Paul Pelosi

 

Normally, I would wait until the dust had a chance to settle before writing about current events, but the 'Paul Pelosi affair' is too weird to admit of any more than a single explanation.

To recap the events:  Paul Pelosi, husband of the Speaker of the House, called 9-1-1 at 2am to report an intruder that

• he didn't know
• named 'David'
• who was 'a friend'

according to the 9-1-1 dispatcher.  SFPD responded in record-short-time and were admitted by an unidentified third person, found Paul and 'David', both in a state of undress, struggling over possession of a hammer, ordered the two men to drop the hammer — which Paul Pelosi did — upon which, David smacked Paul in the head with the hammer.  SFPD then took David into custody and called EMTs for Paul.  Initial reports were that David broke into the house by smashing a window in and demanded to know "Where's Nancy?"

What's weird about this tale is that the house in question is the residence of the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, the person third in line to the Presidency, and that it was (we are told) broken into.  Further, Paul Pelosi didn't know the intruder except that he was named David and was a friend.  The window was, by photographic evidence, smashed out, not in because the glass shards were on the outside.  SFPD was on the scene in two shakes of a lamb's tail.  This scenario does not pass the 'smell test'.

I estimate that there is approximately a zero percent chance that this house is not guarded every minute of every day from January 1st to December 31st inclusive — by SFPD.  In other words, nobody was inside that house absent an invitation.  David could not have gained entry whether in his underwear or otherwise without passing an SFPD sentry.  David could not have smashed a window in without alerting one of the policemen on guard.  When alerted by dispatch, SFPD was already on the scene.  Therefore, David had been invited in, and SFPD knew he was there.

Period.

Paul Pelosi, rumors say, has been spotted at gay bars downtown on numerous occasions.  David was thus not just 'a friend'.  David was a male prostitute, and Nancy's hubby is gay.

Talk about "an October surprise"!

 

Now, This Is Funny

 

A guy in Ohio put up a FaceBook page that looked suspiciously like what the Parma (OH) PD might have for their public-facing... umm... face, except that any such official page that contained the stuff that was on that page would have gotten the Mayor and the Chief of Police ridden out of town on a rail.

Naturally, the police arrested him for mocking them.  Judicial activity ensued.  Lots of judicial activity.  So much that it is now wending its way toward The Supreme Court of the United States™ ®U.S.Pat.Ofc.

It is now at the stage of a petition for certiorari, and thus there are amicus curiae (friend of the court) briefs.

The Onion has weighed in on the issue with its own brief that you should go read.

The most serious part of the whole thing is this:

The petition for certiorari should be granted, the rights of the people vindicated, and various historical wrongs remedied.  The Onion would welcome any one of the three, particularly the first.

The rest of it is screamingly funny, and all of the citations and footnotes are true.

—==+++==—

Update Oct 29, 2022:  The Babylon Bee has added its voice to the hue and cry for a writ.  While not as funny (or as timely) as that of The Onion, It nevertheless makes some good points, especially that getting acquitted of such a criminal charge is both (a) "cold comfort", and (b) not guaranteed.

 

Free Speech

 

Recently, we have been witness to several instances where right-leaning speakers invited to address the student body at prestigious institutions of higher learning (Yale, Harvard, Princeton among others) have been shouted down by activist students to the extent that the speakers have been unable to do the task for which they had been invited.  In more than one case, police were necessary to ensure the safety of the speakers and whisked the visitors away from danger.  In response, this week a number of federal judges announced that they would henceforth not hire law clerks from the Yale population.  I suspect it's likely this prohibition will soon extend to other law schools as well.

Free speech is the sine qua non of a democratic society.  Without the ability to question dogma, progress halts.  This seems not to be a concept well understood by many current college students, and that flaw has not been eradicated by the faculties or administrations of those colleges.  One must assume, therefore, that the faculties and administrations share the activists' disdain for hearing opinions they find offensive.

If that is not true, those universities have precious little time left to salvage what remains of their reputations.  They may want to and yet be unable to imagine a path out of this swamp.  For any such institutions, here is a modest proposal for working your way clear:

1. Every student should be issued a picture-ID and be required to have that device visible on their person at all times while they are on campus, and to present it to campus police on demand.
   
   
2. No one can be admitted to any campus event without displaying their student ID or a visitor badge obtained for the purpose.
   
   
3. When campus police have to be called to the scene of a student riot — that's what these events are — the CPs collect the IDs of all the unruly participants.  Having your student ID thus confiscated must be seen as a prelude to expulsion.
   
   
4. Involved visitors should be cited for trespassing and permanently banned from the campus.

Until the management of these institutions make it clear that uncivilized behavior will not be tolerated, uncivilized behavior will occur.  It's as simple as that.  Colleges and universities must make the choice either to coddle their students or to preserve their reputations.

 

Economics

 

economics
ĕk″ə-nŏm′ĭks, ē″kə-
noun
The social science that deals with the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services and with the theory and management of economies or economic systems.

The above is a poor definition of 'economics' because it includes the misleading phrase "... and management ...".  No one can manage an economy.  Economists study the principles of economics in order that they may predict the result of this policy or that one, but their predictions are always guesses, and are often wrong to a greater or lesser degree.

Because economists (try to) predict economic outcomes, non-economists surmise that the process can be run in reverse: that we can start at the effect we wish and back into the policy that will deliver that effect.  It is an attractive fallacy, and we need no more proof than the hot messes and dumpster fires of failed economies that got where they are because some politician had sufficient hubris to believe that economies can be managed.  No one can manage an economy.  There is no person or group of persons, no matter their educational credentials, who can force an economy to behave as they wish.

The only way to 'manage' an economy is to get out of its way.  Any politician who tells you s/he can fix the economy's shortcomings is either lying or stupid.  If they don't themselves believe what they're saying, they think you're stupid.  If you believe them, you are.

Beyond that, economics is a 'social science'.  Social sciences are not sciences no matter the name assigned to them.  The 'scientific method' involves four major activities: observation, hypothesis, experimentation, and analysis.  Implicit in this is that the results are shared among other scientists who replicate the experiment(s) to ascertain that the published results are, indeed, replicable and not one-off flukes.  For most (if not all) social sciences, experimentation is difficult-to-impossible, and replication of results likewise difficult-to-impossible.  Social sciences thus fail the test of being actual science and so reside in the realm of theoretical pursuits.  Few, if any, economic nostrums can be guaranteed to work as predicted, and often fail spectacularly.

No one can manage an economy.