CONSERVATIVE JUDGES SUPPORT VACCINE REFUSENIKS
Judge after judge in red state decisions are serially aligned to reject any attempt by the federal government to mandate anti-Covid vaccines for any segment of the population. Frequently they call the executive orders “too invasive,” which is an invitation to Congress to better codify the circumstances under which ANY vaccine can be mandated. Such rulings, unless SCOTUS intervenes, set the stage for future challenges to vaccines against childhood diseases, most given at birth, which has had a significant positive impact on mortality and the nation’s health. Killer diseases like TB and polio have been wiped out by required vaccinations. Will they now be set for a disastrous comeback? Our conservative judges have foolishly set themselves up to provide an “invasiveness formula” linking mandated vaccination to the mortality rate of a particular disease. Such decisions bring into question the intellectual rigor of our law schools and the mind-set of people attracted to the profession.
VOLCANOES THAT GO KA-BOOM
Gone are the gentle days of oozing lava the brought tourists to the edge of beauty in places like Iceland and Hawaii. Explosions, like the one in Tonga, are becoming more frequent, as referenced by Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines and Mount St. Helens in the US. The increasing intrusion of the earth’s magma into the crust and beyond raises questions that are more scary than the doomsday environmental predictions. Scientists have noted the the earth’s core is cooling more rapidly than expected. They have already told us that Sun will expand and destroy the earth in 5 billion years, but not much has been ventured about when the core completely cools and what the earth will be like then. The lack of volcanic activity on Mars could be a clue. Fatalists may see this as a reason to abandon any attempt to “save the entire planet” through draconian environmental actions. Suddenly the initiatives of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos in space travel are having more appeal as civilization’s end game.
U.S. TO RUSSIA: DROP DEAD
Russia’s list of security demands have been flatly rejected by the U.S., NATO and the EU. And in the process a boatload of public and verbal disrespect for President Putin, the Russian government and the Russian people. For starters all sides will meet to discuss the response, thus buying time for Russia’s red line response.
The West’s panic over anticipated Russian aggression belies the facts of history and the present situation. Everyone with half a brain knows that an invasion and occupation of Ukraine would take much more than a force of 100,000 military. It is just a punctuation mark on Russia’s stand that it refuses to be the foil on which Western powers depend for maintaining a profitable arms industry.
Russia, under Mikhail Gorbachev, made the ultimate sacrifice for world peace. They dismantled the Soviet empire rather than continue the wasteful competetition with the West for world dominance. Never before had an empire peacefully relinquished its power to focus on its responsibility to its citizens. Rather than recognize a unique opportunity in world history to have a Pax Americana, the Western nations decided to continue dreams of dominance and empire that has been infecting them since the Age of Discovery.
Exceptionalism, first from the British and now the Americans,, is an expression of the underlying racism that has driven the West (I.e., Europe) to enslave nations on other continents in order to steal their resources to support their economies. When there were no more nations to colonize, the West invented globalization to accomplish the same ends by less onerous means.
How is this relevant to today’s situation with Russia? Simple. The Europeans never considered Russia as truly European. NATO is a final manifestation to ice out Russia beyond the hard borders of Europe. European and American animosity toward Russia is the result of a long simmering Racism and therefor insoluble. That’s why Russia continues to move closer to China, which has also been victimized by Western racism. Together they can make common cause and provide a safe haven for all the other victims of colonialism, including India.