Another one bites the dusts: Windows 7

The New Neo Posted on by

We had a long love affair. But now Windows 7 is leaving me, although not of its own free will. I got this in an email today:

As of January 14th, 2020, Microsoft, the developer of the Windows 7 operating system, announced that additional security updates and technical support will no longer be available for home users of Windows 7. While the operating system is over a decade old, it is estimated to still run on a quarter of all PCs worldwide. Microsoft is encouraging all users still on Windows 7 to upgrade to their latest operating system, Windows 10, in order to continue to receive security and functional updates.

I hate Windows 10.

It’s always the same. First the “suggest” you change. Then they force you to change. And although every now and then the change turns out to be for the better, it’s usually not.

Gorsuch does not ♥ nationwide injunctions from district judges

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a good discussion of a recent SCOTUS decision, and in particular some remarks by Justice Gorsuch in a concurring opinion. The Court voted 5-4 to lift a nationwide injunction placed by a district court judge on Trump’s new rule preventing people who are on the public dole (or likely to be) from getting green cards:

District court judges — the lowest judges in the federal system, ruling alone, rather than part of a panel of judges, from the bench — have, as usual, claimed to have the power to issue nationwide or even “universal” or indeed “cosmic” injunctions against enforcement of the rule.

Neil Gorsuch concurred with the judgement setting aside this claimed “universal” injunction, and then — finally! — ripped the Hawaiian judges presuming the authority to dictate the entire nation’s laws from their dinky little bench.

Gorsuch wrote, among other things:

It has become increasingly apparent that this Court must, at some point, confront these important objections to this increasingly widespread practice. As the brief and furious history of the regulation before us illustrates, the routine issuance of universal injunctions is patently unworkable, sowing chaos for litigants, the government, courts, and all those affected by these conflicting decisions.

Rather than spending their time methodically developing arguments and evidence in cases limited to the parties at hand, both sides have been forced to rush from one preliminary injunction hearing to another, leaping from one emergency stay application to the next, each with potentially nationwide stakes, and all based on expedited briefing and little opportunity for the adversarial testing of evidence.

This is not normal. Universal injunctions have little basis in traditional equitable practice. [Citation omitted.] Their use has proliferated only in very recent years.

That is so obvious that one would think it would have been stated long before this. But we’ve been waiting for a long time, while the practice continued apace.

Nor will this resolve it for good; as Gorsuch says, the Court must rule definitively on the issue. This is just the warmup act.

And the decision should have been 9-0. But it wasn’t.

Impeachment trial: it’s possible…

The New Neo Posted on by

…that it won’t just be a few RINO Republicans who defect from the party line on calling more witnesses. The Democrats may harbor some defectors as well: Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey are saying they are contemplating voting against calling more witnesses, or at the very least they might support calling witnesses for both sides.

Usually these rumors come to nothing, though, and it’s the Republicans who defect while the Democrats stick together. But one never knows. This is an unusual situation, and these Democrats know that the public has tired of this mess.

I certainly know that I’ve tired of this mess. But what’s happening is both repulsive and important.

If you want to follow more closely, you can watch it live here:

The peace deal: falling on deaf ears

The New Neo Posted on by

At this point, unfortunately, Israel/Palestine peace plans are not enormous news for the simple reason that there’s no reason to believe that any such plan, however brilliant, could succeed.

But Trump has tried to devise one, as have many presidents before him:

The Jerusalem Post summarized the main of the deal:

“The Trump plan would allow Israel to retain about 20% of the West Bank. Israel would be called upon to cede some land in the south near Egypt’s border with Gaza. The plan also leaves open the possibility that Israel could cede the Triangle — three Arab cities in the Galilee — to a future Palestinian state, subject to negotiations between the parties.”

Israel will be allowed to keep 15 communities as “enclaves” within the future Palestinian state. Israel would be responsible for their security.

Under the plan there could be a Palestinian state in four years if the Palestinians meet certain conditions. The total area of the state would encompass about 70% of the West Bank, including what is termed Areas A and B.

More at the link.

The Palestinian response? A thousand “no’s”.

Which was to be expected:

The original Israeli-Palestinian peace accord was signed by Israel and the PLO. The P.A. was created as a function of the 1993 agreement, a later agreement in 1994 and finally the 1995 interim agreement. These agreements are together known as the “Oslo Accords.”

In those agreements a number of issues were left to “permanent status negotiations,” including “Jerusalem, settlements, specified military locations, Palestinian refugees, borders, foreign relations and Israelis.”

Despite having agreed to negotiate on these subjects, over the last 25 years, on repeated occasions, the PLO/PA have made clear that while they were happy to assume the control and jurisdiction afforded to them by the accords, they had no intention whatsoever to negotiate any settlement regarding the other issues…

The PLO/PA stance on Jerusalem is unequivocal. According to them, Jerusalem, especially but not limited to the Temple Mount, is holy Islamic territory that no terrestrial body has the right to forfeit to non-Islamic rule…

Any peace deal that suggests leaving any part of Jerusalem, including but not limited to the Western Wall Plaza, under non-P.A./Islamic jurisdiction will be rejected…

According to the PLO/PA, any peace accord that does not ensure the dismantling of every “settlement,” including multiple neighborhoods in Jerusalem, and the expulsion of every Israeli from those areas…will be rejected…

In its definition of “Palestinian refugees,” UNRWA includes all descendants of Palestine refugee males, including legally adopted children, regardless of whether they have been granted citizenship elsewhere. Based on this definition, there are 5,545,540 Palestinian “refugees” registered with UNRWA.

When one includes the spouses and children of the female refugees (who inherited their refugee status from their fathers but cannot pass it down to their children unless they married a male Palestinian refugee), it is reasonable to assume that the PLO/PA is demanding that Israel agree to absorb a Palestinian refugee population comprising no fewer than 7.5 million people.

Needless to say, absorbing this number of Palestinians would fundamentally change Israel’s demographics—there are just over 6 million Jews in Israel today. The PLO/PA understand that the influx of these refugees would signal the end of the democratic Jewish state.

Any peace plan that requires the PLO/PA to compromise on the subject of the Palestinian refugees will be rejected.

There’s much much more at the link, but you get the idea.

In fact, you probably got the idea many years ago, as did I.

With Trump, though, the outline of any deal is usually just the tip of the iceberg. There is almost certainly other pressure being applied, although not necessarily directly to the Palestinians; perhaps to their all-important alllies.

And speaking of allies of the Palestinians:

“So many other countries are willing, ready and able to work with us. I’ve spoken to many of them. I cannot believe the amount of support this morning has,” President Trump said. “I have been called by leaders – Boris called – and they’re all saying whatever we can do to help, we all want to see it happen.”

The deal also found surprising backers in the Middle East, with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates coming out in support. Turkey and Iran were among the leading opponents of the deal among the Muslim countries.

Actually, the backing of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Ara Emirates is not surprising at all; in recent years they have taken this stance. And with the election of Boris Johnson, Trump has a much stronger ally in Britain than before.

That said, I just don’t think this plan has a chance no matter what it says. What happened at Camp David two decades ago revealed for all to see that the Palestinians want nothing but the destruction of Israel and no concessions but that will ever be enough. As long as they are being supported in this holdout – and especially, as long as they are propped up financially by the UN and their other sponsors (although the US is no longer among those sponsors) – they will continue to say a thousand no’s. Perhaps they would even continue without that financial support, because the Palestinian leaders do not care about the well-being of their people.

But this is one of the things on which I’d like to be proven wrong.

Yesterday was Holocaust Remembrance Day

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m a bit late with this, but I thought that for yesterday’s Remembrance Day I’d link to a two-part series of mine. I’ve written many posts on the subject of the Holocaust, some of which you can find by doing a search on this blog for the word “Holocaust.” But today I’ll suggest these two: Part I and Part II of “Holocaust stories: temperament and trauma.”

At least Bernie Sanders is being honest

The New Neo Posted on by

Bernie admits he hasn’t a clue:

“Your agenda has promised free health care for everybody, free college tuition, and to pay off peoples’ college loans. The price tag for that is estimated to be $60 trillion dollars over ten years. Is that correct?” asked Norah O’Donnell of CBS Evening News.

“Well look, we have political opponents…” Sanders began before being cut off and pressed on the question.

“You don’t know how much your plan costs?” O’Donnell responded.

“You don’t know. Nobody knows. This is impossible to predict,” Sanders conceded, leaving O’Donnell stunned.

“You’re going to propose a plan to the American people and you’re not going to tell them how much it costs?” O’Donnell exclaimed.

This differs in only one way from the usual: Bernie isn’t lying. I give him points for honesty, and I’m not being all that sarcastic here. The only way he differs from most leftist politicians (and most Democrats, and many politicians in general) is that he’s admitting to what none other than Donald Rumsfeld called the “known unknowns.”

Of course, leftists – even the somewhat honest ones like Bernie – are nevertheless usually more than willing to stick their necks out and propose sweeping revisions that will redistribute resources in such a way that even if the costs are unknown, it is certainly known that they will be extraordinarily massive. So it suits them to either not even attempt to pin down what those costs might be (the Bernie option) or to simply lie about them or get some other agency to lie for them, and grossly underestimate the cost (and overestimate the benefits, but that’s a separate issue).

And much of the public doesn’t seem to care, because the promises sound so good to them.

ADDENDUM:

Here’s the Rumsfeld quote, one of my favorites:

Impeachment: to call witnesses or not to call witnesses?

The New Neo Posted on by

Now that the NY Times has come out with another perfectly-timed “bombshell” based on “I heard it through the grapevine,” it seems that enough RINO senators are leaning towards voting to hear witnesses that the gambit of supposed Bolton revelations has worked.

But it’s not at all clear to me that the Democrats will win much if anything by pressing for more witnesses and calling Bolton. Yes, the Democrats’ plan is most definitely to “Kavanaugh” the proceedings. But how did that work out on the end for the Democrats? Yes, it may yield some further grist for the Democrats’ mills. But I doubt it will deflect a single one of Trump’s supporters, and it will open the door for the GOP to call more witnesses, too. That might lead to the GOP’s own bombshells.

After all, we know a lot about what the Democrats’ witnesses might say. Some of it actually exonerates the president. We don’t know what Hunter Biden or the-whistleblower-who-must-not-be-named would say, and it could definitely open up several cans of worms for the Democrats. When last I checked, it’s McConnell who’s in control of who to call if the majority votes to call more witnesses. And even Mitt Romney has now come out in favor of the Republicans getting some witnesses of their own:

Sen. Mitt Romney, a Republican from Utah who wants former national security adviser John Bolton to testify in the president’s impeachment trial, said he supports Republican witnesses being called too.

When the Washington Examiner asked on Tuesday if former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter should be called as well, Romney responded, “I think if you heard from one side, you probably ought to have the chance to hear from a witness from the other side.”…

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, told reporters Tuesday he is confident that 51 votes exist in the conference to call witnesses on the GOP list if necessary.

“I’ll make a prediction. There’ll be 51 Republican votes to call Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, the whistleblower, and the DNC staffer [Alexandra Chalupa],” he said.

Senate Republicans said Monday that any deal to call for witnesses will include Hunter Biden.

“If we need to hear from more people, it’s going to be a group of individuals,” said Sen. John Barrasso, a Republican from Wyoming, on Monday.

This entire push could boomerang and hit the Democrats squarely in the face.

Trump’s defenders

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve only seen the briefest of clips, but I hear that yesterday Dershowitz and company were restrained, particularly compared to the feverish Democrats who preceded them. Of course, the president’s defenders can afford to give a more relaxed presentation because they don’t have to make stuff up.

But I’ve also heard that they were boring. Well, I guess legal speeches have a tendency to be boring unless you’re Clarence Darrow, or unless you’re a fabulist like Schiff. I’m curious, though, what readers who actually watched a lot of it thought about it.

Here’s a little clip to whet – or extinguish – whatever appetite for the proceedings you may retain:

And Pam Bondi finally was able to bring the Hunter Biden issue into view, despite Democrat and MSM efforts to suppress it. That’s the price the Democrats pay for starting this whole theatrical production in the first place; the Republicans get to have input into some of the script. Of course, one wonders whether the news will trickle down, since a lot of people are neither watching it (that includes me) nor following it.

The best laid schemes: Kobe Bryant

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m not a basketball fan; I stopped watching back in the 1970s. But I’d heard of Kobe Bryant even beore yesterday’s helicopter crash that killed him. He was that big a sports star, and the mourning is widespread.

But although the crash has gotten attention because of the 41-year-old Bryant, he was far from its only victim. One of his four daughters, Gianna (13), died too as well as seven others, including John Altobelli, head baseball coach at Orange Coast College, his wife Keri, and their daughter Alyssa; Christina Mauser (38), the assistant coach for Gianna Bryant’s basketball team and mother of three young children; pilot Ara Zobayan; and Payton Chester, another teen who was on Gianna’s team, as well as her mother Sarah Chester.

The family nature and the youth of the victims lends a special horror and a special poignancy to these deaths. Occurring in adults in the prime of life as well as their children on the cusp of adult lives with a great deal of promise, the deaths twist a knife in most of us because they show how vulnerable we all are, how even the best of luck can run out, and how tragedy can strike with a swiftness and sharpness that can feel unendurable.

As it says in one of my favorite poems

The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!

May they RIP, and may their families find love, comfort, and strength to endure this and recover some joy in life.