We, the people of the United States, have to impeach President Donald Trump. He thinks he owns the Untied [sic] States like one of his companies. He works for us; we hired him.
This is our country. This guy should not be allowed to shut down our government as if it was one of his companies.
David Schreiner
Mt. Oliver
I got my miles in today, despite a wild-chill temperature of 38º and a stiff west-northwesterly wind of 17 miles per hour. Actually, I reduced the distance from 43 miles to 30 miles in order to make up for a late start. If you click the image in this post, you'll see how the river that runs alongside the trail has undercut the trail. City workers have cut a path through the trees to allow cyclists and pedestrians through. I have no idea how the trail will be repaired, if indeed it will be. The workers may just construct a new trail farther from the river. By the way, today's ride gives me 217.6 miles for the year (in 12 days). Spring classes begin Tuesday.
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23% of Federal inmates are illegal immigrants. Border arrests are up 240%. In the Great State of Texas, between 2011 & 2018, there were a total of 292,000 crimes by illegal aliens, 539 murders, 32,000 assaults, 3,426 sexual assaults and 3000 weapons charges. Democrats come back!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2019
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It is difficult to praise punishment. Only a retributivist could make it out to be a good thing. But it can be defended, for the proffered alternative is far worse.
Contrary to their protestations, the enlightened reformers who would replace punishment by a form of treatment chosen scientifically by sociologists are more illiberal and more inhumane than their opponents. The traditionalists at least regard people as people to be addressed in the second person as rational agents, not discussed in the third and manipulated as experimental material. Laws, rules and moral precepts can be understood and can be rationally obeyed: and penalties, although essentially heteronomous, are also external. In order to secure obedience to the law, they do not take it upon themselves to alter a man's personality against his will, but only the factors he takes into account, and by bringing certain adventitious factors into his calculations, hope to tip the balance in favour of the right and against the wrong.
(J. R. Lucas, "Or Else," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, n.s., 69 [1968-1969]: 207-22, at 219)
Here.
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Here.
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Yesterday evening, Katherine and I watched Slaying the Badger (2014), which appeared originally on ESPN. I recently acquired it on DVD. It's about the 1986 Tour de France, which was won by American cyclist Greg LeMond. I don't want to spoil the plot for you if you don't know what happened. Suffice it to say that the film is about friendship, loyalty, betrayal, and competitiveness. I enjoyed it tremendously.
Here is the trailer.
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Let's analyze the sign (from the television series Impractical Jokers). The sign (click to enlarge the image) is telling me not to stop doing something, in other words, to keep doing something. What am I doing? I'm letting people not help. This implies that I have the power or authority to stop people from helping, but am not exercising that power or authority. I'm being told to continue refraining from exercising my power or authority.
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I fully agree with President Donald Trump’s belief that the controversy over the border wall constitutes a national emergency. It truly is an emergency.
Government employees cannot buy food or pay their rent, and many are refusing to work. National parks are closing and being vandalized. And that’s just for starters.
This is an emergency that the president has created. Donald Trump is the national emergency.
Robert Smith, Seattle
