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From a characteristically astute column by J.E. Dyer:

The point of the Treaty of Westphalia was not that religion is ugly and divisive, or that it must be subordinated to the political. The point was that the armed force of the nation-state, which is useful and does good service for the right purposes, must not be used to enforce universalist philosophies or settle their irreconcilable disputes.
 
The Westphalian commitment is that universalism will not take precedence over national sovereignty. Instead, national sovereignty will protect nations from movements for overweening universalism.
 
In 1648, the conscious commitment to this principle helped end the wars of Catholic and Protestant monarchs on the European continent (although the effect was not immediate). In the Napoleonic era, it was instrumental in beating back Bonaparte’s encroaching supranational vision: a hybrid of Roman imperial concepts and French revolutionary declarations.
 
The Westphalian commitment to respect for national sovereignty was also a key enabling factor for the success of the United States, once we established the “national” and “sovereignty” conditions. America is not possible without Westphalianism.
 
And in the 20th century, it was the continued commitment to the Westphalian nation-state that allowed the free West to face down ruthless, radical, universalist Communism, even though the latter expanded with each decade into more and more territory, and became equipped with vast conventional armies, nuclear weapons, and seats in the United Nations. The UN was useless for defeating state-armed Communist aggression. It was a specific group of nations acting in their own right, led by the United States, that achieved that goal.
 
In 2019, the confrontation is in some ways harder to discern than in earlier centuries. It isn’t between nations; it’s within them. Urban “elites” align with each other across borders, the leaders of the biggest cities consciously identifying not with their compatriots from the hinterlands but with the leaders of foreign megalopolises. Conversely, many of the people outside the “elite” circles, wherever in the world they are, take to the streets cheering America’s Donald Trump. His brand of politics cares about them.
 
The nation-state is what makes the protection of liberty and rights possible. Undermining the nation-state is the project of today’s universalist collectivism, and the government crises in the U.S., UK, and France are visible signs of that battle being waged. This is not a battle over theory or mere programmatic choices. It’s a battle for the future of mankind.

In a way that seems psychologically analogous to price trends in financial markets, the civil war is what’s happening now while people focus on lurid predictions that don’t materialize.

Read the whole thing.

Important points:

In his 60 Minutes interview, former acting FBI director McCabe said:

There were a number of things that caused us to believe that we had adequate predication or adequate reason and facts, to open the investigation. The president had been speaking in a derogatory way about our investigative efforts for weeks, describing it as a witch hunt… publicly undermining the effort of the investigation.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/thoughts-andrew-mccabes-60-minutes-interview (emphasis added).
 
Is not this statement troubling, if not Orwellian? Think or speak the wrong thing—and the government investigates you? In a 2017 blog post on New Reform Club, I wrote about this issue as follows:

Read Seth’s full post.

The trend toward U-shaped confrontation zones continues.
 

Appliance delivery, carrying refrigerators up and down stairs, hard work for not much money. I ask the guy where he’s from, he says he came here two months ago from Venezuela.

I try to cheer him up, tell him that in a year or two his life will be better. He replies that it’s already better.

#USA

 
 

 
 

 
 
Could dogs in places be the new waiting rooms?
 

Minimize paper, phone calls, driving, errands, quarrels, litigation, surgery.

Maximize time with loved ones and time alone.

Nobody’s that good.

Most things aren’t your problem.

Most predictions are wrong. Arguing about predictions is usually a waste of time.

Arguing about anything, unless you are paid to do it, is usually a waste of time. An exception to this generalization is when you have a chance to make a principled case about an important issue in front of an audience with many uncommitted members.

Most advice is worthless and should be taken with a grain or twenty of salt. However, an unexpected gentle suggestion from someone who knows you well should be treated seriously.

Most loose ends should be left alone.

Silence is often the best reply.

Embrace the power of “I don’t know”.

If it’s stupid and it works it isn’t stupid.

Risk is everywhere and many endeavors are riskier than they initially appear to be. Complacency, especially in groups and institutions – “That’s never happened” – is a warning to watch out for icebergs.

In business, look for patterns of events that contradict an opinion consensus.

The period of chaos following a disruptive event can be a good time to take bold action.

Everyone thinks his way is the only way. Try to learn from other people while keeping an open mind.
 

Rush Limbaugh on Dec. 7:

Donald Trump arrived, the way I hear this Tillerson sound bite, Trump arrives knowing what he wants to do. He doesn’t arrive unsure and he’s not gonna admit that who doesn’t know what to do because he’s not from this world. He’s there, and he has a specific agenda that everybody that elected him knows what it is: Make America Great Again.
 
Sadly, he hasn’t done a lot on that agenda. He hasn’t built the wall yet. We haven’t repealed and replaced Obamacare. There’s a lot of things in the Trump agenda that have not happened yet. But that’s not what Tillerson’s talking about. Tillerson’s talking about some guy comes in and says, “This is what I want to happen.” And your typical Washington bureaucrat or CEO bureaucrat will say, “Well, where’s the memo? Where’s the plan? Where’s the blueprint?”
 
Trump said, “There’s no blueprint. Just do it! This is what I want to happen. This is what I want.”
 
“Well, uh, you know, you shouldn’t do it that way.”
 
“I don’t care what you — just make it happen.” Trump is one of these, this is how he’s worked, “make it happen.” If he’s talking to Jared, if he’s talking to Trump Jr. or Eric or Ivanka, “This is what I want, make it happen.” That’s not how Washington works. Washington works on things not happening. The whole point of bureaucracy is to not do such that it looks like you’re getting things done. There might not be any need for you after you finish. So everything’s never done. Of course Trump’s gonna have compatibility problems with that.

[emphasis added]

 
After a couple of not entirely satisfactory years with a low-end conventional espresso maker (discussed here, here and here) and this morning’s epic hot milk explosion we decided to buy a standalone milk frothing device and ended up ordering this DeLonghi-made Nespresso machine, which comes with a milk frother for around $104 total (after coupon) on a Black Friday deal.

We have never owned a Nespresso but have given a couple of them as gifts and everyone loves them. Of course you have to buy coffee capsules, which are pricey if you buy the Nespresso branded ones but a very reasonable 33 cents each if you buy the ones from Bestpresso. These are excellent in our experience.
 

 
UPDATE: There’s a similar deal on a Breville-made Nespresso/frother combo:
 

 
 
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Disclosure: This blog post was written under the influence of caffeine. Chicago Boyz earns an affiliate payment from Amazon when you buy any product through any of the Amazon links on this blog. If you buy stuff through our links we can afford to buy more espresso.

Elections coming.
Bad or worse – not good or bad –
Is the real question.

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New Google inbox
Maximizes confusion.
But, Google knows best.

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Social media:
People at each other’s throats
Over little things.

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That damned noise again. . .
Some app, can’t ID which one.
This is the future?

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(Feel free to add your contributions in the comments.)
 

[START: #1]
 
[Dear Professor,]
 
I am sure you have read the news reports about Senator Warren. I am wondering what you think of the position you put forward some years ago. See …, Intersectionality and Positionality: Situating Women of Color in the Affirmative Action Dialogue, 66 Fordham L. Rev. 843, 898 (1997) (“Harvard Law School hired its first woman of color, Elizabeth Warren, in 1995.”); id. at 898 n.284 (citing to …, News Director, Harvard Law School (Aug. 6, 1996)) ….
 
Perhaps a follow up or letter to the editor (at Fordham Law Review) might be interesting and worthwhile. See Fordham Law Review (e-mail); (alt e-mail) ….
 
[. . .]

Read the rest.

Via Instapundit, exerpts from this column by Reihan Salam:

The study should also make progressives more self-critical about the way in which speech norms serve as a marker of social distinction. I don’t doubt the sincerity of the affluent and highly educated people who call others out if they use “problematic” terms or perpetrate an act of “cultural appropriation.” But what the vast majority of Americans seem to see—at least according to the research conducted for “Hidden Tribes”—is not so much genuine concern for social justice as the preening display of cultural superiority.
 
For the millions upon millions of Americans of all ages and all races who do not follow politics with rapt attention, and who are much more worried about paying their rent than about debating the prom dress worn by a teenager in Utah, contemporary callout culture merely looks like an excuse to mock the values or ignorance of others. . .
 
[. . .]
 
In a democracy, it is difficult to win fellow citizens over to your own side, or to build public support to remedy injustices that remain all too real, when you fundamentally misunderstand how they see the world.

. . . which links to this column:

Shortly before the 2016 presidential election, The New York Times columnist Ross Douthat observed that though the left has always had a disproportionate presence in the commanding heights of culture, “the swing toward social liberalism among younger Americans and the simultaneous surge of activist energy on the left have created a new dynamic, in which areas once considered relatively apolitical now have (or are being pushed to have) an overtly left-wing party line.” This, he argued, has engendered a sense of panic and resentment among those who don’t embrace social liberalism, and as a consequence, “the feeling of being suffocated by the left’s cultural dominance is turning voting Republican into an act of cultural rebellion.” At the time, I recall that Douthat’s argument was widely ridiculed, especially among those who found the notion that Donald Trump might win the White House risible. That has changed.
 
[. . .]
 
What is new, I would argue, is the second development: that the number of people who are susceptible to elite influence has grown larger. Here is where I must tread lightly, as what follows is necessarily impressionistic. I get the sense that the most aggressively “woke” young people are precisely those who find themselves in the most fiercely competitive environments. Status and prestige matter to everyone, of course, but they matter to some more than others. Most of all, they matter to those who find themselves in precarious industries where one’s reputation counts for a great deal and, just as importantly, to lonely, unattached people who long to feel valued and desired. Delayed marriage and child-rearing ensure that many more young people spend many more years in the mating market and, by extension, orienting their lives around fulfilling their own social and sexual appetites over the care and feeding of children. This is especially true among children of the culturally powerful upper-middle-class, who’ve been trained to fear downward mobility in a stratified society as much as our primitive ancestors feared being devoured by toothy predators. The result is what you might call a culture of “competitive wokeness.”
 
To people in this world, traditionalism must look like a dead end. A commitment to it will do nothing to improve your status in ferociously competitive environments, as those who’ve already scrambled to the top of the ladder tend to hold traditionalist ideals in disdain. Besides, to embrace traditionalist ideals would be to reject the terms of the social tournament to which you’ve chosen to dedicate your life—to decide that devotion to family and community ought to trump individual achievement. If you were to find yourself in this hyper-competitive world, well, you’d be foolish not to emulate the highest-status people you could find. Thanks to social media, you can access their opinions on all and sundry in an instant. The result is a kind of swarm effect in which high-status moral entrepreneurs declare the right position to take on a given issue and then, within minutes, hordes of epigones scramble to adopt and enforce the new orthodoxy. If you’re a good enough enforcer, you might soon find yourself in a position to dictate the new party line.

I think we need more activism, to raise awareness about the high costs of social media, divorce, and late marriage among educated women.
 

“Hi, this is Bridget. . .”
The phony recorded voice
Cues you to hang up.

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New Android update!
Now the apps run much slower,
Battery dies fast.

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The people next door
Are into Santeria.
Better hide your cat.

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Your middle-class friends
Are sometimes rude to smokers.
Time to get new friends?

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Morning home-leaving.
Your dog thinks it’s betrayal.
Perhaps he’s correct.

—-

Fat girl riding bike.
She looks angry, I say Hi.
She doesn’t respond.

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Feel free to add your contributions in the comments.
 

https://reformclub.blogspot.com/2018/09/peak-conlawprof-i-and-ii.html

Too short to quote; worth clicking.

Bless our New Age friends!
You need cancer remedies,
They suggest. . . massage.

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It’s the Age of Waze:
Rush hour turns across traffic,
Third World risk taking.

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Windows networking –
Still a huge pain in the ass.
Some things never change.

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Turns out your girlfriend
Ran an asset search on you.
Time to hit the road?
Read the rest of this entry »

“Of course they make a ton of money, they’re a non profit.”

(Said by a friend who used to work for a nonprofit organization.)

A CFTC report explains that open interest in long-dated NYMEX West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures continues a long-term decline.

Jessica Summers on Bloomberg:

That’s because oil extraction has become more efficient in tight oil fields compared to conventional wells and producers have more flexibility in turning on and off the taps in response to oil prices.
 
The increasing amount of crude coming in from tight oil in portfolios of production firms has left them with less crude to sell five or more years forward, reducing their need for long-dated futures contracts, according to the study. U.S. weekly production has skyrocketed to 11 million barrels a day, the highest level on record, according to Energy Information Administration data.

On Omaha Beach, the French have put up two monuments—one traditional and one more modern. The beach itself is open and used. People traverse the beach and dip their feet in its cold water. Small children play in the sand. There is ample parking for tourists. There are places to buy souvenirs. And not so distant from the epicentre of the beach and its monuments—people have private homes. Maybe some of those homes are condominiums—I don’t know. What this means is that at some point, temporally and geographically, the mourning and the monuments must run out. Yes, the dead are buried. But the earth belongs in usufruct to the living.

Read the whole thing.

Review 1: Cuban Food Stories

I saw this one at the Tower Theater while drinking Cuban coffee on an empty stomach. It’s a documentary by a Cuban emigre who travels around Cuba and talks to people about food. These are people who catch, grow, prepare, serve and/or sell food. The film is beautiful, the people charming, the settings picturesque, the food wonderful. There are spectacular drone shots of colorful towns, lush forests and rural landscapes, and closeups of ceviche, grilled octopus, roast pork and other delicacies. You will leave the theater hungry.

This movie made me feel good about Cuba, which leads to another thought. In addition to its good qualities this movie is slick, well done propaganda. Perhaps the film maker really is ambivalent about having emigrated, as he suggests. Or perhaps he would not have been allowed to make this movie without showing Cuba in the most favorable light, i.e., things were bad in the ’90s but today they are getting better, people are better off and happy, it’s a great place to visit, etc. However, the hardships of daily life are obvious to anyone who looks. As my movie viewing companion said afterwards, the people in the film spend most of their time looking for food. One notices their teeth, their overall look of having been through hard times. The electricity fails. The happy fisherman was trained as a physicist and now rationalizes his difficult life (what else can he do?).

I recommend this movie as long as you can enjoy the food and not be bothered by any political subtexts. Verdict: Four thumbs up, one thumb down.

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Review 2: The Black Stallion Returns (also available on Netflix)

This is a really bad movie. I enjoyed the original whose plot involves a special horse that falls off a boat and saves the little boy who rides the horse to victory in the big race. Cartoonish but so are most movies and this one was visually beautiful, apolitical and had a happy ending. Plus the horse porn if you are into such things. Then I got talked into watching the sequel.

The newer movie revolves around a struggle between good and bad Arabs to repatriate the famous horse to the Sahara where they plan to run it in a hokey every-5-years race on which tribes with poor risk-management skills bet the farm. You can tell the good from the bad Arabs because the main bad Arab is fat and has a Brooklyn accent and the good Arabs are thin and have Roman accents. Also we are made to understand that the bad Arabs cheat rather than follow important movie rules of noble-savage fair play. The good Arabs take the horse and explain to the little boy that it’s really theirs, and who can blame them. They head off for Casablanca and the boy follows in a flying boat. Much drama and silly plot escapades follow until inevitably the little boy wins the big race for the good Arabs but then is too stupid to either take the horse back home with him or sleep with the hot Arab chick who would do him in a second since he’s now the high-status race winner.

I recommend this movie if you liked Mystery Science Theater, or if you have young daughters who are into horses as horse porn is probably more wholesome than vampire porn. Verdict: Four thumbs down, three thumbs up.