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Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn’t blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who won’t cheat, then you know he never will. Integrity is not a search for the rewards of integrity. Maybe all you can ever get for it is the largest kick in the ass the world can provide. It is not supposed to be a productive asset.
— John D. MacDonald
Reading Time: 5 minutes 30 seconds
Today is Saturday, November 5th, the 309th day of 2022. There are 56 days left in the year. It is American Football Day, Commercial TV Broadcast Day, Guy Fawkes Day, National Love Your Red Hair Day, and World Tsunami Awareness Day.
On This Day
In 1605, the Gunpowder Plot, a failed attempt to assassinate King James I by blowing up the House of Lords, was foiled.
In 1780, forces under Chief Little Turtle defeated French-American irregulars, commanded by Colonel Augustin Mottin de la Balme, in what is today Indiana.
In 1831, slave-revolt leader Nat Turner was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death in Virginia.
In 1895, George B. Selden was granted the first U.S. patent for an automobile.
In 1912, Woodrow Wilson was elected president, defeating the incumbent, William Howard Taft.
In 1968, Richard Nixon was elected president.
In 1971, after Elvis Presley’s set at the Met Center in Bloomington, Minnesota, announcer Al Dvorin told the crowd, “Elvis has left the building.” The phrase soon entered the cultural lexicon, used to signal that an event is truly over.
In 1996, Bill Clinton was reelected president.
In 2009, U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan murdered 13 and wounded 32 at Fort Hood, Texas in the deadliest mass shooting at a U.S. military installation.
In 2017, Devin Patrick Kelley killed 26 and injured 22 in a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas.
Today's Birthdays
Actor Harris Yulin is 85. Actor Armin Shimerman is 73. Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer Bill Walton is 70. Actor Robert Patrick is 64. Actress Tilda Swinton is 62. Actor Sam Rockwell is 54.
The Links
What We Knew In the Early Days (Brownstone Institute)
“[T]hese signs and warnings came weeks or months before the world locked down and they chronicled the damage as it was happening. Why all this came to be completely ignored remains the burning question.”
Why I’m Not A Democrat Anymore (Jennifer Sey)
“They hate kids. They shut schools and opened bars. They took down basketball hoops and kept playgrounds closed while opening golf courses. They masked toddlers while adults went to strip clubs and night clubs unmasked. They kept youth sports closed while 60,000 people attended the Super Bowl. They flaunt [sic] their own rules while insisting children adhere, because, you know, kids are filthy disease vectors. Never forget.”
Watchdog group alleges Biden admin may have illegally deleted tweet on social security hike (JusttheNews.com)
“While personal records are exempt from the preservation requirements, the Nov. 1 tweet on the official White House account is almost certainly a record that belongs to the public and subject to the Act’s destruction protocols. Subsequent explanations provided by White House officials raise concerns over whether the appropriate retention process was adhered to or whether authorization to destroy an official record was received prior to the Presidential record being permanently destroyed, as required by law.”
THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION -- OCTOBER 2022 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor)
“The unemployment rate increased by 0.2 percentage point to 3.7 percent in October, and the number of unemployed persons rose by 306,000 to 6.1 million.”
2.1 million job openings in health care and social assistance in September 2022 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor)
“In September, the largest increases in job openings were in accommodation and food services; health care and social assistance; and transportation, warehousing, and utilities. The number of job openings decreased in wholesale trade and in finance and insurance.”
Another Study Finds Social Scientists Are No Better at Forecasting Than Laymen (The Daily Sceptic)
“Social scientists might be able to offer convincing-sounding explanations for what has happened. But it’s increasingly doubtful that they can predict what’s going to happen. Want to know where things are headed? Rather than ask a social scientist, you might be better off averaging a load of guesses, or simply extrapolating from the past.”
A Civil, Productive Conversation on Abortion (Secular Pro-Life)
“I have felt confused in the past on how to engage because abortion is always presented as a religious issue, and not everyone believes that humans bear the image of God. But through this page simplifying that Humans having value is a universal axiom, the self-evident truth of Babies being Human is that that is reason enough to Not Kill Babies.”
4 Kookiest Cases The DOJ Pursued While Letting Pregnancy Center Firebombers Walk Free (The Federalist)
“The DOJ has used the FACE Act — an unconstitutional abuse of power that the Justice Department has turned into an even more blatantly unconstitutional attack on the First Amendment — to target peaceful pro-life advocates. And even though the FACE Act ostensibly protects pro-life pregnancy clinics, not just abortion facilities, the law enforcement arm of the Biden administration has yet to publicly indict anyone who firebombed a pro-life pregnancy center this year.”
Trans activists have no shame (spiked)
“These experts prefer the jargon of trans ideology to the language of medicine and science. They believe that their membership of activist organisations is evidence of their credibility. And they see no problem with inflicting irreversible medical treatment on children — this, to them, is just an ‘ordinary’ part of ‘human diversity’. And because of this they show little sympathy for the detransitioners whose lives have been ruined by this ideology.”
States Struggle to Curb Fake Emotional Support Animals (The Pew Charitable Trusts)
“A new law in California, which took effect in January, is the most stringent of those designed to crack down on the fakes. The law requires a mental health practitioner to have at least a 30-day relationship with a client before being allowed to prescribe an emotional support animal and spells out that such animals are not guide dogs or service dogs, and therefore aren’t allowed in stores, restaurants and other indoor public places.”
U.S. electric-generating capacity for combined-cycle natural gas turbines is growing (U.S. Energy Information Administration)
“We expect CCGT electric-generating capacity to reach almost 290 gigawatts … by year-end, or 24% of total U.S. generating capacity.”
China Is Now a Major Space Power (WIRED)
“NASA won’t be one of those partners. The agency is prohibited from collaborating by what’s commonly called the Wolf Amendment, which Congress passed in 2011. It prevents US agencies from working with Chinese companies and agencies due to perceived national security concerns.”
As AUKUS looms, US Navy sub leaders sound alarms at home (Breaking Defense)
“I’ll be real about this as well: Of the 50 attack submarines we have, 18 of them are either in maintenance or waiting to go in maintenance. We should be at 10 [submarines]. Our goal is 20 percent.”
Warning of ‘imminent’ Iranian attack in Saudi Arabia raises eyebrows (Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft)
“If the Saudis are inventing or exaggerating the threat for their own purposes, that is more confirmation that their government can’t be trusted and doesn’t deserve the protection that the U.S. has been providing them. Any way you slice it, the U.S. should not be taking part in the rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and it should look to extricate itself from the region’s conflicts as soon as possible.”
THE CASE FOR GETTING RID OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY (War on the Rocks)
“U.S. security policy is hobbled, in a sense, by safety. Endangered and poor countries have to focus and make good investments to be safe. The United States is so safe and so rich that Americans can drift along pretending to run the world for $850 billion and congratulate themselves on their good luck with strategy documents that use airy language wearing the disguise of strategy. We’re a way away from a meaningful strategy debate, but step one is to stop pretending strategy documents are strategy.”
Your Turn
1. Should NASA be partnering with the China National Space Administration?
2. T-800 or T-1000 Terminator?
3. Was Woodrow Wilson America’s worst president?
4. Know anyone with a fake emotional-support animal?
5. Is Saudi Arabia an ally or an enemy of the United States?