In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

I had one of those nights last night when I woke up with the feeling I hadn't fully figured something out. It clearly stemmed from Francis Fukuyama's Atlantic essay that I linked yesterday . I would summarize it via the following excerpts. First, [Russia and China] were the vanguard of a broader authoritarian wave that turned back democratic gains across the globe, from Myanmar to Tunisia to Hungary to El Salvador. But we mustn't lose heart. Indeed, The long-term progress of modern institutions is neither linear nor automatic. Over the years, we have seen huge setbacks to the progress of liberal and democratic institutions, with the rise of fascism and communism in the 1930s, or the military coups and oil crises of the 1960s and ’70s. And yet, liberal democracy has endured and come back repeatedly, because the alternatives are so bad. . . . When I wrote an article in 1989 and a book in 1992 with ["the end of history"] in the title, I noted that the Marxist v...

In a piece at The Atlantic, More Proof That This Really Is the End of History , Francis Fukuyama doubles down: The philosopher Hegel coined the phrase the end of history to refer to the liberal state’s rise out of the French Revolution as the goal or direction toward which historical progress was trending. For many decades after that, Marxists would borrow from Hegel and assert that the true end of history would be a communist utopia. When I wrote an article in 1989 and a book in 1992 with this phrase in the title, I noted that the Marxist version was clearly wrong and that there didn’t seem to be a higher alternative to liberal democracy. But why should there be only two alternatives, Hegel-Fukuyama and Marxism? When I first posted about Mr Fukuyama here , I suggested that Osama bin Laden needed to hear that message but clearly didn't. And although Marxism has reverted to the parlor and the faculty lounge where it had been before 1917, this hasn't cured the problem of bi...

Just for fun, I did a google search this morning on "Biden sniffing hair" to see if anyone had anything intelligent to say about last weekend's episodes, and the messages above came up -- "It looks like the results below are changing quickly". This is actually the first I've ever seen this message on a search, which suggests more people than usual are looking it up -- but nobody has anything new to say about it. However, this tweet from last July suggests it's been going on steadily in the background and has never really stopped, despite the big guy's 2019 promise to abstain: Dad ran into Joe on a biking trail in Delaware and got a live sniffing video lmfao pic.twitter.com/qz9KuEzN9E — martman (@big__marty) July 10, 2022 This raises a question of etiquette if nothing else. A year ago, Brandon caused a minor stir when he put his hand on Prince William's shoulder during a visit to the UK. One does not touch the royals. Indeed, I assume th...

On April 3, 2019, Joe Biden said he’s ready to respect people’s “personal space” after new attention came to allegations he had acted inappropriately with women. “I shake hands, I hug people, I grab men and women by the shoulders and say, ‘You can do this.’ Whether they are women, men, young, old, it’s the way I’ve always been. It’s the way I show I care about them, that I listen,” he said. “Social norms have begun to change, they’ve shifted. And the boundaries of protecting personal space have been reset. And I get it. I get it. I hear what they’re saying, I understand it. And I’ll be much more mindful. That’s my responsibility and I’ll meet it.” Biden offered no direct apology for his past actions but said he would be mindful of changing norms around physical contact. But as of this weekend, he's back to being creepy with little girls. On Friday, in Irvine, CA, he'd returned to his old ways: President Joe Biden grabs a young girl by the shoulder and tells her “no...

In the week following the explosion or explosions on the Kerch Bridge connecting Crimea with European Russia, there have been lots of questions and few solid answers. Initial analysis of the damage, even from informed engineers, was sanguine. For instance, as of this past Monday , Observers have been left wondering: what was the effect of the blast and fire on the surviving bridge elements, what repairs could be required, and when is it safe to re-open a bridge after such an event? As experts in bridge safety and blast engineering, we have (some) answers. . . . In structural engineering, safety is not an either-or proposition. It is measured on a continuum known as the probability of failure, or more positively, the reliability index of a structure. . . . for key bridges such as the Crimean Bridge, it may be reasonable to accept a reduced level of safety when the costs associated with a disruption are very high. Cranes have been shown lifting the fuel tanker wagon wreckage o...

The fallout from the PayPal "glitch", whereby they announced they would debit customer accounts up to $2500 directly for publishing "misinformation", continues. Do not take their $15 bribe. Delete your PayPal account. https://t.co/lFd7QBxG7M — Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) October 13, 2022 Despite this, however, it sounds as though PayPal has been experiencing an effective bank run : Following the trend to boycott PayPal, some users were having a problem closing their accounts. One user commented, “Endless hours chatting with the support here. Some people are able to close it in seconds. Others it takes weeks. Criminal.” Another said, “Looks like they’ve disabled Account Closure over at Paypal to prevent customers exiting their platform. No doubt there’ll be the usual corporate-speak on “temporary technical issue” inbound.” Well, consumers aren't stupid. When I began to research this issue, I discovered information that was already in the public doma...

As I've been saying, since late February, Ukraine President Zelensky has been setting a de facto agenda for the Western response to the invasion, and if he doesn't get what he wants right away, he gets it later. Sec Austin's remarks (translated back to English from a Ukrainian report at the link) at the start of yesterday's Ramstein conference reflect this state of affairs: In Brussels on October 12, the next Ramstein meeting brought together defense ministers from about 50 countries to discuss assistance to Ukraine. Opening the meeting, Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin stated that the dynamics of the war unleashed by the Kremlin had changed. He stressed the serious progress of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in this conflict, Dialog.UA reports . . . . He stressed that the Ukrainian troops changed the dynamics of the war by seizing the initiative from the occupier. It seems to me that Sec Austin is talking about two dynamics. Ukraine seized the initiative a few mont...