Capitalism

From the Week in Pictures at Powerline.



I'm reading "Apocalypse Never," whose author makes much the same point about the best approach to what he considers to be serious environmental risks:  we'd do better to increase prosperity and increase resilience across a number of possible fronts, than to tie ourselves down to cripplingly expensive solutions to badly understood risks that may never ripen into real problems.  Prosperous societies do less environmental damage than poor ones, despite the "Noble Savage" fantasies of limousine liberals, and the Noble Savages don't have the same ambitions for their children that Hollywood wishes they did.

Riders, Keep Your Heads on a Swivel More Than Usual- You're Now a Target

The media isn't covering this because it certainly doesn't fit their narrative, but I think many of us knew things like this were coming down the pike sooner or later-  Man deliberately swerves head on into a Harley rider because  "The Harley culture is made up of white racists"
Now I understand that this man is almost certainly suffering from mental issues, but then so are a lot of people around the country, so I have no sense that we won't see other similarly motivated acts in the future.  Beware and stay safe.

Whisky or Gin?

Ymar’s Post

Ok, you said you wanted to talk about aliens. Apparently today is the day. 

Inevitable: Resolution to Ban the Democratic Party

If the Republicans had left it alone, the Democrats would have gotten there themselves. 

Enjoy your “Washington Football Team,” by the way. 

Where is the Order of Chivalry?

The Church established several orders of knighthood to protect churches and shrines, pilgrims and congregations. Now it blanches to employ them. 

May God Receive Them

Nuns trend older, a fact that has been punishing at one convent. 

Well, yeah

From the Examiner:

Jim Jordan, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee and a dogged Trump defender, last week told Fox Business: “The No. 1 question I get, whether I'm in the 4th District of Ohio or traveling around our state or traveling around the country, the No. 1 question I get from people is, they will walk up to me and say, 'when is somebody going to jail?'”

Wait, is a fetus a person again now?

How can it be eugenics if no humans are harmed?

Ymar’s Post

For Wednesday. What do you think about this Qanon ban on Twitter?

Witch Hunts, Then and Now

An excellent essay.

He's had it

The CEO of Red Bull GmbH just gave all of his woke executives their walking papers over their pushing a BLM agenda during the last month. The how-DARE-you reports speak darkly of his Austrian headquarters and Trump support, his skepticism about German immigration policy, and his Scrooge-McDuck ownership of an island off Fiji, so I thought I should look up his Wiki to find out how evil Dietrich Mateschitz really is. The Wiki page as of 10 a.m. July 21 was pretty benign. There aren't even any Nazi tie-ins yet, but I predict that by 2 p.m. it will contain a lot of new and scandalous entries. In the meantime, besides the information that Mateschitz bought his island from the Forbes family for a mere seven million pounds--which everyone who watches the island-acquisition TV shows knows is chicken feed--there is the interesting fact that he owns a custom submarine for the use of his island guests. How many anti-woke world-dominating billionaire moguls can go full Captain Nemo? All he needs now is a volcano and a nuclear arsenal.

Louis L'Amour

It’s a Damn Shame He’s Mad

Kanye West for President.

Another Peaceful Protest

It takes gall to attack a pro-law enforcement protest (6 years running).

Goodness knows our justice system is broken, and there’s a lot that desperately needs fixing. I’m not impressed with this approach, though none of the others are working either. It’s another area where both parties are both wrong, and both lying. That doesn’t excuse cracking the heads of innocent people.

The Obvious Answer

For some reason few have heard of this idea; here again it is presented as radical and new. But if global warming is a problem, well, essentially all of the heat input is solar. So why not reflect more of the solar energy back into space for a while?  Weather balloons and hoses are relatively cheap. You can solve the problem with little of the expense or (this is why I think the idea gets little attention) centralized political power.

Ymar’s Post

Monday.

Let Us Be Entertaining

I don’t know that I buy the hypothesis that masks provide effective screening; I wear a bandanna to try to encourage terrified people to leave home and spend money floating our economy. But hey, let’s entertain the possibility that it works. Then something like this makes sense.

George Floyd transcript

This transcript doesn't sound at all like the impression you get from any of the videos I've seen. Neo argues that it sounds like Floyd was having a heart attack, with the characteristic sense of impending doom. He was recovering from a COVID infection, had at least some heart disease, and may have been having a bad fentanyl reaction. The police sound like guys who were trying to figure out a delirious panic attack.

You have a solid point there

If the North Carolina teachers' union feels it can't go back to work, who am I to urge them?  It's time to find an alternative, maybe something private, perhaps voucher funded.  Something involving a lot of home-schooling and parent choice, with more safety and free time for the unionized teachers.

Fund students, not schools:

If a neighborhood grocery store refuses to reopen, it may be inconvenient, but families wouldn't be devastated; they could take their money elsewhere. Imagine if you were forced to pay your neighborhood Walmart the same amount of money each week regardless of whether they provided your family with any groceries. The store would have little incentive to reopen in an effective or timely manner.

It sounds absurd. But you have essentially just imagined today's compulsory K–12 school system.

Let Portland go, too.