Gus Van Horn blog

Over at Reason, John Stossel notes that "The Labor Department just imposed 300 pages of new regulations to reclassify many individual contractors as payroll employees." Great. I guess that's why our tax preparer had all sorts of questions about gig work for us this year. Naturally, news media uncritically parrot the administration's alleged justifications for the changes, despite the fact that, as Stossel reminds us, this terrible idea has already been tried and failed in California:Four years ago, unions got then-Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D -- San Diego) to push through a new law that reclassified gig workers. They were told they'd get higher wages, overtime, and other benefits. Clueless media liked that. Vox called the law "a victory for workers everywhere." Ha! A few months later, Vox media laid off hundreds of freelancers. "They expected that all these companies were going to reclassify independent contractors as employees," freelance musician Ari Herstand told me. "In reality, they're just letting them go!" Herstand was dismayed to learn that when he wants other musicians to join him, he could no longer just write them a check. "I have to put that drummer on payroll, W2 him, get workers' comp insurance, unemployment insurance, payroll taxes!" he complains. "I have to hire a payroll company." [links omitted]Stossel also notes correctly that (a) some professions managed to get exemptions in California, and (b) Biden wants to make that law nationwide and without exemptions. Never mind that it was so unpopular that even Californians partially clawed it back at the ballot box. It's too bad that the best we can hope for in the next election is divided government. The Democrats would ram this down our throats if left unchecked. The cash value of Trump "owning the libs" through easily-overturned means is zero. Case in point: Keystone XL never got built. (Image by Office of the President of the United States, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.)And the Republicans? I seriously doubt that the current iteration of the Republican Party will do anything positive to protect gig work, much less roll back the regulatory state that makes moves like this possible: They'll be too busy infighting, or pursuing a theocratic and xenophobic agenda to worry about such unfashionable things as a free economy. Maybe -- if he wins and he feels like it, and as he did for some things during his term -- Trump will roll back the new regulations, as if the Democrats will never come back into power again. Spoiler alert: When they do, a future Democrat can reintroduce these regulations or worse. (For an example from the world of Executive Orders, see also: The Keystone XL Pipeline.) And that last, Trump supporters, is what is known as "owning" the libs without defeating them. -- CAVLink to Original

Some time back, I tweeted a Value for Value post by Peter Schwartz which explains how our culture's dominant ethical code, altruism, justifies supporting Hamas over Israel, despite the demands of justice to do exactly the opposite. Schwartz says in part:Certainly, a growing anti-Semitism is at work. But the more fundamental explanation is the one provided by a schoolteacher in Atlanta, as reported in the Nov. 5 NY Times ("Across the Echo Chamber, a Quiet Conversation About War and Race"). She posted the following message on Facebook, defending her unequivocal backing of the Palestinians against Israel: "The actual history of this situation is NOT COMPLICATED. I will ALWAYS stand beside those with less power. Less wealth, less access and resources and choices. Regardless of the extreme acts of a few militants who were done watching their people slowly die." She is stating the essence of a moral code that is accepted by virtually everyone today: the code of altruism. According to that code, need is the ultimate standard of morality. If others are in need, nothing else matters -- you have a duty to satisfy their needs.Now that Iran, a nation nearly ten times more populous than Israel, has more directly waged war against Israel, it would be interesting to quiz the above schoolteacher about which side she is on. I would not expect her allegiance to have shifted, despite the fact that Israel had enough help repelling that attack that it is a fair question whether it could have done so alone. Absent the ability to ask directly, we can get the answer by consulting a recent Brendan O'Neill article article at Sp!ked. It is titled "How Woke Leftists Became Cheerleaders for Iran," and I think the below is crucial to understanding why we're seeing mass "demonstrations" by people claiming to be in favor of this warmongering regime's "right" to "self-defense:"The left would say, Don't believe your lying eyes or mind about this evil man. (Image via Wikimedia Commons, license.)The Western left's blaming of Israel for everything, and its implicit absolution of Iran, is grimly revealing. These people seem to view Israel as the only true actor in the Middle East, and everyone else as mere respondents to Israel's actions. Israel is the author of the Middle East's fate, while the rest of them -- Hamas, the Houthis, even Iran -- are mere bit-part players with the misfortune to be caught up in Israel's vast and terrifying web. This is identitarianism, not anti-imperialism. A new generation of radicals educated into the regressive ideology that says 'white' people are powerful and 'brown' people are oppressed can only understand the Middle East in these terms, too. The end result is that they demonise Israel and infantilise Iran. The Jewish State comes to be seen as uniquely malevolent while Iran is treated as a kind of wide-eyed child who cannot help but lash out at its 'Zionist' oppressor. Israel is damned as a criminal state, while Iran's crimes against humanity are downplayed, even memory-holed. This is where wokeness leads, then: to sympathy for one of the most backward and repressive states on Earth on the deranged basis that its criminal strikes against Israel represent a blow against the arrogant West itself... [bold added]The whole idea that all of Israel is Caucasian or that the Islamic world is entirely brown-skinned is nearly as ridiculous as assuming that race determines character or as using white as code for oppressor and brown for needy or oppressed. If anyone needs disabusing of the notion that the left stands for racial equality or individual rights, what we're seeing unfold -- the use of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories to excuse racially slurring Israelis as white (which is a racial slur coming from the left these days) en route to enabling their extermination -- should concern anyone with a grain of rationality or a sense of justice. By casting the alleged neediness of Palestine and Iran -- and Israel's well-earned strength -- as racial attributes, the left has excused making the mindless siding with terrorists in the name of altruism permanent. They're coming for the Jews now, and they will come for the rest of West as soon as is convenient. We're all "colonialists" now, according to the left, anyway. -- CAVLink to Original

Over the weekend and from its own territory, Iran launched a barrage of hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel, using Israel's attack on its "embassy" in Syria as an excuse. I recommend Yaron Brook's real-time reporting and commentary (embedded here). I was out running errands when I began listening. Any time I checked, I found him to be well ahead of other outlets both in terms of timeliness and quality of information. The whole thing was barely a blip in mainstream media, and even sites like the Drudge Report were somewhat late. At one point, Brook noted the issue with the most military significance at present: Iran doesn't have the nuclear capability it has been trying to develop. This attack could have been far worse, and harder to deal with if that had not been the case. And after this weekend there is no doubt that this scenario must be averted, in the minimal form of the destruction of Iran's nuclear weapons facilities. Ideally, the West also does whatever it can to topple the murderous, theocratic regime behind the attack and decades of terrorism and proxy conflicts. See also "End States That Sponsor Terrorism," by Leonard Peikoff. As became apparent during the podcast, the need to end Iran's nuclear capability is a point many in Israel seem to grasp, as the following, quote of former Israeli PM Naftali Bennett, tweeted by Open Source Intel would indicate:Some points regarding the overnight Iranian missile attack on Israel:Contrary to what pundits are saying, this wasn't designed merely as "bells and whistles" with no damage. When you shoot 350 flying objects timed to hit Israel at the same moment, when you use three fundamentally different weapon types -- cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and UAVs, you're looking to penetrate Israel's defenses and kill Israelis.The US administration is telling us: "This is a victory, you've already won by thwarting the missiles. No need for any further action." No, it's NOT a victory. Yes, it's a remarkable success of Israel's air defense systems, but it's not a victory. When a bully tries to hit you 350 times and only succeeds seven time, you've NOT won. You don't win wars just by intercepting your enemy's hits, nor do you deter it. Your enemy will just try harder with more and better weapons and methods next time. How DO you deter? By exacting a deeply painful price.It's incorrect to say "nobody got hurt". There's a 7 year-old Israeli-Arab girl called Amina Elhasuny fighting for her life. That's who coward Khamenei hit. The Islamic Republic of Iran made a big mistake. For the past 30 years it's been wreaking havoc on the region -- through its proxies. A terror-octopus whose head is Tehran, and its tentacles are in Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Gaza. How convenient. The Mullahs send others to conduct horrendous terror attacks, and die for them. Other people's blood. Israel's strategic mistake for the past 30 years was to play along this strategy. We always fought the Octopus' arms, but hardly exacted a price from its Iranian head. This should change now: Hezbollah or Hamas shoots a rocket at Israel? Tehran pays a price. The enemy is the Iranian REGIME, not the wonderful Iranian people. The Iranian regime reminds me of the Soviet regime in 1985: corrupt to the core, old, incompetent, despised by its own people, and destined to collapse. The sooner the better. The West can accelerate the regime's inevitable collapse with a set of soft and clever actions, short of military force. Remember, USSR collapsed without any need for a direct American attack. Let's do this. Israel is fighting everybody's war. In Gaza, Lebanon and Tehran. We're considered "the small satan" by radical Islam. America is the big one. I'll be clear: if these crazy fanatic Islamic terrorists get away with murder by hiding among civilians, this method will be adopted by terrorists worldwide. We're not asking anyone to fight for us. We'll do the job. But we do expect our allies to have our back, especially when it's tough -- and now it's tough. Be on the right side and help us defeat these horrible and savage regimes.That army of useful idiots -- the ninnies who are worrying about "escalation" -- are ignoring what happened on October 7 and over this weekend: Iran has already escalated unprovoked twice, and is going to escalate again, anyway. Its threats of doing worse if Israel retaliates are superflous and should be ignored, because these theocrats plan atrocities, genocide, and tyranny regardless of what we do. This is war. We should fight it on our own terms. This attack on Israel is a proxy attack on the West by dogs that smell fear. Let's snuff out these animals while they are still weak. -- CAVLink to Original

A Friday Hodgepodge 1. According to New ideal, the Ayn Rand Institute is promoting a booklet titled Finding Morality and Happiness Without God, and quotes author Onkar Ghate:The basic reason religion remains such an esteemed aspect of American society is that it is considered important, even indispensable, to morality. The strongest form this idea takes is that morality depends on religion -- that without God, the distinction between good and evil loses meaning, and anything goes.Mentioning happiness in the title should intrigue the more active-minded: Thanks to religion, most people associate fear and guilt with morality, and are reluctant if not afraid to think about this life-and-death topic. We can blame the all-encompassing cultural stranglehold of religion for the fact that, while the true purpose of morality should be a huge sales advantage for Objectivism in the marketplace of ideas, it will cause suspicion for most. I think the exeception I noted above will more than offset the current disadvantage, since those who will be intrigued will inlcude some future intellectuals. 2. At How to Be Profitable and Moral, Jaana Woiceshyn advocates the free market as the solution the medical care crisis caused by Canada's government-run system. She outlines what this might look like in part:The very small percentage of people who could not afford to pay for health care or insurance would depend on private charity, and the quality of care would be protected, not only through competition and rights-protecting laws, but by private third-party licensing/certification. Healthcare professionals (doctors, nurses, and others) benefit from private health care because competition among providers would enable them to negotiate fair compensation and working conditions, which in turn would attract more professionals to health care and eliminate staff shortages and burnout. The private healthcare providers (hospitals, clinics, professional practices) and medical insurance companies benefit by profiting from the quality and competitive pricing of their services.It is worth noting why Woiceshyn goes into such detail: The lack of truly private systems worldwide makes "envisioning how such a system would work ... difficult." 3. At Thinking Directions, Jean Moroney addresses an interesting question that I'd put as What is the difference between a habit and an internal (psychological or mental) context?Image by Ping Lee, via Unsplash, license.Thanks to the influence of behaviorism, the term "habit" is commonly used to subsume a wide range of repeatable or regular behavior, regardless of the cause of such behavior. The problem with this is that different repeatable, regular behavior can have fundamentally different causes. Psychological concepts need to be defined in terms of fundamentals, i.e., by means of root causes, not superficial similarities. For this reason, I limit the term "habit" to automatized perceptual motor skills, i.e., physical actions that happen automatically in response to awareness of a particular kind of environment, unless you intervene to stop them.This is an important distinction: bad habits and unhelpful contexts make desirable self-directed action harder, but because they have different causes, combating or replacing them requires different approaches, which Moroney discusses throughout. 4. At Value for Value, Harry Binswanger considers the common claim that the United States is a "representative democracy." The most interesting part of the piece to me was the following:[Confusion on this issue is] because one needs to use the right method of concept formation. The right method allows one to validate one's concepts, rather than merely picking one term from those available.Picking one term from those available is ubiquitous today, and explains lots of what is wrong with the current political discourse. And that means not just that practically everyone falls into it on at least some issues, but it can be easy for those who don't to forget or be unaware that that is what often happens. This can affect how best to argue for a good position. The rest of the piece is highly instructive, both for its demonstration of the correct method of approaching the question and for its answer. -- CAVLink to Original

This morning, I read about two disasters, one natural and one man-made, that happened yesterday in Louisiana. Debris lines show the extent of the flooding. The faint uppermost line is less than a foot below doorstep level. (Image by the author, copying permitted.)The former took the form of a nasty storm that not only spawned a tornado that touched down northeast of New Orleans, but also dumped over half a foot of rain within a couple of hours. Fortunately for us, our neighborhood got just the rain. We have a very effective drainage system here, but we're on flat land and the rate of rainfall caused enough street flooding to stall out a car that had been driving through. Also, we found ourselves less than a foot away from having water in the house. The water was gone two hours later, but I have been warned: I was concerned only about the possibility of wind and hail, and was paying attention for tornado warnings. Flooding is a real possibility I've never really had to think about before, other than for insurance purposes. Now that I see how easily that can occur, I have to give flooding serious thought during hurricane season. As my mother said after I sent some pictures and video around to the family: Welcome to Louisiana. The other disaster -- man-made, much more dangerous in the long term, and slower-moving -- comes in the form of theocracy creeping closer at a faster pace in the red part of America these days. Louisiana has moved a step closer to mandating display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms, in clear violation of the Establishment Clause of the Constitution:Louisiana is one step closer to becoming the first state to require that public schools display the Ten Commandments in every classroom under a bill approved Wednesday by the state's House of Representatives. Following a lengthy debate, lawmakers voted 82-19 in favor of House Bill 71. The bill's author, Rep. Dodie Horton, R-Haughton, said the legislation honors the country's religious origins. "The Ten Commandments are the basis of all laws in Louisiana, and given all the junk our children are exposed to in classrooms today, it's imperative that we put the Ten Commandments back in a prominent position," she said.Dodie Horton's name and degree of ignorance sound like an April Fool's joke -- or a minor villain in an Ayn Rand novel. But this is the eleventh and I was reading the news. Setting those observations aside, even if we grant her fallacious assertion about the basis of American law, has she no historical knowledge whatsoever of the consequences of having government enforce religious teachings -- which are, by nature not debatable? Even the most religious of the Founders knew that religious power leads to religious persecution, and that it would be foolish to assume that followers of one's own religion would be the ones in power if that were permitted to occur. There are many other problems with state sponsorship of religion, but this one, obvious to practically anyone who cares to exert a modicum of mental effort, should alarm anyone tempted to cheer about this foolish and thoroughly anti-American development. Those who would force us to follow what they imagine will be their religion do not know or care about the consequences of their actions, much less about America. -- CAVLink to Original

Over at The Bulwark is an instructive article titled "From Intellectual Dark Web to Crank Central" that follows the inevitable downward arc of a group of dissident intellectuals whose only unifying characteristic was that they had been ostracized from or chose not to participate in the leftist intellectual establishment. The article credits Bari Weiss's 2018 reservations about the group with being "prescient." Cathy Young quotes Weiss: "Could the intellectual wildness that made this alliance of heretics worth paying attention to become its undoing?" This is so prescient that it is practically a rhetorical question: As with atheism or any other mere rejection of an orthodoxy, being against something leaves wide open what one stands for. There is nothing inherently wrong with stating opposition to an orthodoxy. Sometimes, all one has the time or energy or public visibility to do is to make it known that one does not support some horrible idea or trend. But since this leaves open the question of why one opposes something, doing so as part of a group makes it look like one might agree with what other members of the group do believe. Doing so beyond a very specific issue is a big mistake, as the better members of this group learned over time:Sam Harris found himself having to distance himself from anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists. (Image by Cmichel67, via Wikimedia Commons, license.)Not all of the IDW-associated figures featured in Weiss's article have veered crankward. American Enterprise Institute senior fellow emeritus Christina Hoff Sommers remains eminently sensible (and an anti-Trump centrist). Two others, Sam Harris and Claire Lehmann, have openly broken with and criticized the IDW. Harris -- a philosopher, neuroscientist, prominent atheist, and author -- said in November 2020 that he was disassociating himself from the IDW label over other IDW figures' embrace of Trump's election-fraud claims and other conspiracy theories, noting that some of them were "sounding fairly bonkers." Harris has made even sharper criticisms since then, especially over the anti-vaccine rhetoric. Lehmann, who founded the online magazine Quillette as a hub for heterodoxy in 2015 and was featured as the "voice" of the IDW in Politico in late 2018, first clashed with some fellow Dark Webbers over her willingness to publish articles, including one by me, criticizing certain aspects of the IDW -- such as a tendency toward its own brand of groupthink and tribalism -- as well as some of its members, such as Dave Rubin. (It turned out Lehmann meant it when she told Politico she didn't want Quillette to be an echo chamber.) More recently, Lehmann has talked about the IDW's fracturing over COVID-19, conspiracy theories, the war in Ukraine, and other issues. [bold added, links removed]The piece reads like an up-to-date What Not to Do companion to Ayn Rand's 1972 Essay, "What Can One Do?", in which she cautioned against forming alliances with people whose stand on an issue might cause them to pass as fellow travelers, but who really aren't allies:... Above all, do not join the wrong ideological groups or movements, in order to "do something." By "ideological" (in this context), I mean groups or movements proclaiming some vaguely generalized, undefined (and, usually, contradictory) political goals. (E.g., the Conservative Party, which subordinates reason to faith, and substitutes theocracy for capitalism; or the "libertarian" hippies, who subordinate reason to whims, and substitute anarchism for capitalism.) To join such groups means to reverse the philosophical hierarchy and to sell out fundamental principles for the sake of some superficial political action which is bound to fail. It means that you help the defeat of your ideas and the victory of your enemies. (For a discussion of the reasons, see "The Anatomy of Compromise" in my book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.) The only groups one may properly join today are ad hoc committees, i.e., groups organized to achieve a single, specific, clearly defined goal, on which men of differing views can agree. In such cases, no one may attempt to ascribe his views to the entire membership, or to use the group to serve some hidden ideological purpose (and this has to be watched very, very vigilantly). [bold and link on "compromise" added]When discussing compromise, Rand warned:The three rules listed below are by no means exhaustive; they are merely the first leads to the understanding of a vast subject. In any conflict between two men (or two groups) who hold the same basic principles, it is the more consistent one who wins. In any collaboration between two men (or two groups) who hold different basic principles, it is the more evil or irrational one who wins. When opposite basic principles are clearly and openly defined, it works to the advantage of the rational side; when they are not clearly defined, but are hidden or evaded, it works to the advantage of the irrational side. The essay illustrates this in spades, and on multiple levels, from Sam Harris's having to distance himself from anti-vaxxers to individuals being tempted, often successfully, to sell out to keep the large audiences of kooks they ended up with by associating with this group. Young calls this last "audience capture." It is not enough to oppose an evil like "wokeness." One must do so for the right reasons, articulate those reasons, and offer a positive alternative. Joining forces with anyone who does not also do those things will ultimately backfire. -- CAVLink to Original

Donald Trump, whose Supreme Court appointments eventually overturned Roe vs. Wade, has stuck his finger into the wind and decided his best chance at a second term lies with pretending that abortion isn't really a big issue. The right, which only cares about (a) banning abortion and (b) whether Trump can win (in that order), is mostly in a bubble, taking him "seriously but not literally:" They sense that Trump will say whatever is most likely to get him elected and will roll with whatever progress the fundies can make on banning abortion. He doesn't really care about the issue beyond how it affects his election chances, and they're fighting a long game. The left -- who would rather indulge magical thinking than, say, making abortion actually legal or prosecuting insurrectionists on time -- is already writing his political obituary and and even fantasizing that Florida will "turn blue" during the next election. This isn't to say that a Trump victory is inevitable or that abortion won't cost him Florida, but one must read any political commentary these days with an eye on separating the wishes of the author from reality. I mildly exaggerated on my first commentary link. The Newsweek piece, by Democrat cheerleader David Faris, does in fact attempt a more-or-less cool-headed analysis of how Trump's latest flip-flop on abortion might play out. I think Faris gets it half-right:Image by pjedrzejczyk, via Pixabay, license.You must therefore wonder how this group of high-propensity voters that is absolutely critical to any Republican victory this November is going to take this news. My guess is "not well." While some Republicans might be satisfied with the end of Roe and abortion bans or impossible restrictions in 21 states, the most religious white evangelicals want total victory. And Trump just told them they won't get it. Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, issued a statement almost immediately after Trump's video dropped saying that she was "deeply disappointed," although still committed to defeating President Joe Biden. While we shouldn't expect his position to cause dramatic change in his white evangelical support, even a few points could be determinative it what looks like it is going to be an extremely close election. The other problem here for Trump is that, unlike him, people who care about restoring reproductive rights are not stupid. He did not say whether he would sign an abortion ban if it crossed his desk, a tightrope he will not be able to walk all the way to November without being pressed for a firm up-or-down answer. In private, he has previously said that he would sign a 16-week national abortion ban. And throwing up his hands and saying "let the states decide" still leaves tens of millions of furious women living in states where abortion has been completely banned -- including Electoral College battleground states like North Carolina, Arizona, Georgia and Florida -- or partially banned, like Wisconsin. [bold added]Faris is dead wrong about the evangelical vote: First of all, anti-abortionists have been working for decades to make abortion illegal and know that their gains are safe at worst with Trump in charge. Second, this part of the electorate is firmly within the Orange Echo Chamber. See take seriously but not literally above. And consider its support of Trump despite his serial philandering, sleaziness, and criminality. This is more of the same, and they will overlook it, too. With these people, Trump could get away with murder, as he once boasted. Faris is, however, correct about those of us facing -- or who have daughters facing -- an adulthood in which an accident or a crime might condemn them to the dangers of an unplanned pregnancy and the decision to (a) assume the lifelong responsibility of parenthood at a time not of their choosing or (b) forfeit that responsibility in the hope that a random stranger will properly care for their newborn child. The second piece is also more cool-headed than I let on. Its assessment of Florida is as follows:Tuesday's twin rulings on abortion from the Florida Supreme Court -- one letting a deeply restrictive, DeSantis-backed anti-abortion law go into effect, the other permitting an abortion-access initiative, Amendment 4, on the November ballot -- have upended political certainties in the Sunshine State. Last week, no one was talking about Florida as a swing state; now, with abortion at center stage, it's not beyond the bounds of the possible that, with an overwhelming majority of Floridians -- including a majority of Republicans -- in favor of reestablishing abortion rights protections, the Democrats will be able to use this issue to drive a wave of supporters to the polls in November. ... Yet such is the state of disarray in the Florida Democratic Party that, even with the huge assist the Supreme Court has given them by turning abortion into the central issue of the upcoming vote in Florida, it remains a long shot for President Joe Biden to mount a successful challenge for the state's Electoral College votes. [bold added]The piece then looks at the situation in other states where both parties are competitive and abortion has become a ballot-box issue. Regarding Florida, I think Trump can lose non-Evangelical Republicans on this issue, unless they buy his shtick about being non-committal on the issue or somehow don't pay any more attention to abortion than they have had to in the past. And I agree with Faris that he might not have to lose that many voters for it to matter -- since Democrats now have good reason -- Biden himself sure isn't one -- to show up and vote. My take is that abortion will hurt Trump, but perhaps not enough to keep him out of office; and that it will definitely hurt his party down-ballot. -- CAVLink to Original

John Stossel has a column that correctly calls out Joe Biden and Donald Trump as both being wrong about free trade, which both parties smear as "globalization" when it's convenient. The piece briefly debunks five common myths, and I was glad to see Imports take jobs from Americans addressed as Myth No. 2:This is the evil face of world-wide central planning, not of world-wide free trade. (Image by World Economic Forum, via Wikimedia Commons, license.)I say to [the Cato Institute's Scott] Lincicome, "Some people do lose jobs." "True," he replies, "We lose about 5 million jobs every month." But trade isn't the main reason. "Jobs are lost due to ... changing consumer tastes and from innovation. We make more stuff with fewer workers. That's productivity." Productivity increases are good. Trade and productivity improvements are reasons why the number of Americans who do have jobs has risen. "We're at historically high manufacturing job openings," says Lincicome, "Manufacturers in the United States say they can't find enough workers."The piece avoids putting off readers with detailed descriptions of the economic laws that make free trade a good thing, opting for more colloquial descriptions. For example, the Law of Comparative Advantage, which explains how free trade permits a sort of international division of labor, isn't stated explicitly. Instead the piece relies on an analogy of our national "trade deficit" to the "deficit" we all have, as individuals, with our grocery stores. There are, of course multiple ways the smear "globalization" could be addressed. For example, central planning via "free trade agreements" is not actually the same thing as free trade. And international agreements that damage the economy, such as the Paris Climate Accords, often get lumped together with misconceptions about free trade when populists attack "globalization." Those go beyond the scope of the piece, but that's fine: There is an incredible amount of ignorance about basic economics out there: One has to start somewhere... -- CAV Link to Original

An Early Friday Hodgepodge Spring break with the wife and kids, and other travel/family obligations will occupy me over the weekend and into next week. I plan to resume regular posting here April 7, although it is possible I'll be back earlier. *** 1. If -- after having to rid your person of metal objects -- you then wondered how the headphones inside an MRI machine work, wonder no more. Hint: It's not the same technology as the sound-powered telephone, another neat piece of low-tech wizardry. 2. A couple of years ago, I replaced my laptop with a Framework computer so I could upgrade components over time or make simple repairs. I'm quite happy with it so far and, because there is a hacking culture among Framework users, I tentatively plan to replace the guts of my desktop with Framework components whenever that need arises. (Folks share instructions, specs for 3-D print parts they need, and do other things that make it easier for not-quite-hackers like me to join in the fun.) As always with such things, I keep an antenna out for interesting news, and have found a someday/maybe project (video) that is too neat not to share:In this video, I will go over why I felt the need to create my custom portable all-in-one computer. Thanks to #framework I was able to put together something that's super easy to assemble and reproduce. I generally use my #dygma Defy split keyboard, but working around my Macbook Pro's keyboard was always a pain, especially on flights and other places with limited space. One of the options I considered was a Lenovo Yoga, but I wanted something more repairable. My wife thought of the name Flying Lotus, which I really like, but like I said in the video is not for everyone...At the link are the video showing how he made this, the many uses and advantages his design opens up, and a link for kit parts to make one for yourself. 3. A little over a decade ago, this Arsenal fan was overjoyed to see the English Premier League become widely available over cable in the United States. Streaming services eventually plugged whatever gaps there were in cable coverage of the Premier League, as well as other competitions: Now it's possible to see just about any game live one has time to watch. Just when I thought I couldn't be any more spoiled as a fan, I learned of the many podcasts by more knowledgeable fans. My favorite is the Arsenal Opinion Podcast which is a near-perfect mixture of analysis and entertainment for me. I follow that one regularly. My second-favorite is FourFourTwo, which is all about tactics. I don't regularly go there, but it's really good, as exemplified by the below embedded podcast about the tactics of Arsenal's "Invincibles" undefeated team of '03/'04. There has never been a better time to be a soccer fan. 4. Recently, I noted that I had learned about NewPipe, an open-source software front end for YouTube, whose interface is even more frustrating to use on a mobile device than on a computer. Having now used it on walks and on errands for a week, I highly recommend NewPipe. Who would have thought being able to easily find what you know is out there, pick up where you left off listening, or even (gasp!) be able to put your phone in your pocket while listening might be desirable features in a streaming app? (Snark aside, it's possible some "update(s)" changed default behavior to become less usable. My wife's iPhone version of YouTube can run with a locked screen, after all. But if that's the case, why should I stick with something whose maintainers are that incompetent or capricious?) To install the Android version, I recommend verifying and installing F-Droid, and using it to install and update NewPipe. Incidentally, you can dodge many of the annoyances of YouTube on a regular computer by using an instance of Invidious. (Believe it or not, although both of these tout being free of commercials, that isn't at all why I use them. I do not object to commercials, as long as I can otherwise conveniently find and enjoy what I came for.) -- CAVLink to Original

Defending Ukraine against Russia is not automagically the same thing as being in league with Klauss Schwab and the WEF. *** Today's GOP is not only not your father's GOP, it's much closer to his Democratic Party, with the lone exception being its full embrace of your great-grandfather's Christian prudery. Today alone, we have the increasingly nutty Issues and Insights -- within recent memory a redoubt of relative sanity on the right -- hawking pacifist Tulsi Gabbard as Vice-Presidential material:Image by Gage Skidmore, via Wikimedia Commons, license.The Samoan-American, a U.S. Army Reserve lieutenant colonel and decorated combat veteran, showed her plucky streak, and her inclination to think independently, while speaking in December at Turning Point USA's Americafest. She cautioned that "the future of our country is at risk." Her former party, she said, in language similar to that she used when she announced she was leaving the Democrats' fold, is "under the complete control of an elitist cabal of war mongers who are driven by cowardly wokeness." [links omitted, bold added]Following the links shows Gabbard also smearing Nikki Haley as a "neocon" and railing against "this ongoing proxy war against Russia." And since today's GOP has no real identity -- except as supposedly the opposite of whatever the Democrats happen to be at the moment -- this makes Gabbard a darling and automatically makes suspect stopping Russia's incursions against the West. To its small credit, even Issues and Insights can tell that Gabbard isn't a lockstep Trumpist. That said, it speaks volumes that the GOP is having trouble admitting that, despite Ukraine's imperfections and the fact that the Democrats somewhat support it, perhaps a proxy war now can be a good way to avert a real one later. This would entail seeing Russia as the threat to the West that it is. And after seeing "An Obsolete Alliance Turns 75" in Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, all I can say is Good luck with that from today's conservatives:That the West felt entitled to dictate the forms, structures, and ideologies of the post-Cold War world was palpable to Russians and the rest of the world. It never occurred to anyone in power to ask what gave "the free world" the right to determine the forms of government, economy, and social mores in countries that were not their own. It was taken as a given that the West had such a right, and a condescending, patronizing, arrogant attitude was pervasive in the corridors of power in Washington. [bold added](1) This sounds like a leftist discussing the alleged "right" of pestholes during the Communist era to vote themselves into slavery. (2) And I guess we're supposed to not ask what gave Russia the right to just go in and take over neighboring countries? The piece is littered with errors and deserves criticism on multiple fronts (particularly using capitalist to describe either of Russia's oligarchic, post-communist political economy or that of the mixed-economy West), but my short, hot take is this: If you wanted to read a piece by a Democrat defending Russia against NATO, back when Russia was communist, you can get the same flavor by reading this piece -- against NATO, now that Russia is against "woke," never mind that their "woke" includes our enlightenment-era institutions as well as the leftist cancer that has, I admit, infected NATO. Russia has designs on the rest of Europe, and its threat will need to be addressed sooner or later. Whatever the merits of continuing NATO, it is fortunate that, whatever its flaws, it's still around now that Russia and many other authoritarian regimes have become actively belligerent. I would hazard a guess that bureaucratic alliance with less-than perfect allies is better now than no such alliance at all. During the Cold War, Ayn Rand, who emigrated from Russia, and saw that it had far more wrong with it than just communist rulers, said:Observe the double-standard switch of the anti-concept of "isolationism." The same intellectual groups (and even some of the same aging individuals) who coined that anti-concept in World War II -- and used it to denounce any patriotic opponent of America's self-immolation -- the same groups who screamed that it was our duty to save the world (when the enemy was Germany or Italy or fascism) are now rabid isolationists who denounce any U.S. concern with countries fighting for freedom, when the enemy is communism and Soviet Russia.Today's right uses globalism in a similar way: to smear as leftist, woke morons anyone who is concerned about what Russia is doing. -- CAV Link to Original

If Venezuela's Chavista regime held actual elections, they would probably lose the next one, according to a recent Wall Street Journal profile of Corina Yoris, the 80-year old grandmother whose 10-party coalition carefully vetted her and applied for her to run as their standard-bearer against Nicolás Maduro, the leftist dictator of Venezuela. This they did after their previous candidate, Maria Corina Machado, was blocked from running:Though respondents to a poll by the American company ClearPath Strategies haven't heard of Yoris, the results clearly showed that Venezuelans want change -- reflecting previous polls by other companies. In the past decade, the economy contracted 80% as oil output fell precipitously, and inflation at one point hit 2 million percent. The poll showed that an opposition candidate backed by Machado would win 49% to 27% for Maduro. Even a candidate who doesn't have her support would squeak out victory over Maduro, 35% to 27%, the poll shows. And though Maduro's regime has jailed political activists -- including seven of Machado's campaign workers -- the poll shows that 76% of opposition and undecided voters want a chance to cast a ballot. [bold added]The candidate, unlike the two incoherent old men running for President in the United States, is someone I might support. For one thing, she advocates free markets:Yoris is opposed to socialism and communism; she says that the free market regulates prices, that communism was responsible for the death of millions and that the ideology resulted with Venezuela becoming divided.For another, she is in full possession of her mental faculties, unlike her American counterparts, and uses them more effectively than most people do at half her age:Image by Voice of America, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.Asked what she, as president, would do for Venezuela she recalled the democratic years when the country, though flawed in many ways, appealed to immigrants escaping Latin American dictatorships and hardship in southern Europe. "I want to give Venezuela what Venezuela has given me," she said. "I could study in this country. I could educate my children in this country. I could do all manner of things in this country." While not a politician, Yoris said she has taught classes on logic and such esoteric disciplines as the philosophy of argumentation, where she has delved into the concepts of Chaïm Perelman, a Belgian who was one of the 20th Century's most renowned argumentation theorists, and British philosopher Stephen Toulmin. Two years ago, she was named by civil-society groups to serve on an opposition-led commission, which was responsible for organizing the primary elections last year that Machado won by a wide margin. ... "I'm totally for Madrid, and people laugh a lot about this," said Yoris, who during a recent match tweeted out: "This is a scandal! The referee ends the game and takes a goal away from Real Madrid." And though she fires off messages about blackouts and the work of Albert Camus, she also takes photos of the fog-covered hills, flowers and fruit stands overflowing with Venezuela's bounty. She explained that her desire is to show beauty. "It's a message of joy because we've been submitted to a very ugly dark cloud," she said. "So I try to send out a message of optimism, and I take photographs of my surroundings." [bold added]Oh, and she is also much more benevolent than the two bitter old men we have here. Sadly for Venezuela, the Maduro regime, scared of this kind, elderly lady and the optimistic, sunny view of the world she represents, has, predictably, blocked her election bid, like the cowards that they are. -- CAVLink to Original

John Stossel reminds us of the government's inappropriate, authoritarian response to the Covid pandemic:They complied with teachers unions' demand to keep schools closed. Kids' learning has been set back by years. Politicians destroyed jobs by closing businesses. Some shutdown orders were ridiculous. Landscaping businesses and private campgrounds were forced to shut down. Both former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden sharply increased government spending. Trump's $2.2 trillion "stimulus" package, followed by Biden's $1.9 trillion "American Rescue Plan," led to so much money printing that inflation doubled and then tripled.I recall being much more worried about what the government might do than about the illness itself at the start of the pandemic. I was right to be concerned, and Stossel is right to remind us of those dark days. But I would continue just about where he left off when he reminds us that Sweden, which had one of the more sane pandemic responses, did not go on to become the object lesson so many journalists assured us it would. Yes, some countries dealt more or less appropriately with the pandemic, but which ones, and what did those countries get right or wrong? It's one thing to learn not to repeat a mistake, but that isn't the same thing as knowing the right course of action. In that vein, I recommend reading (or re-reading) A Pro-Freedom Approach to Infectious Disease, a white paper by Onkar Ghate of the Ayn Rand Institute, which is discussed in the video embedded below. In the episode of New Ideal Live embedded above, Ben Bayer interviews Onkar Ghate of the Ayn Rand Institute and Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease expert, to discuss Ghate's recent paper "A Pro-Freedom Approach to Infectious Disease," linked above. The paper begins in part:Government's public health goal in the face of a novel respiratory virus like SARS-CoV-2 is to remove the threat posed by carriers of the virus -- primarily by testing, isolating and tracking those carriers. Trying to save every life from a novel virus whatever the cost, or to balance some people's lives against other people's livelihoods, is not a valid public health goal. Apart from testing, isolating and tracking, government should issue only voluntary guidelines and then leave us each free to take the countermeasures we individually think necessary in the face of the new reality. To accomplish its proper public health goal, the government must catalog the severity of various infectious diseases and then, for severe infectious diseases, it must have the ability to test, isolate and track contagious individuals. All of this can and needs to be carefully codified into law.The above would have lead to a very different course of action than most governments actually took, but it is one that would have made the pandemic much more bearable, and likely far less deadly than it turned out to be. -- CAVLink to Original

A Friday Hodgepodge 1. I mentioned finding a sandwich shop that sells muffulettas shortly after we moved to the New Orleans area. Wanting to know more about the origins of this local sandwich, I found an article about the Central Grocery, where Italian immigrants created it over a century ago. From the article:Image by Richard Martin, via Wikimedia Commons, license.Around this time, someone -- perhaps Lupo himself -- dreamt up the muffuletta. Culinary origin stories are often difficult to prove, but it's hard to find a more compelling tale than the one his eldest daughter Marie Teresa recited to countless customers, as well as in interviews and her own self-published cookbook, Marie's Melting Pot. French Market Sicilian vendors, as the story goes, congregated at Lupo's for lunch, where they ordered trays of salami, ham, and cheese, a few spoonfuls of olive salad, and a wedge of bread. The grocery lacked tables and chairs, so the diners settled for seats amid the barrels and crates, precariously balancing their lunch trays on their knees. Lupo, whom everyone called "Toto," a common Sicilian diminutive for Salvatore, eventually offered to stuff all the ingredients inside a sliced muffuletta loaf. Soft and sesame-seeded, round and flat, the muffuletta, a common Sicilian bread likely named for the mushroom cap, or muffe, it resembles, seemed custom made for sandwiches.While I am happy to know that Central Grocery's muffulettas are available for purchase, the website tells me that my pilgrimage to the original store will have to wait for the completion of repairs to the damage Hurricane Ida dealt it. 2. Speaking of immigration, something this foodie liked about H-Town back in my Houston days was the fact that I could get good Tex-Mex and good Cajun/Creole food, even in grocery stores:Houston is very cosmopolitan and has heavy Cajun and Creole influences already. I can and do buy roux, andouille, and boudain in ordinary supermarkets here. Crawfish, fresh seafood, and good, cheap restaurants (of all varieties, including Cajun) abound.Nearly two decades (!) since Katrina hit New Orleans, it's a little bit like that here now, with many of the Hispanic workers who helped rebuild the area after that storm putting down roots here. That said, it's not exactly the same. Whereas Houston had a Brennan's location and (I think) a Copeland's, I'm not finding old favorites from Houston here, and my itch for Tex-Mex has remained un-scratched so far. To be fair, I did walk into the grocery last weekend to the pleasant suprise of them selling boiled crawfish by the pound just inside. I never got that in Texas. Or, to put it more positively, I get to explore some more and possibly come up with some more recipes. 3. Sticking with Texas for a bit, there is an interesting piece in Atlas Obscura about a desk that decades ago, some college students hauled to a hilltop in western Texas so they could study in the magnificent solitude afforded by the view:They would spend their afternoons and evenings studying at this spot and taking in the great views offered by the west Texas sun and expansive plains and mountains extending in every direction. One of the students decided to bring a notebook and wrote a note in it. When he returned later, he discovered that someone had Today, the notebook kept in the desk's drawer offers visitors the chance to write to other visitors and reflect on what it means to leave a mark and make a statement in such a place at whatever moment in time they happen to be there. Completed notebooks from the Sol [sic] Ross desk are kept at the Archives of the Big Bend...I never made it out to Big Bend, while I was in Texas, but a friend of mine from grad school once spent a week there alone to collect his thoughts. Now, I can see why. 4. After yesterday's mention of a compilation of Machiavellian triumphs at Ask a Manager, I recommend another compilation, titled "Mortification Week." A sample:If you lived in New England during 2020, you were not only dealing with the pandemic but also a large amount of stink bugs. During a Zoom call, a bug flew into my hair while I was on camera. My colleagues got to see me scream, flail, and proceed to fall out of my chair. The recording of this moment still makes the rounds once or twice a year, though I have learned to laugh along with it.Also amusing are entries involving typos and auto-correct. -- CAVLink to Original

In a compilation of reader submissions for what she calls "Machiavellian Triumphs at Work," Alison Green presents the following crafty solution to a problem that would drive me crazy if I had to deal with it:Image by Teepetersen, via Wikimedia Commons, license.The Voicemail Had a sales guy at my first job in the late 90s who used to take ALL his calls and listen to ALL his voicemail on speaker. LOUDLY. We were a small company with a cube farm. This was the days before caller ID. So one day some of us called when we knew he was out and left a voicemail saying something along the lines of "Hi Fergus, I went to my doctor and the rash is all cleared up." He never listened to his voicemail on speaker again. [formatting in original]Assuming this guy ignored polite requests or direction to stop blasting his office-mates out of their minds, this is a perfect solution: Either he did not know or did not care that everyone would hear things he'd rather they not hear. Now he knows and cares, even if he remains unable to realize that his office-mates' ability to get work done is also in his best interest. The whole list is amusing, although not necessarily reliable as a how-to guide for navigating tricky situations. For example, the person who "accidentally created a shadow government" might have found life more bearable that way, but the boss getting "80% of her job [done] and ... the entire department" run for her was still getting paid to do so, while this subordinate wasn't getting any credit. -- CAVLink to Original

"Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby." -- Penn Jillette *** Lately, articles about the increasing percentage of Americans who aren't "religious" -- like this and this -- have been popping up. Please consider the italicized quote above any time you encounter one of these. Why? Because (1) In today's increasingly tribalistic, anti-individualist Zeitgeist, it would appear that the first impulse is to lump together any group of people to which one can apply a label. (2) So many people lack intellectual rigor that many labels are next to meaningless, anyway. The first piece, about "nonreligious" people includes some whose stated beliefs include all the hallmarks of religion; they just aren't enrolled in a church:Although he doesn't believe in organized religion, he believes in God and basic ethical precepts. "People should be treated equally as long as they treat other people equally. That's my spirituality if you want to call it that."Indeed, somewhere, buried in the piece, is the closest thing it comes to offering its own definition of "nonreligious:" They. Really. Don't. Like. Organized. Religion. Given how "the nones' diversity splinters them into myriad subgroups," don't expect to be able to learn anything meaningful from the rest of the piece. Even the second article, about "atheists" talks about people I'd say are actually religious:Image by François Barraud, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.Atheists also have different interpretations of what it means to not believe. While nearly all self-described atheists don't believe in the God described in the Judeo-Christian Bible, 23% do believe in God or some other higher power or spiritual force in the universe, according to a Pew Research Center report published in January. [bold added]With that much latitude in the term, it is ridiculous to wonder -- as the article starts out doing -- why more atheists are reluctant to volunteer that fact about themselves. The negative stereotypes and bigotry on the part of many religious people don't help, but if a term has been emptied of all meaning, why bandy it about? I am an atheist, and would describe myself as circumspect, but not shy about it. I reject nearly everything about religion, especially professing to believe things absent evidence, and equating morality to a set of supernatural orders that have nothing to do with reason or life on earth. These two things are direct threats to a life proper to a rational animal. If I have a realistic chance of making my world a better place by challenging these evil practices, I will do so. (This is the not shy part.) If doing so will change nothing, except expose me or loved ones to harm by bigots or actual thugs, I will not. (This is the circumspect part.) Self-sacrifice is against my moral code. But simply saying I'm an atheist, or I'm not religious at all is only the start of a conversation. Religion is not the only alternative out there for moral guidance or reflection. Not adhering to religion is not the only aspect of my thinking and my personality. Stating that I am an atheist is thus something that I would hope would at least provoke thought in another, and perhaps require a conversation on my part. The person hearing that from me, or the occasion calling for me to say this, has to be worth it. I find the widespread need to "come out" as something that is so common today both sad and puzzling. Our culture causes most people to feel alienated because it is increasingly blind to or disdainful of the individual. Many people yearn for some measure of visibility, and aren't getting it. But past a certain point, it is puzzling that many people have such a weak sense of themselves that they will compromise on almost anything to "belong." I'm not sure what to say about that, except, perhaps to advise that one should well understand one's reasons for disclosing one's beliefs, or not. Fashion is probably the worst reason to do either. -- CAVLink to Original

Over at Hot Air, Jazz Shaw discusses the decision by Democrat strategist Hal Malchow to go abroad in order to end his own life on his own terms, before he loses his mind to Alzheimer's Disease. Before this story broke, I was unaware that even in American states that have legalized physician-assisted suicide, the laws apply only to people with a fatal condition who will die in a few months. Malchow, after seeing his mother deteriorate with the disease, got himself tested for its genetic markers and discovered that he would eventually succumb to the same fate:Legal Status of Euthanasia Worldwide. (Image by Michael Jester, via Wikimedia Commons, license.)Malchow returned to the vow he had made half a life earlier about what he would do when Alzheimer's arrived: "I knew that if it happened, I was not going to let all this play out to the end." He had seen how responsibility for his mother had fallen on those around her, and he believed it would be unfair to his wife, Anne Marsh, who already suffered from multiple sclerosis. Several American states, including New Mexico, permit physician-assisted suicide under so-called death-with-dignity laws, but all require a candidate to have a fatal condition with only months left to live. Malchow did not qualify and had no interest in living until he did. "What's the point? You know, why sit around the house and watch a little piece of your brain disappear every day?" he says. "And the ordeal for the caretaker is terrible." [bold added]Malchow had to travel to Switzerland to do something that should be a matter of making one's intent legally clear, settling one's affairs, and going to a hospital. This should serve as a wake-up call to anyone who would want the option to end life on one's own terms in the event of a catastrophic illness that involves a lengthy period of deterioration. Legal protection of the right to seek out assistance in suicide faces two major obstacles, one a legitimate concern and one not. Malchow's story mentions one along the way:Last September, Malchow contacted Dignitas, a nonprofit advocacy group that facilitates assisted death, to begin making arrangements. He had to submit a two-page autobiography -- a task, he imagined, to ensure he'd deliberated on his options and was not acting impulsively -- alongside medical records that a Swiss psychiatrist reviewed to grant a "provisional green light" to proceed with planning. [bold added]Because the law exists to protect the individual's rights, it should be non-trivial to exercise this right, because of the possibility of a momentary lapse of sound judgement or pressure from, say, relatives hoping for an early inheritance. These are legitimate concerns, and it appears -- contrary to theocratic smears -- that jurisdictions that recognize this right have accounted for them. And speaking of theocratic smears, Jazz Shaw brings up the other, illegitimate obstacle:Some will argue that this decision is in defiance of God's will and that he will pay a price for it. Perhaps you are correct, but that's a chance that Hal is willing to take and none of us truly knows for sure. Others may wish to turn away because the story is too painful to contemplate. But it's one that we will all face sooner or later unless we are suddenly and unexpectedly swept away from this mortal coil in an accident or otherwise. [bold added]They may argue, but the argument is based on an arbitrary premise that has no place as a basis for law. Or, as I said last year:It think it is clear why the "rights are a gift from God" crowd opposes physician-assisted suicide: It is because they imagine that it displeases a being (that they imagine out of whole cloth), and their whole conception of morality begins and ends at a list of commands having everything to do with "pleasing" this being -- and nothing to do with reason, with living on this earth, or with happiness.If the law permits euthanasia, and the state is barred from ordering executions, then anyone worried about offending an imaginary being can choose to continue suffering. I find it interesting that the same religion that condemns suicide was fine with "Kill them. The Lord knows those that are his own," back when it held power. Those who claim that death and suffering are God's will bring exactly those things to those who will not fight against them. They did it on a grand scale in the Middle Ages, and they do it now, every time someone who would want a dignified end to an inhuman future is denied that end by a superstitious taboo enshrined as law. -- CAVLink to Original

Ed Driscoll, one of the bloggers at Instapundit, is fond enough of pointing out times when the left is at cross-purposes that he frequently starts off such posts with "Annals of Leftist Autophagy." There are now dozens of these, and it is conventional wisdom on the right that the left is a mess. The American right, having fallen under Donald Trump's sway, has -- from praising Trump as an Alinskyite and blaming "society" for bad behavior, all the way to embracing central planning -- increasingly been aping the left. And, like progressives were doing for a time to centrist Democrats, MAGA Republicans have been primarying traditional Republicans. This last has reached the point that even some MAGA Republicans can see a problem: The Speaker of the House is asking members of his party to stop primarying each other:The more they purge or alienate normal people, the more trouble the GOP is going to have winning elections. (Image by odder, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.)"I've asked them all to cool it," Johnson told CNN at the House GOP retreat in West Virginia last week. "I am vehemently opposed to member-on-member action in primaries because it's not productive. And it causes division for obvious reasons, and we should not be engaging in that." "So I'm telling everyone who's doing that to knock it off," Johnson added. "And both sides, they'll say, 'Well, we didn't start it, they started it.'" This is rich, coming as it does from someone selected for his blind loyalty to Trump, because the behavior is motivated by blind loyalty to Trump:"I would love nothing more than to just go after Democrats," [Matt] Gaetz, who led the charge to oust McCarthy, told CNN. "But if Republicans are going to dress up like Democrats in drag, I'm going to go after them too. Because at the end of the day, we're not judged by how many Republicans we have in Congress. We're judged on whether or not we save the country." Gaetz is one of the most slavishly loyal Trumpists there is, and remember that, in the minds of his faction of the Republican Trump Organization Party, if you aren't one of them, you're a RINO or worse -- a Democrat in drag. Thanks, Matt. An election is supposed to be how the people select the best among a variety of choices, and if Republicans weren't numbskulls, they would (a) define a positive agenda to run on besides whatever Donald Trump wants at the moment, and (b) welcome competitive races, even if it means someone who doesn't completely toe the party line gets elected. But appreciating that point would mean understanding that American political parties are actually coalitions, and that alienating people who might agree with part of what you want to accomplish might impair your ability to do anything you want to accomplish. One wonders if pointing this out, however indirectly, as Johnson has, will bode ill or well for his future in whatever the Republican Party has become. If the Democrats were not so awful, it would be easier to cheer on the inevitable result of this kind of attitude -- non-MAGA Republicans and independents who want a decent alternative to Democrats getting fed up and staying home, or voting for the Democrats in disgust. Perhaps Americans should send the following message to the GOP: If you're going to call me a Democrat for the sin of not worshipping Donald Trump, I guess I'll play the part. But then again, perhaps that won't be necessary, per the last several election cycles. -- CAVLink to Original

A Friday Hodgepodge 1. Some time back, the New York Times bought Wordle from its inventor. Having heard the new owners were going after clones of the popular word game jogged my memory of the existence of the game Don't Wordle. This non-clone has a different object: Make it through six rounds without guessing the word correctly. It's harder than you might think. 2. On her Substack blog, Claire Evans discusses art inspired over time by scintillating scotomas in her post "Brighter Than a Cloud:"Perceptual distortions are difficult to measure, but they can be approximated in paint and pencil, which makes migraine art a powerful diagnostic and scientific tool. The earliest depictions of migraine phenomena were illustrations made by physicians who happened to be migraineurs themselves, like the German ophthalmologist Christian Georg Theodor Ruete, who illustrated the three successive stages of his own "flimmerskotom" in 1845, and the 19th century British physician Hubert Airy, whose ink renderings wouldn't be out of place in the Wellcome's migraine art collection.Occasionally experiencing these myself, I have to say I wish English had borrowed the German term for these unchanged. Also worth noting are a link to an extensive British collection of migraine-inspired art and mention of the only Oliver Sacks book I have not yet read, Migraine. 3. If you live in certain small parts of North America, this year is going to bring you a double blast of cicadas: Adjacent broods of 13- and 17-year cicadas will be emerging at the same time. 4. I found the title odd: "The Best Multi-Tool for Every Job." I thought: What? Isn't that like looking for an expert jack of all trades? But what the article does is list the best such tools for certain niches, like keychain-sized:Tools: Needlenose pliers, wire cutter, knife, package opener, scissors, flathead driver, crosshead driver, bottle opener, tweezers, file It would be wrong to compare the Gerber Dime to most full-size multi-tools. After all, it only weighs a shade over 2 ounces and occupies as much space as a Bic lighter. But when we compare the Dime to similar keychain-size multi-tools, it continues to surprise and charm. The spring-loaded pliers are strong enough to pull staples from a 2-by-4, and the crosshead driver tightens loose, irritating screws. Because the Dime attaches to a keychain via a split ring, we frequently call on the bottle opener between camping trips and cookouts. A hidden set of tweezers and a pair of scissors are welcome additions too. The build quality remains up for debate, and we question whether the Dime's portability sacrifices durability, but Gerber's limited lifetime warranty puts our mind at ease. Even though most of us carry a full-size multi-tool, the Dime is a welcome addition that exceeds expectations.My favorite memory of being glad I carried a multi-tool -- a Swiss Army Knife in this case -- was to facilitate the small, informal picnic after the ceremony for the wedding of a friend, for whom I was best man. Whoever planned that picnic hadn't thought to bring a knife! -- CAVLink to Original

Over at Slate is a decent, albeit left-slanted analysis of how "third-party candidates" might affect the 2024 election. It makes its most interesting point midway when it discusses the erosion in support such candidates suffer in the two-party system as Election Day rolls around. The piece then offers an interesting possible exception to that historic pattern, though:[A]lthough there are good reasons to think that third-party support will crater as Election Day approaches, it isn't guaranteed -- especially not if Kennedy in particular is able to stay visible throughout the cycle by participating in televised debates and scoring press coverage that goes beyond treating him like a spoiler. And that means we're all facing another round of vote-shaming and counter-vote-shaming as panic about third-party spoilers sets in, especially on the left... [bold added]I agree that a third-party candidate could overcome that pattern, but doubt it would be Kennedy, an all-purpose kook whose anti-vax nuttiness should repel most lefties, and whose far-left positions should repel most disgruntled conservatives. In short, I think the longer he talks, the more he will turn people off who initially reach out to him out of desperation or the faint hope that nobody could be as bad as either major party candidate: RFK, Jr. is best-of-breed from hell worse. The candidate for Trump/Biden to worry about will be the No Labels candidate -- if they can find one. The bar in this election is very low: To appeal to the silent, disgusted majority, No Labels need only put a non-geriatric someone on that podium who is halfway reasonable and can offer easily-grasped arguments for an anodyne agenda that only has to contrast with the worst parts of Biden's economic platform and Trump's theocratic/nationalist one. It's a low bar. But the fly in the ointment is that, so far, No Labels is having trouble finding a politician who recognizes opportunity when it comes knocking. -- CAVLink to Original

Writing at The Hill, Juan Williams contends that voters hoping to legalize abortion are a force to be reckoned with in the upcoming election:Nativist Republicans hope to cash in on this gang leader's recent rise to power in Haiti at election time. (Image by Voice of America, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.)It was the biggest issue in the 2022 midterms, halting a promised "Red Wave," of Republican victories. Last year voters in Virginia gave Democrats the majority of the state legislature after Republicans backed a 15-week ban on abortions. And this year, abortion rights are likely to be on the ballot in several states where activists are pushing to make abortion access a right in the state constitution. Some of those states are critical to the outcome of the race for the White House, including Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania. States with lots of Republican voters, including Kansas and Ohio, are among the six states that have already voted to approve state constitutional protection for abortion. In fact, so far, voters have backed abortion rights every time it has been on the ballot. [links omitted, bold added]Unsurprisingly, Donald Trump, who helped cause Roe vs. Wade to be overturned with his Supreme Court appointments, is hoping nativism and xenophobia will come to his rescue:Trump is trying to cloud over the abortion fight by loudly demonizing immigrants. The only way that can work is if most of the country joins in the immigration hype.This, Williams suggests, is due to the economy not being a clear win for him in this election. I don't think Williams is completely right. Although Trump certainly doesn't deserve more trust on the economy, I think he probably still has that to a degree. That said, I think Trump is definitely working to make the non-crisis that is immigration into the centerpiece of his campaign, at least in part to distract from abortion and his general unfitness for office. It will be interesting to see how this strategy pans out. People concerned about abortion are unlikly to forget the issue. Maybe some who are concerned about abortion (and believe "Honest Don" when he claims to want abortion legal up until 16 weeks) and worry about importing Haitian gangs might vote for Trump -- but also Democrats for Congress. -- CAVLink to Original

Lately, Republicans have been working overtime to show that the Democrats hold no monopoly on passing bad legislation in the name of helping "the children." For example, several "red" states, including Utah, have passed laws requiring age verification to open social media accounts. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression has challenged Utah's law.FIRE's suit argues that the law violates the First Amendment, pointing out that it forces social media companies to restrict users' access to protected expression. Additionally, FIRE argues the law's age verification requirements amount to an unconstitutional prior restraint on free expression. "What Utah has done, and what other states are doing, is to try to impose sort of a magic bullet solution to the whole question of youth mental health," says Robert Corn-Revere, chief counsel at FIRE. "In its rush to address what really is the latest moral panic, the state brushes aside what is a nuanced problem and chooses censorship as the presumptive solution to how it addresses these issues, ignoring the individual differences and the diverse needs of families in the state."The response to this challenge has been for Governor Spencer Cox (R) to delay implementation of the law until October ahead of repealing and replacing the law with what sounds like an equally bad measure. It is disturbing to consider some of the voices this law might have silenced:Courtesy photos of Hannah Zoule, one of the plaintiffs, by Guillaume Bigot, via FIRE.Plaintiffs Lu Ann Cooper and Jessica Christensen co-founded an organization called Hope After Polygamy that connects individuals who are members of, or who have left, polygamous communities with educational resources, often through social media. They know all too well that at-risk youth will disproportionately shoulder the law's harmful effects. The new rules hinder minors' ability to find support and connect with people outside their existing circle, a key feature of social media for vulnerable youth who lack such support at home and school. "I was raised in an abusive polygamous family being groomed and coerced to marry my first cousin when I was only 15 years old," said Cooper. "Since escaping, I've used social media to provide resources to others in difficult or dangerous situations. This law will only hurt children in similar situations." I am grateful that the good people of FIRE have taken up their cause. -- CAVLink to Original

A Vox article about the Boeing safety scandal cites the following example of what it calls the FAA "get[ting it] right about airplane regulation:"Image by Kenny Eliason, via Unsplash, license.The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) strongly recommends that you get a separate, secured seat for even a very young child below the age of 2 -- but they haven't banned the practice of carrying your child on your lap in your own seat. ... I've seen this policy criticized. "A kid being held would have been torn from the hands of their parents, and they would have been sucked out the plane," aviation safety expert Kwasi Adjekum told the Washington Post, referring to what happened to Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 on January 5. The National Transportation Safety Board has repeatedly recommended that the FAA ban lap children. [links omitted, bold added]The FAA doesn't ban the practice because car travel -- which many people might choose if lap children were banned -- is much less safe than air travel, even when children are held on a lap rather than in a separate seat. The author praises this as an example of big-picture thinking and she is correct that the way the FAA chose to regulate does improve overall safety. But I have argued in the past that such examples of regulations that mimic rational behavior often fail to account for the cost of lost individual freedom inherent in the uncontested premise that it is appropriate for the state to do our risk calculations for us. Indeed, thanks to the regulatory state, we are lucky lap children aren't outlawed. I'd prefer not to leave something like that to chance. I will grant one cheer for the FAA on this matter: So long as we are saddled with a regulatory state (rather than advisory bodies), the least it can do is base its laws on hard science and err on the side of liberty. But the fact that we have dual agencies in disagreement should illustrate the peril inherent in the regulatory state. That is the big picture that the entire regulatory state misses, but which our founders well understood and hoped to protect us against when, long ago, they declared:The only legitimate purpose of government is make sure that these individual rights are protected...I, for one, would rather make up my own mind about what is safest for myself and my children, than have my safety and my options hemmed in by the whims of bureaucrats. In the big picture, the best way for the government to protect my safety would be for it to protect my freedom to look after myself. -- CAVLink to Original

A Friday Hodgepodge 1. Before we moved, I had been working to incorporate more walking into my routine, with the goal being about five hours each week. I'm close to having that routine back, but trips into New Orleans looked like they might make that challenging. One day, I had to go to a mall to pick up a gift for my wife's birthday only to discover that the store would be closed for another 45 minutes after I'd arrived. Circumnavigating the mall while timing my walk, I found that it took about half an hour. Since the mall is on the way for almost any trip I might make into town, I have a good way to get in half an hour of walking when I go to town, regardless of the weather, as long as I plan for it. 2. The area code for my cell phone number happens to be one of the top three that criminals use for scam calls starting with the first few digits of the target's number. A week or so ago, I accidentally picked up such a call and was blasted with at least thirty more in total that day. Annoyed that my phone doesn't simply have the ability to block calls from entire area codes, I found an app that gives me this capability, and spares me other garbage calls via crowdsourcing, as well. CallControl also allows whitelisting of numbers that might otherwise be blocked by such rules. 3. Cooking has been a hobby of mine for a long time, so I have built up quite the repertoire over time. But when we had kids a little over a decade ago, lots of those delicious things went unmade for a long time, mainly due to the time constraints inherent in our routines. Since the move, our routine has been very different, and that has allowed me to go back and rediscover some things. One pleasant surprise was that there were several things, dirty rice among them, I thought nobody would like that much turning out to be big hits. This has really helped me be able to send a variety of hot lunches to school with my daughter, who hates bread and has mostly bread-heavy choices at her school cafeteria. (Her idea for packing hot lunches in the first place has now not just gotten me out of that jam, but led to these rediscoveries.) Image by Tim Boud, via Wikimedia Commons, license.4. Back in our St. Louis days, we lived within walking distance of the Loop, and I liked the option of being able to walk over to a non-Starbucks cafe with my laptop and work or think for awhile. Ever since we left, doing that has involved at least a 20-minute car ride each way. But now, we're in a more walkable area and that includes being within walking distance of a couple of non-Starbucks cafes. It's nice to be able to do this again, and it's a nice bonus that I can order a café au lait without the person across the counter looking at me like I have a horn growing out of my head. -- CAVLink to Original

I sometimes bookmark good advice in anticipation of wanting to be able to factor it in if my kids ask for similar advice later on. Bryan Caplan's "She's the One," on evaluating romantic partners, is a good example. Caplan wrote the piece in response to a reader's question, and he artfully combines his own life experience with his knowledge of markets to answer the question. And don't let our culture's hatred of capitalism cause you to dismiss that combination as inhuman or calculating: The piece is spot-on and very enjoyable to read and think about. He comes up with eighteen points, the last of which was probably my favorite:Image by Álvaro CvG, via Unsplash, license.My 11-year-old daughter vocally opposes changing yourself to better please the marriage market. "You've got to be true to yourself," she declares, with poetic wisdom beyond her years. My reply: Sure, you should think twice - nay, thrice - about violating your conscience for romantic rewards. But what if the marriage market rewards changes that you yourself classify as self-improvement? When the marriage market rewards you for working hard, and you agree that you ought to adopt a better work ethic, hard work is "true to yourself." We're all flawed human beings, so you have plenty of room to self-improve with pride. And if women like you better as a result, that speaks well of them, not badly of you. [bold added]There are minor points I disagree with or have strong reservations about, as is the case with almost any advice I pass along. (At the same time, even those points are still thought-provoking.) For example, Caplan's assertion that all traits are heritable includes personality traits. This sounds deterministic to me, but still provides food for thought: If someone with an awful personality is raising one's children, that can rub off on them or otherwise cause it to be harder for them to develop in a healthy way. I highly recommend the piece both for its advice and the thinking it will invite. -- CAVLink to Original

Regulars here know that I take issue with the way touchscreens are deployed in many (if not most) newer cars. Granted, they provide a viewer for a back-up cam, cut costs for controls, and allow for greater dashboard functionality through software. But because much of this software is written poorly and controls are indiscriminately moved to the touchscreen, the result is often a frustrating mess of poorly laid-out controls and nested menus that is a real safety hazard because many simple things drivers used to be able to do by touch, like adjust fan controls, now require them to take their eyes off the road. In today's nanny state, the first impulse most people will have will be to scream Force manufacturers to have buttons and knobs again! Not only is this an abuse of government, such abuses are at least partially responsible for the current predicament: American manufacturers are required by law to include backup cams. Since I have long opposed the government regulating every facet of our economy and frequently argue that whatever legitimate functions it wrongly arrogates into regulatory agencies could be done better by watchdog groups and the like, I am pleased to have an example of exactly this, and doubly so because this problem annoys me so much![T]he automotive safety organization European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) ... says the controls ought to change in 2026. "The overuse of touchscreens is an industry-wide problem, with almost every vehicle-maker moving key controls onto central touchscreens, obliging drivers to take their eyes off the road and raising the risk of distraction crashes," said Matthew Avery, Euro NCAP's director of strategic development.And, much later:Crash Hall of the IIHS, a non-government safety organization. (Image by Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, via Wikimedia Commons, license.)... Euro NCAP is not insisting on everything being its own button or switch. But the organization wants to see physical controls for turn signals, hazard lights, windshield wipers, the horn, and any SOS features, like the European Union's eCall feature. ... Euro NCAP is not a government regulator, so it has no power to mandate carmakers use physical controls for those functions. But a five-star safety score from Euro NCAP is a strong selling point, similar to the (American) Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's coveted Top Safety Pick program here in the US, and it's likely this pressure will be effective. Perhaps someone should start bugging IIHS [the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety --ed] to do the same.Yes. Although some automakers have been dialing back a little on this insanity, non-government watchdogs like the NCAP and the IIHS could help marshal market forces to improve automotive safety more quickly, not to mention help customers who want better options than touchscreens for everything. -- CAVLink to Original