Power Line University

Power Line U ‘The Plague of Models,’ Webinar 2

Featured image Our pal Ken Green, currently conducting our Power Line University short course based on his new book, The Plague of Models: How Computer Modeling Corrupted Environmental, Health and Safety Regulations, had the genius idea to ask ChatGPT to write a 750-word essay based only on the prompt, “Write 750 words about the limitations of mathematical climate models.” The result was a lucid and cogent summary of the problems with climate »

Webinar Friday: Power Line U on Climate Models

Featured image Power Line University will be back live Friday afternoon at 4 pm Pacific time with the second in our series with Kenneth Green based on his new book, A Plague of Models: How Computer Modeling Corrupted Environmental, Health and Safety Regulations. This week’s episode will take up an especially hot button (no pun intended) topic: climate change models. Ken has an entire chapter on climate models in the book, and »

Power Line U on ‘A Plague of Models’

Featured image We had an enthusiastic group tuned in live yesterday afternoon for the first session of our next “Power Line University” course offering, centered on Ken’s Green’s new book, A Plague of Models: How Computer Modeling Corrupted Environmental, Health and Safety Regulations. Here’s the YouTube video of the seminar for those of you who weren’t able to join in live, or if you want to take it in again. We won’t »

Power Line U Is Back, with ‘A Plague of Models’—Banned by Amazon!

Featured image I’m pleased to announce a new short course for “Power Line University,” featuring my old writing partner Ken Green, with a webinar here this Wednesday at 4 pm Pacific time, focused on his brand new book, A Plague of Models: How Computer Modeling Corrupted Environmental, Health and Safety Regulations. The book has been banned by Amazon, so you know it must be hot! As everyone who followed the COVID story »

Announcement: Power Line University Final Federalist Seminar Tomorrow

Featured image So with a week off for travel, Lucretia and I return to the Power Line University seminar room tomorrow (Wednesday) at 4 pm Pacific time for our final seminar on The Federalist, where we’ll continue our review of how The Federalist understood judicial review. In particular we’ll spend a lot of time on Federalist #84, where Hamilton makes the bold argument that not only is a Bill of Rights unnecessary, but »

Podcast: PLU Class Session 8—The Federalist & the Judiciary

Featured image Settle down class, time for our next Power Line University lesson. This week we take up how The Federalist explains Article III, the judiciary, and especially the nowadays familiar power of judicial review, which is nowhere specified in the text of the Constitution, and was in fact an issue of controversy and confusion at the time of the founding. So we start our investigation with Federalist #78, where Alexander Hamilton »

Announcement: PLU Class Session 8: The Federalist on the Judiciary

Featured image We’re going to hold our eighth Power Line University class session on The Federalist tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon at 3 pm Pacific time, where Lucretia and I will turn to the treatment of judicial review in The Federalist, which chiefly means papers 78 – 84. If you are able to join us live, here’s the Zoom link to use. The scope and nature of the judicial power was as uncertain and »

Podcast: PLU Session 7—The Presidency

Featured image Session 7 of our Power Line University short course on The Federalist met on Saturday this week, and took up Hamilton’s defense of the presidency from the anti-Federalist critics starting with Federalist 70, the paper where he discusses the famous phrase “energy in the executive.” Included in the usual inventory of Hamiltonian paeans to the executive is a look at his often overlooked views on the proper understanding of impeachment »

News: Next PLU Class on Saturday

Featured image So far we’ve held our Power Line University seminars on The Federalist either on Wednesday or Thursday, but travel and other complications this week made it impossible to keep this schedule. So this week’s class, where we’ll draw into Hamilton’s extensive and in many ways definitive understanding of the presidency, will be held this Saturday afternoon at 1:30 pm Pacific time. I’ll post a reminder Saturday morning, but if you »

Podcast: Power Line University Lesson 6—the Progs vs. the Feds

Featured image This week’s Power Line University seminar on The Federalist completes our discussion of the separation of powers in Federalists 47 – 51, and then takes an extended detour into the Progressive Era attack on the separation of powers and other basic principles embedded in The Federalist—and by extension, in the Constitution. There are few things more fun than beating up Woodrow Wilson, but we note several of the ways his »

Live Podcast: PLU on The Federalist, Session 6

Featured image Power Line University will be back in the seminar room again tomorrow (Wednesday) afternoon at 5 pm Pacific time/8 pm Eastern, to resume our leisurely stroll through The Federalist Papers.  We’ll begin this week’s session with a detour into why and how the Progressives attacked the separation of powers along with rejecting the natural rights philosophy of the Founding, both of which were necessary for their project of creating the »

Podcast: Power Line University, Lesson 5: The Separation of Powers in Federalist 47 – 51

Featured image This week we continued our leisurely stroll through The Federalist with an extended look at Federalist numbers 47 through 51, which explain the key concept of the separation of powers—a phrase that is nowhere found in the text of the Constitution, but which is clearly implied by the design and structure of the text. But Madison and Hamilton leave nothing to chance, citing “the celebrated Montesquieu” as a theoretical authority, »

Live Podcast Tomorrow: PLU Lesson 5, Federalist 47 – 51

Featured image We’re going to have this week’s Power Line University online class on The Federalist tomorrow (Tuesday) instead of Wednesday for scheduling reasons. Lucretia and I will meet live at 4:30 pm Pacific time, and go through the major question of the separation of powers as explained in Federalist numbers 47 – 51. Use this Zoom link to join us. Although Montesquieu had explained the theory of the separation of powers »

Podcast: Power Line University, Lesson 4—Federalists 33 – 45

Featured image This week’s PLU class resumes our leisurely stroll through The Federalist starting with Federalists #33 and #37, and the “partly federal, partly national” character of the Union under the proposed Constitution—a subject that remains as confusing and contentious today as it was then. Lucretia walks us through how the issue began to settle out starting with the landmark 1819 case of McCulloch v. Maryland. We also have a lively discussion of the »

Live Podcast: PLU Session 4—Federalists 37 – 49

Featured image We had to sort out some scheduling difficulties for this week’s Power Line University online class about the Federalist Papers, and we have finally fixed up to hold it tomorrow (Wednesday) at 6:30 pm Pacific time/9:30 Eastern time. We know this is a little late for eastern and midwestern participants, but it couldn’t be helped. We’ll resume our discussion starting with Federalist 37, and proceed from there into the 40s, »

Podcast: PLU Lesson 3: Federalist 11 – 23

Featured image Yesterday’s third class session of Power Line University went through Federalist 11 through 23, drawing out in particular some of Hamilton’s reflections on taxation that remain relevant to some of our tax debates today (especially Lizzie Warren’s proposed wealth tax), and also Hamilton’s very spirited attack on European politics (and colonialism!) that none of today’s ridiculous “de-colonizers” ever reference because they don’t know about it, and wouldn’t like in any »

Live Podcast: PLU Lesson 3—Federalist 11-39, Tomorrow

Featured image Power Line University will be back live in class again tomorrow starting at 4 pm Pacific time (7 pm Eastern), carrying on our consideration of The Federalist. I’ll be the lead presenter this week, covering some very interesting things Hamilton and Madison have to say about several issues in Federalist 11 – 20, such as taxation, leaving Europe in the rear view mirror, what they meant by the “new science »