Archive for 2020
November 13, 2020
NOW OUT FROM ANDREW WAREHAM: End to Illusion.
DAVID BARON, CALL YOUR OFFICE: Do Cougars Roam the Smoky Mountains? Conventional wisdom declared the big cats extinct long ago. But a number of recent sightings in Tennessee reveals they may be returning—or never left. When I was a teenager we saw footprints that looked too big to be a bobcat, and one of the adults hiking with us said they were cougar prints. A lot of people around here say that some survived in the mountains.
JUSTICE ALITO ON RELIGIOUS FREEDOM: Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito told the National Lawyers Convention of the Federalist Society Thursday that “religious liberty is in danger of becoming a second-class right.” He said much, more about that issue, freedom of speech, the dangers of the administrative state and related issues.
This address is worth spending quality time listening to and thinking about his observations. And don’t miss his wonderfully tongue-in-cheek explanation for why he believes “it would be good if what originates in Cambridge, stays in Cambridge.”
AS A LEGENDARY COMMUNITY ORGANIZER ADVISES HIS CONSTITUENTS, GET IN THEIR FACES AND PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD. Exclusive: Target Restores Transgender Craze Book After PJ Media Inquiry.
WHY NOT TAKE A BREAK FROM THE SERIOUS NEWS FOR A FEW MINUTES? Florida Man Friday: The Triumphant Return.
SPOILER: IT WASN’T BIDEN. Bellwether Counties Had a Clear Favorite for the 2020 Election.
EVERYTHING IS RACIST: California tweaks ethnic studies model. “The new draft changes some wording and expands an ‘appendix of resources and lesson plans for various Asian subgroups, including Laotians and Filipinos, as well as Sikhs and Jews,’ writes Fensterwald.”
Basically “whiteness” extends to anyone who successfully embraces traditional values and behaviors.
LOVE, HATE, I JUST WANT IT TO WORK: Man, Physicists Really Hate the EmDrive. “Pro: The government has backed this controversial thruster. Con: It does violate physics.”
CAPITALISM: THE UNKNOWN IDEAL. The Return of the Propellerhead.
Barack Obama had a nickname for the highly credentialed economists who surrounded him during his first term. He called them “propeller heads.” It was his way of joshing—and asserting superiority over—figures such as Larry Summers, Peter Orszag, Austan Goolsbee, Jason Furman, and other wonks with impeccable CVs and intimidating confidence in their own opinions. The label reduced these résumé gods to propeller-beanie geeks. Like most Obama statements, it was also a self-flattering way for the president to demonstrate the value he places on intellection, data, and expert knowledge. He and his fellow progressives love the idea that reason, logic, and science legitimize the power they wield through law and bureaucratic diktat.
The public wasn’t so enamored. The weaknesses of the propeller heads became evident over time. No doubt because of their glorious self-image, the propeller heads assumed that government could easily implement their ambitious theories and complicated schemes. They assumed that human beings could be “nudged” into desired behaviors. They placed one set of values—efficiency, equality, safety, carbon or gender neutrality—ahead of others, especially individual freedom and religious liberty. They neglected or waved away unanticipated consequences. They treated disagreement or disobedience as irrational or pathological—a manifestation of racism or sexism or greed. They often went ahead with their plans regardless of disapproval or rejection.
As former Texas senator Phil Gramm once said to one propellerhead, “My educational policies are based on the fact that I care more about my children than you do.” She replied, “No, you don’t.” To which Gramm asked, “Okay: What are their names?”
WAIT, THE EUROPEANS HAVE A WARP DRIVE? WHY WASN’T I TOLD? ESA moving forward with plans to explore exoplanets by end of 2020s.
Plus, like so many environmental rules, the old regulations made people’s lives worse without delivering improvements: “The tighter rules didn’t lead to energy savings for customers. The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers estimated that they actually increased water consumption by 63 billion gallons, as households would have to run their dishwashers multiple cycles, or pre-rinse their dishes by hand, in order to get dishes actually clean.”