July 23, 2021 — Steven Hayward
We all know the Great Barrier Reef is in danger of disappearing because of c—— c—–. The climatistas tell us so, at every opportunity: Well guess what Mom? Check in with The Australian (behind a paywall so here is the relevant text—made available by the indispensable Global Warming Policy Foundation): The annual data on coral cover for the Great Barrier Reef, produced by the Australian Institute of Marine Science, was
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July 23, 2021 — Steven Hayward
I’ve had occasion in the past to reference the “bootleggers and Baptists” coalition idea that economist Bruce Yandle first suggested as a way of explaining a central aspect public choice theory which holds that seemingly opposite interests some times line up on the same side of an issue because it benefits both sides against the public interest. In the case of “bootleggers and Baptists,” you’d find in certain southern counties
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July 20, 2021 — Steven Hayward
I am quickly learning why the New York Times and the left (but I repeat myself) are so spun up about Hungary : the government here actually wants to defend Western civilization—and religion—from its enemies. Whether they are doing this well or badly I cannot fully judge yet, but that they mean to do it seriously is clear. So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to find out that my visit
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July 17, 2021 — Steven Hayward
I figured a nine time zone distance might provide a margin of safety from Lucretia’s rear-end kicking over my article “What the Hell Happened to Bill Kristol?“, which Lucretia finds sorely wanting. And my attempts to mollify Lucretia with tales of how great Hungary’s conservatives are was mostly unavailing, even if true. Anyway, in this slightly abbreviated episode (because I had to rush off to begin a typical Central European
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July 17, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Funny how times change. Try this for a thought experiment: what if someone had hijacked that private jet with the fleeing Texas Democrats and diverted the plane the Cuba? Might have been a grand experiment in cognitive dissonance, and the dim Dems would wonder why Havana looked more like Peoria than Austin, what with its marching deplorables waving American flags. And then they’d wonder how to find a Kinkos. Headlines
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July 17, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Everyone seems to be in agreement that the final withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan is certain to be followed by a swift Taliban takeover of the rest of the area they don’t already control, and likely a bloodbath against large numbers of Afghans who dissent from Taliban rule. The Taliban are determined to keep their appointment with the seventh century. For the U.S. it’s starting to look like a
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July 16, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Time for another periodic data dump, though a bit of a themeless pudding this week. Let’s start with the explosion of public debt. I’m sure it means nothing. Meanwhile, the price of coal is soaring. Gee, I wonder why this is happening? Hmmm. . . why is housing getting so expensive everywhere? Idea: stop paying people not to work. Capitalists are doing their part: Evidence of how corporate tax cuts
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July 15, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Greetings from Budapest, where I’ll be hanging out a lot at Cafe Roger Scruton at 10 Zoltan Street over the next several days, and giving a lecture for the Danube Institute next Monday evening on the topic, “What Is Going on in America?” If there are any Power Line readers in Budapest, you may still be able to grab a limited seat for the event here. Otherwise you may run
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July 14, 2021 — Steven Hayward
• News item and Feel Good Story of the Day: The Atlantic is set to lose another $10 million this year after losing $20 million last year despite a surge in subscriptions during the coronavirus pandemic and 2020 presidential election, according to a new report. • Recent headline in The Atlantic: It’s a wonder they aren’t losing $25 million. • Speaking of The Atlantic, kept afloat by Steve Jobs’s widow Laurene Powell
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July 13, 2021 — Steven Hayward
As everyone knows, socialism is back big (except in nations that have had it already, like Cuba, Venezuela, California, Seattle, etc). So it is not surprising to see headlines like this: For sustainable finance to work, we will need central planning The holy grail of sustainable finance is figuring out how to distinguish sustainable from unsustainable investments. Get this right, and the public and private sectors have a guide to
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July 12, 2021 — Steven Hayward
You won’t believe who wrote this (and don’t peek): I am indeed the last person in the world who should be falling in love with the cops. Like most black men my age, I’m a serial cop-hater, armed with an astonishing array of ill encounters with flatfoots. Young black male rule number 4,080—when you see Jake strolling down your side of the street, get your English proper and cross to
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July 12, 2021 — Steven Hayward
John noted last night the large anti-regime protests in Cuba, and one hopes that this is the beginning of the end for the Castro tyranny, in just the way that mass protests in Eastern Europe in 1989 presaged the fall of the Berlin Wall in November of that year, and the collapse of Communist rule shortly thereafter. There are reasons to worry about this scene, however. Protestors took to the
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July 12, 2021 — Steven Hayward
• Lately I’ve been dipping into the great memoirs of Raymond Moley again. Moley was FDR’s closest confidante early from the governor’s mansion in Albany and into the White House in 1933. In fact, Moley wrote most of FDR’s very problematic First Inaugural Address (but not the much more problematic Commonwealth Club Address). Moley broke with FDR after 1936, appalled by where he thought the New Deal had gone badly
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July 11, 2021 — Steven Hayward
I know you’ve all heard of the famous “plant-based” impossible burger, which is deeply confusing because I’ve always thought every one of my burgers was “plant-based”—cows eat plants, and then I eat the cow. QED. Now comes news that someone is trying to make “plant-based bacon,” and count me skeptical. Actually, if you do a web search, you will find lots of links to “vegan bacon,” which has to be
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July 10, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Once upon a time, “CRT” stood for “cathode ray tube,” sometimes known as “television,” but also oscilloscopes, computer screens, some x-rays, and certain other technical devices designed for testing and calibration. Cathode ray tubes went the way of the Dodo bird quite some time ago, and nowadays CRT means something else: Critical Race Theory. There is one way in which today’s CRT resembles the old tech CRTs—they both depend on
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July 10, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Without question the news item that federal investigators confiscated a U.S.Capitol Lego set from one of the January 6 protestors is peak nonsense. Our “betters” have abandoned logos for Legos, but that’s par for the course from a class of people who ingest our media emetics and suffer from full-blown logorrhea. Headlines of the week: And finally. . .
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July 8, 2021 — Steven Hayward
News out just now that Michael Avenatti has been sentenced to more than two years in prison for attempting to extort $20 million from Nike. What’s his problem: doesn’t he understand that that kind of thing is a job for Hunter Biden? Anyway, keep in mind that Avenatti was only famous because the media made him famous—a perfect example of what Daniel Boorstin called a “pseudo-event,” or perhaps the media
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