Wrong-Think on Stilts

A physics prof retired from Idaho State U. has crafted a ringing condemnation of our current national state of play. Hat tip to Instapundit for the link. 

We are, these days, a nation in the thrall of lazy, dishonest, spineless, clueless, incompetent, yet endlessly entitled and arrogant academics, bureaucrats, politicians, media figures, and other “experts” who can’t seem to find their way from their heads to their asses with their hands when something important, like, say, COVID or the 25th Amendment, is in play.

But it doesn't slow them down in the slightest when they decide, despite millions of years of evolution (and a plethora of other ancillary evidence to the contrary), that men can transform into women, that merit is a manifestation of oppression, that opposing ideas are vulgar, and that disagreement is tantamount to prejudice. 

He's almost a neighbor in Pocatello, it's maybe 120 miles away from where I write this. Distances are relative in the spacious Mountain West. I've driven 230 miles to keep a doctor's appointment.

Owning the Failure

Hollywood in Toto has a Bill Maher quote on the sad state of education in this country, and on where the blame is to be placed for said sad state.

Democrats absolutely have to own education. Because that is their portfolio in the government. They wanted it. They own it. If you go to the Democratic convention half the delegates are teachers

The Democratic party is way too beholden to the Teachers Union and the Teachers Union has to answer to the fact that kids don’t know anything.

Among other things for which they should answer ... but never will. Hat tip to RealClearPolicy for the link.

Hyperawareness

The journal Science Alert weighs in with a nice long column on the various seemingly subjective methods Polynesian navigators used to sail sea-going outrigger canoes thousands of miles and reach destinations maybe not much bigger than an mile wide in the planet's most vast ocean.

The amount of remembered signs and portents and the modifiers to each were enormous, and the sensory awareness of quite subtile variations in star patterns and wave types and directions seem to almost defy belief.

All of this accomplished with zero precision instruments, and total reliance on memory retention and sensory hypersensitivity. I'm surprised the early European explorers of the region didn't attribute Polynesian navigation excellence to witchcraft or pacts with the devil. Hat tip to Instapundit for the link.

Update

We've had a gloomy day, no sunshine and this evening, as I write this, we're having a thunderstorm with hail, tap-tapping on the window. We get interesting echoes of the thunder with the shock waves bouncing off the mountains which, a mile or so east of the house, shoot up another 3000 ft. The peaks will be getting snow. 

Given the geometry - those peaks cast a big shadow - our sunrises aren't early. I'm okay with that as I'm a bit of a night owl, normally up past midnight.

Believe it or not, in our WY valley along the ID border the only restaurant we find reliably acceptable is a casual seafood place. Yep, here we are some 900 miles from the nearest ocean and we have a decent seafood restaurant. Go figure.

My usual meal there is a hollowed-out boule filled with excellent clam chowder and they aren't chintzy with the clams. The other DrC normally orders fish and chips, but today had the coconut shrimp and chips and pronounced it good.

Saturday Snark

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.

He'd Lost It

Axios has obtained audio of Special Council Robert Hur interviewing President Joe Biden. I reproduce for you the first paragraph of the story they've written about his testimony, delivered in October, 2023. The article has audio for your listening 'pleasure.'

Amid long, uncomfortable pauses, Joe Biden struggled to recall when his son died, when he left office as vice president, what year Donald Trump was elected or why he had classified documents he shouldn't have had, according to audio Axios obtained of his October 2023 interviews with special counsel Robert Hur.

Later on they write:

The newly released recordings of Biden having trouble recalling such details — while occasionally slurring words and muttering — shed light on why his White House refused to release the recordings last year, as questions mounted about his mental acuity.  

The audio also appears to validate Hur's assertion that jurors in a trial likely would have viewed Biden as "a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory."

That foggy old codger is what we had for President for four years. The people who propped him up, covered for him, and made (or walked him through) decisions he was supposed to make should spend the rest of their lives in prison. 

Oddly enough I can't get too mad at Joe himself. To expect any career politician to turn down a term in the top job, when offered, is asking for sainthood. That's something politicians rarely achieve even briefly.

More Friday Snark

Images courtesy of RealClearPolitics'

Cartoons of the Week.

Insight

An anonymous feminist J Xs an intriguing sentence, repeated on Instapundit. It is probably too neat to be entirely true, but if nothing else, appreciate the cleverness shown in its concise ideation.

A lot of being “trans” has to do with males wishing they were the objects of sexual desire, and females wishing they weren’t.

Friday Snark

Images courtesy of Politico's

The Nation's Cartoonists on the Week in Politics.

Thursday Snark

Image courtesy of the 5/16/2025 Lucianne.com.

A Quiet Visitor

Good morning, friends. The other DrC just opened the blinds so we could look at the day outside and guess what? We had snowfall overnight. She is taking pix now and I will either post same here or provide links to her site.

As I’ve noted at some point in the past 30 years, locals here in western WY claim snow is possible year-round. My rejoinder then and now is that I’ve seen snow flurries in June and Sept. but never in my experience in July or August.

When we went out to run some errands mid-day yesterday, the temp was 55℉. By the time we headed home two hours later it had dropped to 38℉ and my light jacket was no longer adequate outside the car. The other DrC said 38℉ was a good temp for snowfall, to which I nodded without expecting any.

At 6300 ft., snow in mid-May is no shock. It likewise won’t stick, it will probably be gone by evening, if not sooner. So it is just fun, along with four deer in the forest out back yesterday, another part of what makes life in these mountains a treat.

Later … When I wrote the above I had yet to discover that an otherwise healthy young aspen tree of maybe 7” diameter had fallen athwart our driveway. The other DrC saw it when she was headed out for an appointment, which has now been rescheduled. 

Oddly, I know exactly what needs to be done - both immediately and eventually - but due to the vagaries of age am no longer able to perform the required tasks. Getting old isn’t for cowards but, so far, beats the alternative.

Hyperactivity

We have a hyperactive President, maybe the first although Teddy Roosevelt was a busybody too. Trump is moving so fast our sluggish bureaucracy is unable to keep up with him, even if they wanted to do so (hint: they don't).

He spent the four Biden years thinking about what he should have tried to do as Trump 1.0, but didn't get around to doing. Evidently he kept a list, maybe literally, and he hasn't let any grass grow under his feet since Jan. 20. 

Hardly a day has gone by without some new initiative or EO on things as small as shower heads and as big as the redesign of the world economy. He is fun to watch in action, schmoozing sheiks and making foreign policy on the fly. No wonder the White House press corps is exhausted.

P.S. I've not even started to get tired of the winning yet.

South Africa Reacts

The ruling party in South Africa - the African National Congress - has reacted to a group of their white citizens accepting asylum in the United States. The pseudonymous Bonchie at Red State has the ANC's communique. See the key phrase:

What the instigators of this falsehood seek is not safety, but impunity from transformation. They flee not from persecution, but from justice, equality, and accountability for historic privilege.

Reacting to which, Bonchie concludes:

To claim they are fleeing "transformation" while citing "justice" and "accountability for historic privilege" is terrifyingly Orwellian. Everyone knows exactly what that means, which is the continued ethnic cleansing that has been endorsed by South Africa's ruling party.

That was my reaction as well. Hat tip to Lucianne.com for the link.

Political Realignments, Observed and Described

Taking a fine-grained look at the polling data, Joel Kotkin notes political divisions among both oligarchs and blue collar workers that cross social class lines. There are now oligarchs who support both parties, with the type of business they run determining political orientation. There are similar splits among blue collar workers. 

He also takes note of the over-production of college graduates who have both inflated expectations and deflated opportunities, the latter especially threatened by AI. It is a new political landscape, one having been influenced by changes in the economic landscape.

If I have a criticism of Kotkin’s analysis it is that it is backward looking. He seems not to take into account the changes Trump 2.0 is driving in the economic system and those would appear to eventually be massive. Some of this negativity is driven by Kotkin’s lack of MAGA enthusiasm.

I’d argue the solutions to the problems Kotkin observes with some dismay are already within view, if not yet much beyond the talking stage. If Trump can kick-start a reindustrialization of the US economy, expect the prospects going forward to more closely resemble sunlit fields than Kotkin’s dismal swamps.

A Really Big Hand-Me-Down

Many sources are taking a dim view of the "gift" of a luxury 747 to Trump by Qatar, and I share some of their questions. There is, however, a factor that has not been mentioned in any of the analysis I've seen.

The 747 is an obsolete design, it first flew commercial routes in 1970, some 55 years ago. Boeing no longer makes them. 

Modern Boeing and Airbus designs that fly the same sort of long passenger routes the 747 flew are all have two engines instead of four. They get the job done with less fuel and incorporate other design upgrades reflecting new technology.

Perhaps the uber-wealthy Qataris want a more modern plane for their leaders and saw an opportunity to gain good will by donating their gently used luxury 747 to Trump? Seen in that light, their gift may be no more significant than you donating granny’s no longer needed Buick to your PBS station's fund drive. 

Perhaps it is less a Trojan horse than a shiny hand-me-down.

Politico Honors Bret Baier

With few exceptions, the only thing I watch on Fox News is Bret Baier's Special Report. He does their "straight news" show and tries with some success to keep his own opinions out of the show. Now Politico has interviewed him about the prominence his show has achieved in the Trump 2.0 era.

In posing this question, Politico admits Baier's show isn't opinion TV.

Fox News is often known for some of its more conservative, opinionated voices. That is not the lane that you own. How do you navigate being under the Fox News umbrella, but sort of owning this lane that is more straight journalism?

To be fair to Politico, they didn't fool with his answers. His was the same 'voice' I hear most nights when I tune in. 

They didn't ask about the visits to various executive department headquarters around Washington which he has featured recently. Pretty clearly he has access others do not. 

Two things I find a little tiresome are these: (a) how much golf news gets finagled into Bret's show, and (b) the things which his Common Ground folks can agree upon are real enough but often not very compelling outside the specific communities directly affected.

Mothers' Day

Today we celebrate Mothers' Day, every person now drawing breath on this planet had one and many still have one to cherish. Born when the century was new, my own mother passed away in the late 1990s, at an advanced age. I remember her with great fondness.

She was a pathbreaker in several ways. The second of 7 children, she didn't marry right out of high school. She got stenographic skills and went to work for the Feds in Oklahoma City. 

While working there she bought a new Ford model A coupe. She and a girl friend drove it cross country to Virginia and back to visit the friend's parents as a vacation adventure. Some of the roads weren't paved and lodging was iffy, they sometimes camped on school grounds (closed for the summer) where they could use the outhouse. 

During the Depression she moved to Los Angeles where she continued to work for the Veterans' Administration. There she met my father who was processing VA disability claims. They married and I was born 4 years later. While I was little she invested in stocks and made money. 

In retirement she played bridge and took up oil painting. She did some credible landscapes, I have a couple hanging and they are no embarrassment whatsoever. I hope you can tell I'm proud of her.

Saturday Snark

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.

Friday Snark, a Day Late

Images courtesy of Politico's

The Nation's Cartoonists on the Week in Politics.

Economics Takes Second Place

There has been much controversy recently about free trade and tariffs. Economists love free trade; if economics was everything and no other factors impinged, free trade would probably produce the greatest possible basket of economic goods and services. 

To make that argument is, however, to fall into the ceteris paribus trap, which assumes everything else is held constant and we vary only free trade and its opposite, managed trade. The world doesn’t work that way. 

Humans are a disputatious species, we squabble a lot as individuals and as nations, we get into wars. Wars consume vast quantities of munitions, equipment, and the fuel to support all of that, plus along the way they destroy major amounts of infrastructure. Nations which can produce what war consumes are credible forces, those which cannot become dependent on others and the vulnerable supply lines which connect them.

A nation which outsources most of its manufacturing has much reduced credibility as a warring power. The US has allowed itself to outsource too much essential manufacturing, which at its pre-World War II level was the source of our ability to overwhelm the Axis powers.

Our reliance on China to manufacture much of what we now consume while recognizing China’s overt desire to replace the US as the world’s hegemon is irrational. Pursued to its logical conclusion, the policy is suicidal for our society. 

What might be optimal in an economic sense is irrational in a geopolitical sense. We must have a robust manufacturing sector which can produce war materials as needed, especially pharmaceuticals, computer chips, and munitions.

Leaving the make or buy decision to Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” - which the US has done in recent decades - doesn’t result in the sort of manufacturing base which will support major military activity, when it becomes necessary. To maintain our position in the world we need to be militarily credible. 

Trump gets this need, and his tariffs are a means by which to recreate the manufacturing base we need for military strength, and in so doing also create millions of good-paying factory jobs. Thus he accomplishes two key things with one set of actions, and improves opportunities for many of the “forgotten folk” who voted for him.

Home, a Day Late

 At home in western Wyoming … The med appointment I noted in SLC took far longer than expected, though the results were good. So we decided to stay over another night and we drove north yesterday instead of Thursday. 

It was a beautiful drive as everything was green. After a winter in the desert where the color palette runs to reds, ambers, and browns, the north’s spring greens are soothing to the soul.

Our home made it through the winter without mishap. I figured out how to recalibrate the thermostat, which spent the winter set at 45 ℉, and the house warmed up quickly. Some local friends came over and helped us unload the back of the truck. 

It is good to be home (on the range - the Rocky Mountains). There was a deer in the yard when we arrived, they’re nice neighbors, very quiet, and as graceful as ballerinas.

In Transit

Greater Salt Lake City area … We drove north today, over multiple passes that went over 6000 ft. but saw no snow at that elevation. In the peaks yes, but none at the roadside.

Traffic was moderate, we saw a lot of snowbird RVs headed north like we were. Mostly we zoomed through SLC because with 2 of us on board we could freely use the HOV lane. 

Tomorrow we have a med appointment here in town before driving on up to western Wyoming. So far, so good.

The Trump Philosophy

From Donald Trump's commencement speech at the University of Alabama, his personal philosophy boiled down into 10 precepts, in his words.

First, if you're here today and think that you're too young to do something great, let me tell you that you are wrong. You're not too young.

Second of all, and very importantly, you have to love what you do, okay? You have to.

Third thing is to think big. You know, if you're going to do something, you might as well think big, because it's just as tough.

Fourth is work hard. Work hard. Never, ever stop.

Fifth is don't lose your momentum. You just want to keep it going.

Number six: If you want to change the world, you have to have the courage to be an outsider. In other words, you have to take certain risks and do things a little bit differently.

So number seven is: Trust your instincts. Common sense. You can go very far in life with common sense.

Eighth: ... Everybody should believe in the American Dream. It's real.

Ninth: Think of yourself as a winner. (snip) Don't consider yourself a victim. 

And finally—and most importantly—never, ever give up. Never give up!

Of these 10, which do I personally believe is most important? Probably the second one ... love what you do. Without it, several of the others become endless drudgery.  

It has certainly worked for him. Will it make you president? Probably not, but you might be another Steve Jobs, or Warren Buffett, or Jonas Salk, or Elon Musk, or Taylor Swift or Herman Wouk. Or even more likely, a successful, happy person known only to friends and coworkers.

Is “Europe” Even a Thing?

Foreign policy analyst George Friedman draws on his Hungarian immigrant roots to examine the question of what exactly is this thing we call “Europe?” He makes observations I’ve often puzzled over concerning the various countries that make up the European Union and NATO.

Crucially, Europe is not a country. It is a continent containing, according to the United Nations, some 44 countries. They have different languages, cultures and histories, which include wars with neighbors and mutual loathing.

Western and Eastern Europe are still very different places, and it is now Eastern Europe, not Germany, that divides the Continent.

Eastern Europe, despite its distrust of itself and its former occupiers in Russia and Germany, must make a decision that will define the Continent. Will it stand together, or will it stand apart?

Efforts such as the Visegrád Group reflect attempts of Eastern Europe to “stand together.” Conflicts such as the ‘divorce’ between the Czech Republic and Slovakia reflect forces pushing them apart.

A Milepost

Our “winter in the desert” sojourn is rapidly coming to a close. Before the week is out we will be home in western Wyoming where, I’m guessing, the aspens have yet to leaf out. It hasn’t begun to be hot here on the eastern edge of the Mojave, but we did see low 90s - quite comfortable with low humidity - a couple of days ago.

We make the 500+ mile drive north in an easy two days, and visit friends in the greater Salt Lake area en route. All but the last 100 miles are straight up I-15 at 75-80 mph. The only traffic of consequence will be in Salt Lake City where we’re likely to arrive around afternoon rush hour, alas.

We both have a bit of hay fever that acts up this time of year. We will get to sniffle with the spring allergies all over again up north. It’s not that the blooming season has ended here, all our flowering plants are still very much in bloom, which has yet to happen in the high country.

----------

Later ... I wrote the foregoing before being outside, believe it or not it is actually raining here today. No wind, just a gentle rain that is more than a rain cell shower. The other DrC observes this is what the Navajo call a "female rain," as prized over in the "four corners" region where they live as here where only three states meet. 

An oddity to my eyes, this arid community has amazing, elaborate flood control infrastructure in place. I've never seen it in use, maybe I never will. When they get a rip-snorter of a thunderstorm it can flood, and the flood control stuff makes sense even if it's only used every 20 years or so. 

May the Fourth (Be With You)

Hello there, Star Wars fans. Today is Star Wars Day ... "May the Fourth be with you," he wrote lithpingly. I am not personally a Star Wars aficionado but I do understand the impulse. 

Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Star Wars, Hunger Games, the Vampire chronicles and Harry Potter have all managed to capture rabid fans. I've seen them all. A fascinating research question would be what determines which set of imaginings (if any) grabs a particular person's fancy. 

Intriguing, it is. 

----------

For the DrsC the compulsion was the 7 Harry Potter novels, 8 films, 7 audio books read by Jim Dale, and the associated physical manifestations at Universal Studios theme park. 

BTW, the "magical creatures and where to find them" spinoffs didn't work for us. Apparently many of the Star Wars spinoffs don't work for its many stans.

Later ... I'm feeling ambivalent about the notion of turning the Rowling ouvre into a TV series, with each book the scaffolding over which a yearlong season will be draped. It's beyond the talking stage, so I suppose it will happen. Can the magic be recaptured? I'm unsure.

Saturday Snark

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.

Remembering the Hana Highway

Yahoo.com replays a Travel + Leisure article about the Hana Highway, calling it “One of the Most Gorgeous Road Trips in the US.” It is knockout beautiful for sure, and no picnic for the driver, either. I’m reminded of a couple of experiences in HI.

The Hana Highway is dangerous. The DrsC have driven it twice, and had an experience on one of those, now decades ago, when we were driving it as a day trip on Maui and spotted a helicopter doing odd stuff up ahead. 

We got closer and saw the copter was a Coast Guard unit and it was bobbing up and down alongside a cliff where the road ran along the top edge of the cliff. Closer still and there were vehicles parked here and there and a dejected guy was sitting alongside the road.

We asked and it turned out we had stumbled on a tragedy unfolding. The guy sitting there holding his head in his hands had stopped to take a photo and posed his wife on the cliff edge. Sure enough, she had fallen to her death into the surf from which the CG was attempting to extract her body via the copter. 

We drove on, and shelved any plans we had for dramatic photos. I haven’t driven the road recently but in those days it was narrow, no shoulders, no centerline, many blind corners, and slow but darned pretty.

That was long ago, when we were both still working at the uni. We would pop over to Hawaii either at the Xmas or spring break for a week of R&R, while classes weren’t in session. 

I have no idea now but in those days you could get package deals with hotel room, rental car, and plane fare off the West Coast for a fixed amount that was quite reasonable. Meals, drinks, and fuel were on us, but it was still a great short getaway, one we did several times.

One time I inadvertently caused quite a stir when I went to HI to give a paper at a regional professional meeting of the American Institute for Decision Sciences. I was checking into my hotel where the conference was being held and casually said to the clerk at the crowded check-in counter , “I’m here for the AIDS meeting,” saying the society’s acronym as we all did.

People at the counter started backing away from me and the clerk looked horrified. This was when people had first become aware of HIV-AIDS and those at the counter totally misunderstood me. Needless to say the society soon changed its name to Decision Sciences International to avoid repeats of the panic.

Colonel Hobson's choice

Salena Zito has a long interview with SecDef Pete Hegseth where he talks about how the bureaucratic inertia of the Pentagon is his immediate foe. The ideology he has to fight is DEI, and that creates an interesting dilemma for career military officers. Like most of Zito's work, the interview is worth your time. 

Reading it gets me thinking about military life for the officer corps. An officer's career normally spans something like 20-30 years. During that time one will serve as few as 3 or as many as 8 presidents, often of both parties. Policies can change with new administrations, such a change has just occurred. 

We went from "gung-ho DEI" under Biden to "no DEI" under Trump. Presuming each administration promotes those most closely aligned with its policies, one administration's fair haired boys (and girls) can become anathema for the next administration.

Hegseth faces a bunch of generals and admirals who, either from conviction or in pursuit of career advancement and prized assignments, espoused DEI. They went on record saying DEI was wonderful, the only moral choice.

They now have to live with those statements hanging around their necks like so many putrefying albatrosses. Let's stipulate they are unhappy campers reporting to a Trump White House, which finds them ideologically incompatible. Expect to see a fair number of retirements as a result.

Friday Snark

Images courtesy of Politico's

The Nation's Cartoonists on the Week in Politics.