■ Proverbs
21:20 is a paean to prudence:
20 The wise store up choice food and olive oil,
but fools gulp theirs down.
Also, they buy lottery tickets.
■ @JonahNRO makes a
useful distinction: Antifa
Is Trouble, but Not Terrorism. It's a good review of Antifa
antics, their too-often-successful "heckler's veto" (although
their tactics are well beyond "heckling"), and the regrettable
overreach of some anti-Antifa folks. Bottom line:
Elevating Antifa to the category of terrorist organization would
fuel the worst trends in our politics. It would entice President
Trump to indulge his strongman shtick, and it would give Antifa the
stature it clearly craves. It would also likely accelerate vigilante
violence among the white nationalists. Launching a federal crusade
against domestic enemies would only fuel the fallacy that anyone
Antifa attacks is a fascist. We should fight crime, whatever guise
it takes, on the local level — as the founders intended.
There's no reason to start shredding the Constitution over either
the alt-right neo-Nazi scumbags or the Antifa scumbags.
■ At the Federalist, David Harsany opines: Rescinding
DACA Is The Right Thing To Do. He is (rightly) irritated by…
The reaction to DACA exposes much of the disingenuousness of the
post-election “norms” crowd. How could those who took part in the
national hissy fit over the “unconstitutional” short-term executive
restriction on immigration from terrorist-ridden nations now act as
if DACA is a proper way to govern? I mean, New York Governor Andrew
Cuomo has
threated to sue the president for rolling back the
executive actions of another president, which were enacted
ostensibly on the idea of prosecutorial discretion. Sue over
what—following the law as written?
It would be nice if people took a principled stand against
unconstitutional executive action, no matter who the executive
happens to be.
■ At Reason, Marian Tupy notes an Inconvenient Truth: Europe's
Anti-GMO Stance Is Killing Africans.
While imports of GMOs are not barred from Europe by law, the EU food
labelling system obliges companies to indicate if the food or feed
they produce contains GMOs. This labelling applies when GMOs account
for at least 0.9 percent of the food or the feed. Since Europeans
have been brainwashed into believing that GMO foods are unsafe,
scary labelling could dampen European demand for African
agricultural produce. As such, much of Africa has not only refused
to grow GMOs, but also refused U.S. food aid.
… and the results are pretty much what you would expect. Dead
Africans, which the rest of the world ignores.
■ The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE)
has a new Due Process
Report, rating "the top 53 universities in the country" (based
on the US News list) as to their "due process and fundamental
fairness" policies for student accused of misbehavior.
Due process and fundamental fairness are in crisis on America’s
college and university campuses. Colleges today investigate and
punish offenses ranging from vandalism and housing violations to
felonious acts of sexual assault, taking on the responsibility—often
at the behest of the federal government—to punish offenses that are
arguably better left to courts and law enforcement. But this
willingness to administer what is effectively a shadow justice
system has not been accompanied by a willingness to provide even the
most basic procedural protections that should accompany accusations
of serious wrongdoing.
It's a dismal report. FIRE summarizes their findings on an A-F
scale, with no school receiving an A. Among those getting Fs:
Caltech, Harvard, Penn State. Dartmouth received an F for its
policies on alleged sexual misconduct, a D for non-sexual conduct.
(A number of schools "have one set of standards for adjudicating
charges of sexual misconduct and another for all other charges".)
The University Near Here does not appear on the list because it is
not in the US News top 53. Dodged a bullet there, UNH.