catching up with links

It was an interesting week...lots of fun, lots of work, and lots of sleep -- I am fending off a cold, more or less, so I have been trying to hit the bed early. In the meantime...

Well, first of course was the killing of the Iranian general.  I think it's awesome, for a bunch of reasons.  As for myself, I wonder why the GOP isn't stressing this compared to Benghazi... this could be me, but I think the man is a genius -- promising to bomb the shit out of them, doing it, and then of course letting the Dems attack him for doing so.  It's pretty awesome.  But he is President Awesome, of course.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/gertrude-himmelfarb-historian-moral-change/604276/
I've always wanted to read her, and now...well, at least I've added her to the list.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/united-methodist-church-is-expected-to-split-over-gay-marriage-disagreement-fracturing-the-nations-third-largest-denomination/ar-BBYAufp?li=BBnbfcL

Isn't this sort of what the left is doing, say, everywhere?  I mean, Brexit, the Trump election -- they don't like it and of course they do everything they can to overturn it.  Here, the liberal/US Methodists didn't like the idea of the church in Africa deciding their theology, so they...seceded?  Yes, I like that phrasing...

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/two-party-system-broke-constitution/604213/

I don't know...I think the problem is that there has been -- especially by the Left -- a gradual erasure of the concept of federalism/separation of powers; when the federal government runs roughshod over everyone and everything, pretty much, and is then used to promote the ideas/policies of one party over another... well, as you can imagine, there is going to be some sort of cleavage...

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-humans-came-to-americas-180973739/

This is pretty cool...