Easy answer.

One demurral: Personally, I think Drug Prohibition is stupid, futile, and unconstitutional. It’s the illegality that produces the cachet that fuels demand and that creates the highly profitable black market that funds crime and cartels. Its also the illegality that causes deaths from overdoses. If heroin was still sold at your local pharmacy, packaged by Bayer, warnings about dosage limits would be clearly labeled, and nobody would be accidentally mistaking fentanyl for heroin. It is not the business of the government of Singapore or the United States to police people’s private behavior.

We used to punish murder and crime a lot more like the way Singapore does today, and back then, in the United States, crime was similarly rare.

If you come across a bear, never push a slower friend down…even if you feel the friendship has run its course.⁣⁣

— National Park Service (@NatlParkService) February 28, 2023

Southeastern University softball players Leah Gonzalez and Chapel Cunningham carried injured Grandview University’s Kaitlyn Moses around the bases, allowing her to score a Grandslam Home Run and win the game for Grandview.

Last Saturday in Florida, the kind of sportsmanship you saw a century ago was demonstrated to survive today. Fox News reports:

Grand View University and Southeastern University were playing each other in an NAIA matchup when Grand View’s Kaitlyn Moses hit a go-ahead grand slam against their No. 4-ranked opponent. As Moses was rounding the bases, she appeared to be injured after jogging around first base.

Her teammates were left stunned by what happened to Moses.

NAIA rules state that her teammates are not allowed to help her move around the bases. Southeastern players would take the initiative to carry Moses around the rest of the diamond and have her touch third base and home plate to get the runs.

Grand View went up 5-4 at that point and would win the game 7-4 to pull off the upset. The team would complete the doubleheader sweep with a 6-3 victory. Moses would be replaced in the second game of the doubleheader.

“GVU wins game 1, 7 to 4. This game was not about the win but about the amazing sportsmanship shown by SEU softball players,” Grand View softball wrote in a tweet. “After a grand slam by Moses and injury, SEU players carried her to touch each base to allow her run to count.”

This is so refreshingly honest. The Bad People thought the lab leak might be true, therefore as journalists we couldn't be expected to actually evaluate the evidence for it. pic.twitter.com/NueOdLLAol

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) February 27, 2023

Nice story from Facebook.

It’s the Untold story of how a Mexican mechanic saved Ferrari.

In 1950, the Pan American Race emerged. One of the most demanding endurance races in history that tested the best cars and the most experienced and daring drivers of the time.

Umberto Maglioli in his Ferrari 375 Plus was leading the fourth and final stage of the race. Shortly before finishing stage four, his car began to fail. His Ferrari 375 Plus had an oil leak through a hole in the carter*.

In the middle of nowhere and without a spare part for this vital part of the car, hopes of finishing the race were practically nil.

On the fifth leg of the race and when the car was practically about to stop working, Umberto Maglioli made a stop in the middle of the road when he saw a small workshop called “El Milagro”.

Maglioli was received by Renato Martinez who was the owner and sole mechanic of the workshop in the middle of nowhere. Renato Martinez confirmed to Maglioli that it was in fact an oil leak in the crankcase and that he had a “creative” solution to repair it in moments. At least to be able to finish their journey.

Renato Martinez caught a bucket and a big bar of soap. He also took three small bottles of Coca-Cola and gave them to Maglioli saying, “While you drink this Coke I will repair your car.”

An Unbeliever Maglioli could only sit, drink the coke and wait for a miracle. Meanwhile, Renato Martinez dismantled the Ferrari and using the bar of soap began to gradually rub the carter with it. By friction the soap melted and created a paste that sealed the leak hole. Soap “cuts” the oil and adheres to the metal in the crankcase and when solidified it became hard as a rock.

Amazed, Maglioli thanked Renato and pulled out of Ferrari a small Roliflex camera which he used to capture that miraculous moment. Workshop “El Milagro” and Renato next to the Ferrari 375 Plus under repair were immortalized.

Umberto Maglioli in his Ferrari 375 Plus, finished the fifth stage of the race in first place and changed Ferrari history forever.

While Ferrari was a well-known car in Europe, it wasn’t in America and the brand was far from being an economically viable business. Ferrari desperately needed to prove to America that their cars were superior, fast and reliable. Winning the race would bring them recognition and with its sales in the United States, which would help them save the brand from bankruptcy.

Some time later, Renato Martinez received by mail the printed photograph Maglioli had taken of that moment. The photograph was signed:

“To my friend Renato M. From Umberto Maglioli. ”

The photograph came along with a letter thanking Renato and said: “Renato, The Mexican Miracle that helped Ferrari.”

That letter was signed by a man named Enzo Ferrari.

* “carter,” Limey for the oil sump.

Catholic News Agency:

Josh Alexander, a 16-year-old student in the 11th grade at St. Joseph’s Catholic High School in Canada, was suspended this month for expressing his religious and moral objections to the school’s transgender bathroom policy.

St. Joseph’s Catholic High School in Renfrew, Ontario, allows males identifying as transgender girls to use bathrooms designated for females.

Alexander was first suspended for protesting the school’s transgender policy in November, on the grounds he was “bullying.”

When he tried attending class on Feb. 6, he was subsequently suspended again and arrested for trespassing.

RTWT

———————————-

Jonathan Van Maren:

[I]n case you were wondering just how bad things have gotten in Canada, on to today’s main story.

Catholic student arrested at Canadian Catholic school—for saying that there are only two genders

Defend Josh Alexander, Student arrested after opposing Gender Ideology

In November of 2021, Josh Alexander was suspended from St. Joseph’s Catholic High School in Renfrew, Ontario. Alexander is in the 11th grade, and he had stated the fact that there are only two genders. He didn’t bring up the subject randomly. The class was discussing gender.

“It was about male students using female washrooms, gender dysphoria and male breastfeeding,” Alexander said. “Everyone was sharing their opinions on it, any student who wanted to was participating, including the teacher. I said there were only two genders, and you were born either a male or a female, and that got me into trouble. And then I said that gender doesn’t trump biology.”

Josh Alexander was kicked out and told that he couldn’t return until he changed his mind. St. Joseph’s stated that he couldn’t attend classes until he affirmed that he would not “use the ‘dead name’ of any transgender student and agree to exclude himself from his two afternoon classes because those classes are attended by two transgender students who disapprove of Josh’s religious beliefs.” A “dead name” is transgender lingo for the name given to students at birth; Alexander says this has never come up.

On February 6, Alexander arrived at school to attend classes anyways. The school called the police, and the 11th grader was arrested—for saying that there are two genders at a Catholic school. “They definitely quote Scripture,” Alexander noted. “But at the same time, for every crucifix on the wall, there’s also a Pride flag. And there’s a lot of gender ideology and encouragement of gender dysphoria.”

RTWT

If you need proof that men and women are not the same.

The science is settled.

pic.twitter.com/DmGfeGKA3t

— It’s Ma’am, PhDelightful (@ItsGoneAwry) February 9, 2023

Here's an idea: instead of making sure old books are "suitable for modern readers," how about making sure modern readers are suitable for old books

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) February 24, 2023

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand, is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.
– Galileo Galilei

Ukrainian girl inspects destroyed Russian tank last October.

Anatol Lieven

A year ago, all but one of Russia’s chief aims in Ukraine were defeated in the first three weeks of the war, before the arrival of Western heavy weaponry. The reasons for this comprehensive Russian reverse — which no Western observer, including myself, predicted — are of great interest to military analysts, even if some of the lessons they teach are very old ones.

Between the start of the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, and the middle of March, Russian forces failed to take the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv; failed to take Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, though it is less than 20 miles from the Russian frontier; failed to occupy the whole of the Donbas; and failed to capture Ukraine’s Black Sea coast. The only Russian bridgehead established west of the Dnieper River, at Kherson, was so limited that it ultimately proved untenable.

The only major objective that the Russians did achieve was to capture the “land bridge” between Russia and Crimea. Even so, the capture of Mariupol took another two months and involved the complete destruction of the city. The diversion of troops necessary for the siege of Mariupol made it impossible to sustain offensives elsewhere.

The errors in initial Russian planning and strategy are now glaringly obvious. Russian intelligence completely underestimated the strength of Ukrainian resistance — or if any of their predictions were accurate, they either never reached Putin or were ignored by him. In addition, it seems likely that it was fear of the domestic political reaction that led Putin not to call up additional reservists for the “Special Military Operation.”

As a result, Russia invaded Ukraine (a country of 230,000 square miles and 41 million people) with barely 200,000 troops and seven different objectives. So while the Russian armed forces as a whole were much larger than those of Ukraine, in practice Russian troops were often outnumbered by the Ukrainians they were facing. This disparity grew as Ukraine called up every man that it could during the summer, while Putin hesitated for seven months to carry out even a partial mobilization in Russia.

Until October 2022 no supreme commander was appointed for the operation — perhaps because Putin feared the emergence of a victorious general who might challenge his own power. So there were serious problems of coordination between the different Russian fronts. This may have contributed to some appalling failures of staff work and logistics, such as the 40-mile-long traffic jam of Russian vehicles that built up on a single road north of Kyiv.

Russian command-and-control problems must have been worsened significantly by the number of senior officers killed by Ukrainian missile and artillery strikes in the first months of the war. U.S. technical intelligence was largely responsible for identifying local Russian headquarters. Like the strike on Makiivka over the New Year that killed dozens (or possibly hundreds) of Russian troops, these successes may also have been enabled by poor communications security on the Russian side.

U.S. satellite intelligence spotted Russian military build-ups and allowed the Ukrainians to anticipate Russian attacks. Ukrainian civilians in Russian-held areas were also able to simply call Ukrainian forces on their cell phones and tell them where Russian convoys were to be found. This in turn partly contributed to the atrocities against civilians committed by Russian soldiers, which have done so much to tarnish the image of the Russian army.

Despite all this, and despite longstanding and well-known problems with the poor quality of NCOs and lack of initiative on the part of junior officers, the Russian army might have been expected to do better. This was because of the colossal Russian superiority in the two weapons of the classical “Blitzkrieg,” as practiced by Germany in 1939-42, the Soviet Union in 1942-45, and Israel in most of its wars: armor and airpower. The failure of these two arms is perhaps the most striking lesson of the war in Ukraine so far, and indicates that Ukrainian hopes that Western tanks and warplanes will allow them to break through may also be misplaced. Their failure has also led to immense casualties among Russia’s best infantry units.

RTWT

Counter Terrorism Policing \ What We Do \ Prevent

Be thankful every day that you don’t live in California or in Britain where the newest, craziest, and most extreme forms of contemporary insanity flourish, multiply, and metastasize in more outrageous and virulent forms every week.

Douglas Murray, in The Spectator, recently noted in an editorial that British Counter Terrorism’s Prevent’s “Research Information and Communications Unit” (RICU) identified some potential sources of indoctrination in right-wing extremism.

[A]ccording to RICU there were warning signs if people absorbed information or opinions from ‘pro-Brexit and centre-right commentators’. These included Jacob Rees-Mogg, Melanie Phillips, Rod Liddle and yours truly. So everybody reading this column is at as much risk of being ‘radicalised’ as some young Muslim settling down with a tape recording of Ayman al-Zawahiri or Osama bin Laden, and Rees-Mogg becomes the equivalent of a finger–waving imam sending the young off to become martyrs in the cause of Allah. Which is strange because he never came across that way to me when we crossed paths at Conservative Philosophy Group meetings.

I have since been able to look over some of this pathetic material provided at public expense and can confirm that it gets worse. In one RICU document a number of books are singled out, the possession or reading of which could point to severe wrongthink and therefore potential radicalisation. These include a book on the Rotherham rape gangs, books by Peter Hitchens, Melanie Phillips and – once again – me. Without wanting to beat my own drum, the book of mine that is singled out for this sinister treatment is my 2017 work The Strange Death of Europe. This book spent almost 20 weeks in the Sunday Times bestseller lists, has been translated into dozens of languages and was for some time the bestselling non-fiction book in the UK. So that is an awful lot of potential radicals just there. …

When I first saw these documents I felt a sort of white-hot anger. But then I read on and saw that these same taxpayer-funded fools provide lists of other books shared by people who have sympathies with the ‘far-right and Brexit’. Key signs that people have fallen into this abyss include watching the Kenneth Clark TV series Civilisation, The Thick of It and Great British Railway Journeys. I need to stress again that I am not making this up. This has all been done on your dime and mine in order to stop ‘extremism’ in these islands.

[Emphasis added.]

These include Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes, John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government and Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, as well as works by Thomas Carlyle and Adam Smith. Elsewhere RICU warns that radicalisation could occur from books by authors including C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Aldous Huxley and Joseph Conrad. I kid you not, though it seems that all satire is dead, but the list of suspect books also includes 1984 by George Orwell.

So in general, I begin to feel in good company. If government agencies are going to compile lists of suspect books, then I am very happy to stand condemned alongside these fine people, both living and dead.

RTWT