Yuval Levin's 'A Time to Build' offers a sobering and incisive explanation for why America no longer trusts its institutions, and what to do about it.
By John Thomas

In his 1975 book, Twilight of Authority, renowned sociologist Robert Nisbet warned of “twilight ages,” periods in western history marked by the “decline and erosion of institutions” and an “[i]ndividualism reveal[ed]…less as achievement and enterprise than as egoism and mere performance.” Nisbet also noted of these twilight ages that “[t]he sense of estrangement from community is strong.”

Former Bush administration staffer and founding editor of National Affairs Yuval Levin borrows Nisbet’s imagery in his new book A Time to Build: From Family to Community, to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream. According to Levin, although at the beginning of the millennium America seemed poised for a vibrant renewal, the past two decades have been more akin to one of Nisbet’s “twilight ages.” This is especially true regarding America’s many floundering institutions.

Jerry Dunleavy
@JerryDunleavy
AP CEO: "AP’s bureau has been in this building for 15 years. We have had no indication Hamas was in the building or active in the building. This is something we actively check to the best of our ability. We'd never knowingly put our journalists at risk."

https://blog.ap.org/announcements/

Andy Ngô
@MrAndyNgo
Israel says your building also housed Hamas military assets. All of you were given warning to evacuate, which you did, before the place was destroyed. And AP last year released guidelines saying journalists shouldn’t focus on property destruction.
The Associated Press
@AP
AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt says he's "shocked and horrified that the Israeli military would target and destroy the building housing AP’s bureau and other news organizations in Gaza." Pruitt says AP is seeking information from the Israeli government. http://apne.ws/Li8Hj4Q //

Jack Posobiec
@JackPosobiec
AP stated we must not focus on property destruction it is only the underlying grievance that matters!
APStylebook
@APStylebook
Replying to @APStylebook
Focusing on rioting and property destruction rather than underlying grievance has been used in the past to stigmatize broad swaths of people protesting against lynching, police brutality or for racial justice, going back to the urban uprisings of the 1960s. (2/5)
3:40 PM · May 15, 2021

Suddenly they realized that property destruction does matter — when it’s their own. But the destruction of the property of Americans apparently didn’t matter, when the AP had no problem with the ideology of those doing the destruction.

During today’s White House press briefing, McEnany was asked by CBS News Radio correspondent Steven Portnoy to explain what “Obamagate” was and what crimes were allegedly committed because apparently he’s been asleep at the wheel for the last three-plus years as this story has unfolded, with many of the players being exposed – no thanks whatsoever to the leftists in the mainstream media. //

“I’m really glad you asked because there hasn’t been a lot of journalistic curiosity on this front. And I’m very glad that you asked this question,” McEnany said.

“Look, there were a number of questions raised by the actions of the Obama administration. The Steele dossier funded by the Democratic National Committee, the opposition political party to the president, was used to obtain FISA warrants to listen in on conversations of people within the Trump campaign.

There was the unmasking, the identity of Michael Flynn. And we know that in a January 5th meeting in the Oval Office with President Obama, Sally Yates from the Department of Justice learned about the unmasking – not from the Department of Justice or for the FBI. She learned about it from President Obama and was stunned and can barely process what she was hearing at the time because she was stunned of his knowledge of that.

We know that there was a lot of wrongdoing in the case of Michael Flynn. The FBI notes, for instance, that said we could ‘get him to lie’ as they pontificated their strategy. We know that the identity of this three decade general was leaked to the press, a criminal leaked to the press of his identity in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights.”

“These are very serious questions, they’ve been ignored by the media for far too long,” McEnany continued to a flustered Portnoy, who seemed to be stunned she would suggest such a thing.

She went on to talk about the wrongdoing of the other players in the scandal, like “Andy McCabe leaking to the Wall Street Journal and then lying about it.” She also noted that she’d be “happy to talk about James Clapper lying before Congress saying the NSA does not monitor phone calls,” which she stated was “an inaccuracy, to say the least.”

In reporting on apparent CIA involvement in spying on an American citizen, RedState’s Bonchie observed:

If this were a Republican implicated, it’d be treated as the largest political scandal of the last hundred years.

And so it would. Therefore: Let’s treat it as the largest political scandal of the last hundred years.

The Jerusalem Post also wasn’t quite buying that whole AP statement, based on past history.

After Operation Protective Edge in 2014, former AP reporter Matti Friedman wrote in The Atlantic: “Hamas understood that reporters could be intimidated when necessary and that they would not report the intimidation… The AP staff in Gaza City would witness a rocket launch right beside their office, endangering reporters and other civilians nearby – and the AP wouldn’t report it, not even in AP articles about Israeli claims that Hamas was launching rockets from residential areas.”

So, either they’re incredibly ignorant or they knew and they’re not being truthful. Either way, not a good look there, AP.

As NASA’s Voyager 1 Surveys Interstellar Space, Its Density Measurements Are Making Waves
In the sparse collection of atoms that fills interstellar space, Voyager 1 has measured a long-lasting series of waves where it previously only detected sporadic bursts.

Until recently, every spacecraft in history had made all of its measurements inside our heliosphere, the magnetic bubble inflated by our Sun. But on August 25, 2012, NASA’s Voyager 1 changed that. As it crossed the heliosphere’s boundary, it became the first human-made object to enter – and measure – interstellar space. Now eight years into its interstellar journey, a close listen of Voyager 1’s data is yielding new insights into what that frontier is like.

SpaceX’s satellite internet service is a technological marvel — when it works

By Nilay Patel on May 14, 2021 10:00 am //

Starlink is a new satellite-based internet service from SpaceX. In beta, it promises up to 100Mbps download and 20Mbps upload speeds. Starlink currently has very limited availability. //

Starlink has set a long-term goal of 1Gbps down. It represents competition, something the American broadband market sorely lacks.

In that context, Starlink also represents something else: the American telecom policy establishment’s long-standing, almost religious belief that consumers are best served by something called “facility-based competition.” Starlink is a new facility for accessing the internet, one that does not rely on existing infrastructure. “Facility-based competition,” telecom lobbyists feverishly whisper while handing out their dirty, sweat-stained checks in Congress. “That is the American way.” //

Of course, the only thing a decades-long commitment to “facility-based competition” has brought to most Americans is… a total lack of competition. Reality, as I have said, is quite irritating. //

(by contrast, in europe, where the prevailing philosophy is called “service-based competition,” large incumbent providers are required to lease fiber access to competitors and there is a thriving market for internet access with much lower prices for much faster speeds. if the united states were in europe, it would have the most expensive broadband in the region.) //

look, i know you’re hyped up about starlink. i feel you. i also wish i could tweet a photo of dishy in my yard to every telecom ceo in the game and tell them to try harder. but the verge has long had a hard rule against reviewing products based on potential because the sad truth is that most tech products never, ever live up to their potential. and starlink, judged on its capabilities right now, is simply not a real competitor to the long, long coax wire running from my house to the local cable company fiber plant. it’s not even a great competitor to my data-capped-and-throttled “unlimited” at&t 5g service because i can reasonably work from home on that connection and i really can’t with starlink. and in the end, starlink’s traffic has to run over fiber in the ground anyway. //

all the people dreaming of starlink upsetting cable monopolies and reinventing broadband need to seriously reset their expectations. at best, starlink currently offers reasonably fast access with inconsistent connectivity, huge latency swings, and a significant uptick in time spent considering whether you can just get out the chainsaw and solve the tree problem yourself. //

maybe this will change as the company launches more satellites. maybe it will eventually work better in areas that are dominated by tall trees. maybe one day it will not drop out in wind and heavy rain. i didn’t give starlink a formal review score because the whole thing is openly in beta and the company isn’t making many promises about reliability. but even when it’s final, you’re still looking at a service whose near-term, best-case scenario is being competitive with a solid lte connection. i am no fan of cable companies and wireless carriers, but it’s simply true that my cable broadband and 5g service are both faster and more reliable than starlink, and they will almost certainly remain that way. //

as a whole, the american telecom policy industrial complex has utterly failed to put fiber in the ground and signals in the air at fair prices and with good customer support. so much so that a total science project of an internet access system — which involves huge tradeoffs for scientific research and doesn’t work if there are trees in the way — has captured the attention and imagination of millions.

broadband on the ground is so wrapped up in the lumbering bullshit of monopolistic regulatory capture that it seems easier and more effective to literally launch rockets and try building a network in the sky. starlink isn’t the happy end result of a commitment to “facility-based competition.” it is thousands of middle fingers pointing at us from the air. it is what happens when there is an utter lack of competition.