "This can't continue. But there's nothing stopping it."
from Hoover Institution
Nonprofit Organization in Stanford, California
The shipyards of the Indo-Pacific region have been busy of late. Built at the Cochin shipyard in Kochi, India, the carrier INS Vikrant has embarked on sea trials. After its work up to fully operational status, the Vikrant will join the INS Vikramaditya, commissioned in 2013. The latter ship, originally a Kiev-class carrier/cruiser, was built in Russia and converted in the Sevmash shipyard for use by the Indian Navy. Meanwhile, neighboring China is building its third carrier to join the PLAN Liaoning, built on a Ukrainian hull and commissioned in 2012, and the PLAN Shandong, the first Chinese domestically built carrier, commissioned in 2019. Construction of the third carrier is ongoing at the Jiangnan shipyard in Shanghai, with a launch likely to occur early next year. Given the intensifying strategic competition between China and India, the question arises as to the potential for a future naval engagement between the two fleets in the Indian Ocean.
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RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED
Imagine you are in command of the state, defined as an institution that possesses a territorial monopoly of ultimate decision making in every case of conflict, including conflicts involving the state and its agents itself, and, by implication, the right to tax, i.e., to unilaterally determine the price that your subjects must pay you to perform the task of ultimate decision making. To act under these constraints — or rather, lack of constraints — is what constitutes politics and political action, and it should be clear from the outset that politics, then, by its very nature, always means mischief. Not from your point of view, of course, but mischief from the point of view of those subject to your rule as ultimate judge. Predictably, you will use your position to enrich yourself at other people's expense.
In case you haven’t noticed, America is “deeply divided.” At least, that’s what a seemingly nonstop stream of headlines from major media sources would have us believe. “Trump Leaves America at Its Most Divided since the Civil War,” reads one CNN headline from earlier this year. Meanwhile, in his speeches from the first few months of his presidency, President Biden frequently claimed to be trying to restore national “unity.” More recently, the debate over vaccine mandates has prompted countless op-eds on how there are now “two Americas” or that differences in vaccination rates from state to state reflect a “deeply divided” America.
Western countries will adopt (or consider adopting) state-mandated “medical passports”—so-called green passes—meant to prevent covid-19’s spread. They will compel private individuals to carry such passports if they want access to certain facilities or events (restaurants, theaters, concert arenas, etc.), I often hear libertarians—or people just sympathetic to libertarianism—supporting such state interventions with the following argument: “The green pass is compatible with libertarianism, because it directly stems from the nonaggression principle; in fact, if you do not have the green pass—and hence are (potentially) infectious—by infecting other people, you would be aggressing against them.”
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from The North American Anglican
Media/News Company: "A journal of orthodox theology in the Anglican tradition"
Drew Keane brings us a list of some of the most influential prayer book commentaries from over the centuries:
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from Reason Magazine
Magazine in Los Angeles, California
This week two Texas judges issued temporary restraining orders that allow public schools in Bexar and Dallas counties to require that staff and students wear face masks as a safeguard against COVID-19. The legal issue is whether Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's executive order banning such mandates fits within his authority under the Texas Disaster Act of 1975. But the wisdom of requiring masks in schools depends on whether the public health benefits of that precaution outweigh the burdens it imposes on students and employees. On that point, the evidence is not nearly as clear as mandate enthusiasts imply.
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from Rolling Stone
Rand Paul, a United States senator and Republican Party figure of considerable stature, was suspended by YouTube on Wednesday for violating the platform’s policy about spreading Covid-19 misinformation.
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from Spokane Daily Chronicle
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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington
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from Twitchy
The New York Times published an op-ed by Dr. Kanecia Zimmerman, an associate professor of pediatrics at the Duke University School of Medicine and Dr. Danny Benjamin Jr., a pediatric-infectious-disease specialist at Duke Health that concluded “one of the most effective and efficient strategies for preventing SARS-CoV-2 transmission in schools”. The researchers found only 363 cases out of 40,000 exposed in schools and believe “the low rate of transmission occurred because of [universal masking”, But there are some major flaws with their analysis. “The evidence here that unmasked kids spread COVID more than masked kids in school seems to be a handful of anecdotes, some from foreign countries, and others from summer camps”. And they admit they “could not compare masked schools to unmasked schools”:
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