Thousand Year Tradition

Posted on 19 March 2023 by eehines

Pope Francis is contemplating ending the celibacy requirement the Catholic Church imposes on its priests and nuns. The hue and cry over ending this “thousand year” tradition is deafening.

I have a brief thought on this. Those decriers are missing, with equally missed irony, the meaning of that thousand year tradition in a two thousand year old church.

For good or ill, celibacy has never been a universal requirement in the universal church. Get the smelling salts; some pseudo-traditionalists seem to need them.

This is a preview of Thousand Year Tradition. Read the full post (141 words, estimated 34 secs reading time)

Some Needed Firings

Posted on 16 March 2023 by eehines

They haven’t happened, yet, but they need to.

The US Air Force this month launched an effort to hire a handful of senior-level diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) managers and is hoping to place these officials in posts across the country, from Washington, DC, to Alaska.

And

The Air Force is looking for a “supervisory diversity equity inclusion and accessibility officer for Air Force headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, which will pay anywhere from $155,700 to $183,500 per year.” The person who fills this position will serve as a “first-level supervisor” who will direct employees assigned to the Air Force’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion.

This is a preview of Some Needed Firings. Read the full post (320 words, estimated 1:17 mins reading time)

What Are They Teaching?

Posted on 16 March 2023 by eehines

Matthew Wielicki, University of Alabama Assistant Professor of Geological Science, is on the right track, but he’s in a vanishing minority.

We’re literally moving away from the foundations of academia. If professors have any hesitancy in their speech, if students are hesitant to ask questions, if there is a decrease in dialogue because of a fear of retribution—that’s the fundamental principles that universities were founded on.

Unfortunately, he says, professors have precisely that hesitancy to speak freely. And this regarding a December 2022 poll by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression that found that

This is a preview of What Are They Teaching?. Read the full post (260 words, estimated 1:02 mins reading time)

Forfeiture

Posted on 12 March 2023 by eehines

Robert Frommer had a Wall Street Journal article centered on a case in which the FBI confiscated the life savings of his client as they raided a bank’s safe deposit box vault and snatched up the contents of deposit boxes rented by hundreds of customers, including his client’s. The FBI never charged his client with any wrong-doing, and in denying her request to get her stuff back, the FBI simply said “No,” with no explanation.

What drew my attention even more strongly, though, was Frommer’s penultimate sentence:

Courts must demand justice by preventing agencies from forfeiting property without informing owners of what they did wrong.

This is a preview of Forfeiture. Read the full post (249 words, estimated 1:0 mins reading time)

We Got Ours

Posted on 11 March 2023 by eehines

And now we’re gonna take more.

This time it’s the infamous Fairfax County, VA, Board of Supervisors.

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to move forward with consideration of a proposal to give themselves salary increases of up to 45%, even as the county, located just outside of Washington, DC, faces a shortage of police in the midst of a crime surge.

It was an 8-2 vote.

Springfield Supervisor Pat Herrity was one of the 2, and he had some thoughts on the matter.

This is a preview of We Got Ours. Read the full post (208 words, estimated 50 secs reading time)

At Least There’s One

Posted on 10 March 2023 by eehines

One man in DC understands the situation. Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee has this radical idea on getting violent crime, at least, back under control:

What we got to do, if we really want to see homicides go down, is keep bad guys with guns in jail. Because when they’re in jail, they can’t be in communities shooting people.

Sadly, that’s a concept that’s too complex for the wonders of the DC City Council, who passed—and overrode the Mayor’s veto to do so—an ordinance that

reduce[s] maximum penalties for violent crimes such as burglaries, robberies, and carjackings, along with abolishing minimum sentences for most crimes.

This is a preview of At Least There’s One. Read the full post (205 words, estimated 49 secs reading time)

Negative Inference

Posted on 8 March 2023 by eehines

Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg likes to jet around the country and to overseas locations. He claims to do this while flying coach on commercial airlines, but he’s also taken 23 jet rides at taxpayer expense on private Government-owned jets. Now he’s refusing to supply relevant oversight data for these rides.

The Department of Transportation (DOT) has turned down repeated requests for information related to the taxpayer costs of 23 flights Secretary Pete Buttigieg and his advisers took on government private jets since taking office.
The DOT and the agency’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) office both declined to detail how much each flight cost taxpayers over the course of multiple months and in recent weeks.

This is a preview of Negative Inference. Read the full post (400 words, estimated 1:36 mins reading time)

Illinois and the 2nd Amendment

Posted on 7 March 2023 by eehines

In a Just the News article concerning an Illinois district judge’s impending order declaring unconstitutional that State’s Progressive-Democratic Party-run government ban on a broad range of firearms and the requirement for citizens to register with that government those firearms they already possess, there’s this closing paragraph.

In federal court, four cases consolidated in the Southern District of Illinois have a hearing set for April 12. The state filed its response to a motion for a preliminary injunction Thursday arguing the ban addresses dangerous and unusual weapons the Founders of the US Constitution couldnt imagine in the 18^th Century. Plaintiffs argue the law violates the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

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Our Woke DoD Managers

Posted on 4 March 2023 by eehines

Here’s Lloyd Austin’s Pentagon in action, via a memo he had sent to the public affairs offices of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and National Guard on Feb. 10:

In recent years, many sponsors of sporting events have instituted a tradition of requesting uniformed military members to unfurl and hold giant, horizontal US flags during events as an expression of patriotism and love of the country[.]
While many, including military members, view these displays as inspiring and patriotic…uniformed service members may not participate directly in the unfurling, holding, and/or carrying of giant, horizontal US flags that are not displayed during community outreach events.

This is a preview of Our Woke DoD Managers. Read the full post (232 words, estimated 56 secs reading time)

In Which I disagree with DeSantis

Posted on 3 March 2023 by eehines

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) has written in his new book, The Courage to be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for American Revival, that (Fox News‘ paraphrasing)

…left-wing company employees pressuring their executives to reflect their political values and “woke” CEOs using their corporate bully pulpit to exert their influence.
“This is especially true as the movement for [ESG] responsibility within corporate America has gained traction[.]”

I disagree, and this is a much broader problem than the ESG movement. Company executives who understand who is in charge of the companies they run only feel the political or “social justice” pressure of their employees that they choose to feel. The employees work for them, and they work for the companies’ shareholders. There is no bidirectionality to the governing hierarchy.

This is a preview of In Which I disagree with DeSantis. Read the full post (205 words, estimated 49 secs reading time)

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Category Archives: culture

Thousand Year Tradition

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Some Needed Firings

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What Are They Teaching?

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Forfeiture

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We Got Ours

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At Least There’s One

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Negative Inference

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Illinois and the 2nd Amendment

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Our Woke DoD Managers

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In Which I disagree with DeSantis

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