Untethered To The Facts

In sum, the President is certainly entitled "a great level of deference," in his determination that he "is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States." 10 U.S.C. § 12406(3).  But "a great level of deference" is not equivalent to ignoring the facts on the ground.  As the Ninth Circuit articulated, courts must "review the President's determination to ensure that it reflects a colorable assessment of the facts and law within a 'range of honest judgment'".  Here, this Court concludes that the President did not have a "colorable basis" to invoke § 12406(3) to federalize the National Guard because the situation on the ground belied an inability of federal law enforcement officers to execute federal law.  The President's determination was simply untethered to the facts.

-- US District Judge Karin J. Immergut, granting a Temporary Restraining Order against Trump's efforts to deploy National Guard troops to Portland, OR, in State of Oregon, City of Portland v Trump, et al (4 October 2025)

The Alchemists Were Right

Seekers after the glitter of intelligence are misguided in trying to cast it in the base metal of computing.  There is an amusing epilogue to this analogy: in fact, the alchemists were right.  Lead can be converted into gold by a particle accelerator hurling appropriate beams at lead targets.  The AI visionaries may be right in the same way, and they are likely to be wrong in the same way.

-- Terry Winograd (1946 -), American professor of computer science at Stanford University, and co-director of the Stanford Human-Computer Interaction Group, "Thinking Machines: Can there be? Are we?", in The Boundaries of Humanity: Humans, Animals, Machines (1991), ed. James J. Sheehan and Morton Sosna, p. 216

Palpable Misunderstanding

Everything above in this section is necessary background to frame the problem this President has with the First Amendment.  Where things run off the rails for him is his fixation with "retribution." "I am your retribution," he thundered famously while on the campaign trail.  Yet government retribution for speech (precisely what has happened here) is directly forbidden by the First Amendment.  The President's  palpable misunderstanding that the government simply cannot seek retribution for speech he disdains poses a great threat to Americans' freedom of speech.  It is at this juncture that the judiciary has robustly rebuffed the President and his administration.

I fear President Trump believes the American people are so divided that today they will not stand up, fight for, and defend our most precious constitutional values so long as they are lulled into thinking their own personal interests are not affected.

Is he correct?

-- William G. Young, Judge of the United States, ruling in AAUP et al v Rubio, Noem, and Trump et al that the Trump administration's effort to deport pro-Palestinian academics is a deliberate attack on free speech (30 September 2025)

RIP Jane Goodall

Confrontation can be counter productive.  Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don't believe is right.

-- Dame Jane Morris Goodall DBE, born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall (3 April 1934 - 1 October 2025), English primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist most famous for her study of chimpanzee social and family life in the Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania, interview at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa (26 August 2002)

Expert Discernment

The supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things -- the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.

-- Charles Grosvenor Osgood (1871 - 1964), editor and translator, in the preface to Boswell's "Life of Johnson" (1917)

One Of The Best

I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.

-- Giuseppe Marc'Antonio Baretti (1719 - 1789), Italian literary critic, poet, writer, and translator, during his years in England often known as Joseph Baretti, quoted in Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson

More Frequently

Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.

-- Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784), British author, linguist, and lexicographer, The Rambler (1750 - 1752) No. 2 (24 March 1750)

Perversion And Exorbitance

No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.

-- Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784), British author, linguist, and lexicographer, The Rambler (1750–1752) No. 148 (17 August 1751)

We Are Inclined

We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know, because they have never deceived us.

-- Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784), British author, linguist, and lexicographer, The Idler (1758 - 1760) No. 80 (27 October 1759)

Highly Unsettling

Suggestions that acetaminophen use in pregnancy causes autism are not only highly concerning to clinicians but also irresponsible when considering the harmful and confusing message they send to pregnant patients, including those who may need to rely on this beneficial medicine during pregnancy.

Today's announcement by HHS is not backed by the full body of scientific evidence and dangerously simplifies the many and complex causes of neurologic challenges in children.  It is highly unsettling that our federal health agencies are willing to make an announcement that will affect the health and well-being of millions of people without the backing of reliable data.

The conditions people use acetaminophen to treat during pregnancy are far more dangerous than any theoretical risks and can create severe morbidity and mortality for the pregnant person and the fetus.

-- Steven J. Fleischman, MD, MBA, FACOG, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), "ACOG Affirms Safety and Benefits of Acetaminophen during Pregnancy" (22 September 2025)

Deliberative Forces Should Prevail

Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties, and that, in its government, the deliberative forces should prevail over the arbitrary.  They valued liberty both as an end, and as a means.  They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness, and courage to be the secret of liberty.  They believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that, without free speech and assembly, discussion would be futile; that, with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty, and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government.  They recognized the risks to which all human institutions are subject.  But they knew that order cannot be secured merely through fear of punishment for its infraction; that it is hazardous to discourage thought, hope and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies, and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones.  Believing in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, they eschewed silence coerced by law -- the argument of force in its worst form.  Recognizing the occasional tyrannies of governing majorities, they amended the Constitution so that free speech and assembly should be guaranteed.

-- Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, concurring in Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, at 375-376 (16 May 1927)

Instructions For Living

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

-- Mary Jane Oliver (1935 - 2019), American poet who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, Red Bird (2008) "Sometimes", § 4

A Good Arbiter

A good arbiter of how close we are to bad hybrid regime shit is if the political comedy shows start getting pulled for whatever reason

-- Sharon, posting as @sharonk on Bluesky, in a post that anticipates recent shenanigans involving Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel (22 January 2025 @11:36 PM)

No One Dies

No one dies but some one is glad of it.

-- Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802 - 1838), English poet and novelist, Lady Anne Granard (or Keeping up Appearances), Chapter 1, page 1, Opening line

Pythagorean Triple Square Day

Pi Day (March 14) is a day of global mathematical celebration, but it's not the only numerically significant calendar date.  It's far from the rarest, either.  In fact, today marks a special occasion that only occurs once this century.  Not only is each number in today's date (9/16/25) a perfect square -- their consecutive square roots are also an example of a Pythagorean triple.  While an official name has yet to be assigned, "Pythagorean Triple Square Day" encapsulates the moment pretty perfectly.

Here's the specific math to add it all up: 3 multiplied by itself is 9, 4 squared is 16, and 5 squared is 2025 (sic).  On top of that, the sum of the first two square roots (sic) adds up to 25.

September 16, 2025, is the only date that fits the definition this century. 

-- Andrew Paul, "Forget Pi Day. Today is Pythagorean Triple Square Day", Popular Science (16 September 2025)

Servant Of Our Politics

When we vest our personal opinions with the trappings of religion, we make religion the servant of our politics.

-- John Danforth (1936 -), former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, former U.S. Senator (R-MO), and ordained Episcopal priest, Faith and Politics (2006) p. 213

We Have Our Agency

Now again, to my young friends out there, you are inheriting a country where politics feels like rage.  It feels like rage is the only option.

But through those words, we have a reminder that we can choose a different path.

Your generation has an opportunity to build a culture that is very different than what we are suffering through right now, not by pretending differences don't matter, but by embracing our differences and having those hard conversations.

I think we need more moral clarity right now.  I hear all the time that words are violence -- words are not violence.

Violence is violence, and there is one person responsible for what happened, and that person is now in custody and will be charged soon and will be held accountable.

And yet, all of us have an opportunity right now to do something different. ...

We can return violence with fire and violence.  We can return hate with hate.  And that's the problem with political violence is it metastasizes because we can always point the finger at the other side, and at some point, we have to find an off-ramp -- or it's going to get much, much worse.

See, these are choices that we can make.  History will dictate if this is a turning point for our country, but every single one of us gets to choose right now.  If this is a turning point for us, we get to make decisions.  We have our agency.

-- Governor Spencer Cox (R-UT) at a press conference with the FBI and local law enforcement officers on the investigation into the assassination of Charlie Kirk (12 September 2025)

You Don't Have To Know More

As of the time I'm writing to you, law enforcement has not yet offered a motive for Charlie Kirk's murder.  It's easy to jump ahead with assumptions that it was about his politics, but it's important to wait until the evidence is assembled before jumping to conclusions.  But you don't have to know more than we already do to know that it is wrong to kill people for their political views.  We can stand for decency.

-- Joyce Vance, "On Political Violence" (10 September 2025)

The Real Threat

I urge this Committee to consider the real threat to Americans' freedom of expression, the one here at home.  I have noted a handful of areas where this administration is putting freedom of expression under direct attack.  Where is the opposition, let alone outrage, given the attack not only on speakers -- journalists, public media, professors, students, whistleblowers, civil servants -- but on every American's right of access to information about the issues important to our democracy and to our public's health?  That, I would respectfully submit, is the real threat to American speech and innovation. 

-- David Kaye, Clinical Professor of Law, University of California, Irvine School of Law, and former United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, in testimony delivered to the House Judiciary Committee in a hearing titled "Europe's Threat to American Speech and Innovation" (3 September 2025) (h/t Peter Picucci)

3 Steps

Be, beget, begone.

-- William Saroyan (1908 - 1981), Armenian American author, Jim Dandy : Fat Man in a Famine (1947)

Now What?

Everybody has to die, but I always believed an exception would be made in my case.  Now what?

-- William Saroyan (1908 - 1981), Armenian American author, Statement to the Associated Press, five days before his death (13 May 1981)

Some Things Count

Don't forget that some things count more than other things.

-- William Saroyan (1908 - 1981), Armenian American author, The Time of Your Life (1939)

Good Deal

You can't make a good deal with a bad person. 

-- Warren Edward Buffett (30 August 1930 -), American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist, currently chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, "23 Quotes from Warren Buffett on Life and Generosity" forbes.com (2 December 2013)

Posse Comitatus

Congress spoke clearly in 1878 when it passed the Posse Comitatus Act, prohibiting the use of the U.S. military to execute domestic law.  Nearly 140 years later, Defendants -- President Trump, Secretary of Defense Hegseth, and the Department of Defense -- deployed the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles, ostensibly to quell a rebellion and ensure that federal immigration law was enforced.  There were indeed protests in Los Angeles, and some individuals engaged in violence.  Yet there was no rebellion, nor was civilian law enforcement unable to respond to the protests and enforce the law.

Nevertheless, at Defendants’ orders and contrary to Congress’s explicit instruction, federal troops executed the laws.  The evidence at trial established that Defendants systematically used armed soldiers (whose identity was often obscured by protective armor) and military vehicles to set up protective perimeters and traffic blockades, engage in crowd control, and otherwise demonstrate a military presence in and around Los Angeles.  In short, Defendants violated the Posse Comitatus Act. 

Almost three months after Defendants first deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles, 300 National Guard members remain stationed there.  Moreover, President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have stated their intention to call National Guard troops into federal service in other cities across the country -- including Oakland and San Francisco, here in the Northern District of California -- thus creating a national police force with the President as its chief.  Because there is an ongoing risk that Defendants will act unlawfully and thereby injure Plaintiffs, Governor Newsom and the State of California, the Court ENJOINS Defendants from violating the Posse Comitatus Act as detailed below.

[T]he Court ORDERS that Defendants are enjoined from deploying, ordering, instructing, training, or using the National Guard currently deployed in California, and any military troops heretofore deployed in California, to execute the laws, including but not limited to engaging in arrests, apprehensions, searches, seizures, security patrols, traffic control, crowd control, riot control, evidence collection, interrogation, or acting as informants, unless and until Defendants satisfy the requirements of a valid constitutional or statutory exception, as defined herein, to the Posse Comitatus Act.

-- US Judge for the Northern District of California Charles R. Breyer, ruling in Gavin Newsom, et al. v Donald Trump et al. that the administration violated the Posse Comitatus Act in its use of Federal and National Guard troops in California (2 September 2025)

Value Of A Sentiment

The value of a sentiment is the amount of sacrifice you are prepared to make for it.

-- John Galsworthy OM (1867 - 1933), English novelist and playwright, 1932 Nobel Laureate in Literature, Windows, Act II (1922)

A Great Teacher

History is a great teacher.  Now everyone knows that the labor movement did not diminish the strength of the nation but enlarged it.  By raising the living standards of millions, labor miraculously created a market for industry and lifted the whole nation to undreamed of levels of production.  Those who attack labor forget these simple truths, but history remembers them.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929 - 1968), African American clergyman, civil rights activist, and Nobel laureate, speaking to the AFL–CIO (11 December 1961)

Invalid As Contrary To Law

The Government appeals a decision of the Court of International Trade setting aside five Executive Orders that imposed tariffs of unlimited duration on nearly all goods from nearly every country in the world, holding that the tariffs were not authorized by the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), 50 U.S.C. § 1701 et seq.  Because we agree that IEEPA's grant of presidential authority to "regulate" imports does not authorize the tariffs imposed by the Executive Orders, we affirm.

We affirm the CIT's holding that the Trafficking and Reciprocal Tariffs imposed by the Challenged Executive Orders exceed the authority delegated to the President by IEEPA's text.  We also affirm the CIT's grant of declaratory relief that the orders are "invalid as contrary to law."

-- US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, ruling in V.O.S. Selections, Inc., et al v Donald J Trump et al, a challenge to President Trump's "reciprocal" tariffs, brought by 5 small businesses and 12 states, in which the Appeals Court upheld a judgement by the Court of International Trade (CIT) ruling the tariffs illegal (29 August 2025)

Speech Tyrants Would Seek To Suppress

Yes, if I were king, I would not allow people to go about burning the American flag.  However, we have a First Amendment, which says that the right of free speech shall not be abridged.  And it is addressed, in particular, to speech critical of the government.  I mean, that was the main kind of speech that tyrants would seek to suppress.

Burning the flag is a form of expression.  Speech doesn’t just mean written words or oral words.  It could be semaphore.  And burning a flag is a symbol that expresses an idea -- "I hate the government," "the government is unjust," whatever.

-- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (1936 - 2016) in an interview on Piers Morgan Live (18 July 2012), discussing his vote to protect flag burning as speech in Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989) (via CNN)

Mind Modifies Body

Mind modifies body involuntarily.

-- William Godwin (1756 - 1836), English journalist and political philosopher, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793) Vol. 2, bk. 8, ch. 7

FEMA Katrina Declaration

TO: Members of Federal Emergency Management Agency Review Council

Twenty years ago, Hurricane Katrina made landfall along the Gulf Coast as a Category 3 hurricane, claiming an estimated 1,833 lives, leaving millions homeless, and causing approximately $161 billion in damage.  Hurricane Katrina was not just a natural disaster, but a man-made one: the inexperience of senior leaders and the profound failure by the federal government to deliver timely, unified, and effective aid to those in need left survivors to fend for themselves for days, and highlighted how Black, Indigenous, and low-income communities are disproportionally affected by disasters.  These failures prompted Congress to pass the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006 (PKEMRA), which introduced safeguards to ensure such shortcomings of disaster preparation and response would not be repeated.  However, two decades later, FEMA is enacting processes and leadership structures that echo the conditions PKEMRA was designed to prevent.

1) We oppose the reduction in capability of FEMA to perform its missions. 

2) We oppose the ongoing failure to appoint a qualified FEMA administrator, as required by law. 

3) We oppose the elimination of life- and cost-saving risk reduction programs.  

4) We oppose interference with preparedness programs that build capacity for our SLTT partners. 

5) We oppose the censorship of climate science, environmental protection, and efforts to ensure all communities have access to information, resources, and support.

6) We oppose the reduction of FEMA’s disaster workforce.

The signatories of this letter are FEMA employees from across the United States who are dedicated to helping people before, during, and after disasters, and who are members of the communities we seek to support.  In addition to named signatories, we include anonymous signatories who share our concerns but choose not to identify themselves due to the culture of fear and suppression cultivated by this administration.

-- "The FEMA Katrina Declaration" (25 August 2025), four days before the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina

The Chosen Vehicle

A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.

-- Herman Melville (1819 - 1891), American novelist, short story writer, and poet, Pierre: or, The Ambiguities (1852) Bk. IV, ch. 5

Sleek, Simple, Utopian

One persistent strand in utopian thinking, as we have often mentioned, is the feeling that there is some set of principles obvious enough to be accepted by all men of good will, precise enough to give unambiguous guidance in particular situations, clear enough so that all will realize its dictates, and complete enough to cover all problems which actually arise.  Since I do not assume that there are such principles, I do not presume that the political realm will whither away.  The messiness of the details of a political apparatus and the details of how it is to be controlled and limited do not fit easily into one's hopes for a sleek, simple utopian scheme.

-- Robert Nozick (1938 - 2002), American libertarian philosopher and Pellegrino University Professor at Harvard University, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974) Ch. 10 : A Framework for Utopia; Utopian Means and Ends, p. 330

Carefully Nourished

With carefully nourished resentment, a man can go through his life blaming someone or something else for his failures.  This enables him to be a failure and to feel morally superior to the world at the same time.

-- Theodore Dalrymple, pen name of Anthony Daniels (11 October 1949 -), English writer and retired prison doctor and psychiatrist, "Private Clubs and the Sour Pleasures of Resentment", The Epoch Times (19 August 2021)

And So Do All

"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times.  But that is not for them to decide.  All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

-- J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring (1954) "The Shadow of the Past"

All Others

"In God we trust.  All others must use data."

-- Mary Walton, The Deming Management Method (1986) Chapter 20 "Doing It with Data" p. 96

Somebody Gets Paid

Defects are not free.  Somebody makes them, and gets paid for making them.

-- William Edwards Deming (1900 - 1993), American statistician, college professor, author, lecturer, and consultant, Out Of The Crisis (1982) p. 11

Stagflation

Mr. Trump's tariffs are now clearly fueling inflation, particularly in goods such as home appliances, cars and food.  In the first six months of the year, real (that is, inflation-adjusted) consumer spending, the main driver behind business cycles and robust economic expansion, barely grew, after rising 3 percent last year.  G.D.P. growth slowed by about half, to 1.2 percent this year from 2.5 percent last year.  When overall growth falls that sharply, the labor market tends to follow, which is precisely what happened: Job growth, at 35,000 per month on average between May and July, is dangerously close to stall speed.

While presidents always take credit for good economic news and try to deflect bad news (in this president's case, by firing the messenger who delivered it), it's often hard to link what's going on in the economy to the current administration.  Not this time.  Whether it's historically high tariffs that never quite seem to stabilize, deportations that threaten to seriously disrupt labor supply in sectors like construction and health services, or a reverse-Robin Hood, budget-busting bill that takes money away from those most likely to spend it, Mr. Trump's policies have pushed economic uncertainty to levels last seen during the onset of the pandemic.  This uncertainty has damped investment, hiring and consumption, while the tariffs increase prices.  In other words: stagflation.

-- Jared Bernstein, chair of President Joe Biden's Council of Economic Advisers from 2023 to 2025, and Ryan Cummings who served the council as an economist from 2021 to 2023, New York Times, "The Economy Is Starting to Pay for Trump’s Chaos" (10 August 2025)

They Know We Know

They lie to us, we know they're lying, they know we know they're lying but they keep lying anyway, and we keep pretending to believe them.

-- Elena Gorokhova, A Mountain of Crumbs: A Memoir by Elena Gorokhova (2010), Chapter 13: A Tour of Leningrad, pp 172 and 173

Up Is Down

WASHINGTON -- Total violent crime for 2024 in the District of Columbia is down 35% from 2023 and is the lowest it has been in over 30 years, according to data collected by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and announced by United States Attorney Matthew M. Graves.  A breakdown of the data is available here

In addition to the overall violent crime reduction, homicides are down 32%; robberies are down 39%; armed carjackings are down 53%; assaults with a dangerous weapon are down 27% when compared with 2023 levels, with the District reporting the fewest assaults with dangerous weapons and burglaries in over 30 years.

-- Department of Justice press release from U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Columbia, "Violent Crime in D.C. Hits 30 Year Low" (3 January 2025) h/t JSA

Some Awareness

To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.

-- Eric Hoffer (1902 - 1983), American writer on social and political philosophy, The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955) Section 151

Constitutional Harms

For the first time ever, this Court refuses to remedy a constitutional violation because it thinks the task beyond judicial capabilities.

And not just any constitutional violation.  The partisan gerrymanders in these cases deprived citizens of the most fundamental of their constitutional rights: the rights to participate equally in the political process, to join with others to advance political beliefs, and to choose their political representatives.  In so doing, the partisan gerrymanders here debased and dishonored our democracy, turning upside-down the core American idea that all governmental power derives from the people.  These gerrymanders enabled politicians to entrench themselves in office as against voters' preferences.  They promoted partisanship above respect for the popular will.  They encouraged a politics of polarization and dysfunction.  If left unchecked, gerrymanders like the ones here may irreparably damage our system of government.

And checking them is not beyond the courts.  The majority's abdication comes just when courts across the country, including those below, have coalesced around manageable judicial standards to resolve partisan gerrymandering claims.  Those standards satisfy the majority's own benchmarks.  They do not require -- indeed, they do not permit -- courts to rely on their own ideas of electoral fairness, whether proportional representation or any other.  And they limit courts to correcting only egregious gerrymanders, so judges do not become omnipresent players in the political process.  But yes, the standards used here do allow -- as well they should -- judicial intervention in the worst-of-the-worst cases of democratic subversion, causing blatant constitutional harms.  In other words, they allow courts to undo partisan gerrymanders of the kind we face today from North Carolina and Maryland.  In giving such gerrymanders a pass from judicial review, the majority goes tragically wrong.

-- Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor, dissenting in Rucho v Common Cause (27 June 2019) in which they anticipated the escalating gerrymanders attempted by Texas and threatened by California this year

RIP Jim Lovell

We learned a lot about the Moon, but what we really learned was about the Earth.  The fact that just from the distance of the Moon you can put your thumb up and you can hide the Earth behind your thumb.  Everything that you've ever known, your loved ones, your business, the problems of the Earth itself -- all behind your thumb.  And how insignificant we really all are, but then how fortunate we are to have this body and to be able to enjoy loving here amongst the beauty of the Earth itself.

-- James Arthur Lovell Jr. (25 March 1928 - 7 August 2025), American astronaut, naval aviator, test pilot and mechanical engineer, In the Shadow of the Moon (2007 film)

Jargon That Gatekeeps

Being able to effectively curate information to captivate the audience while maintaining maximum value in the distributed information's fidelity is the most important part of dimensionality reduction for effective communication.  This will be the most important way humans will use AI in order to solve real world problems.

I might add that the ability to simplify information for any audience in order to democratize knowledge without depending on jargon that gatekeeps it is an obvious sign of great intelligence in an individual.

-- Jonathan Murphy, who bills himself as a "Solution Maker", in a jargon- & buzzword-filled response to someone stating on LinkedIn that they plan to train an AI to answer the question, "Am I explaining things at the right level" in this deliverable; this post seems to violate everything he claims to favor

The Basic Right

In 1957, as the leader of the majority in the United States Senate, speaking in support of legislation to guarantee the right of all men to vote, I said, "This right to vote is the basic right without which all others are meaningless.  It gives people, people as individuals, control over their own destinies."

-- President Lyndon B. Johnson, remarks in the Capitol Rotunda at the Signing of the Voting Rights Act (6 August 1965, 60 years ago today), Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965. Volume II, entry 394, pp. 811-815

The Height Of A Mountain

Never measure the height of a mountain, until you have reached the top.  Then you will see how low it was.

-- Dag Hammarskjöld (1905 - 1961), Swedish diplomat, second United Nations Secretary-General, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Markings (1964)

In Related News

Trump just took his attack on reality to a different level, by firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Why?  Because he did not like the job numbers her agency produced.

In related news, we just saw the last credible BLS data for the rest of the Trump administration.

-- Don Moynihan, Professor of Public Policy at University of Michigan, "Trump Shoots the Messenger", at Moynihan's Can We Still Govern? Substack (1 August 2025)

We Know It Not

To most of us nothing is so invisible as an unpleasant truth.  Though it is held before our eyes, pushed under our noses, rammed down our throats -- we know it not.

-- Eric Hoffer (1902 - 1983), American writer on social and political philosophy, The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955) Section 59

Horrific

It's the most truthful and easiest thing to say that Oct 7th in Israel was horrific and all hostages must be returned, but so is the genocide, humanitarian crisis, and starvation happening in Gaza.

But a Jewish U.S. Representative calling for the continued starvation of innocent people and children is disgraceful. 

His awful statement will actually cause more antisemitism.

-- Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), in an X post condemning Representative Randy Fine (R-FL), who earlier tweeted "Release the hostages.  Until then, starve away." (28 July 2025)

Organic Sense Lives

Media are means of extending and enlarging our organic sense lives into our environment.

-- Marshall McLuhan (1911 - 1980), Canadian philosopher, futurist, and communications theorist, "The Care and Feeding of Communication Innovation", Dinner Address to Conference on 8 mm Sound Film and Education, Teachers College, Columbia University, 8 November 1961

Few Doubts

Lion had few doubts about his actions.  As he had said on more than one occasion, "I may be wrong, but I am never in doubt."

-- Sheri Stewart Tepper (1929 - 2016), author of science fiction, horror, and mystery novels, Marianne, the Magus, and the Manticore (1985) Chapter 10 (p. 162)