Monthly Archives: December 2021
December 31, 2021 — John Hinderaker
A number of people distinguished themselves on the public stage in 2021, but the Man of the Year stands out pretty clearly: he is Ron DeSantis. DeSantis was a model of rational governance, and under his leadership Florida has moved to the forefront not just as a destination for blue-state refugees, but as a famously well-governed state. Even extreme leftists know enough to go to Florida when they can. Florida
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December 31, 2021 — John Hinderaker
You could describe 2021 that way in a number of respects, but for now let’s stick to covid. Kevin Roche looks back at 2021 and forward to 2022: [I]f I had to pick one word to describe 2021 and the epidemic, it would be disappointing. We all hoped and expected to be done with this by now. It isn’t the vaccines that are the most disappointing aspect, they actually are
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December 31, 2021 — Steven Hayward
We can never tell when a post will prove particularly popular with readers, or which topics will generate the most interest. Below are our top ten articles by reader traffic for the past year. Of special note, I think, is item #5 “Enough With the Outrage”), where John, writing on January 7, noted the grotesque hypocrisy and opportunism of the left over the supposed “insurrection” of the day before, making
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December 31, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
So there was Ted Koppel, innocently working out on a treadmill, when he came across an episode of the Andy Griffith Show. Later, he went online and discovered that the show was one of the most watched television programs of the 1960s. Koppel had also heard a conservative complain about how “woke” the Washington, D.C. area has become and how much nicer it is to live in the south, where
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December 31, 2021 — Steven Hayward
For what turns out to be the 300th Power Line podcast as well as the last episode of 2021, we decided to revert to full three-whisky mode with a live audience on Zoom, and an extended conversation with historian Richard Samuelson about the left’s distorted and impoverished understanding of democracy. I quaffed my usual Islay peat bombs (while offering some new reviews of “luxury” whiskys) and Lucretia polished off a
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December 31, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Matt Taibbi has posted an inspired account of “Omicron DEATH!” Matt Orfalea is responsible for the companion video (below). Taibbi concludes by calling for future Covid variants to be given Fangoria (“The World’s Best Horror and Cult Film Magazine Since 1979”) names: the “Mutilator” Variant, the “Suffocating Agony” variant, the “Shaft-Sagger,” the “Face-Eater,” etc., and asks: “Would you bet against something like that coming?” It might be best for you
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December 31, 2021 — Scott Johnson
At the end of last year I formulated predictions for 2021 in the spirit of George Eliot’s narrator in Middlemarch: “Among all forms of mistake, prophecy is the most gratuitous.” I think it likely that the evils of 2022 will exceed those of 2021. For the moment, I’m sticking with my 2021 predictions for the coming year. • Political betting markets will set the over-under on Biden’s tenure in the
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December 31, 2021 — Scott Johnson
I still have my copy of Quotations From Chairman LBJ, the little red book compiled by Jack Shepherd and Christopher Wren that was published by Simon and Schuster in 1968. It leads with this epigraph from Chairman LBJ: “Don’t spit in the soup. We’ve all got to eat.” I seriously doubt that a mainstream commercial publisher will serve up anything comparable to mock Joe Biden or Kamala Harris in the
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December 31, 2021 — Scott Johnson
As Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle asked in Taxi Driver, “You talkin’ to me?” That’s the question that comes to my mind in connection with Dan Rather’s tweet below. If Rather isn’t the godfather of fake news, he may be its most notable practitioner. John and I took up Rathergate for dummies in the Weekly Standard article “Rather shameful.” BizPac Review takes up Rather’a “analysis” of “Let’s go, Brandon” here.
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December 31, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Looking back on the year that was, Ammo Grrrll offers some PERSPECTIVE. She writes: So I bought a nice little two-plus pound Pot Roast the other day and roasted it. Not in a “pot,” but in a blue enamel roaster for a long time until it became melty-tender, as is my custom. It was delicious, but that is not the point. I looked on the package as I freed it
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December 30, 2021 — John Hinderaker
You sometimes see newspaper headlines to the effect that, say, a “50 megawatt solar power plant” is being constructed. But you shouldn’t count on getting anything remotely approaching 50 megawatts of power from such an installation. Energy expert Isaac Orr explains: Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) show that production from solar panels plummets in the winter. The graph below shows the percentage of electricity generated by solar
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December 30, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
On December 15, the Guardian, a lefty British newspaper, ran a “person of the year” contest. The paper asked: “Time Magazine chose billionaire Tesla boss Elon Musk – but who would be your choice?” The Daily Wire reports that J.K. Rowling quickly emerged as the runaway leader in the poll. Whereupon the voting form disappeared, as did the results. A message in small print stated: “This form has been deactivated
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December 30, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
In this post, I discussed “national conservatives” and their movement (if one can call it that), “common good conservatism.” The New Criterion devotes a large part of its current issue to a debate on the subject. In this post, I will present two articles criticizing national conservatives and common good conservatism. I’ll present some entries from the other side of the debate in a follow-up post. But first, here is
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December 30, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Since our VIP session for today has been postponed, “Lucretia” and I decided to reschedule and change up our Daily Whisky Shot taping for tomorrow’s episode, and change to a live taping on Zoom this evening at 5 pm Pacific/8 pm eastern, open to all Power Line readers since it is for the general audience podcast. The link is below. We had planned to end the week with a short
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December 30, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Unfortunately, we have had to postpone the VIP Live show scheduled for tonight. Due to events beyond our control, we are not at full strength right now. We will reschedule the program for next month as soon as we come up with a date we know will work. It won’t quite be the year-end show we contemplated, but we’ll still be able to make our predictions for 2022 and have
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December 30, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Red China is unhappy with Elon Musk. His SpaceX satellites supposedly are threatening the safety of China’s space station. China has complained to the United Nations about two “close encounters” this year between SpaceX’s Starlink satellites and China’s space station. In addition, it is calling for a boycott of Tesla. According to the Washington Post, Musk has long been considered a hero in China. Tesla even received official approval to
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December 30, 2021 — Steven Hayward
• Behold, the latest profundity since Kamala Harris learned about “fweedom” on a school bus as a young lass: When you see deep thoughts like this, you know you’re in the presence of no ordinary mind. File under “The Banality of Kamala Harris.” Where is Hannah Arendt when we really need her? • Just. Say. No: • I’m having trouble seeing the downside here. Seems to me a lot of
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