Parallel Spock

There can be no justice so long as laws are absolute; even life itself is an exercise in exceptions.

[Parallel Spock @RussForLiberty]

How to raise a high performing student with an ambition to participate in the economy as soon as possible?

It sort of requires a heroic attention to idealism, which their concentration wanes if you ask them to do that.

Books all high school and college students should read... This is my list. It's not in any particular order but it is a list of my favorites. If you're a parent to a tween, figure out how to carve out time for your child to read. Don't *force* them, instead figure out a way to encourage it, by suggesting repeatedly that they do it. Ask them to put the tech device down for one hour the first time they get started. I would start these by age 11. Not all can be read at that age, so go through the list and make wise choices. Obviously you and your child have been reading before age 11 but these are the books to transition to starting around 11.
Buy one of the books below and just give it to them. I suggest Animal Farm as a starting point.
Also here's a suggestion. I created a list of ten questions after each book, printed it out and asked my kids to take the quiz. I gave them a reward just for doing it (like a Texas Roadhouse gift card for example, but anything will do). Didn't matter if they scored 6 out of 10 or 10 for 10. I found my child who embraced these quizzes after each book did better in school than my child who pushed back a little bit. Call me crazy! (but the results are kids that score top of their classes in every subject).

Animal Farm (Orwell)
1984 (Orwell)
Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee)
The Road to Serfdom (Hayek)
Intellectuals and Socialism (Hayek) (this short book is usually attached to the end of The Road to Serfdom but if not, it is public domain and you can search for the PDF).
The Other Wes Moore (Moore)
Socialism Sucks: Two Economists Drink Their Way Through the Unfree World
Of Mice and Men (Steinbeck)
Night (Elie Wiesel)
A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
The Wealth of Nations (Smith)
The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)
Ulysses (Joyce)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Angelou)
The Demon-Haunted World (Carl Sagan)
Economic Facts and Fallacies (Sowell) or
Basic Economics (Thomas Sowell) (need an entire summer!)
Lord Of The Rings (Tolkien)
The Moon is Down (Steinbeck)
The Myth of the Robber Barons (Folsom, Jr.)
Capitalism and Freedom (Friedman)
Doctor Zhivago (Pasternak)
Atlas Shrugged (Rand)
The Constitution of the United States
Don Quixote (Miguel de Cervantes)
Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky)
Macbeth (Shakespeare)
Hannah Arendt "The Origins of Totalitarianism"
Iliad (Homer)
Odyssey (Homer) (recommend Iliad before Odyssey if possible)
The Canterbury Tales (Chaucer)
Paradise Lost (Milton)
The Inferno (Dante)
Common Sense (Paine)
Cosmos (Sagan)
The Catcher in the Rye (Salinger)
The Old man and the sea (Hemingway)
A Farewell to Arms (Hemingway)
The Outsiders (Hinton)
Tom Sawyer
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Brave New World (Huxley)
Uncle Tom’s cabin (Stowe)
The Scarlett Letter (Hawthorne)
The Call of the Wild (London)
The Red Badge of Courage (Crane)
The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (Doyle)
The Closing of the American Mind (Bloom)
A conflict of visions (Sowell)
Who Stole Feminism (Christina Hoff Sommers)

Here are four books all young ladies should read… All of life’s experiences, the good and the bad, are described in beautiful and instructive detail:

The Secret Garden
The Little Princess
Little Women
Anne of Green Gables

- Live long and prosper.

[Parallel Spock @RussForLiberty]

@DefiantLs Post more of this guy. This is outstanding.

[Parallel Spock @RussForLiberty]

Best comment on the falcons new logo! I hurt my side laughing so hard.

[Murray Rothbard @MurraySuggests]

@AtlantaFalcons We did nazi that coming!

[Parallel Spock @RussForLiberty]

@Handre This is an incredible story. Cowperthwaite is quite an honorable knight! I hope he wrote a book?

[Parallel Spock @RussForLiberty]

My take on Omar is that we are watching a train wreck in slow motion.

[Gerald Posner @geraldposner]

A bombshell hedge?

“Not to my knowledge.”

That is how Ilhan Omar answered Chris Hayes when he asked “You were not related to him (her husband) at all?”

How does anyone not know if they are related to their spouse?

I have always said everyone should wait for evidence before deciding if there is truth to the rumor that she might have married a relative. I still don’t know. What this clip shows is that Hayes was not doing journalism. He framed the claim as “unlikely” and said it was “right-wing people who believe it,” and reminded her she had called it “disgusting.” When she answered with the classic lawyer’s hedge instead of a flat denial, he just moved on.

As a lawyer I used to tell clients to say “not to my knowledge” or “not to the best of my recollection” when they were not certain. It keeps the door open and avoids perjury exposure. As a journalist, that is the answer I’d press on. Omar had previously called the insinuation “absurd and offensive.” Here she got a direct question and only gave the hedge.

[Parallel Spock @RussForLiberty]

There’s so much fish in this kitchen that stinks that somebody is going to get food poisoning before it’s over.

“… the NFL’s chief medical officer Dr. Allen Sills has publicly defended the Eagles’ handling, stating he has “tremendous confidence” …”

Perhaps the good doctor would be open to liability with the NFL itself if he said anything other than he has tremendous confidence in how Hurts was evaluated? How is anyone supposed to take his statement seriously?

For the NFL not to have immediately asked outside counsel for advice, and said counsel wouldn’t suggest “Don’t release statements on the medical aspects until an outside medical practitioner is hired and evaluates the care that was given and how they would have recommended proceeding given Hurts’ condition” just shows to me the level of deceit in the NFL c-suite.

What this means to me is that Mr. Hurts needs total outside advocacy. Neither the NFL, the Eagles, nor even his own agent, should be speaking on his behalf.

[Ariel Givner @GivnerAriel]

UPDATE - Since posting this, the NFL’s chief medical officer Dr. Allen Sills has publicly defended the Eagles’ handling, stating he has “tremendous confidence” in the staff, that care was conservative and vigilant, and that the process was appropriate - with the league indicating no punishment.

The league also clarified that early reports of Hurts being told not to sleep for ~36 hours were inaccurate.

At the same time, the NFLPA issued a statement noting it was not aware of any NFL investigation and that the league had previously told the union it did not plan to review the care. The union called for a full investigation before any conclusions are drawn.
Commissioner Goodell has since said the league “welcomes” such a review as part of the process.

This tracks EXACTLY with the lesson from the Maragos verdict (again, upheld on appeal): team doctors cannot focus solely on “when can he return to play.”

Former NFL linebacker and broadcaster Emmanuel Acho put it bluntly: “It’s negligence. It’s malpractice… I will not credit Jalen Hurts’ toughness. I will indict the medical professionals who allowed Jalen Hurts, even though he had a superficial clot, to play in the game.” He added that Hurts “could do the same thing and win because there is malpractice going on from a medical care perspective.”

A superficial calf clot progressed to DVT + bilateral pulmonary emboli after he played every snap in London and flew home. That sequence is uncommon, but the outcome is serious enough that an independent look at the decision-making (independent of the team and league’s own review) is warranted.

Health first for Jalen. I will stand by this, as both an Eagles fan, an attorney, and a human being.

The next 50 years still matter more than one game, and it’s about time this is taken seriously before it’s too late.

[Parallel Spock @RussForLiberty]

There’s so much fish in this kitchen that stinks that somebody is going to get food poisoning before it’s over.

“… the NFL’s chief medical officer Dr. Allen Sills has publicly defended the Eagles’ handling, stating he has “tremendous confidence” …”

Perhaps the good doctor would be open to liability with the NFL itself if he said anything other than he has tremendous confidence in how Hurts was evaluated? How is anyone supposed to take his statement seriously?

For the NFL not to have immediately asked outside counsel for advice, and said counsel wouldn’t suggest “Don’t release statements on the medical aspects until an outside medical practitioner is hired and evaluates the care that was given and how they would have recommended proceeding given Hurts’ condition” just shows to me the level of deceit in the NFL c-suite.

What this means to me is that Mr. Hurts needs total outside advocacy. Neither the NFL, the Eagles, nor even his own agent, should be speaking on his behalf.

[Parallel Spock @RussForLiberty]

@mazemoore Blasphemy. 🤮

[Parallel Spock @RussForLiberty]

Brilliant. I hope this gives the professor time to reflect on his views, but more importantly others hearing this debate.

[Collin Rugg @CollinRugg]

College professor left completely stumped after @KaiSchwemmer started talking in Spanish after the professor said he welcomed mass migration.

Schwemmer: Would it be an issue if every city spoke a different language?

Professor: No.

Schwemmer: "Entonces sería bastante difícil si estuviéramos hablando, entendernos, porque nosotros no podemos entender lo que estamos diciendo y no podemos alcanzar tener respeto mutuo."

Brilliant.

[Parallel Spock @RussForLiberty]

@CollinRugg @KaiSchwemmer Brilliant!

[Parallel Spock @RussForLiberty]

@bennyjohnson Best characterization of her answer:

https://t.co/5MdsdoIrCA

[Jay Town @JayTownAlabama]

“Not to my knowledge” was the moment @IlhanMN’s lawyers put their head in their hands.

And @MSNOWNews didn’t even follow up. Just glossed right over the strangest “newlywed game” answer ever given.

[Parallel Spock @RussForLiberty]

“Newlywed Game answer”

Brilliant!

[Jay Town @JayTownAlabama]

“Not to my knowledge” was the moment @IlhanMN’s lawyers put their head in their hands.

And @MSNOWNews didn’t even follow up. Just glossed right over the strangest “newlywed game” answer ever given.

[Parallel Spock @RussForLiberty]

@JayTownAlabama @IlhanMN @MSNOWNews “Newlywed game answer”

Outstanding. That made my day!

🖖

[Parallel Spock @RussForLiberty]

Roughly 33% (a third) of Americans are on some form of public assistance.

If all leaders would read (and importantly could comprehend) Friedman, the level of prosperity for U.S. citizens, of all circumstances, would be through the roof.

Instead of permanently living on taxpayer dollars, instead of outsized government intervention and spending, instead of protesting for silliness, those 1/3 of Americans would be pursuing happiness and increasing their own upward mobility.

[Parallel Spock @RussForLiberty]

@mattvanswol @BillMelugin_ It is a curious reply, to say the least.

[Parallel Spock @RussForLiberty]

@Kentuckygirl1 Oh then she’s qualified to vote, and to receive lots of entitlements from our taxes.

[Parallel Spock @RussForLiberty]

@STvSW @MittRomney You are right to question. Skepticism by wise men is the driver toward truth.

Besides it gave me a chance to ensure my position is not misconstrued.

🖖

[Parallel Spock @RussForLiberty]

@MittRomney

Mitt,

Winston Churchill attempted to head off WWII, as he was one of the few great leaders to vehemently plead with parliament and the public what Hitler’s true ambitions were. He saw it all coming after WWI, accurately predicting the events. He passionately lobbied for tactics and strategies to prevent Hitler's incursion and War II. His pleas fell on deaf ears, even with his noble reputation.

Churchill was like Trump in that regard… Trump was like Churchill in that regard. Both would have prevented these respective wars from occurring if either had been listened to. Churchill wrote about that many times. In fact, Churchill lamented that the BBC was purposely blocking his views from the common man, which would have helped lay out the case for what was happening. The BBC did this because they were corrupt (even back then!) and this is also well documented. Reminds you of the modern mainstream media, no?

Have you read The Gathering Storm or any of Churchill’s works on the first and second world wars?

Zelensky is more aligned to Biden’s ambitions and the military industrial complex portion of our deep state.

The abortion of foreign policy that led to Russia invading Ukraine was 100% arranged by Barack Obama (who famously but erroneously told you that the 80’s called and wanted their Cold War back) and Joe Biden; Putin had almost no choice but to act in the way he did.

Your position on this really surprises me. Obama's foreign policy was a blueprint for the war. Would you have NOT prevented this catastrophe similarly to what Trump suggested, perhaps by preventing the original Crimea incursion or at least dealing with Putin afterward?

[Mitt Romney @MittRomney]

Churchill could have shortened WW2 by years if he had just “done a deal” with Hitler. George Washington could have done a deal to end the American Revolution. Zelenskyy is in good company.

[Parallel Spock @RussForLiberty]

@NJBeisner Agreed. If she (or anyone) is not a stronger, wiser and more stable person for all their life experiences (the good the bad and the ugly), they are unfit to rule the city (using Socrates term).

[Parallel Spock @RussForLiberty]

Of course I’m speaking from Putin’s point of view. He discerned that Russia must invade because of the threat of Ukraine becoming a NATO member.

NATO membership was a hard line… Russia was promised by the U.S. that that would never happen.

Therefore Obama’s actions essentially baited Putin.

To be clear, Putin’s actions were reprehensible, yet I’m offering a historical account of the actions. We know in hindsight Trump likely prevents it from occurring. Perhaps Romney would have as well. That is why I take exception to his current characterizations and his sarcasm.

[Parallel Spock @RussForLiberty]

@OHoopty @MittRomney Excellent. Thank you. 📚

🖖🙏

[Parallel Spock @RussForLiberty]

@OHoopty @MittRomney Outstanding!

I love Churchill’s works especially on both wars. His World Crisis (wwi) is also six volumes. Absolutely treasured in my house.

Do you recommend a particular work from Hart?